The Gatekeeper's Son (23 page)

The supervisor handed us our passports.

“Thank you, sir.” Okaasan bowed low to the supervisor. “You are a fine leader,” she cooed. “I will be sending compliments to your superiors.”

The supervisor blushed deeper as he returned the bow. “Please accept my apologies,” he said, still bowing. “Welcome back to Japan.”

Okaasan turned to me and tugged my arm. “Let’s go.”

We cleared customs without further incident and strode through the terminal past rows of identical-looking young women who smiled and bowed and waved their white-gloved hands at us. It wasn’t until we were on the bus, speeding along an expressway on the edge of Tokyo toward Haneda Airport, that she finally spoke.

“I don’t know what that was about,” she whispered in English. The bus was half-full, and most passengers had dozed off the minute we left the airport. “I guess I need to be more careful about these things.”

“What’d you do back there? You looked … different.”

She smiled at me. “Sometimes, if you believe something strongly enough, you can convince others of your point of view. Of course, being a woman is advantageous.”

“You’re freaking me out.”

“I merely made a suggestion. Bureaucrats are easier than most people are. Their minds are weak from the monotony and mediocrity of their lives.”

“That’s mean.”

A mischievous smile crossed her face. “It depends what your intentions are.”

I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

She smiled again and turned back around in her seat.

I looked out the window and considered what she’d said. Was it that easy to change people’s minds? But, hadn’t I done the same thing to Grandpa’s driver and to the guard on the intercom?

As we sped through Tokyo, Okaasan slept with her head against the window, but sleep wouldn’t come to me, exhausted as I was. Train tracks, overpasses, tunnels and bridges intertwined with the expressway, coming and going, as random as spaghetti on a plate. Tokyo went on forever, as far as I could see, an endless sea of grey concrete mirrored by a layer of gray haze in the sky that spread all the way to the hazy mountains far in the distance.

When we reached Haneda Airport, I was in an exhausted daze, but Okaasan was bright and perky. While we stood in line at the All Nippon Airways check-in counter for the next leg of our trip, Okaasan gave me our tickets and passports.

“You do it this time, in case there’s still a problem,” she whispered in English. “You’ve proven you can manipulate people. Make sure we get through here.”

I sighed, too tired to argue. I studied the clerks, wondering which one would be the easiest to manipulate, but they all looked the same. All were young women, about the same age, with the same hairstyle, the same makeup and the same uniform, like pretty robots in a row. Even their smiles were identical—rehearsed, mechanical and insincere. One of them motioned to me.

“Here you go.” I gave the girl my best smile as I handed over our tickets and passports. I studied her face as she stared at her computer screen.

“I like your scarf,” I said. “It’s very nice on you.” I wasn’t lying—it did look good.

She looked up at me, surprised. A smile came to her lips, along with a touch of pink to her cheeks. “They make us wear these,” she whispered. “But thank you.”

I smiled back and felt my cheeks redden as well. But when her eyebrows came together and her fingers paused over the keyboard, Okaasan elbowed me from behind. And when the clerk glanced over her shoulder toward the office, Okaasan tried to push past me.

“Window seats would be awesome,” I said to the clerk.

She turned back to me and cocked her head and smiled.

“Actually, I’m upgrading you both to business class.” Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was just checking to see if my boss was looking.”

When she passed me the boarding passes, our hands touched and we both froze—our eyes locked for what felt like an eternity. When I finally took the passes from her, she looked shaken. I felt pretty shaken myself.

“Don’t give up, Kiyoko,” I said. “You deserve better than him, and this. You can do it.”

Her mouth dropped open, and as I pulled Okaasan away, I felt her gaping after me until her boss tapped her shoulder and called the next passenger.

We’d barely buckled into our business-class seats for the one-hour flight across Japan before Okaasan started grilling me.

“Why did you say that?”

I patted the arm of the chair. “Nice seats, eh?”

She began to form a reply but instead grabbed the armrests as the pilot released the brakes and the jet’s engines roared to full power. We banked over Tokyo and circled to the west.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” she said when we leveled out of the steep climb.

I glanced at her. “I think I’m taking all of this rather well, actually.”

Okaasan accepted two cups of tea from the stewardess and handed one to me. I took a sip and let out a yelp. It was like molten lava and I sucked in a dozen fast breaths to cool my tongue.

“Did you do something to her?”

“Not like you did to that supervisor,” I said. “I’m sure he’s still fantasizing about you, by the way.”

