The Sun Gods (4 page)

“Oh, I see,” said Morton, reaching out to take the woman's hand. In doing so, he jostled Billy, who lifted his head and again called for “Wa
ter
,” turning to point toward the fountain. When Billy caught sight of Mrs. Nomura's sister, however, he wrenched himself away from his father and all but threw himself into her arms.

“
Abunai!
” several Nichigos shouted in unison: “Watch out!”

Mitsuko herself almost lost her balance as Billy came hurtling toward her, but she managed to catch him, and the cries of alarm turned into peals of laughter.

But Tom Morton did not laugh. He saw his son clutching at this woman with mysterious tenacity, and he wondered what it meant. “Bad boy,” he said at length. “You almost hurt the lady. Come away, now.”

He reached for his son, but Billy pressed his face against the woman's throat and held on with increased determination. Again the others laughed, and Morton heard someone saying “
skee
”—Billy likes her. Mitsuko held the boy close and began pacing around the vestibule, rocking him gently and singing in low tones, her mouth next to his ear.

Morton turned back to continue his conversation with Mrs. Nomura, but there was nothing he could say when he saw the look on her face. She was watching Mitsuko with Billy, her eyes full of tears. Even Mr. Nomura, usually a stolid sort, seemed moved to see his sister-in-law and the child. Mrs. Nomura looked at her husband, the two nodded almost imperceptibly to each other, and she stepped closer to Pastor Tom wearing a doleful expression.

She spoke in a quavering whisper, and Morton had to bend down to catch her words.

“My sister lost a child last year. When I saw her holding your son, I …”

But she was too overcome with emotion to go on. Tom put his arm around her shoulder and said soothingly, “I'm sorry to hear that.” And, in fact, he was sorry, in a way that he himself could not quite have expressed.

Again he turned to watch Mrs. Nomura's sister with Billy. The tension had left the boy's little body. Before long, he was asleep in her arms.

Mitsuko shifted Billy until his head was cradled against her left arm. She smiled at him tenderly and brought him to his father.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice soft but clear.

“There's no need for you to apologize,” replied Tom. “It's my fault. I should make him behave better.”

She smiled and shook her head as she placed the sleeping little boy in his father's arms.

“He is very beautiful,” she said.

Tom wanted to say “So are you,” but that was out of the question. Neither could he bring himself to respond with the reply that had become almost automatic whenever anyone complimented him on Billy's good looks: “He takes after his mother.” He did not want to talk about his dead wife just now.

“Thank you,” Tom said finally.

Mitsuko turned to her sister and said something in Japanese.

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Nomura, her usual cheery self again, “we must go now. See you this afternoon, Pastor.”

“Wonderful,” said Pastor Tom. “You'll all be there?”

“I think so,” she replied, looking at Mitsuko, who again spoke to her in Japanese.

“Are you bringing Billy?” asked Mrs. Nomura.

“Well, of course! You know how he loves to play with the other children!”

“Then we will all be there,” she said.

5

THE NUMBER OF WORSHIPPERS
was small at today's English-language service. Most of the girls were home, helping their mothers prepare picnic lunches for the afternoon potluck outing. Even some of the young men who attended most faithfully were absent, no doubt running last-minute errands. This led to an abnormally high proportion of squirming boys to listen to his sermon, “God's Ultimate Love and Justice.” He himself was hardly listening as he concluded, “We strive toward that day when we will finally be all that Christ saved us for and wants us to be because of what he did for us.”

It was still a few minutes before noon when he pulled out of his parking space in front of the church. Mrs. Uchida had offered to take Billy with her. Tom would pick them up and bring them to Jefferson Park after changing clothes. Driving up Broadway, where worshippers returning from the white churches were being accosted by Indian panhandlers, he silently thanked the Lord for having blessed them with such a lovely spring day.

