by Jina Bacarr
I listened, but heard nothing. Where was Fusae, Yuko? Were they hurt? Or…no, I couldn’t think that—wouldn’t. I crawled on my hands and knees, my cotton chemise tearing, until my fingers found the outline of the smooth standing screen, which had collapsed onto the floor. Shivering and half-naked, I felt around until the rush of silk filled my palm. My kimono. I grabbed the robe and dared to stand up, hoping the shaking had stopped, then made my way over to the window, tripping on the long kimono under my feet. I was afraid of stepping on broken glass from the shattered window, but I had to get out of here. I banged on the wooden slats covering the window frame, managing to smash through a broken one. I gave out a loud moan when I realized I couldn’t open the shutters. Since the bungalow was built European-style, it wasn’t equipped like native wooden houses with small escape doors to slip out through during an earthquake. What was I going to do? I’d never experienced such a feeling of helplessness, knowing that if I did get out of the house and run, I could be hit by falling tiles and killed. Or what if there was a tidal wave sweeping across the port city with an unstoppable force?
The bungalow started shaking again. I crouched on the floor under the folded screen with my arms covering the back of my neck. Long rolling motions followed by short jolts with low rumbling noises seemingly underneath me. The natives believed earthquakes were a fearsome dragon uncoiling his tail in defiance of the gods. But it was no mythical creature that shook the bungalow so hard the wall crumbled, splattering me with debris and making it impossible for me to get out. I lay under the folded screen for what seemed like hours, saying Hail Marys and praying God hadn’t abandoned me, all the while defying the gods and swearing no damn moving and shaking of the earth was going to get the better of Katie O’Roarke.
But it wasn’t the gods I had to fear.
It was my husband.
“You’re alone,” was all James said when he broke down the door and found me covered by debris, hiding under the fallen screen and choking on the air filled with dust. I should have known he would come looking for me. His lordship had wasted no time in making his way up to the Bluff as soon as the road was clear, bringing two coolies with him. It didn’t take the natives long to remove the crumbling plaster and broken glass covering the screen and keeping me prisoner.
Shaken but not hurt, I let James help me to my feet. He would have been here sooner, he said, but a fire had broken out in Native Town, clogging the area with babbling natives trying to save the wooden structures, the walls with rotted timbers split open by the quake. Chaos reigned. Frightened children crying, many separated from their parents. Small animals cowering under rocks and fallen tree branches. Frantic firemen going from house to house, searching for survivors buried under the timbers. But that didn’t stop James from barging through the pall of billowing black smoke and burning embers to get to me. I had no doubt it was merely to protect his financial interests with little thought to my personal well-being.
The irony of my dear husband coming to my rescue didn’t prevent me from speaking my mind.
“You were hoping to find me with a lover?” I asked, my sassy mouth returning after nearly being buried alive. A shudder went through me. I ignored it.
“If you did have a man here,” he said, smirking, “he’s a damn coward, leaving you alone to die.”
“I expect you didn’t have similar thoughts in your mind?” I couldn’t resist asking him. “That would have been so convenient for you.”
“Why would I wish to see my wife perish in this strange land when she has so much to offer me?” He picked me up in his arms before I could protest and carried me outside the bungalow, the coolies smiling and bowing before James shooed them away.
I beat my fists against his chest, trying to ignore the smell of brandy clinging to his fine broadcloth coat. He was drunk. Dangerous, unsteady. “Take your hands off me, James.”
“I have to make certain you’re not injured.” He put me down but stood so close to me, our shoulders touching, I was filled with an irrational fear when he ran his hands up and down my arms, my breasts, midriff, hips, all encased in silk. I had reason to be afraid. With the skill of a man who knew the pleasure of women’s flesh, his hands roamed freely over my body, pushing my chemise up above my thighs. “Your skin is so soft, so pure—”
“I told you to leave me alone.” I pulled away from him so quickly the loosely stitched kimono ripped at the seam. “Go, now. What if the servants come back—”
“They won’t,” he said crisply.
