Please Enjoy Your Happiness

by Paul Brinkley-Rogers

  Somehow the unlikely subject of Alfa Romeos came up.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the serene Maejima-san said. ‘The Alfa Romeo. My favourite car.’ She paused. ‘Do you have a Spider?’

  Surprised, I nodded in the affirmative.

  ‘I had a Giulietta,’ she said, referring to an older vintage of my car. ‘I used to race at Lime Rock [Connecticut].’

  Bang. Just like that, she was in the lead. My car, a two-seater like her Giulietta, is a gentleman’s cruiser, not a racing car. She had driven her Alfa in competition at the famed racetrack frequented by such daredevils as actor Paul Newman and professional racers Mario Andretti, Stirling Moss, and Dan Gurney. Maejima-san was not even born when my summer with Yukiko occurred. Here I was, in the quaint Souvia Tea shop in Phoenix, awed by a Japanese woman, again. Did this mean, I wondered, that despite rapid change, things are still very much the way they were: complete with poised, articulate, opinionated, reserved, demanding women actively living links to a culture and identity more than a thousand years old? I am sure you would have an opinion, Yuki.

  Would I care to be the club’s treasurer, Maejima-san asked?

  I balked.

  ‘How about advisor to the club?’

  I agreed.

  She poured tea and not just any tea: a seasonal black tea to commemorate spring, with a dried pink cherry blossom peeking out of the tea leaves like pursed lips ready for kissing.

  21

  Nocturnes

  In me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

  my love feeds on your love, beloved,

  and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.

  PABLO NERUDA, FROM ‘IF YOU FORGET ME’, THE CAPTAIN’S VERSES

  The hand-drawn sign outside the Mozart coffee shop read: ‘Jour De Fête Debussy! Vive L’Amour! Enjoy Your Happiness!’ I could recognize the hand of Mr Ito in this. He always had a surplus of smiles. I was a juvenile, still stuck with sneers.

  As I approached the café, inhaling the delicious odour of espresso that filled the alley from sunrise to sunset, I could see the usual gathering of uniformed schoolgirls, clustered around the entrance, waiting for something exciting to happen. I was wearing the civilian clothes I had stashed at a locker club before the Shangri-La left for Hong Kong: light-brown three-button sports coat, dark-brown narrow necktie with discreet gold Deco zigzags, black pants with cuffs tight round the ankles, white socks, and black loafers. I had a couple of paperback books of poetry tucked under my arm. A bent cigarette dangled from my mouth. I had that look of rebellion on my face that you, Yuki, liked. I was feeling very Belmondo. I was feeling French.

  The schoolgirls parted to let me pass. They were definitely excited. A couple of them attempted to speak French to me, although I am not sure what a young Frenchman would be doing in shabby Yokosuka in an alley wet with the customary afternoon rain, even if he was lured there by the espresso sacrament. ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ one of the girls managed to say. ‘Comment ça va?’ When I nodded, like a lout, as if I knew her but I had discarded her, she collapsed in a fit of red-faced giggles into the arms of friends staggering with the joy of unabashed embarrassment.

  Earlier that afternoon I had stopped by the White Rose, but you were not there. Mamasan was not there. Reiko was not there. The remainder of the women who worked there were fluttering and twittering around the premises as only Japanese women can do, as if they were caged canaries.

  Honcho was full of sailors from the Shangri-La headed to bars where they knew friendly faces. They acted as if they were children tasting their first chocolate milkshakes. Many bar hostesses stood in front of the places where they worked, showing off their cocktail dresses and newly permed hairdos and occasionally calling out names – ‘Bobby!’ ‘Johnnie!’ ‘Terry!’ – when they recognized favourite swabbies.

  Everyone knew that this was the Shitty Shang’s last visit to Yokosuka. There was infection in the air. There was a fever, in fact, and everyone looked as if their body temperature had been elevated by at least two degrees. I knew that many members of the crew had unfinished business: some were ready to propose, some were determined to get drunker than they had ever been before, and some would be happy just to gather with their friends in a booth in the corner of a darkened bar so they could hold hands and maybe smooch a little with girls who they thought were their own.

  I am sure at least one among them planned to make the one-hour train ride to Tokyo to propose marriage – thanks to the suggestion made by Commander Davy Crockett – to the most beautiful virgin woman in the world, Miss Kojima Akiko. Both Jim and Red were certain Miss Universe was a virgin, and so were Oscar and Gunther. Gunther had recovered now and was back to his old habit of looking over his shoulder. Oscar, a photo of Miss Kojima in his hand, had said to me before I went ashore, ‘Paul. You are a virgin. Look at her. You know. You can tell, right?’

  We were all so young, thank God.

  I had thought about Miss Universe as I picked my way through the streets and alleys to the Mozart. Her face was on the covers of many magazines in the newsstands. A few streets removed from Honcho I noticed that a couple of men wearing the white headbands of political protest, crouched on top of a sound truck festooned with what appeared to be anti-American slogans, were looking at a large foldout photograph of Kojima Akiko wearing a conservative one-piece bathing suit. One of the men gave me a comradely wave, and the other one handed me an English-language pamphlet from Nikkyoso – the Japan Teacher’s Union – which denounced the 1951 US–Japan security treaty. That agreement allows American forces to retain bases, such as the naval facilities at Yokosuka, seemingly into perpetuity. I waved back, and continued down the street remembering the advice from on high, given to everyone, to stay out of politics, and the remark made by Chaplain Peeples that it was not just Japanese teachers who were Communist.

