A Certain Mr. Takahashi. Ann Ireland

painful?”

      Colette stares intently at the floorboards. Under her brief brush of hair the skin reddens.

      “It’s more complicated … ” she begins. “We’re talking about two different people and two different minds. Sometimes it feels like you’re waiting to pounce on me.”

      “How?” presses Jean.

      “I have to defend myself … ”

      “Explain that,” demands Jean.

      “See?” Colette raises her head. “You’re doing it right now. Not letting me be what I’ve become. You want me to be the person I was, that you think you remember. I can’t be that for you.”

      She spreads her palms in apology.

      Indoors, the telephone rings.

      They stop and listen.

      “Isn’t Dad home?” says Colette.

      “I think so.”

      Still no one answers.

      “I’ll get it,” says Colette, and makes a run for it.

      Sunday mornings during one winter Yoshi rehearsed with the Hart House New Music Ensemble. They did a twentieth-century series, which he led from the piano.

      We had to get up early to catch a glimpse of him those icy mornings. I hopped out of bed, 7:45 A.M., into the still house and in a jiffy broke four eggs into a frying pan. The smell yanked Colette out of bed.

      At the dining table, placed cunningly against the window, we kept an eye on the progress across the street.

      “He’s opened his curtains.”

      “There, he just took in the paper.”

      Yoshi had the New York Times delivered to him on Sundays.

      “Did you see him?” Voice high-pitched and anxious. “What was he wearing?”

      We tugged on Hudson’s Bay parkas and mukluks and prepared to shovel the walk. This was our self-proclaimed Sunday chore, whether there was snow or not.

      “Don’t look up, Colette, keep shovelling.”

      “I can’t see anyway, my hood’s too big.”

      Our fingers froze inside woolly mitts, and we could feel our faces crack an unbecoming red after a blast of polar wind. We worked slowly so it wouldn’t be done too soon. I had a special edging technique where the shovel got pressed against newly created walls of snow. It took a long time.

      At last...

      “He’s coming!” Colette sang between clenched teeth. We weren’t supposed to look up right away. Our tactics involved a cool disregard followed by sudden recognition.

      “Hello, Yoshi,” I called finally and waved a knitted hand. A string of snot had looped itself across my mouth and I wiped, fast.

      Loping down his own unshovelled walk he lifted both furry arms (for a while he sported a buffalo-hide coat) and crossed them over his head several times.

      “Hello, girls. How are you?” he called, face radiating that toe-curling smile.

      “Fine,” we chirped, grinning furiously.

      Sometimes the Thunderbird took a while to get started in the cold, and we’d listen to the motor cough and heave, half hoping it wouldn’t catch.

      Later, around 12:30, we positioned ourselves at the crest of the hill, a long block north, where he passed on his way back from rehearsal. At that time it was a parking lot, a flat, open prairie that got all the wind, and we stood, hands plunged deep into pockets, stamping blood into our toes, and waited for the raven flash of metal to swoop up to the stop sign. Our idea was that he would offer us a ride home and follow it up with an invitation to lunch. This never happened, but not for lack of trying.

      “I hear a car, Colette!” My neck bristled.

      “Don’t you dare turn!”

      The car stopped, spun slush onto the sidewalk and us, and gunned forward: a souped-up family ranch wagon with a child’s face pressed against the rear window. Breathe again.

      When we had nearly given up I felt Colette’s hand on my padded elbow. “It’s him, Jean. I know it!”

      So fast did it occur that he would be half-way down the hill before I focused on the familiar vehicle and perhaps got a glimpse of black hair.

      “Now what?”

      “May as well head home.” We watched as it took the curve, parting a ridge of slush, and disappeared. A moment later we strained to hear the muffled thud of a car door.

      At least, we consoled ourselves, we’d gotten it right: the positioning, the time, everything we possibly could have considered. One of these days he would see us. The one thought, too awful to contemplate aloud, was that he had recognized us — but chose to drive on.

      The bedrooms began to change. First to go were the steel beds, dragged down to the basement so the mattresses could lie flat on the floor.

      Then everything had to be white. We had to earn the money ourselves, for paint, brushes, Varsol, and drop sheets. Luckily it was still winter, and we could shovel the walks of the neighbourhood. It took a month and four major snowstorms. One long weekend of round-the-clock painting and both rooms were completely white. I (Maki) did trim, while Colette (Rikko-san), being taller, managed the roller.

      It looked so good when the rooms were empty we decided to leave out the furniture.

      “Where will you put your clothes, your books, all your junk?” worried Sam.

      “We’ll find a way.”

      “Who do you think you are?”

      Books could be arranged in a neat row on the floor against the wall, with an earthenware jar as bookend. Clothes were more difficult to hide, though we each had a small closet for hanging things. If we could just fit everything into the closets.

      “You can’t, there’s no room.”

      The halls were littered with bookcases, dressers, and knick-knacks. “We’ll find a way.”

      We built shelves out of mandarin-orange crates to go inside the cupboards. Underwear went in one, shirts in another, and so on. Everything fit snugly in its new quarters.

      The rooms started out looking nearly identical: white and spare. Then Rikko-san found a long feather; I arranged a tokonoma— alcove —containing a tiny vase with a single dried flower. Rikko-san pinned her kimono to the wall; I hung Japanese calligraphy prints. One day I got fed up and took everything down so my room was bare again.

      “I like the emptiness,” I explained.

      Martin called it the Cell.

      “What do you do up there?”

      “Think. Read. Dream.”

      I sat in bed and pressed visions of Japan against the bare white walls; cherry blossoms and ancient twisted trees, the click, click of geta, and the shimmering cone of Mt. Fuji rising from a cloud of mist. Images shifted one into the other with the grace of a Noh play.

      One day Martin came home with “presents” for both of us. Matching desks. Regular desks with vertical drawers and a map of Canada on top. Nothing you could saw the legs off.

      “I thought you girls would be delighted,” he said.

      We nodded sadly.

      “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

      “They just won’t do, Father.”

      He refused to take the desks back to the store.