Plum Wine: A Novel

Chapter 27

27 T he Wadas were eating dinner when Barbara arrived. Mrs. Wada insisted that she join them, “just soba noodles, good for the health in our hot weather.” “Thank you, but only a little—I’m not very hungry.” Mrs. Wada went to the kitchen and Barbara put the sheaf of Michi’s papers on the tatami beside her. “Would you have time to look over some writing with me afterwards?” she asked Mr. Wada. “I believe so,” he said, though he glanced at the large roll of papers with alarm. “I’m sorry to come so suddenly—but it’s an emergency.” “Eeh?” he said, turning to look at the papers again. When his wife returned with soba noodles and sauce for Barbara he spoke to her in Japanese, gesturing several times toward the papers. Barbara ate enough noodles to be polite, then laid down her chopsticks. Mrs. Wada tried to hurry her husband along, scolding him in Japanese, and making motions for him to eat more quickly, 4 254 4 4 255 4 but he continued to consume his noodles at a slow, deliberate pace. Finally he rose, nodded at Barbara and headed toward the study. Barbara picked up the papers and followed. “Everything okay,” Mrs. Wada said, patting Barbara on the arm. “Okay, I hope.” “Yes, okay,” Barbara said. “I’m sorry to be troubling you.” Mr. Wada took his place at his low desk and folded his hands before him. Barbara sat across from him and looked through the roll of papers for the 1960 and 1962 pages. “Could you please read this one for me?” she said, handing him the 1960 paper. He put on his glasses, smoothed out the paper before him, then glanced up at her over his glasses. “This is urgent, you say.” “Yes. It’s hard to explain, but I would be very grateful if you could help me. Could you please tell me—is there a haiku on this page?” “The haiku poem?” “Yes, yes, the haiku poem.” “An emergency involving haiku, very interesting.” He went through the paper, following the calligraphy with one finger. She had never seen him read so slowly; it was maddening. Finally his fingertip reached the last character. He looked up at her. “No haiku,” he said. “You translated this page for me before—do you remember?” “I do, yes.” “There was a haiku before.” “Yes. Very strange.” He shook his head. “No haiku now,” he said. “Could they have been erased?” “This would not be possible.” “Will you please read the paper?” “I have just read. No haiku.” “I mean, please read it aloud. I’d like to hear what is there.” As he read aloud, Barbara followed along in her notebook with the version he had translated before. The two sentences about Mrs. Kondo’s anger and Ume’s crying were missing. “It’s not possible,” she said aloud. He leaned forward to peer at her notebook. “We have some mystery , I think.” She gave him the 1962 page; the poem was also missing from that page, along with Michi’s final comment, that she felt like a demon mother. On the edge of tears, Barbara fumbled through the rice papers until she found the three sheets from 1949. “Please read me the last few lines,” she said, flipping through her translation book to Michi’s story about Hiroshima. “Let me see . . . ‘I took my meals with the Okadas next door. Mrs. Okada has been unfortunately blinded in bombing and I was able to be of some assistance to her. Mr. Okada was missing, also young daughter Itsuko. Some days Okada’s son Seiji and I went through the city together, in search of our lost relatives.’ These are final lines.” “There’s nothing about the birth of Ume?” she said, “or about Sei-san becoming a man?” “No.” He looked up at her, his eyebrows raised. “There has been some mixup—or perhaps some mischief? Maybe fox at work?” “Fox—why did you say that?” “It is our Japanese superstition. We have many sayings and ancient stories about fox, snake, badger, and other mischief animals. There are fox stories I have translated in Noh. Are you familiar with the ‘Little Swordsmith’ story?” “No—please, Mr. Wada, this is important for me to figure out right away. Is it possible to tell the difference in Japanese handwriting ? To tell if different people have written different pages?” “Yes, particularly when the writing is made...