Chapter 17 - Requiescat in Pace
It was the week after the Bikreet. It had been the consensus among all attendees that the event had been a success. The tiny girl had received many lovely presents, and the Cygnettes had hastened to put their money safely in their father's bank (although its name was the Bank of Japan, the majority shareholders were all named Daitokuji).
On this sunshiny Saturday afternoon, Captain and her girls found themselves out in the yard, enjoying a little Terran-style recreation.
"Let's see how I do," Aysha said. "Your daddy hired this year's American PGA winner to give me a few pointers. Golf is a Terran bonding game. I suppose I must learn how to do it." Sighing, the Captain took her position behind the tees (they were all lined up in a row, the balls atop each, just for practice) and began her series of swings.
"FORE!" she cried. The ball sailed cleanly through the air.
"BAM!"
Second ball. "FORE!"
"BAM!"
Third ball. "FORE!"
''BAAAAAAAMMMM!
The former Egota Captain stopped, putting her hands on her hips.
"Akana, you stop that right now! This is the Terran game called golf'. It is not the Terran game called skeet shooting!
"Awwwwww, Maaaaaaaaaaaa - !"
"Now Aki, did your sister become Commander of the Leptonian Forces because she was a WHINER?"
"No, Ma."
"That's right. I'm sure Our Princess chose her because of her excellent command capability! Because of our family's sterling record of service to the Realm! Because the blood of the Great Xramcrusher, Bacchanalia Napolipolita, courses through our veins! Because - "
"Ma, get a grip," Alana responded. "Princess C-ko Kotobuki appointed Alia as Commander because she ate her cooking."
"And kept it down," Aki added, helpfully.
"Never mind! Watch this, women." Captain teed off, smacking ball number four. It sailed through the air in a huge arc.
"BAM!" Akana whispered, targeting it with her forefingers.
A half hour later Captain decided she'd had all the practice she could tolerate. "It really is a stupid game," she commented to the Cygnettes as they walked back to the Mansion. "I did it just to join in at those military get-togethers, when all the males beat their chests and shout 'Ooga booga' at each other."
''What?"
"Ob, sorry, honey. I didn't mean that literally. It's just that these Terran males all like to congregate in clumps during social occasions and talk about things which they consider manly - you know, like war and football. Personally, I don't believe football would exist, save for the excess of testosterone sloshing around this mud ball."
"Well, we fight wars, too," Atina queried. "And we're not manly. And we have estrogen, not testosterone."
Captain rolled her eyes. "There are those on this planet who would strongly disagree with those statements," she sniffed. "But no matter. We Cygnans fight because we have to. Our expansion among 33 galaxies was due to alliance, not conquest. It's some of the patriarchies of the universe that want us subjugated, and for obvious reasons."
"Can't have that," Alana agreed.
"But Ma," Arisa said, puzzled. "How can they think it's - what do they call it - 'macho' - for a bunch of grown men to hit little balls and drive around in those little cart things?"
"Beats me," her mother replied. "After all these years I still have very little real comprehension of the male psyche. All I know is that when they play golf again and see me as just some little girlie, I will knock that ball to Jupiter Station. And that, girls, is why upper-body strength is so important!"
She waved in greeting to the security guards on duty at the Mansion's back entrance (or one of them, anyway) as they entered the house. Almost immediately, Dee approached her with the telephone.
"Cap'n!" the big Cygnan said. "Shinobu's been calling all afternoon. She wants to talk to either you or Hikaru, but he's been out since early this morning."
"Fine, Dee," the Captain said, her golf bag still slung on her shoulder. The girls loved this interesting piece of baggage because it bore both the image of the Spaceship Hotel and the word "DOLLFACE" embroidered under it with gold thread. It had been a loving, though rather tasteless, gift from their daddy to their mama.
"Shinobu! Great Mother! What does that cow want, anyway?"
"I wonder if she wants to sell you some of that eyeliner that looks like what the Terrans call 'patent leather' when it dries," Deesha ventured, handing her the phone.
"Scoot, girls," Aysha said, taking it. "Atina, you still need to clean your room. No backtalk now. That's not a job for servants to do. If you were at the Space Academy you wouldn't have people picking up your messes, you know. Hello?"
