The Moonflower

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Another time Jerome brought home tickets to a series of three Kabuki plays, given as usual in one long continuous performance that lasted most of the day. She hoped he would take her, but when he did not offer to, she and Laurie went with Nan Horner.

  Kabuki had been an exciting experience. Nowhere in the States had Marcia seen such beauty of scenery and costume. The pantomime was clear enough to understand, and while the speech-making was sometimes lengthy, there was also plenty of action, and dramatic entrances and exits over a platform from the stage through the audience. Nan said most Japanese couldn’t understand the words either, since the antique court tongue was spoken in most Kabuki plays, but of course everyone knew the stories.

  On other occasions Marcia and Laurie went exploring on foot, with a map of Kyoto to guide them. Marcia quickly grew fond of this gray Japanese city, with its surprising flashes of brilliant color and its friendly people. Jerome had made his home here, and for that very reason her interest was sharp, her curiosity high. Whatever she did, wherever she went, she found herself searching beneath the surface for the answers to her troubled questions.

  To please Jerome she even planned a dinner party, as he had suggested. She had told him about Alan Cobb, and about Alan’s desire to meet Jerome Talbot, with whom he shared mutual friends. Jerome shrugged off the Brewsters almost resentfully, but agreed without objection to having Cobb over for dinner. Marcia invited Nan Horner too and found herself looking forward to the evening. Perhaps a gathering of this sort would be good for Jerome, since he spent too much time alone.

  One morning a few days before the dinner she awoke to a feeling of spring in the air. Laurie went outside to play right after breakfast. She was an enterprising child when it came to amusing herself, with an ability to make up games and fill her world with make-believe when this was necessary. But Marcia knew she longed for a playmate. Once Marcia had asked Jerome about the family next door and whether Laurie might not play with the children there. He had been oddly noncommittal. It was never wise to start running back and forth between neighbors, he said.

  She had let the matter go. But this morning when she went out on the narrow lower veranda to see what Laurie was doing, she found that the gate between the two sections was open and a Japanese gardener was working back and forth between the separated gardens. Marcia paused on the veranda at sight of the little tableau being enacted near the gate.

  Laurie stood beside the fishpond, as still as if she sought to capture a bird. In one hand she held her favorite doll, dangling it by one arm as if she held a fishing pole and bait. Indeed, that was really what it was, for through the open gate, moving one cautious step at a time, came the roly-poly Japanese girl, bright-eyed and solemn and intent. All her small being was focused on the extended doll and it was clearly a bait she found irresistible.

  Neither Marcia nor Laurie moved, though once Laurie rolled her eyes drolly in her mother’s direction. Step by step the bright-eyed child in the flowered kimono came with outstretched arms toward the doll. She almost had it in her plump little hands when the child’s mother came out of the house next door. Chiyo Minato, running in tiny, pigeon-toed steps, hurried through the gate to catch her baby up in her arms. The little girl cried softly in disappointment and her mother hushed and soothed her.

  The interruption was too much for Marcia to accept. She went down the side steps into the garden to face the other woman, forgetting the language barrier that lay between them.

  “Please let her stay and play with my daughter,” she begged. “Laurie is lonely. She only wants to play with your little girl, and she won’t hurt her.”

  The young Japanese woman looked a little like a doll herself. Her dark blue kimono was patterned today with pink blossoms, and from the white folds of the under kimono showing at the V of the neck, her neck and head rose gracefully. Her black hair was drawn smoothly into a chignon at the nape of her neck. These days most younger Japanese women wore their hair like any American woman, but this girl’s hair was long and straight. Her delicate features were as lovely as Marcia had remembered and they were as expressionless as those of any face in a Japanese print.

  “You don’t understand me, do you?” Marcia said helplessly. “Oh, dear! Chotto matte, kudasai—wait a minute, please.” That was one phrase she had picked up, at least. The woman hesitated and Marcia dashed into the house to get Sumie-san, who spoke and understood a bit more English than she had been willing to reveal on Marcia’s arrival.