Tom had always enjoyed these outings, but last year's, without Sarah, had been something of a trial. Today, he felt a new kind of excitement as he imagined the crowds of laughing children, the proud parents urging them on to victory, and … yes, he had to admit it to himself, Mrs. Nomura's sister, Mitsuko. Would her husband be with her? Why had he not attended the service? How long would they be staying in Seattle?

At home, he shed his dark suit and changed into light cotton pants, a check shirt and a windbreaker. He packed a small duffel bag with some extra diapers and a fresh pair of coveralls for Billy, and he also threw in a sweater for himself, just in case. Seattle weather in May could be unpredictable.

A few minutes later, he was driving among the decaying buildings on the waterfront edge of Japantown, heading for the old Carrollton Hotel at the corner of Main and Occidental where Mrs. Uchida lived. He had difficulty locating a place to park. The Ace Café next door seemed to attract a large lunchtime crowd on Sundays. He left the car in front of a small cigar store a block away at the corner of Washington and walked back to the hotel, trying not to look at the two drunks—a man with a black beard, a shabby woman with spindly arms—sprawling in the doorway of a shop that sold deep-sea fishing gear.

Mrs. Uchida had lived here ever since she lost her husband. She had found the room through connections in the Japanese community. Several of the older hotels in the waterfront section were run by Japanese. The Carrollton was owned by a Mr. Itoi, who attended the Methodist Episcopal Church at Fourteenth and Washington. What a catch the Itois would have been for his congregation!

“Good afternoon,” he said to the slim Japanese girl at the front desk. He imagined she was about eighteen or nineteen. “Could you ring Mrs. Uchida's room for me, please? Just tell her Pastor Tom is here to pick her up.”

The girl nodded and made the call, speaking in Japanese.

An awkward silence followed. He had hoped the girl would ask him about church activities, but she started shuffling papers on the desk. Tom glanced around the dingy lobby. A massive man with a scruffy, red beard and wearing the checked shirt of a lumberjack was sitting in a faded, pink armchair in the corner. The stuffing showed through a tear in one arm of the chair, and the man appeared to be asleep. Tom was about to ask the girl her name when an elderly woman poked her head out of a side door and called to her. “Sumi-
chan
,” she said, and continued with a stream of Japanese. So the girl's name was Sumi.

Mrs. Uchida was taking a very long time. Tom had become seriously hungry. Suddenly Billy ran up behind him and latched onto his leg. Tom turned to see poor, old Mrs. Uchida huffing and puffing with the strain of carrying a picnic basket the size of a small bathtub.

“Praise God, Mrs. Uchida! How many people are you planning to feed?”

Mrs. Uchida bared a mouthful of crooked teeth.

“Here, let me help you,” he said. He should have known that she would bring far more than necessary. Everyone always did.

He left Mrs. Uchida and Billy on the sidewalk with the basket and went for the car. High overhead a white gull floated against the blue sky. After squeezing the enormous container into the trunk, he settled in behind the wheel for the long ride down Rainier Avenue to Jefferson Park. The closer he drew to the park, the more unsettled he felt. Again and again he found himself having to back off on the accelerator.

Soon the grays and blacks of the city were replaced by the green lawns of the Jefferson Park picnic grounds and the golf course across the road. No longer obstructed by the downtown buildings, a breeze blew in from Puget Sound, straining against the park's tall, pliant poplars, and sending cool gusts in through the car's open windows. Tom was glad he had brought a sweater—until he left the car and discovered how hot the sun was on this uncommonly clear day.

Everywhere he looked, the green grass was dotted with the glistening, black heads of his congregation. The playground equipment was literally swarming with children. Many of the families had already spread their blankets and straw mats and were busily emptying the contents of their picnic baskets onto the row of tables that had been set up for the potluck. “See, Pastor Tom?” Mrs. Uchida said, laughing. “Not so big.”

