“Like you, I put little stock in blood and bloodlines and other such notions that pass from generation to generation, shaping our loyalties. We’ve seen how effectively these notions, these scripts, given the force of culture, can be marshaled for national interest and preservation. But even culture, broken down into small daily acts we habitually perform—here lies the space, brief but capacious enough for us to seize the spectrum of our choices. We Japanese, for example, have many rituals to acknowledge space: the physical space of a place, the space of a threshold, as well as the shared space of a meeting, the social space born in a moment of an encounter. We mark this space with a bow. I’ve never given it much thought, except to defy the practice which I saw as one more subjugating custom of polite society. But since meeting you I’ve come to see this as a gesture not of self-abnegating obeisance but of vital self-negation, as we each pause at the threshold of our common space and lower our heads in deference, so that we might, together, even under the eternal augur of a curse, ceaselessly start anew in light.”
SIX
CROP
The crop had done well. Rows of vibrant green shoots knuckling out of the mud, springing like little children at the school bell. It would still take several seasons, but the transplant, Masayuki was sure, would eventually take, the best qualities of their rice, cultivated for generations at home in Niigata, given the chance for new growth here in California, all the way on the other side of the world. Until his cousin Mitsuru left for these shores seven years ago, in 1906, Masayuki had never imagined making what was for most a once-in-a-lifetime transpacific journey, and here he was crossing back and forth for the third time to help Mitsuru nurture these sprouts. It was gratifying to finally see the progress now, in 1913, and on this point Masayuki had no regrets, the excitement of working alongside Mitsuru worth almost any exorbitance. He and Mitsuru had always shared a passion for discovery, and Masayuki had grieved when his cousin left Niigata. Now Mitsuru went by Bob, and though Masayuki never learned whether the name had been chosen or issued to him, what was clear was that Bob, who answered only reluctantly to his original name, was determined to stay. This land had space, vast and unencumbered by primogeniture, the grip of old roots—or so it seemed.
Like most of Mitsuru’s projects, the odds hadn’t been favorable, and it had been a feat to coax their grain to thrive in a new environment that was, in many ways, hostile to transplants, despite the similarities they saw between Northern California and Niigata. Now, after six seasons, their crop was showing promise. A futurity.
Masayuki could report at least this much when he faced his wife, Taeko, who, in three weeks, would journey with their infant son from Niigata to the port of Yokohama to greet him when he disembarked the steamship Hikari, currently docked on this pier, waiting to depart this California bay. By then it would be five months since he’d last seen her, and the thought filled him with longing and apprehension. In all their years together, Masayuki had done little to draw Taeko’s scrutiny; if anything, it was this lack that sometimes provoked her exasperation. In the case of his months in California, it was her interest in Mitsuru’s health and romantic life that prompted her to do a little fishing in the memory lake of his heart, where, according to her, all the fish, bored by inattention, lay dormant. He was always curious what she’d dredge up, the slipped feelings and details she’d hold up wriggling between them for analysis. This year all his fish were wide awake, and it would not be Mitsuru she’d be concerned with.
At the ship’s entry, Masayuki looked up at the gleaming hulk thrumming with an ever more efficient engine he could feel in his legs. Indeed, Hikari was an apt name for a ship that carried the shine of the future.
He was the first to arrive at his cabin, a tiny room stiff with cleaning. Other than the bunk beds set up on opposite walls, there was only a common night table, above which a round window peered cataractically. He wondered if he should’ve stuck to steerage. As it was, he’d splurged on a second-class ticket, thinking he’d appreciate the company of a few bunkmates over the intimate anonymity of a constant crowd. Perhaps he’d misjudged. Sliding his luggage onto his mattress, he rejoined the bustle in the corridor. His legs often felt heavier on the return; this time, they felt numb, his whole body dragging anchor.
Above deck, the day was clear and getting clearer, the sky and sea differentiated by texture rather than color, each half meeting at the horizon beyond which lay the frontier of the next epoch. Masayuki, born in the previous century, knew he’d never live to see the advances that would penetrate earth’s outer borders. Yet, just over a decade into the twentieth century, technology had brought the continents closer, science feeding and curing a world that would surely one day want for nothing. Like his cousin, Masayuki believed in humanity, its intrinsic propulsion to evolve, and the coming ages’ limitless capacity to progress; he too was a born agronomist, impelled by life’s miraculous vigor to contribute to its vitality. Ultimately, he was a pragmatist, which was both his strength and weakness—and useful to his pioneering cousin, who’d tapped him for his own pursuits. Masayuki never regretted this exploitation, as others in his family called it; Mitsuru elevated him, Mitsuru who always dreamed in excess, reaching into a future that did not exist to seed an unborn world he’d insist was gestating in the air, in the water, in the soil, germinating across the earth.
But it was one thing to dream and another to be naïve, and Masayuki took care never to be naïve. As he saw it, there was a difference between blind faith and hope, and it was in the gully between the two that he always set his heart. It was the only way he could see to meet the future squarely. Taeko, like Mitsuru, valued his judgments, trusting their innovative sparkle. But he’d never before risked anything potentially irreversible.
* * *
—
ON DECK, Masayuki threaded his way to the railing, undeterred by the elbows and shoulders turning to resist him. Across the water plashing between the ship and pier, the crowd had slackened into listless clumps, and it took him a moment to find the spot where, moments ago, he’d shaken hands with his cousin, then with Edward, the once scraggly mop of a boy who used to come around with his father, the sympathetic white man from whom Bob leased his land. Now a head taller than Masayuki, Edward was no longer a boy—he’d made that clear. Looking back, Masayuki should’ve seen it coming, Edward’s grown-up face pinking at the sight of Ayumi, Masayuki’s fifteen-year-old daughter, when they’d disembarked at the beginning of this summer.
Summoning his strength, Masayuki let his gaze drop to the shape beside Edward. Not her usual trenchant self, his daughter was scrunched between several doleful families, her pale face sullen and averted. He was glad she wasn’t looking, his child, no longer a child, who’d sat beside Edward in Bob’s parlor the previous week, back straight, letting Edward talk like a grown man about the merits of Ayumi making a life in California with him, an aspiring American agricultural scientist. What could he do? Ayumi, a rambunctious child, had always trailed after Mitsuru, reaching for the world beyond their town; his wife, far from discouraging it, had indulged Ayumi, raising little resistance when she first clamored to sail to California with her father. But this—this was different, he knew. And yet he also believed a part of Taeko would understand. In the past year Ayumi had become subdued and restless, her thoughts often elsewhere as she chewed her dinner or swept the hallway, snapping at anyone who interrupted her. Masayuki had thought it had to do with her brother, two years older and about to leave home to pursue his medical studies. But Taeko had been convinced it was her own pregnancy, so late in life, with their youngest son, the unexpected event burdening Ayumi with more household duties and perhaps a glimpse of her own future in Niigata. Despite the help she needed with the baby, Taeko, not a soft woman, had made arrangements with her own sister, who agreed to stop by twice a day so Ayumi could travel again with her father. No doubt Taeko, upon his return, would demand to know what the prospects were of a Japanese girl in America, but it was the image of his wife’s pity that had opened his mind as he listened to Edward and watched his daughter’s face radiate a hopeful ardor he hadn’t seen since she’d been a little girl. He’d consented. Ayumi, elated, had flushed, a vibrance that filled his chest, tickling every corner of it. It was only later that something heavier had tugged at her expression, and now this weight hit him full force, the pang like a prophecy of loss, his struck heart suddenly too large in its cage.