The Guilt and the Shame

In sorting through some old papers and letters today, I happened upon a curious envelope tucked within them. It evidently bore some age to it and, oddly, had still remained sealed. Only my name was written on the face of the envelope, the handwriting unfamiliar. I wondered how it could have escaped me after all these years. How had it even ended up in the box I found it? Had May placed it there long ago and forgotten to tell me of it? It would have been so very much unlike dear May. Or maybe she had informed me of it and I still had simply ignored it for whatever oblivious or dismissive reason I may have had at the time. However it came to me and was disregarded, I now knew I needed to learn of its contents.

With a letter knife I ripped a clean slit through the edge of the envelope and extracted three neatly folded sheets of onion paper. I was surprised, and rather pleasantly so, to see that the first sheet was a brief note from Tiger Tanaka! When had I last seen him after the Magic 44 mission? Only once more, back in ’78, I believe. Or was it in ’79? I looked at the envelope again and found it absent of any date or postage stamp. Had he directly passed it on to me? Had he slipped it in my coat pocket? I shook off the guessing and read the note.


Dear Bondo-san,

Herein you will find a letter from Kissy Suzuki. She had asked me to submit it to you next time our paths crossed. For reasons of her own, she wished for me to be discreet about how I saw to it that you received it. My apologies for being sly in manner, but I promised her I would honour her request. Good to have seen you once again, old friend. We must meet again soon.

Tiger


The note was typed save for his signature, which I compared to the handwriting of my name on the envelope. It appeared to be very similar. I smiled at the memory of the man, but I was too eager to read Kissy’s letter next to think much more about him. Kissy’s penmanship on the next two pages impressed me with its even spacing and a feminine calligraphic flair that was punctuated by distinctive jagged-edged tails to the g’s and y’s.


February 10, 1978

My Dearest Taro-san,

It has been too many years since we had last seen each other. You are still often in my thoughts. I daily wonder why you did not keep in touch, but I always had to remind myself that you were in the duty of your Queen. I hear that you still are.

Much has happened to me since our final days together. Within two years after your departure I had met an admirable man, whom I grew to love and respect, as I very much would have done with you, but much more easily. His name is Yasuo. He has treated me with dignity and we have been blessed with two beautiful children, a girl and a boy. The girl I have named Takara, meaning treasure, and the boy my husband has named Ryo, meaning excellent. For our children’s education sake, we moved from Kuro to Osaka. We still reside there. My husband has been modestly successful with his wholesale seafood business while I have found peace with my role as mother to my children. They grow too fast.

You remember David, my cormorant? Unfortunately, he met with an accident shortly before I married my husband. I shall spare you the grim details. I found another cormorant soon after, whom I had named Niven. It is a testament to how nice the only person was to me during my brief time in Hollywood that I had named both birds after the same man, is it not? But David was my favourite, for he will always remind me of my months with you.

I have so much to tell you, but I feel I have neither enough time nor the volume of paper needed to write it all down. But, my dear Taro-san, I do have one thing I must share with you. It has been a secret of mine for longer than I cared to bear it, and I hope in revealing it to you, I can finally be free of the burden I have felt, as well as the guilt and the shame. If only I can summon enough courage to even begin to write the words, so much I have been haunted by it for the last fifteen years. Nevertheless, I must find those words. It is the right thing to do.

I had never told you, my dear Taro-san, that in the time we were together I had become pregnant with your child. Yes, it is true. It was in the course of the amnesia you suffered in your escape from the Castle of Death. It caused you to lose not only most of your memory, but especially of your recognition of me. Nevertheless, I nursed you through the following winter and spring months, during which you grew to accept me. But there was still a remoteness in you towards our lovemaking. I desperately sought to revive your passion and so I came upon a love potion. With phials of sweat of toad and some powder of dried lizard, I secretly sprinkled the ingredients into your dishes of food that I lovingly prepared for you to aid in exciting your senses. I must confess that I used the potion recipe numerous times. You may remember the Pillow Book I gave you, which happily had its desired effect of exciting your mind. With both your senses and mind excited, I claim myself as the author of most of those nights of our lovemaking and of the real love we finally came to have. And from that night of real love our daughter was conceived.

I had so very much wished to tell you this later in the spring of that year, even with the doubts I had that you would propose marriage. After all, you were still not entirely yourself with the amnesia and so, how could you feel certain in proposing marriage to a woman you knew but still could not recall? This is what I felt, and what I believed. And then you discovered the name Vladivostok on a cut strip of newspaper. The name stirred within you a vague association with it, making you determined to find its meaning in your life. It was then that I knew I would lose you. The Shinto priest had warned me that something like this would happen and advised me that I should not stand in the way of whatever decision you made. You still had your duty to your country.

And so after you left to unravel your mystery, it became my responsibility to bear your child alone and without your knowledge. But she is not the daughter I have now, who is by my husband. Sadly I must tell you that I failed to bring your daughter to life. She was stillborn. But even in her stillbirth, she shone with the beauty of an angel. Please forgive me for the misfortune, my dear Taro-san, but I myself still grieve the loss of her to this day, for I had lost not only you, but a part of you as well, leaving me with only memories. But memories are intangible.

In consolation, I shall tell you her date of birth, as in my mind she always was born and had lived, if only for a brief second, and also I will disclose her place of rest. As I write this, today is the anniversary of when she was conceived, Sunday, February 10, 1963. Her date of birth was on Saturday, November 16, 1963. And she lies in the cemetery behind Kuro, her place of rest marked by a simple cross with her name on it, Kumiko Suzuki Todoroki. Kumiko meaning eternal beautiful child. You may wish to make a private visit at some time.

I hope I have not distressed you much with this news, as it is not my intention. I shall understand if you choose not to respond to this. You have your reasons. But I could not let the rest of my life pass, nor yours, without our sharing the knowledge of the daughter we had. It is in honour of the memory of our love that I have done so.

Take very good care of yourself, my dear Taro-san. I will miss you always.

Respectfully,

Kissy Suzuki


It felt as if a train had barrelled into me senseless. I dropped the letter and slumped in my chair. How had this letter gone unnoticed for this long? Twenty-seven years... If only I had known... So much time lost... Japan... I must take a flight... A daughter... What had I missed...?

Then a cruel irony seeped into me. So many dangers I had survived through my life, and yet my daughter herself could not even embrace her own life – on the very same day and month of my birth...