Orchards (8 page)

I think she’s talking farming

me becoming a farmer

and I’m about to say

I just might

then I realize what she means

by “it”

iyada!
I say—

no way!

but for the rest of our conversation

worry seeps into her voice

and missing into mine

as we ask about

what we’ve each

been doing

this summer

apart

when my father takes the phone

he bellows

like I’m deaf

get good and strong!

JV soccer tryouts

day after you return!

I hold the phone far from my ear

and roll my eyes

Yurie smiles

and we laugh

like sisters

sort of

but later

in my head

I hear Emi’s worry

far into the night

when I lie

alone

next to Yurie, sleeping

and lying there alone

thinking of you

I remember

it wasn’t until a group session

with counselors

the week after

that Jake

spoke up and explained

that his sister was bipolar

that you’d told him

you thought you

were bipolar

that you were new

to the darkness

of depression

the lows after the highs

the highs after the lows

that you hadn’t told anyone

and that he told you there were meds

that could help

and that the note

that you crumpled into your pocket

after Lisa’s four words

had the name of his

sister’s doctor

and I remember how

the counselor

said something about

not commenting

on cause or diagnosis

but that ninety percent

of people who do

what you did

suffer from an illness like depression

it wasn’t until then

right then

that everyone began seeing

your side of the story—

you

B
aachan makes me cook now

makes me take

Yurie’s place

preparing breakfast

in the mornings

I learn to prepare miso soup

Baachan-style with wakame

and horse mackerel

Uncle-style with ginger

how to peel, slice, chop and grate

cucumbers, carrots, daikon

and burdock

just so

her shadow looming as

she hovers

to correct my grip on the knife

or adjust the thickness of a slice

or fix the angle of a cut

or arrangement

on a plate

she teaches me

pickling

drying

preserving

of vegetables and fruits

even fish

split, gutted and salt dried in

mesh nets that we hang from

laundry poles

not that I will use

this knowledge in New York where

our garden has so much more than

standard Japanese varieties and

my mother insists on fresh, not pickled—

too much salt for your father
, she says

Baachan also corrects my mannerisms

assesses my gestures

notes my posture

and ways of sitting

or standing

and likes to tweak

my never

polite enough

Japanese

and every day

she reminds me

of the eighty-percent rule

of eating

determined

to send me home

thin

she seems to think I need to eat

less American and

more Japanese

that I eat too much meat

fries, pancakes and

bad American food

I tell her we never eat fries

I tell her we often eat vegetarian

I tell her we eat

Russian

Jewish

Italian

Mexican

Japanese

Chinese

Korean

Middle Eastern

Greek

even Ethiopian …

I tell her I don’t know what she means

by bad American food

but she says

look

and points to

my butt

as evidence

U
ncle sends me to help Koichi

spread fertilizer in the steepest grove

one where there’s a monorail track to carry

equipment up

and
mikan
off

the mountain

Koichi and I load bags of fertilizer

onto the flatbed cart

he fiddles with the motor

pull starts till it throbs to life

and shouts at me to climb on

he’ll walk

the cart labors slowly up the incline

of track and I’m leaning far back

my face pointed up to the sky

loving it

passing Koichi

walking up the grove path

I wave, holler

eat my dust!

a phrase I taught him

in the truck

and he laughs

I watch terraces of trees go by

then off to the side

a metal pole

and from the pole a string

and hanging from the string

a black thing

fabric, I think

scarecrow, I think

crow

I see

when it blinks

then I’m off the cart and Koichi’s running

to cut the motor

and catch up to where I’m yelling

beneath the pole

while above me

hanging

tied by one leg

the blinking crow

sways

in the breeze

Koichi tries to explain

it’s to scare the other crows away

the fish smell of the fertilizer

they’re attracted to it!

but I scream

ikiteiru—

it’s alive!

and I climb the pole

hand over hand

like I learned climbing ropes

in gym

with you

hand over hand

till I reach the top

and with pruning shears from

my tool belt

cut

through the string

the crow falls

thuds

on the ground

I slide down the pole

and the half-dead crow

turns its head

blinks

as I approach

but Koichi from behind me

brings a shovel down

on that head

so it rings

I’m on Koichi then, belting him

trying to grab the shovel

to kill
him

till we’re on the ground, rolling

away from the now-dead crow

I claw at Koichi’s face but he pins me

in the dirt

holds me down hard

till the fight leaves me

and I curl up

trembling

and sounds come

sirenlike

from my mouth

finally

I stand

I walk down the slope

stalk back to the village

into the house

I won’t speak to him

won’t speak to any of them

just lie on my futon

facing the wall

iPod on

later

I rise to the

five o’clock chimes

and go against the tide of

farmers coming down the hills

and climb up past the temple and the

cemetery where Jiichan’s ashes are

to the slope of bamboo that used to be

harvested for laundry poles, scaffolding and tools

but now is almost never cut and grows thick

invading forests

on either side

I climb up

beneath knocking trunks

slipping on dry bamboo leaves

scrambling up to the top of the grove

where it turns suddenly to cedar again

dark and quiet and soft underfoot

until that ends and I hit the mixed forest

of the ridge and a path that Jiichan

once showed me

and Koichi said is still there

and leads to a rock in a clearing

with a view

of the bay

I follow the ridge

which is the edge of the village

just like I remember doing with Jiichan

that time we visited when he’d just turned ill

but still had strength

and sure enough I find the rock

and climb up onto its back

needing that view

that bay

that mountain

but Koichi must not have been there in a while

or at least not in summer

’cause all I see

are trees

so I slip and slide back down

through cedar and bamboo

landing hard on my oversized butt

that Baachan doesn’t understand

won’t shrink even if she starves me

and I find the family grave

and sit down on a low wall

and face the bay

the far shore, the blue

peak of Mount Fuji

with its upper

west slopes

still lit by sun

and I just

breathe

I don’t talk to Jiichan

don’t believe in that stuff

but I wish he were here

to sit with me

silent

as the night shadow

climbs Mount Fuji

after dark I go back

walk right past them in the kitchen

return to my futon