Translator (23 page)

Moto edges toward the main stage, but before he reaches it, he stops. Somehow the expression on his mask changes. He looks out toward the audience, his eyes seem to open wide, as if searching, and calls out—what? From the strain in the chant, it sounds like he's asking for help.

An anxious stillness grips the theater as everyone waits for an answer. It's as if a spell has been cast. She can't take her eyes off Moto, his mask is moving as if it's made of real skin. Pinpricks of perspiration seem to appear on the boy's upper lip and now tears run down his face.

She's glued to this moment, to Moto not as Moto but as a young boy. He raises the fan above his head, slowly opening it as if each newly unveiled fold contains the hidden meaning of everything. Hanne holds her breath. A brown fan with six white birds. Meaning? Meaning what? His voice is ringing out, vibrating the air molecules; it rings and rings, then slowly fades, dies out. There is no answer. The boy's face crumples. Hanne feels something lurch inside.

The beggar and the depraved man beckon to Moto to come over, promising to tend to his needs. Or maybe they don't. From the strange shrieks and silences, Hanne feels herself making up the words, a story, trying to hold on to something familiar. Moto glides onto the main stage, and the depraved man moves close, too close. Scrapes a long fingernail along his cheek. When the boy cringes and shrinks away, so does Hanne. A chill runs through her, then settles as a hard ball in her stomach. The old man and the beggar circle the boy, leering, running their hands over his pure gold robe. Run away, thinks Hanne. Go!

The frightened boy stands perfectly still, but at the same time motion sweeps over him, and now he's whirling around, then plummeting to the ground, whirling, plummeting, caught up in some sort of chaotic wind. She can't say how he's standing still, and at the same time generating a flurry of frenzied movement. The beggar and the old man back away, as if the boy has gone crazy and is giving off some horrible scent. The scent of fear and anguish, thinks Hanne.

“We are sundered,” the chorus sings, “O sorrow: Nothing else remains.”

When Moto finally sings along with the chorus, she falls into his voice, as if it's calling out to her, only her, falls all the way into the agony.

What follows is a blur. The final play—a demon with a red mask moving around, other characters, that's all she remembers. When it's over, Renzo murmurs something about a restaurant across the street. She hears herself tell him she wants to sit a moment longer. To gather herself, she thinks. But what needs gathering? What has been sundered?

The rest of the audience clears out and the theater is empty. She hears someone sweeping. The janitor, most likely. Slowly, she tries to stand, holding on to the back of the chair for support. Something is in her mouth. She touches it with her tongue. Inches it forward to her front teeth. A strand of hair, twisted around itself. She plucks it out. Black. About four centimeters long. It could be hers.

Outside, it's dark. Night has
lowered itself onto Kyoto, bringing with it a chaos of cars, swarms of people, and bright blinking neon signs. Hanne heads through the soft rain, chin tucked down, passing plastic-covered fruit stands and shoe stores and camera shops, not knowing where, exactly, she's going. The rain comes down harder and she follows the crowd, until she veers off into the small lobby of a ryokan, enveloped in a hush. She wipes her wet face with her sleeve. From somewhere she hears gurgling water. In a small alcove behind the check-in desk, a single bare bamboo branch rises out of a white vase, like dark smoke. She pries off her soggy shoes and, through thin, damp socks, feels the tatami mat's polished strands.

An older woman dressed in a dark blue kimono and white obi appears at the front desk and bows slightly. With her powdered white face and her lips painted red, in another time in her life she might have been a geisha.

“May I help you?”

The transaction of securing a room is surprisingly easy, as is the encounter with Renzo, whom she finds with his gaggle of friends at the restaurant.

“I'll be staying in town to see the plays again,” she says.

He nods and gives her a knowing smile, as if he understands; but how can he, because she does not. Why is she compelled to watch Moto again? And why is she trembling?

The older woman leads Hanne down a long narrow hallway, Hanne following the swish of the woman's narrow hem, the rustle of her underclothing. Her room is two adjacent rooms, with a sliding shoji door between them. In one, there is nothing: no television, no paintings on the wall, no phone, no table, no chairs, only a long stretch of tatami mats and wheat-colored walls. The connecting room holds a single black lacquered table, where, the older woman tells her, she'll be served her meals.

The woman opens the closet doors and pulls out pillows, blankets and a futon, and places them on the tatami mat. When the woman leaves and the door shuts, Hanne breaks into a cold sweat. Her stomach feels as if it is pressed against her heart. She slips out of her clothes and into the white bathrobe hanging behind the bathroom door and lies on the floor. The sliding glass door, which leads to a small enclosed garden, is open a crack, and a cool breeze moves underneath her robe. A board creaks, footsteps pitter-patter in the hallway. Then quiet.

