In the Absence of Memory
by mikan
Chapter Seven: Okishima Tohru
Sohma Akito was certainly not a kind person. In many ways, until the day he died he remained the same person he was when I first met him. He was not, however, a person whom one could not love. True, he was oftentimes cruel, vicious in speech, violent in deed, utterly selfish to the core. Yet there was a pure vulnerability about him, a striking earnestness of spirit, for more than anything he wanted to break free from the circumstances of his birth and create his own life. He was forever grasping, heedlessly reaching out, trying to build something that would last, trying to find someone who would remain by his side. It was a painful way to live — hope and despair he both experienced in all their keenness. But of course, this purpose, this anguish — he hid it all too well.
This is a story of love. If you ask the others, they will each tell you otherwise — that it is about deceit, or abuse, or shameless selfishness. They are not wrong. But even with that deceit, even with that hurtful selfishness, there was love. How simple it is to say that now, to speak of things that have been realized too late. But so that you will see this story in all its truth, let me take you back to a time untainted by regret, when everything was new to my eyes and full of hidden promise.
There was a time when I could remember nothing...
Tokyo
Twenty-five years earlier
Before she could stir fully from sleep, she heard voices. Low voices, men's voices, distinctly different in tone.
"...you're feeling...?"
"Fine, and perfectly charitable towards you, Hatori, not to worry. I am choosing not to remember that you so unfeelingly stabbed me with a needle just last night. In my sleep."
"We were worried."
A pause.
"Did I not make myself clear? I told you I wouldn't harm her."
"I was concerned you were harming yourself. If something happened to you, Tohru would have been—"
"How utterly insolent and faithless of you, Hatori!"
"You drove all the way to Sendai."
"Yes, because the villa is horribly musty and I happened to have better things planned for her."
"Akito, I trusted you."
Just then, there was a sharp sliding sound farther away to the left — a door opening, settling into place with a firm clack, followed by a long moment of heavy silence. She wanted to wake, open her eyes, but somehow she could not — her eyelids seemed trapped shut, her limbs weighed down. Yet she could hear with perfect clarity.
"How is she?" A third, different voice this time, flat and curt.
"Sleeping still," responded the person named Hatori. "She should wake sometime this afternoon."
"Well, well," came Akito's voice, in a tone completely unlike any she had ever heard before. "And to what might I owe the pleasure of your presence, Shigure? I don't recall having summoned you."
"Hatori," the man named Shigure said abruptly, "do you think it wise that Akito is up and about so soon?"
"He appears remarkably recovered."
"Ah, but you know what they say about appearances." Footsteps clicked on the floor, heading towards her bed. "For instance, Tohru at this moment appears completely normal..."
There was a rush of quick movement, then suddenly Akito's voice, very near her side, shrieking: "Don't you dare come any closer!"
The footsteps halted.
"What are you so afraid of, Akito?"
At that, Akito gasped, a harsh, derisive intake of air. "Afraid?" He laughed then, a soft, raspy cackle that lingered eerily in the pause. "You flatter yourself, Shigure. I'm merely sparing her the vileness of your presence — uninvited and unwelcome as it is."
"Forgive me, but such heroic posturing really doesn't suit you."
"Well, being here doesn't suit you. After all, didn't you run off in quite a huff years ago? So proud and so spectacularly cold-hearted, you were. Seeing you here now makes me wonder... has the prodigal dog finally come back to his master, tail pitifully tucked and all?"
"Akito..." came the warning from Hatori.
"What?" Akito snapped.
Shigure's voice, easy and smooth, cut into the tension. "Hatori, bless his soul, is trying to warn you not to provoke me. But as usual you are impervious to the nuances of better judgment."
There was a short silence. Then suddenly, with a touch so light she hadn't been able to sense it at first, Akito's fingers settled on her arm.
"Why, Shigure..." he remarked lazily, "it's certainly been a while since we've spoken. If I didn't know any better, I could swear it sounds like you're actually telling me — ah, how shall I put it? — not to cross you." His fingers moved down her arm in a stroking caress. "Imagine that. Has there been a reshuffling of the Zodiac in the short time I've been away, Hatori? Because the last time I checked, I was God, and Shigure was the dog licking my feet"
"Akito!"
Hatori's alarmed voice hardly gave him pause. "Why, look at the state you're in, dear cousin. I should ask you: what are you so afraid of? Hmm? Why does me touching her like this," he swept his fingers down the white expanse of her forearm, "appear to enrage you so?" The fingers left her arm and, in a moment, were upon her cheek, cradling it. "Imagine how agitated you would be if you knew how much of this skin I've touched, how intimately acquainted I am with all its mystery."
"I will kill you." The barely audible words slashed, sudden and terrible, through the silence. "I swear it."
