The Curse of Kagoshima

        I do not know how I came to be visited by my great-great grandfather, Takanobu, who died decades ago. Suddenly there was just this waking dream in which he spoke to me. “Je-demi-san, look, see what I have done,” a voice said. 

        I shook my head to clear my mind, but a vision invaded my brain and I seemed to be in a bar in Japan, watching a bartender: “Hattori-san, is it not time you were getting back to your home? It is almost time for your dinner.” 

        “Goro, you tend to your bar. I will go home as soon as I have lost the temper that has been raised in me by my foolhardy son, Takahide.” 

        “What has he done then? Did you catch him with yet another wench?” 

        “If that were all it was. He can go wenching all he wants as long as he does it here in Kagoshima. No, he says he wants to go to America. I have refused my permission. If he leaves, my curse will be on him and all his descendants.” 

        I shook my head again and the vision cleared, but then the voice came back. 

        “I am your ancestor, Hattori Takanobu. Listen to me and see one more thing. Again, I was mentally cast into a Japan of the past, watching my ancestors. 

        “Takahide, where are you going?” 

        “I am weary, Saburo, of sitting in the same place night after night listening to our father speak of things that used to be. Meanwhile we all go hungry because his business is failing and none of us knows what to do.” 

        “How can you say such disloyal things? As eldest brother you know that father expects you to restore the lost honor of the family.” 

        “You can do it, Saburo. You are smarter and craftier than I am.” 

        “How can you say that, Takahide, I am still but a boy, who…” “Who is already taller than me and so much better in school than I was. Anyway, you are the only other son, the only heir after me, as our sisters are worth nothing to the family. I will use the strength of my arms and back to make a living in America.”

 

        I was glad that I was alone in my old room in my parents’ Makiki home so no one else would see what was happening to me as I talked to myself. “What the hell is going on. I’m not sleeping, but it sure feels like a dream.” 

        “No. No dream Je-demi-san. You must fix what I did. Find out how to end the curse I have put on my descendants before it kills again.” 

        “Wait, if this is no dream, who are you really and how are you doing this? You can’t be who you say you are. You’re speaking English for one thing and, well, this is just not possible.” I didn’t know why I was talking to a disembodied voice. 

        “End the curse before it kills again. I never wanted this.” 

        There was a slight whistling sound and I stopped hearing anything. Of course, I couldn’t take it seriously except for two things. I wasn’t on drugs and I already knew something about this curse. I knew that my great-grandfather’s name was, in fact, Takahide and that he came from Kagoshima. Plus, the voice spoke almost perfect English, despite his inability to pronounce my name, Jeremy, properly. Still, it was likely all a hallucination, since it was not exactly new information and I could easily have imagined an old Japanese guy pronouncing my name that way. But I wasn’t on drugs. Was I slipping into psychosis? I‘m not even sure of the name of my great grandfathers’ village in Kagoshima prefecture which he abandoned for America. My grandfather told me that he called it Kamo, but I can’t find it on any maps on the internet.

        As with many other Issei, Takahide had come to California with nothing and worked very hard in the Central Valley to make enough money to buy a farm, get married and have children. He built a house in Woodland, California, a small town west of Sacramento, hoping for many sons. Instead he had one daughter and one son. His one son, Takamori, was born there in 1918. It was he who told me about the curse on one of my visits to see him. What my grandfather Takamori told me was that his own grandfather did, in fact, curse his son for leaving Japan. The curse was that every son who descended from him would have his own son abandon him. As strange as it may sound, so far, that has come true for every American generation of the Hattori family, all descended from samurai which is why all the eldest sons’ names start with “Taka.” To sum it up, my great-grandfather left Japan for California, my grandfather left California to go to Missouri, then my father left Missouri to go to Hawaii. 

        Now as I sat with my father in Makiki the whole curse rose up again, as it were, to hit my father. I was home on vacation from my job in Cupertino. It was not my intention to make the curse happen again to my father, but I truly loved Ashley and I knew that I couldn’t support her here in Hawaii where there aren’t a lot of good jobs even for electrical engineers. I tried to explain that to my father. 

        “Jeremy, why don’t you give Hawai`i a chance? I can’t believe that you can’t get a really good job here.” He stared at his brand new plasma television that was not even on. The sun had set and the room was getting dark, not that he noticed. 

        “Dad, it’s not just me. Ashley’s degree will be in Chemical Engineering. There’s little she can do with that anywhere here. In California, we can make well over six figures as our combined starting salaries.” 

