Fifty Words for Rain(7)

The winter months drew to a close rather uneventfully. The days melded together seamlessly. Nori received two more visits from her grandmother in this time, resulting in twelve and sixteen blows, respectively. At one point, the family matriarch had remarked that out of concern for possible scarring, new methods of punishment might need to be implemented in the future.

As spring approached, Nori watched the world around her change. She watched the daylight linger on past its prime. She watched from her window as the flowers in the yard bloomed and became brighter. And though she was at first unsure, she began to notice changes in herself as well. Her chest, once as flat as a washboard, was starting to gain a minute amount of fullness. Her hips were broadening, if by a slight margin.

And her weight, constant at forty pounds or less for the past two years, was stubbornly creeping upwards. This alarmed her more than anything. She had asked Akiko to reduce her food portions, but the maid refused.

“You hardly eat anything as it is, Ojosama. You will get sick.”

“I will get fat, is what I will get.”

“Little madam, it is natural. You are becoming a woman. You are an early bloomer, it seems. When the time comes, your grandmother will explain what is happening to you. It is not my place.”

It is not my place.

Akiko always said that when she didn’t want to talk about things. Sometimes she would take pity and answer Nori’s rare questions about why things were the way they were. But only in pieces. Then she would clam up, afraid she’d said too much, and Nori would be left to complete the puzzle herself.

She knew she was a bastard because of Akiko. That meant she could never be a Kamiza, not really, and that her grandmother needed another heir.

She’d concluded on her own that it could not be her mother because her mother was something called a whore.

But as many nights as Nori had spent on her knees praying for divine intervention in her life, Nori found herself resenting the changes that were now occurring.

It was horribly uncomfortable to feel time nudging her forward, tactlessly, in total disregard of whether she was prepared or not.

Her studies were progressing rapidly as well. She had nothing else. She read all night until her eyes burned because she had nothing else.

Saotome-sensei was incredulous. It seemed that no matter what new book he gave her, she was always finished in a day, two at most. And yet, when she told him this, he refused to believe her.

“It is not possible,” he would say. “For a child your age. For a girl, at that.”

“It is true, Sensei. I read it all.”

At this, he would scrunch up his face so that his wrinkles would meld into one another.

“You did not read it properly.”

Nori said nothing to this, only cast her eyes downwards into her lap.

Do not fight.

The topic was dropped and her sensei continued to drone on in a monotone. But Nori was no longer listening. “Song of Two Poor Men” came to mind as her thoughts wandered to a distant place.


Yononaka wo

Ushi to yasashi to omoe domo

Tobitachi kanetsu

Tori ni shi arane ba


I feel this life is

Sorrowful and unbearable

Though I cannot flee away

Since I am not a bird





CHAPTER TWO


    THE BOY WITH THE VIOLIN




Kyoto, Japan

Winter 1951

One downcast morning at the end of January, her grandmother arrived out of the blue and announced that Nori had a brother, and that he was coming to live with them.

She had a brother.

Nori blinked uncomprehendingly, her sewing needle still poised in the air. The cloth doll whose button eyes she was trying to fix lay forgotten in her lap.

“Nandesutte?” she queried dumbly, unable to devise anything cleverer. “What?”

Yuko scowled, clearly irate at having to repeat herself.

“I had not told you this before, but it is time you know. Your mother was married before her disgrace . . . before you were born. She had a son from that marriage. His father has just died, and so he is coming to stay with us. In fact, he should be arriving presently.”

Nori nodded, hoping that if she did so, her brain would somehow absorb the information being presented to her. Somehow the information about her mother and about the past, which she had so longed for, now seemed laughably irrelevant.

“He is coming today,” she parroted. “To live here.”

Her grandmother gave a stiff nod and continued, clearly displeased at being interrupted to begin with. “He is fifteen. I have had reports from his teachers and other family. They say the boy is exceptionally gifted. He will bring great honor to this family.” She paused, waiting for Nori to react. When she got no such reaction, she let out a sigh of frustration. “Noriko, this is good news. We are all to be happy.”

“Yes, Obaasama. I am very happy.”

It was something she had never said before.

Her grandmother pinned her with a cold stare. For a happy woman, she appeared as mirthless as always. “He has been told of your . . . presence.” The old woman made a sour face.

While her grandmother normally appeared quite indifferent to Nori’s existence, though sometimes, paradoxically, perversely interested in it as well, she now seemed to have lost what little patience she’d once had. Nori could only assume that the impending arrival of this boy made the once tolerable shame of a bastard seem all the more heinous.