At that moment, she knew she needed to move, needed to wake then and there. The low, vicious murmur still hung in the air, ominous in its threat. With tremendous effort, she opened her eyes. Slowly, slowly, a crack of light cut across the darkness. She fought the flash of pain and forced her eyes open wider. Bright light, a wall, forms began to take shape. Suddenly, she could see.
She was lying on a bed, Akito close beside, facing another man a few feet away, near the door. Yet another man stood at the foot of the bed.
"Akito..." she tried to call out, but no sound came forth. Her mouth felt full of sand. She swallowed, then pushed her voice out of a throat clenched tight with dryness. "Akito..."
They all heard her then. Akito spun around, an alarmed look in his eyes.
"Tohru?" Hastily he grasped her hand. "Can you hear me? I'm right here."
She looked up at him, her chapped lips curving into a smile. "...I know."
He smiled back, a small, fleeting smile that disappeared from his face in the next second, as he turned back to the other men, her hand still clasped in his.
"She is awake," he informed them flatly. "If you two would be so kind... I wish for her to have a few hours of peace."
The man at the foot of the bed studied her for a moment.
"How are you feeling, Tohru-san?" he asked quietly.
His voice was that of the person named Hatori. The grave dignity underlying that voice was also present in his face, in those serious, observant eyes. "I, ah..." she stammered, "I'm quite alright, I believe— thank you." She swallowed again and tried to clear her throat, the dryness in her mouth making it painful to speak.
"Ah, you're thirsty!" Akito exclaimed. He let go of her hand and reached for the pitcher sitting on the bedside table. She watched him smoothly fill the clear glass with water. He set the pitcher down.
"You'll need to sit up a little. Here," he said, bending down near her face, "let me fix your pillow." She raised her head slightly and he adjusted the pillow. "Now push yourself up a bit... That's it. Perfect." She sat back against the pillow and he handed her the glass of water.
She took a long, grateful sip, the three of them watching her intently. Gulping the water down, she lowered the glass from her lips and set it back on the table with hands that trembled slightly.
She looked at Akito. "Darling... is everything alright?"
For a moment, he simply stared at her in silence. Then, a slow smile spreading on his lips, he replied:
"Yes, of course. Everything is fine."
She tilted her head slightly to look at the man standing a few paces away from the door. Almost immediately Akito moved closer, blocking her view. Loudly he said:
"How remiss of me!" He reached for her hand, linking his fingers with hers. "Allow me to make the introductions. Tohru, meet my cousin Hatori." He gestured to the man standing at the foot of the bed. "Quite possibly the best, most dedicated physician of my acquaintance. He has the disposition of a saint! I myself am living proof that it is impossible to exhaust his patience."
Hatori bowed his head briefly. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
She returned the bow. "The honor is mine. I gather you are my husband's physician?"
"Indeed he is," Akito answered. "And I am the most terribly noncompliant patient he has ever had. Am I not, Hatori-sensei?"
Hatori shifted his gaze to Akito. "I think it would be best if we left Tohru-san to her rest now. I'll go ahead and have some breakfast prepared." He glanced back at her. "Please excuse us."
She blinked. "Oh — of course."
He headed for the door, then paused, looking expectantly at the man still standing a few feet behind Akito.
"Shigure."
She leaned away from Akito at the sound of that name, and suddenly she could see him.
The man named Shigure did not turn, did not move, his eyes fixed solely on Akito. To her, they seemed the same eyes as Akito's: dark, piercing in their intensity. Then suddenly, he was looking directly at her.
He stood absolutely still, except that his lips parted slightly as if he meant to say something yet lacked the words. His face was haggard — under the paleness of his skin, a sickly gray color showed in the hollows of his cheeks, darkened under his eyes.
His face—
Suddenly she remembered that face.
"You—" she whispered.
Akito's hand tightened, gripping hers. He looked down at her, the smile on his face suddenly looking very brittle. "Did you say something, Tohru?"
She wasn't even aware that she had spoken aloud. "I remember seeing him," she murmured urgently. "He was at our house... that night."
Akito's features hardened, the smile slipping completely from his lips. "Yes. You see, Tohru, they were worried... anxious, you understand. Remember what I told you about my family? About our falling-out?"
"Yes, I do remember that."
"Well, they simply got so anxious about the whole state of things that they decided to pick us up and bring us back home. I admit, there might have been something admirable in that action, if only things hadn't been so hastily arranged and clumsily executed. But we couldn't have expected otherwise, I'm afraid. The incident that night, Tohru, is a prime example of how this family expresses its love"
His tone had grown low and cutting, and the way he had said love made the word sound obscene. In the hand that gripped hers she could feel a tension, an anger straining. She closed her fingers over his, bringing his gaze back to her face.
"I understand," she said quietly.
He said nothing, merely glanced at their hands resting on the white blanket, fingers entwined.
