A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding Read Free Page B

reply in English, trying to mimic the accent to prove my point. Kenzo would shake his head and go back to his crossword, which I noted, with cruel satisfaction, he could not do.
    One Christmas a year or so into our American life he gave me a book wrapped in gold tissue. The paper cover was the colour of a red autumn poppy with the texture of frost on a windowpane. The kanji was translated as:
An English Dictionary of Japanese Culture
. Kenzo smiled at me. ‘I thought this could be a compromise. See, the Japanese is here, and the English is on the other side.’ I flicked through the pages, some decorated with crude black-and-white sketches. I read one of the entries: ‘
Wabi: A simple and austere type of beauty. The word is derived from the verb wabu (to lose strength) and the adjective wabishi (lonely). Originally, it meant the misery of living alone away from society. Later, it gained a positive aesthetic meaning: the enjoyment of a quiet, leisurely and carefree life
.’ I wrapped the gift back in the sheath of delicate gold and asked him where he had found the book. He reached for another parcel. ‘You can get anythingin the USA. You just need to know who to ask.’ I flashed him a sceptical look. ‘Honestly, Ama, sushi, teppanyaki, even shabu-shabu, they’re all here. America is the world.’ He never understood my reasons for not learning the language. This country was shelter from pikadon but it was not home, the people were not my own, I did not want to be close to them.
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    In the bedroom, I went to Kenzo’s side of the wardrobe, opened the door and eased myself to my knees. We were forty-four and fifty-one years old when we left Japan in 1946, too old for a new life but too broken to remain in the one we had known. We took two trunks stuffed with pictures, documents and the rags we called clothes, most dyed khaki, the National Defence Colour. Smuggled inside those cases were other mementoes that I stored away without Kenzo’s knowledge. When he died, I moved these few small items to my husband’s side of the cupboard, so he could share them at last. Beneath his clothes, ties and sweaters, I reached into the recesses and pulled out a shoebox, placed Natsu’s letter inside and slid the box to the back wall. I picked up another container, slowly rose to my feet and sat on the edge of the bed. The weight of the contents was heavy on my lap. I ran my hands over the lid, sticky with age, and removed the top. One thought hammered in my mind: why should I trust the wife of Jomei Sato, the man I also blamed for my daughter’s death?

A Relation
    En: The term is derived from the Buddhist belief that there is a cause to all things. The medium through which a cause brings about an effect is en. Any social relationship starts with and changes with en. It is en that realises the relationship between man and woman, and that between neighbours or business partners.
Thus, en creates opportunities and occasions for forming relation
ships. It very often enables people to carry things on smoothly.
    Nagasaki still feels more real to me than this old Victorian house. The nights spent alone in my bed take me back to our home on the hill with its view of the city growing inland from the narrow entrance of the harbour. Our house stood in a garden of chinaberry, purple maple and blue beech. Two floors of black wood rose up to a triangular roof topped with slate tiles. A carved trim ran down the eaves, and each beam was decorated with metalwork of dragons and ships coated in verdigris. The god of war straddled a wild boar over the main entrance. Inside, the family room was first on the left, lined with tatami mats, the woven rice straw bordered in green and gold silk. Black lacquer chests ran along one side of the room and a square table and four cushions sat in the middle. Scrolls of calligraphy hung on the walls and to the left was the long window