“Just as you described. I remember that at the time it struck me as perhaps a romantic foreigners’ tale.”
“But it happened; I was there when she killed herself.”
“Ah so?” Mrs. Tsuji said. “How old were you?”
When he told her, she said, “Poor boy,” and patted his hand. “This is truly a tragedy, ne?” She gave Haruki a stern glance.
Benji took out the tin containing the picture. “These are my parents,” he said. There was silence as they passed the photograph around the table.
“Could I talk to your employer?” Benji asked Haruki.
“I am sorry to say that she no longer lives in Nagasaki.”
“But I must find my mother’s family. Maybe someone else will remember.”
“Your search is best made in Maruyama, I think,” Haruki said. “I will be happy to guide you, but I must caution you that the geisha world is secretive.”
“And my son does not know the geisha,” Mr. Tsuji said with a laugh. “You must be a rich man to be acquainted with the geisha.”
“I can manage to guide him quite well,” Haruki said stiffly.
On Haruki’s next day off, he and Benji climbed the hill to Maruyama in the early afternoon. June’s rainy season had begun, a hard rain pelting against their umbrellas. “We won’t see so many people in the street on such a day,” Haruki said. “But at least we can begin our inquiries.”
Benji wanted to take in every detail—the pattern of flagstones on the street, the glimpse of startlingly green moss through a slatted gate, the entrance to a shrine that seemed familiar—but Haruki strode ahead through the narrow, twisting streets. He didn’t have much time, he’d said; “Mrs. Foreigner” required him back early, to serve at a musical evening.
He finally slowed his pace on a quiet back street where there were several handsome wooden buildings, each two stories high. Geisha residences, Haruki said. Along the upper balconies hung red and white lanterns, each with a geisha’s name written in black. “When she goes out to her parties at night, she carries her own lantern,” he said. “Yoshi,” he read aloud, “Suwa, Tsuru, Shige.”
The gates to all three houses were locked; they rang and pounded, but no one came. At one house a woman’s face appeared at an upstairs window and was quickly gone, a pale blur.
“We will visit the shops frequented by geisha,” Haruki said. “This is my next idea.”
They went into a kimono shop where a stooped woman with missing teeth was waiting on another elderly woman, smoothing out a length of brown silk patterned with golden and dark brown bats. “Perhaps she is an okasan,” Haruki said in a low voice, nodding at the customer. “A geisha mother.” When Benji whispered back for him to ask, Haruki shook his head. “It would not be polite to inquire directly,” he said.
When the customer left, Haruki told the woman about their search and Benji showed her his mother’s picture. She shook her head. “There are many hundred geisha in Maruyama,” she said.
They visited a tabi shop that sold the white socks worn with kimono; a geta shop, where a man and his son made wooden clogs of all heights, including the high ones favored by geisha; and a store that specialized in long clay pipes like those Benji had seen in woodblock prints of geisha and courtesans, but no one recognized his mother’s face.
Discouraged, they went into a bar for some warm sake. The bartender, after hearing of their quest, said they must go to the tea shop around the corner, owned by Chiye-san, a former geisha renowned for her discretion.
Chiye-san was a silver-haired woman with erect posture, dressed in a black silk kimono. Benji guessed she was in her fifties, but she had a mysterious beauty, a long oval face, a wise expression. She brought them tea, poured it with graceful precision.
“Excuse me, Chiye-san,” Haruki said with a bow. “We are looking for information about a former geisha, the mother of this young man …” He nodded at Benji; she bowed in his direction. “Her name was Cio-Cio-san, and she lived in Maruyama in the eighteen-eighties and ’nineties but died tragically by her own hand—when this man’s father”—he nodded at Benji again—“returned to Nagasaki with an American wife.”
Benji laid the picture on the table. Chiye-san lifted it, holding it in both hands, then carefully set it down again. “I am sorry,” she said, with a bow. “It could be that I have seen her, but I do not recall. My memory is beginning to fail me, I’m afraid.”
“But I have to find someone who knows her,” Benji said, trying to keep his voice level. “What do you suggest?”
