Rain Falls Down :: A Part of Chapter One

The rain pours down from the sky, unrelenting. It seems like someone has ripped a hole in the clouds. I tilt my face upward toward the gray sky, feeling the cruel drops smash spitefully against my skin. Technically now I’m not crying, I’m not being weak – the rain has washed them away, washed away everything to make it flawless again. My dreary blackish-gray funeral dress clings to my skin, making it hard to breathe. I choke in some air, but I just breathe in the rain. I swallow a mouthful and it feels like I’m underwater because I can’t get any air, I can only destroy myself with each mouthful of water I gulp down.

          I hear unhappy footsteps now – high heeled shoes pulled out for this dismal occasion,

          splashing through the inches of rain water,

          trying to not slip and fall and break and die

          from the slippery grimy concrete bottom that is Tokyo.

I am not wearing shoes, as I never do. I feel the precipitation running down my bare legs, cascading down to mix with the river of cigarette buds and sweat and heartbreak that flows down the sidewalks, carried along in the tide. By now my feet are coated in germs from the city and all the people who are still living today while I am at a funeral with no one that can see me.

          “Rai, you have to come inside. You’ll catch a cold.” Hitomi thinks better of that reason and gives me an enhanced one because she knows that I want to catch a cold, that I would be oh-so-happy to get pneumonia as long as this day ends. “There are people waiting to pay their respects.”

          “I’m not one to stop them.” 

          She waits for a second, so I can say more but those six words have run through me, ran dry, and they plug up my brain with their emptiness, their nothingness. “It’s raining.”

          “Yes.”

          She sighs a breathy sigh that makes my heart tighten in my chest. She feels dreadful because I am now nothing since I have nothing and she can’t be gloomy and worried at the same time for my sake, because she promised to take care of me. It was all that she could do. She said that on the phone when I was pretending to sleep on the expensive couch. I feel her hand rest lightly on my shoulder in a trying-to-care way. “You shouldn’t be out here all alone,” Hitomi whispers quietly.

          I swallow and try to breathe in through my nose. My throat is raw from not crying and my eyes are sore from the tears that did not stain my face. If I say nothing she will think I agree and if I say something I will only be being rebellious and a teenager and in pain which everyone thinks I am – knows I am. “I don’t know any of those people.”

          “Sure you do. Even if you don’t, I’m here in case you need me.” She applies pressure on my shoulder, trying to be gentle but my nerves are already worn thin and I feel ache no matter what I do. I turn slowly to face her, trying to see past the mask of painted on brightness on her face, through the tired bloodshot eyes, hoping to see a human being reflected back toward me instead of myself.

But there is nothing familiar left in the world.

          Hitomi is stunning even with the layer of misfortune that rests over her like a trash bag. She was named for her eyes - that shined so wonderfully when she was born, and still do sometimes, when I’m not around. They are deep set and a dark chocolate black, like coal. Her hair is thick and brown, her skin is tanned, and her Japanese features are all there. She is all Japanese, 100% of the time, all the time. She wears a deep poison apple red on her lips to make her teeth look whiter than white, but they are always that white without the color of blood, evil, and anger on her lips.

          With a flash of light I see sunshine reflecting off that dark black hair making the color become brown. I see lighter brown eyes that have a mischievous glint, but beautiful all the same. Dimples when regular, non poison apple red, lips open to reveal a comforting smile. She is there a little in Hitomi. Even though they had had the same father and both their mothers were pretty much all Japanese, all perfect, my Aunt and Mother didn’t look that much alike. My mother was softer; her blood was a mixture of American and Japanese and good luck and hope.

           “I miss her too, Nashi. We all miss them. Please don’t shut us out.”

          Us? Who is this us she speaks of? There is only me here now and sometimes Hitomi. A few moments of Hitomi in this fast paced movie that is now my life. It’s not a movie you’d want to see. It would only show dark gray on gray and the sound of rain chewing up the sky. No.

          Only me.

