"Gasa-Gasa Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hirahara Naomi)

BEFORE

Gasa-gasa. That’s what Chizuko called her. Their gasa-gasa baby, constantly restless, constantly moving. Once, when Mas Arai returned from his gardening route to their home in Altadena, California, he found her in the living room chewing on the leather case for his favorite pair of pruning shears. Five minutes later she had gotten into his bowls of Japanese go playing pieces, a spray of black and white stones all over their linoleum kitchen floor. And five minutes after that, she had moved into the hall closet and pulled down all of Mas’s long-sleeved khaki work shirts.

“She movin’ all the time,” said Chizuko. “Can’t watch her every minute; I have enough to do around the house.”

Mas didn’t dare criticize Chizuko’s mothering skills, because what could she say about him as a father? It was one thing when they were at home, when the walls of their McNally Street house could contain her. But out in the larger world, Mas and Chizuko had to keep their eye on their daughter at all times. If they didn’t, Mari would have for sure stumbled into a dry ravine in Elysian Park during a gardeners’ association picnic, or run away with a band of ravenous deer at the old Japanese Deer Park, in Orange County. Mari always seemed to be on the move, yet she still somehow escaped falling off the edge. Where, Mas often wondered, would the gasa-gasa girl end up next?