The morning mist weaves
a shawl of consolation
through autumn-bright trees
—Kayko Miyazaki
When I wake in the morning, I don’t know where I am or how I got here. I see long planes of dark, polished wood that gradually resolve themselves into walls. The ceiling, high above, is criss-crossed with thick, lovely wooden beams. I’m lying on a mattress on the floor in a room that seems otherwise empty. Lying on the floor would normally remind me of rats and my time with the Tribe, but the mattress is soft, the bedding clean and warm. I snuggle into it. I never want to leave. But I feel heavy, as if an unbearable weight of grief has settled on me. Did someone die? I wonder. Then I remember. No. Someone who should have died didn’t. My father.
The full force of yesterday washes over me like a wave of dizziness. I close my eyes. Everything I knew and valued about myself is gone. I want out of my life. I wish I were the sort of person who could just shuck off reality and disappear into my own mind, but I know that isn’t going to happen. What was it Astral said? “You can endure anything.” He said that the day before yesterday, a million years ago, or neither, or both. And now, I have to find out if that’s true.
Behind me, the house sighs, as if it’s whispering a secret, but I don’t move. Kayko appears in my field of vision, carrying a tray. She’s wearing a kimono, as she did the night I met her. She kneels beside my bed and pours green tea from a cast-iron teapot into a delicate porcelain cup. The scent of it tickles my nose. She offers me the steaming cup. “Sit up,” she says. Her voice is gentle, but it’s an order. I obey before I have a chance to reconsider.
Kayko pours a cup of tea for herself.
“Where’s all the furniture?” I ask. I didn’t know I was going to say this until the words leave my mouth.
Kayko laughs. “This is a traditional Japanese house. The rooms are almost empty, so they can be used for anything. When the bed’s not being used, it goes away in there.” She points to a wall of cupboards I haven’t even noticed. “It’s a nice day,” she adds.
“Do I have to get up?”
“I think you’d better.”
“Is anyone else here?”
“Not in this house. There’s another house out of sight up the hill. The help lives there. They’ll look after us, but they won’t intrude. My grandparents wanted to create the illusion of a traditional Japanese house. But it’s just that. The floors and walls are heated. I even have an office in the basement. I used to do a lot of my holo-zine work here.”
“Work,” I say. “They’ll start on that hologram without us—”
Kayko interrupts. “No they won’t. I spoke with Griffin this morning. He and Luisa will help Astral with the radio broadcasts. They won’t touch the holograms until that’s done. Anyway, today’s Friday. Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you get dressed?”
“I don’t think I can handle a kimono.”
Kayko laughs. “Neither can I, not for outside. This is just a dressing gown. You’ll find regular clothes in the cupboards. My clothes should fit you.”
Kayko leaves, closing what looks like a sliding paper wall behind her. When I stand, I see that the front of the room gives out onto a glassed-in porch. The view beyond is mostly water. I cross a floor covered in mats of tightly woven straw, warm to the touch. The land in front of the house slopes down to the water. The lake looks large, but it folds into smaller bays dotted with little rock islands. The one directly in front of me has a pavilion with an elaborate peaked roof in a graceful little garden.
I want to wear something that mirrors my turmoil, I remember Erica once told me about people in the Middle Ages smearing their faces with soot and wearing coarse, uncomfortable clothes to express sorrow and regret. “Sackcloth and ashes,” it was called. I would do that now, but Kayko’s cupboards hold nothing even remotely like sackcloth and ashes. I settle for black pants in some kind of velvety microfibre, and a charcoal-grey sweater of incredibly soft wool. If I want to punish myself, I’ve come to the wrong place.
I slide the paper wall open and walk through large empty rooms to find Kayko sitting on the floor at a low table by a wall of windows. She is also wearing pants and a sweater. She smiles. “Fruit and croissants for breakfast. Are you all right with no chairs?”
“I think so.” I fold my legs awkwardly and sit facing her. As I do, the view beyond her comes into focus. “It looks like something out of a book,” I say.
Kayko glances over her shoulder. “My mother’s garden? It is, mostly. Books and paintings. That’s what she used to create the design. I’ll show it to you after.”
As we eat, I begin to realize Kayko is willing to let me spend the next few days talking about nothing. If she said anything, I would probably retreat into myself. Knowing she won’t makes it possible for me to face what’s happened, somehow. When I finish eating, I say, “Will the others hate me?” I intended to speak in a normal voice, but my words come out in a whisper.
“You’re the same person you were yesterday, Blake,” Kayko says. “We know that.”
“But I’m not who I thought I was.”
“You are so. Nothing about your past has changed. You had to struggle through that impossible childhood alone, and you came out a fine person. I am so proud to be your friend.”
Kayko’s kindness makes it impossible for me to reply.
She seems to understand. “Come on,” she says, rising, “I’ll show you the garden.”
Kayko leads me to a small, closet-like entrance hall where we find our shoes. We go outside. The fall air is damp and cool. It smells of pine.
The house is built into the side of a hill of grey rock and lichen. A stream flows from one pool to another with little waterfalls and bridges between. The low, rambling house is roofed with wooden shingles and dead pine needles and moss. “The house looks as if it grew here,” I say.
“It never ceases to amaze me,” Kayko says. “The idea came from the other side of the world, but this house belongs here.”
“Does it always feel so peaceful?”
“Yes. Even with other people around. The house was designed to create a sense of inner harmony, of course, but there’s something about this place as well. My grandmother used to say being here is like being cradled in the hands of a god. Come on.”
We follow the stream along a bare dirt path winding up the hill. The garden looks sparse at first. A single tree or shrub, sometimes just a few rocks are displayed here and there, with space composed of water or grass or moss, or white gravel between. But it doesn’t seem barren. Instead, it seems clear-headed, somehow. As if I’m seeing the gardener’s thoughts about peace and beauty. Even at this time of year, when nothing is blooming, it’s perfect.
