I Hear Them Cry (18 page)

I already knew where the boat was docked, having found the harbor’s address at the Kamakura house. I couldn’t tell Kanako about my plan, but I did tell Ms. Sato, making her promise to keep quiet about it. But she wanted to know why I was going there, so I told her it was just for fun.

“I just have this incredible urge to see it.”

“But why are you taking Raiki?”

I wasn’t about to admit that I was going there to explain to Raiki how sad and tormented his mother had been before she left this world. So I said, “I think it’ll be a good experience for Raiki. I want him to learn more about his grandfather.”

The following Saturday, I picked up Raiki and we took a cab to a waterfront just beyond Shonan, where the boat was moored. When we arrived, the taxi driver said that he’d heard about an approaching typhoon and asked if we planned on going out on the water.

“No, we’ve come to look at a boat, right Raiki?” I said cheerfully.

“I see,” the cabbie said, handing me his card. “How nice. Call me for a ride back if you like.”

During the ride the weather had been fine, but the moment we stepped out of the cab, it turned dark and windy. I put the card in my wallet, and we headed to the harbormaster’s office.

The man in charge seemed to be in his thirties. He was tan and confident, with a fearless-man-of-the-sea attitude. When I introduced myself, he stood up and bowed deeply. He entered my name into the register of authorized parties but then took a look at me and went, “Um?” This was his way of asking me to explain my relationship to the family.

“I’m Shigeki Tachibana’s wife.”

“Oh yes, I see. Mr. Tachibana comes by sometimes to inspect the boat, but he never takes it out.”

Hearing this, I felt relieved. Shigeki had been coming here alone. The harbormaster led us to the boat. Having seen a photograph of it, I recognized the large brown-and-white vessel from a distance. But up close it was easy to see that paint had peeled off here and there, giving the sad impression that the owner had been neglecting it. In Roman letters, “Kana” was inscribed on the hull.

It was obviously short for Kanako, and it made me see Taichi in a new light. Instead of seeing him as arrogant, domineering, and heartless, I saw him as Kanako’s sweetheart, as someone who had been near and dear to her. Taichi had also loved Kanako, at least in the early years when he had just acquired the boat and was using it for fishing trips. But when I thought about what had transpired on board since then, I couldn’t forget the depravity of Taichi’s soul. A lukewarm wind gusted down from the heavy sky and swirled around Raiki and me before blowing past us.

“Is this grandfather’s ship?” Raiki asked. “So cool!”

“Please drop by the office again before you leave,” the harbormaster said. “I’ll be getting back now.”

Raiki and I boarded the
Kana
. The cabin was impressively large, with a splendid brown leather settee wrapped around a table, a television set, and a full wet bar. There was also a beautiful oil painting of the
Kana
hanging on the wall.

Raiki ran off through a door and shouted, “There’s an amazing bed, and a refrigerator, too!”

Raiki explored the ship as I rummaged through shelves that were messily stacked with books and magazines, hoping to find a picture of Sophie. But it was no use.

I went downstairs and entered a small stateroom in which there were bunk beds to accommodate six people. Raiki was all hyper and romping around the place, leaping from bed to bed and jumping off the ladders. I found a cup in the kitchen, poured
some water, and placed the bouquet of flowers I had brought into the cup.

It was a bit bold for the occasion, but instead of chrysanthemums, I had the florist prepare an arrangement of lovely pink miniature roses. It was a bridal bouquet for Sophie, something she never had a chance to hold in her hands.

I momentarily returned to the living room upstairs with the cup of flowers, a few bottles of beer, and a can of soda I found in the refrigerator.

“Come on over, Raiki! I’ve got some sandwiches and rice balls. Let’s eat.”

“Let’s!”

“First, let’s give this beer to your grandfather, okay?”

I led Raiki by the hand, and we went out on the deck. The wind had picked up, and the waves were lapping against
Kana
’s hull. I faced the ocean and poured the beer as we watched the golden liquid disappear, fusing into the crest of a swaying whitecap. Raiki was captivated by the water’s frothy wanderings.

“Where will Grandfather’s beer go?”

“The waves are going to take the beer to wherever your grandfather is right now.”

When I folded my hands in prayer, Raiki also put his small hands together, imitating me.

“Did Grandfather die?”

“He fell into the ocean, so he won’t be coming back.”

We returned to the living room, opened our
bento
boxes, and toasted with soda and beer.

“Did you bring these flowers?”

“Yes, they’re for your real mommy, the one who gave birth to you.”

“My real mommy died soon after she gave birth to me, right?”

Raiki was being so open, so frank—as if he was talking about someone else’s life. I began to feel a bit more at ease, hopeful that
I could pull off my mission of telling him the truth. So I began to speak to him about Sophie, where she came from and how she met Shigeki. I remained as positive as possible, omitting everything about Taichi and Kanako opposing their union.

“Why did she die?” Raiki’s straightforward question brought to mind my memories of Jean. Perhaps I was reminded of the fact that Jean was someone who had never lost his childlike candidness—and at that moment, I missed him so very much.

“If your mother hadn’t married, she would have been forced to return to her country. But she thought you’d be much happier if you were brought up under the loving care of your father here in Japan. She came here one day feeling very lonely. Without anyone else knowing, she just went to sleep—and when morning came, she was no more.”

My mind wandered and I became lost in thought, finding myself in Sophie’s shoes. Simone’s loneliness came to mind. It was Sophie’s loneliness too. A loneliness I had also felt when Shigeki slapped me. Crazed tears began to blur my vision. I blew my nose with a tissue and wiped away the tears so that Raiki wouldn’t notice.

He was worlds away, though, enjoying his lunch, rice grains stuck all around his mouth. I wondered if for Raiki talk of Sophie was irrelevant because he had no memory of her and up until now no one had talked much about her.

