Stone Field, True Arrow Page 14

  The Romantics were wrong: Imagination is as doomed to failure as any human faculty. The year Maya worked as art editor of a college magazine, her friend Lori submitted a story about a girl who had a summer job in a factory. “The story is based on my summer job,” Lori explained. “Only, in the story, the smart and good-looking machinist falls in love with the character based on me. He keeps hurting her, though, because he resents her for being a college girl. In real life, I had a big crush on a machinist who took no notice of me. His indifference made me miserable all summer. The story is my fantasy.” Lori laughed when she said that. She had a self-deprecating sense of humor Maya admired. But even in a story in which she could have made anything happen, Lori could not imagine a nice guy falling in love with her stand-in. Some things are so bad, and their badness so deeply etched in a person’s memory, even imagination cannot alter the facts. Just as Lori could not imagine meeting a nice man who returned her love, Maya could not imagine her mother being a calm and rational person or her father being able to take her back.

  Maya follows the freeway as it splits and veers toward the northeastern suburbs. If Kay had sent occasional news back to Osaka over the years, Minoru would have had something other than his imagination to rely on. On his sleepless nights, he wouldn’t have wondered if Maya might be hurt or sick, if she might have gotten mixed up with the wrong kids at school, if she might have married someone who was cruel to her. Knowing nothing, he would have feared the worst, just as she imagines his lonely death because she has nothing except Mr. Kubo’s short letter. Imagination is a road that dead-ends in one direction but goes on forever in the other, wrapping itself around the earth’s circumference. Though the best of what people imagine cannot overcome the sad reality, the worst may be imagined many times over, each time a little more clearly, with added touches of desperation. The most painful details of her father’s life may be no worse than what Maya has imagined already and can go on imagining. If only she could know the truth, she could move forward past this sad time and her uncertainty about everything.

  * * *

  At the party at Peg’s house, Lillian had said Maya’s “Heavenly Garment” jacket was still in her window because several women kept coming back to try it on. “They’re working up the gumption to buy it,” Lillian explained. Now the jacket is gone. There are only spring dresses and crocheted cardigans in the window. Lillian goes into the back room and returns with a pot of tea and two cups. They drink the tea, standing across the counter from each other, while Lillian examines the fan necklace and the earrings Maya made to match.

  “They’re beautiful. Do you want me to price them, or is there a price you want to get?”

  “You do it.”

  Lillian puts the necklace and earrings back in the box. “Do you need these back in case I don’t sell them by a certain date?”

  “No. I’m done with them. I never have to see them again.”

  “That’s good. Last week someone wanted me to track down a customer and borrow back a shawl she made a year ago.”

  “I would never ask you to do that.” Maya keeps a record of everything she makes so she won’t have to know who buys it or what happens to it. If another customer wants a similar piece, she will recreate it from her notes. Once a garment is out of her hands, she can forget about it completely.

  “I sold the jacket,” Lillian says, “to one of those women I told you about. Toward the end, she was coming in almost every day and staring longingly at the jacket. I was glad she finally gave herself a break.”

  Maya pictures the tennyo rising up into the sky. Alone in the blue light, she would continue to dance for sheer happiness.

  “I’ll get my books so we can settle up.” Lillian writes Maya a check and slides it across the counter. “Do you want to stay for lunch?”

  Maya shakes her head. “I wish I could, but I have to do something.” Last night before she went to bed, she promised herself that she would call her mother from a gas station and try to visit her if the jacket had been sold. “Maybe another time,” she says to Lillian.

  “I’ll help you load the boxes if you want to go get your car,” Lillian offers.

  “Thanks.” Maya tries not to look despondent. Even the car reminds her of her last meeting with Kay.

  * * *

  The answering machine picks up after two rings. Kay’s voice says, “You have reached the Muellers.” After a short pause, Nate repeats the same sentence in Japanese. “We are not home,” Kay follows and waits for Nate. The two voices intertwine, each person speaking only four or five words at a time; it’s like a strange rendition of the marriage vows.

  After the beep, Maya says, “I’m at a gas station someplace in Evanston, but I guess you’re not home.”

  “Maya.” Her mother’s voice interrupts. “Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I was just saying that I’m in Evanston, at a gas station.”

  Kay doesn’t respond.

  “I know I should have called, but I decided to come at the last minute to get my things from Lillian’s store. If it’s an inconvenient time, I’m sorry.”

  “Which street are you on, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. I pulled into the first gas station I saw. I didn’t notice the name of the street.”

  Behind her at the counter, a woman is telling the attendant that the pump isn’t working. “It’s really slow,” she says. “You know, I squeeze the lever and nothing happens.”

  “Listen,” Maya says to Kay. “I’ll come back another time.”

  “Do you want to come and visit me now?”

  “That’s why I was calling.”

  “You can come then.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t have anything to do all day.”

  The attendant leaves the counter and follows the woman out the door. Alone in the store, Maya stares at the racks of movies next to the phone. She wonders if anyone really rents movies at a gas station.

  “Do you know how to get here from wherever you are?” Kay asks.

  “Yes,” Maya says. “I’ll find my way.”

