The Street of a Thousand Blossoms Read online

  OUTSTANDING PRAISE FOR

  The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

  “Just as Clint Eastwood opened a window for us on the Japanese experience during World War II, Gail Tsukiyama has pulled back the veil and let us peek into the lives of those living on the home front. Tsukiyama has long been known for her emotional and detailed stories. This time, she has gone even deeper to explore what happens to ordinary people during frightening and tragic times.”

  —Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

  and Peony in Love

  “The Street of a Thousand Blossoms is a generational saga, both sweeping and intimate. Covering the years of the war and after, on the homefront of Japan, Tsukiyama tells a powerful story of family, of loss, and of endurance with her usual insight, her perfect imagery, and her unforgettable characters. An epic achievement and I loved every word.”

  —Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

  “Gail Tsukiyama expertly and beautifully weaves together the lives of a sumo wrestler and his family, and a Noh mask maker through World War II and into the 1960s. She has always been a wonderful storyteller, but in The Street of a Thousand Blossoms she proves herself to be a master storyteller.”

  —Jane Hamilton, author of The Book of Ruth

  and A Map of the World

  “Gail Tsukiyama is a writer of astonishing grace, delicacy, and feeling. Her lyric precision serves not only to leave the reader breathless, but to illuminate human suffering and redemption with clarity and power.”

  —Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures

  of Kavalier & Clay

  “War—from the viewpoint of the children. Gail Tsukiyama has taken on the writer’s most compassionate task. She envisions life after devastation, the possibility and hope that the motherless, fatherless children can live, grow, love, and make civilization again.”

  —Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior

  “Gail Tsukiyama takes us into the world of sumo, allowing us to experience what exists beyond the rituals and the wrestling: the fascinating culture of contact and the intimacies of family love and devotion. This is an impressive achievement.”

  —Elizabeth George, author of Careless in Red

  “[Tsukiyama] writes with eloquence and feeling. Her prose is so finely wrought that you smell the rotting persimmons and the sawdust from wood being sanded in a mask shop. You are chilled by the mist rising in a Japanese mountain valley and even feel the heat and stench of the flames consuming parts of Tokyo during a World War II firebombing. This book is a feast for the senses…. Tsukiyama has the soul of a storyteller.”

  —The Denver Post

  “[Tsukiyama’s] prose is spare, poetic, and unsentimental, much like the haiku that separate the different parts of this epic family saga set in Japan.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “The most revered Japanese arts—from sumo to mask carving—come to life in this memorable tale of two brothers.”

  —Good Housekeeping

  “Tsukiyama’s writing is clear and spare, and the thoughts and actions of her characters are accessible, believable. She unmasks their intentions for us, making it all the more tragic when they misread one another.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “This novel is a compelling story of how world events can sweep away the best of plans and redirect a family’s focus from the future to survival…. A satisfying read full of family ties, romance, and achievement against all odds.”

  —Tampa Tribune

  “Tsukiyama’s novel is full of lovely writing that captures a family’s struggle during a harsh, dangerous time.”

  —The Charlotte Observer

  “Gail Tsukiyama’s gorgeous multigenerational family drama [is] thoroughly engrossing … [her] writing is simultaneously lush and agonizing.”

  —Sarasota Herald-Tribune

  “The novel is saturated with appealing local color—the intricately patterned fabrics of kimonos, scenic vistas, and food. The varied cast of characters—a mask maker, a legendary sumo coach, and young women finding their way in postwar Japan—offer additional delights.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Tsukiyama develops Blossoms into a saga as extended families form to see each other through extreme hardships. And somehow, in the midst of fire bombings and starvation, the attempt is made to keep a light flickering in the soul as well…. Tsukiyama brings decades of postwar recovery to light through the intimacies of a family who suffered, survived, and in some way prospered, but not without cost.”

  —Daily News

  Also by Gail Tsukiyama

  Dreaming Water

  The Language of Threads

  Night of Many Dreams

  The Samurai’s Garden

  Women of the Silk

  Gail Tsukiyama

  The Street of a

  Thousand Blossoms

  St. Martin’s Griffin New York

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue - A Day of No Regrets

  Part One

  Chapter 1 - A Child of Good Fortune

  Chapter 2 - Ancient Matters

  Chapter 3 - The Book of Masks

  Chapter 4 - Victories

  Chapter 5 - Hunger

  Chapter 6 - The Past and the Present

  Chapter 7 - The Fallen Sun

  Chapter 8 - Foxflare

  Chapter 9 - Voices

  Part Two

  Chapter 10 - Shadow Figures

  Chapter 11 - Ashes

  Chapter 12 - A New world

  Chapter 13 - The Village of Aio

  Chapter 14 - The Challenge

  Chapter 15 - Day and Night

  Chapter 16 - History

  Chapter 17 - Resurrection

  Chapter 18 - Of Great Beauty

  Part Three

  Chapter 19 - Our Lady’s Tears

  Chapter 20 - New Traditions

  Chapter 21 - Courtship

  Chapter 22 - Yokozuna

  Chapter 23 - Life Stories

  Chapter 24 - The Arrival

  Chapter 25 - Grief

  Chapter 26 - Independence

  Chapter 27 - With Child

  Chapter 28 - Past and Present

  Chapter 29 - The Return

  Chapter 30 - Thirst

  Chapter 31 - Decisions

  Chapter 32 - August 6, 1965

  Chapter 33 - Change

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Gold

  About the Author

  In Her Own Words

  Recommended Reading

  Reading Group Questions

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE STREET OF A THOUSAND BLOSSOMS. Copyright © 2007 by Gail Tsukiyama. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Design by Gregory P. Collins

