A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding Read Free Page A

childvictims. This is where my husband found him and where we later discovered who he was. You would have already left for America by this time. It took many years for us to find you. As luck would have it, a former employee of yours, Mrs Goto, read an article about our peace organisation that mentioned Hideo’s birth name. She contacted me and provided an address for you and your husband – an old one, as it turns out. We are trying to locate your whereabouts as I write. I apologise for this delay. I can only imagine the confusion this must be causing you.
    My husband and I decided to adopt Hideo. We brought him back to Nagasaki and he grew into an accomplished man. But I will let him tell you his own story. We are proud of him as I know you will be. Hideo has a package for you. This will help you understand what happened all those years ago, should you wish to know. I have not shown Hideo this package. Whether you do or do not I will leave to your discretion, but I ask that you read the contents first. I’m sure when you have, you will know how best to proceed. I return your grandson to you today not only because I can but also because I want to. This final act is the least I can do after so many years of forced separation. I hope he will bring you as much joy as he has brought happiness to our small family.
    Yours in sincerity,
    Natsu Sato
    There was no date, a message caught in the vacuum of time. I folded the letter up and walked out of the kitchen, down the windowless hall to our bedroom. Kenzo had firsttaken me to see our home in Chestnut Hill in 1956. ‘I’ve found the perfect spot for us. It’s a commute for me, but it is beautiful, very traditional.’ The Victorian house was painted green with a white wooden porch and set back from a quiet street lined by beeches. As a realtor showed us around, I whispered to my husband that it felt gloomy. He was prepared for my objection. ‘We’ll paint it with strong colours, pale wood, bring the light inside.’ Ever the engineer, he saw brighter possibilities among the shadows.
    He hired carpenters to replace the oak wardrobes in the bedroom with maple. ‘Reminds me of cherrywood,’ Kenzo said, running his hand down a panel. Decorators painted the walls yellow. In Japan this had been the colour of lost love; here it meant the sunshine. I bought a rose-print duvet, pictures of purple mountains for the walls and lilac cotton curtains so flimsy you could see your hands through them. When we were done, we stood in the doorway and appraised our rendition of an American life. Kenzo asked, ‘You like it? It’s much brighter, yes?’ I nodded. He never realised: he was my only sunlight after the war.
    We’d lived in that home together for sixteen years. When Kenzo died in 1972 I’d considered moving, but where? At least here I had a routine of sorts, the territory was known, the boredom familiar. I filled the silence with the noise of wildlife documentaries, rolling news, soaps. Without him, mornings could go by with me just sitting on the couch. At night, I began to drink neat whiskey in growing amounts, the curtains drawn. You live with loneliness long enough and it becomes a kind of company. Besides, those solid walls and polishedfloorboards contained all I had left of my family. I still saw Kenzo sitting on the couch reading the newspaper, filling in forms or shouting answers at a quiz show, proud of having mastered this foreign language enough to make it almost his own. My resistance to learning English had provoked arguments, but what could he do – force me to read textbooks, march me to classes? ‘Contrary, stubborn, wilfully ignorant,’ he would say in those early years before Chestnut Hill, when we lived north of San Francisco, near Mare Island and close to the shipyard. He’d speak in Japanese and then translate the words into his adopted tongue. ‘Ugly words, ugly language,’ I would