         “Isn’t it about as expensive up there now as it is here?” 

         “Well, almost, but we can live more inland or south, like in Gilroy, but we might not even have to if Ashley can make at least as much as me.” 

        I watched as my father bent his balding head and sighed. I knew that he had disappointed his own father, Takamori Hattori, when he moved us all the way to Hawai`i from Missouri back in the 80s. I thought he might be more understanding, even though I knew that he had had no choice given my grandmother’s health issues. When my widowed Grandma Sakata’s multiple sclerosis reached an advanced stage, she needed my mother to nurse her. Dad now looked up at me, half hidden in the dark, from his well-patched black recliner. 

        My father said, “When my grandfather Takahide told his father that he was going to America, your great-great grandfather, the proud son of a samurai cursed him. You would make that curse continue.”

        “Yes, Dad, I know about the curse already. Your father told me about it the last time I saw him, the last time I was in St. Louis, but it’s just a bunch of nonsense isn’t it?” 

        “I can understand why you might think so, as I once did. Now I am not so sure. I have dreaded this, whether it’s a curse, or fate or whatever would somehow take you away from your mother and me. Can’t you see? You are our only child. Your mother feels the same way, but she is afraid to even mention it for fear it might make you more stubborn. Is she right? Even if there were no curse, we would be heartbroken at having you leave us. It will feel like a curse, a curse only you can break.” 

        “But Dad, you had a good reason for coming here. Mom’s mother came down with MS and she had no siblings to help. And didn’t you say that grandpa was lucky to be in Missouri for grad school, because he was not forced to move to an internment camp.”     

        “Yes, yes, that’s all true, but…” 

        “So it’s all just coincidence. You know I love you and mom but I have to do what is best for me in my life, as you did. Look, I know that…” 

        “There is more to the curse than having a son move away. It is having an only son move away. Neither your grandfather nor I were only children as you are. He had a younger brother who died of TB and my only sister, Mie, drowned in a boating accident.” 

        “You’ve told me many times about Aunt Mie. That can’t be part of the curse.” 

        “What if it is? You know that the complications your mother had when you were born prevented us from having any more children. If there is no curse, how do we explain all of this misfortune in our family? How many children do you and Ashley hope to have?” 

        “Dad! I am not even going to honor that remark.” It bothered me that my father would take his old arguments to a whole new level. I had told him many times how much I cared about him and my mother, so it was not like he thought I had no regard for his feelings. We had always been close and he knew how much I loved my family. What bothered me more was remembering that hallucination I had. It spoke of killing. No one had mentioned that part before. I had to be practical and look out for my own future. 

        I walked away at that point, stepping onto our lanai in Makiki and gazing over the tops of the mango trees in our neighbor’s yard. It was early summer and I could see the green mangoes popping out waiting to ripen. The sun was dipping low promising a beautiful sunset over Ala Moana Beach. It was as if Honolulu was taking sides with my father to keep me, but then I remembered that I was going to be calling Ashley. I had promised to call her every other day at a time not too long after she had dinner at her parents’ house in Modesto. They ate their evening meal on the late side, around 8. 

        I’d met Ashley two years ago. She was a beautiful, blue-eyed blond, the kind that no one would expect to fall in love with a pudgy, bespectacled Japanese kid from Honolulu. Nor did she look like a Chemical Engineering major, but more like someone you expected to major in Art or French. Yes, I know that sounds chauvinistic. So I’m a chauvinist. She was having a hard time with her Differential Equations class and I had posted a note in the Engineering Building advertising myself as a math tutor. Diffy-Q could be a real monster course if you had the wrong professor, but I had mastered the class. I already knew who she was. I think every engineering major knew who she was. I had two other guys that I was helping, so I tried to pretend she was a guy. It didn’t work. Still, I managed to avoid making a total clown of myself and made a strong effort to focus on being helpful. 

        We spent a lot of time together that quarter at UC Davis. At first, I think she was fascinated by my being from Hawai`i and grateful for my help. I, of course, was bowled over by how pretty she was. When I would help her study, she had a fetching way of saying “Oh, now I see” and tilting her head in a way that sent a trembling chill through me. Over the ten weeks of the quarter, we realized that we were experiencing the mutual intertwining of personality that slowly lead to first a dinner date, then ever more romantic contact until we were both no longer virgins. Now she was just a few credits short of finishing her Chem-E degree this summer. I wanted her to come home and meet the folks, but she wanted to look for a job. 

