Three
Only Ten Days
Sadie studied her niece’s picture. “You are turning out to be quite the artist,” she said before shoving the crayons to one side to make room for the teapot.
Michiko grimaced.
“Say thank you,” her mother admonished.
“Thank you,” Michiko mumbled. She wanted to finish the picture she was making for her father. It was her favourite part of the story of Peach Boy.
Geechan, her grandfather, handed her mother the morning mail. He lived with them now, like Sadie. Hiro’s crib was in Michiko’s room, and Sadie and her mother shared a bed. Having Geechan around helped Michiko forget that her father was in the mountains. He always wore a smile on his wrinkled chestnut face.
Eiko opened a letter. After scanning it for a minute, she said, “Ted’s written to tell us about his big plans.”
“Our brother always has big plans,” complained Sadie.
“He says that since he’s lost his boat, he’s leaving Port Rupert.”
“How did Uncle Ted lose his boat?” Michiko asked in surprise. “Did he forget to anchor it? Did it float away?”
Her mother did not answer. She continued to read the letter silently. “He’s found work,” she said instead.
“Where?” asked Geechan.
“I don’t know exactly,” her mother replied. “He says it’s somewhere in the interior.”
“He can’t build boats in the interior,” Sadie scoffed. “What is he up to?”
Eiko read aloud. “The owner of the shipyard, Mr. Masumoto, is the building supervisor. I am one of the carpenters he is taking along.” Her mother stopped reading. Michiko could see her eyes scanning the words. Then she continued. “We will help to build a new hospital, along with,” she paused, “several small houses.”
“Several small houses,” Sadie added. “You know who they are for, don’t you, Eiko?”
Eiko shrugged, folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. She placed it in the pocket of her apron.
She never reads the entire letter out loud any more, Michiko thought. She only reads bits and pieces to me. She has even stopped letting me read them on my own. There were so many secrets and mysteries in their house these days.
Michiko thought about her goldfish’s new home on the window sill. Where had the slim wood cabinet with the curved legs gone? She had loved to open and close the two big ivory knobbed wooden doors when the radio was not in use. Some of their beautiful hangings and paintings were no longer on the walls, and their cabinet of blue porcelain vases was almost empty. The camera had disappeared, and no one tried to find it.
Geechan took Michiko by the hand. The skin of his hands was paper-thin and the bones birdlike. He led her to the kitchen door and pointed to the cherry tree in full bloom. “We have only ten days,” he told her.
“Why only ten days?” Michiko asked.
“Cherry blossoms open all at once,” he explained. “In Japan, the petals last only ten days.”
“But that’s in Japan,” Michiko protested. “This is a Canadian tree. It will bloom longer.”
Geechan sighed. “A cherry tree is a cherry tree,” he said, letting go of her hand.
Michiko decided to keep track of the days, the way they did at school. On the calendar, she drew a cherry blossom. She would draw a blossom each day the tree was in bloom.
She felt Geechan’s hands on her shoulders. “What day will we have our hanami?” he said into her ear. She could smell his strange mix of soap and fish.
“What’s that?”
“In Japan, people celebrate the opening of the cherry blossoms.” He opened his arms wide. “They have picnics under the trees.”
Michiko’s eyes lit up. She turned to her mother. “May we have a hanami?”
Her mother lifted her hands from the bubbles in the sink and wiped them on her apron. “We only have one tree,” she said. Then she smiled at Geechan.
“Let’s have a picnic under the cherry tree,” Michiko pleaded. “Please.” She tugged at her mother’s apron.
“I suppose I could make sakura-mochi,” Eiko said. “If I could find the right ingredients.”
“I’ll find what we need,” Sadie piped in. She sat with her feet on a chair, flipping through a magazine. “I know a few people still in business.”
This would be a very special picnic if her mother was willing to make cherry rice cakes. “Did you hear that, Hiro?” Michiko ran to her brother, propped up in his high chair by a purple pillow. “We are going to have a hanami.”
She looked into his bowl. Several toast fingers covered a floral design. Michiko grabbed the bowl and dumped out the toast. “Look,” she held it up. “It has a cherry blossom on the bottom.”
Hiro blinked. His tiny pointed chin quivered, and his round fat face turned red. He opened his mouth wide and howled. Two large teardrops popped on to his cheeks.
“Sorry,” mumbled his sister as she picked up the toast bits and put them into his bowl.
Hiro smiled through his tears. He clumsily picked up one of the fingers of toasted bread. “Ha,” he grunted and crammed it into his mouth.
“That’s right, Hiro,” Michiko prompted him, “ha-na-mi, say it Hiro, ha-na-mi.”
Hiro crammed a finger of toast into his mouth and reached for another.
Geechan tapped the calendar. “Saturday,” he said. “Our hanami will be Saturday.”
That would be the eighth day of blossoms. Michiko looked out the kitchen window. A few petals lay on the grass. She ran outside and gathered them up.
On Saturday afternoon, Sadie and Geechan spread a futon on the grass beneath the pink blossomed branches. Her mother carried out a large pink china plate. Outlines of cherry blossoms, etched in gold, danced along the edge. They drank green tea from small cups shaped like lotus flowers and feasted on sakura-mochi, butter tarts and thin slices of sponge cake.
Geechan brought Happy outside, and Michiko fed him a few crumbs of cake.
“Now it is time for the entertainment,” Sadie announced. She daubed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, then she rose from her knees and straightened the skirt of her special occasion kimono. Sadie extended her hand to her father. “I bring you Hanaska-jiisan, the story of the old man and the cherry tree.”
Geechan pulled a red silk scarf from his pocket. He tied it around his forehead. From his other pocket he pulled a red tin flute.
Michiko’s mother gasped. She pressed her fingertips to her lips and opened her eyes wide. She gathered Hiro onto her lap and pulled Michiko to her side. “We are going to hear a rakugo,” she told the children.
Sadie told the story in Japanese while Geechan played the flute. Eiko quietly whispered the translation in their ears.
Michiko watched her aunt’s face glow as Geechan’s fingers danced up and down the tiny holes of the flute. While her mother whispered, he made the flute sing.
First, Sadie told them of the miserable old man who sat under his cherry tree every day. Geechan played the flute slowly then made a mean face. She told them he wouldn’t allow anyone else to sit under the tree, even when it blossomed.
Then their mother said, “While eating cherries, the old man swallowed