Hiroshima Dreams

One of Mom’s favorite phrases is “time flies.” When I first heard the saying, I thought time was a fly, a small insect landing on a wall, with nowhere in particular to go. Mom explained that it meant time moved too fast, that only yesterday she was changing my diaper and Sally was doodling on the bathroom walls with Mom’s lipstick. I nodded, but I still didn’t get it. But Obaachan packs so much into our day that time does start to fly.

In the morning, we have a breakfast of tamago—sweet eggs on rice, wrapped with seaweed. I watch Mr. Rogers and Barney, then we play games outside or at the kitchen table. My favorite is Life, where you drive a car on the board and find a career, get married, buy a house, and have children. It makes the seemingly impossible task of getting a life, as Sally would say, as easy as twisting the spinner and moving your game piece. In reality, I’m afraid I never will get a life, that if I can’t be like Sally and the other girls at school, I won’t make friends, be invited to parties, find a career, get married, or have a family. All of those achievements would mean having to talk.

Life also amuses Obaachan, who finds in the board’s instructions the very definition of being American. She giggles softly when she lands on the space that tells her she has twins or picks the card that gives her a mansion; she frowns when she has to pay the travel agent for a vacation, or the rock star for a concert.

After games, Obaachan teaches me to meditate. It is as simple as being a statue and as difficult as quieting your mind. At first, Obaachan has me close my eyes. She tells me to listen to my breath, to watch my thoughts float away like balloons, then to just be. She offers me a mantra: Mu. “In English, it translates to ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness.’ You can say it in your mind if your thoughts are wandering.”

“It is the ability to make yourself disappear, so that God can appear.” I can tell that Obaachan’s God is different from the God in our church. Obaachan’s God is a place, maybe even a feeling. The church’s God is a person. He has rules and gets mad. If you’re bad, he punishes you forever.

Later, when I try to explain Mu to Sally, she says, “Only you would think that disappearing is a good thing.” But what I can’t explain is that in the emptiness of meditation I feel fuller than I ever have been, like I am a part of everything, down to the particles of light in the sky.

Obaachan also tells me about the history of Japan: the Kamakura Period and the legal codes based on Confucius, the wars with the Mongols and the battles for territory; the shoguns, who ruled for six hundred years; the dynasty of emperors and the samurai warriors who were at the top of the caste system.

She reads to me from her favorite book, The Sound of the Mountain, by Yasunari Kawabata. It is about an old man who hears the mountain calling to him. “When it is time to go, earth calls you back to her,” she says, which gives me a bad feeling.

Then we have lunch. While Mom has won awards for her cooking, I prefer Obaachan’s simple dishes of noodles, rice, miso soup, vegetables, or fried fish with ginger. In the afternoon, Obaachan rests and I play my cello or we listen to my Yo-Yo Ma CDs. I would like to be like Yo-Yo Ma, except I do not want to perform in front of people.

With these full days, time does sprout wings and fly. September comes before I even notice it is August and I am startled to think that soon I’ll be in the noisy, chopped-up days of school; an ant counting each movement of the clock, so that each minute takes an hour.

When the day comes, I am not cheered by my inheritance of Sally’s clothes, which are pink and orange and loud and fit me too loosely, nor even by the new Hello Kitty backpack outfitted with sharp pencils in a matching case.

“Don’t be a’fraidy cat, Lin. Or at least, don’t let anyone know you are. A kid who smells like fear is an easy target. This isn’t kindergarten. You can’t be a baby forever.”

“That’s very convenient.” One of Mom’s phrases. “You’re starting to act like me. Come on. You don’t want to make us late our first day. I promised myself that this year I’d stay out of the principal’s office.”

“Knucklehead.” Sally takes my hand and drags me to the office where the lists of students and their teachers hang on the glass window.

“Yeah, you and Grandma could be locked in the house for life and be perfectly happy. But you know, Lin, you gotta expand your universe a little. Oh-my-God.” Her head snaps to the left. “Did you see him?”

“That was Walker Briggs. His parents yanked him out last year and put him in private school. Now he’s back. He got in loads of trouble when he was here. He is the cutest boy in the school, and the richest, and the most daring.”

“That’s the first bell. Let’s find out who your teacher is and I’ll walk you to class.” Sally pulls her finger down the list. “You have Mrs. Maynard. What is it with that name? There’s, like, three of them in this school. Mrs. Maynard, first grade. Mr. Maynard, fourth grade; he used to be a sub. Yawn. If you want to be bored out of your gourd, listen to one of Maynard’s lectures on history. To hear him go on, you’d think that Benjamin Franklin was God’s first cousin or something. And Ms. Maynard. P.E. Nazi. She actually has tennis balls glued to the roof of her car. The car looks like some kind of insect. The many Maynards. Come on. The class is downstairs.”

“She’s all right. She looks like a giraffe and acts like a drill sergeant. Don’t ask me what that is. I got kicked out of her class for throwing a chair at her, but I doubt she’ll hold it against you. I have to go. Remember, we’re in the same school now. Don’t be lame and embarrass me. You need to fit in.”