The Unquiet Heart

by Juliet McCarthy

  “What are you doing here?” She finally managed. Libby hoped she sounded suitably offended by his presence but she had a sinking feeling her words were a little slurred.

  “I must talk to you.”

  “I don’t think we have anything to say to one another, Major Yoshida,” Libby said dismissively.

  Kojiro glanced uneasily at her companions, who were watching him with unabashed interest. So this was the Japanese pilot Libby was involved with.

  “Oh, but we do. I, I must explain … .” He stammered.

  “Explain what? Are you mad?” Libby turned abruptly away and, in doing so, stumbled on the pilot’s outstretched legs. Kojiro instinctively grabbed her arm to prevent her from falling. She tried to shrug his hand loose but he kept it anchored just above the elbow.

  “Let me go,” she hissed under her breath.

  “Not until we talk.”

  “Here? Now?” Libby waved the bottle of beer up in the air, spilling half the contents on the blanket. “What about, Kojiro? Your new bride?” Libby glanced over his shoulder as if she half-expected Motoko to make an appearance. “Where is she? Have you tired of the, the … marriage bed so soon, you’ve decided to seek amusement elsewhere?” Libby smiled maliciously at his grim expression. “If you think I’ve been pining away for you, you’re mistaken. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  He wrenched the bottle out of her hand and tossed it on the grass. “I’d prefer more privacy, but if you insist, I shall say what I have to say right here, in front of your friends. I am not married. I broke my engagement to Motoko the week before the wedding.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she exclaimed with a laugh.

  Kojiro had never seen Libby intoxicated but it was obvious from her exaggerated mannerisms and slurred speech that she had indulged in more than the one beer. And just when he wanted to be taken seriously. But maybe it was just as well. If she were completely sober, she might have refused to speak to him at all.

  “Darlene!” Libby waved her free hand at her friend, indicating she should join them. “I don’t think you’ve ever met my, my … . Major Yo-shi-da. Ko-ji-ro, to his close friends.”

  “How do you do?” Darlene said. She didn’t look particularly friendly but at least she didn’t tell him to get lost.

  Kojiro bowed. “Your portrait was in the window of the photography shop.”

  Before Darlene had time to answer, Libby intervened. “Did you see my photograph, Kojiro? Did you like it?”

  “It was lovely. I, I tried to buy it,” he admitted sheepishly. “But the photographer refused to part with it.”

  “Oh, well in that case, you can have one for free — as a souvenir to show all your friends the American blonde you liked to screw. Which would you prefer, a wallet size or one for your desk?”

  “Libby, perhaps this isn’t a good time to talk to Major Yoshida.” Darlene put her hand on Libby’s arm and attempted to steer her away from Kojiro, but he would not relinquish his grasp and Libby seemed oblivious of the ensuing tug-of-war over her person. For someone who had just declared she had nothing to say to the major, she was doing a very poor job of keeping quiet.

  “Darlene and I had our pictures taken for a lark, didn’t we?” Libby giggled. “As you know, Kojiro, I don’t have the right dimensions to wear a kimono properly. The woman who dressed me was quite exasperated with the size of my bosom. She kept shaking her head and muttering under her breath.”

  “Libby, please. I have to talk to you. Alone,” he added for emphasis.

  Libby disposed of the skewer of half-eaten chicken and wiped her greasy hands on her jeans.

  What did Kojiro want to talk about? What was he doing in Hirosaki at the Cherry Blossom Festival anyway? How did he even know she was here? Or was it a chance encounter? No. No. No. Kojiro never left anything to chance. But he could hardly have followed her. She had come on the train from Misawa and spent the entire day with friends.

  The effects of the alcohol were muddying her thinking processes and interfering with her balance. If it hadn’t been for Kojiro’s firm grip on her arm, Libby felt as if she was in danger of toppling over.

  Oh, what had possessed her to drink all that beer? One was all she could tolerate gracefully. Two made her dizzy. Three, a little silly. Four, maudlin. At the moment, she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Kojiro entreating her to talk to him. He looked as miserable as she felt. His black hair was slicked back off his forehead, his thin cotton jacket was soaked through from the rain. The cuffs on his trousers spattered with mud.

  “Why didn’t you get married?” She asked suddenly.

  At the mention of his marriage, Kojiro flushed in embarrassment and bowed his head. “That is one of the things I want to talk to you about,” he muttered.

  “Oh?”

  “Libby, please,” he pleaded persuasively.

  Libby glanced at her companions, who had started packing up their gear for the trip home, and at Darlene’s worried expression, and at Kojiro.

  “Coming, Libby?” Darlene asked, but she knew Libby had already made up her mind to go with the major; she could tell by the way they were looking at one another — as if they were the only two people in Hirosaki Park. Kojiro’s hand had relaxed on Libby’s arm and, without even seeming to, she had moved closer, so that she was actually leaning against him for support.

  “I will see she does not come to any harm,” Kojiro said to reassure Darlene.

  “I bet,” she replied as she watched them disappear into the crowd.