“What? They weren’t hurt, dear Mother Mary…no.” I put my hand to my mouth, sending upward a silent prayer for them, hoping the two had found safety and were simply too afraid to return.
He looked me in the eyes, amused with what he perceived as weakness. “So my dear wife has feelings after all. I never would have believed it.”
“Why do you torment me so, James?” I asked, trying to see his face in the pale light. “You have what you want. Money, women.”
“I want you to come to me willingly.” He shivered, whether it was from the emotion welling up inside him or his inebriated state, I couldn’t tell. He intoned the words in that appealing voice of his I knew so well, but without the sarcasm, the shadings of his upper-class sheltered life gone, replaced by the haunting need of someone very vulnerable. Wanting, withdrawn.
In that moment I almost felt sorry for my husband, the pain in his eyes replacing what I often saw as a man who lived a narrow life, the low, throaty sound of his voice sputtering like a wounded animal’s. But he was like a fox caught in the trap. Cunning and cruel. The memory of our wedding night washed away any sentiment clinging to the edges of my heart.
“I will never come to you, James,” I said, determined not to be taken in by his sudden performance of spiritual courage for my benefit, acting like a jilted husband. “Any man who needs to whip and flog women to stimulate him doesn’t know how to make love to a woman.”
I didn’t realize then how close I was to discovering his well-kept secret when he slapped me across the face, startling me. I put my hand to my burning cheek, but I refused to cry.
“Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he yelled. “Ever.”
I was grateful we were alone. I was shaken but unhurt, a few scrapes and bruises, but I could still defend myself.
“Get out of here and leave me alone,” I demanded, my fists along with my Irish dander rising. “Or I swear I will throw you down the hill myself.”
“This business between us isn’t over yet,” James stated flatly. “I always get what I want.” Then he turned on his heel and left me standing in the debris as clouds of dry dust filled my eyes, the irritation making them wet. For it couldn’t be tears burning my eyes, could it?
The sting of his hand on my cheek stayed with me over the next few days, his threatening words more ominous than ever. He was planning something, but what? I didn’t have time to reflect on it. I thanked every saint I could think of when Fusae and Yuko returned, laughing and crying when they saw me (I’ve discovered the natives tend to laugh in any situation where they are uncomfortable, even in a time of crisis). The two women had raced down the mountain road, down broken steps, facing danger from falling evergreens breaking and toppling onto the road to find his lordship and bring help. Together we salvaged what we could from the house, packed my bags and off I went to stay at a small hotel in the settlement. That’s where Mr. Fawkes found me, his grand presence blustering and upset when he sat down with me for tea in the small hotel dining room.
“I feel responsible for what happened, your ladyship,” he said, sipping his tea clouded with a light milk. Fortunately, the seaport of Yokohama had suffered little damage except on the Bluff, where a few foreign residences like mine that had been built quickly and without a strong foundation had been hit with the most force. When I asked him if the natives suffered many losses, Mr. Fawkes explained how they keep their valuables in a fireproof warehouse known as a godown, which is covered with mud plast
er. “I should have had you on your way to Tokio before the earthquake struck.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, laughing, “unless you possess a dragon’s tail.”
“You wear your American humor well, Lady Carlton,” he answered, wiping his face with a paper tissue. “I would have returned sooner, but urgent business with a lady kept me away.”
“And what is her name?” I teased him.
“I will tell you when the time is right,” he said, smiling and looking very sure of himself. “Until then I have good news.”
“Yes?” I asked, curious.
“We leave for Tokio in the morning.”
9
The clickety-clack of the train steaming down the tracks from Yokohama to Tokio brought tears to my eyes as I sank down in a plush maroon seat in the first-class English-built carriage, thinking as I was about my da and how excited he would have been to see how the natives had embraced the iron horse. The eighteen-mile double track ran smooth and fast for the hour-long trip and I could see my father inspecting every detail, whistling as he did so, tinkering with every wire and screw, figuring how to make the ride smoother, the engine burn fuel more efficiently. He loved to talk to the men who worked the tracks, loaded the mail, drove the big engines. Pulling on his suspenders like a proud rooster, he never let anyone forget he had started at the bottom and worked his way up and so could the next man.
