Fifty Words for Rain(48)

This was her armor.

The smell of her mother’s peppermint perfume. The sound of Akiko’s laugh, with the snort at the end. Kiyomi’s wry smile. The feel of Miyuki’s clammy fingers intertwined with hers.

The rain on her face. The first time she’d heard the violin.

And Oniichan.

Akira.

Nori did it in one deft motion. The pain was sharp and deep along her thigh. Even though she should have expected it, it knocked the wind out of her. The knife fell from her hand, and instinctively she placed her palm on the cut. It wasn’t going to be deep enough. She knew, somehow, that she’d missed the artery her books had told her about.

She couldn’t even die right.

She fell backwards, hitting the floor hard but without feeling it. With her hair spread out and her arms opened wide, she could almost pretend that she was back in the garden in Kyoto.

Gomen, Oniichan.

I wanted . . . to see you . . .

Her head began to feel very heavy. The pain in her leg was almost gone. She thought she could hear the crack of a door. Someone screamed, but it felt very far away.

It did not touch her. She knew there was nothing they could do to stop it now. Was that . . . footsteps? Two sets, one behind the other.

And then someone was leaning over her, touching her, cradling her in strong arms.

Someone was shouting.

“Nori!”

She smelled lemons and wasabi.

“Nori! Wake up. Wake up! I found you. I finally found you, so you don’t get to die. Do you hear me? You can’t die. Please, no, no, no, no, no.”

She squinted. She could barely see anymore, but she thought she felt something on her face. Something wet.

You smell like Akira, she thought. I missed . . . that . . .

The roaring in her ears was deafening now.

Okaasan.

I’m sorry.

There was a bright white light and then there was nothing.





CHAPTER TEN


    SONATA




Tokyo, Japan

October 1953

For a single day she lay floating. This was the in-between.

It was different from a dream. She could see nothing, but it felt different from being blind. There was no hunger or pain, no fear or sadness, no angels or demons here to greet her.

There was only the white.

And then, bit by bit, there was the sound.

At first it was distant, like someone shouting across an immense void. She latched on to that sound. She wrapped herself around it and let it pull her up from underneath the white. It grew louder and louder until she could hear it as surely as if someone had their lips pressed against her ear.

And then she could see the tiniest flicker of color.

She felt herself floating upwards, from the very depths of nothing to just beneath the waves.

And when she finally reached for one gasping breath, she was able to catch it.

And when she opened her eyes, there, right there, was the sun.

He was kneeling beside her pallet, with his dark head bowed and his hands laid over her heart.

“Oniichan.”

His head jerked up. His gray eyes widened as he met her gaze. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the greasy film on his skin, and she wondered how long he had been there.

“Noriko,” he said, and his voice cracked. “My God. My God, finally.”

She pushed herself up onto her elbows, ignoring the way it made her head spin. “Is it really you?”

Akira leaned forward and kissed her on the side of her face, right onto one of the deep dimples in her cheeks. The gesture was foreign, like so many of his mannerisms picked up from his time in Europe as a child. But to Nori it felt foreign for another reason.

He had never been so affectionate with her before.

“You have been in and out all day,” he whispered. “Your leg . . . we managed to stop the bleeding, but then you spiked a terrible fever. I thought . . . for a moment, I thought . . .”

The leg. She had completely forgotten about the leg. She slipped her hand beneath the blanket, and sure enough, her left leg was wrapped in heavy bandages.

“We had to suture it shut,” Akira told her. He looked queasy, though it was hard to tell in the darkened room. “You may have a limp. We can’t be sure. But there will be a scar.”

She just looked at him. She hardly cared about the leg, a limp, or a scar; she just wanted to look at him.

Akira smirked as if he knew this already.

“I found you,” he said, with a quiet but deep sense of satisfaction. “It took me two years, but I found you and I made a plan to get you back.”

She nodded. It seemed impossible to her that she was alive. She could not process that she was here, well, and reunited with the brother she had tried so hard to force herself to forget.

She did not want to feel anything, in case this was all just the devil’s last joke before he threw her into hell.

Akira went on. “Once I realized you were . . . you were in one of those places, I had one of my father’s old servants pose as a buyer to find you out.”

Nori’s heart began to beat faster. It hurt, almost as if it was out of practice.

“I had him arrange for you to be delivered here. This was my uncle’s house, but now that he is dead, it’s part of my inheritance. I knew I could get you here. Grandmother will realize what’s happened soon, but I will protect you. I swear it.”