Slowly her breathing deepens. She lies there a while longer, letting everything settle. Something tickles her hand and she remembers the game she and Brigitte used to play. Back and forth, tracing words on the back of each other's hand. Guessing the language, the word. When Brigitte guessed right, she'd squeal “Again, Mama, again!” “Okay, my love,” Hanne said, laughing, “close your eyes.” Over and over, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Korean. And then when Brigitte learned Greek, “I'll teach you, Mama, if you want to know.” And though Hanne already knew it, she said “I'd love that.” Because it meant sitting beside her daughter, her body squirming with new knowledge.

Now Hanne rouses herself and heads for the bathroom. Sitting naked on the wooden stool, the water raining down on her, she scrubs herself with a rough cloth. Then meticulously shaves her legs, her underarms. She soaps her hair, which is no longer jet black but woven with wiry gray strands. She scours again every inch of her body. Then takes a pumice stone to sand her feet clean of calluses. She's not sure why she's washing herself with such care, but it feels necessary, as if something must be purged. She crosses from the shower to the round wooden tub of steaming hot water. Gingerly, she steps in, and a rush of heat scurries up her calf.

With her arms floating by her side, she wilts. Under the water, her legs look thinner, more sinewy than she remembered. Has she lost weight? Her troubles have pared her down? Sweat drips down the sides of her face, pooling at her jaw line, trickling down her neck, her breasts. Her breasts, though, look the same: sagging from nursing two children, and her pinkish brown areolas are now the size of quarters. She can't remember what they looked like before having children. That body is long gone.

Another memory: Brigitte must have been nine years old. A boy at school, something not quite right about him. “He has no friends, Mama,” said Brigitte. “He sits on the edge of the blacktop at recess, tapping a stick.” Brigitte befriended him. Baked him cookies and saved her money to buy him a baseball. Not just him. She was always spending her allowance on gifts for her friends. Tears and more tears when he was sent to a school for special-needs children. “Who will be his friend?” pleaded Brigitte, who was worried that he would be lonely once again. So sensitive. Tomas's words come back to Hanne.

For a long time Hanne sits in the tub, as if bathing could take forever, canceling the need to do anything else. She's never believed in destiny; but watching Moto on stage, that's the word that came to mind. A perfect alignment: Moto and acting. He was superb, remarkable, spellbinding, otherworldly—she's fumbling for the right word. How to describe? She saw him whole, completely fitted to the world.

That must have been why he made her promise to come. To see him, dazzling.

If someone's destiny is to possess a talent, and the world embraces it, all is well. But when that talent is denied, what happens? When the soul, for whatever reason—even by one's own hand—is denied its destiny, what are the consequences?

The word “soul” stops her. Hiro used to talk about the soul descending from the heavens or bardo, crossing back into this world to be born again. The human form is precious, he'd say. It is earned after many lifetimes as other creatures, he'd tell Brigitte and Tomas. Hanne usually gave him a hard look when he spoke this way, but right now she can't find a more suitable word than soul. So be it. What happens, then, when the soul is assigned its purpose, but is neglected? Forgotten? Or worse, thwarted? When someone or something comes along and tells the soul that its reason for being here is not wanted? She stares at her pale toes underneath the water. She thinks of Moto on a drinking binge, a husk of himself. The soul can wither.

Without warning, Kobayashi comes to mind. Did his soul come with a vision of being a writer? To engage the world through his imagination and words? The Romantics said we arrive into the world “trailing clouds of glory.” And what did Hanne do? Scatter Kobayashi's clouds of glory and turn them into something he refused to claim as his own.

She'd like to stop there, but there's another person to consider. What did Brigitte's soul want to live out? And how did Hanne deny it? Oppose it? For that's how she sees it now. She wasn't trying to guide, but alter Brigitte's purpose and fashion it into something else. Something she could love. But that's not true. She did love Brigitte. Loved her from the moment she saw her. So what was she doing?

A deliberate misreading of her daughter to bolster her, not just once but many times to cultivate something bold and resolute, something hearty and robust so the blows of the world would not break her like a cheap knickknack. Otherwise, what would come of such a life? What good? What extraordinary thing?

What any mother would do. But not a mother who didn't want to face years and years of silence.

By the time she climbs into bed, she is exhausted. She gives in to her weariness, the softness of the pillow, the coolness of the sheets. Before she falls asleep, she has one more thought—whatever the soul's destiny or purpose, it does not go away. Despite Moto's wanderings, he has found himself again on stage.