The train trip passed pleasantly, the scenery outside the window taking an interesting turn when I saw bare-breasted native women wading in knee-deep water, gathering rice.
When I pointed this out to Mr. Fawkes, he never looked up from his newspaper, instead commenting about the sun playing tricks on my eyes. No doubt he had never met a western woman who dared speak her mind.
I didn’t see a conductor during the entire trip (passengers show their tickets after they leave the train at their destination). When we arrived at Shinbashi station in what is now called Tokio—only foreigners call it Yedo, according to Mr. Fawkes—I had a slight mishap when my bustle caught in the turnstile in the stone terminal. After delicately extricating my silk behind, he wiped his face with thin papers he called “tissues” then tossed them away in a receptacle (I was surprised to learn the natives have used these disposable items for hundreds of years) and collected my luggage. It wasn’t until then I set my resolve in gear and broached the subject of my husband’s philandering. (James had seen Mr. Fawkes and me off at the railway station, reminding me he’d be coming to Tokio later in the week after he concluded his business with Lord Penmore. No doubt he meant the spring racing season, but I retained my ladylike posture and never mentioned my trip to the bank. Why tip my hand?)
I admit I embellished my meeting with the bank manager, adding a flourish about how he personally escorted me out of his establishment with his boot, which made Mr. Fawkes laugh, his rotund belly bouncing up and down like apple jelly as we got into the waiting kuruma. (Hundreds of jinrikishas and horse-drawn carts waited for the horde of third-class native passengers clamoring out of the train in their three-inch wooden clogs.) I believed James chose to do business with a German bank to hide his tracks, I told him, but I assured the Englishman he wouldn’t get away with it.
“And what does your ladyship intend to do about his underhandedness?” he wanted to know as we rode through the streets of Tokio, my eyes taking in what was a changing city, the curio shops filled with bangles and silks, scrap and rag dealers, struggling to stay alive among the places catering to westerners. Milk parlors, barbershops and the new Uyeno Park.
“I can’t get back the monies his lordship has already lost through gambling,” I said when we reached the little house with the latticed front on the narrow street I would call home—a one-story dwelling with a garden and a gray tile roof. “But I can prevent him from losing more.” I overcame any fear of overstepping my position and laid my gloved hand on his forearm. Not in an intimate manner, but in friendship. “With your help, Mr. Fawkes.”
His forearm tightened, but his voice remained steady. “How can I be of service, Lady Carlton?”
I explained to him how I wanted him to post a letter to my father for me on the next steamer back to the U.S., changing the details on the letter of credit so James needed my signature as a cosigner to approve his expenditures on any bank in Japan.
“I’m convinced something bigger than gambling debts are at stake, Mr. Fawkes,” I said honestly. “What it is, I don’t know.”
“I’d say hundreds of miles of railway track, your ladyship, and the new businesses generated along the way,” said Mr. Fawkes without a trace of humor. “The natives have embraced the railroad like a new god of commerce. I’d venture to say in twenty years, they will have built more railway lines than anyone in London dreamed possible. They’re an imitative lot, these Japanese, and your husband and his friends see an opportunity to make a fortune by importing raw materials into this country at a rapid rate.”
I grabbed the Englishman and hugged him, making the older man smile. “Mr. Fawkes, you’re a saint. My dear husband isn’t losing the money by gambling. He’s transferring the funds to Lord Penmore to invest for him and cheating my father out of the profits. The bastard.”
“Your ladyship—”
“I married an English lord, Mr. Fawkes, but I cut my teeth on a Pennsylvania farm, the daughter of a hardworking Irishman and I’ll be damned, but I’ll not let him get away with it.”
