“Michael.”
I looked back into the room. At the door of the balcony Sabby stood motionless. She had put on a Japanese kimono richly coloured and embroidered, with a deep blue sash and folds of drapery beneath the sleeve. She had combed her hair, and it was very black and soft about her face.
“You would like to see funny Japanese writing-brush and ink?” she said.
I did not say anything: I wanted to fix that moment in my memory, because I knew it was one of the beautiful moments of my life; and yet it did not seem to have any more reality than the faces dancing in the flames in the street below, and I had to tell myself: this is real, this is true, neither time nor misery can ever take this moment from you.
“Well?” Sabby said, so softly that I hardly heard it.
“Don’t move,” I said, and her eyelids gave a little questioning flutter. She did not say any more. For perhaps a few seconds we stood there; then all of a sudden she was in my arms, her head on my breast, her tiny bird-hands clinging to my shoulders and my own hands supporting her trembling body.
“Sabby, Sabby darling.”
“Oh, Michael, Michael!”
I stooped and lifted her up; and she was as light as air, and I could not see her face because it was buried in my shoulder. I laid her on the bed, and she lay still, with her eyes closed, as though she were sleeping; until I covered her eyelids with kisses and felt the lashes brush my lips, and her long, slender fingers run through my hair.
(3)
“Oh, darling,” she said. “Do you think I am so bad and selfish? Do you think you will hate me because I have been bad? Was it wicked to love you? I wanted you so much, so terribly much.”
“Perhaps not so much as I wanted you,” I said.
“You did not only come because I wanted you? You are kind and sweet, and perhaps it was because I was sad and sabishii that you are good to me. Oh, darling, can you like me, can you like me a tiny bit?”
“Sweet darling Sabby,” I said.
“Please say honestry, can you like me?”
“Honestry.”
“You are a tease. I don’t like you to tease.” She pretended to whimper.
“Of course you are bad and selfish,” I said.
“Really?”
“No, not really.”
“You really think it is so?” she said.
“I don’t, Sabby.”
“Yes, you think it.”
“I shall bite you.”
“I don’t mind.”
I took her nose between my teeth. It was a funny little nose, broad at the bottom and soft. I worried it gently. She cried out, and I released it and bit her ear that was like a pretty white shell.
“Bully.”
I ran my lips over her face and into her hair. There was a soft womanly odour. I took a curl in my teeth and pulled.
“Michael!”
I let go; my mouth returned, exploring over her forehead, down the brief ridge of her nose, across the mouth, round the chin. I buried it in her neck.
“Why don’t you say something, Michael?”
“I’m too happy.”
“Oh, Michael,” she said, and squeezed her fragile body against mine.
“I’ve never been so happy before.”
“There is no need to say comforting things,” she said. “I just want to know that you don’t really hate me.”
“I’ve never been so happy,” I said.
“I won’t be a nuisance to you, I promise that.”
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t you believe me, darling? I swear I’ve never been so happy. Nothing has ever meant so much to me as this.”
“It would be nice if that were true.”
“It is true.”
“Then will you please promise me something?” she said.
“What is it?”
“Promise me.”
“When I know what it is.”
“You are horrid. I want you to promise. It is necessary to promise in advance.”
“All right,” I said.
“When you are tired of me, you will not pretend?”
“Pretend what?”
“Anything that is not truly what you feel.”
“I will promise that,” I said. “On my honour. So long as you promise too.”
“There’s no need for me.”
“What if I pester you until you’re sick to death?” I said.
“Please pester, darling.”
“You’ll get so tired of me.”
“I’m afraid I shan’t be able.”
“Why afraid?”
“Because you will get tired of me first, and I shall still want you terribly like I want you now. I shall get hurt.”
“I shall never hurt you, darling,” I said. “Never. Please don’t think I shall hurt you. You’re too beautiful to be hurt.”
Chapter Two
(1)
There was a letter waiting for me at my hotel. It was from Mr. Headley, the missionary. Come to supper, he said.
I rang him up, forgetting that it was only eight o’clock in the morning. But it didn’t matter. He was already up and full of insulin, and he would not accept my excuses. If I was meeting someone else, bring along the someone else by all means. Take pot-luck.
“It’s my instructor,” I explained. “She is Japanese.”
“She is a human being, isn’t she?” the instrument vibrated.
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, that’s that. Eight o’clock. ’Bye.”
I went upstairs. Peter was still asleep, and there was a cup of cold undrunk tea by his bed. His moustache hung dolefully like Bahadur’s. I woke him, and he turned over and automatically pushed it up at the ends. It made all the difference to his face, which way the ends pointed.
“Well,” he said. “Did you enjoy the pictures with Rosie?”
“It was a fine film.”