  ‘Teachers in general tend to be Communists or homosexuals,’ he told me in Hong Kong after our visit to the orphanage. ‘Teachers everywhere are do-gooders and do-gooders tend to be un-American and homosexuals, unless they are Christian teachers. Do-gooders are definitely not Baptists. Baptists are reapers and sowers.’

  ‘But aren’t there Christians who are do-gooders?’ I asked. ‘And if a homosexual does good, what’s wrong with that, sir? . . . And if Communists are do-gooders, why is Communism bad?’

  He started muttering. ‘You need to go to college, Rogers,’ he said.

  ‘And college teachers?’ I asked. My thoughts were racing ahead. ‘Also, who are the do-badders?’

  He did not reply. That was the way it always was with Chaplain Peeples. Everything was emphatic, doctrinal, black and white. There was no room for and/or, or for the colour grey.

  Mr Ito was seated behind the big mechanical cash register, a pre-war relic, no doubt. His fingers were racing up and down an abacus, the little ivory circles clicking away as he did rapid calculations almost without looking. But he did look up with a smile as I came through the door.

  ‘Are you meeting someone?’ he asked teasingly.

  ‘I am not sure, Mr Ito,’ I said. ‘I am looking for Miss Kaji.’

  ‘Ohhh,’ he said. ‘She will be pleased!’ He began fussing – straightening his bow tie and sucking in his belly – in a way that astonished me.

  ‘Have you seen her today?’

  ‘Oh, no. Not today. But yesterday, yes.’ He straightened his bow tie again. His face went scarlet when the schoolgirls, entering in single file, began addressing him in babyish French.

  ‘Well, maybe I should have coffee and wait for her.’

  ‘Yes. That is a good idea. Do you know that today is Debussy day?’

  ‘I saw your sign.’

  ‘Good. Well,’ he began excitedly, ‘let me tell you, Mr Anthony Perkins. Kaji-san told me this would be the most perfect happy day to play Debussy. So now, with pleasure, I present for you Debussy’s Nocturnes.’ He clutched at his heart theatrically.

  I laughed. The schoolgirls squeaked. Cla
ude Debussy appeared to be smiling down at us from his portrait on the wall. Mr Ito had ringed the portrait with pink paper cherry blossoms because, he said, Debussy had used the Japanese print-master Hokusai’s picture The Wave on the cover for the sheet music of La Mer when it was first published in Paris in 1905.

  ‘Do you like Debussy?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes . . . I am homosexual.’

  I blinked and started sipping the espresso brought to me on a chrome tray by a shy young waitress who looked as if she were afraid I was going to bite her. I asked for cream. She looked alarmed. She bowed her head. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said in apology, backing away with a shuffle, as if I were some kind of potentate and not someone probably her own age.

  ‘Do you know about homosexuals?’ Mr Ito asked.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, my ship’s chaplain, the priest – no, he is a minister – told me recently that homosexuals are Communists who are probably do-gooders.’

  Mr Ito rubbed his crewcut rapidly with his hand in astonishment.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said in his halting English. ‘You mean, this . . . he . . . is a holy man?’

  ‘Holy? You know, Mr Ito, I never thought of Chaplain Peeples as “holy”. I am not sure how to describe him.’

  Mr Ito was still looking at me with amazement. I wished at that moment that Chaplain Peeples and maybe even Commander Crockett were there, seated at the table with me, so they could enlighten Mr Ito and vice versa. But, of course, that was impossible. Officers never, ever socialized with enlisted men, although some officers made it clear to me they would like to socialize with college girls.

  I did not know much about homosexuals when I was twenty. They were do-gooders. They were Communists. They liked Debussy, apparently. Like Debussy and Mr Ito, they wore bow ties. They made delicious espresso. The espresso made them extraordinarily fastidious. They had a unique and memorable way of writing signs in English, and they also seemed to be polite and very interested in the subject of happiness.

  I also knew that if someone aboard the Shangri-La was rumoured to be a homosexual, the rumour expanded overnight by leaps and bounds to excruciating heights. One of my friends developed a serious stutter after the rumours began. Some of the rumour-mongers asked me about him. I told them that as far as I was concerned, his girlfriend was – next to Kojima Akiko – the most beautiful woman in the world, and as for my friend being a homosexual, what did I know?

  ‘Take a look at the photos his girlfriend sent,’ I told them. ‘What do you think? Can you match that?’

  I was confused, Yuki. Mr Ito was confused. The waitress, who now appeared with a little white ceramic pitcher of cream, also looked confused. She held the pitcher out in front of her, walked slowly to my table, gave a quick bow, and said again in a voice like a child’s, ‘I am so sorry.’ This is a charming expression frequently used in Japan and is said politely by people intruding into another person’s presence.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told her in a careful and kindly manner. ‘It is not important. What is your name?’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘Just I know, “I am so sorry”.’