"Aysha." Shinobu spoke in an odd voice. A wave of dread swept over the alien.
"What is it?" The girls watched their mother's face intently as she listened.
Then, and quite suddenly, her golf bag slid off her shoulder, its contents clattering all over the polished marble floor.
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Anyone who has experienced a death in the family knows that the days that follow are filled with numbness and a total disregard for daily routine. So it was in the Napolipolita-Daitokuji home. It seems that Shinobu had gone to her mother's house to bring her magazines. When she hadn't responded to a knock at the door, her daughter went in and found her, still sitting in her chair. The doctor had told all of them that it had been a quiet heart attack. Quick and painless, he said.
Of course, this information was no comfort to those whom Mitsuko Daitokuji had left behind. The girls had been hysterical, with Alana being the most distraught. Their hysteria had settled down into retrospection and hours of quiet weeping in their rooms. Three of them had even reverted to sucking their thumbs on the sly. Alia had immediately come, anxious to support not only her mother but also her stepsister.
Biko had refused to react at first, but had quickly succumbed when she witnessed the sight of her big stepmother sobbing in Dee's arms. She had begun to hyperventilate, and then had let out a shriek of grief and anger. "She'd just started treating me like a human being!" she had screamed over and over as both Deesha and Aysha enfolded her in their strong arms. They had wept out their shock together.
All the girls had fled when Hikaru had entered the room a few minutes later. They hadn't wanted to witness their mother giving their father the dreadful news. Of course, the man knew immediately that something terrible had happened. Taking a deep breath, Aysha had walked over to him, taking his hands, and whispering in his ear, "Oh I am so sorry my love - "
The billionaire had been numb and silent for a couple of hours before the enormity of his mother's sudden death hit him. After it did, he and Aysha had more or less spent the next twelve hours lying on their bed, with him in her arms like a little kid. He had wept like a little kid too. No matter how old you are when it happens, it's still your mama who died, after all.
Shinobu had holed up alone in her downtown apartment, drinking scotch, smoking her clove-flavored cigarettes, and ignoring both the pounding on the door and the insistent ringing of the telephone. Worried sick, the Captain had sent her own Head of Security to fetch her; Dee had finally slammed her shoulder against the lock, popping it even though it was supposed to be one of the sturdiest. She had actually carried the woman out to HIKI-1, thinking to herself all the while that Shinobu weighed no more than a bundle of sticks. Shini had cried the whole way to the Mansion, and like her sister-in-law, did so in the alien's strong and comforting arms.
It had fallen to the Directors of Development and Commerce to make the funeral arrangements for their boss. In accordance with Mitsuko's Last Will and Testament, it was to be a western-style funeral. Mitsuko had at one time been a Christian, having actually been baptized as a Roman Catholic in her late thirties. Thus, Father Nakumi had been contacted and Graviton City's only Catholic church, St. Joan of Arc's Chapel, had been reserved for the occasion three days hence.
Of course, Hikaru's and Aysha's business associates responded with an outpouring of support and help. The family was never left alone, as their friends made sure that they stayed close to them during their time of trouble. Alia never left Biko's side, except when the grieving girl fell asleep. Dee even received the help of the Earth Defense Force in keeping the reporters away, and, to cheer the child, had allowed Akana to pick off a news helicopter with a bazooka.
In deference to the late Mitsuko Daitokuji's fondness for the National Enquirer, the family had allowed one of their senior reporters to interview them, knowing that the story would cast the decedent in a compassionate light. Hikaru and Shinobu, of course, were the cynosure of everyone's attention. For the first time in years they had sat together and talked about their rather unhappy childhoods. They remembered the good times and glossed over the bad, as is usual for people in mourning. Neither mentioned their mother's will, as neither much cared. They left it to the family's lawyer, Ataru Yamaguchi, to worry about such matters.