She looked out the open door into the rain, then turned back to them. “Please forgive me for saying that Cio-Cio is perhaps not a geisha name in itself. We are all associated with the butterfly. Many have a butterfly crest on their kimono.” She gestured, palm up, to the small butterfly embroidered on the sleeve of her kimono. “We usually have a professional name, but perhaps there has been no Cio-Cio in Maruyama.”
“But … look …” Benji turned the photograph over to show Chiye-san the writing on the back of the picture. “Doesn’t that say Cio-Cio-san?”
“Yes,” she said. “Pardon me. I must be mistaken.” She bowed again, her hands on her thighs. “I wish you good fortune in your search,” she said, and retreated to the rear of the shop.
They started down the hill, following a narrow street of stone steps. Benji thought of the day he’d learned his mother’s name, sitting on Frank’s lap on the plow, and of that fall, when the butterflies in the garden had seemed a visitation. Mr. Matsumoto hadn’t mentioned anything odd about his mother’s name.
“Chiye-san is wrong,” he said. “All my life I’ve heard of Cio-Cio-san.”
“Perhaps a pet name given by a foreigner who cannot pronounce Japanese,” Haruki said.
“My father knew a little Japanese—he was here for a while.”
They passed a stone torii; Benji knew from the book he’d read in Plum River that a torii marked the entrance to a shrine. He looked in—there was a garden, blue hydrangeas heavy with rain, a small shrine set at the back. Haruki pointed out another geisha house just below the shrine.
“The shrine seems familiar,” Benji said. “Maybe I lived in that house.”
“No one but geisha and their apprentices live in a geisha house.”
“Are you certain?” Benji said, looking back at it. “Not even children?”
“Perhaps some girls in training, but no boys, I am certain. I know about geisha because I am Japanese.”
“I’m Japanese too. My mother was a geisha.”
“But your father is American.”
The implication was clear. It was just as Mr. Matsumoto had warned. In Japan he was not pure Japanese. In America he was not an American. He was a mongrel, belonging nowhere.
“My mother came from a samurai family,” he said. “I’m going to find them.”
Haruki was silent, then said, “Please forgive my rudeness. I am certain that you will,” and they continued in silence through the heavy rain.
* * *
A few days later, when there was a break in the weather, Benji returned to Maruyama by himself and went to the shrine he’d noticed before. Looking at the paths that twined through the garden, the masses of hydrangeas, the open shrine sheltered by a roof, he felt a quiver of memory. A woman in a flowered summer kimono was praying before the shrine; he stared at the back of her neck, a graceful stem beneath her elaborately arranged hair. She might be a geisha.
When she moved away, her face turned from him, he stepped to the front of the shrine and looked into its dark interior, at the wooden and bronze objects there. He had no idea what any of it might signify. He pulled the long braided straw rope to ring the bell for the god’s attention and clapped twice; somehow he remembered that. He closed his eyes and waited.
Nothing. He stepped back, a tight feeling in his chest. The woman emerged from the back of the shrine, her head bowed. He watched her go, then followed the path around the shrine. There was a smaller shrine set f
arther back, among a cluster of evergreens; as he walked toward it, he saw a stone fox to the left of the entrance.
He hurried toward it, holding his breath, and stood before the fox. It was crudely made, of soft stone that had weathered badly; part of his snout was missing. He touched its head, mottled with black spots, ran his fingers over the ears. It was the fox that had frightened him as a child. They must have lived close by.
That night he asked the Tsujis where a geisha might have lived with an American. In Juzenji, Mr. Tsuji said without hesitation, the neighborhood on both sides of the Hollander Slope, not far from Maruyama.
“Hollander Slope!” He’d walked there many times now, perhaps close to his home without being aware of it.
“Juzenji is the mixed neighborhood of Nagasaki,” Mrs. Tsuji added. “Often a foreign man lives in this place with a geisha or courtesan, and some descendants of such unions live there too.”
“Is that the only place they could have lived?”
Mrs. Tsuji said that some Japanese men married geisha or courtesans and lived elsewhere, and that a few wealthy foreigners might take their geishas to live in the Oura district overlooking the bay, but most stayed in Juzenji.
