by Jay Rubin
His eyes opened to the deep darkness of night. Aside from the sound of his own pounding heart, he heard only the gentle whish of Mitsuko’s regular breathing. He felt as if he were lying in bed with an oven. But what woke him was the pain of his erection thrusting up against the heavy blankets. He pushed the covers aside to relieve the pressure, but his body was still on fire, and the tension between his thighs seemed only to increase. He half believed he could see Mitsuko’s naked breasts in the darkness, rising and falling with each breath. He reached out and felt the reassuring coolness of cotton, but his fingertips grazed the upthrusting nipple beneath, and a shock ran through his body.
No. He would not let her do this to him. He lay there as still as possible, but the chill of his perspiration began to make him shiver.
“Mitsuko,” he whispered.
The sound of her continued steady breathing brought him escape from his humiliation even as it signaled to him that his agony would not be soothed.
God, help me, he prayed silently, but the more he concentrated on the source of his physical discomfort, the more stubbornly it persisted.
He brought his hand down to the throbbing organ and began to stroke it. Mitsuko shifted in her sleep. What if she awoke and found him in the midst of this perversion? And what would he do with the fluid when he came to his climax? What would she think when she laundered his pajamas and the sheets that he had fouled?
Feeling like a miserable prowler, the Reverend Thomas Morton crept from his bedroom and spent a short but critical interval of the night standing spread-legged before the bathroom sink. 9 6
PART THREE:
1959
12
HIS FATHER’S SIN. It was all that Bill could think of as he found his way out of the church where the Reverend Thomas Morton presided as the spokesman of God. The woman named Mitsu had been the object of that sin, or perhaps the cause.
But he found that impossible to believe. The shadow she cast deep within his soul gave him only comfort, warmth and tenderness. The distant reverberations of her goodness reached him the day he entered Maneki, and before the week was out he found himself drawn there twice again.
Back at Cascade-Pacific on Friday, he found Clare in the cafeteria eating dinner with her friends. She smiled at him wearily and excused herself, following him with her tray to an unoccupied table in the corner.
“Do we still have a date tomorrow night?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Do you have time for me?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’ve been acting strangely.”
“That’s an understatement!”
“But I do love you, Clare.”
He reached across the table for her hand. She turned her palm up to his and clasped his hand warmly. For a long, silent time, they looked into each other’s eyes.
“I have something to tell you tomorrow night,” he said.
Her brows twitched. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”
“I don’t think you will.”
She squeezed his hand. “You’re going to leave me.”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about our future.” She sat back in her chair, yanking her hand from his. “Why don’t you just break off our engagement and get it over with?” Heads turned in their direction. She glanced up and flushed.
“Can we continue this tomorrow night?” he whispered.
“What’s the point?” she said, lowering her voice. “I’ve got the message.”
“No, you haven’t got the message at all, damn it! Please, calm down and I’ll come for you at 7:30 tomorrow.”
Bill was nervously straightening the knot of his tie when Clare floated through the lobby door in a sleeveless, pale yellow, flowing dress of a silky fabric that clung and moved alluringly. Her hair was down, falling to her shoulders in billowy cascades, and she beamed at him as if in an unabashed declaration of love. In high heels, she was nearly as tall as Bill. He stood there, stunned. It was as if all the strains of the past week had vanished.
“What’s wrong?” she chirped playfully, her blue eyes glowing.
“You look lovely,” he murmured, taking her hand.
“Is that so unusual?”
“I wasn’t even sure you’d be here.”
She smiled, bringing her face close for a kiss.
He planted a warm kiss on her lips and they went out to his car. As Clare snuggled up against him, he asked, “Where would you like to go?”
“To Ballard,” she said without hesitation.
“Your home? I wasn’t exactly planning to spend the evening with your parents.”
“Just for a little while,” she cooed.
The Korvald house was dark when they pulled up to it a few minutes later.
“So much for an evening with the folks,” said Bill.
“Let’s go in anyway. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”
Bill expected the warm, slightly fishy smell that always lingered in his future in-laws’ house, but today the air was merely stuffy. Clare went around switching on lights and opening windows. The place always struck him as the site of a battle against homesickness, its walls covered with large photographs of dramatic green mountains and sparkling fjords. Next to a modest cross over the mantelpiece hung, almost as if in competition, the blue-on-white cross on the red rectangle of the Norwegian flag. An old framed photo stood on the end table by the blue sofa, showing Mr. and Mrs. Korvald in traditional wedding dress, staring stiffly into the camera, the bride with a wide, flat crown on her head from which hung clusters of metal flowers. Clare had once shown him another photo of the couple. In it, the groom, smiling broadly, was holding a cup carved in the shape of a Viking ship, and his new wife, still in her crown, was drinking from it. This picture was kept in an album and never displayed, Clare explained, because the cup contained beer that had been brewed especially for the wedding ceremony, and her mother did not want to be seen drinking beer.
Bill let himself sink into the deep cushions of the sofa and listened to Clare moving about in the kitchen. By the lamp on the end table stood a balsa-wood model of a B-47. Mr. Korvald had probably made it himself. Boeing employees were nothing if not loyal to the company.
