Toire No Kamisama

The heat is becoming palpable now. The loft in my apartment is pressed close to the ceiling and the sun beats down against it, heating the room like an oven. I escape to Eriko’s apartment for reprieve in the form of iced barley tea, open windows and a cool breeze.

The television chatters a talk show that looks like and sounds like all of the others—mostly incomprehensible. I can glean some meaning, but the conversations between eclectically dressed, feminine men, and sexy infantile women still perplex me. I’ll never be fluent in Japanese, I think. The thought makes me want to study more.

When the rain starts, my weekend plans are confirmed. No climbing. I’m tolerant of the dilemma because I’m tired of trips to the climbing gym. I crave height, exposure, adventure, but have been settling for laps on iridescent plastic holds. I want more. I always want more. The converse is however, when I can’t have more, settling for complete, mind numbing lethargy. I lay stretched out on Eriko’s futon, staring at the ceiling.

She recognizes my laziness and nods in approval. She’s lazy too. She lays down next to me, her cheek leaning into my chest, my arm around her, and she says nothing.

When our minds become lucid again, she asks, “How was your interview?”

“Good, I think.”

Between her cheek and my chest it’s slightly damp. She speaks again, “I did the dishes for good luck.”

I laugh. “Good luck? Doing dishes brings good luck?”

“Of course,” she responds. “You should always do dishes before things like interviews.”

I didn’t know that. I smile and continue to look up at the ceiling, scanning for mosquitos. There is a bite on my leg and I don’t know where it came from.

Eriko speaks again. “You should also clean the bathroom.”

“For good luck?” I ask.

“Yes. There is a song about it. Toire No Kamisama.”

“The Bathroom God?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “He brings good luck.”

I laugh.

For awhile we sit in silence. Then I hear Eriko sniffling. I look down at her face and see tears running down her cheek.

“Nande, bijin? Nakanaide.” What’s wrong? Don’t cry, I tell her.

There is real sadness in her eyes, and I can only guess from where it came. Was it talk of the interview? We both know that whether I get this job or not, eventually I’ll leave.

“What’s wrong beautiful? What’s wrong?”

She looks up at me. “Toire No Kamisama makes me cry.”

I wait for more explanation, and I see it turning behind her eyes, from Japanese to English.

“My grandma. She told me about Toire No Kamisama. I’m remembering my grandma.”

I hold her tighter against me. Don’t cry beautiful. It’s okay to cry beautiful.

“For the last year before my grandma died, she wasn’t healthy anymore,” Eriko explains. “We had to take her to a hospital to live. The room she stayed in was very big, so the family could sleep there with her.

“I remember going with my parents and grandfather to see her. Grandpa had sat down in a chair, and when it was time to go he couldn’t get up. We were worried, because we couldn’t make him stand. Something was wrong with his legs, I thought, but it was okay, because we were already in a hospital. But we didn’t call anyone to help. We just laid him down on the floor with a blanket and he fell asleep. I stayed there with him.

“In the night Grandma had bad dreams. She woke up once yelling. Not loud, but yelling. She was scared. I went over to her bed. I wanted to calm her. ‘It’s okay Grandma,’ I said. But she kept shaking and yelling. ‘Tiger,’ she said. ‘There is a tiger in here.’

“I told her that there was no tiger in the room. But she did not believe it and she was very scared. ‘Tiger’ she yelled.”

Eriko stops her story and begins to cry again. I sit imagining the tiger in the hospital room.

“Grandma was the one that told me about Toire No Kamisama. She’s the one that told me that he brought good luck. She taught me the Toire No Kamisama song.”

Eriko pauses and breathes.

“I’m okay. I’m just remembering Grandma.”

She looks pensive, scared.

She says, “’Tiger.’ She kept yelling, ‘Tiger.’”

I hold her close until she stops crying. The tears come in waves and it is awhile before she stops. I kiss her head, saying “It’s okay.” But the whole time I am thinking about Grandpa asleep on the floor and the tiger in the hospital room, and about death and a good life, and about grandparents and grandchildren and about the luck of Toire No Kamisama.

I keep holding onto Eriko letting the thoughts saturate me like the summer heat.