Captain hovered over both like a mother hen, commiserating their sadness and doing what she could to lighten their burden. ''After all," she had told her Sweet Hikaru at some point, "I know what it's like, you know. And what it's like is - well, hideous. l can think of no better word for it." Hikaru had confided to her repeatedly how grateful he was to be able to cry in front of her; it wouldn't do - even under these circumstances - for a Terran businessman to cry in public. The Captain had responded that she'd soaked their pillows with her own tears often enough, and that she was happy to help a man who, once upon a time, had saved her life.
Aysheia was also a comfort to her girls, who had been devastated by the news. Not surprisingly, it was Alana who had been the most deeply affected.
"Ma, why did this happen now?" the girl sobbed.
"I don't know, baby. She had lived a long time. Her body just - wore out."
"I know. I know that. But I miss her! I want to go over to her house and take her out in the ENDY! But I never will, ever again - will I, Mama?"
"No, baby," the ex-Captain had replied with tears flowing down her own face, remembering that she'd promised the old woman a party for a birthday that would never come.
Dee had made certain that the Napolipolita-Daitokuji Financial Group security teams had secured the old woman's mansion against souvenir-seekers. She had also made sure to keep Shinobu and Hikaru out as well. In their present states of mind, she wouldn't have done them a kindness by letting them sit in her space touching her objects, going through her papers, and feeling her loss to their very cores. There would be time enough for all of that later, when their grief had settled down enough to bear it.
She had worried about her Captain too, of course. Alone while her husband escaped his grief by sleeping, Aysha had sat outside these past few nights, holding her new baby and remembering her own mother's death. During such times Deesha had made sure that she was handy.
"I want to drink so badly, D."
"I know."
"It never really goes away, the craving. Not entirely," her former Captain had said. "It's so hard to learn as an adult the coping skills that every normal eleven-year-old child knows."
"But you are coping! Recognize that you're functional rather than - what do these Terrans call it - dysfunctional."
"Do the losses ever stop coming, Dee? Does it ever get any easier?"
"Probably not. The older we get, the more losses we're going to have."
Dee recalled briefly that she'd never known her own father, and that her mother was presently alive and well back on the Homeworld. She didn't want to think about losing her one day.
"I know for a fact that I won't be able to cope when Hikaru passes over. I - "
Dee had stopped her friend's emotional freight train, which seemed to be barreling into an uncertain future, dead in its tracks. "A day at a time. And just look at Mitsuko's little namesake, Cap'n. Tell me if you don't see the hand of the Mother in all of this."
Crying now, Aysheia had traced her fingers over the sleeping baby's hairline and cheeks. "Dee, I don't understand. What are you - getting at?"
"First, she befriended your daughter Alana. Then - to the best of her ability - she befriended you. Your girls were blessed not only by her money but also by her friendship, as short-lived as it was. And here's this little gift from the Goddess right here in your arms! The best of your mother-in-law will live on in her, and she will honor Mrs. Daitokuji's memory with her very presence."
Captain had hugged Mitsuko, wiping her own eyes with the little blanket in which the child was wrapped. Dee had then put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Odd, isn't it, Cap'n - that all of those things happened just a couple of months before she died."
"You're right. And I'm grateful for the little pleasant time we did have with her. But for right now, I just wish this damned desire for a drink would stop clawing away at me. It hasn't forgotten me, Dee. It still wants me dead."
The big woman nodded. "As you've said to me before - 'the price of sobriety is constant vigilance.' Stay close to your program of recovery. You'll be all right."
Dee had sat for hours with her best friend every night before the funeral, knowing that being hungry, angry, tired, or, worst of all, lonely - were the most dangerous times for an alcoholic. And during that time - just to make sure - the former spy had spoken to Aysha's friends and had arranged for meetings to be held every day, right there in the Mansion.
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The first five limousines of the Napolipolita-Daitokuji fleet pulled up in front of St. Joan of Arc. Members of the PDF and EDF kept the crowds at bay and as far away as possible from the family of Mitsuko Daitokuji.
Alia got out first and held out her hand for Biko. She was followed by Alana, Ine, Ume, Mari, and Asa. The blue-haired girl's eyes were swollen and nearly shut; she held a handkerchief in front of her face, not wanting to appear in such a state on the front pages of tomorrow's dailies.
