probably hungry,” she said. “He’s always hungry.”
As Michiko headed back to the farmhouse, she hoped some children lived nearby. It would be nice to have someone to play with while they were on vacation.
That night, as she listened to the sound of crickets, the wind whispering through the pines and the hoot of an owl, Michiko began to wonder why two families would want to share a house. Why wouldn’t they live in a house of their own?
Seven
Family Photographs
Trucks laden with lumber travelled back and forth in front of the farmhouse daily, turning the road into two deep muddy ditches.
Michiko made a calendar using the bottom of a cardboard box Geechan brought home. He looked for things of use wherever he went, never returning empty-handed. One day he brought a small enamel basin caked with mud. Another day it was an armful of burlap bags. Sometimes he returned with things to eat. Michiko loved the fleshy fan-shaped mushrooms he gathered from the woods.
When he presented a pailful of wild vegetables to Michiko’s mother, she glanced into it and smiled. Auntie Sadie looked and grimaced.
“Where did you find them?” Eiko asked.
“Dokodemo,” he replied.
Michiko peeked in at the smooth green stalks with tightly coiled tips.
Geechan nudged her. “Try one.”
She reached in. The strange green antennae were cool to the touch. Their coils were covered in short rusty-brown hairs. Michiko brushed away the hairs and bit into it. It was crisp and, to her surprise, sweet. “What are they called?”
“Warabi,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He did not know the name in English.
“They’re called fiddleheads,” Sadie piped up. “See how the end looks likes the head of a fiddle?”
Everyone ate the greens for dinner.
“We need to find out how we can dry them,” Eiko said. “We could store them like mushrooms.”
“Ask Mrs. Morrison,” Sadie suggested. “That woman knows everything.”
Mrs. Morrison had visited Michiko’s family once a week since they arrived. Michiko soon came to recognize the sound of her black-laced shoes stomping up the verandah stairs. There would be a short pause before she knocked, in order for her to catch her breath.
Eiko made her black tea, knowing this new friend wasn’t fond of the tiny twigs and leaves that floated about in the tea they drank. Mrs. Morrison sipped from the gold-rimmed china cup with pink roses that Eiko had packed. She nibbled on Ritz crackers served on the small green glass plate.
Each visit, Mrs. Morrison brought them something. She gave Geechan a pair of black rubber boots for his walks in the countryside. She won Hiro’s affection by pulling an Arrowroot cookie from her handbag each time he sat on her lap. Sadie received a jar of cold cream. Eiko got recipes and advice, and Michiko always got something to read. Her favourite gift was the tattered gold embossed book Fifty Famous Fairy Tales.
Mrs. Morrison taught them how to keep the reservoir on the stove full of hot water for washing faces and hands. She showed them how to place the oval copper pot with handles over two stove lids to boil water, and put bricks in the warming oven to take to bed at night.
She let Geechan teach her how to use chopsticks, and to count to ten in Japanese.
The same man that picked them up at the station dropped her off at the top of the road on his way out of town. He never drove into the farmhouse lane, and he never got out of the cab.
“Would you like to invite your husband in for a cup of tea?” Michiko’s mother asked.
“I would indeed,” Mrs. Morrison replied, “but he is too far away to do that. My husband is with the troops. That’s Bert, the farmer down the road, who brings me here.”
“It seems we are alike,” her mother murmured, “both waiting for our husbands to return.”
Hearing the long, low sound of the locomotive passing by, Mrs. Morrison glanced at the slim gold watch embedded in her pudgy pink wrist. “Well,” she announced, “school’s out.”
At the word “school”, Michiko lifted her head. “I wish I was in school,” she murmured.
“You should be in to school,” Mrs. Morrison said. She peered over her little round gold spectacles at the little girl across the table from her. “Why aren’t you?”
Sadie laughed. “She has to be the only child I know who would rather go to school than be on holiday.”
“School holidays don’t start for a while yet,” Mrs. Morrison said. “She shouldn’t be missing her studies.”
“I didn’t know if she would be welcome,” Eiko said quietly.
Mrs. Morrison contemplated this until a honk came from the road where the green pick-up truck waited. “I’ll look into getting you into school,” she told Michiko. She clutched her purse to her chest and marched out the door. “Let you know next week.”
Michiko hung her head. She hadn’t meant that she wanted to go to school here. She meant that she wanted to go to her old school.
Her mother put a finger under her chin and raised it. “What is wrong now?”
“I want to go to school at home,” Michiko cried and stamped her foot. “I don’t want to be here one more day.”
“A day is only a day,” her mother said. “Even the most important days of all come and go.”
“Like what?” Michiko demanded, tired of this vacation.
Her mother walked to the window ledge and lifted down a small rectangular parcel. She placed it on the table and untied its brightly coloured silk. “Look,” she said, lifting the bamboo lid. “This whole box is full of important days.”
Inside was a collection of papers and photographs.
Eiko sifted through the layers and handed Michiko a thick card with ruffled edges. “Here is an important day,” she said. It was a black and white photograph.
Michiko hadn’t seen this photograph before. The woman staring straight ahead was wearing a white kimono and a boat-shaped headdress. The man next to her was all in black. He wore a long loose jacket over his kimono.
“This is a traditional Japanese wedding,” her mother said. “Do you see the white embroidered crest on his haori?” Michiko nodded. “That is my family crest. The bride wears a shiromuku. Do you know who they are?”
Michiko shook her head.
“This is my baachan and geechan.” Her mother stroked the faces of the bride and groom. “When my grandfather was a young man, he left Japan to see the world.”
“Did