          It’s impossible to bury anyone in Tokyo these days. There is no room for black mourning amongst the tall buildings and bright lights. The dead wouldn’t even be able to rest there with all the noise and life that goes on. They would lie in their graves listening to the world go on without them and nobody wants that. So we are thirty minutes out of the city in a smaller town with I name I wouldn’t even be able to try to pronounce. There are houses spaced evenly apart here and flowering cherry pink blossom trees and herb gardens and room for graves.

          The loud shriek of a wooden door grinding against concrete makes me wince. Hitomi is holding open the door to the funeral home. I finger the Velcro of the brace on my arm. The air inside shoves its way past us to join the clean, pure air outside, to get away from all the sweaty and teary people. “You can hold my hand if you want,” Hitomi says sweetly but her voice is anxious and slightly angry because I won’t get out of the rain and inside and she has to deal with this.

          I step inside.

          She is in at my heels, shaking the wetness from her hair and slipping off her tight plastic looking rain jacket. I look around, frozen in place.

          This is what it’s like then. This burial of my family.

          There are women in dark black dresses with veils to shield their puffy, bulging eyes and in pointy shoes that look so uncomfortable. Men wear their best suits reserved only for the-most-important business meetings and charity balls with pristine bow ties and golden buttons that are probably not even fake gold. Flowers take up most of the space, their scents all mixing together to make a nauseating aroma that fills your nose and makes your gag reflexes tighten.

          There are three boxes.

          Inside are their urns.

          They are ebony, a color darker than the night sky in the middle of nowhere.

          It doesn’t make sense – why bury ashes? Or will they get put in some drawer?

          “Where are your shoes?” Hitomi demands, spinning me around with scorn on her face. I glance down. My feet rest in the plushy carpet that has been walked on by hundreds on strangers and is stained with their germs and bottom of shoe yuck. “You’re old enough to take care of yourself,” she says in exasperation.

          I stare at my calloused, scarred feet for a second. “That’s not what the social worker said.”

          She drops her hand stiffly and takes a tight step back. I smell black coffee on her breath with a faint trace of cigarette smoke. She always said that it was a nasty, filthy habit to smoke. I guess that doesn’t apply now that she doesn’t have a sister anymore.

          Well, a half sister.

          I turn around quickly so I can get away from her, from my shame and lurch forward. “Rai -” she starts in her breathy, miserable voice that drives a knife into my heart. But I ignore her and push past strangers who twitter in their foreign tounge at my rudeness.

          I would give anything to see their faces again. Even if they are dead and cold, their eyes closed and skin painted to look alive, I’d give anything to see my family’s faces. The boxes taunt me now –

          - I slam into someone who refuses to let me past them. Hands grip my arm and force me to stay in place. I look up into hard black eyes filled with harsh disappointment.

          I bite my lip. “Sumimasen, excuse me,” I swallow the hate and bile in my throat to spit out the next word, “grandfather.”

          “Your mother never even tried to teach you Japanese, did she, girl?” His old voice hoarsely whispers into my ear, the words shrieking onto my ear drums. I can literally hear his teeth grinding against each other, like nails shoved against a chalk board.

          I open my mouth, making a small choking sound - like a fish out of water. His fingernails dig into the first few layers of my dead skin. If he wanted to he could claw through my arm into the muscles and tendons, but he is restraining himself. No one ever raises their voice in this country. His words are painful enough, and he’s only used twelve so far.

          My grandfather wants me to suffer.

          He is lean and power and pride, towering over me with his excellent posture and steel arms. His once black hair is a slick silver white and trimmed to perfection. His skin is a pale mocha and wrinkled like it’s rotten bit by bit. His once burly features now look decrepit. Slanted eyes, mouth in a permanent scowl, hard jaw. At his side sits my Obaasan, Izumi, my grandmother. At least – that is what I must call her.

          She is short and has a mouth that looks like she just sucked on a lemon or an innocent soul. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun on the nape of her neck so she looks like any old lady, but she is so repulsive. Her eyes narrow at me, filled with venom and malice. She cocks her head slightly, like a dog would. “The spitting image of your father, aren’t you Rai?”