And indeed, by comparison, the basket she had prepared for them was quite modest. While Mrs. Uchida unpacked, Pastor Tom circulated among the colorful squares and rectangles on the ground, greeting his flock and noting the foods they had heaped on the tables. There were round disks of rice pressed together with green and pink stuffing in the center and greenish-black seaweed wrapped around the outside. They called this
maki-zushi
, and they included it in any packed lunch without fail. He recalled how the flaky seaweed had stuck in his throat the one time he had tried it.

The Miyamotos proudly pointed to some oozing red objects that looked like the vital organs of a toad crushed on the highway. Thank God for the fried chicken, and for the potato salad, ham sandwiches, and hard-boiled eggs that lay there among the more forbidding concoctions. And fortunately he would be able to have lemonade instead of green tea, which reminded him of the bitterness of aspirin.

Since the announced starting time had come and gone, and it appeared that almost everyone—except the Nomuras—had arrived, Pastor Tom led grace and the eating commenced.

Tom had lost his appetite. He returned to Mrs. Uchida's blanket, but he remained on his feet, fidgeting and watching for more cars to pull into the park. He would know when the Nomuras arrived: their blue Buick was the most luxurious automobile in the congregation. But fifteen more minutes went by, and still there was no sign of them. Maybe they had just been giving polite answers at the door of the church this morning. More than once, Mr. Nomura had chosen to attend functions at his bank over church activities. There was no questioning their devotion, but still …

Pastor Tom's inner debate came to a halt when the Buick pulled into the park and came to a stop. As one of the last to arrive, Nomura had few parking spaces to choose from and the car was more than a hundred yards from where Tom stood. The glare of the sun on the windshield prevented him from seeing how many passengers there were inside, and it seemed to take forever for them to alight. Eventually, all four doors opened, and he thought he saw a silhouette emerge from each of them. Then the trunk lid went up and the activity was concentrated at the rear of the car. Finally, when it closed, and the shadowy passengers began to walk this way, there could no longer be any doubt: there were four of them.

Mr. and Mrs. Nomura formed the vanguard, and a rather tall man was walking behind them with the sister. Tom squinted in the glare of the sun, trying to focus on the face, which he soon came to recognize. It was old Paul Morikawa, the Eastside farmer. What was he doing with the Nomuras? Just then, the farmer drew to a halt and, shading his eyes, began to survey the crowd. From far off to the left, shouts arose, and Morikawa waved in that direction. He turned, bowed to the Nomuras, handed the bundle he was carrying to the sister, and hurried over to join his family. Of course! Instead of taking the ferry back to Bellevue, he had gone home with the Nomuras, and his family had come over with the food.

Pastor Tom felt glad and confused at the same time. The Nomuras were a trio again, and they were in need of an open patch of ground. No one else here seemed to have noticed the double load that the sister now had to carry. Without thinking, Tom bounded over to them. Mr. Nomura was a step ahead of the women, an expensive-looking camera dangling from his neck.

“Welcome! Welcome!” Tom cried. “Here, let me help you with those,” he said to Mrs. Nomura's sister, Mitsuko, taking two large cloth-wrapped bundles from her hands. She nodded silently and gave them up. Once his hands were full, Tom noticed that Mrs. Nomura herself was struggling with a much heavier burden, but by then it was too late. “Come,” he said, “we've got plenty of room over here.”

He led them to a spot near the blanket that he and Billy were sharing with Mrs. Uchida. A delighted smile on her face, the old woman was tearing strips of white meat from a piece of fried chicken and handing them, one at a time, to Billy, who was too busy eating to notice the arrival of the newcomers. Tom helped Mrs. Nomura spread their blanket, then withdrew to his own. Mrs. Uchida proceeded to offer Tom one food after another, but he had still not found his appetite. Pretending to survey his flock, he stood and scanned the broad picnic grounds, allowing his gaze to drift back to the neighboring blanket as often as possible.

