The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (55 page)

Aki glanced around the crowded arena, ablaze in hot white lights, the air thick with anticipation. Large portraits of past sumo champions hung from the walls and each peered down at the crowd with their dark, powerful gaze. Aki knew that one day Hiroshi’s portrait would also be hanging there and she was filled with pride. Her eyes settled on the thick tassels that hung at each corner of the Shinto-style roof suspended high over the
dohyo
. Each was a different color, to represent the four seasons. While the green and red tassels symbolized spring and summer, the white and black ones signified autumn and winter. When she and Haru were young, her father told them that each color also represented an animal: the green dragon, red sparrow, white tiger, and black tortoise. This was the Aki Basho, or the “white tiger”
basho
. As a girl, she spent hours making up stories in her head of how the four animals came together to help those in need. Even now, she imagined them peeking out from the tassels, looking down on the crowd below.

Aki was as eager as the audience to see Hiroshi fight. Just a year ago, she also attended the tournament in which he won and was promoted to the
ozeki
rank. She smiled to think that she was somehow connected to his promotion, like an
okame
who brought good fortune. She had witnessed how hard he’d worked after his injury to fight again, and it only made her admire him more. Across the short distance that separated them, Aki saw Hiroshi’s strong, dark features and his ginkgo leaf topknot as he stood on the sidelines. She always
found him handsome, she thought as she watched him from afar, bigger than life to her. Hiroshi looked imposing—tall and muscular—his weight nicely distributed, his stomach and chest thick and solid over his
mawashi
belt.

In a high-pitched voice, the ring attendant sang out the names of the next wrestlers. With the sudden roar of the crowd, she looked up to see Hiroshi step forward and bow to his opponent, Kobayashi, before they returned to their respective corners.

This was the match everyone had waited months for—the two great
ozeki
vying to become the next
yokozuna
. Aki leaned forward as both the wrestlers clapped, did their leg stomps, rinsed their mouths with power water, and threw salt onto the
dohyo
before they entered the ring. She watched Hiroshi closely, looking for any signs of pain or weakness in his knee as he moved to the east and Kobayashi to the west side of the ring. They squatted down on their toes in unison, clapped their hands again to alert the gods, and extended their arms out to show they fought fairly and hid nothing. It would have looked silly if she were doing the same thing, but Hiroshi and Kobayashi appeared noble and graceful as they moved through the rituals that were derived from Shinto beliefs. They stood and returned to their corners, threw salt in the
dohyo
once again to cast out the evil spirits. Aki watched how each quick gesture revealed something about the sumo. Kobayashi slammed his fistful of salt down on the ground with a quick, hard toss, while Hiroshi threw his salt upward through the air so that it fell like rain.

They approached the center of the ring and squatted down at the starting lines, knuckles touching the ground for the stare-down. Kobayashi was the heavier of the two as they stood head to head. They looked out of balance in Aki’s eyes, though she knew there were no weight classifications in sumo; a smaller wrestler might fight a larger one and win through speed and skill. Still, Aki watched and worried that Hiroshi might be defeated. The wrestlers rose, slapped their stomachs, and returned to their corners, then threw salt into the
dohyo
again, motions that were repeated two more times. Sweat glistened on their backs. They looked back and glared at each other, and Aki saw the transformation from the Hiroshi-san she knew to that of Ozeki
Takanoyama. An intense concentration had taken over his entire body. The absolute silence of the arena was broken when the referee held out his war paddle and called out, “It’s time!”

After several false starts, Takanoyama and Kobayashi lunged toward each other with an impact she could only imagine. Aki watched spellbound as Takanoyama moved swiftly and forcefully. There was precision in Hiroshi’s every move, never a sloppy or careless step when he wrestled; his intensity was so focused it sent a shiver down her back. Aki could hardly believe she was watching the same man who had once limped around the courtyard.

Kobayashi slapped at Hiroshi’s body and pushed him backward. The crowd turned silent when Takanoyama was pushed to the edge of the
dohyo
by Kobayashi’s bulk. Aki’s heart raced and she half-stood in fear that he might lose. Then, in one desperate move, as Kobayashi moved forward to push Hiroshi over the edge, he swung around and tripped Kobayashi out of the
dohyo
first. The crowd exploded as Aki let out a small scream. She sat back down, exhausted.

Without displaying any emotion, Hiroshi and Kobayashi bowed to each other before Kobayashi departed from the ring. Hiroshi squatted in the
dohyo
as the referee extended his
gunbai
to him with envelopes of winning money on it. Takanoyama made three chopping motions with his right hand in thanks, from left to right, and then in the middle over the envelopes of money. The roar of the crowd was thunderous. But unlike when Aki was little, it no longer frightened her.

After the tournament, Aki filtered out of the stadium with the crowd. Colorful banners were posted outside the stadium naming all the sumo who participated in the tournament. She moved along with the jubilant crowd, feeling both happy and sad. Her father and the upper-ranked
sumotori
would return to the stable much later, after a night of drinking and celebrating at a geisha teahouse. Hiroshi had lost only two bouts out of the fifteen during the two-week tournament. He was almost assured the grand champion title. Would he
still want to marry her with all his fame and fortune? If Aki were a white tiger, she would go after her prey, circle around and around him until he took notice of her.

