Chapter 31 Present Day
PRESENT DAY
JULIA
A sudden shift in the pitch of the engines jolted Julia from her uneasy doze.
The roar seemed sharper, thinner, and the awareness that the ocean lay thirty thousand feet below tightened something in her chest. She scanned the cabin, but no one else appeared alarmed.
Reassured, she eased back into her seat and tugged at her seatbelt to make sure it was secure.
Armed with Grandmama’s mandate and her mother’s credit card, Julia had arranged the trip to Japan in less than twenty-four hours. That whirlwind of planning had included asking Zoey to come along as her translator.
It felt strange to be traveling halfway across the world with someone she barely knew.
Still, Julia glanced over and smiled at her companion, who had somehow managed to fall asleep in the cramped seat, curled on her side and clutching a neon-blue bear that perfectly matched her hair.
When Julia had called to ask if she would come—and assured her that her parents would cover the cost—Zoey had burst into tears, confessing she wasn’t sure anyone had ever shown her that kind of generosity before.
Zoey told Julia that she was currently between jobs and could have a neighbor watch her cat for the week.
It would be her pleasure to become a professional translator for the trip.
Julia had no doubt after watching her translate so effortlessly in Minidoka, and with only few words of Japanese in her own vocabulary, she would be lost in her search of her family.
Her second year of medical school would start in another month, and Julia knew other students who took this elusive free time to travel in Europe, to climb mountains, or engage in some other adventure.
Her roommate, however, was the exception as she spent all her free time frantically studying.
She hadn’t even looked up but merely shrugged when Julia told her she’d be back in a week.
Perhaps out of guilt or to feel productive, Julia packed one of her textbooks, Cecil’s Essentials of Medicine.
She had a feeling it would stay packed, but having it made her feel less guilty.
In the ten-hour flight over the Pacific, there was no way Julia was going to sleep.
Not only because sitting up made it nearly impossible to snooze, but her mind raced with anticipation of what she might find in her ancestral history.
She knew nothing about samurai or geisha; both sounded mysterious and romantic.
Anything she did know came from Tom Cruise’s character in the Last Samurai, when the wife of his fallen enemy dressed him—a sad but intimate scene where clothes were actually going on.
And what about a tayū? Was her relative a call girl or a famous artisan of nobility? Or something in between? What if Julia found out the worst? What would she tell Grandmama?
She smiled again at her sleeping friend and remembered catching a glance of their reflection in an airport store window.
Julia, with her long legs and pumps, stood a foot taller than Zoey.
And when Julia compared her skinny jeans and pink tank top to Zoey’s Lost in Simulation Y2K Anime T-shirt, baggy sweats, and black army boots, she’d done a double take. We look like polar opposites.
She chuckled, recalling her mother whispering to her that she and Zoey looked like Mutt and Jeff and asked if she was sure she felt comfortable going with her new friend. Julia lowered her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “We’ll be fine, Mother.”
When they’d boarded the JAL plane to Tokyo, the flight attendants had spoken to Julia in Japanese, and Zoey had already proved her usefulness with seamless translation.
Zoey told Julia to carry on like she’s having a normal conversation.
“I will be there translating back and forth…easy-peasy. You’ll hardly know I’m there. ”
Julia adjusted Zoey’s blanket over her arm, thankful for the company, then focused on the stack of scientific papers she’d printed off from Doctor Sato.
At least if she wasn’t going to crack open her medical textbook, she could learn something.
Unfortunately, much of the doctor’s papers seemed beyond her understanding, even after having biochemistry in college and some genetics last year.
She reread a sentence from a paper for the fourth time, grasping for understanding: “Emotions, it turns out, are epigenetic, and can methylate genes in parts of our brain involved in the stress response. It’s an external environmental event, in the form of a traumatic childhood that provides the epigenetic stimulus to the inner environment that triggers the gene changes. ”
Zoey startled, woke up, and stretched. She peeked from under her sleep mask and smiled. “What’s you reading?” she asked and yawned.
“Hmm…not quite sure,” Julia chuckled. “Epigenetics…it’s the study of how our environment and behaviors can affect our genes.”