In a simple blouse and skirt, Mitsuko looked even lovelier than before, her slightly tawny complexion radiant in the glow of the sun. Her hair must be very long, he thought, seeing her large chignon. There was a vital fullness about her, a glow that set her apart from the others. Only after Tom's eyes had made several circuits of the field did he think to check the third finger of her left hand. It bore no ring. He felt his heart give a thump. But what did it mean? Maybe in Japan women didn't wear wedding bands. Maybe they wore them on their right hands. Mitsuko's right hand was turned away from him, holding a piece of
maki-zushi
. She smiled and nodded to her sister, who was yammering in Japanese a mile a minute. But Mitsuko herself did not speak.

Soon Billy finished eating and began rolling around on the blanket. Tom wondered what Billy would do when he saw Mitsuko this time. Mrs. Uchida was teasing the boy with a ball on an elastic band, and he never turned in the Nomuras' direction. They, instead, were attracted by the child's lively movements and began to laugh each time he giggled. Mr. and Mrs. Nomura had no children of their own, which was perhaps what made them such enthusiastic supporters of the Sunday school.

Finally, Mr. Nomura seemed determined to join in the fun. “Hey, Billy,” he called, “Look at this!” He held up his camera as if it were something that Billy could have.

Billy turned from Mrs. Uchida, intrigued, his blue eyes sparkling, his platinum blond hair pointing off in all directions after his energetic roll on the blanket. On all fours, he began to crawl toward the wide-eyed Mr. Nomura, but just as he was about to reach out for the camera, Mr. Nomura grabbed him and began tickling him in the ribs. Billy laughed at first, but soon was squealing in agony. Tom glanced uneasily at Mitsuko, who had stopped smiling and was trying to catch her sister's eye. But Mrs. Nomura was laughing as hard as her husband. With knit brows, Mitsuko looked at Tom, but when he did not move, she stood and snatched Billy from Nomura's hands. Immediately, Billy wriggled loose. As he ran to his father, he turned to glare with tear-filled eyes at his torturer.

Seeing Mitsuko, he stopped in his tracks. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, he walked back to her, took her hand, and pulled, indicating that he wanted her to sit on the blanket. She obeyed, folding her legs beneath her, and he calmly sat on her knee, still holding her hand.

“
Maki
,” he commanded, which caused the adults around him to exchange puzzled looks—all except Mrs. Uchida, who retrieved another
maki-zushi
from the basket and handed it to him. He tore into it. Everyone laughed, and Mr. Nomura snapped a picture of Billy in Mitsuko's lap.

Tom went off to oversee the church Boy Scout fellowship hour, and later he helped Reverend Hanamori with the devotional songfest. Then the children's athletic events could begin.

Midway through the three-legged race, Tom realized what an easy time of it he was having. He had not seen Billy since leaving him with Mitsuko. Ordinarily, the boy could abide Mrs. Uchida just so long, after which he would become restless and start crying for his father.

As the poplars began to stretch their long shadows over the field and the breeze turned from cool to chilly, the festivities closed with a brief service of praise. “Look to the Lord for guidance,” Pastor Tom concluded before the hushed crowd. “We have to live day by day more like Christ so we can be closer as the people of God; sharing, caring, and bearing one another's burdens. Praise the Lord that we all will have a part in His vision.”

“Praise the Lord,” echoed several of the congregation, and the cry was taken up by all: “Praise the Lord!” Hands touched, heads bowed. In the deepening dusk, Tom saw golfers across the road, men of his own race, peering at this gathering of Japanese with expressions of open disgust. Looking down upon his close-knit community standing here in the shadows, Pastor Tom knew once again that it was for them, these special people, that he had been called by God.

The crowd then turned to the final cleanup. They folded blankets, and a crew of men went into action, ridding the tables and grounds of whatever scraps of paper or food had been left behind. Even Mr. Nomura, who usually kept aloof from such lowly tasks, rolled up his sleeves and helped. Mitsuko and Billy, holding a grocery bag between them, were picking up stray scraps and tossing them in.