3

A FATHER’S KISSES

AT LUNCH I FOUND A PLACE THAT WOULD TRANSFER THE FILM TO A DVD IN a few hours. Then Iphoned Zoe and she said to come over after work.

I was feeling guilty that she was the only one I’d told about what I found in Aunt Mitch’s belongings. I had yet to call Dirk. Usually after an argument one of us would get in touch soon enough and make up. But this time was a little different. I still had the usual resentment, but it continued to build. And I thought if I mentioned anything about how excited I felt to get “back in touch” with Aunt Mitch, so to speak, he’d end up ruining it somehow with his pointed remarks.

Our fight had been about music; it was most always what we fought about, though Ilater realized that these disagreements were never really about music. They were about control, about Dirk’s procrastination, and maybe about his own insecurities. Of course it was hard to have this kind of perspective while being stuck in the muck of it, and I’d been stuck in this muck for going on six years.

I’d met Dirk when his law firm did some work for TextTrans. Although he was an attorney, his passion was music, and when he found out that my mother had been a singer, he encouraged me to sing. This excited me because the only singing I’d done until then was in my high school chorus, and with a hairbrush and CD player in my bedroom. But I liked to sing and thought I had a pretty good voice, which I probably inherited from my mother.

Dirk played piano and I was the vocalist, and he was constantly gathering guitarists, bass players, and drummers for our little group. But no one ever stayed very long and it always came back down to Dirk and me. There were several reasons for this. First, Dirk insisted on performing only his original songs. Playing covers—hit songs by other artists—was not in his vocabulary. He claimed that he couldn’t be a true artist if he played other people’s material. Another reason was that he was a perfectionist. When the other musicians wanted to start playing in clubs, his reply was that we weren’t ready. There was always some obstacle, a song that wasn’t going as well as he liked, and he could never put together a set of material that was perfect enough.

In the beginning, this was all fine with me. I was in awe that anyone could even write a song, and I thought Dirk’s tunes, which were in a kind of New Age jazzy style, were as good as anything you could hear on the radio. Besides, I was also not the most confident singer, and the idea of playing in front of people unnerved me. But as the years went by and nothing ever progressed, I was growing tired of the inertia and Dirk’s lament of never sounding good enough. We really did sound pretty good, at least I thought so.

“You know, if people come to see us, it’s not as if they’re expecting something like the Beatles,” I would say to him. And he would always take this the wrong way, retorting with, “Are you saying that you don’t want to strive to be as good as someone of their caliber?” And that would stop me in my tracks. Yet I couldn’t help but think how ridiculous it was that we seemed to have only two choices: to become the equal of the dominant world force in popular music for the past fifty years or to continue to only play in his living room.

By now it had been a while since we had even played with other musicians. Dirk thought we could perform as a duo, but the current roadblock was that there was always something wrong with my singing. I was either “a tad off beat” or “off pitch by a hair.” It got to the point where I couldn’t tell anymore between the tads and the hairs, and I began to lose any confidence I had, not that there was much to lose in the first place. And when your confidence is lost, everything falls apart from there. When we’d go to a concert, he would point to the vocalist and say, “Listen carefully. You should try and sing more like her.” I understood that he thought he was helping me to be the best that I could, but it was easy to take it as criticism.

“It’s his problem,” Zoe would say. “You have a beautiful voice.” Zoe heard me sing along with the radio once in a while—my only “public” performances—but I knew she was also being nice. Dirk had studied music since he was a child, and I learned songs strictly by ear with no formal training. He was forced to sing his songs to me so that I could learn the melodies. I’d tried to master sight-reading—reading the notes off the page—but it had been a disaster, like failing geometry in the tenth grade. Singing for me seemed natural, something that came freely out of the spirit. It filled me up; it made me feel good. Dirk’s take on music was precise, methodical.

