The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

by The Sailor Who Fell from Grace

Hoping to satisfy the tastes of some new customers, Rex had entered into a special agreement with the Men’s Town and Country Shop in New York: letters of credit had already been issued and now it was up to Fusako to apply through the Foreign Trade Ministry for an import license.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Fusako said abruptly, her eyes on the V neck of the thin old dandy’s camel’s-hair vest, “how you’ve been feeling lately.”

  “Not awfully well, thank you. I imagine it’s my arthritis acting up again, but the pain seems to be spreading.”

  “Well, have you been to see a doctor?”

  “No, what with the holiday rush and everything . . .”

  “But you haven’t been feeling well since before New Year’s.”

  “I don’t have time to waste sitting around in a doctor’s office, especially this time of year.”

  “I still wish you’d have someone look at you right away. If anything happened to you, we’d be out of business.”

  The old man smiled vaguely, one wrinkled white hand fussing nervously with the tight knot in his necktie.

  A salesgirl came in to say that Miss Yoriko Kasuga had arrived.

  Fusako went down to the patio. This time Yoriko had come alone. She was wearing a mink coat, peering into a showcase with her back turned. When she had decided on some Lancôme lipstick and a Pelican fountain pen, Fusako invited her to lunch: the famous actress beamed with pleasure. Fusako took her to Le Centaure, a small French restaurant near the harbor where yachtsmen often gathered. The proprietor was an old gourmet who once had worked at the French Consulate.

  Fusako looked at the actress as though to measure the loneliness of this simple, somehow stolid woman. Yoriko had received not one of the awards she had been counting on for the past year, and obviously her excursion to Yokohama today was an escape from the eyes society levels on a star who has failed to win an award. Though she must have had followers beyond counting, the only person with whom she could be frank and at ease was the proprietress of a Yokohama luxury shop, not even a close friend.

  Fusako decided it would be best not to mention movie awards during lunch.

  They drank a bottle of the restaurant’s celebrated vin de maison with their bouillabaisse. Fusako had to order for Yoriko because she couldn’t read the French menu.

  “You know, Mama, you’re really beautiful,” the large beauty said abruptly. “I’d give anything to look like you.” Yoriko slighted her own beauty more than any woman Fusako knew. The actress had marvelous breasts, gorgeous eyes, a fine-sculptured nose, and voluptuous lips, and yet she was tormented by vague feelings of inferiority. She even believed, and it pained her not a little, that the awards committee had passed her by because men watching her on the screen saw only a woman they would love to take to bed.

  Fusako watched the famous, beautiful, unhappy woman flush with contentment as she decorated her name in an autograph book produced by the waitress. Yoriko’s reaction to an autograph book was always a good indication of her mood. And judging from the drunken generosity with which she was flourishing her pen just now, a fan would need only to ask for one of her breasts to receive it.

  “The only people in this world I really trust are my fans -even if they do forget you so fast,” Yoriko mumbled as she lit an imported woman’s cigarette.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Fusako teased. She could predict Yoriko’s felicitous response to such a question.

  “Do you think I’d come all the way to Yokohama if I didn’t? You’re the only real friend I have. Honestly, you are. I haven’t felt this relaxed in ages and it’s all thanks to you, Mama.” That name again! Fusako winced.

  The walls of the restaurant were decorated with water-color paintings of famous yachts, bright red checkered tablecloths covered the empty tables; they were the only people in the small room. The old window frames began to creak in the wind and a page of a newspaper scudded down the empty street. The window opened on a dismal reach of ashen warehouse walls.

  Yoriko kept her mink coat draped around her shoulders while she ate: an imposing necklace of heavy gold chain swayed on her stately chest. She had escaped the scandal-loving world, she had even eluded her own ambition, and now, like a muscular woman laborer lazing in the sun between wearisome tasks, she was content. Though her reasons for sorrow or joy rarely seemed convincing to the observer, Yoriko managed to support a family of ten, and it was at moments like this that the source of her vitality became apparent. She derived her strength from something she herself was least aware of: her beauty.

