“Here. Put these on when you reach the top of the stairs.” Ruth was handed a pair of blue slippers. They felt as soft as a cow’s tummy.
Etsuko watched as Ruth entered her new home. As with most apartments above storefronts, it was essentially one large room—not unlike the average home back in Japan. But because this was Hawai'i, the home reflected a mix of two cultures. In one corner stood a kyodai, a Japanese bureau, and in another, a Western-style dresser made of koa wood. Red, yellow, and green tatami mats covered the floor of the main living area. The walls were adorned with Buddhist icons as well as athletic awards Haruo had won at school. Japanese folding screens discreetly partitioned off sleeping areas. The front windows afforded a glimpse of the green hills behind Honolulu and the extinct cinder cone of Mount Tantalus.
Ruth was fascinated by the wooden dining table, which was far lower than she was used to—and, strangely, had no chairs around it, only bright green pillows decorated with a cascading waterfall design. She pointed to them with her index finger. “Ooh, those are pretty, what are they?”
“Don’t point with that finger, Dai, it’s considered impolite,” Etsuko said. “And those are zabuton. We sit on them when dining.”
“We do? Can I sit on one?”
“That is what they are for.”
Ruth ran over and sank into one of the plush green cushions. “It’s like sitting on a marshmallow! And we get to eat on the floor? Really?”
The boys laughed, and Etsuko showed Ruth the proper way for a girl to sit on a zabuton, folding her legs under her body.
“Come, let me show you where you will be sleeping,” Etsuko said, leading Ruth behind a folding screen, where a big green-and-white mat lay directly on the floor. “This is where your otōsan—your father—and I sleep. This thick mattress is called a futon, but you have your choice of sleeping on a futon or a bed, which the boys use.”
Ruth lowered herself onto the futon. It was as comfortable as a bed—but it was on the floor! Everything here was on the floor. This was fun!
“I like this!”
“We will take one out tonight and you can sleep here with us.”
Another voice unexpectedly entered the conversation with a querulous “Miaow?”
Ruth quickly sat up. A beautiful cat, black as a starless night, sat by the folding screen, its slitted green gaze on this new, alien presence in its home.
“And here is the last member of the family,” Etsuko said. “Mayonaka.”
“Can I pet her?” Ruth asked excitedly.
“That is up to her, not me,” Etsuko said with a smile.
Ruth crawled on her knees toward the cat, moving slowly so as not to frighten her. “Mayonaka, Mayonaka, you’re so pretty,” she cooed.
“Miaow,” Mayonaka agreed.
Ruth held out her hand to the cat, who sniffed it judiciously. Ruth slowly raised her hand and gently stroked the top of the animal’s head.
Mayonaka abruptly hissed, hackles raised, then jumped away.
Ruth looked so dejected that Etsuko patted her on the arm. “She just needs to get used to you, that’s all. Give her time.”
Once Ruth’s belongings were put away in the sleeping area and she had seen all there was to see of her new home, Father and Haruo went downstairs to the woodshop to work, Etsuko left for the kitchen to prepare supper, and Ryuu offered to teach Ruth how to play Sun-and-Moon ball. This toy consisted of a wooden spike with two round cups on both sides and a red ball attached to it by a string. “The whole idea,” he explained, “is to get the Sun into one of the half-moons, or cups. Here, watch.” With a flick of his wrist the ball went swinging upward, and then he deftly caught it in one of the cups.
“Ohhh!” Ruth said, watching him do it again before he handed it to her and said, “Here, now you try.” She took it eagerly, but her first try missed by a foot and her second nearly clobbered her brother in the nose. “Uh, maybe a little less spin on the ball, okay?” he suggested. Ruth continued to go at it, giggling and laughing, until she finally caught the Sun in the Moon.
From downstairs came the grinding of saws and the pounding of hammers, as well as unfamiliar but delicious aromas wafting up from the kitchen. Soon Etsuko was setting soup bowls, rice bowls, and plates of sizzling beef sukiyaki in a pleasing arrangement on the dining table. As the family gathered for dinner, Ruth realized how hungry she was. With everyone settled, all but Ruth said in unison, “Itadakimasu.”
Etsuko told her, “That means ‘I humbly receive.’ Can you say that? Itadakimasu.”
“Ita … da … ki … masu?” Ruth repeated slowly, all her emphases wrong.
“Close enough for your first meal,” Etsuko said.
She filled Taizo’s rice bowl with rice and his soup bowl with miso soup, then offered the plate of sukiyaki to him. Ruth was puzzled that he had no dinner plate, and even more so when he picked up a pair of wooden sticks and began eating pieces of beef, mushroom, and bamboo shoots directly from the serving plate. When he was done, Etsuko served Haruo, then Satoshi, Ryuu, Ruth, and finally Etsuko herself. Ruth couldn’t help but notice that Father received the largest and choicest cut of meat, and the most rice and vegetables as well. Her brothers got the next largest portions, then Ruth, with Mama serving the smallest and poorest portions to herself. Ruth almost asked why, but she was too preoccupied trying to figure out how to use the chopsticks she had been given.
“Here,” Ryuu offered, “watch me.”
Ruth did her best to imitate what she saw, but it took five tries before she was able to pick up anything—and then it slipped, like a noodle off a knife, before it was halfway to her mouth. The combination of frustration and hunger on her face would have elicited laughter back at Kapi'olani Home, but though her brothers smiled in amusement, no one laughed at her.
Instead, Etsuko merely unfolded a napkin to reveal a metal fork, which she now handed to Ruth. “If you starve to death,” she said wryly, “you will never learn how to use chopsticks.”
Gratefully Ruth took the fork and attacked her dinner.
Later, when they each took turns bathing in the very hot waters of a wooden tub in the alleyway out back—the furo—Ruth noticed it was in the same order: her father, her brothers, Ruth, her mother. Etsuko dried Ruth off next to a fragrant plumeria plant growing by the rear entrance. By the time her mother stepped into the bath, its waters were only tepid.
Later, Ruth asked Ryuu quietly why this should be so.
“It’s like a train,” he answered cheerfully. “The engineer—Otōsan—is up front. He drives the train, makes all the big decisions. Behind him, in the next car, is the oldest son, who takes over if anything happens to the engineer. Behind him is second oldest, then me, you, and Okāsan is kind of the caboose.”
“Mama is the caboose?” Ruth repeated.
“Aw, not really. It’s just tradition. Like when we’re inside the house and I say something to my brothers, I can’t call them by their first names but only as niisan—‘older brother.’ That’s what you have to call me too, when you’re at home. But outside you can call me Ryuu or Ralph.”
Ruth was thoroughly confused. “Why do we have two first names?”
“We have Japanese names and we have English names that the haole teachers gave us because they can’t pronounce Japanese: Haruo is Horace, Satoshi is Stanley. At home you’re Dai, but at school you’ll still be Ruth.”
Ruth was feeling a little overwhelmed by so many new things to learn, but Ryuu assured her, “You’ll get the hang of it.” And she was pleased to hear that she would get to keep her old name, at least for part of the time.
At bedtime Taizo brought out a smaller futon from a closet and laid it at the foot of the one he and Etsuko shared. Ruth climbed on and Etsuko covered her with a blue-and-white fleece blanket, brightly embroidered with a Japanese wave design, and tucked her in. “There. Now you are—what do they say?—‘snug as a bug in a rug.’”