Then there was the issue of getting married. When he wanted to, I wasn’t ready, and when I was ready, he suddenly wasn’t. I wondered sometimes if deep down neither one of us wanted to but were too afraid of hurting the other’s feelings. Or maybe we thought that we’d wake up one day completely in synch about the issue. So we kept on seeing each other, kept up the status quo, kept on practicing several times a week. We liked going to the local clubs (though on the way home I would have to listen to his meticulous critiques of the musicians), to the movies, and still had fun together. But there was this paralysis that I couldn’t explain, even though we still seemed to love each other. I was grateful to Dirk for his early encouragement of my singing, but that joy was eroding, and I couldn’t sustain the energy it took to keep arguing with him.

We were stuck in a groove that was becoming increasingly worn.

Dirk’s small law firm wasn’t too far from Zoe’s apartment in Willow Glen, and I was careful to park several blocks away. I didn’t want there to be any chance of him spotting my car, in case he was working late.

“Peter took the baby over to his mom’s,” Zoe said as we sat on her couch. “We’ve got the place to ourselves.”

I put the bag of Aunt Mitch’s things on the coffee table, taking out the handwritten pages, the comb, the urn, the geisha box, and the DVD.

“This is all so exciting,” Zoe said. “Like cracking a case!”

I’d never told Zoe many details about my childhood. She knew my mother had been a singer and had died young, that I was in the dark about my father, and that I grew up in foster homes, but that was about it. Now I explained as much as I could, showing her the photo album and the picture of me in a kimono, telling about my visits to the house in Saratoga and how nice Aunt Mitch had been to me. Enthralled, she seemed to be on the edge of her seat. Her enthusiasm made me think again how grateful I was to be sharing this with her now instead of Dirk.

“Let’s do it!” she said, picking up the documents, her eyes shining. Yet in the next instant, a worried look overtook her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You didn’t say they were handwritten.”

“Does that make a difference?”

“Well, something printed would be much easier. But have no fear! I’ve got my dictionaries here in case I need them. You know, I’m a little rusty.”

“That’s okay. Take your time.”

As I watched her carefully peruse the delicate pieces of paper, it was hard to believe that she could make sense out of what looked more like a piece of art than written communication.

“Well, I can tell you this,” she said. “This seems to be her will. Or her last wishes. Something like that.”

“Really?”

“And it says she has a sister. Named Hiromi. Hiromi Taniguchi. Mmm.”

“Maybe the one in the picture with her. That young girl.”

Zoe’s eyes went wide. “I bet it is. But that young girl would be an old lady by now.” She concentrated hard as she peered at the document, her lips moving as she read.

“Let me look at that photo album again,” she said.

I handed it to her and she quickly turned the pages, then pointed to the photograph of Aunt Mitch with the young girl. “This is Hiromi Taniguchi. Her sister. In 1949. This is what it says.”

I gazed at the portrait, staring at Hiromi’s face. “I guess she’d be in her seventies by now.”

Zoe went on reading. “And is there some kind of decorative comb? For the hair?”

“Right here,” I said, pointing to it.

“She says that it was her mother’s. And she would like it returned to her sister. Hiromi. In Japan. Seems like, seems like . . . mmm.” She cocked her head. “Seems like she has lost touch with her sister. For many years. She may live in a place called, ah, Kuyama? That is where she lived many years ago.” She continued to read. “Yes, Kuyama. Where the family is from. They owned a tofu shop there.”

I reached for a small note pad in my purse. “Maybe I better write this all down. What is the name of the place exactly?”

“It’s the Higashi Arakawa area in Kuyama. That is all it says. No address.”

“Does it say anything about this?” I asked, showing her the pretty wooden box with the painted geisha. “There’s nothing in it.”

Zoe shook her head. “No, no.” She picked up the blue vase. “But what’s this?”

That the convalescent home had sent the urn still seemed unbelievable. It gave me the creeps and I almost didn’t bring it. “Aunt Mitch’s ashes,” I said softly. “Her name is written on the bottom.”