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tsukiyama, Gail.

  The street of a thousand blossoms/

  Gail Tsukiyama.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38477-7

  ISBN-10: 0-312-38477-7

  1. Tokyo (Japan)—Fiction. 2. Brothers—

  Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.S84 S77

  813′.54—dc22

  200702102

  First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: August 2008

 
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Grace Yam Tsukiyama

  In Loving Memory

  Prologue

  A Day of No Regrets

  1966

  A white light seeped through the shoji windows into the room, along with the morning chill. Except for the futon he slept on and a teakwood desk, the pale, spacious room was empty. Hiroshi Matsumoto breathed in the grassy fragrance of the tatami mats, the sweet and stirring February air, his thoughts wandering to the cherry blossoms that would soon be poised like flakes of snow upon their branches. The trees that lined the streets of Yanaka would be in full bloom, and the labyrinth of narrow alleyways would swarm with tourists stopping to admire the Japanese quince, daffodils, and blue triplet lilies blossoming in flower boxes that crowded the teeming walkways. As boys, he and his brother, Kenji, had pushed single file past the old wood and stone houses to the park. Now, there were few of the old buildings left, long since having been replaced by brick and concrete ones. Despite the sharp edge of memories that stabbed him just below his rib cage, he still loved this season best, just as Aki always had—the doorway to spring with each morning gleaming with new possibilities.

  Almost twenty years ago, his youthful agility had rekindled a national passion for sumo wrestling. In a country devastated by atomic bombs that flattened cities and scarred their spirits, Hiroshi’s speed and strength had helped to revive the pride of his nation with every victory. He had barely been able to contain the joy he felt as he climbed the ranks. Not until he found courage enough to touch with two fingers the nape of his wife, Aki’s, neck did any thrill ever match it.

  Hiroshi pushed off his covers and stretched his body the full length of his extra-large futon, his muscular girth still impressive at his age. He had always valued strength and speed more than some other rikishi, sumo wrestlers who gained inordinate amounts of weight to dominate a match by their size. At thirty-seven, he was a good deal older and, at six feet one, more than a hundred pounds lighter than the heaviest wrestlers, who weighed in at four hundred pounds. Hiroshi sat up and fingered the faint rise of a scar that ran along his hairline and ended at his right temple, then rubbed his belly and pushed his rough feet to the edge of the futon, his calluses a souvenir of barefoot practice on dirt and wooden floors. So many years, he thought, and he touched for luck the soles of his feet, first the left, then the right, as he did every morning. As Hiroshi heaved himself up from the futon and reached for his kimono, he felt again that first step onto the dohyo. The smooth, sacred clay surface of the elevated straw ring was a blessing after years of discipline, training, and rituals. The scratching of his bare feet on the tatami mats made a sad insect sound, not unlike the swish of salt thrown down on the ring to drive out the evil spirits.

  Competition had been a strong and potent drug. Everyone and everything disappeared as soon as he entered the ring, as if his life were narrowed to that very moment in time and nothing else mattered. Nothing and everything. He wondered once more if it had all been worthwhile—the sacrifice of family, friends, and lovers for a sport. And only now, too late, could he see the cost of it all as Aki’s accusing stare flashed through his mind.

  A sharp knock on the shoji door brought him out of his reverie. He quickly tightened the sash of his yukata kimono, and grunted permission to enter.

  The door slid open. It was Haru, dressed in a dark blue padded kimono with a pattern of white cranes. It looked new, yet strangely familiar to him, as if Aki had once worn one similar to it. It was Haru who had first introduced him to her sister, a lifetime ago. Aki was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen—her clear, milky-white skin, the smooth, sharp curve of her chin, her hidden fragility.

  Haru’s movements were quick and sure, her dark eyes as intense and intelligent as they always were. Every morning, no matter the weather, she was out walking in the garden with his five-year-old daughter. And though Takara shared her mother’s classic beauty, he saw Haru’s strength emerging more and more in her each day.

  Haru bowed. “We’ll be leaving for the stadium soon,” she said. “Kenji-san is coming for us after he picks up your obaachan.”

  He watched Haru’s poised figure and the same straight nose and thin, crescent-moon eyebrows that had also graced her sister, Aki. They would all be there at his retirement ceremony, his grandmother, brother, Haru, and Takara. “Hai,” he said, swallowing.

