The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama

Author:Gail Tsukiyama
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

28

A Visitor

Koji sat down on his front porch, lit a cigarette, and poured himself a glass of whiskey. A sudden fit of coughing racked through his chest, leaving him helpless but to see it through, eased along with the quick burn of whiskey. He’d just gotten comfortable when the dull crunch of tires along the dirt road made him stop and squint through the screen to see a truck driving up toward his cottage, kicking up a cloud of dust. There were very few visitors who came up to Puli this late in the afternoon, and even fewer who came to see him. Koji wondered if it was one of the Puli managers and stood to get a better look. He didn’t recognize the green truck at first, not until it drove up the slope and he could see OKAWA FISH MARKET in black block letters on the side door just as it turned into his driveway. He was even more surprised to see that it was Daniel driving.

Koji stood by the screen door watching Daniel get out of the truck and was reminded of the first time eight-year-old Daniel had asked him if he could visit the plantation to see where he and Uncle Razor worked. Between watching the sugar train being unloaded at the station and discovering Koji’s cane knife one day in the back of his truck, young Daniel had become fascinated with everything about the sugar plantation. Koji hesitated and cleared his throat, suddenly fearful. He tried to keep his two worlds separate: one was work, the other family. The real truth was a constant thorn pricking at him; he was embarrassed by and unsure of what Daniel would think of him when he saw the crowded, run-down cottage where he lived, the hard, dirty, grueling work he and Razor did in the fields that made up their daily lives.

“It’s not a place for little boys,” Koji had explained.

“Why?” Daniel asked.

“It’s just fields and workers doing hard work with sharp knives, yeah.”

“But it’s where sugar comes from,” he insisted. “I’ll be careful, I will.”

Koji looked to Mariko, who had smiled at him and nodded. If she didn’t mind, how could he? It warmed him to be reminded that she never saw him as just a cane cutter.

* * *

Koji pushed open the screen door and watched Daniel walk toward the house.

“What brings you all the way up here?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

“You bring me all the way here,” Daniel said, lifting the bag in his hand. “Everything’s fine. Everyone’s still waiting for Pele to make up her mind which way she’s going to flow, so I thought it was about time we sat down and had a beer together.”

Koji smiled, happy to see him. “Come in.” He led him through the porch and into the house.

“I see nothing’s changed,” Daniel said, stopping at the doorway and looking around his spare living room.

Mariko and Daniel had visited a few times after he moved to the sugar train cottage in 1919.

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