Sharon Hashimoto

All during the trip to Evergreen Washelli Cemetery, Shizuko complained as her husband drove them on Interstate 5. It was a Thursday morning, after rush hour, so wouldn’t the Express Lane be faster? Or was it still open? What an ugly face on that man who just sped up and passed them. Kazuo really should keep up with the traffic. 

Some marriages were like that, Hisa told herself as she sat in the back seat. Had she taken Susumu for granted? Had she treated him the same way as Shizuko treated Kazuo?   

The Chevrolet stumbled as Kazuo played with the brake and then the accelerator at the Roanoke merge lane. 

Hisa’s seatbelt kept her in place, her hands grabbing for the cut tree branches beside her in their half-filled buckets next to her feet. Water gurgled as it sloshed close to the top but thankfully didn’t spill over. She did her best to steady the pails by her feet. Northgate was a long way for her from downtown Seattle. 

Shizuko had called last night. “Ikebana sensei. Tomorrow, ninety day after. I pay respect even if no one else do what right. Her daughter say too busy, go on Sunday. But Sunday is Day Ninety-Three.” 

All Hisa had been doing was taking naps during the day and then watching late-night movies on television since her hours were all mixed up. She had dreams of Susumu and Ben as her young husband and son, turning their backs and walking away, shrinking into two dots that disappeared into the horizon. 

That morning, she’d made herself finally do the dishes piling up in the sink. 

She felt like she was a bouncing rubber ball: angry, then sad and lonely. For something to do, she’d picked up her crochet needle. The last three rows from her three-colored afghan had to be undone and lay in a long crimped string because she’d added too many stitches. She couldn’t seem to do any task well since her fight with Ben. Surely, he must be over his flu by now. How had Susumu known? And the two of them, keeping the Suzuki secret from her for twenty years! 

Yes, she had given the F.B.I. the Suzukis’ names, home and store addresses. But the agents had already written down the license plate numbers. It wasn’t her fault that the couple had an expensive car, that their store had a good income in hard times. Hisa knew she hadn’t been jealous. Had she said anything bad? Not really—just what everyone in the Japanese community already knew: Mr. Suzuki had made numerous business trips to Japan.

Hisa had found herself sitting on the sofa with an 8×10 worn brown envelope of black and white photographs in her lap—the really old ones she’d taken to camp with her: Susumu in a white shirt, black suit and tie sitting down in a chair, she in a silky blouse and long skirt standing behind him, the small apartment they had first rented. When was it that Susumu’s insomnia had started? Even before Heart Mountain, her husband had taken to standing by the window and staring out at the moon.  Ghost-like, Susumu had seemed, in the pale light. 

The F.B.I. had taken Minoru Suzuki away after Pearl Harbor. At least he’d been fully dressed and at his office, not like some of the Issei men who were arrested in the middle of the night. How did Susumu find out? Who had told him? And when had Susumu told Ben? 

Everyone in her family had a secret. Hisa had sat staring at those old memories until the phone’s unending brriinngg stirred her to her feet.

When she’d answered, Shizuko had asked, “Your husband. When last time you go see?”

Shizuko had never really known Susumu, mostly offering a courteous hello or goodbye, asking him to pass on a message. Shizuko was her friend. 

Hisa had made Ben and his girls come to the thirty day, ninety day, three year, and five year visitations after Susumu’s death. Sarah had muttered under her breath something about finally being done. Hisa couldn’t remember Susumu being sick. But then all of a sudden the doctor said there was cancer in his lungs. And then the rasping of his breath in the hospital bed. This was her sixth year without him.

Had they ever argued? Hisa had known how to get her way. In winter, she’d ask her husband: “You cold?” Susumu knew she meant that she was cold. Sometimes, he’d take her hand. Pressing her fingers to his cheek, he’d joke: “Not too bad.” But he’d start up a log in the fireplace, anyway.

Every Sunday, Hisa had brought out the checkbook. She’d show Susumu how much she had spent, how much she had saved. She’d tell him what Ben and the household needed, followed by what he would like to have. He, in turn, would tell her what work he’d done—at his job, at home. 

From the front seat, Shizuko half-turned. “Wassamattah you? You no hear? I say we drop you off. Mrs. Mikami near columbarium.”

“Yes. That fine.” Hisa nodded to emphasize that she understood. She stared beyond Shizuko’s sharp little eyes to an airplane in the corner of the windshield. The tail disappeared into the grey cloud cover.

After they drove by the white headstones lining the Veterans’ Memorial, Hisa wondered about the funeral she had attended last month, the boy who was the Suzukis’ nephew. Was he buried there, in Vietnam, or had the family interred his remains here in the States? At Heart Mountain, she remembered all of the funerals for the soldiers in the 442^ndRegiment. 1944 had been a very bad year. It seemed like a death had been reported every week, and then every few days.

Susumu had purchased the plot shortly after their resettlement in Seattle. She’d never understood why it was such a big one. More important to her was to own a house or to invest in property, to save money for Ben’s education. But this was one argument she had lost. “Bury me in United States,“ he’d said.

There was a sign at the entrance about the cemetery’s cut flower policy. Artificial flowers would be allowed from December 1^st to March 1^st. Flowers from Cherry Land Florists were expensive during the winter, so Hisa had brought Japanese maple branches cut to eight inches high from her garden. The blue-green heads of hydrangeas were gone. Only dried-out stem stalks were left, sticking up like porcupine needles from the green leaves near the ground. But the bright red, pointed leaves glowed with a flame, she thought, that seemed to reflect her hurt.

