Frances Itani - Requiem

“Impressive,” I say. “But look, I’m sorry for the delay. All it means is that I’ll be arriving four or five days later, something like that.”

“I had no idea how far you’d be driving each day. I didn’t even know if you had my work number. Though the academic year is winding down and I’m not at the office so much. You could get one of those cell phones,” she says drily. “Then we could get in touch with you when we need to.”

It’s always about need with Kay. Her needs, Hugh’s needs, my needs. And of course, First Father’s.

“What is it that you’re looking for?” she says, changing tactics. “Searching, searching, you travel around the world, but for what? You don’t light long enough to find whatever it is.”

Ah, I wasn’t expecting this. But that’s her job. Identify the problem.

“Your room is ready. And what about Basil? I thought you wanted to drop him off with us while you went on to the camp.”

I look through the wall of the phone booth and see Basil watching for my next move. Big, sloppy, happy Basil. He’s drooling against the car window as I speak. And he does love the company of other dogs, even Diva; he’s more sociable than I am and can fit into any existing hierarchy. Though a few years ago, when he was younger and we were visiting Kay, Diva, after two days, had had her fill of the interloper. She dragged Basil’s bed out to the yard and dumped it on the grass.

The real truth is, I’m not ready to face sister, brother-in-law, brother or his new friend. My own silence has been exactly right throughout this trip, and I need to protect it a bit longer. Well, there it is, what I need.

“What about Kamloops?” she says suddenly. “You have to pass through there to get to the camp, or very close by. I’ve already warned Father that you’ll be driving to B.C. after you leave Edmonton. He’ll be sitting in his chair, staring at the door as always, but this time he thinks it’s you who will be walking in.”

A man who won’t leave the province. Another who won’t enter. Until now. I imagine a painting, panels, a diptych maybe, some sort of split canvas. If I were in it, I’d paint myself out.

“I don’t know why you did that, Kay. I haven’t decided about that.”

A long sigh.

“You never knew,” she says. “Well, how could you? No one ever told you. After we left the camp, while we were on the move from one town to the next, some nights after Henry and I were in bed, Father mourned because he had given you away. It was terrible. He keened, a high-pitched wail. My God, it was terrible.”

Did I hear correctly? Did she say keened? First Father, keening.

“There was no keeping him quiet,” she said. “It was disturbing to all of us, but to Mother especially. Her grief was quiet and contained. But just as terrible all the same. There were other people around, too. In the mill towns. Other Japanese families, just a few. We lived in such close quarters; everyone knew everyone else’s business. No one was happy about the noise.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Kay?”

“How do you think Henry and I felt? You were his favourite. You always were. He had hopes for you. The biggest hopes. He loved you so much. Can’t you see that? He always loved you best.” She sounds like a child as it spills out of her. “Why do you think he gave you to Okuma-san? My God, Bin, figure it out. You’re not a stupid man. He wanted more for you. What he couldn’t give. A future. Any future at all. But he missed you. He even said, several times, that he was going to go after you and bring you back. Long after you and Okuma-san left British Columbia.”

I swallow hard at this. I’m the target of the ambush: words coming at me from all sides.

“But he didn’t come after me, did he. If he’d wanted me, he wouldn’t have given me away in the first place. Anyway, by then he’d have lost face—if he’d tried to take me back. Okuma-san did legally adopt me, you know. He was my father.”

I haven’t intended anger, but there it is.

“I know all that,” she says sadly, and I suddenly understand that what she’s telling me is probably true. Every bit of it.

Why didn’t he let Mother visit me when I was a child? I don’t ask. Okuma-san and I were living far away from them, in the south of the province. Even before we moved to Ontario, there wouldn’t have been enough money. A trip would have been unthinkable.

All the emotions withheld. First Father, having made his decision, would have had to banish any thought of changing his mind and trying to get me back.

All the feelings concealed.

All the stories never told. Fifty-one years of stories. Fifty-one years since Ying’s truck drove my first family across the bridge and dropped them at the bus station on the other side of the river. I have no idea, I realize, how they lived their lives. I know only how Okuma-san and I lived ours. I received Mother’s letters, and Kay’s, but did the letters reveal anything? They never wrote about the details: how much my sister and brother had grown in a year; if they had to wear tight shoes; what they endured at their schools; if their hand-me-downs were ridiculed; if Henry was often in fights, as I was; if they had enough to eat; if they ever knelt inside a church to pray. Did they have trouble finding their first jobs? How did Kay get herself to university? She must have worked so hard. And what was Mother’s life like during those years, before Kay and Henry left home? Hard-working, of course. I found out later that she had worked as a domestic in the home of one of the mill owners. Trying to contribute earnings to feed and dress her children. But no one was in a position to give Mother what she did not have. A different kind of life. A family undivided.

“Look,” I tell Kay, “I’ll go. I’ll visit him. I’ll drive right up to his goddamned doorstep. Give me the directions.”

“You don’t have to swear,” she says. And there’s a sudden softness to her voice that makes me remember her as she once was, up on the slope behind the camp, trying to teach me to read, helping me to collect pine cones to decorate, admonishing when she heard anyone say a swear word, urging me to run down the hill to chase away the ghosts—something I’ve never quite managed to do.

But you can , Lena’s voice says, suddenly, in my head. It’s as if she’s beside me again. Put the fates to use. Chase away your ghosts. This is your chance .

I wonder for a moment if Kay is crying.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to swear. It’s just that I hadn’t made up my own mind about seeing First Father—not yet. Give me the directions.”

I take them down and write them on the back of Otto’s new business card, which I’ve pulled from my wallet while standing in the phone booth. I flip the card over and see an engraved chrysanthemum in one corner, symbol of the Imperial family. Otto’s publishing address and phone number are prominent. With Japanese characters I don’t know how to read down one side. A prelude to his retreat with the Buddhists in Japan. And now, directions to First Father’s house on the back.

I continue west through miles of rolling hills. I had phoned Greg immediately after talking to Kay.

“I might be able to get back to Ottawa for my twenty-first birthday in the summer,” he told me. “Unless you can make it to Cape Cod. If you can swing it, it might be easier that way. Everything will depend on the dates around my program. And there’s someone I want you to meet—you and Miss Carrie, too. Her name is Caitlin; she’ll be at Woods Hole with me. We managed to be accepted into the same program. I’ve been seeing her for a while now. She’s in two of my classes here,” he said. “She’s great, she’s just great. You’re going to like her, Dad. And she doesn’t like to be called Kate. Full name only.”