“No. Of course not,” Libby said. She tried to smile but she was having a very difficult time maintaining her composure after hearing Kojiro had gone to the hospital following the accident.
Perhaps she hadn’t been dreaming when she saw him standing by her bed.
“Major Yoshida complained for weeks about having to fly with a woman. But I think he has changed his mind about women pilots. You remember Major Yoshida?” The general asked, pointing to his aide.
Libby nodded. “I remember,” she said.
Kojiro bowed and extended his hand. “Captain Comerford,” was all he managed to say.
Libby stared at the out stretched hand, the same hand that had caressed her with such infinite tenderness, at the long tapering fingers, the smooth, ivory-colored skin.
“Major … ” She was afraid to touch him, afraid of the pain the simple gesture would inflict, but the other men were getting impatient. They wanted to go into lunch.
“Major Yoshida.” She clasped his hand in hers, raised her head and gave Kojiro a proud, defiant smile. “I haven’t had the opportunity to congratulate you on your marriage,” she said.
He looked stricken by her words. His face blanched white and he released her hand and stepped back. General Sato’s genial smile faded and he said something in Japanese under his breath to Kojiro.
“You must excuse us, Captain. We have a business lunch — I think that is what you Americans call it — to attend.” Then he turned and walked briskly into the dining room, followed by his attentive officers.
Darlene, who had been watching from the sidelines, asked what exactly that was all about. “Was that him?” she asked. “Major Yoshi, … ”
“Major Yoshida. Yes.”
“Very distinguished looking.”
“Do you think so?” Libby asked bitterly.
Kojiro broke his engagement to Motoko Hashizume a week before the wedding. He took the train to Kyoto on Saturday morning and met with her in the afternoon. Breaking the appalling news to his fiancée was the most difficult thing he had ever done and, until he heard the words coming out of his mouth, he wasn’t sure he would have the courage to go through with it. He felt so mean-spirited and cruel but he reckoned that it was kinder to break the engagement at the last minute than to spend the rest of his life in a cold, loveless marriage.
Motoko didn’t see it quite that way. She was angry. “What will people think?” She wailed.
“They will think I am a cad. An ungrateful son … .”
“They’ll think something is wrong with me. I’ll never get a husband after this!”
“Don’t be silly. Of course you will. You’re a lovely young woman and you’ll make someone a wonderful wife.”
“I don’t understand. You never gave me any reason to believe that you were unhappy. And when I visited Misawa … .”
Kojiro patted her hand. “When you visited Misawa, I intended to go through with the marriage. Otherwise … . I’m sorry about what happened in the hotel. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you. What I am doing is unforgivable. But oh, Motoko, don’t you see how unhappy both of us would be if we were to marry?”
“I couldn’t possibly be any unhappier if I were married, than I am now,” she sniffed.
Kojiro met with the go-between next. He would have to try and undue all the extensive arrangements that had been made, oversee the return of the betrothal gifts, and attempt to smooth relations between the two families. The nakado was shocked and disgusted at Kojiro’s behavior but at least he didn’t ask him why he had changed his mind. However, he didn’t hesitate to warn the major that when he finally decided to settle down, there might be difficulty in finding a young woman willing to contemplate marriage with such a rash, unfeeling man.
He told his parents last because, of all the people involved, he knew they would be the most aggrieved at his inexplicable behavior, and that they would demand an explanation. Once Motoko recovered from the initial shock, Kojiro was certain she would be all right. Another respectable husband would be found — she was a good catch — well-educated, affluent. Before the year was out, he would be willing to wager, she would have that honeymoon in Australia. But his father and mother were a different matter.
Neither one of them would be sympathetic to his being in love with another woman. Nor would they be able to fathom how he could possibly consider an intimate attachment with a foreigner. It just wasn’t done.
“A man gets married to have a home, a wife to look after him and bear his children and to carry on the family name,” Kojiro’s father scolded. “Love has nothing to do with the reasons people marry. It is an unnecessary indulgence, which usually leads to misery and disappointment.
“Arranged marriages are, in my estimation, inevitably happier than so called ‘love matches.’ The men and women have more realistic expectations. Don’t you agree, mama?”
The mother in question, usually so congenial, shrugged her shoulders. Her head was still reeling from the information Kojiro had just quietly imparted about breaking off his engagement. The wedding was in a week. Everything was arranged! And what was all this talk about some gaijin? How could her clever, handsome son do something so outrageous?
Kojiro informed General Sato about his change of plans upon his return from Kyoto. The general had already written the speech he planned to deliver at the reception — one extolling his aide’s character and loyalty — so he was understandably annoyed with the news and disappointed in Kojiro’s unconventional behavior. But as long as their work wasn’t affected, he made it a policy never to pry into his officer’s personal lives. Major Yoshida was an exemplary aide and an outstanding pilot. His private life was his own business.
The only person Kojiro didn’t tell about his abortive marriage was Libby. And although the accident and seeing her in the hospital had been the catalyst for breaking off the engagement, he did not feel it was in her best interest to see him again. Even if she were disposed to do so — which he doubted.
For all that they had loved one another, he was not convinced that they would ever be able to overcome the cultural obstacles in their path and he didn’t want to be a party to Libby’s unhappiness.
