Radiance (18 page)

Her mother moves in the next room; she is folding up Grandfather’s mattress and opening the screens to air the room. She comes into the front hallway, dressed in her government-issued khaki blouse and trousers. This is not what her mother likes to wear. She has always been a fashionable woman. When they lived in Tokyo, when Father was alive, she wore western hats and pretty gloves. In Ojii-chan’s house, her summer
yukata
is always ironed and she bathes every day at the bathhouse, taking Keiko with her. A pleasant outing, over the bridge, down several close streets to a door hung over with noren, the indigo curtains with white characters for “bathing house.” They come home in the dark, over the bridge, seeing lights on the water, stars above, papery whispers from the shrine.

Her mother opens the front doors to create a cross breeze, then sits down on the foyer step beside her daughter. She takes her government-issued canvas shoes from the low cupboard and pulls them on.

“I hope you will feel better by the afternoon.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

“Please give me Grandfather’s lunch box now.”

Keiko does.

Her mother goes quickly out the front doors, leaving them open, not looking back. Keiko feels it in her heart: that sticky-sweet badness that will be her undoing. To take her mind off what she has done, she looks at the view of the hills, which she can see above the wall from this side of the house. The sun has risen a notch farther into the sky. It picks out the needles of the pines on the hillside, then slides into the cleavage between the hills. How long does she sit there? Ten minutes at most. The rash behind her knees has started to feel better. Then she unfolds her hand and looks down at the rice ball she has stolen from her grandfather’s box. She pops it in her mouth. It is sticky and warm.

    GHOST

D
AISY AND
W
ALTER WAITED
for the news of Keiko’s operation, and as they waited spring shook itself all over and became summer. The corn near Strickland’s Grocery had grown to ankle height, and then all at once it was as tall as Daisy’s waist. It became too warm for jackets or even sweaters. A breeze blew along Linden Street and Daisy opened the front and back doors to let it circulate through the house. She could hear children playing in the evenings: Kick the Can, Blind Man’s Buff, Red Rover. Sitting on the front steps smoking, she heard their voices calling from the fields.

Red Rover, Red Rover, we call Joey over.

As though to herald the arrival of summer, the government detonated three new atomic weapons. They had the explosive power of seventeen, twenty-three and twenty-five Hiroshima bombs. Walking down Linden Street one evening, Daisy saw, through the Palmers’ front window, the bomb exploding on television. She caught a glimpse of the black weight falling through the air, followed by the heated flash, then the mushroom cloud billowing upwards, sucking at the wind. She stood transfixed,
thinking of the girl in the hospital, remembering her stiff body leaning towards Daisy, not quite submitting to an embrace; the small hand in Daisy’s pocket, grazing last year’s chestnut.

I don’t remember what happened, Mrs. Lawrence.

Already Daisy had replayed the scene a dozen times, recalling how they had leaned over the bridge, looking down at the muddy stalks of grass, the girl’s head strangely illuminated by the plastic rain cap.

There was a bright light, and then I don’t remember.

But you must.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Lawrence. I am ashamed. I didn’t tell the truth.

They waited for Irene to call, as she had promised she would the minute she knew how the operation had gone. There was no point going to the hospital: the nurses had strict orders that nobody was allowed to see Keiko. After all of Irene’s wooing of the press, there was a surprising amount of secrecy about the operation. It was as though Dr. Carney, in the final moment, didn’t quite trust himself to do the job perfectly and didn’t want the glare of publicity.