  Fusako had a sudden feeling that she would find in Yoriko the ideal confidante. Thereupon she began to tell about Ryuji, and the happiness in the story made her so drunk that she revealed every intimate detail.

  “Is that right! And did he really give you his seal and a bankbook with two million yen on deposit?”

  “I tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “But there was no reason for you to have refused. And wasn’t that a manly thing to do! Of course, the money is only pennies as far as you’re concerned, but it’s the spirit behind it that counts. I would never have dreamed that there were men like that around anymore. Especially since the only men who come near me are freeloaders out for whatever they can get. I hope you realize how lucky you are.”

  Fusako had never dreamed that Yoriko could be practical and she was astonished when, having listened to the whole story, the actress promptly prescribed a course of action.

  A prerequisite of any marriage, she began, was an investigation by a private detective agency. Fusako would need a photograph of Ryuji and about thirty thousand yen. If she hurried them she could have the results within a week. Yoriko would be happy to recommend a reliable agency.

  Though she didn’t imagine there was any cause for worry in this case, there was always the possibility that a sailor might have an ugly disease: it would be best if they exchanged health certificates, Ryuji accompanying Fusako to a doctor of her choice.

  Inasmuch as the new relationship was between father and son and would not involve the question of a stepmother, there would be no serious problems where Noboru was concerned. And since the boy worshipped Ryuji as a hero (and since he seemed to be basically a gentle man), they were certain to get along.

  It would be a bad mistake to allow Ryuji to remain idle any longer. If Fusako intended to train Ryuji to take over Rex someday, she would be wise to start him learning the business and helping around the shop at once, particularly since Shibuya the manager was beginning to show his age.

  Finally, though his gesture with the bankbook had made clear that there was nothing mercenary about Ryuji, the fact remained that the shipping slump had brought maritime stocks crashing, and it was obvious besides that he had been looking for a way out of his career as a seaman: Fusako would have to be careful not to compromise herself just because she was a widow. It was up to her to insist on an equal relationship, to make certain she was not being used.

  Yoriko pressed each point home firmly but with patience, as if she were trying to persuade a child, though in fact Fusako was the older. Fusako was amazed to hear a woman she had considered a fool make such good sense.

  “I never realized you were so”—there was new respect in her voice—“so capable.”

  “It’s easy once you find out what they’re up to. A year or so ago there was a man I thought I wanted to marry. And I told one of our producers the whole story. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Tatsuo Muragoshi? He’s one of the best in the business. Anyway, it was just like him not to mention my work or my rating or even my contract. He just smiled the warmest smile you’ve ever seen and congratulated me and then he advised me to do all the things I’ve just told you to do. It seemed like such a nuisance, I left everything up to him. Well, in one week I found out that a certain person was seeing three women and had already fathered two bastards, and that wasn’t all: he was sick, if you know what I mean. He had never held a decent job for long, and it looked like
he was planning to kick the rest of my family out as soon as we got married so he could sit around swilling beer while I supported us. What do you think about that? That’s men for you. Not that there aren’t exceptions. . . .”

  From that moment Fusako loathed the actress, and her hatred was charged with the indignation of an honest, respectable bourgeois. She took Yoriko’s unwitting innuendo not only as an attack on Ryuji but also as an insult to her own family and upbringing, and an affront to the refined traditions of the Kuroda house which amounted to a slur on her dead husband’s honor.

  In the first place, their backgrounds were entirely different and there was no reason why her love affair should develop in a pattern familiar to Yoriko. Sooner or later I’m going to have to make her understand. There’s nothing I can do now, though, because she’s just a customer, not a friend.

  Fusako didn’t notice that the position she was taking in her rage was a contradiction of that violent summer passion. Deep inside, she was angry not so much for her dead husband as for the wholesome household she had kept for herself and her son since his death. And Yoriko’s insinuation had sounded like the thing she dreaded most, society’s first thrust of reproach at her “indiscretion.” Now, just as an appropriate “happy ending” was about to atone for that indiscretion, Yoriko had cast a pall over it. Purposely! Angry for her dead husband, angry for the Kuroda house, angry for Noboru—roiled by every anger that apprehension can breed, Fusako paled.

