I looked carefully at the stone. It sparkled, and through the clear body of the diamond you could see a tiny black hole, a flaw. It was an inheritance from Grandpa Nishimura.
My mother said he was dapper and flashy as a young man in Honolulu. Short by modern standards, at less than five feet, he still had a formidable impact on everyone around him. He was considered ferocious.
I could never really understand it. I spent a summer at Grandpa and Grandma’s house going to Japanese school, and etched into my memory was an image of a warrior in thoughtful repose over a Go board. Adorned, of course, by a samurai sword at his side . . .
His short gray hair stood straight up on his head and his dark brown Japanese eyes set off his thin beard and mustache, also gray. He sat bolt upright, no arched back, and you could see his thoughtful, measured approach on the field of battle. I lost for awhile, then won a few, then we drew all the rest, except for those times that I thought it was prudent to lose. Everyone likes to win sometimes, even grandpas.
I have often wondered where this particular behavior of mine, which has manifested itself for most of my life, came from. Maybe it was here on Mahana Street in Palolo Valley.
In either case, the stories of Grandpa’s ferocity regaled my youth. No black and white here, only black. The quintessential story was one day after work, he came home and started drinking. The girls, recognizing the impending detonation, went to the kitchen and hid all the knives. When he finally exploded, everyone ran. He then took his samurai sword and cut off a corner of the house and, in the process, destroyed his sword.
The end of the story, that only Grandma used to tell, was that he got up the next morning, as always, and went to work.
Maybe he was a ferocious monster. Or, maybe he was just the diamond that I inherited.