Women On the Other Shore (33 page)

A teacher's voice came over the loudspeakers. "Run, Naoki! You're almost there! Get up and run!" The camera zoomed in on the fallen runner. Another boy a few steps ahead turned to look, and his legs did a funny little dance step as he tried to make up his mind whether to continue his dash for the goal or double back to give some help.

Finally he decided to turn back, and a cheer went up. He flopped down on the ground and said something to comfort or encourage his classmate. As he spoke to him, he took the boy's hand to help him to his feet, and together they began walking slowly toward the goal.

The one who fell was still bawling, his face turned toward the sky.

Leading him by the hand, the other boy reached back now and then to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

After following the pair across the goal line, the image on screen broke up momentarily and then Sayoko appeared, waving and walking 253

toward the camera. Almost right away the image broke off again, and the camera gave a little jolt as the next scene came up. The kids in Akari's class were assembling in the middle of the playground. The picture zoomed in on Akari.

Sayoko watched with a slice of tuna poised between her chopsticks in midair.

The camera pulled back as teachers led Akari and her classmates by the hand to their places. The loudspeakers struck up a bouncy new tune. A flawless blue sky stretched overhead. All around the playground parents with cameras and camcorders could be seen leaning over the ropes, straining to get the best shot of their child.

Now Akari returned to the middle of the picture, standing there motionless, with only her eyes darting back and forth. Sayoko and Aoi could be heard near the camera, first laughing, then shouting words of encouragement: "Dance, Akari! You can do it! Go, Akari!"

Finally Akari began moving awkwardly to the music.

As her eyes followed the action on screen, Sayoko was picturing instead the figure of Aoi with the video camera in her hands, eyes puffy from lack of sleep. She pictured her intently pursuing Akari's movements. She pictured her zooming in on the boy who turned back to help his fallen friend.

"Goodness, Sayoko! You're dripping! You're dripping!" Grandma's high-pitched cry brought Sayoko back to reality. Several drops of soy sauce from the tuna had fallen onto her skirt.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed. "And I just bought this skirt brand new for New Year's!"

Hurrying to the bathroom, she soaked a towel in hot water and began dabbing forcefully at the stain. For some reason she was reminded of when she'd chanted
Damn it all! Damn it all!
as she pedaled her bicycle. In the image that came to her she was dripping with sweat, yet in odd contrast to the words she chanted, the pedals spun around quite effortlessly and a hint of a smile tugged at her 254

lips. The outlines of the stain soon blurred and its color faded, but Sayoko continued dabbing at it with more vigor than necessary. She could hear Shuji and his mother and Akari laughing at something in the dining room.

Sayoko wasn't sure she was in the mood, but she accepted Mrs.

Motoyama's invitation and tagged along to the coffee klatch of kindergarten moms that met at a nearby family restaurant. As they slipped into their seats in a nonsmoking booth by the window, the ladies called out their orders for coffee or tea. Sayoko had only recently gotten to know these women, so she couldn't yet match all the faces with names.

Mrs. Motoyama was the one who'd introduced her to the group.

Sayoko had made her acquaintance in the elevator one day by asking about her little boy and learning that he was in kindergarten.

Since the time to withdraw Akari from nursery school was rapidly approaching, she'd immediately taken the opportunity to ask some questions about the boy's kindergarten. After that they began speaking together quite regularly, and Mrs. Motoyama soon suggested she meet the other kindergarten moms who gathered at the family restaurant each day while waiting for their children to be let out of class. The ladies knew Sayoko well enough now to stop and chat with her when she ran into them in the neighborhood of her apartment building.

As they settled into their seats, they all began chattering at break-neck speed about their children's teachers and upcoming events at school. These were topics to which Sayoko could not contribute, but she preferred it that way: it was easier just to smile and nod than to try to be part of the conversation.

The waitress came with their orders, and the ladies interrupted their talk while they waited for her to finish serving the drinks. As soon as she was gone, they picked up right where they'd left off.

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"I really think testing for private schools is the way to go."