  But by the time she had drawn Sumie-san from her housework and brought her into the garden, Chiyo Minato and her child had vanished and the gate was closed again between the two houses. Laurie sat on a rock holding the doll, tears of disappointment in her eyes.

  “Why did she have to be so mean?” Laurie wailed. “I wouldn’t hurt her little girl. I’d have let Tomiko play with my doll. Why did she take her away?”

  At a loss, Marcia turned to Sumie-san. “Why next door baby-san no can play here?”

  Sumie-san shook her head and murmured something about a fox.

  “What fox?” Marcia asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Sumie-san cast an uneasy look at the house behind them, as if someone might be listening. “Fox very bad spirit. Fox comes inside rady. Makes very bad thing.”

  A “rady,” of course, was a “lady,” but that didn’t seem to clarify the matter.

  “Never mind, Sumie-san,” Marcia told her and sent the little maid back to the house. “It’s no use, Laurie. I don’t think Sumie-san really accepts the difference between make-believe and reality. I’m afraid you’ll have to give up any idea of playing with the children next door.”

  That evening she told Jerome about the incident. “What did Sumie-san mean about a fox getting inside a woman? And what has that to do with little Tomiko and Laurie?”

  Jerome shook his head in irritation. “If you get started on foxes turning into women, and the other way around, you’ll never know where you are in Japan. Pay no attention to Sumie-san’s nonsense. But keep Laurie in her own garden. I’ve already said I don’t want any neighborly mixing with the people next door.”

  She had to leave it at that, but she still felt the ruling was unreasonable. Though it was true that the man, Minato-san, seemed to behave oddly on occasion. Yesterday when she and Laurie had gone for a walk along the hill, he had come to his gate and stared at them solemnly, just as he had once done from the gallery. Other Japanese neighbors were curious and inquisitive—that was to be expected—but with Minato-san she sensed something more. Animosity, perhaps?

  She had given him a polite bow and said, “O-hayo gozaimasu,” but he hadn’t batted an eye, or returned her “good morning.” She was tempted to mention his behavior to Jerome. But any reference to the people in the other half of the house seemed to disturb him, and she knew he would give her no explanation.

  The incident had made her wonder about Ichiro Minato and what he did for a living. He always seemed to be about the place, often a bit red in the face, as if he enjoyed his saké. He appeared to have no steady occupation of any kind. Why did Jerome keep them on as tenants if the family were undesirable? she wondered. Her curiosity about Chiyo had been given little to feed on, but she wondered about her and wished she might break past the language barrier.

  As the night of the dinner approached, Marcia found herself looking forward to it eagerly, almost cheerfully. There had been a time when Jerome had been proud of his wife as a person and as a woman. He had thought her pretty and liked the way she dressed and carried herself. These things had seemed important to him and part of his affection for her. So on the night of this dinner she would dress for him in the smoky blue that was his favorite color—a sheer wool that she knew was becoming and which he had not seen her wear. Somehow she must be new and different and exciting for him. If only she could break through his guard. More and more she had the feeling that it was a guard held up deliberately to conceal some gentler emotion behind.

  On the aft
ernoon of the dinner, Marcia decided that she must certainly brighten the mahogany-dark dining room with flowers, and she sent Sumie-san out to see what she might find that would be suitable. But when the little maid returned she brought with her a curious assortment that left Marcia baffled and helpless.

  There were a few unopened buds, some pods and dried leaves and a variety of twigs and branches. To please Sumie-san Marcia tried to set them up as a centerpiece, but Japanese flower arrangement was beyond her. They both ended in helpless laughter over Marcia’s inability to deal with such ingredients.

  They were laughing together when Jerome walked into the dining room.

  “Just look!” Marcia cried in despair, waving a hand at her incongruous efforts. “Can you ask Sumie-san to do something with this stuff? When I ask her, she just shakes her head.”