"I don't know what to do," Alana whispered to her in her low voice. "I've never been to a place like this before."
"Don't worry about it," Biko responded. "Just watch Ine and do what she does. She's Catholic."
Hikaru and Aysha held Shinobu between them and arm-in-arm with her. They were acutely aware that the woman had no husband to console her; in her flippant and self-centered way, she had managed to destroy any real affection any of her former husbands once held for her. None were present to console her. However, Theram Avaris walked behind her, his strong face in respectful repose. All three of the chief mourners wore black, and walked up the marble steps into the church. They were shortly followed by the rest of the family.
Everyone looked up when they entered and beheld the high arched ceiling, beautifully painted with scenes from the Scriptures. The place was cool, but with all of the bodies now cramming into it, it would become warm in a hurry.
All heads turned as the family walked up the aisle, led by an usher, until they reached the front row. There before them, on some sort of platform, stood Mitsuko's coffin. Shinobu gasped and her knees weakened; Aysha grabbed her tightly, keeping her from falling.
"Here. Come and sit." She turned her head to see Hikaru's chin quiver. "You too, dear heart. Come sit here with me now."
Within a few minutes, the family had been assembled in the front of the chapel. Japan was not a Christian country, so it stood all alone amidst the temples and other Eastern places of worship. A young girl wearing a long gown with a white chasuble walked across and lit the candles on the altar, one by one.
"It's starting," lne whispered to her friends. Alia squeezed Biko's hand. Father Nakumi came into view, and the Mass for the Dead began.
Alana looked around her, her slanted green eyes sparkling with tears. The sound of the choir behind her, together with the music from the eighteenth-century pipe organ, relaxed her somewhat as she sat between Mari and Ine. Her eyes took in the figures in the stained-glass windows; mostly male, she noticed. There were carvings of a man holding what looked like a 'T' - why, people were beating him! What were those people doing?
Then the alien girl - born on a world two light-years away - spied the large crucifix above the altar, and understood.
Biko closed her eyes, squeezing her friends' hands tightly and listening to the priest's unfamiliar words:
"Eternal rest grant unto her, 0 Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon her. The just man shall be in everlasting remembrance; an evil report he shall not fear. Absolve, 0 Lord, the soul of the faithful departed Mitsuko Daitokuji from every bond of sin. And by the help of Your grace may she deserve to escape the judgment of vengeance, and to enjoy the blessedness of light eternal"
Light eternal, Deesha Dakina thought. How beautiful -
Dabbing Hikaru's face with the handkerchief in his vest pocket, the former Captain looked into the face of the statue of a lovely woman which stood against the wall to their left. She wore a long blue gown and some sort of white headdress; she stepped on a snake and spread her hands out to whoever desired her comfort.
Well, Lady, Aysha thought, my people venerate snakes as symbols of rebirth. But I would love to lay my head on your breast and have you fill me with your serenity - I would indeed -
Coincidentally, Alia had been gazing at the same statue. "Is that the Great Mother?" she asked Ine.
"You could say that," the Terran replied, smiling slightly.
All rose. Akana sat scrunched into the corner of the second pew, longing for her mother. The babies had been left in the care of their nanny; she guessed that made her the Baby, if only for the next few hours.
Atina pulled her up by the arm to a standing position. "Pay attention," she hissed. Mari noticed that all three Daitokujis were holding hands.
Father Nakumi went up to a beautifully-carved wooden podium and began to read: ''At that time Martita said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would never have died. Even now, I am sure that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.' 'Your brother will rise again,' Jesus told her. 'l know he will rise again.' Martha replied, 'in the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus told her, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in Me, even if he dies, will come to life. And everyone who is alive and believes in Me will never die at all. Do you believe this?' 'Yes, Lord,' she replied. 'I have learned to believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, He Who is to come into the world."'
"I don't understand," Arisa whispered to Ume. "Does this mean Jesus will only help males?"
"No, honey," the girl said, her kind eyes magnified behind her thick glasses. "When they say 'man' or 'mankind' they really mean all people. It's just an old-fashionedy way of saying it."
