Picking Bones from Ash Read online

  “My hands are fine.”

  She pushed my hands away as though she had just borrowed them and was now returning them to me. “You have to remember that you aren’t like everybody else. You are a very unique person.”

  “I am?”

  “I’ve told you that many times,” she said loftily. “I’ve met many, many people. Before you were born, when life was different, I used to know many people who are famous now. And you are smarter and even more talented than they are. Remember that.” She nodded.

  I remembered and I believed her.

  I won the piano competition easily, and another one the following weekend in which I was awarded a photo album, which was very often the grand prize in those days. Due to labor laws, children weren’t allowed to earn money, even from a contest. It was nearly always the same two dozen or so students and their parents from several neighboring towns who crowded together in an auditorium to slog through Mozart and Beethoven. By now I had half a dozen photo albums, which my mother stocked with pictures, my essays, and pressed wildflowers.

  The weekend after I harvested bamboo shoots, I wore a pair of wool mittens my mother had knitted for me to keep my fingers warm. When it was my turn to play, I strode up to the piano, made eye contact with the judges, and bowed, counting to five as my mother had taught me. Two counts to go down, one to linger, and then two to come back up. My fingers slid easily through the first movement of the Mozart Sonata in A Minor, Köchel 310, despite the difficult left-hand passages. My picture appeared in the local paper the next day, with Tomoko’s face just barely cropped out of one side, and my mother’s face on the other. I still have the clipping. At the time, I felt very regal and important, every inch the heir to the throne of the moon people.

  Tomoko had made it her mission to come to almost all my competitions. After I performed, she always came to the edge of the stage and solemnly handed me a bouquet of nogiku wild chrysanthemums in autumn and freesias in the spring. We bowed to each other in imitation of seventeenth century French courtiers we’d read about in history class. Thus I was able to prolong my time on stage by a good thirty seconds or so.

  Flowers were something of a luxury in those days. Our town, Kuma-ume, was located along the Mogami River, just one of a series of small towns lost in northern Japan, barely subsisting after the war. But Tomoko’s family owned a small chain of laundries in several neighboring towns, all the way to Yamadera, and was relatively well off. The family indulged their only daughter’s childhood whim to be my champion, though they themselves were less inclined to cheer for me or to pose in my photos.

  I had grown accustomed to winning, and my teacher, an elderly man named Mr. Kisahara who had sported a mustache since the Taisho era and studied music in Tokyo, was used to being the teacher of a prizewinning student. We knew most of the other music students in the area, and had cataloged their foibles. I also understood, from having spent time watching my mother in the bar, the valuable power of gossip. If I caught wind that Mariko, the goody-goody, was going to try to play Debussy in the next contest, Mr. Kisahara and I determined that I would play Ravel. If I learned that Satoshi, the technician, was going to play a Bach fugue, I played the same piece and vowed to be better.

  So it was perhaps a bit surprising that my mother conspired to enter me in a new contest that would take place the following fall in the city of Akita, a good five hours away. This was the Tōhoku regional competition and included students from all the northern prefectures, including my own.

  “Satomi has a false sense of her abilities,” my mother said sternly to my teacher. “She needs a good competition to wake her up.”

  “We don’t know the competitors,” Mr. Kisahara retorted. “What should she play?”

  “True competition,” she replied coolly, “implies risk. Satomi needs to learn this.”

  We settled on two pieces. I chose Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” (because it was about the moon). To complement this, my mother insisted I tackle the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata.

  All summer I practiced my two pieces in secret. One day in October, when the maples had started to blush on the mountainsides, my mother and I watered the plants, giving extra care to the hechima vine just outside the entrance to the izakaya. In her clear and careful handwriting, my mother wrote a note, which she placed in the pub window, explaining that we would be out of town and that the business would be closed for three days. Of course everyone in town already knew why we were leaving, but she wrote that our absence was due to a “family situation.” To anyone else she would have looked poised as she locked the door, but I knew she was wildly excited. Over the past few weeks as the competition date had grown closer, her shifting moods had settled into pure and radiant happiness. I would have traveled to a hundred competitions that year to keep her so steadily elated.

  The competition came with a grand prize in each age category. The prize included a month’s supply of Erubi fermented milk drink, a large bag of rice, a free toothbrush, and two tubes of toothpaste. It was by far the most ambitious bounty I’d ever tried to win.

  Every trip I have taken since reminds me of that first journey. My mother, emboldened by our adventure and by our anonymity, spoke confidently about our plans to the little ladies who shared our seating area on the train. She had spent the last few days preparing a gorgeous bento lunch box for us to eat. A bed of rice was a blank canvas on which she had painted scenes from home: wild greens formed a bamboo forest, eggs cut into flowers bloomed in the foreground, little wisps of seaweed arched into the silhouettes of cranes flying off into a blushing sunset of pickles and sour plums.

  The ladies on the train nodded with admiration as we ate. Whoever you are, they seemed to say, you must be special, wandering off into the world with such beautiful food, with all your youth and enthusiasm and talent.