  Debussy’s Nocturnes was playing, but I could clearly hear the sound of high heels clattering across the concrete floor towards me. Mr Ito was laughing out loud and straightening his bow tie again as if he was about to stand inspection. It was you, Yukiko, wearing a dark red beret to go with your lipstick. You had buttoned your trench coat to your neck, as was your custom. The belt was cinched tightly round your waist. ‘Oooh, oooh, oooh,’ you were saying, and, ‘Ooh la la!’ As you moved your body, it had a slight sway to it. You did not often wear high heels and you had explained to me that when you walked you had to move your body as if you were some kind of goddess of love, to help you balance.

  ‘My marching shoes,’ you called your high heels. ‘If only I could dance tango.’

  You were coming closer. I could see that you had not forgotten to enjoy your happiness. I remembered in that Debussy moment how one day when we were walking, and you were swaying in your heels so that your hip touched my hip again and again, you told me you had a record of ‘Tango Uno’ from the 1940s that you said ‘inflames the beating hearts of women’. You played it for me a couple of times, but the lyrics were in Spanish so I could only imagine what they meant. Only recently have I translated it. It is from Buenos Aires, Argentina, world capital of high heels, elaborate lingerie, highly evolved despair, and manic melancholy. A Brazilian woman poet languishing in a Buenos Aires apartment with mouldy plaster falling off the walls once told me (in Portuguese): ‘Num deserto de almas também desertas, uma alma especial reconhece de imediato a outra’ [‘In the desert of souls also deserted, a special soul immediately recognizes another’].

  One seeks full of hope

  The road that dreams

  Promised to one’s anxiety.

  You know the road is tough

  But you keep on trying and bleeding

  With an obsessive faith.

  You crawl among the thorns,

  Hoping just to love.

  You are broken into pieces until you understand

  That you have lost your heart.

  It is the price you have to pay

  For the kiss that never was

  Or for a love portrayed.

  One ends up empty from crying, from loving.

  If I had that heart,

  The heart I gave away,

  I could live again yesterday.

  You sat down. You moved your chair closer to my chair and leaned in my direction. You had been walking quickly – I knew because I could feel your heat. When I finally breathed in, I could smell your Ancient China perfume which you daubed behind each ear before you uttered a little cry of joy. You straightened my necktie and then brushed my forehead with the palm of your hand so that I closed my eyes.

  ‘Don’t open your eyes, sailor boy, until I tell you,’ you said. ‘I am going to look at you now.’

  Two or three minutes went by. I had not moved. You had not moved. But then I heard you inching your chair even closer to mine. I felt your hip touch my hip. Your breath was hot and was flavoured with pomegranates. You held my hand. You said something to Mr Ito and he turned up the volume to Nocturnes. You told me to open my eyes, and when I did I saw that your face was only inches from mine and that you were still staring at me. Your eyes were slightly crossed. What did you call being cross-eyed? Ron-pari. London-Paris. Yes, you were sometimes ron-pari because, you explained, it was as if one of your eyes saw London and the other saw Paris at the same time. Ron-pari was one of your qualities that I have never forgotten.

  I am still fascinated by women who get cross-eyed when they look at a man. It is as if, without knowing it, they are making magic that cannot be resisted.

  You put your finger on my lips to silence me. You rolled your head back a little like you did when you were listening to Ludwig van Beethoven. Sunlight coming through the window made it look as if the beret you were wearing was a halo, but a blood red one, not a golden one. No, gold would not do, I thought. Gold is for angels, for ethereal creatures not of this world. Blood red is for a woman like you, with a heart beating fast and a passion for life and love she is not able to share.

  I squeezed your hand, and you did the same to mine. And then we listened to the three passages, each about eight minutes long, while Mr Ito brought us scoops of vanilla ice cream and sugary wafers whose taste reminded me of the wafer popped into my mouth during Holy Communion in those days long ago in England when my mother imagined herself to be a Catholic.

  We said nothing. I hardly dared to breathe.

  Every now and then, Mr Ito looked at us as if what he saw was impossible.

  The waitress looked at Mr Ito, and she looked at us like a dragonfly not knowing whether it should alight or pass on by.

  After the last portion of Nocturnes, the Sirènes, had ended, and the chorus of their voices without words had melted away, you finally said something
. ‘This is the moment I waited for so long. This is my happy time. When you leave me I will have this to remember. Thank you.’

  You looked so astonishingly sincere.

  Then we started talking. We were still seated very close together. I had never seen a Japanese woman sit that closely to a man in a public place.

  Grown women and the high-school girls scattered around the coffee shop could not take their eyes off us. They did not say anything. They watched us talking. They watched the way you were still looking at me.

  You were studying my face, as if I had just told you ‘I love you’ and you believed me.

  They watched me too. It was as if you had kissed me for the first time because I had said ‘I love you’.

  22

  What Men Find Beautiful

  All my life through,

  These eighty-one years

  I have done what I wished