"Is that what you're doing? Oh, that's right. You said the other day you were putting your boy in exam-prep classes come April."

"I figure the public school should be fine."

"I'm not so sure. It worries me when I see some of the kids who come up through the nursery school system."

"No kidding. So many of them seem like they've never been taught any manners. There's this one boy in my apartment building who glares at you and shouts 'Shut up!' if you try to say anything to him. He cheerfully goes around saying things like 'dumbass' and

'drop dead.' It's shocking!"

"Mrs. Tamura, don't you find that a lot of your daughter's friends in nursery school are poorly behaved?"

With the conversation suddenly coming her way, Sayoko just smiled ambiguously.

"You'd do best to get your girl out of there as soon as you can. Little Akari's a real sweetie, but little ones her age are so impressionable."

"Come to think of it, the boy I was talking about who says 'dumbass' and 'drop dead,' I'm pretty sure he and his brother go to Akari's school. He's with the three-year-olds. Ren Kurata."

"Oh, yes, I know Ren," Sayoko nodded. In her mind she pictured the boy's round-faced mother, who worked for a life insurance company.

"He's a complete terror. Even though he's only three, he knocked my boy down and made him cry."

"That's the problem with nursery school kids."

"It's different for you, Mrs. Tamura, because you quit your job, but basically, when kids get put in nursery school, it means their mothers are working outside the home. Kids like that don't get enough time with their mothers, and they wind up badly behaved and rowdy. You can tell the ones who've been raised in nursery school right away."

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"And heaven forbid you say anything to their mothers about it.

They'll bite your head off with some fancy talk about making a contribution to society. They're all so full of themselves."

"That's for sure. 1 met this woman the other day who..."

Sayoko pretended to be interested by interjecting the occasional

"Uh-huh" or "Oh my!" or "Really?" but her eyes drifted out the window. Murky, leaden clouds hung low in the sky. She had known since first meeting these ladies that every one of them, including Mrs.

Motoyama, was a full-time homemaker, and it had been immediately apparent that they all disapproved of mothers who worked outside the home. Even so, Sayoko rarely turned down an invitation to join them for their daily coffee klatch. Quite simply, she welcomed the chance to pick up tidbits about life in kindergarten, as well as their experiences with periodic checkups.

She felt a sense of deja vu coming over her as she gave noncom-mittal responses to the working-mom bashing that had suddenly taken over the conversation. Yet almost right away she realized it wasn't only an impression but an actual memory. In spite of all the years that had passed between then and now, what she was witnessing here was no different from what had gone on back in high school, when she had pushed desks together with her girlfriends to eat lunch: a group uniting for the moment to vilify some imagined bugbear. But Sayoko knew how astonishingly short-lived such unity could be. Give these women a few months, and the brunt of their disapproval would perhaps fall on the one who sent her child to exam-prep classes, she speculated somewhat arbitrarily.

What are the gathering years supposed to be for, Sayoko wondered vaguely as she gazed out the window at the leafless ginkgo trees lining the street. It would be easy enough for her to claim she was too busy and turn down these invitations to the coffee klatch. Since she didn't have a child attending their kindergarten anyway, they would probably soon stop asking her. And at her age, she wouldn't feel 257

particularly hurt by this. Unlike in high school, she had no time to be fretting about such things. She had her own family to take care of, her own life to live, and they had theirs.

"There's a lady in my building who takes in work at home. Some kind of design work, I guess, but I don't really know. She thinks nothing of sending her boy over to play and not coming to get him till six and seven in the evening. Of course, all that time, she's doing her work. Talk about brazen!"

"That's some nerve—using you as a free babysitter while she's pulling in the dough. And so blatantly."

"Too bad she had to move into your building."

"And the boy's such a terror. He leaves cookie crumbs all over the tatami room, and the other day he tore a hole in one of our shoji screens."

"Oh dear. You really need to say something about that!"

"I'd think you might get the same thing with the kids in your daughter's class, Mrs. Tamura. Do their moms sometimes dump them on you because they know you stay home?"

