When the Cherry Blossoms Fell (6 page)

Eiko made her black tea, knowing this new friend wasn't fond of the tiny twigs and leaves that floated about in the tea they drank. Mrs. Morrison sipped from the gold-rimmed china cup with pink roses that Eiko had packed. She nibbled on Ritz crackers served on the small green glass plate.

Each visit, Mrs. Morrison brought them something. She gave Geechan a pair of black rubber boots for his walks in the countryside. She won Hiro's affection by pulling an Arrowroot cookie from her handbag each time he sat on her lap. Sadie received a jar of cold cream. Eiko got recipes and advice, and Michiko always got something to read. Her favourite gift was the
tattered gold embossed book
Fifty Famous Fairy Tales
.

Mrs. Morrison taught them how to keep the reservoir on the stove full of hot water for washing faces and hands. She showed them how to place the oval copper pot with handles over two stove lids to boil water, and put bricks in the warming oven to take to bed at night.

She let Geechan teach her how to use chopsticks, and to count to ten in Japanese.

The same man that picked them up at the station dropped her off at the top of the road on his way out of town. He never drove into the farmhouse lane, and he never got out of the cab.

“Would you like to invite your husband in for a cup of tea?” Michiko's mother asked.

“I would indeed,” Mrs. Morrison replied, “but he is too far away to do that. My husband is with the troops. That's Bert, the farmer down the road, who brings me here.”

“It seems we are alike,” her mother murmured, “both waiting for our husbands to return.”

Hearing the long, low sound of the locomotive passing by, Mrs. Morrison glanced at the slim gold watch embedded in her pudgy pink wrist. “Well,” she announced, “school's out.”

At the word “school”, Michiko lifted her head. “I wish I was in school,” she murmured.

“You
should
be in to school,” Mrs. Morrison said. She peered over her little round gold spectacles at the little girl across the table from her. “Why aren't you?”

Sadie laughed. “She has to be the only child I know who would rather go to school than be on holiday.”

“School holidays don't start for a while yet,” Mrs. Morrison said. “She shouldn't be missing her studies.”

“I didn't know if she would be welcome,” Eiko said quietly.

Mrs. Morrison contemplated this until a honk came from the road where the green pick-up truck waited. “I'll look into getting you into school,” she told Michiko. She clutched her purse to her chest and marched out the door. “Let you know next week.”

Michiko hung her head. She hadn't meant that she wanted to go to school here. She meant that she wanted to go to her old school.

Her mother put a finger under her chin and raised it. “What is wrong now?”

“I want to go to school at home,” Michiko cried and stamped her foot. “I don't want to be here one more day.”

“A day is only a day,” her mother said. “Even the most important days of all come and go.”

“Like what?” Michiko demanded, tired of this vacation.

Her mother walked to the window ledge and lifted down a small rectangular parcel. She placed it on the table and untied its brightly coloured silk. “Look,” she said, lifting the bamboo lid. “This whole box is full of important days.”

Inside was a collection of papers and photographs.

Eiko sifted through the layers and handed Michiko a thick card with ruffled edges. “Here is an important day,” she said. It was a black and white photograph.

Michiko hadn't seen this photograph before. The woman staring straight ahead was wearing a white kimono
and a boat-shaped headdress. The man next to her was all in black. He wore a long loose jacket over his kimono.

“This is a traditional Japanese wedding,” her mother said. “Do you see the white embroidered crest on his
haori?”
Michiko nodded. “That is my family crest. The bride wears a
shiromuku
. Do you know who they are?”

Michiko shook her head.

“This is my
baachan
and
geechan.”
Her mother stroked the faces of the bride and groom. “When my grandfather was a young man, he left Japan to see the world.”

“Did he come to Canada?”

“He took a steamship across the Pacific Ocean to the United States.” Eiko looked up from the photograph and smiled at Michiko. “He wore European clothes for the first time. Then he returned to his village to marry his childhood sweetheart.”

“Why didn't you wear a
kimono
on your wedding day?” Michiko asked.