  * * *

  Maya stays in her car for a few minutes, examining the house and the garden from across the street as though she were a private eye. The house is a white stucco colonial with stone steps leading to the pillared entrance. In the front yard, a thick patch of dwarf irises blooms, forming a pale blue nimbus, and a Japanese maple is beginning to put forth its red leaves. Although Maya has seen this tree on her previous three visits, it still astonishes her: such a delicate tree to plant in a garden in the Midwest. All summer long, its small red leaves—their five clefts more pronounced than those of the sugar and silver maples all over the city—will waver in the wind like a multitude of hands. Nate planted the Japanese maple and the irises because Japan is his favorite place in the world and Japanese art moves him to tears.

  Kay is at the top of the steps, holding the door open. “What were you doing, sitting in your car?” she asks.

  “Nothing. I wasn’t there that long.” In the foyer, several pairs of shoes are lined up neatly against the wall. Maya takes off her sandals. Her mother brings a pair of brown guest slippers out of the closet and places them on the floor, pointed toward the living room. Putting them on, Maya feels as though she were in a strange game where her feet must follow footprints drawn on the floor.

  “Don’t just stand there. Come in.” Kay hugged her in the basement in Minnesota, but even back then she didn’t hold Maya’s hand as they walked across the street or smooth her hair with her fingers when they came inside the house on a windy day. When her mother’s hand reached toward her, it meant Maya was in trouble. They haven’t touched each other since Maya left home.

  Once, when Maya tried to hug her, Kay stepped back out of reach. Maya has never repeated the gesture. She follows her mother through the living room into the kitchen. Kay is wearing a beige-colored cotton T-shirt and khakis. Her eyebro
ws are neatly plucked and her lips painted a bright red. Taking all this in, Maya knows her mother is probably doing the same thing, passing judgment on Maya’s purple cotton dress and beaded earrings, her hair tied back in a ponytail, her face without any makeup. She must be thinking that Maya looks washed out and eccentric, like a leftover hippie.

  “So, sit down.” Kay points to one of the chairs.

  Maya seats herself at the table in the corner while her mother prepares tea. The ceramic cup she brings to the table is the Japanese kind without a handle. Maya thanks her and sips the bitter green tea. Neither of them speaks for a long time. Finally, Maya takes a deep breath and starts.

  “I need to say something.” She has rehearsed this part with Yuko. “I owe you an apology. I should never have left you stranded at that restaurant. I want to apologize once and for all. I don’t know why I acted in such an inconsiderate way.”

  Kay narrows her eyes and squints into her cup. “Maybe you were disappointed in your show and took out your frustrations on me.” She closes her mouth and shrugs.

  Her own cup suspended between the table and her mouth, Maya stares at Kay. Often, when they are together, Maya has a sensation that a small tape recorder is implanted in her inner ear and she can only understand her mother’s words through its instant playback feature. That’s why it takes her a few seconds to react to what she heard. Most people, when offered an apology, will gladly share the blame. “It wasn’t all your fault,” they say. “I should have been more considerate too.” Maya lifts the cup to her lips and swallows. During their first year in college, Maya told Yuko, “My mother has never said one nice thing to me. Not even ‘Nice haircut’ or ‘That’s a pretty blouse you’re wearing.’” Yuko was silent for a long time; then they burst out laughing and could not stop. “For a minute,” Yuko said, “I thought you had to be exaggerating. But you know what? You’re right. I’ve never heard her say anything nice to you either.” Maya and Yuko made up a game in which they exaggerated the things Kay should have said. “Oh, how nice to hear from you!” they would exclaim, in a sweet voice completely unlike Kay’s. “It was so thoughtful of you to call. I hope the semester is going well. Have a pleasant afternoon.” They would flop on the floor and laugh until tears came out of their eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings too,” Maya would say in a timid voice if she were playing that game now; “You must forgive me for having been so thoughtless.”

  Maya straightens her teacup on the table. “Well, the show’s over now. As I told you, I’m on my way back from picking up my boxes.”

  “Did you sell anything?”

  “Enough.” Maya did much better than she’d expected, selling several vests, blouses, and scarves as well as the jacket, but she doesn’t tell her mother. The words she doesn’t say feel like a protection, a shiny gemstone hidden in her pocket.

  Kay stands up. “Did you eat?”

  “No. But you don’t have to go to any trouble for me.”

  Kay opens the refrigerator and starts taking out some dishes and bowls.

  “Can I help?”

  “No.” Kay reaches into the freezer for something wrapped in plastic.

  “What’s that?”

  “Rice. We cook a whole pot for our dinner and freeze the leftovers. It’s easy to warm it up in the microwave.”

  Maya takes the various boiled and pickled vegetables from the bowls, avoiding the bits of beef and chicken that are mixed into everything. Her mother picks up bite-sized portions, which she eats with her rice. This is the kind of lunch Maya’s father used to make. Kay is talking about how hard it is to find good Asian eggplant out of season. All the years they lived together, Kay’s lunch was cottage cheese with peach halves or rye crispies with tuna salad, washed down with a glass of Tab while she read her political science journals. Now she chatters about what she and Nate have been doing, where they have been eating out. No one would guess that she has had any life other than the one she is leading. She says we and us as though these pronouns, from the beginning of the English language, had never referred to anyone except herself and Nate.

