I Hear Them Cry (19 page)

“At that moment I swore in my heart that I was going to get rich no matter what, but at the same time I also swore, more importantly, that by god, by hook or crook, I was going to restore dignity to my mother. I was going to see to it that one day
I would stand tall and brag to the whole world, ‘This here is my mother, and I’m mighty proud of her.’ That was my dream and a way for me to make amends to her, to really say that I was sorry.”

The refreshing sea breeze had died down, and the atmosphere had changed into a damp and heavy one. I was hooked now, waiting to hear more from Taichi.

“Father died shortly after this incident, having shortened his life with more booze. I went on to finish junior high, which was when I left the sticks behind and headed for the city. I learned about Tachibana Brewery through the grapevine, joined the company, and began to work my butt off, squeezing out every yen I could make and then sending that money home. My older sisters died off, one by one, suffering from dysentery and malnutrition. I never hated poverty in my life as much as I hated it then.”

Taichi lowered his head and covered his face with both hands for a while. Was he crying? It seemed so, but when he faced the screen the next moment there were no tears in his eyes.

“Aren’t the poor allowed to live?”

His low voice, loaded with anger, was verging on a howl, but then he calmed down.

“One day I caught wind of my prospects of becoming adopted into the family as a son-in-law. I soared toward heaven then, happy that God had finally shined a light on the Sakashita family. The first thing that occurred to me then was to give my mother a call. Finally I was going to do what I had set out to do, introduce my mother with pride, with dignity. That had been my goal all along, the reason why I had been slaving away all those years. Do you understand? But Kanako’s father imposed a condition. He said, ‘Your family background can never come to light.’ Can you imagine? The disrespect of saying such a thing? Such audacity.”

I had been imagining Taichi to be the devil incarnate. But by all appearances, the man before me was a guileless and conscientious man. Anyone listening to the way he was talking about his feelings for his mother would have sympathy for him.

As I went on listening to Taichi, I began to feel suffocated. A raging pain in my chest suddenly overcame me. But I just turned myself to stone and stared at the TV and remained transfixed by the on-screen presence of my father-in-law.

“The Tachibana family wanted to hide my breeding. The reason why I was chosen as the bridegroom was because I no longer had any family ties except to my elderly mother. To them I was just a hassle-free choice, someone handy for keeping up appearances, someone who the family could pass off as the father of Kanako’s child. So I apologized to my mother again. You know what she said then? She said there was no greater happiness than seeing me do well and become an upstanding, honorable member of the Tachibana family. She said she was just glad to be alive to see this day. She said all these things with so much heart.

“The next thing I thought about doing was to show my mother her grandchild. I was the only surviving offspring of the Sakashita family after all. I wanted to have a child of my own.”

Taichi was staring into the distance now, as if to rummage through the memories of his distant past. “I thought perhaps I could finally help a small bit in setting at ease the spirits of my dead family members—to allow my father, brothers, and sisters to rest in peace. But Kanako rejected me. Don’t get me wrong, I was under no illusion that she loved me. But I couldn’t forgive her for ignoring me all the same, ignoring my manhood for all those years. When the old Tachibana died, I was sure my time had come at last. It was a long wait. Twenty years had to pass before I could make my mark in this world. Twenty years of silently enduring one humiliation after another.”

Taichi took a break, slowly exhaling a puff from his cigar and washing it down with a sip of wine.

“We had a hard time trying to get her pregnant,” he resumed. “I even went in for an examination to see whether anything was wrong with me. But it turned out to be Kanako’s fault. She’d had a hysterectomy—soon after she’d gotten married. Imagine how pissed off that made me. Can you?”

The hatred that had grown inside Taichi was like a thick accumulation of snow that had been falling lightly and silently for twenty odd years without a sound, without any scent, until one day he realized something very heavy and cold was piled deep within him. He may have tried to melt away the massive buildup of all that lingering snow, but there probably wasn’t anything warm enough inside him to thaw the icy bitterness of Kanako’s apathy. Was there ever such a person whose existence had been so utterly rejected?

For a while he looked up at the ceiling before continuing. “I tried to have a child elsewhere. But that dream didn’t come true. In the end it all seemed so useless, so futile. I kept asking myself what all the blood, sweat, and tears were for. Why did I build Tachibana’s company to the giant corporation it has become? Even more, talk about adding insult to injury, I lately came to know that Kanako’s been seeing Kei Nakahara, Shigeki’s real dad. How about that? The Tachibana family may finally turn out to be made up of genuine kinfolk after all, a true father and son team, biologically speaking. In that event, all my photographs, just like Sophie’s, will be cleared away and disposed of. If I know Kanako, that’s exactly what she’ll do. To that woman I’m just like Sophie, a nonperson, or persona non grata, as college-educated yahoos like you would say.

“I can deeply relate to Sophie’s desire to escape poverty. When you told Sophie to haul her ass back where she came from, she came to me to cry on my shoulder. She said she wanted me to
find her a patron. She was desperate, I guess, delirious even, and quite frankly I don’t think she really even knew what she was saying and to whom she was talking. I refused her request and told her to go and have a nice long chat with you, Shigeki. For the record, there was nothing between Sophie and me. Sure, I’m not a fan of a brat like you, but I’m not a degenerate. I have my principles, and I don’t stoop so low just to hurt someone.