Clare appeared with a tray and set it before him on the coffee table. When he saw the two long-stemmed glasses flanking a plate of cheese, Bill exclaimed, “Not you, too, Clare! It’s bad enough your father makes me drink that stuff.”
“No one is allowed to leave the Korvald home without having tasted aquavit.”
“You mean kerosene.”
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to refuse what you’re offered? Drink up.”
“Oh, come on, Clare, you don’t like this stuff any more than I do.”
She put her fists on her hips and stood over him, tapping one foot like an exasperated mother.
“This is crazy,” he said, taking his glass and waiting for her to take hers.
She sat down beside him and grasped the fluted stem in her fingertips, raising the sparkling glass to him.
“Skoal,” she said as they touched glasses. A bright flash of red passed through the inverted cone of clear liquid atop the stem, the smile on Clare’s painted lips momentarily twisted into a gaping grin.
“Skoal,” he replied halfheartedly. He took a sip and felt a jolt as the fiery concoction tore down his throat. The warmth spread immediately and the caraway-scented fumes filled his lungs.
“Now,” she said, smiling demurely, “What are these new thoughts you have about our future?”
“I’ve decided I want our missionary work to be in Japan, not Norway,” he said without hesitation.
“You sound very definite.”
“I am very definite.”
“Without a word to me?”
Clare slowly twirled the stem of the aquavit glass in her fingers, peering down into the little puddle remaining in the cup. Then she set her glass on the tray, and he set his next to it.
“Bill, w
hat’s happening to us? We used to talk over everything, and now, all of a sudden, you’re acting like—well, like my father! He tells my mother what they’re going to do after he’s made all the decisions. He never even asked her if she wanted to leave Norway.”
“I don’t mean to be like that. It’s just that …”
“What?” she cried. “What is it that’s been eating you up so? Why don’t you talk to me anymore?”
She reached for his hand and, trying to smile for her, he let her take it.
“I love you, Bill,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you.” She rose up and threw herself against him. “Kiss me. Please kiss me.”
His arms closed around her strong shoulders, and she pressed her lips hard against his. “Oh, darling,” she moaned, “I’ll do anything for you. Anything. I love you so much!”
Her mouth was open now, and her tongue was jabbing at his lips, trying to force its way in. She loosened his tie and sent thrills of pleasure through his body with her lips on his throat, his ears, his face. His hands moved across her back, but when they encountered the zipper there, they hesitated.
“Open it,” she urged him.
It came down so easily, and now his hands were touching her where he had always longed to touch her. He pulled at the dress from either side, and it slipped from her shoulders. She moved away from him and let it fall in front. Her breasts were thrust before him, a lacy brassiere all that separated him from them. Her eyes burned like two aquamarine coals.
Just then he heard a car outside. “My God, Clare, what if your parents come back and find us like this?”
“It’s all right,” she murmured, her breath coming in small gasps. “They went to Poulsbo for the weekend.”
The truth of what was happening crashed into him with the chill of an arctic wave. How easily they had forgotten their vows to remain pure until marriage. “For God’s sake, Clare. What if your parents hadn’t been away? Would you have gotten me to take you to some seedy motel? Or done it in the back seat of my car?”
The look of intoxication she had been wearing changed to one of fear. She collapsed on his knees, sobbing. “I don’t want to lose you,” she wailed. “I love you so much.”
He caressed her hair, trying not to look at the creamy flesh of her back and shoulders.
“No, Clare, this is not the way.”
As his own surging passion cooled, Clare’s sobbing began to abate, and he gently lifted her from his lap, helping her to slip her arms into her dress. She let him raise the zipper, and then, without a word, she stood and left the room, walking unsteadily on high heels.
A door closed, and water began splashing in the sink. He stood and smoothed his rumpled clothing, straightening his tie and shaking his hair into place. The bathroom door clicked open and the sound of footsteps approached the living room, but Clare remained hidden in the hallway, only the yellow hem of her dress showing past the edge of the door.
She tried to speak, but her voice caught until she had cleared her throat. “Please go.”
“At least let me take you back to the dorm,” he said to the door frame.
“Please, Bill, just go!”
“Can I call you tomorrow? We have so much to talk about.”
“Not anymore.”
He knew she was right. Things would never be the same. Drained, he got into his car and headed automatically for the Ballard Bridge. But returning alone to the dormitory was more than he could bear at the moment, and instead of turning onto Nickerson he continued down 15th past the billboards and factories, the armory and the railroad switchyard.
He followed the road to the waterfront and drifted past the dark, hulking warehouses on Alaskan Way, catching glimpses between them of Elliott Bay off to the right, the lights of Duwamish Head glancing across the water’s shimmering surface. The car’s open window scooped in the salt air, heavy with the medicinal smell of creosote from the piers. He passed under the arching footbridge at Marion Street by the ferry terminal and momentarily toyed with the idea of driving onto Colman Dock for a slow boat trip across the dark waters of the Sound.
