University of Northern Iowa

KokeshiAuthor(s): Sharie McCuneSource: The North American Review, Vol. 291, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2006), p. 31Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25127568 .

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MANJULA MENON

D

presumably the bedroom door?now closed. Reshma's face must

have betrayed her thoughts for the young woman with the short,

yellow hair who had opened the door and who now stood

towering over her said, "Sorry, it's a little untidy right now, but

please do take a seat." The woman introduced herself as Frances

and the small, bespectacled man who had been sitting quietly in

the chair in the corner as her husband.

When they were both seated Frances asked a few cursory ques tions without paying much attention to the answers. It seemed

that she had already made up her mind about Reshma.

"Well, the important thing now is that you meet my daughter, Trish," she said and almost on cue, the bedroom door opened and a little girl not more than two years old emerged, pushing her golden locks sleepily away from blinking, wide, green eyes.

"Hi, honey," trilled her mother. "Meet Reshma. Am I

pronouncing that right?" Reshma nodded. Such a pretty baby, she thought. "Oh look, she seems to have taken a liking to you," said

Frances, her lips stretching into a tired smile.

Frances explained that they needed a nanny to look after Trish

while she and her husband were vacationing in Europe?they were leaving at the end of the week for ten days. Trish would be

staying with her grandmother in Rhode Island during this time

and Reshma, if she took the job, would be expected to remain

with her there.

"Have you seen the movie Reversal of Fortune?" asked Frances.

Reshma shook her head, no.

"Anyway, our house is only a few minutes from Sunny Von

Bulow's. I'll point it out to you when we're there."

Reshma arranged her features into an impressed look but she

did not have any idea who this Sunny Von Bulow was. Perhaps another famous American writer, like Emerson, she thought and

made a mental note to ask her husband.

Meanwhile, Trish brought Reshma a small doll, shyly holding it up with one hand and Reshma was instantly charmed. She

decided at that moment that her husband had been right?this was America and things were different here. She was going to like

being a nanny to this baby who was so sweet and pretty, almost

like a little doll herself.

"I'll call you tomorrow to arrange," promised Reshma as she left.

Frances opened the door, the husband looked up from his

magazine to wave and little Trish smiled and gurgled nonsensi

cally at her and outside in the waning sunshine, she thought of

them and felt pleased. What a delightful family they were.

At home she told her husband, "It will only be for ten days and

then we will have money to move from this place."

He looked worried. "But we don't know anything about these

people. They could be anyone?murderers even. And the job is

not even in Boston."

He shook his head and looked at the floor. "With your luck, who knows what will happen?"

She was pleased by his concern for her but also mildly

annoyed. It had been his idea in the first place and now here he

was, doubting her good judgment. She remembered what

Frances had told her.

SHARIE McCUNE

Kokeshi Defective or uunborn" dolls are burned on the second day

of the three-day kokeshi festival in Miyagi Prefecture, with

dedication of well-made dolls to the shrine deity on the first day

(September 7th)

My mother bought me rare kokeshi,

fragile dolls, made only for display.

They were delicately painted, lathed from wood

and had no hands, no feet, no mouths.

They were memoria, some said,

made in bitter years of famine to appease the spirits of the dead, for their name means

poppy-seed child or child erasing.

Burned, they look something like the girls of Nagasaki, captured in photographs, half-naked, lying in the ruins ...

their skin black and swollen, as if they'd been boiled from the inside. Some were charred. Others flashed

the patterns of their skirts

against the ground, small flowers

etched into their skin, leaf-prints.

The living crawled from basements, climbed out of shelters,

walked on roads where living wires

strangled fallen legs. Rivers were clogged with their bodies, alive with their terrible thirst.

One young mother nursed

her bleeding child as a plane flew low.

I remember vividly, a rare survivor said,

the cold night air, the starry sky, and from far away, strange elf-fires smoldering.

As I walked closer... I saw

blue flames, rising from the bodies.

March-April 2006 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 31

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