“Still, what a tragedy, eh? I never thought Sophie would end up like that. Poor girl played into Kanako’s hands. But Raiki—he’s one little guy she won’t be able to mess up the way she did Sophie. Don’t you agree?”

He stymied a laugh with another long drag off his cigar.

“Shigeki, you’re past your mid-thirties by now. I want you to take over. You’ll find everything you need in a Joto Bank safe-deposit box. It’s all there—the important documents, stock certificates, all those things. Here’s the PIN number: 8-8-2-3-3-9.

“My mother passed away peacefully last year at an old-age home. I’m told she was holding a photograph taken on board this boat. She’d been bragging, saying how I was the president of a company, and that I owned the boat in the picture. My dad had a boat, but it was nothing like this one. I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve managed to repay my parents a little.”

Did Shigeki keep returning to the boat to search for this information, the location of the safe-deposit box, the PIN number? That question took a backseat to what I realized Taichi had done in his last moments. He wanted the world to understand that his actions had been done in the name of being a dutiful son. He was sacrificing himself for his mother’s memory.

“I can’t spend the next half year waiting to die. I just can’t, you understand? That’s why I’ve decided to disappear. As long as my remains aren’t found, I’ll be designated missing. Legally, I won’t be dead for seven more years.”

He turned away from the camera and stared out the window, even as he began to speak again.

“You wouldn’t mind if I continue to exist in the Tachibana family for at least seven more years, would you?”

I was witnessing the sadness of a perpetually neglected man. His exit would not be easy for the people who’d wronged him.

“Well, time to die. Got to make it happen.… Must be time for bed for you too by now, my son.”

I heard that echo:

Help. Help. Somebody help.

Taichi stubbed out his now short cigar before slowly standing up and moving toward the deck. He moved offscreen, and I turned my head in the direction he had disappeared—toward the deck—and I saw Raiki hunkered down there, pouring his soda into the sea.

I imagined he was making an offering to Sophie, or maybe another one for his grandfather. Out of nowhere then, a wave crashed across the
Kana
from bow to stern, violently jostling her and washing Raiki off the deck.

SATO: ONE

“Raiki!” I dashed outside, screaming his name so loudly I thought my vocal cords might explode.

“
Calm down, Mayu, calm down. You need to calm down
,” I chanted to myself as I caught a glimpse of him adrift in the choppy sea. He was about fifteen feet away from the boat; both his hands were raised above his head. I grabbed a life ring that was hanging on the deck and hurled it toward Raiki. But the tide continued to pull him out toward the open sea.

I yanked off my jeans, not wanting them to weigh me down. I stopped thinking and just acted, stumbling over the railing, belly flopping into the water, feeling nothing. Raiki’s raised hands buoyed in and out of sight as the waves weltered.

As I swam toward him, it looked to me like he was washing his face, the way he did every morning. I understood then that he wasn’t afraid. I swam like mad, trying to narrow the yawning gap between the two of us, but then like in a nightmare, a wave swallowed him whole.

“Why are you taking him?” I shouted at Taichi. “Sophie, help him. Wake up! He’s your son!”

I’d lost sight of Raiki. I was panicking. I needed to find faith to carry on.

“What are you punishing me for, God?” I cursed. “What have I done? What has he done?”

The anger was making me brave, but my courage could not overcome my weakness and I could feel my body needing to shut down.

“Why must he suffer such a fate? Simone! You bitch! I know you hate me! Yeah, that’s right, I wanted you dead. That’s no reason to take away Raiki. You can’t do that, you just can’t. Don’t take him away, Simone, please don’t take him away. Take me instead. I don’t mind dying. Bring back Raiki.”

I was praying to Simone. It all seemed so hopeless now. For Raiki and me, the end seemed near.

(Help. Help, Jean. Help.)

Just as the echo seemed like it was filling me up like a weight destined to sink to the bottom of the sea, a light began to pull me up. It was the same light I used to see streaming through the stained glass in Jean’s church. A woman appeared, slender in frame with large black eyes, her raven-black hair unfurling in the blue emptiness of the undersea world. She carried Raiki and held him out to me.

I summoned all my strength and seized him. He was heavy, and I worried that I would lose him.

(Keep Shigeki safe.)

The last thing I remember was a life ring splashing near us.

SATO: TWO

I awoke in a hospital bed, and the first things my eyes made out were the faces of Raiki and Ms. Sato, and then the paper cranes all around me.

Raiki shouted with joy, and his voice was like a warm blanket that melted away any doubt I might have had about where I was and what had happened to us.

“I thought we were doomed,” Ms. Sato said, her voice quivering.

I turned to Raiki and said, “Thank god you’re safe. Were you afraid?”

“I wasn’t afraid at all,” Raiki declared with gusto. “I’d been dreaming of being lifted into the air on the back of a crane. She was all fluffy and comfy. Then you yanked my hand so hard that I woke up.”

It turns out that Ms. Sato had tried to reach me on my cell phone, worried about the sudden change in the weather. The phone just kept ringing and that’s when she contacted Shigeki. He took swift action, calling the harbor office and demanding that someone check the boat. The harbormaster reported back, having found my jeans and the deployed life ring. Shigeki called the local authorities to alert them to this emergency. Soon after
that, I’m told, I rose out of the sea, holding a limp Raiki. My mind’s a blank about what happened after that. All I know is that the harbormaster saved our lives.