Daisy heard nothing for twenty-four hours, then thirty-six, then forty-eight. It wasn’t hard to picture the operation; this was what she discovered. It came to her at odd moments, as she crossed the field to Strickland’s, or polished Walter’s oxblood shoes, or washed the rim of the toilet—there it was again, the gas mask slipped onto the girl’s face, then the counting backwards into darkness. Then they would go at her. Against her will Daisy saw this part—how they cut into the tender skin around the tough edge of the scar, severing the bubbled tissue from the underlying fat and muscle, clipping the delicate web of capillaries. She saw a flash of instruments, and Keiko prone, unconscious. It was a blessing she was out cold, because it was clear to
Daisy that having the effects of the bomb shaved from one’s skin required bravery. She was glad there would be American painkillers. She tried not to picture every detail, but once her brain got going, it couldn’t stop: she saw the scalpel, felt the massy weight of the scar on her own cheek. She saw it as a shadow image as she washed the dishes or made the bed. Again and again it peeled away, like a pancake from a hot griddle, as Dr. Carney slid a spatula beneath it, though sometimes it wouldn’t come loose—it stuck to Keiko’s tissues and muscle with a thousand connecting filaments, burrowing into her jawbone, sinus cavities, the gristle of her nose.

And what would they do with the scar tissue once they’d excised it? Would they scurry away with it, so that they could cut it open, study it—only to throw it in a pail when they were done and incinerate it? That was what they must have done the first time Daisy miscarried. As soon as it came from her body, the doctor had signalled for the nurse to take it away, and Daisy had sat up in the hospital bed saying,
Please don’t. Please.
But the nurse had moved so swiftly, almost at a run, out the door, down the hall. It must have been part of her training—this prompt removal of the thing, against the protests of a mother. They did this because it was for the best, the doctor told her later, nothing cruel about it, indeed it was a kindness—and afterwards she told herself that this must be true, because who could bear to see the deformed thing the size of a grapefruit, translucent lids over bulging, milky eyes?

But she would have liked to have seen it.

Even the malformed spine, the soft, dwarfed head—everything wrong with it—she could have borne it. The nurses had been wrong. They had been wrong, and her doctor too, he had been wrong, telling her that it had been done for the best. If they had just let her hold her baby for five minutes, or one minute
even, she would have known what to do. She would have picked her up so gingerly, taking care with the broken delicate body, and she would have cradled the baby against her chest. Daisy would have rocked her, spoken to her with silent thoughts, and when it was really time, she would have covered her baby’s mottled face with a handkerchief and held her out for the waiting nurses.

Here,
she might have said.
I am done now.

We are done.

T
HE PHONE RANG ACROSS THE GRASS
as Daisy hung the laundry. She ran for it—knowing it must be news. It was Irene, calling to let her know that the operation had been a success.

“The girl is fine,” Irene said. “The scar is gone.”

The scar is gone.
What strange words those were.

“What does she look like?” Daisy whispered.

“Ah well,” Irene told her, “her face is utterly bandaged—has to be for ninety days. But after that, we’ll unwind the bandages and show her face to the world. Raymond thinks she’ll be completely scar-free.”

“How is she?”

“She’s fine. Naturally somewhat shaken. And tired. But fine.”

Irene elaborated on the operation. It had been more complicated than expected because of the unusual nature of the tissue. A difficult thing, requiring all of Dr. Carney’s skills, to excise the scar, then stretch and utilize adjacent skin, while sewing in a patch of grafted skin as well. Not to mention the stanching of the blood, the reonnecting of a hundred tiny capillaries.

“Can I see her?”

“Nobody can see her.”

“But why not?”

“Doctor’s orders.”

A pause.

“Irene,” Daisy said slowly. “She told me she doesn’t remember. About Hiroshima, I mean. The bombing.”

Irene laughed. “Is that what she told you? She’s a tricky one, isn’t she? I’ll mention that to Raymond. He’ll be interested.”

“No don’t. Please.”

“Why ever not?”

“I just don’t think you should.”

At this Irene sounded irritated. “Raymond has to know,” she said flatly. “But don’t worry, Daisy. Whatever he does with what you’ve told us will be for the best.”

Irene hung up, promising to telephone in a week, when the girl was receiving visitors.