  If Ryuji were really an opportunist with all kinds of dreadful secrets, I would never have fallen in love with him. Yoriko may be a gullible fool, but I happen to have a sound sense of what’s good and what’s bad. The thought was equivalent to a denial of that unaccountable summer passion, yet the whispering inside her began suddenly to seethe, to swell until it threatened to burst out.

  Unaware of her friend’s agitation, Yoriko sipped her demitasse contentedly. Abruptly, as though she had remembered something, she set the cup in its saucer and, turning back the cuff of her left sleeve, pointed to the white inner side of her wrist.

  “You must promise to keep this a secret. I wouldn’t tell anyone but you, Mama. It’s the scar from that time I was supposed to get married—I tried to kill myself with a razor blade.”

  “That’s strange—I don’t remember seeing anything about it in the papers,” Fusako taunted, herself again.

  “No, because Mr. Muragoshi ran all over the city and managed to keep the news hushed up. But it bled and bled.”

  Yoriko held her arm up in front of her and touched her lips pityingly to the wrist before entrusting it to Fusako for inspection. You had to look closely to see them at all, a few irregular whitish scars that must have been shallow, tentative cuts. Fusako felt only contempt. And she made a point of searching Yoriko’s wrist as though unable to locate the scars at all. Then she knit sympathetic brows and said, becoming the proprietress of Rex again: “What a dreadful thing! Can you imagine how many people all over Japan would have wept if you’d succeeded. A lovely girl like you—such a waste. Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

  “Of course I won’t, Mama, a stupid thing like that. Those people you said would cry for me are all I have to live for. Would you cry for me, Mama?”

  “Crying wouldn’t begin to be enough,” Fusako crooned, “but let’s talk about something more pleasant.”

  Ordinarily, Fusako would have considered going to a private detective agency an inauspicious beginning, but now she was determined out of spite to receive a favorable report from the same people who had damned Yoriko’s prospective husband.

  “You know what?” she began. “I have to go up to Tokyo with Mr. Shibuya tomorrow anyway, and when we’ve finished what we have to do I think I’ll get rid of him and drop in at that investigation service you mentioned. If you could just write me a note of introduction?”

  “Delighted.” Yoriko took out the fountain pen she had just bought and, fumbling through the contents of her alligator pocketbook, came up with a small white card.

  A week and a day later Fusako had a long telephone conversation with Yoriko. She sounded proud: “I just wanted to call and thank you, I’m so grateful. I did just as you suggested . . . yes, a great success. The report is really very interesting. Thirty thousand yen is cheap when you consider all the trouble they must have taken. Would you like to hear it? I mean, do you have a minute? Do me a favor then and let me read it to you:

  “‘Special Investigation—Confidential Report. The following are the findings of an investigation into the affairs of Ryuji Tsukazaki as stipulated by the client.

  “‘One: particulars as indicated—subject’s criminal record, relations with women, etc. Particulars of the subject’s personal history coincide precisely with information in the client’s possession. The mother, Masako, died when the subject was ten years of age. The father, Hajime, was employed as a clerk in the Katsushita Ward Office in Tokyo. He did not remarry after his wife’s death, devoting himself to raising and educating his only son. The family home was destroyed in an air raid in March of 1945. The subject’s sister, Yoshiko, died of typhus in May of the same year. The subject graduated from the merchant-marine academy. . . .’

  “It goes on and on that way. Isn’t the writing terrible? Let me skip ahead: ‘. . . as for the subject’s relations with women, he is not at present involved with a woman nor is there any indication that he has ever cohabited with a woman or even engaged in a prolonged or significant affair. . . .’

  “That’s really summing it up, wouldn’t you say!

  “‘. . . though the subject displays slightly eccentric tendencies, he is conscientious about his work, highly responsible, and extremely healthy: he has never had a serious illness. Results of the investigation to date show no history of mental illness or other hereditary disease in the immediate family. . . .’