Aki returned home and wondered what it was like at a geisha teahouse, entertaining important guests with music and dance, humor and conversation. “You must begin the conversation, but always let the guest finish it,” her mother once told her. It was at a geisha teahouse that her father met her mother on a night they were celebrating his rise to the
sekitori
rank. Her mother entered the banquet room and stole her father’s heart. Aki wondered if another geisha might be stealing Hiroshi’s heart at that very moment, with her face painted in a perfect white mask, hovering over the table with her beautiful, studied movements. Aki sat down in front of the mirror and stared at her own face, at the same dark, luminous eyes that belonged to her mother, wondering if she, too, could walk into a room and steal Takanoyama’s heart.

A few days after the September tournament ended, two messengers sent from the Japan Sumo Association arrived at the Katsuyama-beya, to officially notify Hiroshi and Tanaka-oyakata of Ozeki Takanoyama’s promotion to
yokozuna
. Hiroshi’s head was still throbbing from all the drinking he’d done at the geisha house after the tournament, and his knee ached as he paced the floor of his room. That morning, a crowd of reporters and photographers had gathered to wait for the impending news. When the messengers arrived, they pushed into the stable courtyard where Hiroshi knelt and bowed low, formally accepting the promotion. “I humbly accept. I will do my best to uphold the honor and tradition of the rank of
yokozuna.”
Hiroshi looked up at the sea of flashing camera bulbs and felt weightless, suspended in the bright lights.

That afternoon was the
tsuna-uchi
, the braiding of the sacred rope. Fifteen young, white-gloved wrestlers from the Katsuyama-beya and other affiliated stables came together to twist and braid Yokozuna
Takanoyama a sacred rope made of a hemp cloth stuffing and a special cotton and silk fabric. They wore white gloves to keep from soiling the rope, which would then be wound around Takanoyama’s waist before he performed the
yokozuna
ring-entering ceremony. Guests were invited to witness the event. His
obaachan
sat to the side on the raised tatami viewing platform, along with Kenji and Mika. The extra length of the belt was then cut off into measured pieces and given to his grandmother and his many sponsors.

Wearing an elaborate ceremonial apron adorned with Mount Fuji and trimmed in gold that had once belonged to the great Yokozuna Kitoyama, Hiroshi felt the heaviness of the sacred rope as it was wrapped around his waist, thirteen feet in length and weighing more than thirty pounds. It took at least three wrestlers to help coil it around him. Tanaka-oyakata instructed him to practice the less common
shiranui
-style ring-entering ceremony, with two loops formed on the back of his sacred rope, as opposed to the
unryu
style, which only had one loop. Before Hiroshi started, he glanced at his
obaachan
, whose eyes told him how proud she was. He wished his
ojiichan
had lived to see this day. Then, with both of his arms outstretched, Hiroshi squatted down and began the dancelike steps. The stable door creaked open and he glanced up to see Aki slip in, dressed in a beautiful rose-colored kimono with a pattern of white cranes on it. She looked up and met his eyes, gazed directly into them, and didn’t look away.

Two days later, Hiroshi’s
suikyo-shiki
, his grand champion installation ceremony, was held outside at Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine. After receiving a new sacred rope and his
yokozuna
certificate, Hiroshi performed his first
dohyo-iri
as grand champion in front of thousands of fans. A warm rain fell steadily as he stepped forward. He looked up to the gray sky and felt his
ojiichan
’s presence smiling down upon him. Tears of happiness. To either side of Yokozuna Takanoyama stood his two attendants, upper-ranked wrestlers from the stable, one called the “dew sweeper,” who cleared the path for him, while the other, the
“sword bearer,” protected him. They symbolized ancient times, with the sword representing the
yokozuna
’s samurai status. Blinding camera lights flashed like small explosions. Hiroshi took a deep breath as the rain ran down his shoulders and back. He moved quickly, effortlessly, through the steps he had dreamed about in his sleep. At the end of the dance, Hiroshi squatted down and clapped loudly to let the gods know of his arrival.

Later, after most of the crowd had dispersed, including the press and photographers, Hiroshi looked for his family. Instead, he found a familiar face waiting for him. He recognized Fukuda-san immediately, even though he hadn’t seen him in years. “I told you you’d reach grand champion,” Fukuda said, smiling. Hiroshi was delighted to see his old friend, who hadn’t become a farmer, but a successful businessman, opening noodle shops all over Japan. He invited him to the celebratory dinner Tanaka-oyakata was giving in his honor, knowing his coach would be pleased to see Fukuda again.

The rain had become a hazy mist and Hiroshi could barely see three feet in front of him before everything disappeared into dark shadows. For just a moment, he turned and thought he saw Aki, dressed in a formal kimono, moving carefully across the grounds in
geta
sandals. But he only had to look again to see that it wasn’t her.