“Her ashes?” Zoe quickly placed the vase back on the table. She picked up the DVD. “Aren’t you dying of curiosity to watch this?”

“Yeah, but who knows what’s on it? Could be scenic shots of Japan.” I removed the DVD from its envelope and slid it into the player. “Or just Aunt Mitch and Uncle Melvin waving at the camera.”

“Or maybe it’s Aunt Mitch herself—giving the instructions of her last will and testament.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

The film wasn’t in black-and-white but appeared washed-out, more like a faded watercolor than a bright oil. There was no sound. Two Japanese women in close-up, looking to be in their forties or so, smiled and waved at the camera.

“That’s Aunt Mitch,” I said, my heartbeat jumping into my throat. “The one on the left.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said. “I recognize her.”

The scene changed abruptly to what looked like a dining room, and once I spotted the Japanese-style credenza, I knew we were at Aunt Mitch’s house in Saratoga. A baby with plump cheeks and a mostly bald head sat in a high chair at the head of the table, and Aunt Mitch and the other Japanese woman were seated there. The camera lingered on a young woman with straight blond hair. At first she covered her face with her hands, laughing with embarrassment as if she did not want to be filmed. But then she underwent an instant transformation, spreading her arms wide, and swaying her hips as if she were performing on stage.

“That’s your mom, right?” Zoe said. “She’s every inch the rock star.”

“That’s for sure,” I said, thinking how this was so like Barbara.

“And that has to be you in the high chair.”

I nodded, my voice now refusing to emerge from my throat. I’d barely had any photographs from my childhood, let alone home movies. Seeing my mother again after all these years and seeing myself as an infant pierced my heart.

Next to Barbara was a man about her age with brown hair almost as long as hers. He kissed my mother on the lips, then gently took me out of the high chair and cradled me in his arms, looking up to smile at the camera, as though he were showing me off. He wasn’t at all awkward with holding a baby, wasn’t the all-thumbs type who would immediately freeze and hand off the infant to its mother. Instead, he grinned and rocked me as I stared at him, then planted a kiss on my forehead. The adult me shivered, as if I could feel his lips at that very moment. He tilted me toward the camera and moved my arm in a waving motion. Then he gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Do you know who that is?” Zoe whispered.

“No. I don’t recognize him at all.” My voice was a croak, my body frozen. I knew Zoe was thinking the same thing I was.

“He could be . . .”

“I know,” I said. “My dad. At least it’s a possibility.” I couldn’t believe that this man was just one of my mother’s casual boyfriends. Why would he interact with me that way? And why would he be invited to a family gathering recorded for posterity?

The camera now captured the group—Aunt Mitch and the other Japanese woman, my mother holding me—though I sensed with not as much tenderness as the man with the long brown hair. He now had his arm around my mother’s shoulders and they all stood in front of Aunt Mitch’s house next to the big oak tree. Everyone waved. Then the film ran out.

“That other Japanese woman,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s Aunt Mitch’s sister Hiromi?”

Zoe and I scrutinized the picture of Hiromi Taniguchi as a young girl dressed in a kimono with her sister.

“I think you’re right,” Zoe said. “Play it again.”

We watched the DVD about a half-dozen times. It was obvious to both of us that the other woman was Hiromi Taniguchi; there was no question. I could identify everyone in the film except the man cradling me in his arms, the man who kissed me twice.

“Hiromi would probably be able to tell you who that the guy is with your mother.”

“I know.” My eyes were becoming moist. “Maybe I can finally find out who . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Zoe squeezed my arm. “You have to go there! To find her!”

Her words echoed throughout the room. This was the last thing I had expected, that receiving Aunt Mitch’s things would bring with it a reason and opportunity to go to Japan. The idea excited me but also caused a pang of anxiety in the pit of my stomach; the practicality of such an endeavor was dubious.