“It must have been,” he said. “You look as though the spell’s still on you.”
I pulled back the covering from my bed and ruffled the sheets. Then I realised it was no use doing that because early-morning tea had been brought when I was absent. Oh well, who was Rosie to care!
“Are pavements hard to sleep on?” Peter asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
“You get used to them.”
I washed and shaved, and when I returned to the bedroom Bahadur had arrived and laid out a clean set of clothes. He pretended not to watch me dressing, but he kept glancing from the corner of his eye to make sure that I didn’t sneak into yesterday’s pants; he looked upon it as a kind of game in which I was bent upon cheating him. He also never quite rid himself of the hurt expression that arose from my not allowing him to dress me; though as a concession I permitted him to tie my shoelaces. If it had not been for this, he might long since have left me for a sahib who was unequivocally pukka.
“You have shopping today?” he inquired.
“I’m going to do it myself, Bahadur,” I said. “I’m excused duty for a week.”
“But in the shops it is tiring.”
“It will do me good.”
“Bahadur can assist?”
“Not today,” I said. “You can go away and enjoy yourself.”
I went down to breakfast in good spirits. The time I had got up seemed hours ago, and I kept looking at my watch. It was a quarter to nine. Then it was nine o’clock. Then after another age it was a quarter past. I was surprised at my own excitement. I went into the lounge and tried to read the newspaper, but I found myself skimming over the lines without taking anything in. At a quarter to ten I went out and walked slowly through the bazaars, and at half-past I was outside the Army and Navy Stores.
So was Sabby. She was exactly on time. She jumped out of the ghari and came skipping across th
e pavement; and then she remembered about paying the driver and rushed back to push a couple of notes into his hand.
“You are too skittish,” I said. “It’s not decent.”
“Why?” she said. Her eyes were enormously round and innocent.
“You’ll give the show away to everyone.”
“You regret about last night? Do you regret?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then I don’t mind if everyone knows. Everyone.” She skipped gaily up and down.
“It’s more than your job’s worth.”
“I shall tell Brigadier this afternoon.”
“All right,” I said.
“Would you mind if I did?”
“I should mind if you got the sack.”
“Then I won’t tell Brigadier.”
“You can’t help telling him unless you look a little more sabishii.”
“Very well, I am sabishii to please you.” She put on a sad expression and puckered her nose with a sniff; but her eyes did not look sad.
“Come,” I said. “What do you want to buy?”
“Everything.”
“You must stop being frivolous.”
“I feel frivorous.”
“Frivorous?”
“Oh, you are unkind,” she said with a quaint little whimper. “Fri-vol-ous. Fri-vol-ous.”
“You can do it if you try.”
“You can speak Japanese if you try. You must speak it always and then you will be cleverer than all the others and I shall be very proud of you.”
“Well, what are you going to buy?” I said in simple Japanese.
“That.”
We were in the pharmaceutical department. She pointed to a big jar of green liquid.
“It is a beautiful colour. Please, how much that?”
“Fifteen rupees,” the girl assistant said.
“I will take.” She put her hand in her bag and brought out the notes. They were the equivalent of more than a guinea. “Isn’t it beautiful!” she said. “Please, what is it?”
“Pine extract. It is for baths. Very soothing.”
“You are crazy,” I said. “Buying stuff when you don’t know what it’s for.”
“It is certain to be useful. It is such nice colour, like English lawn.”
I carried the bottle for her; it was the size of a large pickle jar and as heavy. We wandered into the food department.
“It is like Fortnum & Mason’s,” Sabby said. “Don’t you wish it was Fortnum & Mason’s? Then I could buy you a delicious chocolate trifle and we could eat it at home. We could have little private meal.”
“That reminds me. I’ve got an invitation for tonight.”
“Yes?” she said, trying not to appear crestfallen. “Of course you must go.”
“It’s for us both.”
“For me, too? Oh, please may we go? It would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
“You don’t know who it’s from.”
“That doesn’t matter if we may both go together. But I don’t want to be a burden; please tell me when I am nuisance, and I shall go and jump into deep water.”
“I’ve already promised. Look, here’s the café—what about some iced coffee?”
“Oh yes, let us have some iced coffee.”
We sat for a time drinking the liquid through straws. At other tables people stole glances at Sabby, and when they caught my eye, looked away quickly as though I had surprised them in some shameful act. I wondered whether they were looking at her because she was pretty or because she was Japanese; though of course it was Chinese that they thought her to be, and sometimes I could hear the word ‘Chinese’ on somebody’s whispering lips. Sabby did not mind; she did not notice; and I was delighted by her lack of self-consciousness and her gay nonchalance, and I could have swept her into my arms and covered her eyes with kisses. I felt younger myself, gayer, and proud as a youth who steps down Piccadilly with the first girl he has kissed.