  “My daughter is the talented one. Piano.”

  I nodded.

  “A musician? Ah so. Good luck,” everyone said to me, bowing as they departed the train, for most ended their voyage before we did.

  When we arrived in Akita, it was dusk, that uncertain time of day when gentle animals watch for predators and many flowers close their petals like fingers forming fists against the night air. Mother had found a little ryokan for us to stay in through the help of one of her customers. The building was old, a depressing place that had seen better times and seemed to know it; the windows clung to cobwebs and dust, and the dingy entryway refused to offer up any heat. I was so cold I clenched and unclenched my toes inside the faded blue slippers and tried to warm my feet. I was homesick for our little yojōhan, the four-and-a-half-tatami-mat room that my mother and I shared at home. And I didn’t like the elderly woman who ran the place; she was hunchbacked and slow and stared at me. But my mother soon calmed me down.

  “Did you see the fishpond in the entrance? And look at how each beam of wood in our room is from a different kind of tree. This was once a fine old inn.”

  “It feels haunted.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, there’s a surprise here that I know will cheer you up.”

  She was right. Like most traditional inns, the ryokan had a large communal bath: one for women and one for men. The water, unlike the water at the bathhouse we frequented at home, came from a hot spring. There were three pools, each lined with stones. My mother read the signs by each bath aloud to me. One of the springs was said to be good for the heart, one for the skin, and one for the joints. This last pool had the face of a demon made out of wood attached to the wall, with hot water spurting out of his nose.

  “When I was a girl,” my mother said wistfully, “my home had a hot spring bath. A real one. People used to say that was why all the girls in the family were so beautiful; we bathed in minerals.”

  “How many girls?” I asked quickly.

  “Oh,” she shrugged. “I’m from the moon, remember? My sisters were all the stars you see in the sky, and that’s too many to count.”

  “You had hundreds of siste
rs?”

  “Thousands. The moon people have large families.”

  My mother wanted to eat dinner in town at a noodle shop, but the proprietor of the inn informed us that our dinner was already under way.

  “There must be a mistake,” my mother said. “I reserved a room to sleep in, but no meals.”

  “The meals have already been paid for by a gentleman,” the proprietor huffed.

  I had heard from Tomoko, whose family often spent part of the summer and the winter in ryokans, that hotel meals were delicious and beautiful. “Can’t we just eat here?” I whined.

  “That will cause problems for us,” my mother said to me in a low voice.

  “Look, everything’s going to go to waste if you don’t eat it,” the proprietor said.

  So it was that at seven that evening, my mother and I sat in our ryokan room in our casual yukata kimonos that the inn had provided for us, newly bathed (again) and seated on zabuton pillows. As the kitchen staff served us, I sat up importantly, pretending that I was accustomed to eating this way at home every day. After a little pressure, my mother agreed to some plum wine, and she relaxed and came to enjoy the meal. I’m sure it was just the standard ryokan fare: fresh sashimi gleaming in blue-and-white porcelain plates, a medley of crab and shimp and clams in broth, seasoned rice bursting with mushrooms and chestnuts, and a dozen different pickles. I’m also sure that I’ve eaten many better meals since. But in my imagination, this meal has taken on the proportions of a feast that exists only at the table of the gods, for I remember that I was awed. There were people in this world, I realized, who ate like this every night. When I went to the moon, I would eat like this three times a day.

  I was nervous in the morning. I hadn’t yet seen the concert hall where we would play, and I hadn’t been able to practice the previous day because we had been traveling. My mother and I had a bath before breakfast (rice balls she’d made at home before we left), and then again afterward.

  “Keep your hands in the water,” she instructed. “The minerals will make your fingers fly across the keys. This bath is famous for healing people’s hands. Imagine what it will do for someone like you who is still young and healthy.”

  I changed into a white blouse and velvet magenta skirt with a dark red satin azuki-colored sash. My mother had designed and sewn the whole outfit with an adjustable waist and a fat hem that she had released over the years as I’d grown taller. She combed my hair and braided it carefully, then pinned the braids to the top of my head.

  “My scalp hurts,” I complained.

  “The pain will go away,” she snapped. “This stage will be grander than anything you’ve ever seen and I don’t want you to look like some country girl who doesn’t know how to behave in a nice place.”

  By age eleven I had been with my mother long enough to know that her moods would always be shifting like this, but I never did give up the hope that I would be able to control how she felt. And the fact was, I could alter her emotions, as I had done not so long ago with the bamboo shoots, or as I did every time I conquered another music competition. The problem was that these good moods never lasted. There was always some new indiscretion I accidentally committed that displeased her. One day I’d find the precise combination of independence, forthrightness, and humility to keep her perpetually smiling.

  “You know I’m going to win, right?”

  “I hope so.” She gave my hair a good yank and stuffed another pin against my scalp. She sighed and I knew she was thinking about the expensive meal from the night before.

