American Stories

by Nagai Kafu

  My husband, seeing this, gave up and left me in bed as he went to work every morning. But in return, I never insisted, like other New York women, that I must go to the theater simply because it was a Saturday night, costing so much money.

  “Once you are home all day long, after getting up late in the morning, it is such a hassle to take the trouble to change and do other things in order to go to the theater; I would much prefer lying on a couch, reading some novel. So in the end my husband said it was nicer this way, as it didn’t cost money.”

  Even though a bit put out by this exceedingly open talk, Sawazaki kept throwing in words of agreement in order not to interrupt the conversation. The woman, a typically talkative Western lady, became bolder and said, “That’s not all; my husband would tell me . . . ‘you look your prettiest all mussed up than with neatly combed hair or properly dressed up.’ . . .” Laughing, she continued, “When I got mad at him for making fun of me, he would tell me earnestly that I was not like a typical American woman who was made for work. He said I was more like a Turkish or Persian beauty wearing a gauzy dress and daydreaming with a faraway look, listening to the water falling in a fountain in a large house.”

  She kept on like this, uttering one silly trifle after another, but presently stood up, asking, like an afterthought, “What time is it now?” Sawazaki did not want to detain her and said, “Maybe tomorrow. . . . Do come to the office. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  There they parted, but when the following day came, he waited in vain for the woman, who sent him a telegram saying that she really had to resign because of her illness.

  How impertinent . . . treating me like a fool because I am Japanese! As was the wont of the Japanese in America, Sawazaki became angry, reacting with a peculiarly patriotic defensiveness, but it was not something to fight about, and soon he hired an office boy of fifteen or sixteen to replace her. Yet as a week, and then ten days, passed, the event of that summer evening, when they had talked sitting together on a bench by the Hudson River, began feeling like fiction, something that could not have happened to a person like him. Especially when he put together the fact that she had personally complained to him about her lonely life after her husband’s death and had ended up telling him openly about how she would look right out of bed, things that a woman would normally consider private secrets, he could not help wondering if the woman had not been dropping hints in order to entice him. Realizing that perhaps he had missed a golden opportunity through his ignorance of it, he felt all the more regretful, and in no time he began feeling jittery as if his insides had been torn up. So one night he stole his way to the aforementioned Amsterdam Avenue, climbed up to the third floor of the familiar building, and knocked on a likely door.

  Someone stuck his face out, a big man who looked like a workman, around fifty, wearing only a vest without a coat; he had apparently been having his supper, for he was chewing something with his mouth closed, and bread crumbs were visible at the edge of his beard.

  “Does Mrs. Denning live here?”

  Hearing the question, the big man looked around toward the hallway and loudly called out the name of a woman, probably his wife.

  “Hey, here’s someone again looking for that broad. Say something to him, will ya?”

  This time a bleary-eyed old hag with a protruding chin appeared on the scene and peered at Sawazaki suspiciously, but finally said, “I’m sorry, but that woman is no longer at our place. Yesterday morning we evicted her. Are ya also some relative of hers?”

  He couldn’t understand why, but her tone was extremely spiteful. Sawazaki was perplexed but said, barely keeping his cool, “I am the manager of the company that hired her.”

  “Indeed.”

  “She kept saying she was sick and wouldn’t report to work, so I came to see what was going on. . . . What do you mean, you evicted her?”

  “Sir, I guess you were also taken in by her,” said the old hag, and abruptly changing her tone, started talking at great length without being asked.

  “Sir, she is the most brazen creature around. When she had a husband they lived just above here, on the fifth floor, but she was slovenly, looking like a rotten prostitute all day long; while the young married wives in the neighborhood all worked hard in stores or did side jobs at home, that woman alone was a lazy bum, not even cleaning her own place. Then, after her husband died from a sudden illness, just at the end of the year before last, she became quite helpless. Complaining that the rent for her room on the fifth floor was too high and that the room was too spacious for one person, she moved into our place, as we happened to have a vacant room. For the first half-year or so, she punctually paid at least her rent, maybe because she had some savings, but then she gradually became cunning and started asking for a postponement again and again; not only that, whenever she got a decent job, she would tire of it in two or three weeks and quit, so we were worried that we would never be able to collect the rent if matters continued this way. But we couldn’t just turn her out, as we had known her from the time she was married, and we didn’t know what to do.”

  “But then, it was two nights ago,” continued the workmanlike husband who had been standing by. “Two nights ago, she must finally have run out of money, for she brought in a man from somewhere and turned our house into a fine whorehouse. Actually, even before that, we had suspected something like it, but we didn’t say a word since we didn’t have any proof. But the night before yesterday, it was one, two o’clock past midnight, so it couldn’t have been just one of her friends, and I said, our place here, it may not look like much, but at least it is the home of a workman who earns money with his own hands and I refuse to house a whore. The following morning we drove her out, telling her we didn’t want the overdue rent . . . we just kept some of her valuable clothes and appliances as security.”

