Earth Calls You Back

Weeks pass before I can sleep without dreaming of the towers falling, the people rushing down the street, then the firefighters running in and getting trapped. Each day there are different photos in the paper of the people who died in the attack. Their life stories are printed next to the pictures. And I wonder, if I can know some things and Obaachan can, why couldn’t we know about this?

Tonight, though, I am dreaming of Matt Perino. We are walking along the river where Gregory’s café is, and we stop to throw coins into the fountain.

“Lin.” Mom is shaking my shoulders.

I sit up in bed. “I want to finish my dream.”

“Your grandmother wants to speak to you.” Mom’s eyes are red. I look at the clock. It is 2 A.M.

I tug on my robe and rush after Mom to Obaachan’s room. Dad is sitting on the chair next to her bed, his face in his hands. When I come in, he looks up. “Come here, Lin.”

“I am sorry to wake you, Lin.” Obaachan opens her eyes. “It’s just that I remembered a story I was supposed to tell you a long time ago.”

I feel like one of those dolls you open up and inside is a series of smaller and smaller ones. I would be the one buried deepest. “I want to hear.”

“A long time ago, at the foot of Mount Fuji, there was a poor village. A drought came, and the mountain conditions were not good for growing food, so there was little to eat. In this village was an old woman who had a goose. The woman loved the goose; it was her companion. She kept the goose in the house and let it sleep next to her on her mat. She shared what little rice she had with it. She talked to the goose, and it was rumored that the goose spoke back. That summer, times got harder. Food became even scarcer. The woman was so weak from hunger, she could barely move from her mat. But she never considered using her goose for a meal. In fact, she now hid the goose inside always, afraid of someone stealing it. As conditions worsened, the village elder remembered that the woman had the goose. The villagers came to her and insisted that the goose be cooked to keep everyone from starving. The woman tried to fight them off but was restrained. The goose was taken, plucked, and placed on the flames. But it wouldn’t cook. Instead, it called out for the woman. Over and over, it shouted her name. Some thought then that the goose should be taken from the flames, for it was clearly a magic creature. But the hungry, whose mouths were watering, insisted that it stay on the fire. They dragged the woman from her home and began to beat her. ‘Stop!’ the goose shrieked. ‘Let her be. I will submit and feed you all.’ They stopped beating the woman but had to restrain her from joining the goose in the flames. The goose grew silent and cooked.

“Everyone feasted on the goose, except the woman. She returned to her house to grieve.

“Miraculously, there was enough food to feed the entire village. Even more strange, each day the delicious meat from the goose was replenished, and they ate again. The villagers tried to get the woman to eat from the magic goose. But she refused. The day she died, the villagers went to take their meal from the goose; nothing was left but bones, and the bones were as barren as if they’d been lying on the ground for months. They realized then that it was love that had supplied the magic.”

“How sad.”

“Yes. But if you think about the story from each person’s view, you will see that it is as complicated as human history.”

I begin to cry. She reaches out her hand to me.

“Out of everything that is sad and difficult, something good eventually grows.”

“Not always.” I sob.

“Like the lotus blossom from the mud.”

“You’ll get better.”

“What a fine thing I got to know you. Imagine if I didn’t.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Love is very powerful. Even in times like this, it will overcome.”

She closes her eyes forever.