Mary Waters - The Favorites

The lane that passed through the weavers’ neighborhood was narrower than the lanes at home and covered with asphalt instead of loose gravel. Although seemingly deserted, it resounded with the gat-tan, gat-tan of wooden looms from the houses on either side. These were the poorer dwellings, lacking the buffer of gateways or garden entrances. They were packed so closely together that they gave the impression of being one continuous building, broken up only by individual roofs.

When Sarah and her mother passed the open windows, many of which were lightly barred with old-fashioned bamboo, the general clatter resolved itself into individual rhythms. In one house, it was slow and uneven. In the next house, the pace was fast and furious; someone was probably speeding through an unpatterned section. This lane was extremely narrow, almost claustrophobic with so much noise and so many miniature potted plants lined beside each door. The two of them, walking abreast, took up its entire width.

Then Sarah felt her mother’s hand slip into hers.

She stared straight ahead, unable to look. Her mother’s hand was warm and slightly calloused, and it held hers with the close, familiar grip she remembered from childhood. Sarah thought of the woman in the shrine, singing to her toddler in that tender voice. A strange burning started in her eyes, a slow treacherous swell in her throat. She widened her eyes so that no tears would spill.

They walked hand in hand through the cacophony of the looms. A straggle of wild grass, still lush from the rainy season, had pushed up through a crack in the asphalt. Its detail refracted sharp and clear through the moisture in her eyes.

“This little lane,” said her mother, “is the best barometer of Japan ’s economy. I tell you, it’s so accurate you don’t even need a newspaper.” She said this nonchalantly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Ng,” said Sarah.

“Think about it,” Mrs. Rexford continued. “When women have extra spending money, what’s the first thing they do? They show off to their neighbors. They attend expensive tea ceremonies. They send their daughters for lessons in koto or classical dance. And what do all these activities require? That’s right, kimonos and sashes. And who weaves the silk? People like these.”

“So this noise means Japan ’s really prosperous right now?” Sarah thought of the bells attached to the vendors’ money bags: the sound of prosperous commerce.

“Soh. The stock market and the looms move together. Every time. Remember that.”

Noon was approaching, and it was hotter than when they had first set out. Their clasped hands became damp with perspiration. Even Sarah’s bare arms felt moist. But she preferred this wet heat to the dry desert air of Fielder’s Butte, where the harsh, undiluted rays burned the skin. She felt loose and open to the world.

The heat had caused one of the houses to leave its sliding door slightly open, in hopes of catching a breeze. From within, mixed with the looms’ clatter, came a television’s tinny sounds of applause and merriment. Above the tiled roofs white clouds were shining, like explosions of giant popcorn. Happiness, like those clouds, hung just within their reach.

“Don’t forget,” announced Mrs. Kobayashi, descending into the kitchen. “Granny Asaki’s coming over after lunch to pay her respects to the altar.”

“I’ll put some new flowers in the altar vase,” said Mrs. Rexford. She stepped up into the dining room with a tray of freshly filled condiment bowls. “What do you think, Sarah-chan?” she said to her daughter, who was setting the low table for lunch. “Red camellias? Lilies are too tall. Or maybe a branch from the yuzu tree?”

Chan was an affectionate diminutive paired with children’s names, a word with no real equivalent in English. Hearing this endearment on her mother’s lips, after all the years of grammatically correct English, made Sarah absurdly happy. Suddenly shy, she avoided looking at her mother.

“Yuzu sounds nice,” she replied nonchalantly. “The baby fruits are so cute.”

“That’s what we’ll do then,” said her mother, unloading the tiny bowls for Sarah to arrange.

It was two days since they had held hands. A certain awkwardness still hung over them, like that of sweethearts after a first kiss. More than once Sarah had caught her mother watching her with an eager, open look.

Today Mrs. Rexford was in a playful mood. “Mommy,” she called down to Mrs. Kobayashi, “can’t Sarah and I have a little snack before lunch? We’re hungry. Please, pleeeze?”

Mrs. Kobayashi climbed up into the room with a shallow wooden vat of steaming rice. “Kora, what a lazy, spoiled child I’ve got!” she lamented. She shook her head with mock despair at the sight of her grown daughter lolling at the low table, sneaking a bite from one of the condiment bowls. “There’s a plate of sticky-bean cakes in the cabinet,” she said, relenting, “but you’ll just have to wait!”

Mrs. Rexford then turned to her daughter, who was watching the adults’ silliness with a look of wary uncertainty. “Let’s you and I raid the cabinet,” she whispered loudly, “when your grandma’s not looking.” Sarah’s eyes took on the look of a dazzled schoolgirl. Unable to come up with a response, she merely giggled at her mother.

“You two are hopeless,” Mrs. Kobayashi declared, descending the wooden step into the kitchen.

After lunch, Sarah carried the finished yuzu arrangement into the family room. The household altar stood atop a dresser. It was a black lacquered box, with two doors that opened out like a dollhouse. Inside, on shelves, were tablets that looked like miniature headstones, each bearing the name of a deceased member of the Kobayashi line. Some of these tablets were so old, no one knew anything about them. On the bottom shelf were a small white candle, a sand-filled ceramic bowl studded with green incense sticks, a set of prayer beads, and a miniature inverted gong resting on a silk cushion. There was a doll-sized cup for water and a doll-sized cup for rice. Each morning, when Mrs. Kobayashi cooked a fresh batch of rice, she saved the first scoop for the altar-or more precisely for her first husband. Sarah was often awakened by the chinnn of the gong-surprisingly resonant for such a small piece of cast iron-and the muttered sounds of her grandmother praying.

She placed the vase beside the miniature gong, then returned to the kitchen. Her mother was squeezing out a dishcloth and hanging it over a bamboo rod sticking out from the wall.

“Would you mind taking these flowers over to your auntie?” Mrs. Rexford nodded toward a plastic bucket in the kitchen vestibule. It was filled with yellow lilies, picked earlier that day from the garden.

“Wait,” said her grandmother, who was bending over the icebox. “Let me wrap them up first.”

“No, I’ll do that. Stay there.” Mrs. Rexford bounded up the wooden step into the dining room. “I’ll go find some newspaper.”

Carrying the armful of lilies-its scent redolent of wet newsprint, freshly cut stems, and spicy blooms-Sarah headed toward the Asaki house.

The Asaki property was large enough to have several gardens. There was a formal one in the back and another one in the front, and two narrow utilitarian gardens on either side. Sarah took the left-hand path, which led to the kitchen entrance. The air was heavy with the scent of hot flagstones and the mingled smells of foliage opening their pores to the sun. She brushed past a wall of hydrangea bushes that exuded palpable moisture, making the surrounding air almost too thick to breathe.

Her aunt stood framed in the kitchen window, washing dishes. The kitchen entrance was flanked by neatly tended rows of mitsuba, shingiku, and komatsuna. Mrs. Nishimura plucked these tender greens each morning for her family’s miso soup, and often she sent her girls to the Kobayashi house with extras.