APRIL 1997
The Girl Who
Always Thought It Was Summer
The Mushroom Man
Garden Without Figures
China 1936
The Mushroom Man
by Sharon Hashimoto
Labor Day weekend.
And the air is rich with golden leaves that ride upon the wind. Dusty, sun-dried
browns turn mushy, muddy wet black with hazy fog and misty rain. On cool
clear nights the moon hangs low, glowing cheddar cheese yellow. And V-shaped
flights of birds point arrows to the south.
Labor
Day weekend, and the whispers begin.
Port
Townsend. Shelton. Cascades.
Whispers
that echo like wind through the trees, raining secrets that soak deep into
the mind. Whispers that pour like rivers from overflowing mouths down Rainier
Avenue and Jackson, Empire Way and Genessee. Whispers that speak of mushrooms.
"Last
year, we only found about two dozen..."
"...hope
it rains...much too dry..."
"The
Ogawas went last week..."
"Uwajimaya
is selling them at five dollars a pound!"
Creamy,
brown speckled caps with firm stems, smelling of pine and dark rich earth.
Cooked in butter. Steamed in rice or soup. Frozen and hoarded like gold
coins locked deep in icy safes. Sent by some to far away Hawaii, California,
the East Coastto be opened and relished by a black-haired, brown-eyed
people. Found even in lean years, in ample abundance, by Osam.
"Osam?
Tall, skinny...with horn rim glasses?"
"Didn't
he work for the City?"
"You
know, Toshio's middle son."
"He
found how many?!" they would exclaim, their voices rising on the last
note and lingering on the air with the tone of gentle wind chimes. "Where?"
they would murmur, jealous of his riches, "Where does he go?"
And
he would nod, smile and say nothing while passing out generous quantities
to friends and families who knew better than to ask. Too many battles had
been waged over "secret locations". Too many whispers and secrets
had built walls between friends, made enemies among families.
Sure-footed
Osam, whose journeying feet travelled far, past dull red mushrooms with
shiny tops and fragile porcelain-white mushrooms that dipped in the center.
Keen eyes would spot treasure hidden beneath a mottled forest floor. And
clever fingers would probe deep beneath tree roots to expose tender young
buds.
Sam
to some. Osam to others. Papa to me.
He
was a centipede of tall long legs that walked swiftly down the rain-drenched
streets of Seattle. Towering stilts that wandered deep into the woods, over
decaying logs and padding softly over brown-green moss. Legs I used to hug
tight and smile at the face that floated among the clouds above mine. Sweat
and grass and the odor of trees and branches and the creek about him. That
was Papa. Against the cool rubber of his boots, I would always smell mushrooms.
He
was mountains and magic and memoriesa mystery in the fine chain
that bound me to him, and to Grandma and Grandpa. Sometimes he was sad and
sometimes he was old, his eyes hungering for something distant, far-off.
And watching him dreamily patch his worn faded boots, I would think questions
at him, never daring to ask out loud. Where do the mountains begin, where
do they end? Papa, do you know? How do you get there from here? Then feeling
my eyes upon him, he would look up and push his glasses back up his narrow
nose. His thin, even voice still tinged with smoky thoughts would remind
me that homework must be done before bed.
A
quiet man. A comfortable man. A quiet and comfortable house.
But
some nights I would wake, snapped out of sleep like a rubber band. Listening
to the house waiting, like the silence before a thunderstorm. Smothered
and imprisoned between blankets and sheets, I would lie, feeling the tension
run like electricity throughout the house. Then, just after midnight. Hushed,
rough edged voices would claw the night. The edge of a broken glass, it
cut and made my dreams bleed into the dark.
Mama
and Papa. Mostly Mama. Talking in broken Japanese. Whispers in bits of English.
"...don't
like you going by yourself. Why can't you take somebody with you?"
"Dare?"
"Davey...Sam...Big
Joe..."
"...hanashimasu..."
"Talk?!"
"Yes,
about my secre...."
"Shush!
You'll wake the children!"
And
the ricocheting emotions would bounce off the walls, always returning to
me as I hid, buried in my bed, feeling the shadows hovering near. Then I
would dream of dark clammy places that would yield to sweaty sheets and
pillows thrown in fear upon the floor. Even morning sunlight and skies of
robin egg blue would not chase away the autumn feelings in the air.
