If You Follow Me (29 page)

“They must have treated him terribly, to make him like this.”

“They did not make him like this,” he says. “When I was a boy, I also received
ijime
. Bullying. But I am not like this,
ne
? I am not stone.”

We are standing side by side, both facing the wall of boxes, when I feel the back of his hand brush against the back of mine. For just a moment we are closer than next to, closer than near. There is a call and response between my body and his body, a language beneath the skin. Then he pulls away. He buries his hands in his pockets, opens the door, and I follow him out of the storage area. In the living room, Ritsuko is already asleep on the couch. He pulls the blanket up over her, tucking her in.

 

The sun wakes me up before
The Four Seasons
. Downstairs, Ritsuko is sitting up on the couch, watching a videotaped
ER
episode. “Call it,” a nurse yells at a doctor, who is slamming his electrified paddles against a patient's exposed chest. “He's gone! Call it!”

“Good morning,” I say. “Did you sleep well?” Immediately I regret the question. But she nods and flicks the TV off, standing up
as if we were in class and I had just called on her. I ask what she'd like for breakfast, offering to make rice and miso soup, hoping she won't mind that it's from a package, but she says that she'd like to try American breakfast.

“Sure,” I say. “I'll make you some pancakes.”

“I love
hottokeki
,” she says. “Can you show me how?”

So I guide her through the steps, measuring flour into a bowl, cracking eggs, adding milk and melted butter, ladling the batter into a pan and telling her to watch for tiny bubbles that break without filling in. It's fun to cook with her, a relief to have something to do together. Again I almost forget why she's here. The first
hottokeki
is sizzling in a pan, turning golden at the edges, when I hear the cell phone start to ring from inside the storage area.
I heard he sang a sweet song…
I can't believe that it still has power. Ritsuko freezes at the sound, holding her spatula in midair like a flyswatter.

“I know this phone,” she says.

“It's Nakajima's,” I say. “I took it from him in English class.”

“He took it from me,” she says.

“It's yours?” I ask, and she nods. “Why did Nakajima have it?”

“He wants to know who calls me. He is very jealous boy.”

I go into the storage area and bring her the ringing phone. Next to the number flashing on the digital display are the letters: JYO. I hold it out to Ritsuko, who shakes her head after glimpsing the caller ID. “I don't want to talk to him,” she says adamantly. Not sure what to do, I return the phone to the box in the storage area. She ladles another circle of batter into the pan and watches it cook. At the back of the refrigerator I find an old bottle of maple syrup, just a crystallized inch remaining, hard as amber. I place this on the table next to a crumb-studded stick of butter and two pairs of disposable chopsticks in their paper sleeves.

“Is this how to eat
hottokeki
in America?” Ritsuko asks.

“Sorry,” I say. “I couldn't find any forks.”

She nods, then uses the tip of a chopstick to perforate a bite-sized wedge. “Thank you,” she says, looking down as she swirls the bite in syrup.

“You made them,” I say.

“I mean for taking me,” she says. “I could not go home.”

“It's nothing,” I say. “I wanted to. I'm glad I could help. And I'm sorry.”

“Why you are sorry?”

“I'm sorry for what you had to go through.”

“Go through?”

“I'm sorry for what you lost,” I try. “I'm sorry that you had to be alone.”

“But I wanted to be alone,” she says. “I want to be alone.”

“Good,” I say. “That's good.” She is chewing her first bite when I ask the question that's none of my business. “Was Joe the father?” She finishes chewing, swallows, then takes a long drink of milk.

“Maybe,” she says at last.

“Does that mean yes?” I press. “Because if he was, then you should really tell someone. It's wrong. You're sixteen years old. And he was your teacher.”

“Does maybe mean yes in English?” she asks me.

“No,” I say.

“Maybe means no?”

“Maybe means maybe. It's an expression of uncertainty. Like ‘I don't know.'”

“This is what I mean too. Maybe Nakajima was father. Maybe Joe. I don't know.”

“Oh,” I say. “I'm sorry. It's none of my business.”

“Boyfriend was Nakajima,” she says with a sigh. “In December, I tried to end it. But he was so sad. He begged to try again. He said he
loves me. If he loses me he will have nothing. He will hurt himself. So I say we can get back together. I don't want him to be so sad. I think it's easier to end it when I go to California. But he doesn't want me to go. He tells me he will die without me.” She stabs at a pancake with the tip of her chopstick. “So I cheated. I did what I wanted. I am very selfish girl. Now I only want to be alone.”

