The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak

Author:Christopher Barzak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553905892
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

What They Don’t Tell You

Spring in Japan is the true turn of the New Year. The cherry trees begin to bloom, casting everything in the shades of their pink-white blossoms, turning the world into a frothy, frosted confection. For two weeks the only thing anyone talks about is the coming of the sakura, the cherry blossoms. People gather in parks throughout the city and countryside, bringing blankets and baskets full of sushi and onigiri, rice flavored with pickled plums, and bottles of wine and sake.

For Hannah it’s the time of year she feels most foreign. Even though the teachers at her middle school shower her with compliments, comparing her to the blossoms, as her name means “flower” in Japanese, she can’t help but feel a tug deep inside, as if someone is pulling her away from the world she’s lived in for the past three years. Where this tug comes from, who does the pulling, she has her suspicions. But she doesn’t indulge in supernatural fantasies any more than she has to. And she does have to sometimes. After all, if she didn’t believe in ghosts, she’d never have come to Japan.

Three years ago Hannah took the floral comparisons as compliments, but she’s thirty now and has lived in Japan long enough to know it isn’t just the bloom of the sakura that holds meaning here, but their fall as well. She’s also come to know that meaning here is often communicated by what’s not said, so she can’t help but think that a second, secret message has been embedded in their comparisons between her and the blossoms whose brief lives represent the circumference of a life in this world. If she hadn’t been an English major in college, she occasionally wonders, would she still be searching the world for symbols? For a secret, hidden meaning beneath the life she sees?

“Tell me, Hannah,” Aoki sensei says. “In New York, is it spring now? Does New York have flowers like our sakura?”

Hannah nods. “Yes, of course New York has flowers, but not as beautiful as the sakura, I’m afraid.”

Aoki sensei smiles, suspicions confirmed. Her black hair curves around her jaw like a scythe. Hannah thinks of Aoki as a best-girlfriend type, someone who dispenses advice along with a general banter about nothing important. At least this was the kind of best girlfriend Hannah had back home. She speaks to Aoki more than the other English teachers because Aoki’s English is so natural Hannah sometimes forgets the language barrier and can pretend everything she says is completely understood.

“Your family,” Aoki sensei says, flipping through student files, looking up to make well-trained eye contact. “Are they well?”

“As far as I know,” says Hannah. “I spoke with my mother last night actually. She said to tell you yoroshiku.”

“Oh, she is so nice,” Aoki says, grinning sharply. “When will she come back to visit? I want to see her again.”

“She won’t be coming,” Hannah says.

“But why?” Aoki looks shocked. “Didn’t she like Japan?”

“She loved Japan.

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