Fiction: Canyon and Sumida

Sumidagawa Meigetsu ya hashirade nami ni miyakodori —“Sumida River Oh, full autumn moon, don't be in such a hurry: the capital birds are riding the waves.” — Torii Kiyonaga, the British Museum

Kyoko, that was her name. In the space of a postcard, I thought I knew her. She had studied English at Tokyo University and at the Canyon souvenir store, had purchased the postcard. Her raven hair falling about her face as she wrote on it, And a smile on her lips like the sunshine on my neck, warm.

She wanted me to post it to her, to receive it in Japan, stamped. But that day, I sat on the card instead. To say the Japanese girl was beautiful wouldn’t be precise. To say she came from another world was more correct. It must be an orderly, extra polite, sexually permissive world. And I had dreams of stepping barefoot into it. I flipped her postcard in my fingers.

That was assuming she wanted anything to do with me. But surely a friend was more valuable than a postcard? Still, on that sunny day at the canyon, I had nothing much to share, just smiles and bows.

A year and some passed and I had made it as a songwriter. I was invited to Japan for a performance at a folk and blues festival. I remembered the postcard she bought and entrusted me with. I packed it along with my guitar and harmonica. And some hours later, I was sitting in a steak joint by the Sumida river.

The music festival featured all the big names from America, and was televised live. So happy to be here, I said, Japan. Long ago I fell in love with a girl from Tokyo, I pulled out the postcard I never sent, from when I had nothing but fragments of songs on scrap paper stuffed in my jeans pockets. And I read out what she wrote, over the air.

I had turned it into a song -the biggest one of the festival. I called for her to meet me at the Sumida river -Sumidagawa. It was the full moon of Autumn and indeed the crowd was laid back. What are those birds that swim and fish by moonlight? ** Good natured laughter **

I paced by the riverside. Kyoko, as everything in Japan, was prompt to arrive. We met on a crossing, center of the water. I held out the postcard and bowed. It was signed by a dozen blues greats. I showed her each one. But then, the bridge stop light came on and we were swept apart as it swung in halves towards the riverbank. She giggled at the irony. She pushed the postcard back into my hands. We would meet later at her address. A boat passed, obscuring my view of her smile, like sunshine on my neck.

Maybe she was shy. Had I asked too much time? But she stood on the banks of the Sumida no more. And under the light of the autumn moon, I read the old poem, “…don’t be in such a hurry…” A woman in a green kimono, tightly wrapped, slipped the postcard from my fingers as I had had too many beers. ** Where is Kyoko? ** She blinked at it a long time as if to weigh its consequences towards a whole nation. But truly, that night, I and 12 blues greats, we rode those Tokyo waves.