In the kitchen Daisy set the kettle on the stove for tea, then she went out front to fetch the milk bottles. She had just bent to gather them when she glanced up, alerted by a black slash of movement in the corner of her eye. A furtive glee attached itself to that movement—something malignant, something from a fairy tale. Fran Warburgh, Evelyn Lithgow and Joan Palmer were descending on her down Linden Street, looking determined and excited. Evelyn and Joan had dressed carefully, in going-to-town skirts and nylon stockings, while Fran wore a blouse with pink rosebuds on it and a pair of toreador pants.

They came up the brick walk and stopped in an informal tableau at the base of the steps: three furies resting before bloodshed. Daisy pulled the housecoat around her as best she could, holding two milk bottles.

“What can I do for you ladies?” she asked.

“It has come to the attention of the Residents’ Committee that—until three days ago—you’ve been acting host to an unusual house guest.” It was Joan who spoke. Joan with the thumbprint-shaped birthmark on her cheek, hairy and soft. Oh, Daisy could see she was enjoying herself, they all were. Evelyn Lithgow’s eyes were beady with adventure—the perfect follower. If someone had told her to round up suspects and stand over them with a rifle, she probably would have done it, delighting not just in taking orders but in the misfortune of her captives. Her expression made Daisy angry.

“You ought to have informed the Residents’ Committee right away,” Joan said.

“If you knew someone was here, which you obviously did, you could have informed the Residents’ Committee yourselves.”

“Well, we did, as a matter of fact. Though it wasn’t our job to do so.”

“It wasn’t mine either. Besides, as you know, I’ve had a house guest staying, I’ve been busy.”

“So have we!” Evelyn blurted out. “I have three children to look after.”

Joan laid a calming hand on her arm. “As I said, we did inform the Residents’ Committee, and a meeting was held. Now we’re here to represent their interests.”

Oh God, Daisy thought. Here it comes.

“It is our understanding that Miss Kitigawa is at the hospital.” Joan opened her purse and took out a clipping, which she handed to Daisy: Keiko standing beside a broadly smiling Eleanor Roosevelt. Irene had squeezed herself into the photo as well, throwing a possessive arm around Keiko’s shoulders. Below was a paragraph describing the meeting, and Keiko’s scheduled operation. Daisy nodded warily, then handed the clipping back.

“We wish you’d informed us earlier,” Joan said. “Luckily, Walter and Gordon rode to work together last week, and he took the time to describe the Project.”

Several streets away a car backfired, making them all jump. Nervous laughter passed through the three women.

Joan folded the article and dropped it into her purse. “We have a message to deliver on behalf of the residents. May we come in? It’s an official message—I’d rather not deliver it on your doorstep.”

What could Daisy do? She beckoned for them to follow. As they trooped down the hallway, she saw Evelyn glance into the master bedroom. She loved to prattle on to Joan about the state of beds, made and unmade, in Riverside Meadows, though Joan was after something altogether darker. Evelyn was not a real connoisseur of what Joan Palmer found either titillating or damnable, Daisy thought, placing her milk bottles on the kitchen counter and turning to face them. It wasn’t the unmade bed; it was the scent of neurosis, colourless as a gas; it was the air of panic secreted into the wallpaper. How did Daisy know all this about Joan? She just did. Suddenly she felt she knew Joan Palmer quite well indeed.

The women stood in the kitchen, looking about with interest. Even the yellowed crack in the linoleum seemed important. The gingham curtains moved in the breeze. Daisy saw Evelyn sniff, a professional housewife’s snuffle used to check if pillowcases smelled of bleach, or whether the basement was free of mildew. This time, though, she was checking for the bat-screech of radioactivity caught in the folds of the curtains.

Then Joan began to speak, as though addressing not just Daisy, or Fran or Evelyn, but the crows on the clothesline, the greenhouse roof glinting in the morning sun.

“The Residents’ Committee met last Monday.”

“We all fought terribly,” Fran blurted.