  “Do you know where she went?” sighed Sawazaki despite himself.

  “How do I know? Maybe when evening comes she’ll be hanging out in some bar around here.”

  With a heavy heart Sawazaki climbed down the stairs and went outside, but now that he had found out the woman’s story of depravity, he regretted even more that he had not gotten the hint the last time and missed a golden opportunity; he stomped his feet on the pavement and gritted his teeth.

  There is nothing in the world that has a more vexing and bitter aftertaste than a missed chance. As time went by, he would on occasion remember the woman, but he never had another opportunity to see her.

  In the meantime, three years passed since he came to America, and the moment of his return to Japan was now only a couple of weeks away.

  He was drinking Masamune-brand sake in a room at the club with a few Japanese with whom he used to play cards, and who perhaps wanted to give him a send-off party, getting drunk and engaging in endless talk, when a gentleman, an enthusiastic collector of nude photos despite the fact that he had daughters and grandchildren back home, showed off a few samples, saying they were true masterpieces he had obtained lately at a certain place.

  Sawazaki casually took a look at them and realized that, even though the poses were all indecent and she looked different, the face was that of the unforgettable Denning woman.

  Ah, so it meant that the woman didn’t care how she made money so long as it was done easily, and would occasionally even pose for a photographer. He trembled with the renewed sense of intense regret, but unfortunately he never saw her again before returning to his country.

  From this time on, whenever people would ask his opinion of the United States, Mr. Sawazaki would always conclude his remarks with the following pronouncement: “There is no country as morally corrupt as the United States. Because of the difficulties of earning a living, it can be said that there isn’t a single chaste woman; it is not a country fit for a gentleman to live in for a long period of time.”

  (April 1907)

  Ladies of the Night

  1

  Broadway at Forty-second Street: it is where people have fu
n every night till the small hours of the morning, in large and small theaters, hotels, restaurants, clubs, even in saloons, billiard halls, and cafés, all within reach of the New York Times building, which soars above them like a tower. Even for those who are tired of such ordinary pleasures, there are not a few places to go to indulge.

  There is a small theater called the New York that always displays many billboards of alluring dancers in leotards at its entrance and is known for having sellout crowds even during the hot summer season when most theaters close. When you turn its corner, you suddenly hit upon a quiet alley.

  This is the back street that connects Broadway to Sixth Avenue, where elevated trains are running, and you immediately notice the stage entrance to the Hudson Theater, which stands next to the New York, back to back. Diagonally across is the entrance to the not unattractive Lyceum, and a little distance away, there are two or three spiffy hotels where actresses and dancers bring their customers late at night and stay over, each having an entranceway with a glassed-in roof and a huge potted plant. Otherwise, apart from three or four modern, tall apartment houses like those you see uptown, both sides of the street contain only five-story rental buildings built in the style of sixty or seventy years ago; almost all their windows have small signs saying LADIES TALOR [sic], PALMIST FROM INDIA, MUSIC LESSONS, etc., together with advertisements for rooms for rent and an occasional red lantern of a Chinese restaurant.

  This alley is almost deserted during the day, but from dusk onward, women begin to appear, walking back and forth, showing off their high-heeled shoes beneath the hems of their long lace skirts and suggestively swinging their hips like waterfowl; past midnight, the area is filled from one end to the other with small carriages occupied by couples.

  Every young member of one club or another knows that amid this row of rental buildings there is a place for fun.

  To be sure, the city police of New York are said to be strict, so there is nothing at the entrance to draw attention; however, some know by word of mouth where it is by the street number on the door, and those who don’t can be taken there, even if against their will, by drivers of stagecoaches in the main street, in anticipation of a generous tip.

  It is, after all, an old rental building, so its outward appearance is dilapidated, but once you enter, the first room you find is a large guest lounge consisting of three rooms, each divided by velvet curtains; both the floor covering and the walls are dark lobster-red, and the ceiling is a slightly lighter shade with a gold-colored arabesque pattern. The chairs and sofas are of the same heavy lobster-red velvet upholstery; over them hangs a large gold-colored floral lamp, with the result that all together it looks somewhat solemn, like a scene from a provincial theatrical performance suggesting the palace of a certain duke.

  Covering the entire surface of the wall of the front lounge is a huge painting of many women, stark naked, embracing each other as they are about to fall prey to wild animals in a scene depicting the persecution of Christians in the Roman era; in the next room, there is also a huge painting in which four or five naked nymphs, almost life-size, bathe in a stream under some trees, frolicking with a swan. And at each corner of the rooms, artificial palm trees are planted in pots and spread their green leaves like real trees.

  The Madam of this establishment is a Mrs. Stanton. Nobody knows where she came from, but it is rumored that from early on, while she was working as a maid at a whorehouse, she learned the tricks of the trade even without realizing it; she then became the so-called housekeeper for the whole household. She saved a small fortune through working at one whorehouse after another in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston, then came to New York and started the present establishment single-handedly, where she has been engaged in this business for over thirty years.