* * *
Juzenji was a maze of houses, small gardens, and alleyways. For several weeks, on his days off, Benji walked through the narrow alleys of the neighborhood. He encountered some foreign men: a Frenchman with a limp, several sailors in European uniforms, an American sailor who made him think of Frank. He was exhilarated to see people with light eyes or hair that was not pure black: people like himself.
Behind the rows of houses at one perimeter of the neighborhood was a huge stone wall that seemed familiar—the way it cast a deep shadow over the adjoining houses and gardens—and there was a gate here and there, the way a door was set adjacent to the yard, that made him think one or the other of the houses could have been theirs, but he was not certain. Although everything seemed smaller than he remembered, the area and the quality of light stirred him, and he was positive that he had walked with his mother on the flagstone steps of Hollander Slope, going down the hill to the shops, up the hill to look at the ships in the harbor.
He was reluctant to go from door to door to ask about his mother—Mrs. Tsuji had warned him that people might be wary of talking to a stranger—but he always carried the picture in his pocket.
One day a plump gray-haired woman carrying a string bag of groceries stopped him in an alleyway. “You come here often,” she said. Her creased face was kind, so he told her he might have been born in the neighborhood and showed her the picture of his mother and Frank. “Do you recognize either of them?”
She squinted at the picture. “Possibly I have seen the woman—I cannot say with certainty. The man looks like many Americans. He is your father?”
Benji told her about Frank’s betrayal, his mother’s suicide. Had she heard of it?
“There are many sad partings here in Juzenji,” she said. “The foreigner comes, the foreigner goes; that is usually the way of it. Sometimes,” she added, looking at him, “he leaves behind his souvenir.”
“Do you know of a place for rent here?” he heard himself say. “A room or a small apartment?”
“Perhaps,” she said, looking at him closely. “Please come.” He followed her farther down the alley, where she slid open a gate made of wooden slats and led him into the house. She invited him to sit at a small table in an untidy room and brought tea, grunting as she sat down to join him. She was Fukuda Taki, she said, whose husband, a carpenter, had died recently; their one child had died quite young. She asked about his employment, how long he had been in Japan, his future plans. After he told her everything, including the years in America, the long trip here, she studied him gravely.
“I will need to speak with your employer,” she said, “but I believe a place can be arranged for you here, to our mutual benefit.”
The Tsujis said they would miss him, but the move seemed appropriate. Mr. Tsuji gave him a raise so that he could afford his new quarters.
Benji settled into a small tatami room upstairs in Mrs. Fukuda’s house, overlooking the front garden. In addition to his modest rent, he helped Mrs. Fukuda with chores in the house and contributed groceries for the breakfasts and dinners she cooked for him. She was glad to have him, she said; she had been lonely.
In the shop, Benji learned to use the abacus and to make change in Japanese currency. He made an addition to the inventory—Western-sized shoes and socks for men, sent by Mr. Matsumoto—that proved to be popular with tourists and businessmen from the Oura district. With the money Mr. Matsumoto sent him, Benji shipped objects made of tortoiseshell—eyeglasses, hair ornaments, jewelry—to San Francisco. His career in import/export had begun.
He returned often to the fox shrine, where he showed the photograph to anyone who seemed approachable: a man who worked on the grounds, a woman—beautiful, possibly a geisha—who gave him a slight smile as she was leaving. He went deeper into the pleasure district, going farther down small alleyways and lanes, to shops and teahouses and bars. A few people said her face might be familiar, but no one could recall her name. No one remembered Cio-Cio-san.
Keast settled Ulysses in what he still thought of as Pinkerton’s barn, gave him a good brushing and an extra measure of oats. It had been a hard day. On the way to the house, he looked out at the late-afternoon sunlight on the greening meadow, the plums in flower along the river, thinking of the day Benji lost his ball. It had been a warm day in autumn, Indian summer.
“You’re late, Horatio.” Lena met him at the door. “I was worried.”
He consulted his watch. “It’s the usual time.”
“You said you’d be home early.”