Full of fire and bluster I was that day, vowing to stop James from swindling my father. I had no idea then what unique set of events would make that possible, nor could I have known what surprise Mr. Fawkes had in store for me. He had news, he said, about the mysterious woman he mentioned in Yokohama.
“Is she pretty?” I wanted to know, prying. I couldn’t help myself since curiosity is one Irish trait we never seem to find depleted and is as natural to us as believing in holy stones and spirits.
“Yes,” he said coyly.
“What is her name?” I asked.
This time he laughed heartily. “Haruko.”
“Are you certain she wishes to meet me?” I found it odd he wanted to introduce me to a native woman. From what I understood about the culture, men didn’t mix business with pleasure.
He nodded. “It’s a royal decree, Lady Carlton, from Haruko, the empress of Japan.”
The empress. I couldn’t believe my ears. I was about to enter a world others only dreamed about, talked about, fantasized. And you, dear lady reader, shall accompany me.
The day I, Katie O’Roarke, met the empress of Japan, was also the day this Irish lass collided outside the palace walls with the most difficult, egotistical, pragmatic man I’d ever laid eyes upon.
Shintaro.
Since that moment I’ve been shadowed by his haunting presence, this mysterious and philosophical master of my fate, a man who possessed my soul when he whispered erotic poetry in my ear while his hands traveled up and down my nude body pleasuring me. I once laid my trembling fingers upon the sword hanging from his belt and, by the holy beads of the sisters, I swear the white heat emitting from its blade burned my flesh. I paid dearly for my forward indiscretion when he tied my hands behind my back with damp hemp, then encircled the silken rope around my breasts before drawing it taut over my belly and down between my legs. Its twisted fibers cut into my glistening pink folds and rubbed against my innocent clitoris, swollen and hard, bringing me such intense pleasure I spot my drawers now with a fresh stain as I write…
Be patient, dear lady reader, for ’tis true I often get lost in the rich, erotic telling of my story and seek to regain the discipline to pay attention to my craft as a memoirist and not dwell on my sexual adventures. I do not use a metaphor on the page to describe his well-formed cock. I speak instead of the steel weapon that defined him, as it did all samurai, an embodiment of his spirit and a means to avenge an insult or cut down an enemy. I could set down many examples about his skill as a swordsman, but I shall tell you one I witnessed wit
h my own eyes. It was a time, when to check the temper of his blade, I stood a chopstick on end and Shintaro severed it in two as it fell. You find that too timid? If I may be allowed a second indulgence, I shall repeat a story I heard but did not witness that further illustrates his unsurpassed swordsmanship. I must advise you, if your constitution is of a delicate nature, this may be difficult to read. No, it is not a sexual passage, so if you wish to skip it, please do so.
I shall proceed.
According to an informed source you will meet later in my story, a feared enemy of the samurai clan tried to assassinate Shintaro. My samurai saw through his disguise and lay in wait for him to pass behind the compound. When he did so, he raised his sword and, with speed and accuracy, decapitated the swine so adroitly his head did not fall from his shoulders until he turned the corner. Amazing, but true, but everything about Shintaro was not of the ordinary. My samurai was a tall man, well above the average height of natives and westerners, and possessed a strength known to few men. I state without embarrassment that I enjoyed looking at him nude, his presence filling my soul as it did my eyes, tracing my finger along the hard ridges of his stomach, the bulging muscles formed on his upper arms, his strong thighs, the wide breadth of his cock.
I must wipe the perspiration from my face since I can no longer contain myself, my longing to relive that day when the scent of this man stamped itself in the primal part of my brain. When I needed a protector, he was there to shield me from the devil’s doing. I also saw a vulnerable side of him that shut out the combative world around him to reflect on the beauty of a single blossom, a part of him he was forced to suppress as a samurai, so he built walls around himself. Still, he let me into his dark yet passionate world. Erotic, mysterious, a carnal, earthly paradise of emotions and smells and pleasures so acute the only way I can soothe this unending ache in my heart for him is to continue with the scene as I remember it.