He was eating ravenously. It was quite heartwarming to watch, and it made his next comment all the more stunning.

“I guess my real mother was lonely. Didn’t she have anyone to make paper cranes for her?”

The child already knew the dark feeling of loneliness, the state of alienation that could drive a person insane enough to commit suicide. He was only five years old. My tears flowed again, but this time quite helplessly. I didn’t want Raiki to see
me cry, so I had no choice but to pull him into my chest, tight enough so that he could hear my heartbeat.

(Sophie, you didn’t really want to die, did you? Cornered into making a choice between love and money, did you choose money over fair-weather romance with a man, as Reika had put it? If poverty drove you to make your choice, I can’t blame you.)

I had no choice
, Simone’s voice rang in the basement of my memory.
A bitch like you would never understand!

Jean always said, “God forgives all sins,” but I could never forgive Simone. Her pain paled in comparison to Sophie’s. In contrast to Simone’s travesty of an existence, Sophie’s death was all the more tragic.

Several videotapes were stacked next to the entertainment system in the main room. They were all fishing-related except for one, which was a Tom and Jerry tape. Without thinking too deeply about why the video was there, I set it up for Raiki to watch.

While Raiki was absorbed in the cartoon, I continued my search for any item related to Sophie—for Raiki’s sake.

On the bookshelves, all I found were books about history and wine, and fashion magazines. There were no photo albums, so I went to the wheelhouse. A nautical chart inscribed with symbols I didn’t understand covered an entire wall, and a cabinet held neatly arranged fishing tackle. Nothing really caught my eye.

I went downstairs to the main bedroom where I found clean linens and towels. Someone had been keeping things tidy around here. Kanako had mentioned that Shigeki sometimes visited the boat, but not to keep up with the housekeeping. What did he come here for?

Just then I heard a man’s voice coming from the living room.

Raiki excitedly called for me. I sprinted upstairs, frantic.

TAICHI: ONE

There on the TV screen was Taichi, wearing a dark blue polo shirt, sitting in a chair as if he were in the room.

“Hello there, Raiki, my grandson. Hope you enjoyed the cartoon. You must be what, four or five years old by now? At any rate, it’s time for bed now, young man. Go ahead, have a good rest, but before you do, think you can check if your father is around? If he’s there, please tell him to come over here, okay?”

Raiki was watching his grandfather with great interest. It was his first encounter with the man, after all.

“Raiki,” I said, “it’s nap time. I’ll be right over after Grandpa’s story, all right?”

“Okay, all right. But I want to see the captain’s cabin first. I’ll have my nap after that, I promise.”

“You’re absolutely forbidden to walk out on the deck by yourself. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes!”

After Raiki left, I pressed play and Taichi began speaking again. “When you watch this video, Raiki will probably be around four or five years old. In other words, that much time would have passed since I would be declared officially missing. After two or three years more, it would become seven years since
then, and happily, my status would go from legally missing to legally dead.”

He was wearing a fearless smile.

“Shigeki, I’m sure you’re the president of Tachibana Shoji by now, and Kanako—you must be having the time of your life, free to marry anyone you like. You’re over sixty now, so I really wonder if there’s any schmuck—excuse me, I mean commendable fellow—who’d have the nerve to propose to you.

“You people never took my feelings into consideration. Not once. That’s why I’ve made this videotape, as a record of my feelings. Can you understand that?

“The other day my stiff shoulders became abnormally painful, and on top of that I got a splitting headache. As you know, I’m no fan of doctors, but I got spooked enough to schedule a checkup.”

Taichi leaned in toward the lens, pulled the collar of his polo shirt with his right hand, and exposed a mole.

“Can you see that? They call it melanoma, or skin cancer. Apparently I had too much sunshine at sea. Doc told me I’ve got three months left, or half a year at most, I’m afraid.”

Taichi put a cigar in his mouth, inhaled deeply, and veiled the dread on his face with the smoke he exhaled.

“When death approaches, you get perspective and start to wonder about life. I was born into the Sakashita household, a poor fisherman’s family, and was the youngest of seven siblings. The eldest was a brother, but he was killed in battle when I was seven. He had just turned twenty, and I remember to this day how sad my mother was after his death. I didn’t know that a person was capable of crying so much. It seemed like all the water in her was going to be squeezed out through her eyes and that she was going to dry up in the end.

“Father began to drown himself in booze even though we were penniless, and he was no longer able to make ends meet
from just fishing alone. So Mother began to work from morning to night, helping take care of the cows at a farmhouse. I always knew when she returned home because she stunk of cow dung. I didn’t want my friends to know about her shameful job, so I pretended that my eldest sister was my mother. But one day while I was playing with my friends, they encountered my real mother on her way home. I panicked and tried to flee the scene—but I couldn’t because that would have been all the more awkward. Then one of my friends picked up a stone and threw it at her, shouting, ‘You stink, you shit-soaked bitch.’ The others followed suit, one after another. And you know what? So did I. I picked up a rock and threw it at my mother.”

Taichi was speaking plainly as I struggled to understand what had gone through his mind during the stoning. But I couldn’t, I simply couldn’t. It was beyond me.

“My mother’s eyes looked so blank they didn’t seem to be seeing anything. I couldn’t believe they were the same eyes that had once shed so many tears, that had been so drenching wet with sorrow when my brother died—I still remember it well to this day.

“I thought she was going to get angry with me when we returned home, but she didn’t say a word. When I apologized, though, simply saying, ‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ my mother, who had been averting my eyes all the while, looked back, stared fixedly at me and said, ‘Taichi, if you hate being poor, if it makes you feel sorry for yourself, if it makes you want to go off the deep end and die, work and keep working more than anyone else. Become a rich man, you hear me? Go make it happen, son—go make your fortune.’