“I just asked you to—”

I banged the teacup down and fought the sudden anger that surged inside me. “Did you feeling anything from that clerk, anything at all?”

Her face stiffened. “Don’t you look at me like that,” she said. “I was distracted—”

“There was nothing on her computer. She gave us these seats on her own.”

“But still—”

“She had toast for breakfast with strawberry jam. She thinks her boyfriend isn’t interested in her anymore and her parents wished they had a son instead of a useless girl who couldn’t even finish business school. And two days ago, she stood at a train station and imagined herself jumping in front of the express.” I paused for a moment to catch my breath and lower my voice. “That was the day she was offered a front-desk job at a resort hotel in the Maldives, but she’s not brave enough to go.”

Okaasan’s hand went to her mouth.

I turned toward the window, overcome with emotion.

CHAPTER

22

Miho-Yonago Airport, which is not far from Matsue City, was the exact opposite of Tokyo. Our flight was the only commercial jet at the airport, and the terminal was no larger than your average elementary school. But there was a long row of military aircraft parked along the runway, marked with the red circle of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. I asked the stewardess about it.

“Right over there is North Korea,” she said, pointing past the mountains. “We won’t start any wars, but we’re well-equipped to defend ourselves.”

We drove to Matsue City in a small taxi, a boxy black sedan with white fabric seat covers that matched the driver’s white gloves. I sat in the back with Okaasan and watched the scenery go by. I hadn’t known they drove on the left here. The buildings, the cars, the people—nothing was like I’d imagined.

After a quick meal in Matsue, we dragged our luggage along the narrow streets for three blocks to Matsue Onsen Station, which I thought was a weird name because onsen means “hot springs.” Our destination was Izumo-taisha, a small town on the Japan Sea, and Okaasan decided to take the Ichibata Line. It was a small local line, owned by the Ichibata Department Store Company, and it had only one route: Matsue to Izumo.

Okaasan bought our tickets at the machine, but we still had twenty minutes until the next train left. I hunted around for empty seats in the small, crowded terminal. I found two, but when I turned around she was on her way back outside, looking pleased. By the time I got outside, I couldn’t see her anywhere and I started to panic.

I found her a few minutes later inside a small traditional building just outside the station. She sat on the edge of the shallow pool, soaking her feet and calves in the steaming water. Several tired-looking commuters—businessmen, students and a few elderly people—were doing the same. I took in the surreal sight and then took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans, and sat beside her.

She smiled at me. “Why do you think it’s called Onsen Station?”

The train, if you can call two cars with a driver a train, left on time. We sped west beside Lake Shinji-ko, following the shoreline, with a tree-covered ridge on one side and a narrow winding road on the other. Small houses dotted the shore, but unlike the lake cottages you’d find in America, these were the homes of fisherman, with nets and narrow boats tied up outside.

Past the lake, the single track sliced across fields, occasionally speeding between little clusters of old houses and barns that stood dangerously close to the tracks. Okaasan, as usual, was sound asleep, her head resting against my shoulder.

We stopped at a few lonely concrete platforms to pick up schoolkids or drop off weary salarymen in identical blue suits. The more kids I saw here, the more I understood why Shoko always wore her uniform. Every teenager wore one here. The styles varied, but I didn’t see one kid in street clothes.

The station at the end of the line was smaller and older, with one elderly ticket checker standing to greet us as we struggled through the turnstiles with our luggage. We found a taxi and were soon on our way. I didn’t pay attention to the address, but within a few minutes it was obvious the driver was having trouble finding the place.

“What’s the problem?” I asked Okaasan. “This isn’t a very big town.”

“Addresses are different in Japan,” she said in English. “Most streets are nameless, just spaces that separate blocks. The address is actually the name of the block of houses.”

“OK, but I still don’t see why it’s so hard to find one.”

“They number the houses in the order they were built,” she said, “so house number twelve might be in between numbers seven and two.”

The street he finally dropped us off at was barely wide enough for the taxi.

“I also gave him a fake address,” Okaasan said, chuckling. “The poor guy will probably be up all night trying to figure it out.” She waited until the taillights disappeared around the corner and then set out at a fast pace up another narrow lane. We towed our suitcases over the cobblestones and open drains through a maze of passageways, getting farther and farther from the main road. I could have sworn we were going in circles. Few houses had lights on and the rumble of our suitcase wheels was the loudest sound, but whenever we stopped, I heard the sound of waves washing over the beach.