Women On the Other Shore (27 page)

Aoi kept her eyes fixed on him as he talked into his bowl, fum-bling for words.

"In the morning, your mother goes to the bakery at six, and Grandma's supposed to come as usual to be with you while she's gone, but I'm gonna talk to her. 'Cause I could never sway your mother, you know, but Grandma might be more sympathetic."

He stopped again. Taking a bite of pork, he chewed for a moment, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and dropped his voice even though no one else was listening.

"So anyway, if it just so happens that Grandma isn't there when you get up, then I want you to come to the Shirahige Shrine."

"What for?" Aoi's heart was thudding.

"I'm gonna bring Nanako Noguchi to see you."

He picked up his bowl with both hands and took a long, noisy swig of broth.

"But why... how come... where is Nanako? How'd you find her?"

Aoi's heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

"You'll have to ask her that. I can't tell you anything. I'm already gonna be in big trouble if your mother finds out about this," he said, finally turning to look at her, "but since you won't let me get you 208

anything for Christmas., " H e smiled with those same pained eyes he'd shown her before.

Holding a bite of noodles with her chopsticks in midair, Aoi averted her gaze and stared at the back of his glistening, sun-darkened hand.

When she saw Nanako standing by herself on the other side of her father's idling cab, Aoi thought she must be dreaming. She still felt that way after rushing up to her and clutching her arm. She had in fact dreamed of this moment so many times.

"You look great, Aokins!" her friend said with a little laugh.

Standing a head shorter than Aoi, Nanako beamed up at her. Her breath made a white cloud in front of her nose. She was wearing the matching double-breasted overcoat she'd bought with Aoi the year before, and to judge from the pleated skirt protruding below the half-length coat, she was apparently in full uniform. Aoi wished she had done the same, instead of coming in jeans and duffle coat.

There were so many things she'd wanted to ask Nanako when she saw her. About after their jump. About her present situation. Where she'd moved to, and why. How to reach her. She was also sure she would cry when they met. She'd even worried about being so choked with tears she couldn't get her questions out. But her eyes remained dry, and none of the things she'd planned to ask seemed the least bit important anymore. Instead she found herself lapsing immediately into lighthearted platitudes as if they'd seen each other just the day before.

"You look like you've lost weight. You been dieting?"

They hopped into the back seat together. Like yesterday; Mr.

Narahashi had posted his
OFF DUTY
sign in the front window.

"Where to, ladies? Your wish is my command," he said jokingly.

"In that case, how about Izu?" Nanako said.

"Or Yokohama," Aoi added quickly.

"Ai-yi-yi. You ladies don't exactly look like you've got that kind of change."

209

"How rude!" Nanako said, pointing her nose primly in the air

"Okay, fine! I've got ¥1,000 on me. Take us however far that gets us."

The well-heated cab filled with laughter.

Aoi's father put the car in gear and drove slowly through the misty morning air. Few people were out yet at this hour. They passed a jogger and an elderly man walking his dog.

Nanako glanced at Aoi with a self-conscious smile. "How do you like my two-tone hair?" she said, pointing at her head. "Pretty pathetic, hunh? My little sister keeps finding funny names to call me."

Her hair had grown out black again on top but remained bleached below the ears.

"Well, mine's pretty bad, too. Can you believe this?" Aoi said, pointing at her own jet-black hair. "My mom went and bought some blackener. Makes me look like a granny, don't you think?"

Not sure what to say after that, they both fell silent. They merely looked at each other and smiled every now and then. Feeling increasingly awkward as the silence continued, Aoi racked her brain for something to say but came up empty. She noticed Nanako periodically glancing at her watch and grew uneasy. Did they have a time limit? Or was it perhaps that Nanako didn't really want to talk to her anymore?

A few minutes after seven, Nanako leaned forward in her seat and said, "Mr. Narahashi, can we go to the river?"

The car wound through a series of narrow streets to the edge of town where the houses broke off and the view opened up. The Watarase River spread before them. Aoi caught her breath. Brightly mirroring the morning sky, the water shimmered before them in the purest shade of blue she had ever seen.

