Radiance (37 page)

“They keep trying,” Keiko said. “But it seems that I am a difficult case after all. The skin along the edge of the graft keeps bubbling up, no matter how many times they cut it away.”

“You’ve had more operations?”

Keiko took a delicate sip of her hot chocolate. “It doesn’t take long. It doesn’t hurt. Every three months or so—that’s what Dr. Carney says.”

“A new operation, every three months?”

“It doesn’t hurt, Mrs. Lawrence. It’s the only way I can do the international tour.”

“But do you
want
to do the tour?”

“I think I should.” Keiko looked away. Her eyes had begun to fill with tears. Was this real, or guile? It seemed impossible to say. The girl could always tug at her heartstrings. She glanced back at Daisy. “I think you understand,” she said softly. She
didn’t say, You are like my mother, but Daisy heard the words floating there, unspoken, and she felt the bones in her legs go watery. I’m not at all like your mother, she wanted to say. I never have been. I was wrong. If she was anybody she was the faceless woman on the bridge, a stranger asking for water for her dead child. Holding it out to her. Frightening Keiko.

“This is who I am,” Keiko said softly. “They can’t get it to go away.”

Shi no hai.
That was what she had called it. Ashes of death, with a half-life of forever.

“No, Keiko,” Daisy said forcefully, shaking her head. She leaned forward, grasped the girl’s hand. “Listen to me. This is not who you are.”

“And I know why. Because I ran away, and lied, and I took—”

“I know what you did. It doesn’t matter.”

“—I took the things you said—”

“None of that matters—”

“And I wouldn’t help that baby—though she held it out to me. She begged me—”

“Listen!”
There it was—her own voice, but deeper. “You don’t have to be this person—you can change into something else. I’ve seen you do it—”

“How can I do that? I don’t have money. I don’t have anything!”

“We have some money, Keiko. You can have it. But you must make a plan, and you must get away.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lawrence!”

Daisy got up and slid in beside Keiko, in the small booth with its leather seat the colour of dried blood. She put her arm around Keiko’s shoulder, stroked the soft Persian wool of her collar. It felt like poodle. A low sob rose in Keiko’s throat, but she pressed it down, and instead she held tightly to Daisy, buried her head in her coat.

Keiko might be thinking of Daisy as her mother, or as the faceless stranger she had wronged, but Daisy didn’t care either way. She did not move a muscle. She did not stroke the girl’s cheek or whisper kindnesses, or say, There, there. But she had never felt such compassion for another person, and she knew that this feeling was love. Other people walked past, glancing or not glancing, it didn’t matter. Keiko smelled of wet wool, and far away Daisy heard voices ordering drinks, the clink of glasses, the scrape of a metal chair leg.

In her mind Daisy was picking Keiko up, slinging the girl across her back, bare feet dangling, small, scarred legs drumming against her sides. They rose and walked through the burning city—and the city, fuelled by Daisy’s arrival, burnt more fiercely, as though to say, At last you have come to help carry this child.

M
ANY PEOPLE SUPPORTED ME
through the writing of this book. I’d like to thank Bob Penner—as always—for his love and support. I’d like to thank my parents, Barbara and Douglas Lambert; my children, Peter and Lucy; my brothers, James and John Lambert, and their families; my parents-in-law, Norma and Norman Penner, and the extended Penner family; and my aunt, Lorna Schwenk. Thanks also to dear friends for their support—with special thanks to Colette and Wendy Wright, Karen Mahon, Debbie Field, David Kraft, Ann Rowan, David Smith, Mike Magee and Madeline Hope. Thanks to Eva Stachniak, Linda Solomon and Barbara Lambert for their critical advice on earlier drafts. I am very grateful to Mark Rothenberg, historian at the Patchogue-Medford Library, for valuable insights into Suffolk County in the 1950s, and to my brother and sister-in-law for hosting me so graciously while in Japan, and for arranging my trip to Hiroshima.

Huge thanks to Anne Collins, my editor at Random House of Canada: her belief, enthusiasm and editorial guidance carried
me forward. Thanks as well to Lennie Goodings, my editor at Virago, for thoughtful insights and support. Many thanks to the people at Random House Canada–Scott Richardson, Janine Laporte, Pamela Murray, Kylie Barker, Sharon Klein—and to freelance editors Heather Sangster and Liba Berry. Huge thanks to my agent, Anne McDermid, for her encouragement and advice, and to Martha Magor and Jane Warren at Anne McDermid’s agency, for their involvement.

Many books influenced me during the writing of this novel. I am particularly indebted to Robert J. Lifton’s
Death in Life: The Survivors of Hiroshima,
which first inspired me, and to Rodney Barker’s book
The Hiroshima Maidens: A Story of Courage, Compassion and Survival.
I am also indebted to Arata Osada’s compilation of oral histories,
Children of Hiroshima,
and Hideko Tamura Snider’s book,
One Sunny Day: A Child’s Memories of Hiroshima.
Lafcadio Hearn’s work was inspirational, particularly
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan,
as was Jan Morris’s wonderful book
Manhattan ’45
and Eleanor Early’s
New York Holiday.
I would also like to thank the Canada Council of the Arts for its generous assistance.