The theater is as packed
as it was yesterday. Next to her, a frail old man snores through the first play, and in his lap rest his bony hands, a little nest of sticks. Eventually Hanne dozes and dreams that she's seen the play so many times, she's lost count. The seasons wheel by, the leaves turn and turn again, and she's rooted there, like an old tree. Once she tries to leave, but upon reaching the exit she panics that someone might take her seat. Though the chair is nothing to covet; it's now threadbare and she can feel its broken seat springs. She hurries back and resumes her post. She is guarding something, or on the lookout—but for what? Tomas shows up. “What are you still doing here?” He's old now, his hair is gray and his shoulders slightly stooped. If he is old, she must be ancient. As he waits for an answer, he inspects her face, trying to decipher her. Lurking behind his look is the question “Have you gone dotty?”

“It's a world unto itself,” she murmurs, keeping an eye on the play as she speaks. She knows the explanation means nothing to him—or her. What's happening, she wants to say, is not accessible through words.

Now she is startled awake by the electric charge in the air. And there is Moto dressed as the beautiful boy moving on the bridge, running luster in the air.

He glides to the side of the bridge, and the two men, the beggar and the depraved one, pounce on him, predators stalking prey. As soon as the boy crosses over to the main stage, the old man is right beside him. His puckered mouth seems to water. The beggar rifles through the boy's pockets. The lighting dims and Hanne imagines it is nighttime, and the street lights have yet to glow. In the pitch black, the buildings loom like giants and the hungry men grope. The boy's cheek muscle flinches. A tiny pucker of skin pops up in between the eyebrows. He looks frantically left, right, left, searching for an escape.

But there is no escape and the boy begins to cry. Hanne is barely breathing. She feels a knot in her chest, and the knot is expanding, wrapping around her, squeezing her. A bitter taste of fear floods Hanne's mouth. She is experiencing what the boy is experiencing and she can't seem to move, as if any wrong movement will cause the men to devour her.

“Mama,” the boy calls out. His voice is faint, clamped down by fear.

Hanne grips the arms of her chair. This didn't happen yesterday. Or did it? The men cackle and shake their hairy heads. They have become monsters gnashing their long yellow teeth.

“Mama, please.” A thread of a voice tossed out into the dark, like a flimsy lifeline. She feels the boy's deep desire: to nuzzle into his mother's warm body, to curl up in her warm lap, to drape around himself her warm voice that sounds like a lullaby telling him it's all right, everything's all right now, my child, the way good mothers do, even when it isn't true. Something Hanne never did, she realizes.

Hanne strains to hear a response. The moment stretches taut as it becomes seconds piled upon seconds that become minutes of silence. There's a sensation of something whooshing into her, something unfixing. The dreadful silence goes on and on. The theater erupts with the boy sobbing. Hanne presses her hands to her face.

The theater door opens, shuts. The building is emptying. Somewhere, someone is happily whistling. Hanne can't seem to move. The boy is still with her. As he has been for years.

She bought Brigitte a new blue dress for the plane ride to the boarding school. Slate blue, Brigitte's favorite color, but she refused to wear it. Instead, she put on ragged jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. On the flight, Hanne again paged through the shiny brochure, showing Brigitte all the languages she could study, the photographs of her new teachers, the library, the living quarters. She could have her own room, if she wanted. But Brigitte refused to look, crying the entire flight, she didn't want to go, why did she have to go, why was she making her go? Her friends were in San Francisco, she promised to go to school, please, please, she'd be good, very good, just let her come back home. She wanted to go home. “Why can't I be with you?”

At one point, the flight attendant came over and asked in a concerned voice if there was anything she could do.

By the time the taxi pulled up in front of the school, Brigitte had spent her tears, but not her vocal cords. “Don't leave me!”

The headmistress strode outside, flanked by a hefty guard. “Come now.”

Brigitte lunged at Hanne, maybe to clutch her coat, maybe to prevent Hanne's departure. Whatever the reason, her hand slapped Hanne squarely on the cheek. Hanne stood there, stunned, mortified, humiliated. The guard grabbed Brigitte, restrained her by pulling both arms behind her back.

“Mommy!”

Time stopped, ran backwards as Hanne heard the frightened voice of a young Brigitte. Two years old, four, six, her precious Brigitte. At that moment, Hanne almost declared it all a terrible mistake. She almost told the guard to take his god-awful hands off her daughter. Almost pulled Brigitte back into the taxi with her and took her back home. But the headmistress snapped at Hanne, “Go. You're making it worse. We'll take care of it. Just go.”

It being her daughter. Hanne told herself, you will get through this. You are strong. Life is full of strife, but you will endure it. You bear your burdens quietly and move onward.