“You mean like how our Levi’s fit…if they are too tight?”
Julia looked down at the paper, trying to decide how to answer without hurting her friend’s feelings. But when she looked at Zoey and realized she had been messing with her, she laughed.
“Remember, I told you I worked in a lab?” Zoey explained. “My degree is in microbiology, and I just quit a job as a research assistant for a genetics lab.” She took off her eye mask. “The boss man was a real douche bag.”
“Oh wow, then maybe you can make sense of this for me.” Julia handed her the paper.
Without looking at it, Zoey said, “People have always wondered if emotions or feelings are stored directly in our DNA. It’s pretty unlikely.
” She looked at Julia. “But…let’s say something really good or really awful happens to you.
It’s thought that there can be chemical changes around the DNA helix that could change how a gene is expressed. ”
Julia nodded, beginning to understand.
“It’s possible that’s how emotions or fears or how we react to certain situations are passed down through families,” Zoey added.
* * *
Julia had asked Zoey if there was anything she wanted to do in Tokyo and here they stood in the center of the anime world, the Akihabara District—the epicenter of gaming, manga, and anime culture in Japan.
Julia understood and grinned at Zoey—this intelligent, yet quirky girl who stood speechless and wide-eyed like a child at Disney World.
Overwhelmed by the crowd, the bright neon signs, electronic shops, loud music, maid cafes, and anime stores, Julia squeezed her eyes shut. After flying for over ten hours, she thought they had just stepped onto another planet.
Julia knew a little bit about anime from the few cartoons and memes that popped up on social media, but this felt like an out-of-body experience. Anime was a way of life for some. Nighttime brought the Electric Town Square to a throbbing existence, and they stood in the center of it all.
“What do you think?” Zoey yelled over the noise.
Julia rubbed her forehead, afraid the overstimulation might bring on a migraine. “It’s something,” she yelled back.
“If it’s okay, I’d love to check out some stores,” Zoey yelled, pulling Julia by the hand toward the closest doorway.
The store was huge, filled to the brim with books, videos, figurines, and everything anime.
Short for animation, the genre referred to anything hand-drawn or computer-generated.
Julia looked at figurines in a glass cabinet and noticed a strong samurai influence with many of the characters carrying swords or other weapons.
Two young girls had stopped Zoey, but Julia continued to browse down the aisles.
With her bright blue hair, Zoey fit right in.
In fact, she seemed so much like an anime rock star, people clustered around her asking to take a selfie with her.
What was more humorous to Julia was that everyone mostly ignored her.
How the tables have turned! Zoey looked at home and Julia celebrated.
* * *
Zoey had cried with thanks when she’d been asked to accompany Julia.
Now, returning to their hotel later that evening, Julia made Zoey cry for the second time.
While Zoey had shopped and enjoyed her stardom, Julia stopped at a booth that specialized in making anime figurines on the spot with a 3-D printer.
The young man who helped her spoke perfect English, and his computer AI technology blew her mind.
When she handed Zoey the three-inch figurine of anime Zoey, Zoey was speechless.
She finally smiled and said, “I’m kind of bad-ass, aren’t I? ”
AI had reproduced her perfectly with her black T-shirt, baggy sweatpants, army boots and neon blue hair. The artist added a samurai sword and posed the figurine slashing at some imaginary enemy.
“Yes, you are, Zoey. Now we better get some sleep, as we have a few busy days ahead of us,” Julia said as she switched off the light.
* * *
Except for an airplane, Julia and Zoey decided they had never moved this fast. The bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto traveled at 186 miles per hour, making the trip in just over two hours, leaving plenty of time to make a plan of attack.
Once they arrived in Kyoto, they planned to search for clues in what was left of the Shimabara district, the area handwritten on the back of her great-great-grandmother’s photo.
Zoey had visited Kyoto ten years earlier with her grandmother and told Julia it was like stepping back in time. “It is the embodiment of traditional Japanese culture,” she had said. After leaving the frantic pace of Tokyo, Julia looked forward to the change.