Fifty Words for Rain(6)

Nori clenched her hands around the wooden chair she was still holding on to. Without being prompted, she bent over.

Her grandmother continued. “You are good at your studies, but this is not so important. You lack poise and grace. I can hear your footsteps shaking the house, like a zou. We are royalty. We do not walk like rice farmers.”

Without looking up, Nori sensed her grandmother move to where she stood bent over the chair.

“Discipline is essential. You must learn this.”

She felt a hand pull up the back of her kimono and shift so that she stood exposed in nothing but a pair of thin cotton panties. She shut her eyes.

Her grandmother’s voice went very low. “You are a cursed, wretched thing.”

The first blow with the spoon landed with shocking swiftness. It was the sound, loud and sharp, that startled her more so than the pain. Nori’s teeth came down on her bottom lip, and she felt the skin tear.

The second and third blows were harder than the first. There was no body fat on Nori’s spritely frame to dull the force of the impact. As she always did, she began to count the blows. Four. Five. Six.

She felt a deep ache begin in her back, thumping away in a rhythm she swore she could hear. Her shoulder blades began to shake with the effort of staying upright. Seven. Eight. Nine.

It was hopeless now to fight the tears. She allowed them to come with as much pride as she could muster. But she drew the line at whimpering. Even if she had to chew a hole through her lip, she refused to utter a single sound. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Over the roaring in her ears, Nori could hear her grandmother begin to pant with the effort of such physical exertion. Thirteen. Fourteen.

That was enough, it seemed. For a moment, both of them stayed in their assumed positions. No one moved. The only sound was her grandmother’s slow, ragged breathing.

Nori did not need to turn around to know what happened next. She was not sure if she was witnessing the events as they unfolded or simply seeing them in her mind’s eye. Her grandmother slowly lowered her arm, taking care to readjust her clothing. Then there would come a look: stern, slightly apologetic. Perhaps there was even some pity there. But then the look would shift into polite indifference. Yuko’s thought process had already moved on. It was not until Nori heard the creaking sound of her grandmother descending the steps that she allowed herself to stand up.

And now the third act of the play commenced.

The stitch in her side reacted violently to the change in position, and Nori twitched as if something had stung her. Inhale. Exhale.

She raised a hand to her face and wiped unceremoniously back and forth. In about an hour or so, Akiko would come up with a warm towel for her bottom. Until then, it was best to avoid sitting. The welts on her buttocks and upper thighs would disappear in a few days. Now that she was alone, the pain in her extremities made itself fully known. As if resentful at being left out of the mix, her stomach began to clench and release. But she kept her chin high and made no sound.

Nori didn’t even know for whom she was performing at this point.

Sometimes she thought it was for the invisible eyes that she swore her grandmother had transplanted into the walls. Other times she thought it was for God. She had a theory that if God saw how brave she was, even when she was alone, He would grant her some kind of miracle.

Gingerly, she stepped out of her kimono so that she stood in nothing but her cotton slip. Though she knew she shouldn’t, she left it on the floor. Akiko would see to it. As far as Nori knew, Akiko was not one to report back on all of her doings—for surely, if that were the case, Nori would receive a great many more beatings than she did.

She liked to believe that Akiko did not hate the task to which she had been assigned. Though it was insulting work to be assigned to tend the family’s bastard child, at least it did not take much effort. Nori tried to make it easy on the poor woman, as much out of guilt as out of obedience.

She inched, so slowly that she began to feel comical, over to the prayer altar on the opposite side of the room. Though one of her assignments was to pray thrice daily, Nori did not mind. In fact, she rather liked it.

The altar was by far her favorite possession, though it was arguably not even hers. It was yet another cast-off possession of her mother’s. It was nothing special—just a wooden table with a cloth of royal purple velvet spread across it. The edges of the cloth were trimmed with gold thread. An intricately crafted silver crucifix sat atop it, with two candles on either side. Nori struck a match and lit them both before kneeling on the small cushion she had placed on the floor.

They bathed her in comforting warmth and she allowed her eyes to drift shut.


Dear God,

I’m sorry for my impertinence. I will make sure to ask Saotome-sensei what “impertinence” means so that I can make sure not to do it again. I’m sorry for my hair. I’m sorry for my skin. I’m sorry for the trouble I cause others. I hope you are not too angry with me?

Please look after my mother. I am quite sure she must be very upset that she cannot pick me up just yet.

Please help me to be ready soon.

Amen,

Nori



As she often did when she had finished her prayers, Nori paused. Her favorite thing about God was that He was the one person she was allowed to ask questions. In fact, this privilege delighted her so much that she hardly even minded that nobody answered her.



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