“I was a modern woman,” her mother responded. She sifted through the papers and brought out the photograph of her wedding day. The edges of it were uneven and jagged.

Michiko remembered this picture in a silver frame, on top of the mantelpiece. “Where is the frame?”

“It was too heavy,” her mother said quietly. “I left it behind.” She took the photograph from Michiko. “I wanted a store-bought hat and coat for my wedding.” She traced the folds of the gown. “But my mother wouldn't hear of it. She insisted on making my dress.” Her eyes glazed over. “The church at the corner of
Powell Street was full. There was even a crowd of children hanging around the doors.”

“That's because they wanted to see the baseball players. Your father knew everyone on the Asahi team,” Sadie chimed in from the sink. “They were all at the wedding.”

“Were there flowers?”

“Oh yes,” sighed Eiko. “The church was full of them. She turned to her sister. “Do you remember, Sadie? I carried white lilies and scarlet snapdragons.”

Sadie stopped drying the teacups. “I was the maid of honour,” she said. “I wore a yellow dress. My hat had a little short veil at the back. It matched my dress perfectly.” She sighed. “Our mother was a wonderful seamstress.”

Eiko smoothed out a worn piece of newsprint. “Look, Michiko,” she said, “this was what she drew first. Then she made the pattern.” She held a faded pencil sketch of the dress in the photograph.

“That's where you get your drawing talent,” Sadie remarked. “Your grandmother went to one of the most famous dressmaking schools in Japan.”

Eiko traced the drawing with her finger. “Each sleeve had fourteen lace-covered buttons. Do you remember, Sadie?”

Sadie smiled. “I had to do them up.” She mimicked wiping her brow. “There were thirty of them down the back.”

“The women in your mother's class talked about that dress forever,” Sadie told Michiko.

“My mother's class?” Michiko repeated.

Eiko rustled through the papers again and unfolded
a rectangular document with a dark green border and a shiny red seal in the corner. “My official certificate,” she announced. “It's from the Kawano Women's Sewing School, in Vancouver.”

Michiko peered at it. “Do you have one too?” she asked her aunt.

“We went to different schools,” Sadie said. “I went to dancing school. Look,” she said, “here's the newspaper article about your mother's school.” She read from it out loud.
“Girls, it is noticed, come from all over the province to take courses in tailoring, dress design and dressmaking.”

Michiko picked up the photograph of her parents' wedding. “You wore your pearl necklace.”

Her mother's fingers went to her throat. “Your father gave it to me as a wedding gift,” she whispered. “The pearls came from a very special place.”

“I know,” Michiko cried out in excitement, “I know where your pearls came from.”

“You do?” her mother said. “Where?”

“They came from Pearl Harbor,” Michiko said with a smile. “I heard about Pearl Harbor at school.”

Both women gasped. They looked at each other with wide eyes.

“No,” her mother said crossly. “My pearls were harvested by the lady divers of Mikimoto.” She packed up the box. “Your father had my necklace sent from Japan.”

“Where is it?” Michiko asked. “Can I see it? Can I try it on?”

“No, you can't.” Her mother looked at the picture in her hands. “It's gone.”

“Did you lose it?”

Her mother did not answer.

Michiko wanted to know what had happened to the beautiful necklace. “Did someone steal it?” But her mother still did not respond. She placed the basket back on the shelf.

“She sold it,” Sadie said finally. “She sold it along with the piano and everything else of value in the house.”

“You sold your necklace?” Michiko stared at her mother with her mouth open. “Why?”

“I had to,” her mother said. Then she slumped down in her chair and laid her head on her arms.

Sadie turned to finish the dishes. Michiko took one of her mother's hands and held it. She didn't know what else to do. There were tears on her mother's cheeks.

Suddenly Eiko rose and ran out the front door. Michiko went to follow, but Sadie grabbed her and held her back. “Leave her.” She drew Michiko into a hug. “She hasn't shed a single tear till now.”

