Memory
Translator: Lemon
Editor: Lovable Translation
“Hey Mom,”
“What is it, Suzu?”
Mother turned around and replied when I called her.
11 years ago. The house was still new. We didn’t have a garage yet, and pots of flowers adorned the garden.
“I’m not cutting my hair.”
I told Mom and dashed down the hill in front of our house. Mother descended the stairs on the opposite side, circled around in front of me, and stood with her hands on her hips. “I’m not cutting my hair,” I declared as I darted in the opposite direction.
However, she quickly caught me.
I sat on the garden bench, draped in the barber’s apron.
“You’ll look cute, Suzu.”
“No, I don’t want to. I don’t like how the tips of my hair feel prickly after you cut it.” I pouted my lips, swinging my feet widely beneath the chair. Mother armed herself with the scissors, assumed a ready stance, and cut large portions at once.
She adjusted my sides so they didn’t touch my shoulders, saying, “You’re going to be in grade school now.” My bangs ended up much higher than my brows. Even after school started, my neck still felt uncomfortable for a while.
I played a lot with Mother.
We wrestled in the grass by the evening riverbank. I pushed with all my might, and Mother collapsed onto the grass. “I won!” I laughed joyfully. And she laughed too. “Why?” I asked. “Is it because I’ll cry if I lose?”
“No,” Mother shook her head. “I’m happy that my little Suzu became so strong despite her weakness.”
Father also laughed, watching us while lying on the grass.
Mother often made salt scrubs. She would lightly salt a skipjack tuna, skewer it with a metal stick, and grill it directly over a gas burner’s flame, starting from the lenticel. I watched intently from a chair. Using cooking paper to absorb the dripping fat while frying keeps the stove clean. When burn marks appear, placing it under ice water chills it, and then the moisture is skimmed away. Cutting it thick was my mother’s method. As a result, I struggled to lift the thick slice of salt scrub with my chopsticks and get it into my mouth.
Mother watched me wrestle with a chunk in her hand, waiting for my father.
At that time, Father was an office worker. He left for town with his necktie tightly knotted. Whether due to that or not, we might have had a little more money then than we do now.
Mother bought the latest phone at that time. “Let’s test the camera’s quality,” she said, so I held up the smartphone toward my mother. I had Father help me fit her into the frame and pressed the shutter button. Mother, smiling in her white dress, looked beautiful. That photo was printed on paper and still hangs in the house.
Unlike now, I was an active child, constantly running around. I definitely enjoyed playing outdoors more than being inside. If there was a tree, I would climb it. If there was a leaf, I would pluck it. If there was a bug, I would chase it. But I didn’t get sunburned. It was probably my constitution. Instead, my face was covered with freckles, and my knee was scratched.
In the woods, by the riverbank, and in front of the house, I would trip and fall. Mother would rush over, hug the little me crying in pain, tightly. The pain would magically disappear. Such blissful times. I don’t know how many times I fell from running energetically, how many times I fell because I wanted Mother to embrace me. And every single time, she would come as if it were her daughter’s crisis, concerned for me.
Every day was like summer break. I played while trailing behind Mother as she did laundry and cleaned. After lunch, we would open the tatami room’s doors wide, spread out the summer blanket, and take a nap together. The smoke from the mosquito coil would waft gently upwards.
When I woke up, my mother, who should have been sleeping beside me, would already be gone, diligently tending to chores. In retrospect, she never turned me down for being busy; she always accompanied me whenever I asked.
Given that our house was nestled deep in the mountains, dining out wasn’t a common option. Instead, my mother prepared all sorts of food for us. One day, I expressed my desire to try yakitori after seeing it in a picture book. Mother painstakingly skewered pieces of chicken to make yakitori, one by one. It was my first time witnessing yakitori in person. I struggled to figure out how to eat it, not quite mastering the art of “biting and pulling the meat off.” Mother and Father watched closely, savoring their daughter’s “first experience.”
Our idea of fun, living so remote in the mountains, didn’t involve amusement parks or shopping malls. It revolved around a campsite even deeper into the wilderness than our own home. On a sunny summer day, Mother and I crossed an underwater bridge while wearing wide-brimmed hats. Father shouldered a plethora of camping gear.
The Crystal Depths within Yasui Valley were astonishingly vibrant, even more so for us residents. The water was incredibly transparent; you could distinctly see your own shadow on the bottom. The sensation of floating in mid-air unsettled me a little.
