Hotaka stares at the ceiling. It’s after midnight and he can’t get to sleep. He’s still hurting all over from Tarou’s beating during kendo, but that isn’t what’s keeping him awake. Sakura is. He’s hardly stopped thinking about her since they parted that afternoon.

‘Kuso.’ He curses under his breath.

Hotaka is struggling with two realisations. The first is how very much he cares for Sakura – not in a romantic way, although there might be some of that as well. But whatever else he might feel, his care for Sakura is as a friend first and foremost, a very important friend. He realised this the moment he saw how deeply he’d hurt her. His laughter crushed her in a few seconds. A simple laugh turned ugly and hurtful, shredding her trust, shattering their friendship.

‘Kuso!’

Hotaka’s other realisation is how very little he actually knows about Sakura. He and Osamu are definitely her closest friends, yet neither could say they really know her. They’ve never asked about her past because she never invited them to; in fact she’s actually thrown up a wall around herself. So they accept her as she is; no questions, even though Hotaka has often wished he knew more.

He still doesn’t even know where she came from, almost a year later. No one does. ‘South,’ she once said dismissively when pressed. Asked how far south, her eyes clouded over. ‘Nowhereville, okay?’ she snapped and walked away. Osamu is convinced she’s from Fukushima, a radioactive refugee. But that’s only a guess.

And what of her parents? She’s never spoken of them, not once. It was months before Hotaka discovered she was actually living with her aunt and uncle. He once glimpsed a photo that fell from her bag, of two adults, and guessed they must be her parents. He wanted to ask, but she instantly scooped it up.

Hotaka reaches for his phone again. He’s done it several times, intending to call or at least message Sakura, only to back out at the last moment. He stares at the phone for a while, then shakes his head and tosses it aside. If only time could be turned back, he wishes, and rolls onto his side.

Hotaka rises early the next morning. He still feels a dull pain as he eats breakfast, but most of his aches have gone. He’s also managed to push his worries about Sakura to the back of his mind; he’s not sure how long that will last.

‘Another busy day?’ his mother asks.

He nods. ‘There are still some performers I need to contact. The main one is the old geisha, Kosaki-san. I’m seeing her this morning before school. I also need to make sure the musicians are ready to go. And Abe-sensei has a collection of poems about the tsunami written by locals. Students will recite them between acts. I’ve got to email people about those, too.’

‘Uncle Yori called, you know?’

‘Really? I’ve been meaning to drop in, but never seem to find time. What did he want?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. But he said it would be worth your while.’

‘Worth my while? That sounds interesting. Wonder what it is?’

‘There’s only one way to find out, my son.’

The geisha is waiting for Hotaka. She waves from her window and greets him at the door.

‘Welcome, wakaino, young man,’ she says, with a warm and gentle smile.

He cannot believe she’s eighty. Her skin is soft and smooth and her eyes glisten with a mischief mirrored in a cheeky smile. Hotaka feels immediately at ease.

‘If my singing could return everything to what it once was,’ she tells him, ‘I would sing until my voice was no more. But we old geishas are a rare breed. Soon there will be nothing left of our old ways.’

‘I can’t agree, Kosaki-san,’ Hotaka says with a smile. ‘I bet that once you perform at our ceremony, there will be many young ones at your door.’

‘Ha, wakaino!’ She wags a finger. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’ She crosses to the window. ‘Let me show you something.’

They gaze at a dismal scene of urban construction, across fields of dirt, weeds and tufty grass. A new road is being built, mostly still gravel. Trucks trundle by, throwing up dust and fumes. There are quite a few buildings, but most are temporary, prefab drab, utilitarian ugly.

‘Out there is as far as the tsunami came. It was as if the gods drew a line through our town, right past my door. On that side, obliteration, death and destruction. On this side, everything left alone.’

She sighs.

‘I used to boast about the view from this window: one of the prettiest parts of town. Over there was the best noodle bar in all of Tōhoku; next to it, Sato-san’s shoe repair shop. A shameless flirt he was,’ she adds with a giggle. ‘Then a bookshop, a bakery, and Nakamura-san’s confectionary shop; her wagashi were to die for.’ She rolls her lips, reliving the little sweets. ‘Further on, the tatami mat maker; a real pain in the bum, but I miss him. He was part of my life. I miss them all.’

Miss Kosaki pauses briefly, then hurries on, as if talking might keep the sadness at bay.

‘My favourite flower shop was next; Toko-san’s ikebana arrangements were made in heaven. And then…’ The geisha’s face drops. Her voice falters. ‘And then the wave came.’

Hotaka takes the old woman’s hand, so tiny, so delicate, and gently presses it. She regains some composure.

‘All that was rubbed out.’ She swipes her hand across the windowpane. ‘Gone in minutes, turned to rubble and death. All the noises, the bustle and babble, the colours, the lights and lanterns, the flowers, gone. I can’t tell you how many cherry blossom trees lined that street. Magnificent in spring. Gone. Ripped up at the roots. Erased.’

She turns away from the window.

‘My voice was erased as well. Each morning I’d rush to the window, hoping the tsunami had been a bad dream. But each morning I’d gasp, and another piece of song would die in me. Eventually I fell silent, unable to sing in such a desolate place.’

‘But you are singing again, aren’t you?’ Hotaka asks hopefully. ‘Abe-sensei said you were, and that you’d sing at our school concert. Please says it’s so.’

‘Yes, I have my voice back,’ the geisha replies. ‘Thanks to a bird.’

‘A bird?’

‘Exactly. One morning I was woken by a tapping at my window, the sun barely up. On the ledge was a bush warbler, an uguisu. Drab little birds, but they bring in the spring, you know? This one had such a smiley beak that I opened the window. The tiny chap flew in and perched next to the heater. He eyed me up and down, puffed out his chest and sang for a full minute.

‘His song was like a candle in the blackest of nights, and it made me realise something. Sadness is not necessarily the enemy of happiness. The two can live together. In fact sometimes they need each other – for the dark gives the light a place to shine. Anyway, when the little fellow finished I knew that I could sing again. In fact I knew I had to sing again. It was my duty to others.’

She smiles.

‘I’ve kept you long enough. All I’ve really been saying in my roundabout way is that I can’t wait to sing at your Memorial Concert.’

‘Kosaki-san, arigatō gozaimasu. The honour will be all ours.’

As Hotaka rides off, he glances up at the little house where the old geisha lives. She’s at the window again, waving. He waves back and as he continues on his way he hears her singing a popular old song, one that is sung every year around Children’s Day in May.

In Hotaka’s head her voice rises above the trucks and diggers and dozers until it is all he hears.