"Oh," she whispered, looking over at Her Princess C-ko Kotobuki, who sat with her adoptive parents, Princess E-ko, and the Magami family. Surrounding them was a ring of crack Cygnan troops, members of the Kollya Stragaesh. As if the Princess would even need them, with Superman and Wonder Woman sitting behind her, Arisa thought.
"A-ko," C-ko whispered. "The lady in that story had the same name as you."
"Yes. Martha is an old Bible name. Look - the priest is going to give a talk, or something." The Princess settled down, looking up once in a while at the cavernous ceiling. She enjoyed the candles and the incense and the music which occasionally swelled from above her little blonde head. Yet in spite of these many distractions, C-ko listened.
"Yesterday ended at midnight," Father Nakumi said, "and tomorrow remains hidden in the womb of time. Whatever our wrenching pain, as our days so shall our strength be. Before tomorrow dawns, God does not give tomorrow's grace."
The Captain unconsciously leaned forward; this was suspiciously like the "one day at a time" philosophy she had learned in recovery.
"Jesus walks life's twisting trails in our company. We should neither linger ten paces behind him nor rush twenty paces ahead of him but keep companionably at his side, in step with him. This is what is meant by living one day at a time, without distressing ourselves too much about bygone days and speculating about the days to come." Hikaru squeezed his wife's hand. "St. Francis de Sales gives us all this excellent counsel: 'Do not look forward to what might happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day. Either be will shield you from suffering or be will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.' "
Aysha looked at Shinobu, sitting next to her in a paroxysm of grief. "It's all right, dear Sister. "I am getting to understand this more and more."
Shinobu looked at her. "I'm sorry. So sorry - "
"No need," Aysha whispered. Shini lay her head on the Captain's broad shoulder, and both listened.
"The dark door of death was for Mitsuko Daitokuji only the Earth side of the shining doorway to everlasting life. She entered, and now she beckons to us. She prays for us, she still remembers us, and she looks forward to the blessed day of a family reunion in the Father's and the Son's and the Spirit's everlasting joy - "
Both women then cried together on the front pew, huddled together like children. The rest of the Requiem Mass spun out among the hush in the church - odd because so many people were there. The priest did a great number of things the aliens didn't understand - which was also odd because they found comfort in watching them anyway.
And now the end had come. All stood and followed the words in the books provided for them: "May light eternal shine upon her, O Lord. With your saints forever, for You are merciful. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. With Your saints forever, for you are merciful."
"The Lord be with you," Father Nagumi intoned, spreading out his arms.
"And also with you," came the answer from two hundred throats. Among them were those devoted to the Shotosarikan, to the Great Mother Cybele, to the Holy Trinity, to Shintoism and Buddhism and Taoism. At this moment, none of that mattered. Everyone seemed to understand that Mitsuko's pain and loneliness were over, and that she would be all right, wherever she was.
In the depths of her motherless despair, Akana had actually crawled under the pew before her when her sisters weren't looking, and onto her mother's lap. "I guess both my grandmas are together now," she whispered to her and fought the urge to suck her thumb.
Biko began to cry all over again. "First my mother and now you, Grandmother. It seems I lose whoever I love!"
"Not all, Bikolita," her stepsister Alia said, hugging her. "You have all of us, and we love you."
"Go on ahead, girls; your father and I will meet you outside," the Captain said. The girls - their young hearts struck for the first time with the awful finality of death - obeyed their mother, and once outside the church entered their respective limousines in preparation for that last long ride to the cemetery.
Shinobu and Hikaru stood by their mother's body for a few minutes. Weeping unashamedly, they then followed the girls down the aisle, clinging to one another.
Now alone in the huge church, Aysha walked up and looked into the coffin. She pulled a still-fragrant katipltora blossom - the Cygnan four-petaled flower sacred to the Leptonian Royal Family - from her pocket. it was illegal to pick them, but Princess C-ko had given her a special dispensation, allowing one to be transported from the Homeworld for this occasion.
Breathing one final prayer of blessing to her Great Goddess, the Captain leaned forward and tucked the flower behind Mitsuko's ear.
"Good night, Mother," she whispered.