  “There was one more thing—yes, here it is: ‘The subject has no debts; he has never borrowed in advance of his salary nor has he ever owed money to his employer. All indications point to a spotless financial record. The subject is known to prefer solitude to company and has never been at ease socially; accordingly, he does not always get along well with his colleagues. . . .’

  “As long as we get along well that’s all that matters. Oh? Someone at the door? I’ll let you go then. I just wanted to thank you for being so very kind, I’m truly grateful. I hope we’ll be seeing you at the shop again soon. . . . Ryuji? Yes, he’s been coming in every day since last week, just as you suggested. You know, getting to know his way around. You’ll meet him next time you come down . . . yes . . . yes, I will. And thanks again. Goodbye.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SCHOOL began on the eleventh but classes were over at noon. The gang hadn’t met at all during the vacation. The chief hadn’t even been in town: his parents had dragged him off on a sightseeing trip to Kyoto and Nara. Together again at last, they decided after eating lunch at school that the tip of Yamashita Pier, which was always deserted, would be a good place for a meeting.

  “You guys probably think it’s freezing out there. Everybody does, but they’re all wrong,” the chief announced. “There happens to be a very good windbreak. You’ll see when we get there.”

  Since noon the sky had been cloudy and it was getting colder. The north wind, blowing down on them as they walked out along the pier, burned like icy fire.

  Reclamation of the foreshore had been completed but one of the new docks was still under construction. The sea was undulating grayly; three buoys, washed by endless waves, were bobbing up and down. The only distinct objects in the murky factory jungle across the harbor were the five smokestacks of an electric power plant; brackish yellow smoke struggled above the blurred line of factory rooftops. Beyond and far to the left of the dock, the pair of squat red-and-white light-houses which formed the gateway to the harbor looked from here like a single column.

  Moored at the dock in front of the shed to the right of them was a five- or six-ton freigh
ter in terrible disrepair, a gray banner drooping from the stern. On the far side of the shed, in a berth they couldn’t see, a foreign ship was apparently at anchor. Her beautiful white spars, which spired above the shed, were swaying, the only bright motion in the gloomy scene.

  They saw immediately what the chief’s windbreak was. Piled from the warehouse to the edge of the sea wall was a jumbled village of green-and-silver packing crates, each large enough to accommodate a small cow. Large plywood boxes begirt with tough steel bands and stamped with the names of foreign exporters, they had been left on the pier to rot.

  The boys whooped down on the village and began a wild free-for-all, lurking between crates and leaping out in flying tackles or chasing each other in and out among the disordered rows. They were all in a sweat by the time the chief discovered at the very center of the village a large crate that was to his liking: two of the sides had fallen away but the steel band was still intact and the contents had been removed down to the last wisp of excelsior.

  Shouting in a shrike’s voice, the chief assembled the scattered band inside the crate. Three sat on the floor, three stood in the corners, arms resting on the steel band. They felt as if their outlandish vehicle was about to ascend on the arm of a crane into the cloudy winter sky.

  Scribblings covered the plywood walls; they read each of them aloud: LET’S MEET IN YAMASHITA PARK—FORGET IT ALL AND TRY HAVING SOME FUN . . . like linked verses in a classical poem, each line was a clever distortion of the hopes and dreams in the preceding line: WE NEED TO FALL IN LOVE, PAL—FORGET WOMEN. WHO NEEDS THEM?—DON’T NEVER FORGET YOUR DREAM—GOT A BLACK SCAR ON MY BLUE BLUE HEART . . . peeking out of a corner was a young sailor’s trembling soul: I HAVE CHANGED. I’M A NEW MAN. A freighter sketched in black let fly four arrow markers: the arrow at the left indicated YOKOHAMA, the arrow at the right, NEW YORK; the third arrow aspired to HEAVEN and the last plummeted toward HELL. Scrawled in English capitals and emphatically circled were the words ALL FORGET, and there was a self-portrait, a sailor with mournful eyes wearing a pea coat with upturned collar and smoking a seaman’s pipe. The story was of the sailor’s loneliness and his longings, and it was told with self-importance and overwhelming melancholy. Too typical to be true. A sadly determined exaggeration of his qualifications for dreaming about himself.