"Wow!" she said, pressing her forehead to the window as her father pulled over near a bridge.

"It's only this time of day that the color gets like this," Nanako said softly beside her.

210

"I never knew."

"That's because you always went to school later. By sometime before eight, it goes back to its normal color."

"I never knew," Aoi repeated. She thought of Nanako leaving home long before the starting bell and stopping by her favorite hiding place to stand breathlessly watching the river—in grade school, in junior high school, and until a few months ago in high school.

Crisp images of Nanako rose before her as if she were recalling something she had witnessed with her own eyes. She now understood why Nanako had been paying so much attention to her watch: her friend had wanted to show her the river as it reflected the sky at this precise time of day.

"Is it all right if we get out, Mr. Narahashi? I promise I won't run away."

Without a word, Aoi's father operated the lever to open the rear door. They walked out onto the bridge.

"I'm gonna be changing schools," Nanako said quietly as she and Aoi peered down at the river over the railing.

"Because of what we did?"

"Not really. I'm sure people will draw their own conclusions, considering the timing and all, but actually that has nothing to do with it. I mean, think about it. My parents didn't bother to file a missing persons request even after a whole month went by, so you can't expect a little fuss like that to shake them up. No, it's a bunch of other family stuff. I have to move in with one of my relatives."

A cloud slid slowly across the face of the river. Nanako's white breath melted into the frigid air as she spoke.

"Do they live a long way from here?" Aoi asked.

"Depends what you mean by a long way, but my family are all dyed-in-the-wool Gunma people. So the farthest would be like Minakami or Shimonita. Of course, in another year or so, I can get out on my own. I just can't do that yet now."

211

Aoi had no idea where either of those towns were. "Do you know what your address will be?"

"Not yet. I'll write when I do," she said, her eyes fixed on the river.

Mr. Narahashi was leaning against the car with his back to them, puffing on a cigarette and looking up at the sky.

"Promise?" Aoi said.

"Have I ever broken a promise?"

"We'll see each other again, right?"

"Of course we will," Nanako said. "It's not like I'm moving to outer space." She gazed in silence at the river for a time, then turned to Aoi with a faint smile. "I guess people are built stronger than you might think, hunh?"

Not sure what Nanako was talking about, Aoi said nothing.

"We were really pretty stupid," she added and turned back to the river.

Aoi finally understood what her friend meant. The river flowed quietly beneath them, its wondrous color never changing for a moment. Aoi felt as if she were still on the roof of Domile Isogo, gazing out over the city as it was falling into twilight.

"We never did get anywhere," Nanako sighed.

"What I wonder is where we were trying to go."

Nanako did not reply. Aoi looked for a way to change the subject.

"Guess what, Nanako. Remember that thing we said about rings on our nineteenth birthdays?" Nanako looked up at her. "My dad says platinum's better than silver. So I decided I'm going to give you a platinum ring. That way you'll get to be even happier than with silver." As she said it, she felt tears welling in her eyes, and she hastened to add, teasingly, "Especially since I figure you'll never find a boyfriend."

"Then that's what I'll give you, too." Nanako looked her straight in the eye as she said it but did not crack a smile.

212

They fell silent again and stood staring at the gently flowing river with their elbows planted on the railing.

"It kind of feels like the river's actually the sky, doesn't it?" Nanako said. "Like the sky's flowing by under our feet. Standing here watching the water, it's as if you're actually standing somewhere way up in the sky, and you can't tell where you are anymore. Does it feel that way to you?"

Wanting to experience the feeling exactly as she had described it, Aoi fixed her gaze fiercely on the water. A swatch of sky as wide as the river slid by beneath her, and a peculiar floating sensation came over her, as if her feet were suspended several centimeters off the ground.

"It really does," she said.

By the time they returned to the car, six flattened cigarette butts littered the ground at Mr. Narahashi's feet. The girls climbed back into the rear seat without a word.