          I swallow the pain that rises in my stomach. She has just intentionally dishonored me. In Japanese culture, honorifics are added on to most words. Like in Obaasan and Ojiisan. The –san is a common sign of respect. There are hundreds of them you could use. Hitomi and I don’t add anything onto each other’s names because we’re so close, well we used to be, but my grandmother didn’t add one on purpose. To humiliate me. To shame me.

          Because I am nothing.

          I know I shouldn’t feel insulted. This has happened before. But I can’t shake off the feelings of worthlessness and I can’t help but know the fact that I’m a disappointment – a mistake - to what’s left of my family.

          “Rai! Where have you -” Hitomi finally finds me in the crowd. I see her focus on whose holding me, the pain on my face, and the anger on her parent’s faces. “Oh. Okaasan, Tarousan.”

          “Hello, daughter,” he releases me now to smile at Hitomi. There is no light in his eyes.

          Hitomi steps forward and he takes her hand in his. She ducks her head respectively at him and then at her mother, whose face lights up. Envy is there in my head now because no one will ever look at me like that. No one will look up and smile when I walk in and wonder how I am doing and when am I coming home.

          I glance over at the boxes.

          I always called my mother, Airi, Mère. My dad was Chichi. They were silly little nicknames that we had adapted to fit our family. Chichi was a Japanese slang word for Father, and in French mère was mother. My parents were opposites that came from different sides of the world, but they drew together in the end.

          They were perfect for each other.

          My dad called me Nashi, like Hitomi does. Evie’s real name was Haru, which is Japanese for born in spring, but she was just Evie to me and Mom.  My dad would call her Momo.

          We were happy.

          We were perfect.

          But nothing is ever perfect for long.

“It’s not a big deal. I can take care of her.,” Hitomi says in a trying-to-be-quiet voice. I stand beside her silently, watching the way her mouth forms words and trying to read her expression. My arms are folded stonily over my middle and I am shivering even though I’m not really all that cold.

            Izumi is watching me closely with her squirrel eyes.

            My grandfather, whose name is Tarou, I now realize, shakes his head distastefully. Throwing a withering look in my direction, he starts to speak rapidly in Japanese so I won’t understand and so that I can feel even more stupid.

            But he underestimates me. I know an array of French and Japanese words, thanks to my parents. I catch the word for foreigner: gaijin, and the word takai which means expensive. I hear no a lot (iie!) and maybe idiot once or twice, but I’m not totally sure on that part.

            Finally, when their voices have raised loud enough for people to look and start to chitter amongst themselves, they settle down enough to switch into English. Tarou talks to me but refuses to make eye contact. “She can stay with you until the next term starts at that infernal school. On break she will stay with us. Maybe then we can teach her how to live up to her heritage.”

            “Thank you, Father. Thank you, Mother.” Hitomi says respectfully. And now she’s going to be the perfect daughter who is polite and someone to be proud of while I am the unruly, selfish girl.

            I sigh inwardly.

            “Goodbye.” His voice becomes all stiff sounding as he wraps his arm around Izumi’s scrawny waist and steers her to an exit. He does not look back at his daughter’s urn.

            Hitomi turns to look at me, her face a mixture of emotions. I keep focused on a woman’s shoe. The heel sinks an inch or two into the carpet. Maybe she will trip and give me something to talk to Hitomi about. But she teeter totters carefully.

            “I am not sorry that she was my sister, Rai. We shared fathers. She was the closest person to me in my life.” Hitomi’s voice breaks slightly. I think of my mother’s ashes on the cushion lining, small and vulnerable. I watch my Aunt’s black eyes fill with tears. “I loved her, Nashi.”

            I did too, I want to say. You didn’t even know her. You left her alone for years and years, not even pretending to care, I want to shriek.

            Instead I brush my fingertips against the cold shiny wood of the box and turn away from her water works. I see my reflection staring lifelessly back at me. I close my eyes. Hitomi is still behind me. She waits for me to respond. When I don’t she wordlessly leaves me alone.

            I am not Nashi, not anymore. Nashi was a girl with two parents and a perfect sister who lived in a white house where there was a tire swing in the back and lemonade in the fridge. I open my eyes and see the girl staring back at me. I drop my hand from the unblemished wood.

            “Nashi is gone,” I whisper.