"Where
does Papa go?" I once asked Mama as she packed a chicken-filled Tupperware
and a thermos into a sturdy cardboard box.
"Tomorrow?
East to Mercer Island, all the way down I-90. To Easton, I think. To the
Olympics, maybe, on Sunday. And back to work on Monday."
"Olympics.
Easton." I murmured softly.
"What's
that?"
I
watched her carefully as she fitted paper plates and napkins beside the
thermos. "Do we get to go?"
"Linda's
going to Sally's birthday party tomorrow and you have a piano lesson."
"When
do we get to go?"
And
Mama stopped her quick, butterfly-like movements to stare at me. She frowned
and her eyebrows were straight lines across her forehead. "When do
we get to go?" her quiet voice mocked mine. "When he
asks."
She
sat down heavily in the kitchen chair that wobbled because one leg had been
bent, then sent me to the basement shelves for a can of olives. Anxious
to escape her mood, I tramped half-running down the steps, jumping the fourth
stair to the bottom.
"Please walk up the stairs," she shouted down to me.
"Yes
Mama."
But
I knew she was remembering...
Butter
and heavily scented pine cut fresh that evening had run like bright streamers
throughout the house. Papa had smiled and bubbled, a bright yellow balloon,
as he carried in four boxes of freshly picked mushrooms.
"So
many..." Mama had whispered, her voice filtered softly around, through
and under the mountains of mushrooms. Quickly she had rolled up her sleeves,
sorting the young buds from the wormy, blossomed mushrooms. I had watched
her washing, cutting, dicing, cooking, freezing mushrooms in a thousand
and one ways.
Puzzle
pieces, I had thought to myself. Each gently gathered and somehow fitted
into the quiet man leaning with one hip against the kitchen table. Part
Mama. Part me and Linda, Grandma and Grandpa. Forests filled with pieces.
"Matsutake..."
I had whispered. Mushroom man. Grown wild. Hidden in dark burrows beneath
fallen trees. Dormant, but full of quiet secrets that touched me like the
flying seasons. I had smiled up at Papa, not seeing the awful grayness creep
into my father's face as his hands fluttered upwards to his chest before
collapsing on the floor...
Winds
blow chill on September days and the bright fall sun no longer warms my
face and hands. The rain falls soft like chilly, early morning dreams and
half-recalled memories that I try to forget. Falling leaves drift like Papa's
rising voice, arguing with the doctor, with Mama, with the strange voices
that called to him from the past. That sometimes call to me.
Sometimes
I sit in Papa's dusty room where he hung his compass and hip boots from
a long nail pounded deep into the wall. The feet of his boots always swing
when I enter searching for the light switch above the naval clock that used
to keep perfect time. Sunlight has dulled the calendar painting of green
grass in a green Japan with temples and women in kimonos. A picture of a
very young Mama and Papa as a young man with old eyes is pinned to the wall.
They stand before a row of dilapidated houses painted like neglected crops
in a barren land. Mama says it was taken in Heart Mountain, that she remembers
little of it. I look at her eyes in the picture and see how they have faded
and dulled since then. Haunted eyes, I think to myself.
I
remember Papa, sitting bent in his chair, after his illness and the sudden
quietness that filled the house. Of the smell of mushrooms that lingered
for days. Of Mama's thin and worried face.
One
Saturday I will always relive. Half-waking before the sun rose and listening
for the birds that were no longer there, wondering what had wakened me,
I yawned and eased onto my side, heard the bed creak quietly beneath me.
Mind drifting, I lay muffled in the soft sounds of the early darkness. But
distantly, I heard again the soft shuffle of boots on hardwood floors and
the final sound of a door closing, and came suddenly awake.
I
remember that evening and the phone ringing. Twice long, one short. Mama
crying softly in her bed. Uncle Jinx and Aunt Fumi speaking with quick looks
to the neighbors:
"His
heart. It was his heart."
"...but
where?"
"The
south slope of Mount Rainier. Deep inside. Past the lumber roads and trails."
"She
begged him not to go..."
"...so
stupid...so stubborn..."
"Greedy?"
"What
then?"
"Maybe...I
don't know."
Labor
Day weekend, and the whispers begin.
© The Raven Chronicles 1997