"Shall we go for another spin, then?" he said cheerfully as he got in behind the wheel and started up the engine.

They circled about town repeatedly, driving past the train station that was growing busier by the minute, past the deserted gate of one of the other high schools, down the still-shuttered main shopping street festooned with Christmas decorations, out onto the highway dotted with fast-food outlets, and back along the river that had now returned to its usual color. Aoi gathered that her father intended to stay within the city limits. Soon the view outside the window was repeating itself: the bustling station, the shuttered shopping district, the dusty highway, the river. Rather like herself, thought Aoi—trying to go someplace but never getting anywhere, and ultimately winding up back where she started.

Neither of the girls spoke. Nanako's hand brushed Aoi's on the seat between them. Aoi quietly took it in her own and squeezed, and Nanako squeezed gently back. With hands clasped, they watched the 213

town flow by, each from her own window. For a brief moment, Aoi thought she saw the two of them in their summer uniforms walking past outside the window—two high school girls doubling over with laughter, nudging each other in the ribs, carrying on about something or other with their heads tilted together. Tea and cake at Hasegawa's. The sky on New Year's Day. T h e savory grillcakes at Fukufuku-tei. Billy Joel. Koike's potato chips. T h e moment when the wind dies down at three on a summer afternoon.... They were nam-ing at random all their favorite things as if determined to fill the world entirely with things they liked.

A few minutes after nine, the car pulled into the turnaround in front of the station.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Narahashi," Nanako said with her hand on the door. "This would've cost a fortune if the meter was going.

I'll pay you back when I've worked my way up in the world a bit, okay?"

"Right," he chuckled, "but I don't think I'll hold my breath."

He got out of the car to open Nanako's door.

"See ya!" Nanako flashed Aoi a smile and slid out of the back seat.

She trotted quickly off toward the ticket gate without waiting for Aoi to get out after her, turning when she was partway there to wave her arm high over her head. Aoi waved back from the car as the tiny, double-breasted figure of her friend shone radiant in the winter sunlight.

Her father pulled out into traffic again with Aoi alone in the back seat. Tears gushed from her eyes as if the floodgates had been opened by a switch not linked to her own will or wishes. She tried to hide them from her father, twisting her face awkwardly out of his line of sight in the rearview mirror. The tears refused to stop, chasing each other down her cheeks and falling to the hand that only moments before had been in Nanako's. All she felt in that hand now was a gaping emptiness. She pressed the other hand firmly against 214

her lips to keep herself from crying out loud. As her nose began to run, she instinctively sniffled, and her father turned to look over his shoulder. She doubled over in her seat and let the tears flow. Now that her father knew the state she was in, she wept without restraint.

Her own sobs filled her ears.

"Just remember, Aoi, it won't be long before you can see her anytime you want again," he said gently, trying to comfort her. "I understand she'll be moving away, but it's not like she's going overseas or anything. And even if she were, traveling to other countries isn't such a big deal anymore, you know. So maybe you have to wait a while because your mom and your teachers will make a fuss, but you can always write, and if you can just be patient for now, you'll get to see her again real soon. All right?"

Aoi nodded as he repeated his words of comfort, but inwardly she was crying out in anguish.
Why don't we ever get to choose anything
for ourselves, Dad? We might think we're choosing, but all we're really
doing is grasping at thin air. We don't even get to choose which way to
step with our own two feet. Tell me, Dad. What if something happens
to Nanako, and she gets hurt, and she's crying and in terrible pain?

What could I do for her? I can't rush to her side, I can't even send her
messages by flashlight. What do we grow up for anyway? When we
grow up, do we finally get to decide something for ourselves? Do we
finally get to step whichever way we want without having to lose the
people we love?

Their house came into view ahead.

"When you see Grandma, you be sure to thank her, now, you hear?" her father said sternly.

Aoi's chin dripped like a broken faucet from her overflowing eyes and nose.

"I will," she squeaked, mustering every ounce of strength she had left.