I think I have to say that I don't own anything of Rurouni Kenshin or Highlander, even though none of those elements are obvious yet.
New Clients – October 1941
It was three weeks before Tom got to meet the new renters. He'd been aware of workmen around the place, repainting on the inside and doing other kinds of interior maintenance jobs, but none of that had changed his routine. It did mean he occasionally parked on the side of the road instead of in the driveway because of the other trucks. On this day, there were no trucks and no workmen around, although he thought he saw a car and some big boxes in the garage. It was a girl who found him first, as he unloaded the lawn mower from the back of the truck.
"Who're you?" she asked, peering through the slats of the gate that lead into the back yard. The gate and fence had been built to be about four feet tall, to provide a nice backdrop for the flowerbeds in front of them, and she wasn't quite tall enough to see over it. Tom left the mower and came to the gate, hunkering down so he could look at her the same way. Once he did, he realized she was older than he'd originally thought, but short in stature. Dressed in a flowery sun dress with a sweater over it and sandals on her sockless feet, she peered at him through over-grown black bangs, the rest of her hair caught up in a long, straight ponytail and tied with a sapphire ribbon that matched her eyes. Her eyes had only a slight epicanthic fold in an otherwise pointy-chinned, pixie-like Oriental face. He remembered eyes like that, that shape and that color. He mentally shook his head to dispel the memory. He'd never see those particular eyes again.
"My name is Tom. I work in the gardens and mow the grass. What's your name?"
"I'm Cho. Mama says it means "butterfly" in Japanese. I was named after Mama's sister."
"Is that right? Do you flutter about like a butterfly?"
"Of course not," she said, but she was swaying to some inner rhythm as she held onto the gate and talked to him that was reminiscent of a butterfly's flight. "I'm just named after a butterfly, but I can't do what they do. I think it would be fun to fly, though, don't you?" Cho's voice was lilting.
"That might be a lot of fun," Tom agreed, enchanted. This one had such a shining spirit.
"Cho-chan? Where are you?" A man's voice came from the back of the house.
"Here, Daddy! I'm talking to Tom," she yelled over her shoulder.
Tom grinned as he straightened to greet the man who came around the back corner of the house and down the walk. He was slender and about medium height, with straight black hair and kind-looking brown eyes. He appeared to have just taken off his suit jacket because he was rolling up the sleeves of a neat Oxford shirt in the early October heat as he came down the walk.
"Hi, I'm Tom Niitsu. I do the gardening and lawn care for the owners. They said they'd let the new renters know about the arrangement. I didn't realize anyone had moved in yet."
"We've got furniture and boxes in, but not much organization yet," the other man said in accented but clear English, shaking Tom's hand and bowing at the same time. "I am Sasuke Himura, and this is Cho, my eldest child." He didn't notice Tom stiffen momentarily because he'd looked down to tug affectionately on his daughter's ponytail. By the time he looked back up, Tom had relaxed again. "My wife, Masumi, is inside with our son, Tatsuya. He is supposed to be napping, but…" He trailed off as the sound of wailing came from the house and shrugged. "He is two."
Tom laughed. "Well, that says everything. I came to mow the grass, but I can come back later if you don't want to disturb the boy." He walked back to the mower.
"No, you might as well. It'll drown out the screaming so we don't annoy the neighbors." Sasuke's grin was wry. "He just won't admit that he's tired."
"They rarely do at that age," Tom said, bending over to unscrew the gas cap and fill the mower. Sasuke opened the gate and came through to look at the machine, Cho following behind.
"I haven't seen a motorized one before. We used a rotary in Japan before I left, but since we came here, I haven't had a yard to mow. We lived in an apartment over a grocery store down in Japantown. I am Assistant Director at the YMCA, and teach kendo and some other martial arts. Do you know anything about blades?"
