The Ohana (10 page)

Kazuko wiped her hands on the colorless apron drooping from her gaunt frame. Two years had passed since Tetsuo died, but it seemed more like two decades. The first year was a nightmare of numbed grief combined with a profound sense of loss and guilt. If it hadn’t been for the children, she would have given up and died. Death was preferable to the ache inside her.

The second year the numbness was replaced by despair. Tetsuo’s debts had to be paid. Her two eldest sons were forced to quit school and help support the family while she grew vegetables to take to the market every day. It was difficult, but they managed somehow.

After Tetsuo’s death the Ebesu family, owners of the fee-hold to their land, ignored the Matsubara’s lease with option to buy and began the process of repossessing the farm at the end of the lease term. The Ebesu’s argued with Kazuko a destitute widow with six children could not pay a thousand dollars for the land. Kazuko hired a lawyer and the case was recently settled. Kazuko could buy the land and pay monthly installments over a five-year period of time. Since there was no extra money to pay the monthly installments, Kazuko knew what she had to do.

Just then Mariko opened the front door, waving a piece of paper. “Mama, here’s my report card. I got all A’s. The teacher says if I continue this way, I might get a scholarship to college.” She stopped abruptly. “Is anything wrong?”

Kazuko motioned her toward a chair. “Sit down.”

Mariko obeyed. She had grown from an awkward child to a beautiful teenager. Her round eyes were thickly lashed and her full lips innocently sensual.

Kazuko shook her head. “You know we have to pay the Ebesus thirty dollars a month?”

“Yes.”

Kazuko looked at her chapped hands and broken fingernails. “We don’t have the money.” Kazuko looked up and saw Mariko’s knuckles turn white as she clutched her skirt. “I contacted the Nakagawa family in Hilo. They own a little store. I’ve arranged for you to work for them. They will pay you fifteen dollars a month plus room and board. Since your needs will be taken care of, the money will be sent home to me.”

Mariko put her hand to her throat. “Is it only for the summer?”

“No. I’m sorry, Mariko. But there will be no more school.”

“No more school?” Mariko stood up. “You can’t mean it! The teacher says I’m the smartest one there. She says I could grow up to be anything. And Papa said—”

“Papa's dead! What he told you was true only while he was alive.”

Mariko clenched her fists. Except for the bright spots of tears in her eyes, her face turned to stone. “What about my plans and dreams?”

Kazuko took her in her arms for the first time since she was a baby. Smoothing her thick hair, she wondered why it couldn’t have been her younger daughter, the one who hated school, who was being sent off. But Tomiko was too young.

 “The poor can’t even afford dreams.” Kazuko patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

The rooster crowed at first light. A few minutes later, Kazuko rose intending to wake up Mariko. Kazuko saw she was already awake. Mariko’s slender body was a silhouette against the window admitting red-gold rays into the shabby, cheerless room.

Even in the dim light, Kazuko could see Mariko’s eyes were red and swollen. Kazuko gripped her shoulders. “Did you sleep last night?”

Mariko shook her head.

“It will go hard on you today. The Nakagawas expect you to work from the start. And it’s a long journey there.”

Mariko shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You’ll be tired,” Kazuko stroked Mariko’s hair. “The Nakagawas are nice people. They have a daughter around your age. You’ll enjoy it. You’ll see. It won’t be as bad as you think.”

“Whatever you say.”

Kazuko grabbed Mariko by the shoulders and whispered so as not to wake the others, “Don’t look at me like that. Do you think I wanted it this way? I have no choice.”

Mariko shrugged off Kazuko’s hands.

“I need your help to keep this house because your father died and left me with lots of debts and too many children.”

Mariko looked at her mother, her eyes devoid of emotion. She picked up her meager belongings and walked through the open door, past her mother, and said, “I must go now.”

Mariko didn’t know why the mistress of the house hated her but she did. Sachi Nakagawa looked at her up and down before taking her to the small room she was to share with Nobuko, a plain, sturdy girl who spoke very little and resented sharing her room.

 Mariko tried to be obedient, polite, and efficient. But Sachi gave her the most difficult and menial tasks. She worked from six in the morning until eight or nine at night. She did her work, went to bed, and caused no trouble.

A week after her arrival, Mariko and Nobuko scurried around the kitchen as the Nakagawa family sat and ate dinner. Sachi started in on Mariko almost immediately.

“You are a vain, silly girl who reads instead of works.” Sachi shook her chopsticks at Mariko.

“It’s not as if you were going to college, or even high school.” Sachi’s daughter, Junko curled her lip. “You’ll always be the help, so why waste your time reading?”

“Better you accept your lot like Nobuko,” Sachi put down her rice bowl and shook her finger at Mariko, “you never see her reading.”

“Leave her alone,” Sachi’s husband Shigeo said between mouthfuls.

Sachi turned to her husband. “Are you defending the lazy slut?”

Shigeo put down his chopsticks. “What did she do to deserve being called a slut?”

“Suddenly all the boys come into the store after school. Do you know why?”

“Boys are always interested in the new girl in town.”

“It’s because she flirts with them,” Junko jumped in.

“From now on Nobuko will clerk. Mariko will work in the warehouse and do housework.” Sachi glared. “She better get used to being a maid because that’s all she’ll ever be anyway.”