Breathless, Zoe could not contain her excitement. “Maybe she kept a diary of when she came to visit her sister in the United States. Maybe she has photos of this guy or even more home movies! Maybe she’s—”

“Maybe she’s dead.”

Zoe frowned. “Why be so negative? Once you locate this woman and can find out about your father, maybe you can search for him. And you can get all this family stuff behind you. Move on with your life.”

I nodded. As usual, she sounded convincing.

“Not to mention that your aunt Mitch has asked for these things to be returned to her sister. And it would be so important for Hiromi to have her sister’s ashes and for Aunt Mitch to be, well, ‘back home.’ ”

I couldn’t speak.

Zoe stared into my face. “And isn’t this also a good excuse for you to get away from everything for a while?” she said in a gentle voice. “Get some perspective on where your life is going?”

She didn’t say, “Dirk,” but I knew this was what she was inferring.

We watched the DVD once more, then couldn’t stop replaying it, freezing every frame the man was in. Did I have his nose? His forehead? His mouth? Half the time I thought it was certain I did, the other half it seemed there was no resemblance at all. But I found myself feeling happy, hopeful. This was the only clue I’d ever had about my father, and Hiromi Taniguchi was the closest I’d had to a relative for ages.

Could I really go to Japan? I pictured my meeting with Hiromi Taniguchi, who would be so surprised to find there was a relative, even though only through marriage, who had journeyed all the way from America to carry out her sister’s wishes and bring her ashes home. I imagined showing her the photo of me in the kimono, telling her that some of the happiest times in my childhood were my visits with Aunt Mitch. I’d explain that I had no family of my own and ask her if it would be all right if I called her Aunt Hiromi. I could stay with her for a while, then invite her to San Jose; show her the old house again in Saratoga, if I could find it.

I looked once more at the handwritten documents, when something suddenly occurred to me—a memory, lying dormant for years.

“Zoe, is this how you write my name in Japanese?” I tore out another piece of paper from my note pad and wrote the characters:

Aunt Mitch had taught me how to write my name, and I must have practiced it hundreds of times at her kitchen table. I wrote it now as though a spirit or force was guiding me, almost as if I wasn’t in control of my hand.

Zoe nodded slowly, her eyes zeroing in on me. “Celeste,” she said. “You better go apply for your passport.”

It didn’t seem quite normal to have a feeling of dread at the thought of telling your boyfriend that you might be able to finally track down the father you never knew. Yet that was how I felt when I parked my car in front of Dirk’s compact tract house in a quiet Sunnyvale neighborhood off Homestead Avenue. But that wasn’t the only thing I needed to tell him.

My eyes fixed on the garage door, picturing the musical equipment inside, the PA, the piano, the site of many musical moments as well as many fights and frustrations.

When he gave me a hug and a kiss and said he was sorry about the last time, I felt even worse. And when I played the home movie on the DVD, he seemed genuinely interested, though I seemed to be holding my breath the whole time.

“That’s pretty cool that you got a home movie with you and your mom in it,” he said. “And that you got this stuff of your aunt’s.” He fingered the handwritten documents. “Wonder what this all says.”

“Well, actually I got them translated.”

“Yeah? By who?”

“Zoe,” I said. I told him about Aunt Mitch’s wish to have the comb returned to her sister and how important it would be to bring the ashes back to Japan.

“Zoe?” He looked skeptical. “She’s not a professional translator. But assuming she read it right, I guess that would be the thing to do, if it were something actually doable.”

“Doable?”

“Well, it’s not like you can take BART to Tokyo.” He said this in typical Dirk fashion, as if it was common knowledge, part of a closing argument to a jury. He looked at my face. “You’re not really thinking of going there, are you?”

I pulled out a picture from an envelope, a photo I had made of the man holding me in the DVD. It wasn’t the best quality, but his face was fairly clear. I explained to Dirk how Hiromi Taniguchi might know who the man is. “I think that maybe he could be my dad.” I pointed to the man’s nose. “Don’t you think my nose looks like his?”