“You are not selfish,” I say. “You're young and smart and your life is just beginning. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be alone. You shouldn't feel guilty.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But I feel sad.”

“I know,” I say. “Of course you do. But you did the right thing.”

“I know,” she says. “Why are you crying?”

faito:
(
N
.)
fight

O
n the lawn in front of the museum of nuclear power, a makeshift wooden stage faces tarps spread across the grass in lines neat as ruled notebook paper. High school girls wearing aprons over their school uniforms carry trays of beer and tea, squid threaded onto skewers, and lurid, glistening red wieners. Keiko and her boys are sitting on a tarp toward the back. When I wave, Keiko beckons me to join their little group.

“You look…” she says.

“Ridiculous,” I say. Sakura insisted that many women would come to the festival dressed in kimono, but the only other person wearing one is the heavily made-up old lady singing twangy
enka
ballads on stage. I sit with my legs stretched in front of me, peeling back the kimono hem to show Keiko the shorts I have on underneath. I tell her that I couldn't put on the obi by myself, and she admits that she doesn't know how to tie one either. Koji scoots onto my lap, plants his feet on either side of me and leans back. I press my chin against the top of his head and wrap my arms around his solid, warm little body. Fumiya sits cross-legged, clucking his tongue like a metronome, tilting his face to the sun, blinking against the glare.

“Where's Yuji?” I ask.

“New York,” Keiko says.

“At his medical conference?”

“Probably playing golf.”

“I don't think there's much golf in New York City,” I say.

“Don't worry,” she says. “He will find it.”

“Hello,” Miyoshi-sensei says, squatting beside us. He is wearing his suit and a celadon green tie and he looks upset, his eye twitching, his face pale, and his body tense.

“What's the matter?” I ask.

“Maybe American mayor won't sign sister-city contract.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, and he nods. “Because of the power plant?”

“Ano ne…”
he stalls. “After visiting the high school, he expressed some reservations to send American students to study abroad at Shika High School. He is afraid we do not celebrate diversity here.”

“What diversity?” I say. “Everyone here is Japanese.”

“I know,” he says. “I try to explain we have no diversity to celebrate, but he is not convinced.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “Have you told your father?”

“Not yet,” he says. “My father is upset about something else. He said that when they entered the technical boys' classroom, you were forcing a condom into Nakajima's hand. He could not understand his eyes.”

“I was trying to teach him how to put it on a banana,” I say sheepishly. “It was part of my sex-ed lesson. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to teach it without you.”

“Probably not,” he agrees.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

“I think you have done enough,” he says. He tells me that it's time for the festival to begin and I should come up front to the judges'
table. There is going to be a short sumo demonstration before the speech contest. I take a seat at the table beneath the stage alongside the local dignitaries: gray-haired men in gray suits under a gray cloud of cigarette smoke. Across from me sits the American mayor, who is trying to help his wife with their fussing baby. Her cries are so loud that it's hard to hear Miyoshi-sensei when he gets up on stage and speaks into a microphone, explaining the rules of sumo for the Americans. “There are three ways to lose in sumo,” he says. “Number one, if you step outside the ring. Number two, if you touch the ground with anything but a foot. Number three, if you try such cowardly fighting practices as pulling hair, kicking or punching.”

The American mayor isn't listening. Their baby is arching her back and crying, her wails growing louder and more insistent. “I think it's all the cigarette smoke,” Kathy says. “I'll take her for a walk and see if I can get her to fall asleep in the pouch.”

“Should we wait for you?” Miyoshi-sensei asks, covering the microphone.

“Don't bother,” she says. “I've never been a big wrestling fan, but Ben Junior loves it. He's on his middle school team. This should be a real treat for him.”

Two high school girls rush onto the stage and spread a round, black rubber mat across the floor. Then they retreat and Miyoshi-sensei calls the wrestlers to come on out, but the stage remains empty. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, his microphone from hand to hand, glancing at his watch, scanning the crowd, looking everywhere except at Lone Wolf, who is narrating into his own microphone while his cameraman films the empty mat. “Where are the wrestlers?” His amplified voice fills the air. “The crowd grows restless. Everyone is bored. Will there be no sumo match today?”