Kojiro had broken off his engagement because he didn’t love Motoko. He wasn’t free to pursue Libby because he loved her too much.
Kojiro had made the decision not to try to see Libby again when he got back from Kyoto. If he hadn’t run into her at the officers’ club he undoubtedly would have adhered to his resolve. For despite the proximity in which the Japanese and Americans worked in Misawa, for the most part they lived separate lives. But once he saw her again, he immediately forgot all the old arguments that had buttressed his decision. So what if she was an American? So what if she was a fighter pilot? Or a Christian, or couldn’t speak Japanese very well. He loved Libby and he wanted her, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. When she had taken ahold of his hand, her clasp was so strong and sure, it felt as if some of her extraordinary courage had passed between them and given him strength to meet, and challenge, and overcome, the considerable impediments that lay ahead — not least of which was winning back Libby’s confidence and trust.
With that in mind, he went to the BOQ on Saturday afternoon and knocked on her door. (Kojiro hadn’t studied military history for nothing.) He figured the element of surprise would work in his favor and give him the time he needed to try to convince her to give him another chance. If he called on the telephone, she would undoubtedly hang up. And he did not feel he could express his feelings adequately in English, on paper. But if she saw him in person, perhaps the powerful physical chemistry that had attracted them to one another and sustained their highly charged affair would eventually overcome some, any, all, of Libby’s reservations.
She might despise him intellectually, he could hardly blame her for that. But her body had responded to h
is touch, as his had to hers. A current of desire had arced like a jolt of electricity between the two of them when he took her hand.
However Libby was not at home. There was a note on her door — intended for someone by the name of Joan, and which Kojiro read — saying she had gone on the excursion train to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Hirosaki and wouldn’t be back until late.
Kojiro glanced at his watch. It was a two-hour drive to Hirosaki; he would be unlikely to find Libby in the vast crowds that thronged the park but he was too agitated to go home to his dreary apartment and he could hardly camp out on her doorstep for the next seven or eight hours, so he decided to take a chance and go to the festival.
By the time Kojiro arrived in the city and found a parking place, it was raining. He could see the colorful lanterns illuminating the trees glowing softly through the pall of rain. The weather did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the people or to deplete their number. The park was as crowded as if it were a fine spring evening. Enterprising party-goers were erecting plastic canopies over their picnic areas. The more serious-minded — who had come to actually look at the cherry blossoms and contemplate their fragile, fleeting beauty — strolled along the footpaths under umbrellas.
Kojiro, who had not been in the frame of mind to consider the weather when he started out and had failed to bring either an umbrella or raincoat, trudged along with his hands in his pockets and his collar turned up, scanning the crowd for Libby. Once or twice, he thought he spotted her among a group of Americans, but inevitably the look-alike paled in comparison, and he was disgusted with himself for even considering there was a likeness between the two.
The cherry trees were beginning to look as bedraggled as the spectators. Their branches, laden with a profusion of pink and white blooms, drooped under the steady assault of rain. By morning, the ground would be littered with blossoms, the water in the moat clogged with the delicate petals.
Kojiro wasn’t sure how many times he had traversed the grounds of the castle, crossed back and forth over the sturdy bridge spanning the moat, before he finally found her. Libby was standing with a group of friends under the branches of a venerable old cherry tree, a bottle of beer in one hand and a stick of Yakitori chicken, in the other. She looked as unprepared for the wet weather as Kojiro. Her only protection from the rain was a plastic shopping bag that she had fastened across her shoulders like a cape and a wilted paisley scarf knotted under her chin; but she had never looked as beautiful to Kojiro.
He stood there in the middle of the gravel path, staring at Libby, terrified lest he look away and she disappear into the crowd. Confronting her in front of her friends was as unnerving as the prospect of losing sight of her. She might not appreciate him barging into the midst of what appeared to be a private gathering of men and women from the squadron. There were blankets spread out on the grass and picnic baskets and coolers full of sodas and beer. From the looks of it, the Americans appeared to be enjoying the Cherry Blossom festival every bit as much as the Japanese. But there was no point in delaying any longer. Kojiro hadn’t come to Hirosaki to sight-see.
Libby had been looking forward to spending the day in Hirosaki with friends from the squadron. Since the breakup with Kojiro, she found her social life increasingly dependent upon her fellow pilots. She knew where she stood in relation to every single one of them. She felt safe in their company.
Meeting Kojiro in the officers’ club had threatened to unravel her protective cocoon. Libby felt confused and angry — that just seeing him again could evoke such powerful emotions, when she had convinced herself she no longer cared about him — and afraid. She had to get over him, if she were to ever get on with her life. She didn’t want to spend the next two years in Japan, suspended in some sort of emotional vacuum, unable to establish a normal, loving relationship with a member of the opposite sex.
Libby went to the Cherry Blossom festival determined to forget Kojiro and have a wonderful time. So far, she had not succeeded in either objective. And it was almost time to board the train and go back to Misawa. Perhaps if the weather had been more cooperative … . All the posters advertising the festival featured glorious pictures of the cherry trees in brilliant sunshine. They did not look nearly as impressive when the sky was a sullen gray and even less so, in pouring rain.