"Shigure-san... isn't it?" she said evenly, directing her voice clearly at the man who stood silently a few feet away. The malevolence of his words earlier still burned in her memory, caused a startling, fierce protectiveness to flare up within her. "As our initial meeting that evening was somewhat... unceremonious, I'd like to take this chance to properly introduce myself. My name is Okishima Tohru, and I am Akito's wife."
Her words were met with silence. She kept her gaze leveled at his stony face.
Then, just as she made up her mind to completely dismiss him as an unpleasant, ill-mannered boor, she heard him say:
"Tohru."
That was all. A raw whisper. Her name.
She stared at him, shocked by the agony suddenly clearly visible on his face. Hatori moved then, grasping his arm in a firm grip.
"Shigure, let her rest."
With some force, Hatori made him turn away and head for the door. She watched, feeling somewhat shaken, as the door closed behind them. His eyes had never left hers, not even when Hatori had dragged him away. Who was he? Akito was also staring at the door, his eyes narrowed, the lines of his face harsh. She studied his profile for a second before squeezing his hand tightly.
He glanced down at her.
"Darling, how long must we stay here?" she asked quietly.
"You're not well yet, Tohru. We have to wait until you feel better."
"I feel fine. They just put me to sleep, didn't they, when they brought us over here? I'm just a bit tired and hungry, that's all. Nothing to worry about."
"You don't know what you're saying," he snapped, snatching his hand away and walking over to the small table by the window, where a half-eaten muffin lay on a plate. He brought it over to her.
"Here. Eat this."
He was angry, his lips in a petulant curl, jaw clenched. She took the muffin without comment.
He set the empty plate down on the bedside table and sighed deeply.
She took a bite, chewed in silence for a few moments, then put the muffin back on the plate. Looking up, she said to him:
"Let's go home."
He let out a harsh breath. "We can't leave yet! Is that so difficult to understand?"
She recoiled from him a little, frowning, taken aback by the vehemence of his outburst. "Yes, because I'm telling you I feel perfectly fine! I see no reason why we have to stay in this place, when you so obviously hate being here!"
He muttered something to himself and turned away, walking towards the window. He stared out into the sunlight.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak in a calmer, quieter tone."I remember what you told me... that you and your family had a falling-out. That that was the reason why you bought the house in Taketomi, that you wanted us to start over in our own place, far away from them."
He remained silent.
"Do you remember that, Akito?" When he still did not reply, she prodded, "Do you?"
He turned and regarded her intently. "What are you trying to say, Tohru?"
Her fingers curled into fists, gripping the blanket.
"I want to go back to that house with you. I don't like being here. I don't even know your family, but I hate seeing how they make you feel."
The words had scarcely left her mouth when she realized that she had just made a grave mistake. His eyes had suddenly narrowed, turned cold.
"And how exactly do they make me feel?" His voice was deceptively soft.
She stared at him helplessly.
"How, Tohru!" he barked.
"... Trapped." She said the word quietly, because she knew he wouldn't like hearing it, but she said it nevertheless, wanting to be honest with him.
His eyes widened in outrage.
"I beg your pardon? Trapped? Is that what I heard you say?"
She no longer had any idea what to say in reply as he turned from the window and stalked the few steps back to her bedside. He looked down at her, something very much like contempt hardening his gaze.
"You should know," he hissed, "that I am the head of this family. I summon, and they come. I command, and they obey."
"Then why," she asked him, "did you leave them?"
He looked at her in silence for a long moment.
"I left them for you," he answered at last, quietly, in a voice with no trace of rancor.
He looked so vulnerable, so forlorn in that moment that she reached out and touched his cheek.
"Then let's go home," she whispered.
His cheek tensed under her fingers. He stepped away then, out of her reach.
"You just don't understand, do you, Tohru?" he murmured sadly.
She watched him leave the room. In the sudden silence, she stared down at the palm of her hand, the lingering warmth from his cheek making her feel even more bereft.
My palm is lying face up on my lap; it seems to me there are more lines etched into it now than there had been when I had gazed at it on that long-ago morning of my arrival in the Main House. The lines remind me of scars, testimony to an ordeal of years. I feel as worn as the weathered skin on this palm.
"He left me then, but he did return a short while later. And then he told me simply, 'Let's go shopping.'"
Akira arches a brow. "Shopping?"
I can't quite curb the smile that eases itself onto my lips, faintly warm with remembered affection. "Yes. He owed me a shopping trip, you see. It was one of the things we were supposed to have done the day the Sohmas took us from our house in Okinawa."
He is silent; I glance at him and see the stubborn set of his mouth, the frown creasing his brow. It is not easy for him to hear me speak of Akito in this way, to listen as I set the two of us apart from the Sohmas and speak of our life in Okinawa — of our days in that house by the sea. That house stands in his mind as a repository of all the years lost between us, all the anguish he has never been able to understand or resolve. Yet if this is to be a time for honesty, if he does wish to learn the truth about our life, then he must be told of these things.
