SOME PEOPLE didn’t like the old wooden houses. They said they were unsafe in earthquakes and lacked modern conveniences. But just seeing her grandmother’s house—smelling it, hearing it, touching it—made her feel loved and safe.
Tomoko served snacks to Kiki as Jiji investigated the living room. “Don’t you dare pee in the house,” Kiki warned. “Tell me and I’ll take you outside.”
Tomoko was fifty-eight and looked younger. Kiki often lulled herself to sleep at night doing the math: If Grandma was really as young as she looked, she could easily be her mother.
“I don’t have any dog food, but do you think she’d like a tuna? Kiki made a face. “Come on, Grandma. You’re spoiling her.”
“But I spoil you, don’t I?” Tomoko said, smiling.
“Yeah, spoil me,” Jiji grumbled, nose aquiver. She smelled the sashimi and tiny paws tattooed the tatami and she raced over to Tomoko. Licking her lips furiously, she crouched in involuntary deference, excitement and canine gluttony.
“Jiji! What did I just tell you?”
The puppy flattened herself the tatami, making a good show of doggie shame and humiliation, but all the while keeping both eyes on the food.
“That’s all right,” Tomoko said. She wiped up Jiji’s accident and placed a bowl of raw tuna in front of her.
“How come you never give me any of this,” Jiji complained in mid-bite. “It’s a whole lot tastier than that stuff you give me.”
Kiki settled down on a zabuton. “For a couple of reasons. One, that stuff I give you is good for you. And two, at the speed you eat, I’m surprised you can taste it at all. That sashimi costs a fortune.” Kiki smiled at her grandmother and stuck her tongue out at Jiji. “It’s too good for you.”
Tomoko sat on a cushion next to Kiki and gave her granddaughter a hug. “You’re papa said you spoke to the dog all the time. Do you think she understands you?”
Kiki laughed. “Better than you would believe, Grandma.”
Tomoko made tempura for lunch, Kiki’s favorite. It was, as usual, just perfect.
Crouched, sulking next to the short table, Jiji mimicked Kiki. “Oh, Grandma, it’s so wonderful. Umm, I bet Jiji would just love it, but she’s too young for fried food.” The smell was driving her crazy. She growled as Kiki placed the last bite in her mouth. She chewed slowly and the lip-smacking was cruelly overdone. Kiki giggled and Jiji placed her paws over her face and moaned.
“Here,” Kiki said, pulling a couple of pieces of puppy kibble from her pocket and rolling them across the tatami. “Eat this. We gotta get going. Dad’ll kill me if we don’t get home before dark.”
Jiji pounced and gobbled. Kiki hugged her grandmother and kissed her goodbye. Satisfied, Jiji even gave Tomoko an affectionate lick on the toe.
Jiji was very tired and slept on the train home. She really didn’t wake until Kiki put her down in her doggie bed. “Uhh,” she cleared her throat and blinked. “Is it dinner time yet?”
Kiki smiled and pointed at her food bowl. “Why don’t you go look?”
After finishing dinner—a thirty second endeavor—Jiji dragged herself back to her bed, crawled under her blanket and soon the living room was filled with the soft sound of a contented snoring puppy.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Chapter 10 – The bike ride
JIJI RAN five meters behind Kiki’s bike along the brick river walk on the banks of the Edogawa. Two years old, she was near peak strength. Kiki rode fast and Jiji kept up easily. Still the smallest dog in town, she drew exclamations, giggles and smiles wherever she went. She didn’t mind at all. Most of puppyhood’s terrors were forgotten—she loved being the center of attention. Of course, she didn’t like the fools, the ones that called her nezumi—rat—or the awful old ladies that screamed “cute!” at the top of their lungs and grabbed at her. She bit them. Not hard enough to draw blood but sufficient to make them stomp off in a red mist of anger. This grasping unwanted attention was rare. Kiki was terribly protective. Too careful, Jiji thought. She wasn’t one of the idiotic car-chasing males; she didn’t …
“Dog!” Jiji shouted, her sharp eyes spotting a brown shape coming their way. Kiki slammed on the brakes, reached down and picked her up, and kept riding. They passed a tail-wagging Akita out for a stroll with her owner, a girl about Kiki’s age. Both Akita and the junior high school girl looked harmless and friendly. Kiki smiled and said good morning to both. Jiji peeked out from under Kiki’s arm. She tried to wag her tail, but it was a pathetic little greeting.
“Your such a chicken.” Kiki said. “That looked like a nice dog.”
Jiji made a sound that might have indicated agreement. She was, as always, embarrassed. Other dogs terrified her. They were always bigger. They were unpredictable and might bite. She couldn’t understand how they could dash about in little groups sniffing butts and barking, tangling themselves in their leashes. She wanted nothing to do with them. If she tried really hard, she could dimly remember when she was a baby and never getting enough milk from her mother. Her brothers and sisters were so much larger. They nipped her nose and shoved her aside.
The “danger” passed and Kiki set her back down on the bricks. Jiji shook off her embarrassment, stretched her legs and began running again. Other dogs might be bigger, but she was fast. A gray blur, she raced along, the sun warm on her back. Her tiny paws barely touched the bricks. She laughed to herself and increased her pace.
Kiki looked back and laughed, too. Jiji was so healthy. She was still angry with the vet that said she wouldn’t live for a year. As far a Kiki could see, she might live forever. And Jiji was tough. She had that terrier attitude. Once she got her jaws clamped on something she would never let go. In her case, it was her favorite sock or a stuffed toy, not another dog’s leg or a hand.
Her father warned her, but Kiki couldn’t resist. Once Jiji had a good grip on the sock, Kiki could swing her around, if slowly, a few inches above the carpet. Jiji growled, feigning anger, but she loved the play as well. All Kiki had to say was “sock” and Jiji would run to her bed and dig it out from among her toys.
