Fifty Words for Rain(104)
But I don’t care about any of this because I am in love for the first time. Really, truly in love.
I have found someone who turns my very world. And I never thought it would be an American, as Mother says they are vulgar people, but it is so.
I spend my days with my son, teaching him songs, tickling him, and watching him try not to laugh, taking him to the little antique shop I like so much.
I am heart and soul for him during the days. No one could doubt my motherhood—certainly he does not. Every evening before bed he takes my face in his hands and kisses me on my dimples. He says, “I love you, Maman,” in perfect French, as solemn as if he were giving a speech.
I tuck him into bed, my little angel, and then I shut off the light and leave him to dream.
And in the nights, I am free. Free as a blackbird, invisible against the dark sky.
And then I go to him—my American. My love.
I don’t feel like I am sinning. I know it sounds strange, since I am an adulteress and perhaps a whore, but this feels . . . pure. It’s the purest thing I’ve ever known.
We make love until the early hours of the morning and then I doze in his arms until the sun rises. The light is so unwelcome that when I see it creeping through the window, I want to take hold of it and fling it back.
In these last, precious moments we whisper of our plans for a future that can never, ever be.
He says that I must get away from my husband, that he will take me back to America with him. He says that we will live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, away from the white people who would not like it and the black people who would not understand it.
He says that we will have beautiful children, and that he will not care whether they are boys or girls. He says he would love a daughter as well as a son and perhaps more, because she would be as beautiful as I am.
And I think I would do it. I think that I would give up my servants and my silks and my dangerous Kamiza inheritance. I think that I would churn butter and milk cows and count pennies if it meant that I could lie in his strong arms every night and hear him say my name.
I love him so much it is like a physical pain to tear myself out of his arms.
But I have to go back to my son.
No matter what happens, I can never leave him. I can never leave him with a father who would see him turned into a block of stone and a grandmother who would tear him apart with the fervor of her ambition.
But the walls of my grand house have never felt so suffocating before. I don’t think I can breathe here anymore. I am suffocating like a fish on dry land.
I am so torn and so distraught that some days I can do nothing but cry.
I sit at the bench of my piano and I am sick with grief. I try to think how I could steal Akira away. He is my son, he belongs with me. And he would be welcome, my love has told me that he would be most welcome.
But I know this is impossible.
We would never make it out of the country. They would take Akira from me and I would never see him again.
Nothing can be done. I will have to stay here, as daughter, as wife, as mother. There’s no way out for me. There never was.
Any freedom I had was always an illusion. Any movement forward was always temporary.
I am a Kamiza.
And in the end, all roads lead home.
* * *
October 16th, 1939
Akira has won his first contest. He is so proud of himself, but he will not say, and instead he says that it is all down to my teaching.
Blessed sweet child.
His father glanced at the trophy when Akira carried it in, but didn’t say anything except “Good.” I know my boy was wounded. But—and this is how I know that he is already ruined—he did not show it. He composed his face and went up to his room without a word.
I can’t wait for the nights to see my American anymore, and often I sneak out during the days. We can’t meet privately, of course, but I tell him where I will be and he is always there.
I make up some imaginary errand and I go out to the market and I feel his gaze on my neck.
I have given up trying to resist the power he has over me. I know that I have grown reckless. I come home smelling of sweat and lovemaking and cigarette smoke—and I don’t smoke. Sometimes I don’t come home at all until noon, and I go in through the servants’ entrance and slip up to my room.
If I had a husband who loved me, he would have noticed by now. But thankfully, I do not.
My maids make excuses for me, they all love me, and my husband is not a man who inspires love.
Akira is too young to know what is happening, but he is a clever boy and I must take care.
I couldn’t bear to hurt him.
He must never doubt for a moment that he is the beating of my heart.
* * *
November 22nd, 1939
Yasuei says that it’s time to make another child, now that Akira is nearly four. He says that the children should be close in age so that they can be a comfort to one another. I don’t know how he would know; he has only one brother and they hate each other.
I tell him that I am unwell, that I have had womanly problems lately and cannot lie with him. I am buying time.
In truth, I cannot bear to let him touch me.
And anyway, there really is something wrong with me. I am tired all the time and I have a strange heat in my bones.
Akira is happy to be turning four. He says that he wants to grow up so he can help me with all my little troubles and make it so I am never sad again.