        The phone rang a little after 9:00 in her house, a place I had only visited once. “Jeremy! Your timing is so good, I just finished helping Mom wash the dishes. How are you?” 

        “Hi Ashley. I have to tell you that I’ve fallen in love with a Korean tattoo artist here in Kaimuki but I haven’t told him about us yet.” 

        “You’re terrible. Why do you have to tease me like that? I have some news for you.” 

        “I hope it’s good news.” 

        “The Korean tattoo artist notwithstanding? The news is mostly good, but it puts us in a bind, sort of. I got an unusual job offer.” 

        “Really? How is that not good news?” 

        “Well, I know that you’ve got this really great job in Cupertino with that high tech start up, but I got a job offer to work in Honolulu.” 

        “As a Chemical Engineer?” 

        “Yes, it’s got something to do with renewable energy work there. It’s a new field, new company and all that. Can you believe that they actually recruited me? Guess they were desperate. Hey! That’s where you’re supposed to laugh. I had mentioned that you were from Hawaii when I interviewed with them on the phone and they made me an offer. Jeremy, it doesn’t pay as well as I’d like and there’s always the risk with start-ups, but…” 

        “Ashley, I can’t quit my job already. I’ve only been there for what? Eight months.” 

        “Yeah. See? Bind. But your parents want us to live in Hawaii, no?” 

        “No, yes, I mean, they would but…” 

        “Jeremy, you’re such a brain, I’d bet that Professor Newcomb would be happy to write you another letter of recommendation for a job in Honolulu. It would end all your worries over that curse, too.” 

        I don’t know why I had even told Ashley about that curse. I blame it on my grandfather. I still remember sitting in his living room in St. Louis. It was the day after Christmas, 1994. A giant log was doing too good a job of warming the whole house and I could see the needles on the Christmas tree starting to curl from the heat. I had just started my freshman year at UC Davis, my grandpa’s alma mater, and he was so proud of me I thought he would crush me when I got to the baggage claim. He had this smell I always associated with old Japanese men, a mix of stale hair oil, tobacco and tea. 

        “Jeremy, how do you like the old farm school? I’ll bet you aced your chemistry class. What dorm are you living in? Bixby? Last time I visited the campus it was a new dorm… 

        “Whoa, Ji-san, I just got here. Did Mom and Dad get in okay?” 

        “Yes, in fact, they’re waiting in the car for you to get your bag. See them through the doors? I’m glad they rented a car cause I’m getting too old to drive this far.” 

        I thought I saw my mother waving at me, but I was not only tired from the flight, but still reeling from the battery of finals I had just finished. That had been a week before Christmas. When my parents went shopping for stuff to take back as omiyage to Hawai`i and Grandma was cooking, I had had a long talk with my Ji-san. Grandpa was feeling maudlin, talking about how he had wished so much that he had had a chance to watch me grow up in Missouri instead of seeing me once every four or five years. 

        “It’s that damn curse,” he said. “Curse, Grandpa? Dad once mentioned some myth about a curse on our family.” 

        “I used to think it was a stupid thing myself when I left California even after my brother died, then Mie… My father begged me to come back when she died. He was so alone. He was a widower, remember? Not like me.” 

        Here my grandfather sighed very deeply and got this far away look in his eyes. “I wish I knew what was in that letter from our ancestor.” 

        “You mean great-great grandpa Takanobu? The samurai? He wrote you a letter?” 

        “No. He wrote a letter to my father, but my father never told me about it until he died. I found it among his things and I was never able to read it.” 

        “Why didn’t you read it?

        “I can’t read Japanese and I don’t know anyone here that I trust who knows how to read it.” 

        “Trust? What does trust have to do with it?”

        “Jeremy, you know that this is something that brings shame to the family. I am ashamed that anyone would see something terrible in the letter. My father always told me how furious his father was that he left Japan. I fear that letter spelled out the details of the curse.” 

         I asked him to give the letter to me, because I wanted to get it translated. It made sense on the basis that I was his only heir and I wanted something from the family past, of which I had nothing dating from Japan. That was half of my reason for wanting it. The other half was that I really wanted to know if there was a curse and if there were any details about it. He was a bit reluctant, but admitted that he had no reason to keep it. As it turned out, I was so grateful that he gave it to me then because I never saw him again. My grandfather passed away two years ago in 1996. And now, after talking to Ashley, I got chicken skin. Could my having that letter have anything to do with the voice and vision, I’d heard? 