“I’m sorry, darling.” He kissed her and brushed a smear of flour from her cheek. “We had to go from one end of the county to the other. And I stopped by the post office.” He drew the envelope from his coat pocket to show her, but she was already headed toward the kitchen. The twins were in their high chairs at the dining-room table, Elmer throwing crumbs to the cat, Rose sucking her thumb.
“Hello, sugar lumps.” He gave each one a kiss on the head. “Where’s Charlotte?” he called. He’d looked forward to holding her.
“Already in her bassinet. She wore herself out crawling all day.”
He returned the letter to his pocket and sat down. The table was set with Lena’s best china, and wineglasses stood at their places.
It wasn’t their anniversary, and she’d already told him she was pregnant again.
Lena came in smiling, bearing a huge platter of pork roast surrounded by crusty potatoes. Sylvie followed with a bowl of peas fresh from the garden, baked apples, yeast rolls. His mouth watered.
“Pour the wine, Horatio, it’s on the side table.”
He reached for it—an excellent burgundy they’d been saving for a special occasion.
“What’s this all about?” he said.
“Your birthday! Why do you always forget?”
“Because I want to,” he said, too quickly, then saw the shadow cross her face. “But this is wonderful, sweetheart, thank you so much.” He poured their wine, lifted his glass. “How could a man be happier, with such a wife, such a family?”
They began to eat; he was ravenous. He’d tell her about Benji later. The children were fussy and had to be put to bed in the middle of the meal, he carrying Elmer, Lena with Rose.
“Quite a family we’re accumulating,” he said as they closed the nursery door. He embraced her and patted her stomach.
“I want to have more,” she said.
“More?”
“Four or five total, including the twins.”
“Oh, my.” He followed her down the stairs.
“You don’t want me to teach—I might as well have a class at home.”
They sat down at the table. He picked up his knife and fork, put them down. “I’m an old man, Lena, fifty-five. I can’t leave you with a house full of
children.”
“You’re as healthy as a horse. And you certainly don’t act like an old man,” she said with a sly look.
“You’re an inspiration,” he said. “But it’s something we have to talk about.”
“Later,” she said. “Let’s enjoy the evening.”
She brought in a cake, fresh coconut, and two wrapped gifts—onyx cuff links and a fine shirt she’d made for him. He took off his work shirt, put on the new one, and she helped him with the cuff links. “There,” she said. “More handsome than any young blade.”
“Ha,” he said, and kissed her. He hoped their child would be a male, to help Lena in her old age. Not that he didn’t have something set by, but she’d need a man.
After cake and coffee, they went to sit in the porch swing. It was the loveliest time of day, the gloaming, with its dusky, mysterious light. The air was perfumed with the lilacs he’d planted for Lena when they moved here.
“I’m sorry you missed your lilac wedding,” he said.
“This is just as good. Better. And we made an early start on our family.”
He sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Benji’s gone to Japan and didn’t bother to tell me.” He showed the envelope. “My letter was returned from San Francisco. Look at this: Return to sender. B. departed for Japan, will advise, Y. Matsumoto. Benji hasn’t written to me since that postcard.”
“He’s on an adventure. And he’s young. You’ll hear from him.”
He took her hand and looked out at the pasture, the light almost gone, the oak tree a dark indistinct shape. It was true: The young didn’t understand time, how it rushed by, fast as that little river.
Just before New Year’s it began to snow, blowing in first from the bay, then fanning out over the city, large flakes drifting down with a heaviness and ease that suggested something long stored had finally been released. When Benji walked from Mrs. Fukuda’s house toward the shop early the next morning, it had stopped snowing, but few people were out. In the silence, with all the houses blanketed by snow, time seemed erased. It could have been a hundred years ago; it could have been twenty years ago, when he was a boy, and his mother was alive. At the bottom of the hill, he turned and looked up Hollander Slope. The children of the wealthy foreigners had owned sleds, he remembered, and he’d watched enviously as they zoomed past him, screaming with delight. His mother had given him a large metal cooking pan to use as a sled, but it hadn’t worked on the hills, so she tied a rope to the handles and pulled him back and forth across a flat patch of snow.
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