  While they are clearing the dishes, Kay says, “So we’re going to Japan in August. Nate’s been wanting to take me there all this time.”

  Maya puts the bowls in the sink. Behind her, Kay is wiping the table with a dishrag. “What do you mean he’s taking you there? You make it sound like you’ve never been there yourself.”

  “Not to the places we’re planning to visit. We’re going to stay with his old AFS family in Nagoya. We’ll be there for a month and travel around from there. For me, it’ll be like going to a foreign country. The only place I really know in Japan is Tokyo, but I was just a child. Nate was in Nagoya for a whole year in high school, and he’s been back several times since. He’s the one who really knows the country.” With the dishrag in hand, Kay heads back to the sink. Maya returns to the table. She can’t talk or hear anything while Kay turns on the water. In a while, Kay leaves the dishes in the sink and comes to sit across the table from Maya. “Nate wanted to take me to Japan the first year we were together, but I feel better about going now.” She lowers her voice even though no one else is listening. “You can guess why.”

  It’s just like that night at the restaurant. Kay is sitting across the table and nodding a little in the way people do when they want the other person to agree without discussion. We don’t have to talk about this because we both know and agree—that’s what her expression means. “You’re wrong,” Maya spits out. “You could have gone to Japan without running into my father. You could have avoided going to Osaka if you were so afraid of seeing him. You didn’t have to wait until he was dead.”

  Kay makes a sour face. “I don’t think you understand how unhappy I was there once.”

  Maya stares at the plump gray-haired woman across the table. She is not the same person who left red marks on her wrists from clutching her too tight as they climbed down the basement steps. That was years ago in a different house. “Even if you were, it’s unfair to blame my father and make it sound like he was some kind of a monster. You were unhappy in Minnesota, too. You spread your unhappiness around and blame other people.”

  Kay draws in a sharp breath and does not exhale for a long time. Maya expects her to pick something up from the table and throw it, but she just sits there.

  “I wish you’d left me alone,” Maya says. “I hated living with you.”

  “If I hadn’t gotten you out of Osaka, you wouldn’t have had any kind of a life. Even your father agreed you’d be better off with me.”

  “That’s because you made him feel bad.”

  “It wasn’t easy for me to send for you. Bill and I might have gotten along better if I’d been alone.”

  Though the Nakashimas invited him to their Christmas dinner, Bill didn’t come. When Maya saw him the next day, his pale blue eyes looked watery and unfocused. “I didn’t hurt Bill. You did. Still, you should have left me with my father. I would have been happier with him.”

  Kay leans forward and glares at her. “You never really knew your father. You were too young.”

  “How can you say that? I was with him the whole time. You were seldom home even before you left us.”

  Kay’s nose crinkles when she frowns. “Your father chose his work over you. If he had wanted to give you a better home, he could have gotten a steady, normal job. Instead of being so proud, he could have asked his father and his brother for help. They had money and influence. They could have found him a real job, a second marriage, anything. But your father wasn’t willing to change his life for you. He didn’t love you enough to give up being a poor artist. He sent you to me so he could live his own life. He didn’t choose you.”

  Maya has the feeling she’s often had with her mother—she has been shrunk into a tiny insect buzzing around their heads. With her insect eyes, she is watching her mother’s mouth open and close, but all she knows is insect language. If she doesn’t concentrate, she will be blown away or squashed un
der her mother’s fingers with the nails painted a dark red.

  “You’re wrong,” she manages to say. “My father let me go because he loved me. He gave me up because you convinced him I’d be better off with you. Letting me go was a sign of love.”

  “That’s pathetic. He let you go because it was convenient, because he’d rather be an artist than a father.”

  “I don’t blame my father for being an artist. That was the one thing he couldn’t give up even if he tried.”

  “Why not? I gave up my job when I met Nate. I gave it up because I loved him. Why couldn’t your father do the same?”

  Being a political science professor isn’t the same as being an artist. Besides, by the time Kay resigned from her position, she was already fifty-five, old enough for an early retirement. She was not giving up something she was in the midst of. But Maya doesn’t want to argue anymore. No matter what she says, her mother will have something more to say. “I need to head home,” Maya announces, getting up and pushing her chair back. The legs scrape against the floor. “It’s getting late.”

  Kay follows her without a word. As they walk down the hallway, Maya remembers the knitting needle stabbing her back in her dreams, the metal ruler descending on her head. She quickens her steps in the floppy slippers and almost stumbles, but she doesn’t slow down.

  In the living room, the afghans Maya wove to match the couch are nowhere to be seen. Kay must notice her looking. “Those blankets you sent us,” she says, “they were too scratchy. I put them away. If I’d known you were coming, I might have brought them out just for you. But this was so sudden.”

  Maya shrugs. She was going to use only soft, washable wool to make the afghans. But she couldn’t resist putting in a few strands of dark-gray mohair threads because they made all the muted blues and greens come together; without them, the whole thing looked pointless and bland. She should have known how sensitive Kay is to any thread with a coarse texture.