We decide to do a little window shopping, saving the heavy-duty sightseeing for later. There’s a Jewish bakery down the street, a star of David on its awning and a candelabra and a tray of freshly baked brioche on display in the window. There’s color everywhere—blue doorways, red and orange flowers spilling over the verandas of the apartments above the shops lining the street, the red banner indicating the Picasso Museum. We come across a guy drawing Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in chalk on the sidewalk. Who knew you could do so much with chalk? I take a picture and then dig a couple euros out of my fanny pack and toss them into the tin can he’s set out. Further along, we pop into a shop that sells old photographs and the Ali Baba Book Store.
When our stomachs start to growl, we duck into a bistro for an early dinner. It’s dark and wood-paneled. The tables are covered with red-checked cloths. I order fish with some kind of garlic sauce. Mom goes for the same.
“This is great,” I say, when the food comes. “We’ll have to ask for the recipe. Maybe Raoul can make it for us when we get home.”
At the mention of her boyfriend, Mom goes silent. Her face is flooded with what I can only call consternation.
“What happened?” My fork freezes in the air. “Did you guys break up or something?”
She looks down, avoiding my eyes. “No. He asked me to marry him.”
My fork clatters to my plate. “You’re kidding! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was the right time.”
“So did you say yes?”
She shakes her head and gulps from her water glass. “I haven’t given him an answer yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
A multitude of emotions starts swirling inside of me. At first, there is joy. Raoul is kind and caring and a really good cook. I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have for a dad—except for my real father, of course. And that’s where the confusion comes in. I’ve always believed that Mom has never married because she’s still holding out for my father, hoping they’ll eventually get back together. And if she and Raoul do get married, wouldn’t that put a damper on our plans to visit Japan someday? I could go by myself, I guess, but I was kind of hoping that Mom would show me around. Would Raoul want to meet my father, too? Right now the only thing I can think of to say is, “What about my dad?”
She shakes her head sadly. “Aiko, I haven’t seen your father in over fourteen years.” She reaches across the table and takes my hands. “Your father married a Japanese woman a long time ago. They have a child—a boy a little younger than you.”
Something nudges the back of my mind. My father is married? I have a half brother? Almost the same age as me? None of this makes sense. But then it does. Maybe my father was already married when he met my mother. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t marry her. That would mean that they were having an affair. I was probably conceived in one of those Japanese “love hotels,” in a room with a heart-shaped bed and mirrors on the walls. This is all a little bit too sordid for my taste. I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach. Or is it the idea of a brother that’s making me feel strange?
A brother. A cherished eldest son. In traditional Japan, boys are the ones who inherit their parents’ wealth and property, who are needed to carry on the family name. Daughters used to be sold off as maids—or worse—by poor families. Girls, when they marry, join their husbands’ families. In the novels that I’ve read, the daughters-in-law are always the lowliest members of the household. What would my father care about a useless girl when he has an heir, a son? Why couldn’t I have been born a boy? But no. Things must have changed over the past decades, even in rural Japan. This is the age of computers and robots. Japan has sent a woman into space, for Pete’s sake.
“What’s his name?” I ask. “My brother.”
She hesitates, and I think that maybe she doesn’t know. But then she releases my hands and reaches for her purse. She shows me a photo of a boy, the photo that I’d found in her wallet the night when I ordered pizza.
“This is your half brother. His name is Junpei.”
I take the photo from her and study it anew. We have the same slightly squashed nose, the same arch in our eyebrows. I wonder what else about us is the same. Does he like manga? Can he speak English? Is he as serious as his unsmiling face in this photo makes him out to be? And I wonder—would he be happy to find out that he has a sister halfway around the world?