“We're here,” says Nakajima, panting as he runs up the stairs, dressed in a black sweatshirt and baggy jeans, his Afro-perm puff ed
out bigger than ever. He is trailed by Haruki Ogawa, who is wearing his school uniform.

“You're late,” says Miyoshi-sensei. “Why aren't you in your
mawashi
?”

“Kieta
,” Nakajima replies. They vanished.

“Really,” Miyoshi-sensei says, looking at Haruki.

“Honto ni!
” Nakajima insists. “Right out of our bags!”

“Fine,” Miyoshi-sensei says. “You can wrestle in your clothes.”

“No way,” says Nakajima. “That's no fun. Sumo is about bodies.” His pants are so huge that he can pull them down without undoing his fly. Then he yanks his sweatshirt over his head so that he's wearing just his boxer shorts, which are green with bright yellow frogs. The crowd goes wild. Girls giggle and shield their eyes. Boys whistle and clap each other on the backs. Old men chuckle and old women shake their heads. For a moment their reactions puzzle me. The
mawashi
is far more revealing than this, a narrow strip of white cloth cutting a swath between the butt cheeks. But it's a uniform. The crowd hoots and calls for Ogawa-san to take his clothes off too, and when it's clear that they're not going to relent, Haruki moves in his usual slow motion, stripping as if there were a gun to his head. Dressed only in a sad pair of tight briefs, he looks like the real sumo wrestler, meaning he looks like a giant baby. His upper body is so fat that his arms seem to float, buoyed by the rings of his chest. His thighs are so big that he has to keep his legs spread.

“Those are the two boys that are going to wrestle each other?” the mayor asks me.

“Yeah,” I say.

“That doesn't look like a fair contest.”

“You're right,” I say. “It won't be.”

Miyoshi-sensei puts the whistle in his mouth, nods at each boy, and then blows. Nakajima squats, lifting one leg in the air and then
the other while Haruki remains frozen. Only when Nakajima lunges does Haruki bolt, running downstairs, and through the crowd.

“What's going on?” the American mayor asks me. “Why won't he fight the kid?”

“He's scared of him,” I say.

“That's crazy.” He sounds furious. “I can't just sit here and watch the boy get ostracized. Go on, Ben.” He nudges his son. “Wrestle with the brother.”

The brother
?

Before I can speak, correct this mistake, the boy is already walking onto the stage, taking off his own sweatshirt. The crowd applauds. The boy grins and waves at his mom, who has returned with the sleeping baby. He still has the chest of a little boy, sunken and sweet, with tiny nipples the pale pink of pencil erasers. His brown skin is just a shade darker than Nakajima's, his curls just a little less tightly coiled.

They could in fact be brothers.

“I got the rules,” he says to Miyoshi-sensei, who looks nervous as he backs slowly away. Nakajima shows the boy how to do the squatting and leg lifting thing. They lock eyes, and when Miyoshi-sensei blows the whistle, they charge at each other and the littler boy wraps his arms around the bigger one.

Nakajima doesn't let the boy win, but he does allow himself to be pushed around the circle a few times before he nudges him out of it. When they bow at each other again, both wear grins as wide as bananas. Nakajima offers to wrestle anyone else in the crowd, and a bunch of junior high school boys take him up on his offer, all stripping to their underwear before climbing up onstage. I've never seen Nakajima look this happy. Like the rest of us, he just wants to be good at something, left to do this thing.

When I climb up onstage, his smile wavers.

When I begin to unwrap my obi, he looks downright uncomfortable.

“Sumo not for girl,” he says, but I only smile, stretch out the moment, slowly opening the kimono, easing it off one shoulder and then the other.

“Dangerous-o!” Lone Wolf howls into the microphone.

The crowd is silent.

Catching sight of Miyoshi-sensei, who is covering his mouth with one hand and shaking his head with perceptible horror, I quickly slide the kimono off to reveal my tank top and shorts. Everyone claps and laughs, even Nakajima. “Teach me,” I say, so he shows me how to warm up. Then we lean into each other, shoulder to shoulder. As I push against him, he matches my force exactly. This is just what my dad used to do when I was little and we'd arm wrestle. It drove me crazy, the way he could hold his arm steady while I exhausted myself, pushing without progress. It was his way of showing love. He wouldn't let me win, but he didn't want to crush me either.