  We mistakenly entered the auditorium through the front door of the hall. The room was shaped like a slice of orange, with a wide entrance at the back and a sloping wall and a narrow entrance at the front. The stage rose one and a half meters above the audience floor and was covered by a heavy red curtain. Judges were already sitting in the front rows, gossiping with each other. From behind the curtain I heard the sound of someone playing a few piano bars. She was playing lightly, just testing the keys and her fingers, but the chords were unmistakable. “Clair de Lune.”

  “May I help you?” a woman asked us.

  “We are here for the competition.” My mother’s voice trembled uncharacteristically.

  “Let me take you around to the back.”

  We walked along the side of the auditorium and up through a door. As we passed the wings of the stage, I caught sight of the girl who had been playing. She was still seated on the piano stool and looking up at two adults who murmured so low I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The girl wore a long pink skirt with a curious white-and-lime-colored blouse. The material shimmered in the light and I realized that the little girl was wearing an expensive silk outfit. As I passed by, she turned her head just slightly and looked at me, nothing more than a curious glance, then redirected her attention again.

  But if she wasn’t interested in me, I was certainly curious about her. For the girl was unmistakably wearing a hanbok, the outfit of a Korean.

  I knew there were Koreans in Japan, but most hid their identities, dressing in Korean outfits only on weekends when they went to Korean school.

  “There was a Korean girl,” I whispered to my mother.

  “Well, now you can say you participated in an international competition,” she quipped.

  Backstage we were introduced to the coordinator, an elderly woman with a mouth that looked like it had permanently puckered from eating one too many umeboshi sour plums. She explained to me that each student had a few minutes to warm up her fingers on the keyboard, and to practice walking the distance from the wings to the stage. After that, I would be assigned to a group and we would be sent to a large room to sit with all the other contestants. From here on out my mother was to sit in the audience and I would be alone.

  I wanted to cry when I was parted from my mother, but one look at her serious face told me it was the wrong time to act in any way that might be construed as childish. After I tested the piano, I was led to the room where my group was waiting. There were twelve of us: seven other girls and four boys. And then the door opened and in came the Korean girl.

  It occurred to me that the Korean girl had a role not unlike the one I had at school, someone who was obviously out of place and perhaps even a little bit scared. I thought about my friendship with Tomoko. I could be nice to the Korean girl and then everyone would compliment my kindness. But I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. She looked so unnecessarily haughty, with her nose in the air and the sleeves of her blouse puffed out like a bird promenading its plumage. I knew this look. I often adopted it myself on the playground when no one invited me to a game of volleyball and Tomoko was either home sick from school or off talking to a teacher, leaving me alone. Again I nearly rose to approach the Korean girl, but then I realized that no one in the room knew that I didn’t have a father. To the other children, I just looked like some Japanese girl here for a piano competition.

  “Is your family here?” I asked one of the other girls.

  “Just my mother. My father had to work.” Her voice trembled.

  “My father had to work too.” I sighed. “I wanted him to come and he wanted to come, but it’s just my mother out there.”

  “I’m so nervous,” the girl blurted out.

  “Me too.” I smiled. “I know I’d be less nervous if all my family were here.”

  “My grandparents are here,” one of the boys said.

  “You’re so lucky!”

  “I hate it when my family comes,” spoke a sharp voice and we all turned at once to look at the Korean girl. I was surprised that she had no accent. “They all clap so loud and take pictures and it’s really annoying.”

  I waited to see if anyone would say something to her. I thought of Tomoko and her bouquets. Then I turned my head and looked back at the first girl I had spoken to and said, “We can pretend our fathers are here, shall we? Now, if your father were here, what would he be wearing?”

  Midway through the lineup, I knew fo
r certain that I had a chance to win. My group had the right level of talent; good enough to be competitive, but not so good as to be unbeatable. One by one we were called to the stage until only the Korean girl and I remained in my group.

  “Satomi Inoue,” a woman’s voice said.

  Obediently I strode out across the sea that separated the wings of the stage and the piano. I paused in front of the piano seat, as I had been taught, eyed the judges (there were so many—nine in all), and bowed. Then I sat down and adjusted the seat until I felt it was just perfect and began.

  I kept the tempo steady. Where we had decided it would be a nice effect to slow down, I rallentandoed. Where Mr. Kisahara had asked me to play with vigor, I pounded and frowned. I held the final chords a second longer than felt comfortable. Five seconds later, I began the Moonlight Sonata, carefully recreating that piece as Mr. Kisahara had imagined it should sound. I didn’t miss any notes. When I finished, I rose and bowed, soaking in the applause. Then I strode off the stage.

  People looked at me as I passed. Children stared. Some of the mothers smiled and nodded, but I hustled by impatiently.

  “Very good.” My mother squeezed my hand.

  “Were you nervous?” I asked, patting my face with a handkerchief. Relief always made me sweat.

  “No. Yes. No. Of course not! I knew you would be the best.” Her good mood restored, I was able to relax at last.