  She moved across the room to slide open the shoji windows, admitting a cool breeze from the west. It filled the room with a sudden breath of promise. He cleared his throat but said nothing.

  Instead, it was Haru who spoke, as she looked out at his acre of sakura trees. “A day of no regrets,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  And suddenly, something tender and inconsolable gripped his chest, an entire life boiled down to these last hours. He rubbed his eyes and nodded, always amazed at her astuteness. “What do you see?” he asked.

  Haru turned to him again. “Such beauty …,” she began, without finishing her sentence.

  Part One

  When spring comes,

  this world once more

  calls to me—

  in what other world

  could I see such blossoms?

  —Fujiwara no Shunzei

  1

  A Child of Good Fortune

  1939

  Late again, Hiroshi weaved in and out of the crowds near the Momiji teahouse. Sweat trickled down his neck and he pulled at the undershirt that was sticky against his back as he squeezed through the swarm of pedestrians clogging the labyrinth of narrow alleyways. They stopped to admire the deep blue and bright pink flowers blooming in the flower boxes—a heady fragrance drifting through the warm air. Eleven-year-old Hiroshi was already late to meet his grandfather and younger brother, Kenji, at the Keio-ji temple on the other side of Yanaka. He had dashed from the open, grassy field of the park where he and his classmates spent their afternoons practicing the wrestling techniques they learned in school—the oshi, hand push; the tsuki, thrust; and the yori, body push. “These are the fundamental moves of sumo wrestling,” his coach at school, Masuda-san stressed, “the foundation on which we will build.”

  Once again, Hiroshi had lost track of time.

  In the Yanaka district of northeastern Tokyo, the sloping streets were lined with traditional one- and two-story wooden houses. Despite the crowds, Hiroshi loved Yanaka for its familiar and quiet way of life, for the tantalizing smells of grilled fish kushiyaki and the sweet chicken yakitori sold from wooden carts. When he wasn’t in a hurry, he even loved the maze of winding alleyways with blooming gardens that hid the old wood houses and the small, unassuming shops with their cloth banners hanging outside, selling hanakago, or bamboo flower baskets, handmade washi paper, and the soft silken tofu his grandmother loved to eat cold during the summer. The narrow streets offered a wealth of escape routes for the chase games he and the neighborhood children played—places you could get lost or hide in until you wanted to be found, or not found.

  But now, it was impossible for him to navigate them quickly. Men his grandfather’s age sat at battered wooden tables and played shoji, oblivious to the crowds as they pondered each chess move. Hiroshi squeezed by a woman in a kimono, a baby tied to her back; the round-faced girl with dark eyes followed his every move.

  Once he neared the ginza, vendors lined the streets, selling everything from grilled corn and sweet potatoes, to roasted sembei rice crackers and baked squid. The enticing aroma of the spicy shoyu crackers reminded Hiroshi of his empty stomach, but he didn’t dare stop. The muscles pulled in his sore calves as he hurried up the hill. He wrinkled his nose at the pungent vinegary smell of tsukudani, a kind of Japanese chutney his grandparents ate over their rice, which came from a nearby store and hung heavy in the air. He was short of breath by the time he reached the Keio-ji temple to find his grandfather and Kenji waiting outside.

  “Ah, the young master arrives,” his grandfather teased. He sat on a stone bench in the shade of a ginkgo tre
e sucking on his pipe, his cane resting against his knee.

  Hiroshi bowed low. “I’m sorry to be late, ojiichan,” he said, pausing to catch his breath.

  “Sumo, eh?”

  Hiroshi nodded. At eleven, he was already the top wrestler in his class, perhaps the entire school. He’d grown taller and stronger in the year since he began taking the sport seriously.

  Kenji pouted. “Why else would he be late?”

  “I lost track of the time,” Hiroshi confessed, trying to appease his brother. He’d already been late several times this month.

  “Did you at least win the match?” His ojiichan leaned forward on his cane and stood.

  Hiroshi straightened up and answered, “Hai,” though it was just practice, not real competition.

  His ojiichan stepped toward the stone path and smiled. “Good, good. Hiroshi will be a champion one day. And you, Kenji, will find your place soon enough,” he said gently. “Now, shall we take our walk?”

  Yanaka was one of the few areas of Tokyo not devastated by the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, a distinction their ojiichan proudly repeated to Hiroshi and Kenji. He pointed his cane toward the same old temples that had once surrounded the Edo castle and had been moved to Yanaka after surviving a big fire, almost three hundred years ago.

  “The temples withstood both disasters virtually unscathed,” his ojiichan said—the miracle of it emphasized in the rise of his voice. “And look there,” he continued, directing their gaze to the lone smokestack of what was once the Okira bathhouse. “Not everything was spared. Okira-san never rebuilt after the quake, but he left the smokestack as a symbol of Yanaka’s resilience. You boys must never forget.”