Fifty Words for Rain(72)

Nori settled onto her new favorite tree branch. It was much higher than her old perch. Nobody could come up here after her.

The house had gone to sleep and now she was free. She opened the diary. It was the last one in the box, and as much as she loved Alice, she needed to read this one alone.

She had followed her mother through four years in Paris, caught up in a torrid love affair with a man who was never named. She had witnessed Seiko’s defiance, her refusal to return to Japan even after she was cut off. She had felt a jolt of pain when Seiko’s lover had turned out to be false, having been secretly engaged to another woman all along.

And now, as her mother ran out of money, ran out of friends, and ran out of hope, Nori could finally see the start of the transformation into the woman who’d birthed two children and abandoned them both.

It was time to finish the story.


December 15th, 1934

He won’t see me. He won’t even answer my letters, and anyway, I have no more money for postage. I have no more money for food. Mama will send me nothing else. Someone has told her what I have done—I don’t know who, she has her spies everywhere—and now she is insisting that I come home. She says that I am an old maid at twenty-two and that if I tarry much longer no one will want me. She says I am used goods and I must come home.

I will not.

They tell me he is married now. I refuse to believe it. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. His wicked mother may be able to keep him from me, but he would never marry another woman. He was engaged to her, I know this now, but he never loved her. How can he have loved her if he never mentioned her to me? In four years?

He promised me he’d love me forever.

It cannot be. Life is different here. Love is different here. For the first time, I can see how marriage can be a marvel, a safe haven in a dangerous world. It is not a meat market, or a sentence to a slow death.

A marriage of true souls is just below the angels. And he taught me this, he believes this too. I know he does.

So I know that he will not marry her just to please his mother. The landlords say they will have me thrown out onto the street if I do not pay soon.

They will not.

The world will be as I say it is. I am Seiko Kamiza, the only heir to my house and ancient name. I am blessed. I am favored by God.

He would never forsake me this way. He would not.



* * *





January 1st, 1935

He has married her. They tell me she is already pregnant.

My letters were all sent back unopened. His mother has left a message with my landlords. She says that if I try to see him, she will have the police throw me in jail before sending me back to my filthy heathen island.

Mama has sent me a one-way boat ticket back to Kyoto. It leaves next week.

I can’t go. I can’t be caged again. I swear I will die.

I will throw myself into the pond and drown. Then they will all be very sorry they treated me so horribly.

My love, my false, lying love, will find my body and think, “See. Look what I have done.”

Papa will be sorry that he never loved me for being a girl.

And Mama will be sorry for nothing because she thinks her will is God’s will and so she can never be wrong.

And I will not be sorry either for I will be dead and past my pain. Good riddance.



* * *





January 10th, 1935

I can see the ocean from my cabin. I can think of nothing but drowning. I imagine it would hurt for a while. But then the pain would stop forever.

I heard of a girl who hung herself but I would not like the marks on my neck, so I cannot do this.

I have lost. Mama has won, as she always does.

I have buried my girlhood in Paris. I return to Japan as a woman, with all the bitterness that comes with it.

I have no place outside of my name. I thought I could carve one, I truly did, and for a moment I thought . . . but . . . that woman laughed at my hopes and called me a savage. I loved her son, I would have died for him, but all she saw was a foreign whore.

That’s what I am to Europe. A curiosity at best, something to be fawned over like a newborn. But beneath that, they deem me inferior. I could never have married one of their men. I could never have had his children.

I am a fool.

Mama warned me. I wouldn’t hear it. But I hear it now.

The worst part is that it wasn’t she who broke me. I broke myself.

I don’t think I will ever be happy again.



* * *





February 1st, 1935

I am to be married. His name is Yasuei Todou. He is thirty-three and apparently still unmarried because he has no money to speak of, so none of the other noble girls will have him, and he is too proud to settle for someone newly made.

This is good for me, as he is in no position to turn down a cousin to royalty. Mama will give him a fortune to marry me. Enough to overlook any whispers that he is getting a secondhand bride.

Still, he has an old name and a manor house in Tokyo. The rumor is that his father was a drunk and a gambler and they have nothing left but the house and the name.

Mama says he has good prospects and will be sure to rise. Whatever that means. She will pull her strings, same as always.

She has given me a miniature photograph of him. He is certainly serious-looking. He is not handsome but he is not ugly, so I suppose it could be worse.