Dirk cocked his head and stared at my nose, then at the man in the photograph. “Could be, I guess. But that’s kind of a leap, isn’t it? Just from this one scene in a home movie?”

“Why would he be showering me with such attention? It didn’t seem like he was a casual acquaintance.”

“The only definitive way to know would be for the guy to get a DNA test and for you to get one too, and even those can be inconclusive. But you don’t know for sure where your aunt’s sister is or if she’s even alive. And even if she is, how do you know she’ll even remember who this guy is?”

“I just have this feeling,” I said. “I have a feeling I can find her, and I have a feeling this man is my father and she’ll be able to tell me who he is.”

“Is this something Zoe put in your head?”

“No,” I said. I cleared my throat, and my heart thumped hard. “I’ve decided to go there and search for her.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, seeming to take time to process this new information. Then he said, “Well, how long are you going to go for?”

“I don’t know. I’ve arranged . . . I’ve arranged to work for a subcontractor of TextTrans in Tokyo.”

“Whoa. You’re going to transfer there?”

“Well, at least temporarily. Zoe says her cousin can sublet my apartment.” I braced for his anger but, instead, saw a hurt look on his face that I wasn’t expecting.

“Where was I in all this planning?” he asked quietly.

“I was afraid,” I said. “I was afraid that if I told you about it ahead of time that you’d talk me out of it.” I looked into his eyes. “This is really important to me.”

“I understand that, but it’s based on such flimsy evidence. And there’s a good chance you’ll be disappointed in the end.”

“I don’t want to think that way.”

“But why move there? Why not just go for a few weeks?”

“I think I need to get away for a while.”

“You mean to get away from me?”

I didn’t want to say outright that this was true, even though it was. It was too much to think of this as a breakup, but I knew I needed to get some perspective. I would be killing two birds with one stone with this trip in a certain way. But my guilt prevented me from being so candid with him. “Maybe you can come over there,” I said. “And help me search for her.” I knew he’d never go for this and I was right.

He sighed. “I’ve got the big Rainsfield case coming up. I can’t just take off and leave. And do you know how expensive it is over there? Have you researched this and looked into all your options?”

He could always come up with a million different reasons not to do something. “Kind of.”

He rolled his eyes. “Celeste, this is pretty crazy. Maybe we can think about going there next summer for a couple of weeks. Why is this so important now? What’s the urgency?”

Technically he was right. On technicalities he was always right. But I was sick of technicalities. Yes, there was no urgency, technically. But it was urgent to me. If I waited for him to be ready, we’d never go. There would always be something in the way. And I was convinced that he would never fully understand my situation, being from a big family of three brothers and two sisters in Virginia whom he was trying to avoid half the time.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been able to relate to what it’s like to have no family,” I said.

He touched my arm. “Maybe not, but you can’t change the past. What’s done is done. But, in some ways, you can control your future by the decisions you make and move forward with your life, without having to be encumbered by things you can’t control about your childhood.”

What he said made sense, but my sinking feeling signaled that it might just be that he would never understand me.

“Besides,” he went on. “You’ve got me.” He squeezed my hand.

Had he been a bit of a paternal figure all along? I wasn’t sure, but when I thought of the years we’d been together, I knew it hadn’t been all bad. And I wasn’t looking forward to feeling lonely. And who was the one who’d encouraged me to sing in the first place? Would I have even done it without his urging me on?

It took me a while, but finally I said, “Well, ah . . . this is the decision I’ve made.”

“Don’t you want to think about it a little more?”

I told him I would think about it, and even though I was sincere when I said it, I later realized that I’d already made up my mind in Zoe’s living room. In the end, I said I would keep in touch, that it wasn’t a breakup, just taking a break.

He reluctantly said good-bye and wished me good luck.

A few weeks later I was on my journey.