After we had drunk our coffee, I bought a new pair of shoes, and a pair of flannels and a sports shirt. I did not need them, and since it was close to the end of the month I had only a little money left. But I had caught the carefree spirit. I bought Sabby a silk handkerchief for her head, and ordered some flowers to be sent to her room. Sabby bought me a new watch strap that was made of silver. I protested. It was no use, I said, it wouldn’t fit. I would take it back. But I couldn’t make her listen. Finally I told her it was a lovely gift that I should always, always treasure; and that was the truth.
We left the store. Inconspicuously in the street we squeezed hands. It was perfectly true: I had never been happier. I was laughing nearly all the time—and when I was not laughing I was smiling. I felt silly to be so happy, because I knew that Sabby had been right and happiness like that does not last. What was going to happen? I wondered. And then as though Sabby’s thoughts had been following mine she asked suddenly:
“Michael, what is fool’s paradise?”
“Why?”
“I have heard the expression, that’s all.’’
I tried to explain.
I said: “If you sit in a room with a bottle of gin in one hand and a lovely girl on your knee, and think yourself happy—and all the time there is a time-bomb in the cupboard—that is a fool’s paradise.”
“Do you think there is a time-bomb in our cupboard?”
“I can’t hear it ticking,” I said. “Can you?”
“I don’t know, Michael. I don’t know if I am deaf. Don’t you think sometimes one is deaf purposely?”
We had reached the Eastern Empire Bank.
“I am going to cash a cheque,” Sabby said. “Please come with me. Perhaps if you stand at my side the manager will not see.”
“Won’t see what?”
“I don’t want him to see me.”
“Have you got an overdraft or something?”
“Oh no,” she said, “I have got plenty of money.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Afterwards I will explain. It is nothing.”
We entered the vast building where hundreds of bespectacled babus pored over ledgers. Sabby went to a counter and wrote a cheque, and a flabby-jowled Indian beamed at her between the bars of the grille.
“You would like to see Mr. Scaife?”
“Not just now—I must hurry.”
“He is just in his office.”
“No, thank you, really . . .”
Outside I said, “Tell me about Mr. Scaife.”
“I am really in his care.”
“How do you mean?”
“You see, he is a great friend of my guardian. I haven’t told you about my guardian. There is so much to tell, I can’t think where to begin.”
“At the beginning,” I said. “Tell me why you were in England.”
“You see, my father went to Europe on business, and my mother and I went too. They were angry with me because I would not marry the man they had chosen for me. At least, my father was angry, and my mother was very sorry. They thought after I had been away I would change my mind. Then I was obstinate and didn’t want to go back. English people were so kind to me that I was happier in England than I had ever been in Japan. My father said, you have got to come—you are a scatter brain and cannot look after yourself, and I am not going to give you any money. So to show him that it was not true I got job.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Oh, darling,” she said, “do you really want to hear all about it?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Well, it was because I was too cheeky. I did not mean to cheek, but afterwards my mother told me it was naughty of me, and I had to apologise. You see, in Japan it is a very great art to arrange flowers, and it is taught to girls so that they may make their homes
beautiful and have successful tea ceremonies. We are taught to try to understand flowers and be sympathetic about their natures. I was taught every week from when I was ten to when I was nineteen by a very clever master. Well, in Regent Street there is a flower shop, and when I saw the flowers in the window I remembered all that I had been told, and it made my heart cry. I remembered a beautiful poem I had once heard in English:
‘Poor foolish blossom,
How thou shinest for him who
Dishevels thee, and withers thee.’
“So I went in and said, ‘Please let me arrange.’ The manager did not understand, so I took the flowers from a bowl and broke the stalks in the way that made them most lovely, and took some away because there were too many. He said, that is certainly very nice, and he called one of his assistants to see. But then afterwards I told my mother, and she said you must return and say you are sorry, because otherwise they will say rude things of the Japanese for interfering. When I went back the manager was not at all angry; he said he had been thinking it over and would like to have a special window display of Japanese flower arrangement. He said, would I please stay and work for him. Of course I wasn’t going to do it—not until my father said that I could not look after myself, and then I did it just to prove. That is why I stayed in England.”
“With your guardian?”
“Yes, because he is a very good, kind man, and he and his wife promised my mother they would look after me.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He is called Wilbraham Durweston.”
“That is Lord Durweston, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, that is who it is. Before there was a war he was a friend of my father in business, and that is why we stayed with him. Then when it looked as though there must be a war, he tried to make me go home. That made me unhappy. At last he said he would look after me, and when the war came he made promises for me, and I was allowed to stay in his house.”
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