Shizuka
by
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Two days after the evening meeting in Mr. Hikozo's cabin, that gentleman and his niece had left the ship at Kure Port to travel up the east side of Hiroshima Bay to see the Nomura family. Kazuo had neither seen nor spoken with either of them again.
Eight days later, when the small
steamer was again anchored at
"Worthy carpenter. Our honored and respected customer, Mr. Hikozo, has sent word about you to the Captain of this vessel."
Kazuo's heart sank; his worst fears had been realized. Less than a year at sea, and he had brought shame to his father's house and to that of his uncle. What would Riyo say when she learned that he had dishonored an important customer of the shipping company? Riyo, who increasingly occupied his thoughts and who greeted him with great correctness but apparent joy when he returned for one night every three weeks to the carpenter shop.
Kazuo had cast his eyes down and said nothing.
"Worthy
carpenter. Mr. Hikozo has
instructed the Captain to send you to
Ten thousand thoughts crowded Kazuo's shocked mind. Worse than disgrace, he was to be accused of a crime! Had something been stolen? Had Mr. Hikozo suspected him of something else, some act that he could not even imagine? Still, he did not speak.
"The Prefect of Police has
been instructed by Mr. Hikozo to obtain for you from the court at Yedo a craftsman's
Imperial passport to permit you to travel to the
On the evening of the day when
his life had been changed by the uttering of ten sentences, Kazuo had told his
uncle's family. Whether it was his good
fortune or bad, none could say. It had been agreed that he could not fail to
honor Mr. Hikozo's instructions. As to
what might become of him in the
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About the Book
Shizuka tells of four generations of Japanese and Japanese-Americans and their lives in the great Central Valley of California. A chance meeting between Martin, a middle-aged Caucasian, and Pat, a young Japanese-American woman who knows little about the life of her pioneer ancestors, leads by mutual impulse into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas to a greatly revered but little-known, century-old gathering place for early Japanese settlers, Pat’s ancestors. This is Shizuka.
Austere and imposing, Shizuka (“a place of tranquility”) comes to life with the discovery of diaries, written in Japanese and dating from the 1890s. They describe a tight knit, dynamic family with close ties to early Yankee and Mexican settlers, yet the cryptic entries can do no more than whet the imagination.
It is only the unfolding story of
Kazuo Kono, the family’s patriarch, that tells the true tale of Shizuka and of
those who built it against great odds and were able, from time to time, to find
tranquility there. Kazuo’s origins in
Meiji Restoration Japan, his immigration eastward to
About the Author
Martin Wood is a native Californian, raised on a citrus ranch
in the
He earned his way through UCLA in the 1950s working
as a municipal police officer and, on graduating, entered the
then-new field of electronics from which he retired in 1982.
He has traveled widely, having been in forty-four countries
on four continents.
He and his wife of more than
forty years live in the
suburb of Encino; they have four grown children and five grandsons.
He has published a number of trade-specific articles and training texts.
Business interests dictate that he write under the family names of
“Martin Wood.”
Shizuka is his first novel.