  Jerome regarded the table in dry amusement. “Japanese flower arrangement isn’t intended for centerpieces. The flowing line is important, not the mass and color that the Occidental sees in flowers. The Japanese regards a flower arrangement as something to set against a wall and view from the proper angle.”

  “I don’t think Sumie-san went to a flower shop at all,” Marcia said. “I believe she just gathered this stuff up in the garden. I can handle flowers, but how can anyone possibly—”

  A look that might have been one of malice crossed Jerome’s face. “You’re right, of course. The efficient western woman often finds herself at a loss in the Orient, and far less clever than she thought. Let me see if I can get you some help,” he added, and went out of the room.

  His look had made her uneasy and she wished she had said nothing to him about a centerpiece. But now she had no choice, so she sent Sumie-san back to her dusting and waited for him to return.

  He was back very quickly and she saw with surprise that he had brought with him the young Japanese woman from next door.

  “You can relax now,” he said, faintly derisive. “This is Mrs. Minato and she will take care of everything.”

  Chiyo Minato made Marcia a low, polite bow and murmured a greeting in Japanese. She gave the effort at table decoration a glance which did not reveal what she thought of it, then gathered up the commonplace materials and began to work her own magic. Jerome lingered in the room, watching as if he were enjoying himself in some enigmatic way.

  How strange, Marcia thought, that he had asked Mrs. Minato to help after all his talk about avoiding the people next door.

  Chiyo removed the materials to the sideboard, making a charming picture as her small dimpled hands moved with graceful assurance. Jerome watched her with obvious appreciation and suddenly, beside all this Japanese daintiness, Marcia began to feel downright awkward and ungainly. The comparison was absurd, she told herself, but nevertheless she moved to the other side of the room so that the difference between herself and Chiyo would not be so clearly emphasized in Jerome’s eyes.

  When Chiyo had completed the arrangement, she stood back to view it critically. The result was an idealized, formalized version of nature. Now Marcia could see the grace of line in dry twigs, the beauty of a perfect leaf, the promise of a tight-folded bud.

  Chiyo bowed again to Marcia and spoke in Japanese.

  “She says it is very poor,” Jerome translated. “She feels that one should not hurry this sort of creative work. It should be conceived first in the mind, then with the hands.”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Marcia said sincerely. “I could never have managed it myself. Please thank her for me.”

  “She understands you well enough,” Jerome said. “I’m glad you are able to appreciate her artistry.”

  The barb in his words was clear and suddenly Marcia knew that he had brought Chiyo here deliberately to give his wife this feeling of unhappy contrast.

  Mrs. Minato murmured again in Japanese, but she did not look at Marcia as she bowed herself out of the room. Jerome went with her to the door and Marcia let them go. Why had he wanted to hurt her in so petty a way?

  She was still staring thoughtfully at the floral arrangement when Sumie-san returned to admire Chiyo’s handiwork.

  “Naisu, naisu,’” Sumie-san murmured. “Kirei desu, ne?”

  Marcia nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is nice—very pretty. But I still have no centerpiece.” She looked about the dark, depressing room and moved abruptly in revolt. The Occidental woman was not, after all, wholly lacking in imagination and ingenuity. “Come with me,” she told Sumie-san. “We’re going to the flower shop.”

  They put on their coats and went out together. Near the corner they caught a cruising taxi and Sumie-san gave directions.

  The flower shop was a tiny one, tucked in among other shops, with flowers everywhere in buckets and vases, and all amazingly cheap. A Japanese woman was choosing one of this and two of that, and the proprietor seemed astonished when. Marcia bought armfuls of gladiolas and dahlias and peonies. At least she felt among old friends here, with all the familiar American flowers available, though in a variety of types she had never seen before.

  Twenty minutes later they were home again, their arms filled with blooms. Sumie-san unearthed two huge vases in a storeroom and Marcia filled them with lavish masses of color. She set them on the floor in opposite corners of the dining room. Then with a handful of blossoms and a shallow dish she contrived a flat arrangement for the center of the table.