        I tried to shrug it off, but as I took a shower that evening, it happened again. 

        “Je-demi-san. End the curse. The letter you have tells all. It will be too late very soon.” 

         I practically jumped out of the shower because this time the voice was loud and seemed to be coming from the walls. I thought that my parents certainly heard it, but they said nothing to me about it right after I went into the living room where they sat watching the news with Joe Moore. I had to talk to someone about this. 

         Before I left for my vacation in Hawaii, I had not told Ashley about the letter, but I had explained the curse. She dismissed it as silliness, until I told her about my Aunt Mie, my great uncle, my maternal grandmother’s illness, my own mother. The next time we spoke on the phone I reminded her of it, but I was not about to tell her about the voice of my ancestor. 

         “I wish I knew what was in that letter.” 

         “Letter?” 

         “Six years ago, the last time I saw my grandfather…” 

         “The one in St. Louis?” 

         “Yeah, my father’s father. He gave me this letter. Actually, I kind of brow-beat him for it. It was written by my ancestor who made the curse. He sent it to my great-grandfather Takahide. I can’t help but think it might be an apology or something that would make us realize that the curse is just nonsense.” 

         “Of course, it is. It’s just, well, silly.” 

         “Ashley, that silly curse, as you put it, has troubled my father and grandfather deeply. I need to get to the bottom of it.” 

         “So you think you might actually be acting under the influence of this silly curse? That doesn’t sound like the honors graduate I know,” Ashley said. 

         “My father thinks it’s the curse so what I believe doesn’t matter.” 

        “When do you need to decide whether to take the job out here?” 

         “They didn’t give me a deadline, but they’d have to give me time to finish my degree, plus they don’t know what other offers I’ve had. I can probably wait a whole month.” 

         “And I still have two weeks more of my vacation here. That might be enough time.” 

         “Time for what?” 

         “I only recently found out that one of my old Roosevelt High classmates, Mari Suenaga, got her degree in Japanese at the University of Washington and she might be able to translate the letter, if I can get in touch with her.” 

         “What does that have to do with my job?” 

         “Listen, Ashley, I know you think I’m being ridiculous, but if I knew what was in that letter, it might give me peace of mind. It’s hard enough knowing that I’m deserting my parents, but the curse puts me under extra pressure if only because my dad believes it. Your job won’t last if the company fails and I don’t even have one out here. Even if I did, it makes no sense for both of us to work out here for less where it’s so expensive, plus you’ve got your parents to think of too. Do you see?” 

         “Now I see,” she said as I pictured that pretty little tilt of her head. 

        “Not really, but for now I’ll put things on pause until you figure it out.” 

         It only took me two calls to find Mari and she said she would be happy to translate the letter if I could meet her at Glazer’s the next afternoon. We sat down with the letter, two lattes and two donuts. She told me that some of the kanji were hard to read, smudged as they were and old, but the letter clearly stated the curse.

        She read: “Never write to me again now that your foot has left our soil. I curse you with the pain of never knowing the joy of any sons, grandsons or any descendants living out their lives within a thousand leagues of you.”

         “Sounds like he was pretty angry,” said Mari. “There’s more though. ‘The curse will only ease should you, body or soul return to me.'” Then there’s a part I can’t really make out. I think the character means something involving death and something about the curse getting worse with each generation. Does that make sense?” 

         “Yeah, it is weird but there might be some clues there. It’s more than I hoped for. Thanks so much, Mari. That was worth a lot more than a large latte and a donut.” 

         As I drove back to my folks’ house, the voice came one last time. “I must have my son back soon or it will be too late.” 

         “What? What does that mean? Your son is long dead.” 

         “It cannot wait.” 

         “Wait? Tell me more.” But I was never to hear the voice again. Only now I was convinced that I wasn’t hallucinating. I had to end the curse somehow. I had to think. How could I return a dead person? I called Ashley again as soon as I got home and told her that I had an idea. I would find my great grandfather’s grave in Woodland, which was right near Davis and somehow get permission to dig it up for re-burial in Japan. I’d then go to Kagoshima and find out where my great-great grandfather was buried and reunite them, thus ending the curse. I had to hope that my employers would be understanding because this was going to take some time. 