  She is very fat, and her waist, for example, looks almost as enormous as a marble column in a hotel lounge. She has a square face with a large mouth and small eyes, and her hair is completely white, but she always powders her face and sometimes even pencils her straight eyebrows.

  She boasts that, while she has liked men since her youthful days, she hasn’t spent any money on them, her hobby being to collect jewelry. Indeed, she has rings on all five fingers, and while talking with others, she has the habit of placing her hand squarely on her lap and polishing the jewels incessantly with her handkerchief. Besides the rings, what Madam cherishes as much as her life is a pair of diamond earrings, said to be worth two thousand dollars; but it draws too much attention to dangle them from her earlobes every day. Once, on her way back from a dance, she was followed by a hold-up man on three separate occasions so that, frightened out of her wits, she has since kept them at the bottom of a double-locked trunk. There is not a single woman in the household who doesn’t know this famous story.

  The room facing the street on the second floor serves as Madam’s living room as well as bedroom; from its ceiling hang a Japanese- made parasol and a round red lantern, and near the doorway there is a double screen with a golden pheasant embroidered on black fabric, which also is apparently made in Japan; all these shades of Oriental colors create an amazing incongruity against the old-fashioned agalmatolite mantelpiece and the large brass bed.

  At the center of the room, there is a small table on which the Journal and an illustrated newspaper called the New York Press are always on display, as well as a magnificent parrot cage. The parrot inside has resided in this house for ten years already and has learned every vulgar word that is used only in this society; from morning till night, it pecks at the perch and screeches shrilly, while in the armchair near the cage, Tom, the pet dog as small as a mouse, wiggles his ears and waits for someone to come and hold him.

  Every afternoon after one o’clock, Madam finally wakes up; first she picks Tom up and kisses him, then she scolds the screaming parrot, has her breakfast that is brought in by the Negro maid, reads the papers, and spends the rest of the day caring for the plants near the windows, waiting for the arrival of six o’clock in the evening. That is finally the beginning of the day for this household. As soon as the maid gives a signal by sounding the gong, Madam slowly and deliberately goes down to the dining room in the basement, holding Tom; she sits down with an air of importance at the head of the table and is joined by women who noisily emerge from their rooms on the second, third, and fourth floors where they have been sleeping and come downstairs, wearing sandals and loose gowns, looking as if wondering what time it is; they, five in all, then take their seats.

  To the right of Madam are, first, Iris, then Blanche, and then Louise; to her left are Hazel and Josephine.

  Each of the five has her own history and personality.

  The first one, Iris, is of Irish descent and is said to have been born in Kentucky. Perhaps around twenty-three or -four years of age, she has a round face with a short chin that is typical of her race; her blue eyes are small, and her hair is shiny blond. Her sloping shoulders suggest something frail about her, but her beautiful shape from her waist to her legs is a matter of pride, and she produces as evidence the fact that she has twice been an artist’s model. According to her, her family is quite well-to-do in the country, and she attended a Catholic school till she was sixteen or seventeen; sometimes, when least expected, she is heard humming a hymn, as if she is remembering something. By and large she seems to be of a subdued personality; she neither becomes particularly boisterous while drinking with a man nor looks too depressed even when stricken by sickness or anything else.

  In contrast, Blanche, who sits next to her, has neither parents nor siblings and is a naturally loose woman, having been brought up in the gutters of New York in the company of dogs. She is said to be already thirty, but she is quite small, so that once she applies heavy make-up to her emaciated, sallow complexion and wears a red ribbon filled with false hair around her forelock, she transforms herself into a young girl of sixteen or seventeen and can easily fool a man in darkness. She is a boozer and, what is more, light-fingered, having, it is said, once pin
ched a customer’s money and been sent to jail on “the Island”; they say that she even has two Negro lovers, one a vaudevillian and the other a hansom carriage driver. Thus she is disliked by her coworkers all the more because of their feelings as white people.

  Now, the third one, Louise, is a plump Parisienne with dark hair and eyes; although she is said to be well along in years, she always looks young, perhaps thanks to her indigenous skill in make-up. Two years ago she came to the United States with her lover, having heard that this was a country of money; she is willing to do anything for money, even become a plaything of men, but on the other hand, she apparently does not spend her own money, not even on a bottle of wine, which explains why her companions don’t speak well of her either.

  As for Hazel at the left, she is a sturdy, big woman from British Canada; from her bosom, which looks as if it held a couple of balls, to her stout upper arms and shoulders, she gives the impression of extreme fleshiness so that when you approach her, it is as though you can feel the smell of her skin and the heat inside her body. Her round face is disproportionately small for her body, her mouth is slack, and her eyes are dull, as if she might once have been engaged in milking cows in some pasture, so that all the girls look down on her as a good-natured dupe; but once she gets drunk with whisky, they become fearful of her strong arms and try to humor her, half teasingly.