Junko shot Mariko a triumphant look.

Shigeo shook his head. “Nobuko doesn’t know her numbers very well. And she barely speaks. How do you expect her to sell anything?”

“Are you sticking up for Mariko?” Sachi put the fingertips of both her hands on the table and looked squarely at her husband.

Shigeo put down his chopsticks. “I’m just stating facts. Mariko brings in plenty of new customers. The store is our livelihood.” Shigeo stood up to leave. “You’re going to hurt sales just because you don’t like her.”

“Those boys are a nuisance. They don’t buy anything anyway,” Sachi shouted to Shigeo as he left the room. She turned back to Mariko. “You’re a troublemaker.”

Mariko bit her lip. She loved working in the store. It brightened her day when customers walked in and she could not only show them the merchandise but make suggestions. They always bought more than they came in for. And the boys did buy a little something every time they came in. She thought Sachi would be happy the store was so busy. The only people who encouraged her were her customers. She would miss being there. But Sachi was the boss.

Nobuko took her place at the counter. And while Mariko was sad, she gained some satisfaction in knowing the Nakagawa’s sales dropped dramatically.

Almost two years after Mariko left home, one of the high school boys invited her to a graduation party. She looked forward to it for weeks. A few days before the party, Mariko overheard Junko complaining no one had asked her to the party.

Sachi marched into the kitchen where Mariko was washing dishes. “You’re taking inventory Saturday night.”

“But you agreed to give me the night off weeks ago.” It was the first time since she arrived at the Nakagawas that she stood up for herself.

“I changed my mind.”

“But I just took inventory yesterday.”

“Do as I say,” Sachi snapped and left the room.

On Saturday night, Mariko fought back tears while counting canned food. Shigeo walked in and asked, “Why, Mariko, I thought this was your night off.”

Mariko looked up. Not quite sixteen, the unending stream of disappointments made her wonder why she didn’t have the courage to commit
seppuku
and put an end to her purposeless existence. If she could be sure death really was the end, she might have tried. But the prospect of another life, or a heaven or hell, scared her.

Shigeo put his hands on her shoulders. “Is anything wrong? Can I help?”

Despair overwhelmed her. She started to cry.

Shigeo took her in his arms and stroked her hair the way Papa once had. She missed her life with Papa. Her dreams seemed possible then. Feeling like a little girl again, she melted into his arms and buried her head in his chest the way she used to with Papa. It felt so good to pretend Papa was alive comforting her with his rough, dry hands the way he used to.

But Mariko found out that night nothing was as it seemed and the people you trusted sometimes betrayed you. An act of comfort turned into a nightmare she would never forget.

Mariko arrived back home to Kohala on a rainy day in early March. The house she grew up in looked like an umbrella with its frame collapsing beneath the weight of its sodden fabric. Mariko stood outside, her bare feet submerged in puddles of muddy water. One hand clutched everything she had accumulated during the past two years while the other held the ends of a cotton kerchief wrapped around her head. Clinging to the wet cloth, she tried to allay her fears over her unannounced arrival after two long years.

The door creaked opened and Kazuko stepped out. Mariko saw her slightly stooped figure through the dark screen wrapped around the length of the porch.

Kazuko opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as recognition flickered into her eyes. She opened the door wide. “Mariko, come in before you get sick.”

Without hesitation, Mariko obeyed.

Mariko was grateful Kazuko never questioned her about why she left the Nakagawas. She wished she could go back in time and erase what happened that night. After it happened, she went to the bathhouse and scrubbed herself until her skin was raw. But she could still feel and smell his odor. She feared his stink would never leave her.

She wondered if people could tell by looking at her she was no longer a virgin. She had heard her brothers and their friends talk about how women looked used and worried  people would sneer at her. She stared at herself in the mirror, looking for telltale signs. Finding none, she simply stopped looking into mirrors.

Mariko lay on her
futon
and listened to the sound of rain splattering on the tin roof. Thunder drowned everything around her but her thoughts.

She wondered why this had happened to her. Her parents taught her to strive to be like Buddha and never intentionally harm anyone with her words or deeds. She was taught to act with kindness and charity at all times. She didn't understand why
kami sama
allowed the terrible, disgusting man to destroy her innocence and why he even allowed people like Shigeo to exist. If suffering inevitable in life, she didn’t want to live more than one life. She refused to accept the Buddhist philosophy of one incarnation after another until one finally reached the godhead.

 After a month, Kazuko approached Mariko as she lay on her
futon
. “You must go to work. I can’t afford to let you do nothing.”

“Yes, Mama, I know.”

“You could work for a
haole
house. You speak good English. It shouldn’t be hard.”

Mariko wondered if her mother guessed something awful had happened to her, but Kazuko’s face was inscrutable.

She couldn't help but murmur, "Everything would be different if Papa were alive.” But like a proper Japanese girl, Mariko kept her face devoid of emotion.

She wondered if what had happened to her was her
bachi
for having done something bad. She wondered what it may have been. But she could think of nothing.

Just after her mother told her she had to find work, Mariko decided to change her name to Mary. It was similar to her Japanese name but it was very American.

Perhaps by changing her name, she would change her life.