Michiko looked into her aunt's eyes. They were brimming with moisture. “It's time your mother had a good cry.” Sadie hugged Michiko harder. “It will do her good.”

Michiko didn't want her mother to cry. She wanted her to wear the pearl necklace. Her eyes filled with tears as well.

Ted showed them a small opening in the bush. “It's an overgrown trail,” he told them. “The wagons took the apples to market this way.” He pointed into the trees. “Follow it until you reach the road, then turn left.”

Michiko trudged alongside Geechan. The hardboiled egg, nestled inside her tiny
furoshiki
, bounced against her leg. She had two rice balls and fiddleheads for lunch as well.

They pushed their way along the broken branches and grass. The trees seemed to close in behind them as they walked. Geechan had to duck under the low branches more than once. As they wound their way along the pine-scented path, the wind whispered through the needles. Michiko hoped they wouldn't meet a bear.

Part of the path followed a stream that trickled over the rocks and boulders. Michiko could smell the rotting marsh grasses. When the rasping call of a blackbird rose from the bullrushes, they waited to see the flash of red on its glossy black wing. The croaking and beeping of the frogs beckoned her to a game of hide-and-seek. She wished they could stop longer and watch for dragonflies.

Finally, they emerged from the bush onto the long stretch of dusty road. Thorny bushes covered with wild roses greeted them from the shallow ditch.

They passed a rutted laneway much like theirs, which led into a pasture dotted with daisies. The sound of hammering drifted up to the road. Michiko saw her grandfather's eyes drift longingly towards the sound. His hands were always restless. Her mother had once told her this was why he made such a good barber. When he wasn't cutting hair, he was whittling at a piece of wood.

When they reached the narrow metal bridge, Geechan stopped. Past the bridge was the town. Michiko leaned over the handrail to look at the willow that swayed above the river. Grey water rushed past below them with a roar.

Geechan gave her a small push. Michiko knew this meant she was to go on alone. She turned to her grandfather. “What if no one likes me?” she said in a low voice.

“Not like you?” Geechan's eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. “You are nice girl with a smart head. Why they not like you?”

Michiko took a deep breath and stepped off the bridge. She walked for a bit, then turned to wave, but her grandfather had not waited. He was off to the field of hammers.

She smiled. Uncle Ted often joked about his nine-man team. He said the government paid eight men for eight hours to put up a house. When Geechan helped, they took a longer lunch break.

One night at dinner, Ted had used chopsticks to
demonstrate how the little houses went together. “The posts go into the ground, and we lay the main beams,” he said. “Then we put the floor panels down, and the walls go up.” He told them how they built each wall with the door and window spaces right on the ground. Then they lifted the the wall and bolted it to the floor. After the stoves went in, they added the roof panels. The house was finished when they nailed the last panel down.

Several of her uncle's small square wooden houses with shingle roofs now stood in the orchard. Smoke from one of the chimneys curled up into the pale blue sky.
Maybe I will meet someone from those houses at school
, she thought as she walked into town.

The spaces between the large roadside maples grew wider. She spied the church steeple as she approached the square wooden buildings on the corner.
No buses, no streetcars, and no traffic lights
, she could hear her aunt say as she turned and made her way down the main street.

A soft fragrance wafted towards her. It came from a small tidy house with scrolls of woodwork around the porch. A picket fence separated the house from the street. The arched gate was overgrown with a cloud of lavender and ivory lilacs that filled the air with their perfume.

Michiko stopped in the middle of the road to breathe in the fragrance. It reminded her of the cherry tree in her own backyard.

“Hey,” someone yelled, “move.”

The sound of the bicycle bell made her jump. Michiko darted in the same direction as the rider.

“Watch out!” the boy on the bike yelled. He stomped
hard on his brakes. The bicycle wobbled and fell to one side. The boy fell off, and the bicycle landed on top of him.

Michiko could only stare at the brightly polished fenders and leather seat.

A boy got slowly up off the ground. He dusted himself off and looked up. “So, is it a dirty Jap that made me fall?”

“I didn't mean—” Michiko started to say, but he cut her off.