In her concerted effort to have fun, Libby had had too much to drink on the erroneous assumption that the alcohol would not only lift her spirits but also banish the provocative thoughts about Kojiro. Of course, it did neither one. It was hard to put Major Yoshida out of mind when she was surrounded by so many of his countrymen — some of whom resembled him to such a marked degree, she found herself staring wistfully after them.
As far as having fun was concerned, Libby had long since given up on that endeavor, when Kojiro, stepping around the body of one of the American pilots propped against the trunk of the tree, stopped directly in front of her. She had just taken a bite of chicken and was rendered speechless until she finished chewing it and swallowed. Even then, she couldn’t think of anything to say, she was so shocked to see him. It was one thing to think about Kojiro, and quite another to have him suddenly appear out of nowhere.
“What are you doing here?” She finally managed. Libby hoped she sounded suitably offended by his presence but she had a sinking feeling her words were a little slurred.
“I must talk to you.”
“I don’t think we have anything to say to one another, Major Yoshida,” Libby said dismissively.
Kojiro glanced uneasily at her companions, who were watching him with unabashed interest. So this was the Japanese pilot Libby was involved with.
“Oh, but we do. I, I must explain … .” He stammered.
“Explain what? Are you mad?” Libby turned abruptly away and, in doing so, stumbled on the pilot’s outstretched legs. Kojiro instinctively grabbed her arm to prevent her from falling. She tried to shrug his hand loose but he kept it anchored just above the elbow.
“Let me go,” she hissed under her breath.
“Not until we talk.”
“Here? Now?” Libby waved the bottle of beer up in the air, spilling half the contents on the blanket. “What about, Kojiro? Your new bride?” Libby glanced over his shoulder as if she half-expected Motoko to make an appearance. “Where is she? Have you tired of the, the … marriage bed so soon, you’ve decided to seek amusement elsewhere?” Libby smiled maliciously at his grim expression. “If you think I’ve been pining away for you, you’re mistaken. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
He wrenched the bottle out of her hand and tossed it on the grass. “I’d prefer more privacy, but if you insist, I shall say what I have to say right here, in front of your friends. I am not married. I broke my engagement to Motoko the week before the wedding.”
“I don’t believe it,” she exclaimed with a laugh.
Kojiro had never seen Libby intoxicated but it was obvious from her exaggerated mannerisms and slurred speech that she had indulged in more than the one beer. And just when he wanted to be taken seriously. But maybe it was just as well. If she were completely sober, she might have refused to speak to him at all.
“Darlene!” Libby waved her free hand at her friend, indicating she should join them. “I don’t think you’ve ever met my, my … . Major Yo-shi-da. Ko-ji-ro, to his close friends.”
“How do you do?” Darlene said. She didn’t look particularly friendly but at least she didn’t tell him to get lost.
Kojiro bowed. “Your portrait was in the window of the photography shop.”
Before Darlene had time to answer, Libby intervened. “Did you see my photograph, Kojiro? Did you like it?”
“It was lovely. I, I tried to buy it,” he admitted sheepishly. “But the photographer refused to part with it.”
“Oh, well in that case, you can have one for free — as a souvenir to show all your fr
iends the American blonde you liked to screw. Which would you prefer, a wallet size or one for your desk?”
“Libby, perhaps this isn’t a good time to talk to Major Yoshida.” Darlene put her hand on Libby’s arm and attempted to steer her away from Kojiro, but he would not relinquish his grasp and Libby seemed oblivious of the ensuing tug-of-war over her person. For someone who had just declared she had nothing to say to the major, she was doing a very poor job of keeping quiet.
“Darlene and I had our pictures taken for a lark, didn’t we?” Libby giggled. “As you know, Kojiro, I don’t have the right dimensions to wear a kimono properly. The woman who dressed me was quite exasperated with the size of my bosom. She kept shaking her head and muttering under her breath.”
“Libby, please. I have to talk to you. Alone,” he added for emphasis.
Libby disposed of the skewer of half-eaten chicken and wiped her greasy hands on her jeans.
What did Kojiro want to talk about? What was he doing in Hirosaki at the Cherry Blossom Festival anyway? How did he even know she was here? Or was it a chance encounter? No. No. No. Kojiro never left anything to chance. But he could hardly have followed her. She had come on the train from Misawa and spent the entire day with friends.
The effects of the alcohol were muddying her thinking processes and interfering with her balance. If it hadn’t been for Kojiro’s firm grip on her arm, Libby felt as if she was in danger of toppling over.
Oh, what had possessed her to drink all that beer? One was all she could tolerate gracefully. Two made her dizzy. Three, a little silly. Four, maudlin. At the moment, she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Kojiro entreating her to talk to him. He looked as miserable as she felt. His black hair was slicked back off his forehead, his thin cotton jacket was soaked through from the rain. The cuffs on his trousers spattered with mud.
“Why didn’t you get married?” She asked suddenly.
At the mention of his marriage, Kojiro flushed in embarrassment and bowed his head. “That is one of the things I want to talk to you about,” he muttered.
Heart to Heart Page 89