Mother was a swimming expert. She used to be a local child who swam like a Kappa during every summer, she told me. She was intimately familiar with all the river’s charms. Simultaneously, she never swam on treacherous days or in hazardous areas, and she prevented me from doing so as well.
Circling around my small, floating figure, Mother dove into the water as if to showcase her skills. Clutching my floatie, I called out to her, concerned. Yet, she swam away in the blue water, seemingly deaf to my cries.
One evening, while playing with my mother’s phone, I stumbled upon an unfamiliar app. When I launched the app, black and white strips appeared in a row. Perplexed, I pointed to it and queried my father, who was sitting beside me. Father glanced at it, puzzled, and then summoned Mother, who was preparing dinner.
After our meal, Mother turned the phone I was holding from vertical to horizontal. It was then that I realized the app resembled a piano keyboard when in this orientation. Encouraged, I pressed a key, and the note “C” resonated. It actually made a sound! I glanced at my mother, who met my gaze, exclaiming, “It made a sound!” As it turned out, the app was a music production tool Mother had for herself.
That marked the first time I observed the contents of her room more closely. I noticed that the shelves were packed with old recordings, cassette tapes, and CDs. I also realized that when you placed them on record players and cassette decks, connected to an amplifier, music emanated from the speakers on either side.
Her collection consisted of significant moments in the history of classical, jazz, and rock music. I couldn’t fathom the meaning or value of this eclectic array, stowed away in a room at the edge of the world.
In that room, I pressed the app’s keys one after another, recording the sequence. When I played it back, the notes would sound in the sequence I had entered. Even if I created a nonsensical musical scale, it still played back faithfully. This filled me with nothing but happiness, causing me to jump up and down on the chair. Mother shared in the joy as well, basking in the warm glow of the incandescent lamp.
Since then, I became completely engrossed in this app. I convinced Mother to lend me her phone, and I tinkered with it day and night. The controls were intuitive and user-friendly. Despite not being designed for children, there were words I couldn’t read and features I couldn’t comprehend. Nevertheless, I delved into it without hesitation. The exhilarating new experience of “creating music” captivated me.
I composed numerous songs and presented them to my mother. After each listening session, she would offer concise words of advice. She’d say things like, “It would be better if you did this,” or “Try using this technique.” Sometimes, she’d retrieve a few recordings and use them as examples. Although Mother wasn’t a musician or composer, in hindsight, I believe her advice was consistently on point.
As we repeated this process multiple times, there was a moment when she let out an “oh!” as if she had realized something while listening. She even began to softly sing along to the music, confirming her discovery.
When I inquired, “Do you like it?”
She responded, “It’s not bad.”
According to Mother, she had felt a bit anxious while observing me. I was placing notes where I normally wouldn’t, and she feared that the music might end up a sorrowful failure, rendering all my efforts in vain.
“But as it gradually took shape, it started to feel harmonious and natural,” she explained.
I felt such elation that I wanted to spin around. Even if she had added, “Perhaps it’s just a mother’s biased perception,” I would have still been content. I wasn’t creating these compositions for someone else’s ears; I simply wanted my mother to hear them, and that alone brought me happiness.
Mother would sing along to the melodies I composed. She’d sing gently while keeping time with her right hand. Her voice, once part of a choir among friends, resonated with an unassuming clarity, significantly enhancing the odd tunes I’d created. I found myself joyfully joining in, although I couldn’t match her vocal prowess, no matter how hard I tried.
However, the joyful memories of me and my mother abruptly cease at this point.
And then, August arrived.
From here on, the memories become painful and difficult.
The cries of a young girl echoed by the riverbank. A girl was stranded alone on the sand. She appeared to be around four or five years old, younger than me.
Just a short while ago, the sky had been clear. Now, when I looked again, the blue had vanished, replaced by ominous clouds drifting by. The once serene and beautiful river had turned tainted, swollen, brimming with debris, its pace alarmingly accelerated in the mere moments I had turned my gaze away.
I can envision the heavy rain cascading down from the upper banks.
On the opposite side, people had been happily engrossed while the river remained tranquil, before transforming into its current state. Those individuals stood dazed, gazing across at the girl on this side. Their vibrant urban clothing was unmistakable against the backdrop of the surroundings, revealing that they were outsiders. Even the little girl’s attire was strikingly colorful, unlike anything I had seen before. How could those city folks overlook the little girl’s conspicuous outfit? How could they return to this side, seemingly forgetting her existence?