A woman not much younger than Sayoko sitting diagonally across the table thrust her chin toward her as she spoke. She looked rather like Takeshi Kihara.

Sayoko glanced down at her watch. "Oh, look at the time!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet. "My daughter's out any minute now.

Sorry to rush off, but I have to go."

"My goodness. You're right. You'd better hurry."

"Oh dear, we should have noticed."

A chorus of voices followed Sayoko as she started to walk away, but she quickly turned in her tracks and came back. "Sorry, I almost forgot to pay," she said, placing money for her coffee on the table.

"Well, see you." She smiled and hurried away again.

As she raced toward the nursery school, the thought crossed her mind that the discussion may well have turned from Work-at-home 258

Mom to Akari's Mom as soon as she left, but she immediately shrugged it off. She really didn't care.

Pausing as she came through the gate, she looked for her daughter's figure among the children in the schoolyard. Akari was playing house in the sandbox with Ren, the boy who'd been the topic of conversation just a few minutes before. Sayoko started toward the sandbox but stopped short and stood watching as the two carried on their game.

What had she been using her "gathering years" for lately? To conveniently escape into her own private world as soon as she grew weary of being mixed up with other people? To make excuses that she had to go to the bank, had to pick up her daughter, had to make dinner, and then push the door shut behind her?

T h e boy accused of pushing an older child to the ground and making him cry took the bowl of sand Akari was holding out to him.

"Aah, we're having sushi tonight," he said, putting on his best grown-up air. "Do we have any beer?"

"No, dear," Akari replied. "You mustn't drink beer."

Sayoko burst out laughing.

"It's your mom," Ren shouted.

Akari turned and was immediately on her feet racing toward Sayoko. Ren got up and came running behind her.

"You're going home already," Ren said with a pout.

"What time will your mother be here, Ren?" Sayoko asked.

"I dunno."

"We were playing house, Mommy," Akari said.

"I'm afraid we have to go, Ren. Come play sometime, okay?"

"I dunno."

"Bye-bye. See you tomorrow."

"Bye-bye," Akari waved, but Ren turned away and deliberately ignored her.

Walking toward the gate with Akari's hand in hers, Sayoko found 259

herself remembering the video Aoi had shot here. She saw the boy falling on his face, and the other boy flopping down beside him to offer comfort. Aoi had instinctively zoomed in to capture it all on tape.

Suddenly it came clear to Sayoko why the two teenage girls who leaped hand in hand off the roof of the apartment building had never seen each other again. It wasn't simply that they'd drifted out of touch, or that they were young and quick to forget. They were afraid. Afraid to learn that the friend with whom they'd shared so much was now in a different place. Afraid to reach out to someone who'd been changed by the utterly different path she had taken since high school and the utterly different set of experiences she had had.

Afraid of being asked, "Don't you have any new friends?"

"Bye-bye!"

They heard Ren calling after them and turned to see him pressed against the inside of the fence waving at Akari.

"See you tomorrow!" Akari shouted.

"Yeah, see ya," said Ren, still sounding a little cross. He promptly turned back toward the sandbox.

Sayoko thought back to the day when "Bye-bye!" signified for her an unchanging tomorrow. A tomorrow when she would see her same friend in that same uniform again. A tomorrow when they would hang out together in the same world as today, bantering back and forth with the same phrases, sharing the same looks. She thought back to the day when she counted on that sameness.

"See ya!" Akari called after Ren's receding figure one last time.

As Sayoko lowered her eyes to look at her daughter, she found the question from before going through her mind again.

What are the gathering years supposed to be for?

After riding the creaky old elevator up to the fifth floor, Sayoko stood in front of the rust-spotted door and drew in a deep breath.

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She lifted her hand toward the intercom installed at eye level. Her index finger trembled. This could mean being greeted with icy silence, or even driven away. She might only be making a fool of herself by coming here. After all, she was the one who'd walked away, muttering what could be taken as a parting shot. But she had made up her mind. It was something she had to do, even if she wound up getting the door slammed in her face.