We reach a plateau at the top, and I see the smaller, more usual-looking house. Kayko points to a bench. “I love this view. Sit and have a look.” From here, the Japanese house is part of the landscape. The hills around the lake glow, even in this subdued light. Rare splashes of crimson and scarlet are woven into the orange and yellow maples and birches against the evergreen trees, the darker backdrop of fir and pine and spruce that will not change. The colours are mirrored in the calm waters of the lake.
“I wish I could stay here forever,” I say. For a few moments, I’ve felt all right. Then, suddenly and without warning, the weight of my grief presses down. I feel as if I can hardly stand. “I think I need to lie down.” Kayko doesn’t argue. She leads me back to my room. The bed has been made, but it’s still waiting for me. “I thought you said it went into the cupboard,” I say.
“I told them to leave it out, in case you needed it.”
I’m so tired. Kayko fetches a padded quilt from the cupboard and places it over me. I don’t even hear her leave the room.
When I wake again, it’s late afternoon. I wander around the house until I find Kayko, sitting at a kind of low desk built into a window box. She smiles when she sees me. “You missed lunch. Are you hungry?”
“Not really, but I’ll eat.”
She rises. “Good. Wait here. I’ll order something.”
I look down at the papers when she leaves, expecting to see reports about work, something official. Instead, I find pages of short, three-line poems, handwritten. I remember Kayko once talked about writing a Japanese form of poetry.
I probably shouldn’t, but I glance at one. “The homeless girl’s eyes . . .” I read.
“I asked for soup and a sandwich.” Kayko’s voice is unexpectedly close behind me.
I jump away from the papers. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I shouldn’t have been so nosy.”
“The haiku? I don’t mind. I’m not very good at it. It’s more of a writing exercise than anything. Let’s get your lunch,” she says, “then we should talk.” The serious note in her voice makes my heart misgive.
The food looks wonderful in an abstract way, but I eat without tasting. When I finish, Kayko says, “We can stay here as long as you need to. I spoke to Erica while you were sleeping. She’ll come too, if you want.”
I shake my head. “We can’t stay here. They need us at work. And I want to find out what happened, now more than ever. If I can make sense of the technocaust, maybe it will be easier to accept the news about my father.”
“We’ll go back early on Monday, then. I’ll tell Erica.”
“I should tell her myself.”
“Good,” Kayko says. “We’ll call her later.” But she still looks troubled. “There’s something else—” Kayko starts to say. I cut her off.
“Whatever it is, can’t it wait until next week? I’m still pretty shaky.”
“I know, but we should talk about this, because I might be able to do something about it.”
“Something about what?”
“Your father is in prison because he helped the Protectors during the technocaust. That means you won’t be allowed to make a victim statement.”
I go numb. “That decision was made because of me. Erica would never have voted in favour if I hadn’t been so upset by the idea that those people might make victim statements. And now, I’m one of those people. How’s that for justice?”
“It’s not justice at all. I didn’t think so then and I don’t now. Blake, I’m not willing to let this go.”
I laugh. “What can you do about it? Ask the Justice Council to make an exception for me? Because they know me and I’m not like everyone else who’s related to people who ran the technocaust? They’d totally discredit themselves before their real work has even started. I’m not that important. I did this to myself, and I’m stuck with it.”
But when I look at Kayko, there’s that gleam of mischief in her eyes. “That wasn’t what I had in mind,” she says. “We’re not asking the Justice Council for anything. Do you have your victim statement with you?”
“Yes, it’s almost finished. I carry it everywhere. It’s in the bag I brought from the office. Why?”
“I want to record you, reading your victim statement. Then I’ll interview you about your life and post it all on my holo-zine, so everyone can hear your story.”
“Wouldn’t that violate our confidentiality agreement?”
“I don’t think so,” Kayko says. “We didn’t learn any of this because of the work we’re doing with the Justice Council. Will you do it?”
I bite my lip. “I can hardly bear to think my story might never be heard. But this seems, well, self-serving, as if my story were more important than anyone else’s.”
“But don’t you see? Your story is important, especially now. People have got to realize that things are more complex than they want them to be. This isn’t as simple as guilt and innocence. Until everyone realizes that, we’ll never get over the technocaust. But most people don’t think in concepts, Blake, it’s too abstract. They understand stories. Whether they realize it or not, your story will help them understand why we need to be able to forgive.”
“But I can’t say that. Kayko, I can’t even begin to forgive. I hate the people who did this to me, to everyone who suffered.” Hot tears spill down my cheeks. “I hate . . .” I pause, gulp a deep breath, and go on. “I hate my father for betraying everything that matters to me. I’ve never been as good as you and your uncle and Erica, as Griffin and Monique. I was only pretending because I thought you’d lose respect for me if you knew.”
There. Now Kayko finally knows. I stare at my hands, waiting for her judgment. Pity is the best I can hope for now that I have shown myself to be so inadequate.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says softly.
I look up at her. “What?”
“You always ask so much of yourself, Blake. Anyone in your position would feel the way you do. Let me ask you something. Do you like hating?”
“No. I hate it,” I say. When I realize what I’ve said, I laugh. “When we first came here, I thought hate gave me the energy I needed to keep going. But when I met Astral, I started to realize what hate could do to someone. Kayko, I’m tired of hating.”
“Good,” she says. “I think, one day, you’ll be able to let your hate go. Tell your story. That might be the beginning. And maybe not just for you. That’s what I’m hoping.”
“I’m not sure—” I start to say, but she won’t let me finish.
“I know you’re not, but I am. Just trust me, all right?”
“All right,” I say, because I’m too confused to trust myself.