"Akito never left my side after that. He always stayed with me, seeing to my needs, watching over me even when I slept."
"That's hardly remarkable, Mother. He had much to lose if he left you unattended for even a moment. Who knew what memories would come creeping back into your brain? He was afraid — that's all there was to it. You saw solicitous care where there was none intended." He pauses, the edge in his voice relenting. "But of course, one could hardly fault you for that. You were ill, extremely vulnerable. And that was something he took advantage of."
His words hurt me, and for a moment I almost give in to the familiar flash of defensive anger. But that is foolishness, I know — between my son and me, there is room enough and time enough for bitter anger and frigid silence. What matters now, what won't last long, is this moment — this moment while he sits at my side, willingly passing over the long-buried resentment and asking me to help him understand.
"That is certainly one way to see it, and in a sense, you are not wrong. Akito did seek to keep the truth from me — desperately. And there was a time when I hated him for it, despised him for his deceit, for what he took from me. But let me tell you, Akira — that hatred came to haunt me in the end. That time of cold-hearted bitterness is the singularly most painful regret of my life."
He turns his head, looks at me. His eyes are his father's eyes — impassive, hard with contempt.
"Dare I hope I am one of your lesser regrets at least, Mother?"
The hurt wells up within me — his hurt, my hurt. I shake my head slowly, sadly.
"This is the curse, Akira. Do you feel it? This unyielding bitterness — it lives on in you, in me. It will destroy us both, as it has destroyed your father."
He becomes absolutely still, stares at me with startled eyes.
"Father?"
A mirthless smile twists my lips. "Yes, your father. In truth, the curse has long left this family — after Akito's death, all those afflicted were each eventually released from their bonds. It is only your father now, and your father alone, who remains in its grip."
His face tenses. I let my gaze pass over that face, studying his eyes.
"When you were small," I tell him softly, "I would look into your eyes and think of how clear they were, of how they have never known a world darkened by a curse. But I was wrong. The whole time the curse was right before your eyes. Every time you witnessed your father's fury, every time you stood and watched me leave, you were looking at the curse, living it. It has touched you too."
He says nothing. His fingers are rigidly clenched, his eyes troubled, wary. I reach out, cover his hand with mine.
"Do you see now, Akira? This silence between you and me, this anger... how old is it? How long has the hatred burned in our hearts? Do you understand now why there is no hope?"
A high-pitched ring jars the pause. He looks away, reaches into his pocket for a slim silver cell phone. After glancing at the screen, he curls the phone into his palm and rises from the porch.
"Please excuse me."
I watch him walk several feet up the garden path to the gate. The cell phone he has already flipped open and pressed to his ear; I can tell he is absorbed in the conversation, his head bent, face partially turned away from me. A few minutes later, he closes the phone, slips it back into his pocket, and returns to my side. By now the sun has mellowed, begun its descent into the western sky. We look out over the quiet garden.
"Are they calling you back?" I ask him.
He shakes his head.
"No, that wasn't the office." He hesitates, then says without meeting my eyes, "It was Father."
"Ah." I think for a moment about what I should say next, what words I should choose. Even after all these years, I never find it easy to turn my thoughts to him. "How is your father?"
"Still the same."
"He won't appreciate my regards, so I won't ask you to relay them to him." I am surprised, even now, at the freshness of the inevitable sting in my words whenever I speak about him. "Do you talk to him often?"
"We live under the same roof, Mother."
"I shared a bed with your father for years, Akira. We were quite adept at not speaking to each other."
He falls silent then, because with that, I have brought us back to the old quicksand, that tangle of unvoiced resentments and hidden pain. I hold back the apologies and the explanations, those ineffectual things I have put forth so often in the past. Instead, I say to him simply:
"Perhaps one of these days you should ask your father about the curse. See what he will say."
"Yes. Perhaps."
There is a chill in the wind. I look up, and watch the clouds make their way across the dimming sky.
"I guess it's time to see to dinner." I slip my feet back into my rough straw sandals. Before I can rise, however, he places an arm around me and helps me up.
"Do your knees still bother you?" he asks me quietly.
I am surprised he knows this, and touched that he has aided me so. "Sometimes. But it's hardly worth mentioning — after all, I am an old woman." I dust off the skirt of my robe, say briskly, "Well, I'm off to the kitchen."
I am halfway down the garden path, heading to the back of the house where the kitchen is, when I hear him call out:
"Would you like me to help you?"
I pause then, close my eyes. The joy in my heart brims over into a smile as I glance back over my shoulder at him.
"That would be lovely."
He gathers up his blazer and his briefcase. I wait for him, struck by the strangeness of time, by how it reverses things and returns us to situations, places switched. Now, I am the one who waits; I am the one who wonders how long he will stay.
.:to be continued:.