  They stopped on the bridge to look up at the castle. Kojiro put his arm tentatively around Libby’s waist but she moved away, just out of reach. The three-storied donjon, with its tiers of tiled roofs, soared on a massive stone foundation over the park. At night, it was illuminated by floodlights. But the downpour had obscured the view, so all they could see was a chaste outline of the building superimposed by sheets of slanting rain.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Libby said. “Why didn’t you get married?”

  Kojiro stared down at the water, as if the answer lay in the dark, turgid depths of the moat. “I intended to,” he said slowly. “I believed I had no choice. If it was not for your accident, I would be married now.”

  “I don’t understand,” she interrupted. How could the accident have had anything to do with Kojiro’s marriage?

  “It was only after I almost lost you, I, I realized I could not marry Motoko. It would have dishonored the love I feel for you.”

  “But … .”

  Kojiro reached over and put his finger to her lips. Libby flinched and pulled away. She was in danger of falling in love with him all over again, of having her reason and commonsense overruled by her treacherous heart. Despite the cold rain, when he touched her she could feel the delicious warmth, stealing like a thief, through her body, robbing her of her resolution and will.

  “I went to the hospital,” he continued. “I had to make sure you were all right. I believed I could still go through with the marriage. People in Japan do not get married with the same expectations as Westerners. Motoko and I, we would have … . How do you say it in English? Managed? To go through life together and raise a family … . But it did not turn out the way I expected.

  “They would not let me see you. I told them General Sato had sent me, but it did not do any good. The American nurses could not be bullied by a Japanese officer.”

  Libby smiled in spite of herself, at the image of the lordly Kojiro trying to pull rank on the hospital staff. Americans did not take too kindly to people who flaunted their rank or tried to enlarge on their association with their superior officers. “Then how were you able … ?”

  “The flowers. I pretended I was delivering them to your room.”

  “And no one tried to stop you?” She asked, surp
rised that Kojiro had been able to waltz right into the hospital and find her room. “You don’t exactly look like a delivery boy.”

  Kojiro smiled. “I wandered around the halls, opening every door. I finally had to ask someone where to find you. Even then … . I, I did not intend to go in, Libby. I knew you would not want to see me. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Just one look, leave the flowers, and go. The wedding was a week away … .”

  Kojiro edged a little closer. Libby’s hands gripped the railing on the bridge but at least she didn’t move out of reach. “Motoko bought a gown from Paris to wear at the reception. We had tickets to Australia for the honeymoon.”

  “But you came in. I saw you,” Libby murmured. “You said my name.”

  “Hai,” Kojiro answered, his voice thick with emotion.

  “The next morning I went to Kyoto and broke the engagement. Everyone was shocked. Angry. My parents are not speaking to me. I am not sure they will ever forgive me, they are so ashamed.”

  “What about … Motoko?” Libby asked. What he had done to Motoko was as reprehensible as what he had done to her, canceling the wedding a week before the ceremony. The young woman must have been devastated.

  Kojiro was reluctant to discuss his fiancée. Not enough time had elapsed to mitigate his embarrassment. “She will be all right. She was, she was angry. But her parents will find a new husband.” He hesitated, “one who will be more worthy than I am. She could not face her friends, after what happened. Her parents sent her to Hawaii for a holiday.”

  “You told everyone but me,” Libby said accusingly.

  “I did not feel worthy of your love. I did not think you could ever forgive me. And I thought, you and Charlie McKay … . It was always in my mind, that you belonged to him.”

  Libby sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you, Kojiro? Charlie and I were just friends. Friends. I love him like a brother. Not like I … .” She was about to say: ‘love you.’ But she couldn’t trust herself to say it without crying. And she was determined not to make a spectacle out of herself in the middle of Hirosaki Park or to let on that she still felt any affection for him.

  Libby had her pride. He hadn’t been able to take that away from her.

  Kojiro covered her hand with his, lacing his fingers between hers. “I did not tell you because I did not believe it was possible for the two of us to have a future together. We come from such different backgrounds … .”

  Libby turned and looked at him, trying to fathom what he was trying to say. It was hard concentrating with so many people milling around, bustling back and forth over the bridge, laughing and talking. “And you think it is possible now?”

  “I do not know, Libby,” Kojiro said slowly. “But I am willing to try.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “If you are. Because I cannot imagine my life without you.”

  Libby didn’t know what to say. Her head was spinning from the alcohol and she was finding it increasingly difficult trying to maintain her composure and keep a safe distance between them when all she really wanted to do was take refuge in his arms. But she was not about to let down her guard. The wounds he had inflicted were too raw, too sensitive to be forgotten so easily.

  “If you never want to see me again, I will understand.” Apparently Kojiro took her reticence for rejection. “You have every reason to despise me.”

  “I don’t despise you, Kojiro. I … I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I tried,” she admitted. “I even thought I had succeeded. But I guess I wasn’t very good at it.”

  “Then you will consider what I said?” Kojiro sounded more optimistic than he looked. There were shadows under his eyes, accentuating their distinctive shape and dark color, a sallow, jaundiced tinge to his complexion.

  The crowd was beginning to thin out. They could hear singing in the distance and the heavy raindrops striking the water in the moat below. Libby gazed up at the towering wall of the castle.