There was one word she hated, thought. That was “fly.” That meant it was time for Kiki to hold her and gently toss her into the air. She would catch her before she hit the carpet and giggle. Jiji put up with it for Kiki’s sake, but it was scary. She didn’t think anyone liked being tossed about.
Jiji spurted forward and caught up with Kiki. “How far we gonna go today, Boss?”
Kiki wasn’t sure how she felt like being called “boss” but Jiji had picked up the lingo watching TV and seemed to enjoy it. She digested slang as easily and with as much enjoyment at doggie bones. “Well, buddy, you think you can make it through the weeds to Urayasu?”
Jiji howled with pleasure. “You betcha, boss. Let’s shake a leg!”
Urayasu was a neighboring suburb, one train stop closer to Tokyo, and quite a distance. There and back would take more than an hour. Kiki wasn’t sure she wanted to pedal that far, but she wasn’t about to admit it to a dog about the size of a handful of hamsters.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Chapter 11 – To Urayasu
THE SMOOTH brick path along the river ended abruptly. Kiki and Jiji slowed and cautiously entered a shadowy underpass. About twenty meters wide and 100 meters deep, it was littered with contraband—squished glue tubes, sodden porno comics and empty wine bottles. A stained back seat, wrenched from a car leaned against the curved cement. Graffiti, sprayed in red and black, climbed to the ceiling.
Kiki got off her bike and pushed it through the tunnel. There was junk on the broken concrete roadway that could give her a nasty spill. Jiji darted back and forth, sniffing. At night the tunnel was a hangout local teens. Kiki thought they were bad. A normal, judgmental twelve-year-old, she was especially critical of the girls, some of whom were no older than she. That her father was well off and theirs’ were poor; that she was on track for a good life while their train would stop at another station—she was too young to fully understand.
They silently picked their way through the tunnel aiming for the sunlight. Near the end, Jiji barked, a real dog, word-free bark. Against the wall Kiki saw something move in the gloom. “Jiji stop!” she commanded.
Old winos sometimes occupied the tunnel in the daytime. They weren’t dangerous but she still didn’t want Jiji near one. They smelled. If Jiji were approached roughly, she would bite. But today, it wasn’t a drunk but a fisherman taking a break on a crate. He had his catch in a cooler and a beer in his hand. Kiki smiled as he held his hand out slowly to let Jiji get a sniff. That was the way to do it. Go slow. He must have his own dog, she thought. “Have any luck?” she asked, as pushed her bike past.
He nodded and reached down to pet Jiji. “Small. They don’t come much smaller than this one.”
“She’s a runt,” Kiki said.
The fisherman smiled, silently acknowledging something that was quite obvious. Jiji barked, “That word!”
Jiji was still whining when they reached the end of the tunnel and Kiki got back on her bike.
“You promised not to call me that anymore. You promised.”
Kiki pedaled slowly along a dirt path that snaked through grass along the river. She turned her head and shouted, “Watch out for glass.”
Jiji, still peeved, stood her ground, deciding if she would follow or refuse to budge. Nonviolent disobedience was her only alternative when dealing with Kiki. Biting was out of the question. But the sun was too high, too hot, and the day too gorgeous. Her legs didn’t care about the perceived insult, they took off after the bike. She ran down the path, occasionally glancing down to search the dirt for sharp objects that might cut her paws.
Jiji took a deep breath. She smelled warm dirt, grass turned brown, bugs, mouse droppings and the breeze off the river. Never a dog to dwell on the future, she ordered herself to remember this moment. She was so happy to be alive. She heard Kiki singing to herself as she pedaled; she was so happy to be loved.
Kiki was thinking much the same thing. It truly was a marvelous day. Now in her first year of junior high, she was still a bit gawky and taller than the other girls. She was also smarter and prettier than most and gaining on the leaders. This was not a conclusion she would have ever reached herself, but her father’s and Jiji’s continual encouragement were working wonders.
Secretly, her dad gave great credit to the little dog. Kiki smiled all the time now and her confidence was growing daily. That she paid more attention to Jiji than her girlfriends didn’t bother him. In the pre-Jiji days she hadn’t had any friends at all. Yes, it was mildly disturbing that she reserved her most perceptive statements for the dog. Yes, the long pauses, apparently to allow for responses, were disconcerting, as was the elevated grammar level. Kiki used less slang with the dog than she did with her friends. He didn’t care. Life was better for everyone. His mother was as delighted with Kiki’s pet as she was with her granddaughter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of his long-gone wife.
Half an hour later the dirt path to Urayasu ended and another neat, well-maintained river walk began. Kiki had to dismount and weave her bike through yellow stanchions imbedded in the brick to keep out motorcycles. Jiji waited a few meters ahead, impatient to get moving.
“Not so fast, buster, Kiki said,” pulling a water bottle from her backpack. “We can’t have you getting dehydrated. You know what dehydrated means, right?”
Jiji was a little thirsty, but she was irritated by the sudden pop quiz. “Yes,” she answered, and rolled her eyes. “I learned that word months ago. If I don’t drink enough water I die.”
“Close enough.” Kiki poured a little of the liquid in the bottle’s cap and Jiji lapped it up. As she screwed the cap back on, Jiji whined, “You’d better drink some, too. We wouldn’t want you to get dehydrated, would we?’’
Kiki pointed to a bench facing the calm, blue-green river. “Why don’t we take a break? You can tell me about your brothers and sisters again.”
Jiji ran to the bench and leaped–it was so high and she was so short–it was almost a miracle of levitation when she landed safely. “I don’t wanna talk about them. I wanna talk about fathers. You have one. Where’s mine?”