         “Jeremy, listen to yourself. That’s crazy. How can anyone with a master’s degree in electrical engineering believe in such superstitious nonsense? How are you even going to find a grave in Japan when you can’t speak or read the language? What do you expect…” 

         “I’ve got a friend who lives on Kyushu. Reo Kodani. I met him at Davis and he keeps asking me to visit. I know it sounds crazy, Ash, but I always wanted to visit my ancestral city and you can find a much better and secure job in Silicon Valley, I’ll have my job with Cyberstratus—I hope--and my parents will just have to understand. They’ll have to understand with the curse gone.” 

         “There is no curse, Jeremy.” 

         “Maybe not and I’m no Psychologist, but it weighs on my mind as much as my dad’s. I won’t be able to rest until I’ve taken care of it and made my father happy, too, when he sees that the curse has nothing to do with my leaving him. Turn that job in Hawaii down and look for something up there.” 

         “I can’t do that Jeremy. I’ll try to beg for more time on taking the job out there if it comes to that, but curse or no curse, it’s an exciting prospect and it would make your folks happy. If they won’t give me more time, I’m going to take the job.” 

         “Okay, I guess that’s all I can ask for now. I’ve got my return flight next Monday and I’ll see you before you know it?” 

         “I love you.” 

         “I love you too.” 

        I found out that I had to get a signed note from every one of my great-grandfather’s living descendants to move his ashes. As it was, of course, my father was the only one. He was not happy with the idea that I could lift the curse, because he would then have to see that it was me, not any curse, that was forcing the issue of leaving him and my mother, but he signed. I suspect that he saw it as his filial duty to lift the curse. He even agreed to pay for all of the costs to expedite the transfer of the remains. That helped because Cyberstratus refused to extend my vacation, so I was on unpaid leave. I took a Hawaiian Air flight directly to Sacramento then drove to Woodland from the Sacramento Airport, filled out forms to exhume the grave, and paid for the cost of the removal and shipment of my great-grandfather’s ashes to Kumamoto. 

        The actual exhumation was not that hard and the burial urn was still in good shape. I had to fly directly to Japan with the ashes literally in my lap and a form written in Japanese to explain what was in the urn. Once I hooked up with Reo, it was surprisingly easy to get permission to bury my ancestors together. The village of Kamo was small, so finding the cemetery was easy. The gravesite itself was sad. It was clear that no one had tended it for many years, maybe most of a century. Reo could not even read the inscription. We only knew we had the right grave from a chart the cemetery gave us. The stone was fairly large looming over its smaller neighbors almost all of them covered with soot and moss. I had to dig a shallow pit for my great grandfather’s ashes with some help from Reo, who had the forethought of bringing a small shovel. I had hoped to add a tombstone for my great grandfather’s, but I was not going to be in Japan long enough for that nor could I afford it. I told myself that someday I would be back and do it right. I bought a tiny bouquet of chrysanthemums to lay on the graves, bowed and said goodbye. 

        I never to heard that voice again. I took it as a good sign. I was now very happy about lifting the burden of a curse that had hung over my family for over a hundred years and I would soon be seeing Ashley, who had gone ahead and taken the job in Honolulu. The only thing that troubled me was how I would know that the curse was really gone? What was the deal with deaths and time limits? Had I stubbornly been planning to stay in California for my own reasons or was it the curse? I decided to try for a good job in Honolulu and Ashley and I would be able to settle there. I began to think about what we do for our wedding and honeymoon. We’d probably get married in Modesto since she had a big family and all our friends were up there, but we would definitely honeymoon in Hawai`i. Maybe Maui. 

        Ashley finished her credits with no difficulty and booked a direct flight out of San Jose. I told her I would meet her at the baggage claim at Honolulu Airport when we talked the night before. She was so excited about our future together, her new job, about seeing Hawaii for the first time. Her parents were driving her from Modesto on L Street in the way to Highway 132 when their car got smashed by a semi that ran a red light. They all died at the scene of the accident. The only solace I had was that it happened so fast they probably only suffered for the moment of being startled. I did not even learn about it until the next day when I emailed her old UC Davis room-mate after she did not arrive on her scheduled flight nor answer her phone. While the room-mate did not send me any details, I checked the web for an article in the Modesto Bee. There was no explanation for why the truck driver had missed the light. He wasn’t drunk. 

        I asked for my great-great grandfather to explain it all to me, but I heard nothing. I cried for days. My parents tried to console me, but I left for California two days later to get back to my job. They had been so patient with me and I could see no future beyond work. I didn’t want to think about love and marriage—or having a son.