As she hurried to the taxi, she told herself, Brigitte, too, is strong. Because if Brigitte could march onward from this moment, Hanne could ignore the guilt at the center of her being. She knew what she was doing, and she did it anyway. Her daughter, the cry of a child needing to be held and rocked and comforted. Her daughter, who took everything to heart. In the past, she'd been tough with Brigitte to teach her resilience, to bolster her up. And now? Hanne was so tired. Each day was a sustained combat. And Hanne was losing. She couldn't do this anymore. Didn't want to do it anymore. Not strong, Hanne was not so strong after all. More than that, she gave up trying. She thought she had done all she could, that it would be for the best. But she was wrong. As the taxi pulled away, Hanne did not look back, but her eyes filled with tears, and her cheek burned brighter as she heard her daughter yell “Mommy!”

Now she sits in the darkened theater. In a daze, Hanne realizes she's made a noise, a sharp intake of air. It was a mistake, assigning resilience to Brigitte when there was none. And she made the same mistake with Jiro, because if Jiro longed for his wife, so might she long for Brigitte. And if he doubted his decision to send his beloved away, so might she. And if he felt the depth of his grief, so might she. And if he sunk into deep, immobilizing despair, so might she.

The lights flick off, throwing the theater into darkness, and a sliver of bluish light seeps from beneath the green curtain. Hanne heads to the front of the theater, unsure of what she's about to do until she's doing it. The floor of the bridge is surprisingly slick, like ice. Hanne takes a step, but the habit of walking is impossible. She shuffles across the bridge and slowly begins to glide. It seems as if she's no longer stuck to the ground, but floating on an air current. If such a thing as a soul exists, she thinks, it would feel like this, weightless, unhinged from gravity.

She moves aside the green curtain. He's still in costume, wearing the mask of the beautiful boy. He looks serene, self-contained, like a solid object, and yet porous, letting everything flow in and flow out. When he stands, he radiates his full presence. He reaches for her hand and kisses the back of it. She feels nothing sexual or passionate in the gesture. A blessing, it feels like a blessing.

A miracle that she finds her way to the ryokan. She soaks in the bath. A throbbing has infiltrated her body. When she gets out, the pain is still there. A deep ache in her core, perhaps her heart, has invaded every part of her.

The futon has been laid out for her and she lies in it. Almost immediately a sob rises up from her chest. A knock at her door interrupts the stream of self-recrimination.

“Hanne?”

Leave her alone. She welcomes the dissolution.

Moto says her name again.

He is standing at the door, his eyes shining and impenetrably dark. He still bears a relentless brilliance. The front clerk woman whisks in behind him, bowing low, bearing gifts of green tea, moshi, and a plate of sashimi.

He takes a seat at the black lacquered table. Hanne seems to be in an altered state, unsure of what to say or do. She imagines that her eyes are red-rimmed, her hair disheveled, and she's wearing a flimsy bathrobe. But she doesn't excuse herself because here is Moto and the memory of his mask and the boy's cry and Brigitte's and Moto's radiance pouring all over her.

What was Brigitte forced to face alone? What terror? What pleas went unanswered?

“That's why, isn't it?” she says. “You wanted me to stay. To hear the boy. To feel his fear, his need. That's why.”

He reaches over and holds her hand. “I don't know. I don't plan like that, Hanne. You know that by now.”

“You on stage. I felt every movement, every sound. Everything.” She doesn't know if she is making any sense.

He doesn't say anything. No need for praise, she imagines him saying. It is what I do, what I am.

“You'll find your stage.”

Probably not—not the stage she once knew so well. “I'm leaving in the morning.” Her voice has only a slight shake to it.

He nods.

She can't stay here. She has the overwhelming urge to find her daughter. To demand her whereabouts from Tomas. To sit beside Brigitte and listen to her breathe.

They make the usual courteous platitudes to see each other again. He might someday come to San Francisco, and she'll return to Japan, someday. As they talk, she supposes it is likely she'll never see him again. Another chapter of her life is closing. Another person gone. He will rise, perhaps hug her one last time, kiss her cheek, and leave. The door will shut. She will grow older, as will he, and they'll either wither further or bloat; he'll likely be cremated in the Japanese way, with his bones placed in an urn, feet bones first, head bones last so he does not travel upside down in the afterlife. She would like to be cremated too. Perhaps Tomas will scatter her ashes in the sea.

“I'll fly over for your next show,” she says suddenly. Why must she settle for an unacceptable future? She wants to make a plan.

He smiles at her, gives her his leonine smile.

His true essence, the secret of him, however indecipherable, is far too fine and subtle to go without. “You just tell me when it is,” she says, “and I'll be there.”

“All right,” he says, “I believe you.”

He stands. She comes over to him and takes him in her arms.

“You should,” she says. “I'm a woman of my word.”