  “I’m not sure I know just what you want me to consider,” she said at last. “We can’t go back and take up where we left off, if … if that’s what you had in mind. It wouldn’t be the same, for either one of us. We’re different people now, Kojiro, than we were a few months ago.”

  Kojiro cleared his throat. “That is not what I had in mind,” he said in his most officious voice. “I was … I was … .” There was something to be said after all, for the assistance of a go-between, Kojiro thought wistfully, as he racked his brain for the English words that would convey his worthy sentiments in the time-honored and appropriate fashion. He cleared his throat again.

  “I am asking you to consider, to be … to consider becoming my wife!”

  “Wife?” Overcome by shock, and the insidious effect of the alcohol, Libby burst out laughing. “Wife?” She repeated.

  Kojiro was not unsympathetic — he knew he should have waited for a more propitious moment, as well as more felicitous surroundings, to declare his intentions. Libby, shivering from the cold rain and swaying unsteadily, was clearly in no condition to make such a serious decision, but her reaction was a stinging blow to his male pride. He had hoped she would appreciate the courage it took for him to break his engagement, realize the risks he was taking for her. But she appeared indifferent to his suffering or worse, amused.

  The stricken look on Kojiro’s face was a sobering reminder of how much Libby had lost and she had to steel herself against the temptation to answer in the affirmative. If nothing else, all that she had been through the last few months had honed her instincts for self-preservation.

  “There was a time when I would have given anything to hear you propose marriage,” Libby said slowly. She was struggling to find the right words to try to make him understand, but her authority and assurance were being undermined by her physical distress. When she spoke, her words sounded tentative, fuzzy. “I’m not sure I ever really believed you wanted to marry me. Everyone from my commander to my sensei warned me that I would end up getting hurt. I guess I expected it would eventually end, but not … . Oh, there’s no point in talking about it, Kojiro. I won’t marry you.”

  “But Libby … .”

  “I’ve changed. Discovered all kinds of things about myself the last few months. I had my trial by fire and came through unscathed; and not just because of luck. I am a first-rate officer, Kojiro, an excellent fighter pilot. It shouldn’t have taken an accident for me to find that out, but I didn’t really believe it until I was tested. Any more than I believed I would ever fall in love or want to get married and, and have children. You made me believe it was possible. You made me want those things, every time we made love.”

  “Then why … ?” Kojiro tightened his grip on her hand, but she wrenched it away suddenly and moved out of reach. Insulted by the afternoon’s indulgence — the greasy chicken, alcohol, grilled squid — her stomach roiled and she thought she was going to be sick.

  The weather had defeated all but the most intrepid revelers. Rain had destroyed the fragile cherry blossoms. The lanterns glowed eerily on denuded branches, like thousands of colored spangles scattered among the trees. The paths through the park were deserted. The vendors had packed up and gone home.

  “I had a miscarriage,” Libby said.

  Her voice was so quiet, Kojiro had to ask her to repeat what she had just said.

  “A miscarriage.” It sounded like an accusation of some sort but Kojiro wasn’t familiar with the English word.

  “I don’t understand, a miscarriage? What do you mean?”

  “It means I was pregnant. I assume you know what that means?”

  Kojiro nodded. “But you are not, anymore? Pregnant? You did not do anything … ?”

  Libby shook her head. “The accident. The flight surgeon said the accident was probably to blame.”

  “You should have told me,” he said.

  �
�Would you have cared?”

  “Of course.” Kojiro’s response was automatic. He was too stunned by the revelation to analyze his feelings. He loved Libby. He wanted to marry her. But if he were honest, he had never thought of her as a mother of his children. And yet, she had just admitted that she had been carrying his child, his son perhaps, the long-awaited male who would carry on the family name, conceived that night at the hot springs when they had come together in such harmony.

  Kojiro bowed his head in shame. “I am sorry, Libby, for what you suffered alone. I am sorry that I was not there when you needed me. I am sorry you lost … our child.” He hesitated before continuing, afraid she would misunderstand his morbid interest in the details of what must have been, for her, a humiliating and distressful episode. “Was it … .do you know, was the child a girl or a boy?”

  “I don’t know. The miscarriage happened in conjunction with the accident. Ben, Major Segal, took care of everything. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask him. I didn’t want to know.”

  “Not knowing is for the best. You are right,” Kojiro reluctantly conceded, but he didn’t sound as if he believed it.

  His instinct was to go to Libby and console her but he wasn’t certain she would welcome his sympathy or even if she regretted losing the baby. Her words were spoken without feeling and her body language, which Kojiro had prided himself on being able to interpret, was inscrutable.

  In his excitement at seeing her again, he had not taken the time to look at Libby closely. He had been too preoccupied trying to articulate, in a foreign language, his own position to notice the subtle changes in her appearance. Libby was still an imposing figure, even in the gimcrack rain cape she had devised from a plastic bag. She carried herself with the same poise and confidence. But she was much thinner. Her seductive curves pared down to sinew and bone. She looked older too, wary. The girlish softness in her cheeks, the smooth, unlined brow furrowed with suspicion and regret.