On Monday, after Tadahiko picks me up at Shin Osaka, we make our way to his and Junko`s apartment, stopping at a small restaurant close by for lunch. I hear a sound from my phone -- I have an email. Tad orders and I see it`s from Wakako. The subject reads: "Read your letter," and the email: "What about your students?" I type back to her, frustrated by the phone`s keyboard interface and my inability to type fast: "I`ll tell you. When can I call?" She responds almost immediately: "Anytime." Tea arrives but I excuse myself to call her and step outside, sitting on the stoop of the hairdresser next door.
The conversation is emotional and I am angry, guilty, scared, defiant and sorry. She is hurt. Why didn`t I come to them for help?! They would have helped me, she says. They were so worried about me. What I did was dangerous. They all came into the office, bewildered that I left without notifying them. She says that everyone is simply stunned with what I have done. Tad comes out at one point to check on me and I signal to him that I will be in soon. From the pauses in our conversation, I can tell Wakako is translating everything I am saying. I ask if our boss is on the call. She says "no," but that Koda San is there, and that she is translating for him. I think of them, my co-workers, my friends, there in the office, and I feel sick. But I defend myself. I tell her I didn`t feel safe, even though everyone was telling me I was safe! I try to explain that I didn`t have any time to involve them. I know she understands a bit more, and seems less accusatory and more exasperated. She tells me she is worried about her own family. And that even though she has medicine to try and sleep, she hasn`t slept. I tell her I`m sorry for adding more stress to everyone. She explains that she is in a hard position and cannot be my friend on this phone call -- it has to be about work first. I tell her I understand and I`m willing to face whatever must come for breaking my contract. And that I will wait to hear from them.
Back inside, our ham sandwiches have arrived, but Tad hasn`t touched them. He is waiting for me and smiles when I sit. Tadahiko is a kind man, open, funny and quick. He is the Japanese version of Steve Buscemi with the warmth of Greg Kinnear. He tells me to eat and drink my tea. Junko Yoshii, Tad`s wife, was the second exchange student to Radnor High School in 1963. When I did my exchange she introduced herself as "Yoshii San," and became my mentore, along with her best friend Yoshiko Okuno, known to me as, "Okuno San."
Yoshiko was the first exchange student ever to attend Radnor High School in 1962. She was one of the brightest at Konan and applied for a scholarship to study in the United States through a Quaker program that operated like a rotary (against her Mother`s wishes). When Okuno San came back to Kobe in the spring of `63, after a year living with her host family on Windsor Avenue in Wayne (Maggie`s Street) she told her best friend Junko, who was a year younger, that she HAD to go, too. Junko followed Yoshiko`s advice, and in the fall of 1963, took a three week journey by boat, plane and train, eventually landing at her host family`s house on Midland Avenue. 25 years later, as a chubby 11 year old middle school student, I walked the 1.1 miles to school most days, and a good part of my path was along Midland. Midland Avenue, with its wide sidewalks and turn of the century Victorian houses, 100 year old oak trees rising high above, the thick green canopies of Spring and Summer, the fiery reds, yellows of Fall....and John Cooper...my one time crush the summer I came back from Japan -- who made me mix tapes and once took me for a ride on his motorcyle through the farmlands of Westchester.
It is only in the wake of this earthquake that I grasp the signficance of my shared history with Yoshiko and Junko. During my exchange as a teenager, they were the sweet women who took me to dinners, Noh plays, pottery classes, and made sure I was learning Japanese. Dressed me in several kimonos one Sunday as we drank tea and ate senbe in Okuno San`s tatami room. When the earthquake hit, along with Nagao Sensei (then the exchange advisor) they helped to arrange everything so I could get out of Kobe and get north, to Tokyo. Now, once again in their care, they seem like family. Otherworldly family.
We finish lunch and head to Junko and Tad`s apartment where I put my bags down. Nagao Sensei calls on Tad's phone. Mrs. Nagao was my exchange advisor and had me for New Year's, just weeks before the Kobe earthquake. During that overnight, we had a small earthquake, and she assured me that big earthquakes happen in Tokyo, not Kobe. 15 days later the Daishinsai pummeled Kobe and killed over 6000 people. Tad hands me the phone and she asks if I will come to Konan. We make a plan and Tad and I head out, taking the Hankyu line to Okamoto station. He puts me in a cab and tells the driver to take me to the top of the hill, to Konan Joshi Kooko -- Konan Girls` School. I look out the window as we climb up, the port of Kobe below, the familiar houses and turns in the road. We are there in no time and I get out and take a breath. Stare at the school`s sign -- recongnizing the kanji for `woman` -- `onna` or `joshi` that is part of the school`s name. I take out my camera and notice two young women, in plain clothes, standing nearby. I overhear them daring each other to talk to me in English. I ask them in Japanese: "do you go to Konan?" They are surprised I speak and tell me with wide eyes that they graduated last spring, and are just visiting. I congratulate them and ask them and we all introduce ourselves. "Mariko" and "Marino." They are clearly best friends. Like Junko and Yoshiko. I tell them I was a student at Konan 16 years ago -- and they laugh and say they were 3 years old. I must seem like an older woman to them. And in fact, I am.