Kazuo helped her set scissors, paper towels and buckets by the curb. There was a light mist everywhere around her, spotting the headstone with little droplets. Hisa knew Shizuko would be impatient so she shooed Kazuo back to the car.  A small pop and the smell of exhaust hung in the air. 

Further down the road, a silver car parked. A black coat with a white head climbed out, walking between the headstones.

Arms full, Hisa carried her things. She shivered against the damp wind, feeling her skirt flap against her legs. The earth was spongy beneath her shoes. Ahead of her, she could see something that was a bright white. Two hundred steps and then she stood staring at the gravesite.

She was pulling on her garden gloves, trying not to mutter. There was a fresh wreath of flowers beneath Susumu’s name on the headstone: white roses twined with white mini-carnations, and the fluffy wide blooms of chrysanthemums. Someone had also taken the time to clean the dark grey granite. Scattered raindrops filled the incised black letters.

Ben and the girls always had to be told to bring “something bright” because Susumu liked reds and yellows or the more formal calla lilies if they thought about it at all. Hisa knelt down to turn the wreath from side to side but she found no florist’s identification. Two damp circles seeped through her skirt where her knees rested. Who else could have brought the flowers? Who else had Susumu known? 

Standing up, Hisa slowly turned in a circle like a lighthouse casting its beacon. She stopped to study the stranger. Hisa could see her now. A woman, for sure. What she had thought was white hair was a fur collar. The figure bent and paused, as if looking for a particular name. There were no addresses here in the cemetery, among the dead.

Five years ago, or was it six, when Sarah and Sally had been younger they had fetched and carried for her—holding the grave’s two plant containers for cuttings with forefingers and thumbs because they didn’t want to get dirty. She’d had to scold Sally, even though she was only a little girl, for stepping on the flat markers in the ground. “See the names,” Hisa had nodded. “Those are people.”

Sally had jumped off. “You mean, I’m standing on their faces?”

That’s when Sarah had discovered Hisa’s name on the inscription next to Susumu’s. “Grandma,” her granddaughter exclaimed, pointing. “That’s you, Hisa Noji, with January 1, 1900—your birthday on it.”

“Cheaper to get it all done, one time.”

“But that’s so creepy.” 

Hisa hadn’t understood. “How this, ‘creepy’?” she had asked. “What you want to do?” Hisa noticed how Sarah had put her hands on her hips, as if the girl was right about everything.

“Lots of people get cremated now. And then the family takes the ashes and spreads them in the mountains or over the water.” Sarah bit her lip.

Roughly, Hisa set her buckets aside. Her jerky handling knocked the wreath over so that a big blossom was crushed, buried face down. While she busied herself with her maple branches, she kept glancing at the expensive flowers. Most of Susumu’s close friends were dead—Shuji, Satoshi, Yoshito, a lot of bachelors. Maybe it was a mistake. Hakujins often got Japanese names wrong. She clipped the branches for different lengths but it was hard to get a notch started on some of the thicker stems. When Hisa finished, she stood back. The arrangement didn’t look finished. The trouble was that the branches had no contrast or depth. It was just a bunch of tree branches. Stuck in a hole.

Was that how she thought of Susumu? She felt cheap, as if she hadn’t taken the proper time or effort to honor his memory. Was Susumu hovering over her, unseen, with no feet to anchor him to her world? 

The roses were still fresh, beautiful. The more Hisa stared at them, the more she hated the splay of the blooms. The more spider-like the petals became. No man would bring such flowers to a gravesite. This wasn’t the husband she thought she knew. Could Susumu have been unfaithful?

The single woman in the cemetery walked back to her car.

She hadn’t managed to get a good look. Hisa couldn’t tell the age of the mystery woman—if she was white, or Chinese, Japanese. Why else would she be in the Japanese and Chinese part of the cemetery? Had the woman been Susumu’s girlfriend? Had she seen her, Hisa, Susumu’s wife?

Hisa straightened her shoulders and glared at the car as it drove away.

The first half of their marriage, Susumu had always been playful. It was as if he enjoyed making her explode in a half snort when he plopped Ben into a wheelbarrow and drove the three-year-old around in circles. Or the time Ben had broken her big blue plate with the carp design. Hisa remembered how Susumu had whispered to Ben, “Tell her your mistake. Tell her you sorry. Say it quick.”

After that first year in camp, it seemed like all of the Issei men had become like gingko trees—slowing down, shuffling their feet, rooting themselves on porch steps. They were clocks, running-down with no jobs, no businesses to oversee. They sat half bent over checker boards. What little money Susumu had had dribbled out of their savings account for special items ordered from Montgomery Ward catalogues. Her husband hadn’t much new to share since their days at Heart Mountain were the same. And his silence had gone on through resettlement, his eventual retirement, and cancer. 

The Chimes Tower began playing God Bless America on tinkly piano keys. Hisa knew it must be twelve o’clock. Shizuko would be coming back.

She bent to the tilted wreath, her clippers snipping and pulling each flower from the frame. Japanese maple tree, chrysanthemums, white roses and lilies would make an impressive arrangement. Expensive flowers, Hisa told herself, shouldn’t be wasted.