"I know the ones on my pruners and my lawn mower," Tom grinned. "I got it last year, and I think I mortgaged my soul to do it, but it does make the work go faster so I can get on to the garden. That's the good stuff. I mow grass because that's what most people need, but my soul is in the garden. Learned from a little old Japanese guy in the neighborhood when I was a kid. It kept me out of trouble – I used to get into a lot of fights. That's the trouble with being small and neither totally Japanese nor totally white. Anyway, I've got clients all over the area, but working for the Takamatsu's here was just a joy. They started this garden with the owners' blessing thirty years ago, so when they needed an extra hand and hired me, it was pretty well established. I learned a ton more from them, and now part of the business is creating and maintaining gardens, both Japanese style and European style. I've got a client down the road who wanted an English cottage garden, so we started it five years ago and if I may say so myself, it's turned out quite nice. And since the Takamatsu's have moved on now, the owners of this place kept me on." It was the kind of patter he could keep up for hours without thinking much. Each persona had a name, each name a character, and each character a back-story. He'd become so used to it, so skilled, that Hollywood would have loved him if he'd cared to work in such an industry.
"So you were born in America?" Sasuke asked.
"Oh, yeah. Second generation born here, so I guess that makes me…sansei? Is that the word?"
"Yes, sansei. Your people must have come over in Meiji."
Tom looked puzzled and raised one hand to scratch at the back of his head. "Ummm, I think they came over in a boat…"
Sasuke laughed. "No, I meant the Meiji era, one of our periods of government. It was from your 1868 to 1912."
"Oh! Yeah, they came over in the early 1870's with a couple of kids, and had a couple more after they got here. My father was one of those. Most of them married other Japanese who were already here but my mother was Irish and I got her eyes and her temper – and a touch of the hair. It's gotten darker as I've gotten older, so it's not so noticeable now. And I've kinda grown out of the temper, but I can't do anything about the eyes."
"Ah. I wondered. My father has eyes like that. A bit darker, maybe. And his hair is a lighter red than yours. More obvious. He says his father had the same coloring, but insisted that he was a "true son of Japan", so we have always wondered. Maybe there is Irish back in our family and no one knows or admits to it."
"It's possible. The Irish aren't much for staying home, and some Japanese families accepted foreigners who adapted to Japanese ways. At least, that's what Dad said. He always said he did better at turning Mom into a Japanese wife than she did in turning him into an Irish husband. Does your daughter get her eyes from your father, then? They're very unusual, and very pretty."
"She gets those from her great-grandmother. My grandparents weren't exactly typical for Japanese." Sasuke grinned. "In a lot of ways, but I won't bore you with the details. Come, Cho-chan, we should let Mr. Niitsu get to work. When you're done, I'd like to talk to you about the schedule for the place."
"All right. You'll hear when I stop. These things are fast but noisy. I've also got some raking to do. It's been so hot and dry this year that a lot of the trees are shedding them early. We really need some rain."
Father and daughter retreated to the house as Tom maneuvered the mower onto the grass, adjusted the choke, and pulled the starter cord.
A couple of days later, as Sasuke worked with Cho on a kendo form in the grassy part of the yard, Tom was attempting to weed around the chrysanthemums. The constant distraction prevented him from doing a very good job. Cho went after it with a lot of spirit and a considerable amount of skill for her age. Sasuke would lead her through the form and then stand back to watch as she did it alone. On the third run-through, he would stop her and correct mistakes. Tom got so interested in watching the process that he'd stop weeding and just watch. Sasuke noticed.
"You can join in if you want. I'll give you a free trial lesson."
Tom laughed. 'Thanks, but I'd probably just whack myself in the head."
"Ah, it's only kendo," Sasuke said, with the kind of dismissiveness that comes from knowing something so thoroughly and teaching it so often that nothing about it was barrier anymore. "Learning is easy, although mastering it is hard."
"You haven't seen me prune large branches off of trees." Tom joked. "It's a dicey business at best. I'm pretty dangerous with sharp implements in my hands."
"Well, keep it in mind," Sasuke chuckled, turning back to Cho and her lesson. He'd heard those kinds of protests before. Sometimes they screwed up their courage and came in for lessons and sometimes they didn't. It'd be interesting to see which way Tom Niitsu went. He looked athletic enough to have good potential.
Author's note: I haven't used much Japanese yet, but there is more to come, so I suppose a bit of a glossary will be in order. For this chapter, and chapter 1, all you need to know is:
Ohagi - a sweet made of rice balls covered with sweet bean paste, sesame seeds, or soybean flour
Sansei - third generation. The grandchildren of the ones who came over on the boat.
