Amrita | Asian American Novels

Amrita
by Banana Yoshimoto
Grove Press, New York, 1994, 366 pp, $22
A young Japanese woman comes to terms with the suicide of her beautiful older sister.
EXCERPT

'm what you might call a night person. Generally the sun comes up before I go down for bed, and as a fundamental rule I never open my eyes until early afternoon. Perhaps that's why the day turned out to be an exception among exceptions. That was the day, the day that I'm speaking of now, when the package first arrived from Ryüichirö.
     Yes, it was that morning. From out of nowhere my little brother threw my bedroom door open with a bang and eagerly shook me awake.
     "Wake up, Saku-chan, wake up! You got a package!"
     Dazed, I pulled myself out of bed. "What?" I whispered.
     "A package for you. A big package!" My brother was exuberant, jumping back and forth. I'm sure he'd have pounced all over me if I'd pretended to still be asleep. So with no choice in the matter, I pushed the sleep from my eyes and gathered the strength to make the journey down the stairs. My little brother coiled himself around me and together we descended to the bottom.
     Opening the kitchen door, I found my mother at the dining table, munching on a piece of toast. The strong aroma of fresh coffee floated in the air.
     "Morning," I said.
     "Good morning my mother replied. Then, with a puzzled look on her face, she asked, "What's the occasion? You're up so early."

     "The kid came and got me out of bed. Why isn't he in school, anyway. The little brat."
     "I have a fever!" my brother said, plopping himself into a kitchen chair and grabbing at the toast.
     "No wonder he's so hyper," I said, realizing for the first time why he was so excited.
     "You were the same when you were a child," my mother remarked. "I remember it like it was yesterday. You'd bounce off the walls, hang from the chandeliers, and I'd just shake my head wondering what had gotten into you. As soon as I'd put my hand on your forehead, the reason was clear. You had a fever."

ASIAN AIR ISSUES FORUM | CONTACT US

© 1999-2003 GoldSea
No part of the contents of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission.