Mary Waters - The Favorites

Sarah nodded. Her mother had read her the story out of one of the books her grandmother had sent her. Benkei was a legendary vassal warrior, greatly feared for his brute strength and sword skills. He had earned a place in history for his remarkable allegiance to his lord, Yoshitsune. This allegiance had lasted right up to their deaths, when the two of them were cornered by enemies. Yoshitsune had died first, taking his own life. Benkei, mortally wounded from an arrow, stuck his sword into the ground and expired on it. From a distance his propped-up corpse seemed to be in a stance of readiness, so their foes were afraid to come any closer. “Even in death,” her mother had told her, “he protected his master. Nothing’s more admirable than that kind of loyalty.”

“There must have been a lot of Benkei in Mama,” said Sarah.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, “and it meant the world to me.” They paused while Sarah rinsed the konnyaku under the faucet and her grandmother chopped the chives with loud thuds of the knife against the cutting board.

“It was a hard time,” Mrs. Kobayashi finally said. “I’d lost my husband. I’d lost my newborn child. It felt like everyone was against me.”

“Except for Mama.”

“Except for your mama. Sometimes I used to go to the park where she was playing. And I’d beckon her over and slip a little something in her pocket. Like a bit of sweet potato, or a tiny rice ball with a pinch of umeboshi in the middle. The food was still rationed back then. Things were really tight.” She paused in her work, remembering.

“There just wasn’t enough,” she said, “for the other children.”

Perhaps to atone for today’s unpleasantness, or perhaps to distract the family from this evening’s O-bon foot traffic, Mrs. Kobayashi served sukiyaki for dinner. It was an odd choice. Sukiyaki was a winter dish, suggestive of old-world country folk huddled around a common pot. Setting it up required some effort. A gas hose had to be retrieved from storage. One end was attached to a wall outlet, the other end to a range built into the dining table (modern Japanese tables came equipped with such accessories). On this range, a shallow pan was kept simmering throughout the meal. They dropped in raw ingredients from a nearby platter, leaning over the steam to monitor for doneness before lifting it out into their private bowls.

“It’s kind of festive, cooking right at the table!” Sarah said.

“That’s why people eat sukiyaki at celebrations,” replied her mother.

“Let’s not worry about what’s seasonal,” Mrs. Kobayashi said to everyone at the dinner table. “With all of you living so far away, who knows when you’ll have another chance to taste your grandma’s sukiyaki?” Her husband gave a comical groan, fanning himself exaggeratedly. But he was quick to tuck in. The two men cracked one egg after another into their private dipping bowls. Little Jun, energized from his outing, recounted the baseball game in loud, happy detail.

“And then he hit a home run!” he said. “Pow!” He was wearing a new red baseball cap jammed on top of his old blue one. The men, too, seemed stimulated by their outing. They actually carried the conversation at the dinner table for a change, pausing every so often to wipe sweat from their faces with cotton handkerchiefs. Mrs. Kobayashi refilled their glasses with cold Kirin beer.

All of this, enhanced by the spectacle of sukiyaki bubbling on the table in the middle of summer, made for an unusually merry evening. Seven pairs of chopsticks dipped in and out of the pan like birds’ beaks, pulling out meat, onions, garlic shoots, tofu, konnyaku-all gleaming with fat and sugared soy sauce. Christianity was never mentioned. No one noticed the neighbors returning from graveyard duty, their footsteps slow and heavy on the gravel. By some magic force everyone’s tension had lifted, and the entire table seemed to float on a cloud of well-being.

As they ate, Sarah surreptitiously watched her mother and aunt. But they looked relaxed, even happy. They said little, laughing appreciatively at the men, who were joking about getting heatstroke at the dinner table. Mrs. Kobayashi pretended to be insulted, and the men grinned at her with their lean, handsome faces.

Mrs. Izumi lifted the teapot and refilled her big sister’s cup in an intimate gesture, accidentally spilling some drops in the process. Mrs. Rexford wiped them away with an ill-mannered swipe of her finger, glancing furtively at her mother as she did so. Mrs. Kobayashi didn’t notice. Both sisters giggled under their breath like naughty children.

Sarah felt sorry for her cousins, who were missing this dinner. Thinking of them reminded her of that strange regret she had felt this afternoon, when she knew she could never rejoin their world. She wondered if her mother had also known this feeling.

It was a fleeting thought in an otherwise golden hour. But in years to come, it would sadden her to remember two grown sisters giggling behind their mother’s back like the partners in crime they had never been.

It was a sunny afternoon well into spring. Cherry petals, crisscrossed with bicycle tracks, littered the Ueno lanes like old snow.

Mrs. Asaki had come home from shopping downtown, dragging her tired feet through the dirty petals. She tapped on the Kobayashis’ kitchen door in order to drop off a package of seasonal grass dumplings. There was no answer. Gingerly, she slid open the door-the short curtain wasn’t drawn, so someone had to be home-and heard a strange keening coming from the family room. Slipping off her shoes, she stepped up onto the tatami floor.

Mrs. Kobayashi, seated at the low table, looked up with bloodshot eyes.

“Yoko’s dead…,” she said.

“Hehh?” Mrs. Asaki’s shopping bags, all five of them, hit the floor with a thud. She sank down beside her sister-in-law. “Yo-chan? Dead?!?”

“Sarah just telephoned.” Sarah was eighteen and in her first year of college. “Yo-chan and her husband were driving somewhere together, and…” Mrs. Kobayashi winced, as if talking hurt her.

“Was it an accident?”

“It was instantaneous…both of them.”

They continued to sit, at a loss for words.

It felt eerily similar to when Shohei had died in the war. Then, too, the news had come from afar. Like his daughter he had died in a strange land, suddenly and in his prime. Mrs. Asaki remembered young Mrs. Kobayashi saying, “I just got a telegram…,” with that same odd catch in her voice.

Mrs. Asaki’s grief for Shohei had been intense, for the siblings were close. After their mother died, she had cared for him like her own son.

Now she said helplessly, “It’s a terrible thing. A terrible thing.”

Mrs. Kobayashi nodded.

If only she would cry, thought Mrs. Asaki. In the old days, her sister-in-law had trusted her enough to cry in her presence. Together they had sobbed over Shohei’s death. It was the first time Mrs. Asaki had felt close to her. Until then, she had secretly resented this young woman who had captured her brother’s heart so easily and completely. She wasn’t proud of her feelings, and luckily Mrs. Kobayashi never suspected.

Mrs. Asaki’s dislike went deeper than just Shohei; she had felt it in her gut the first time they met. Her sister-to-be had worn a Western dress of sky blue, with a purple sash and a small bunch of violets pinned dashingly at the base of her V-neckline. She had an air-not arrogance so much as a kind of bright self-satisfaction, typical of girls who had been sheltered all their lives.

“What a fashionable dress,” Mrs. Asaki had said.

“Oh, it’s just cheap fabric…I’m embarrassed, seeing the beautiful kimonos here in Kyoto.” It was a perfectly correct response, but her expression belied the words.