“That is Dr. Hamilton,” Mom said. “We—he and your father and I—went to college together in America.”
I watched Dad speak English on the phone. He seemed like a completely different person: it wasn’t just the cadences and pitch of his voice; his face was more animated, his hand gestured more wildly. He looked like a foreigner.
He shouted into the phone.
“What is Dad saying?”
Mom shushed me. She watched Dad intently, hanging on every word.
“No,” Dad said into the phone. “No!” I did not need that translated.
Afterward Mom said, “He is trying to do the right thing, in his own way.”
“He is as selfish as ever,” Dad snapped.
“That’s not fair,” Mom said. “He did not call me in secret. He called you instead because he believed that if your positions were reversed, he would gladly give the woman he loved a chance to survive, even if it’s with another man.”
Dad looked at her. I had never heard my parents say “I love you” to each other, but some words did not need to be said to be true.
“I would never have said yes to him,” Mom said, smiling. Then she went to the kitchen to make our lunch. Dad’s gaze followed her.
“It’s a fine day,” Dad said to me. “Let us go on a walk.”
We passed other neighbors walking along the sidewalks. We greeted one another, inquired after one another’s health. Everything seemed normal. The Hammer glowed even brighter in the dusk overhead.
“You must be very frightened, Hiroto,” he said.
“They won’t try to build more escape ships?”
Dad did not answer. The late summer wind carried the sound of cicadas to us: chirr, chirr, chirrrrrr.
“Nothing in the cry
Of cicadas suggests they
Are about to die.”
“Dad?”
“That is a poem by Bashō. Do you understand it?”
I shook my head. I did not like poems much.
Dad sighed and smiled at me. He looked at the setting sun and spoke again:
“The fading sunlight holds infinite beauty
Though it is so close to the day’s end.”
I recited the lines to myself. Something in them moved me. I tried to put the feeling into words: “It is like a gentle kitten is licking the inside of my heart.”
Instead of laughing at me, Dad nodded solemnly.
“That is a poem by the classical Tang poet Li Shangyin. Though he was Chinese, the sentiment is very much Japanese.”
We walked on, and I stopped by the yellow flower of a dandelion. The angle at which the flower was tilted struck me as very beautiful. I got the kitten-tongue-tickling sensation in my heart again.
“The flower . . .” I hesitated. I could not find the right words.
Dad spoke,
“The drooping flower
As yellow as the moonbeam
So slender tonight.”
I nodded. The image seemed to me at once so fleeting and so permanent, like the way I had experienced time as a young child. It made me a little sad and glad at the same time.
“Everything passes, Hiroto,” Dad said. “That feeling in your heart: it’s called mono no aware. It is a sense of the transience of all things in life. The sun, the dandelion, the cicada, the Hammer, and all of us: we are all subject to the equations of James Clerk Maxwell, and we are all ephemeral patterns destined to eventually fade, whether in a second or an eon.”
I looked around at the clean streets, the slow-moving people, the grass, and the evening light, and I knew that everything had its place; everything was all right. Dad and I went on walking, our shadows touching.
Even though the Hammer hung right overhead, I was not afraid.
? ? ?
My job involves staring at the grid of indicator lights in front of me. It is a bit like a giant Go board.
It is very boring most of the time. The lights, indicating tension on various spots of the solar sail, course through the same pattern every few minutes as the sail gently flexes in the fading light of the distant sun. The cycling pattern of the lights is as familiar to me as Mindy’s breathing when she’s asleep.
We’re already moving at a good fraction of the speed of light. Some years hence, when we’re moving fast enough, we’ll change our course for 61 Virginis and its pristine planets, and we’ll leave the sun that gave birth to us behind like a forgotten memory.
But today, the pattern of the lights feels off. One of the lights in the southwest corner seems to be blinking a fraction of a second too fast.
“Navigation,” I say into the microphone, “this is Sail Monitor Station Alpha, can you confirm that we’re on course?”
A minute later Mindy’s voice comes through my earpiece, tinged slightly with surprise. “I hadn’t noticed, but there was a slight drift off course. What happened?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I stare at the grid before me, at the one stubborn light that is out of sync, out of harmony.
? ? ?
Mom took me to Fukuoka without Dad. “We’ll be shopping for Christmas,” she said. “We want to surprise you.” Dad smiled and shook his head.
We made our way through the busy streets. Since this might be the last Christmas on Earth, there was an extra sense of gaiety in the air.
On the subway I glanced at the newspaper held up by the man sitting next to us. USA STRIKES BACK! was the headline. The big photograph showed the American president smiling triumphantly. Below that was a series of other pictures, some I had seen before: the first experimental American evacuation ship from years ago exploding on its test flight; the leader of some rogue nation claiming responsibility on TV; American soldiers marching into a foreign capital.
Below the fold was a smaller article: AMERICAN SCIENTISTS SKEPTICAL OF DOOMSDAY SCENARIO. Dad had said that some people preferred to believe that a disaster was unreal rather than accept that nothing could be done.
I looked forward to picking out a present for Dad. But instead of going to the electronics district, where I had expected Mom to take me to buy him a gift, we went to a section of the city I had never been to before. Mom took out her phone and made a brief call, speaking in English. I looked up at her, surprised.
Then we were standing in front of a building with a great American flag flying over it. We went inside and sat down in an office. An American man came in. His face was sad, but he was working hard not to look sad.
“Rin.” ?The man called my mother’s name and stopped. In that one syllable I heard regret and longing and a complicated story.
“This is Dr. Hamilton,” Mom said to me. I nodded and offered to shake his hand, as I had seen Americans do on TV.
Dr. Hamilton and Mom spoke for a while. She began to cry, and Dr. Hamilton stood awkwardly, as though he wanted to hug her but dared not.
“You’ll be staying with Dr. Hamilton,” Mom said to me.
“What?”
She held my shoulders, bent down, and looked into my eyes. “The Americans have a secret ship in orbit. It is the only ship they managed to launch into space before they got into this war. Dr. Hamilton designed the ship. He’s my . . . old friend, and he can bring one person aboard with him. It’s your only chance.”
“No, I’m not leaving.”
Eventually, Mom opened the door to leave. Dr. Hamilton held me tightly as I kicked and screamed.
We were all surprised to see Dad standing there.
Mom burst into tears.
Dad hugged her, which I’d never seen him do. It seemed a very American gesture.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said. She kept saying “I’m sorry” as she cried.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “I understand.”
Dr. Hamilton let me go, and I ran up to my parents, holding on to both of them tightly.
Mom looked at Dad, and in that look she said nothing and everything.
Dad’s face softened like a wax figure coming to life. He sighed and looked at me.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” Dad asked.
I shook my head.
“Then it is okay for you to go,” he said. He looked into Dr. Hamilton’s eyes. “Thank you for taking care of my son.”
Mom and I both looked at him, surprised.
“A dandelion
In late autumn’s cooling breeze
Spreads seeds far and wide.”
I nodded, pretending to understand.
Dad hugged me, fiercely, quickly.
“Remember that you’re Japanese.”
And they were gone.