  It was late when she stood back to survey her handiwork. The room had brightened considerably. The masses of color counteracted the dark emphasis of mahogany and the room seemed more cheerful. But when she turned to the sideboard and looked again at Chiyo’s lovely arrangement, she knew that she had painted with a calcimine brush, while Chiyo had achieved the delicate line of true art.

  As she dressed for dinner, she found that the pleasure she had anticipated in wearing the blue dress was dampened. The dress showed off her dark hair, and she had never before minded being tall and slim. But now she felt oversized and ungainly.

  Impatiently she fastened her earrings. There was no need for such self-doubt. Mrs. Minato was lovely, of course, but if as Jerome’s wife she resented every look of admiration he turned toward another woman, she would have an unhappy time of it. She gave her hair a last smoothing, approved her reflection and turned away from the mirror.

  Jerome was still dressing, so she slipped a coat over her shoulders and went into the garden for a few breaths of clear, sparkling air. There were stars out tonight, and a big moon rising. She watched its rim come up behind the black lace tracery of a pine tree and remembered Nan Horner’s curious remark about the full moon, and her evasiveness when Marcia had questioned her further. The moon had been full for several days now and nothing had happened that seemed to have any unusual significance. As far as she could tell, Jerome appeared to have taken no notice of it. He had gone out in the evening several times, but that was not unusual.

  Marcia took one last deep breath of pine-scented air and then turned back toward the house. As she did so, she caught the faint click of a sliding shutter being closed upstairs in the other part of the house. But though she stood for a moment looking up at the second floor, she saw no one and heard no further sound.

  Yet she had the feeling that someone stood behind the slit of a nearly closed wooden door, watching her. Was it Minato-san again? But he never troubled to conceal his interest in staring at her, never bothered to hide. Was the secret watcher of whom she was so intensely conscious the pretty Chiyo?

  There was no way of knowing and Marcia went inside uneasily.

  In the big drawing room Jerome was prodding the fire, adding more coal from the bucket. She hesitated at the door, wondering if he would greet her with the same faintly malicious look she had seen in his face earlier. He set the coal bucket down and turned toward her absently, wiping his hands on a handkerchief.

  She crossed the room quickly to stand close beside him, feeling oddly young and a little tremulous, like a girl dressed up for her first beau. As she waited in silence, standing
before him as she used to do in the past when she hoped for his approval of something new she was wearing, she could not keep the love and yearning out of her eyes. His lean dark face was expressionless as he looked at her, his straight mouth unsmiling. Yet there was no malice now, and for an instant his eyes softened as he spoke a phrase she remembered from the early days of their marriage.

  “Such a pretty thing,” he said and touched her hair with light, quick fingers.

  She longed to move naturally into his arms, to lift her face for his kiss, but she did not dare, and the unwelcome sound of the bell at the front gate shattered the moment.

  Nan Horner was the first to arrive and Marcia went out to greet her. Nan removed her shoes in the entryway, put on slippers and came breezily into the house. Laurie, her hair newly brushed and braided by Sumie-san, came running to join them. By special permission she was to stay up for the company, having promised that she would not ask too many questions.

  In the drawing room Jerome greeted Nan in friendly fashion, knew her taste in drinks and automatically supplied her with bourbon and water. Nan seemed elaborately casual, and perhaps a little prickly in her responses to him.

  “It’s high time you brought your wife and daughter out to Japan,” she said, sounding as though she enjoyed prodding him.

  He did not rise to the bait “This is only a short visit,” he told her quietly. “Marcia wants Laurie to grow up at home and I agree with her plans.”

  “Nonsense,” Nan said, settling her angular frame into a befringed velvet chair. “It will do the child good to have a look at how other people live.” She took one foot from its loose slipper and wriggled her toes comfortably. “If I had my way, travel would be compulsory for the entire human population.”