Each of their friends, each of their families, and each person who had been enjoying fishing and canoeing, or playing by the riverbank, stood like statues, seemingly paralyzed. It made sense to be immobilized; that was how powerful the river’s fierce current was, forcing a divide between people and the little girl. Everyone understood that a mere stick and hand were insufficient to aid her.
An adult dialed a number on their phone. However, the riverbank was progressively narrowing, visible to anyone’s eyes. It was evident that the rescue team wouldn’t make it in time. That’s why all we could do was stand there, helpless.
Were we simply destined to listen to her agonizing cries?
Then, someone grasped a red life vest from the canoe. Looking at the little girl, she put on the vest and stepped forward.
It was Mother.
“Mother!” I urgently clutched the edge of her clothing, sensing that what she was about to do was perilous. My concern was overwhelming. I screamed as I tugged, desperately trying to prevent her from going. Mother crouched down and held my hands firmly. She said something to me, but I can’t recall her words. Perhaps due to my frantic outcries, I was too consumed to process her message.
I pursued relentlessly, yet Mother rose, shaking me off. She moved away, fastening the buckles of the life vest. I stumbled and fell, my leg catching on the riverbank’s stones. Nevertheless, I stood up, yelling after her departing figure.
“Don’t go!!!!”
Mother probably didn’t hear me… or so I think. Checking the little girl’s location, she circled to the river’s head, entered the water, and used the current to navigate.
A light drizzle of rain began.
I’m unsure of how much time passed since then. Suddenly, the surroundings became bustling with noise. The little girl was rescued from the river. The adults hauled the soaked and limp child up from the water. I observed intently, the rain drenching me. People rushed to the little girl. A mixture of joyful and tearful voices filled the air.
“Are you okay?” “Open your eyes.” “Oh, I’m so relieved.” “I’m relieved that you’re safe…”
…
That little girl now wore the same red life vest that Mother had worn.
At that moment, I understood what was happening.
Mother was nowhere to be seen.
“Mom… Mom…!”
Where are you? I scanned the surroundings.
Nowhere.
“Mom…!!!”
In the distance, the ambulance sirens wailed. Many adults cocooned the little girl in a blanket, departing from the riverbank.
Everyone’s attention was fixated on her rescue, they wouldn’t notice that my mother was gone.
“Mom!”
Only I cried out, calling her.
Again and again and again—
I have hazy memories of what happened afterward.
I couldn’t think that it was but a lie that they found Mother way down the river. It was way after that I noticed the edge of the mug Mother had been using, was cracked.
I couldn’t convince myself that the news of Mother being found downstream was anything but a fabrication. It was much later that I noticed the mug Mother used had a cracked rim.
Father framed a picture we had taken at some point and placed it on the kitchen counter. He never forgot to position a fresh flower beside it, day after day.
Our neighbors, upon hearing our story, extended their heartfelt condolences and offered comforting words through their tears.
On the flip side, the internet overflowed with anonymous posts.
“Jumping into rising water is suicidal.”
“She might have been a confident swimmer, but rivers aren’t like pools. Remember that, newbie.”
“Dying while trying to help someone else is irresponsible towards your own child.”
“Accidents like this ruin the river’s enjoyment for everyone. Cut it out.”
“This is the result of pretending to be a ‘good person.'”
The individuals who wrote these words likely didn’t know the true circumstances, and by the next day, they might have forgotten about them. However, for those these messages were intended for, they forever pierced our hearts. Someone showed me these posts, saying “look at this,” conveying the outrage they felt.
Faced with these comments, I was too young to fully comprehend their impact. But as I grew older and grasped the weight of these statements, I found myself subjected to this subconscious malice. I hadn’t even come to terms with losing my mother yet, so how could I escape the notion that, according to some, my mother was entirely to blame for saving a life? Placed somewhat distant from her in a photo frame, Mother continued to smile in our kitchen.
Something in me drastically changed since the accident.
One evening, I stood on a chair amid the dust-covered remnants of Mother’s room, trying to recapture the joyous memories. I began to sing the music I had sung with her.
But as I started singing, I realized my voice wouldn’t come out at all. It got trapped in the back of my throat and refused to emerge. Confusion enveloped me. Something in my heart was stifling my ability to sing.
Why? Why can’t I sing?
Tears began to flow.
“Mother…”
I whispered.
Hey Mother, why can’t I sing anymore?
It was evident that singing had been enjoyable, that it had held significance, all because Mother had been there, listening.
In the end, the objective question remained: Did it really matter if I couldn’t sing anymore? It wouldn’t trouble anyone. Even if I lost my ability to sing, no one would cast blame. Life would simply go on.
