Rainfall

“I grew up in both countries,” I said after a long pause. “I never lived in New York, but I’ve spent some time there, and I know some of the region’s accents.”

Her eyes widened. “You grew up in Japan and the States?”

“Yes.”

“How did you come to do that?”

“My mother was American.”

I was aware of a slight intensification of her gaze, as she searched for the first time for the Caucasian in my features. You can still spot it, if you know what you’re looking for.

“You don’t look very . . . I mean, I think you must have inherited mostly your father’s features.”

“That bothers some people.”

“What does?”

“That I look Japanese, but I’m really something else.”

I remembered for a moment the first time I heard the word ainoko, half-breed. It happened at school, and I asked my father about it that night. He scowled and said only, “Taishita koto nai.” It’s nothing. But pretty soon I got to hear the word while the ijimekko, the school bullies, were busy trying to beat the shit out of me, and I put two and two together.

She smiled. “I don’t know about other people. For me, the intersection of cultures is where things get most interesting.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Look at jazz. Roots in black America, branches in Japan and all over the world.”

“You’re unusual. Japanese are typically racist.” I realized that my tone was more bitter than I had intended.

“I don’t know that the country is so racist. It’s just been insular for so long, and we’re always afraid of what’s new or unknown.”

Ordinarily I find such idealism in the face of all contrary facts irritating, but I recognized that Midori was simply projecting her own good sentiment onto everyone around her. Looking into her dark, earnest eyes, I couldn’t help smiling. She smiled back, her full lips parting and lighting up her eyes, and I had to look away.

“What was it like to grow up that way, in two countries, two cultures?” she asked. “It must have been incredible.”

“Pretty standard, really,” I said, reflexively.

She paused, her demitasse halfway to her lips. “I don’t see how something like that could really be ‘standard.’ ”

Careful, John. “No. It was difficult, actually. I had a hard time fitting in either place.”

The demitasse continued upward, and she took a sip. “Where did you spend more time?”

“I lived in Japan until I was about ten, then mostly in the States after that. I came back here in the early eighties.”

“To be with your parents?”

I shook my head. “No. They were already gone.”

My tone rendered unambiguous the word gone, and she nodded in sympathy. “Were you very young?”

“Early teens,” I said, averaging things out, still trying to keep it vague when I could.

“That’s terrible, to lose both parents so young. Were you close with them?”

Close? Although my face bore the stamp of his Asian features, and although he married an American, I believe my father had a typically outsized Japanese focus on race. The bullying I received in school both enraged and ashamed him.

“Fairly close, I suppose. They’ve been gone a long time.”

“Do you think you’ll go back to America?”

“I did at one point,” I said, remembering how I’d gotten drawn into the work it now seemed like I’d been doing forever. “After returning as an adult, I spent ten years here always thinking I would stay just one more and then go back. Now I don’t really dwell on it.”

“Does Japan feel like home to you?”

I remembered what Crazy Jake told me, just before I did what he asked of me. There’s no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done.

“It’s become my home, I guess,” I said after a long time. “What about you? Would you want to live in America again?”

She was gently tapping on her demitasse, her fingers rippling up its sides from pinky to forefinger, and I thought, She plays her moods. What would my hands do if I could do that?

“I really loved New York,” she said after a moment, smiling at some memory, “and I’d like to go back eventually, even to stay for a while. My manager thinks that the band isn’t too far off. We’ve got a gig at the Vanguard in November; that’ll really put us on the map.”