I ask them what they are doing now. Mariko, who wears glasses, tells me she is about to move to Los Angeles, and will attend a small college for dance. I tell her I live in Los Angeles, and give her my business card. "If you need anything, you can let me know. You`re a student of Konan -- so anything you need, I`m happy to help." The girls are shocked. They cannot believe the coincidence and tell me as much. One girl in 800 is going to LA - and we happen to meet. I nod, and agree -- isn`t it amazing? But something bigger is happening, for me to have been on that platform this morning, and now, just hours later, standing on the top of Rokko mountain at my old school. I think back to my relaxation exercise with my students just the day before. Washing ashore, walking through a forest at night and then coming to the top of a mountain. We take pictures together. I tell Mariko I will wait for her email.
As I make my way past the guard and up the stone stairs, the slope of the path feels like and old friend. The bonsai, perched at the top, and the hint of the carp pond beyond. Nagao Sensei appears, hurrying towards me, waving. "Regina!" I run up to meet her and see her face. She hasn`t changed -- except that now she is the Vice President of all of Konan. Next to her, I can hardly belive it -- is Nakata Sensei, my Japanese tutor. She wears a wool tweed suit, and her hair is longer. I hug both of them. Nakata Sensei looks me up and down and says: "you`ve lost weight, right?" I laugh out loud. When I lived in Japan I gained 20 pounds thanks to culture shock and love of food. I was sensitive about it, but clearly remember Nakata Sensei asking me if I liked vegetables one day out of nowhere during a Japanese lesson. She goes on about the kind of words and expressions I liked best. The subtle ones, like the expression for the sleeves of two people`s kimonos touching. I don`t remember this, but I am smiling and staring at her freckles, wanting to hug her again. To make sure she is real. A young Konan student runs by, excited and shy. I snap a picture of her, giggling in the same uniform I once wore -- which hasn`t changed in 90 years. I show it to Nagao Sensei and Nakata Sensei. It`s a beautiful shot -- her in motion, pony tail and laughing face, running down the steps.
We start to catch up when Bamba Sensei appears. Bamba Sensei, Setsuko, my last host mother, who I have written about and pondered over for years. Nagao Sensei calls her over. We hug and she is as thin as I remember. She looks me up and down. Comments on the change of my shape. I nod and say it`s true, that it`s different. She stays on this point. How round my face used to be until I started to go running at Minoh Kooen, the park where I got attacked by the monkeys. I show them my scar. I still have it. Mrs. Nagao tells me that she spoke with Okuno San who will take to Minoh tomorrow, if I am ok with that. Setsuko says she wants to be in touch and I give her my card, one with the Hankoo - the marble stamp that has my name in Katakana and Kanji. I pull it out of my purse. It was made by my calligraphy teacher`s father as a gift, and as Mrs. Nagao says the teacher`s name, I hear a crow being to caw. I look up on top of the auditorium, thinking of Cathy. I snap a photo, and then another of the grecian statue of a woman in front of the doors. Then a few more of the carp pond. It`s getting towards dusk, and the stone lantern has a warm glow to it.
"Shall we go inside Regina?" Mrs. Nagao asks. I say goodbye to Setsuko and Nakata Sensei and follow Kinuyo inside. We stop at the foot of the stairs to admire a painting done by the students -- a rabbit made up of kanji -- in bright colors. A pointillism of words, or symbols for words, in the form of a rabbit. "It`s the year of the rabbit," Kinuyo tells me, and I nod, snapping a picture of it. "Will you stand in front of it?" I ask. She does, and I must fiddle with the settings having moved inside. I get it and show her. We make our way upstairs to the teacher`s lounge -- the place I`ve never been. She pours me some green tea and tells me she still remembers my writing. That after the earthquake I wrote an essay for the school on my experience (which I had forgotten about). "It was so visual," she tells me. Like you were talking in pictures." I thank her and tell her I`ve been thinking about a movie. That perhaps I could shoot some of it here, at school. She smiles. Asks me what it`s about. I start to tell her when my phone rings. It`s Yoshii San, parked at the gate, which is now locked. We finish our tea and head down. Now dark with the light from the streetlamps, Junko and Kinuyo greet each other, bowing and laughing - it has been a while. They are lovely -- in my mind the perfect combination of Japanese grace and politeness but also extremely worldly and smart.
We make a plan for dinner. I jump into Yoshii San`s car, as we head down the mountain on the left side of the road. "Would you like to meet my Sister in law and her dog, Ichi?" Yoshii San asks me. I smile. "Wherever you take me is where I`d like to go," I tell her. She squeezes my knee and smiles, laughing. "Sore de, ikimashoo!" Well then, let`s go!
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