The floodlighted white peak of Smith Tower suddenly loomed into view above and to the left. It looked strangely unfamiliar until he realized that he had become accustomed lately to seeing it from the Chinatown side. As he watched it from below, it seemed to fill the night with a huge image of Maneki’s white cat, beckoning to him simultaneously from a mysterious past and an unknown future.
13
AS SOON AS BILL pushed open the glass door of Maneki, the two waitresses—the thinner, younger Reiko on the left and the buxom Kumiko on the right—dropped what they were doing and rushed toward him, reaching him at exactly the same moment.
“You look so handsome tonight,” Reiko said, “in a suit and tie.”
“Prince Charming!” Kumiko said. “Ohji-sama!”
Kumiko was the boss’s wife. She muttered something in Japanese to Reiko, who sullenly returned to her section of the restaurant, glancing at Bill once or twice.
“Why are you so dressed up tonight, Ohji-sama?” Kumiko asked.
“I was on a date,” Bill said. “It didn’t end very well. I probably won’t be seeing her again for a while—if ever.”
There were few diners in the restaurant this late, so when she brought Bill his food she joined him in the booth, settling her plump, little body in the seat opposite his. “Are you sad?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Bill, “we were engaged.”
“No more?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m sorry for you,” she said. Her round, little eyes were damp with tears. In the next moment, he was surprised to hear himself telling this waitress he hardly knew, “I’m having problems at home, too.”
“Yes?”
“I had a big blowup with my father. He’s so upset with me, I doubt he’ll keep supporting me. I think I’m going to need a job.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, and hurried off to the kitchen.
The noise level in Maneki’s kitchen was always high, but the male voice was louder now and growing clearly agitated.
When Kumiko came back, her small face wore an unaccustomed flush, but also a triumphant smile.
“You work here,” she announced, white teeth flashing.
“What do you mean?”
“Wash dishes.”
The idea appealed to him, but it seemed unlikely that such a small restaurant could afford additional hands. “Are you sure it’s okay with your husband? He didn’t sound very happy.”
“That’s all right. You work hard. We only pay minimum wage. Dollar an hour.”
He liked the idea of spending more time here—and getting paid for it. Having his own independent income would enable him to minimize his contacts with his father. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d love to work here.”
Maneki was deserted when he walked in at four o’clock the next day. Kumiko came running out of the kitchen. She pulled him to the back of the restaurant and through the hanging bead curtain into the roofed enclosure. Two men in white chef outfits were busy cutting some brown, spongy stuff. Kumiko introduced him to the one with thinning hair, whom she referred to as “my husband, Kamekichi Nagaoka.” She immediately cautioned him to call her husband “Boss-san,” which she pronounced “Bosu-san.” The “Bosu” looked at Bill’s extended hand for a moment before giving it a feeble shake, but the grim nod and deep grunt he offered left no doubt that he was firmly in charge. He was not much taller than Kumiko, but he was built like a wrestler. When he turned back to his cutting board, his white shirt strained across his powerful shoulders.
The other fellow, who was probably two or three years older than Bill, grabbed his hand and shook it firmly. In lightly accented English, he said, “Hi, Bill, I’m Teruo, but everybody calls me Terry. I’m glad you’re coming to work here. I hate washing dishes.” The boss grunted something in Japanese. Terry stopped smiling and went back to cutting the spongy stuff.
&nbs
p; Kumiko gave Bill a white jacket, pants and apron. She said they had ordered large sizes for him from the linen service. Then she showed him the big, gray stone sink in the back corner of the kitchen where he was to wash dishes. There were various stiff, brown-bristled brushes, rags, towels, bottles of detergents, and a large rack where the dishes would drain before he dried them. He was also expected to keep the floors clean with the mop and brooms kept in a galvanized cabinet nearby and he would be in charge of cleaning the small restroom. One thing he would never do, she said, was wash the pots and pans. The boss took care of those himself. No one was allowed to touch them. They had built up a slick, black carbon coating over the years which cooked the food to perfection, and only the boss knew how to clean them.
Kumiko was showing him how to handle the covered soup bowls, the long, narrow dishes for seaweed, and the little, round ones for soy sauce dips, when Reiko walked in, squealing with delight at Bill in his white kitchen togs. Kumiko glanced up at her and went on talking to him as though Reiko did not exist. The younger woman stomped off to the back of the restaurant.
Bill could hardly keep his eyes open when he drove back to his Cascade-Pacific dormitory at one o’clock in the morning. His legs and hips were aching, his hands were sore, and he could smell the fumes of soy sauce and boiled fish flakes clinging to his body. He slept until almost eleven the next morning. Lying in bed, he wondered how he could possibly drag himself to classes at 8:30 on weekdays. But he smiled to think that he had learned a few Japanese words. Hayaku meant “hurry,” and dame meant “stop it” or “bad.” He had the impression that something the boss kept grumbling to Terry, kusottare, meant “stupid,” but Kumiko said only, “I think you don’t want to know what it means, I think,” and Reiko was laughing too hard to explain it.
As the job went on, Bill found himself able to understand—and even to speak—a surprising amount of Japanese. The more he learned, the more the others encouraged their Ohji-sama, and they even worked with him on learning to read the simple phonetic scripts.