Nakajima shifts, trying to throw me off balance. I manage to stay within the ring, bending down to grab hold of his ankle. He twists easily out of my grasp. “Nakajima gets around,” he whispers. When I start to giggle, he seizes my own leg and holds it in the air while I hop backward, laughing even as he pushes me out.

“Okay,” Miyoshi-sensei says. “I am sorry, Miss Marina, but Nakajima is still undefeated sumo champion!” Everyone claps and whistles and calls his name, “Nakajima! Nakajima! Nakajima!” But suddenly the chant shifts. “Ogawa?” yells one of the senior technical boys. “Ogawa! Ogawa! Ogawa!” It's more jeer than cheer.

As Haruki climbs the stairs and takes his place in the ring, members of the audience place bets over which boy will win. The one with the sumo title, or the one with the sumo body. Once more Miyoshi-sensei raises the whistle to his lips, and this time both
charge, ramming bodies like big animals battling for a small territory. Haruki bears down on Nakajima, using his chest to push him to the far side of the ring. But then, at the last moment, Nakajima swivels out from under Haruki, throws him off balance and seizes his ankle, uprooting his massive leg. Haruki freezes as Nakajima starts shoving him toward the edge of the ring, moving him like something inanimate, a piano or a refrigerator. I can't help but feel disappointed. If this were a Hollywood movie, Haruki would have to win. He's the underdog. He has the physical advantage and the motivation to beat his former bully. And what a thrill it would be to defeat Nakajima at his own sport, in front of an audience, and on TV.

“Unbelievable!” Lone Wolf intones. “The fat one appears to be losing!”

Haruki breaks the first rule of sumo, kneeing Nakajima in the groin. As Nakajima doubles over, Haruki throws his whole weight on top of him, clamping his hand around his throat. They roll over each other and off the edge of the stage, and even after they hit the ground Haruki doesn't stop punching and kicking, as if he'd been saving up all of that stillness, storing all his wild energy for just this moment, just this chance.

A couple runs through the crowd, prying the boy off Nakajima. The woman is wearing the jade green uniform of the grocery store, and she takes off the jacket, using it to soak up the blood streaming from his nose. These must be Nakajima's parents. I recognize the man from behind the window of Shika's one barbershop, which serves a clientele of plant workers. He has a perm too. They guide their limping son through the crowd, propping him up with their arms, ignoring Haruki who is sitting with his forehead pressed to his knees. Miyoshi-sensei takes off his own suit jacket and sets it on the boy's shaking back.

“Is he okay?” I ask.

“I should probably take him home,” Miyoshi-sensei says.

“It looked like he wanted to kill Nakajima.”

“He wanted to win,” he says. “Of course it's not the right way. He should not have broken rules. But for once he was not a stone,
ne
? Maybe next time he takes a better risk.”

“Is he going to be suspended from school?” I ask.

“This would not be punishment for Haruki.”

“No,” I agree. “I guess it would be a reward.”

“It would be giving up,” he says.

He helps Haruki to his feet. His suit jacket flaps like a tiny cape on Haruki's huge body. With snot streaming down his face and eyes of glass, the boy looks like a refugee, someone who has lost his home and has no idea where to go.

 

Lone Wolf and his camera crew position themselves in front of the stage as I take the microphone and announce that it's time for the English speech contest. I wish I were still wearing the kimono instead of this tank top and shorts. “If any of you would like to make a speech in English, now's the time!” I repeat once more, but again no one steps forward. The SMILE members scattered throughout the crowd avoid my eyes.

“Tsumaranai
,” I hear Lone Wolf mutter to his cameraman. This is boring.

“Wakaranai
?” I ask the crowd. Do you understand me?

“Wakaranai
?” a familiar voice echoes.

From the back of the lawn, I see Keiko and her boys making their slow way toward the stage. Fumiya is rubber-kneed, trying to wriggle away from his mom, who is holding him by the elbow, dragging him forward while Koji pushes him from the back. When the three of them finally straggle up onstage, I try to give Fumiya the
microphone but he swats at my hand, so I place it in the stand and step aside.