The Sun Gods

by Jay Rubin

  With a rag from the kitchen, he carefully wiped the water that he and Mineko had trailed across the wooden floor of the hallway and the stairs. Mrs. Niiyama might overlook his bringing a woman to his room, but she would never forgive him if he left water spots on her painstakingly polished floor.

  By the time he reached the landing, Mineko was gone, the paper door closed. Her dress was a lump of wet cloth in the basin.

  The lamp was still on when he slid back the door. Curled up tightly on her side, Mineko made only the smallest mound on his bed. The thin covers trembled with her shivering. He opened the bedding closet and laid a thick winter quilt over her, kneeling by the pillow. The covers came to her chin, her fist underneath pulling on the sheet. She forced a smile, and he kissed her on the forehead.

  “Better?” he asked.

  She nodded once with a shiver.

  He lifted a corner of the quilt and slid in beside her, but atop the sheet and terry cloth blanket in which she was tightly wrapped. Now they were nose to nose, her curled-up knees against his chest.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.

  Again she nodded, but another shiver went through her.

  “Never mind. I’ll wait.”

  He laid an arm over her shoulder and kissed her nose. It was small and smooth and delicately curved. He brought his hand up and cupped it over her nose, closing his eyes so the size and shape beneath could register against the skin of his hand. Then, eyes still closed, he placed the cupped hand over his own nose—and his eyes flew open with the shock. What a monstrous hunk of bone and cartilage lay in his hand!

  She saw his amazement and began to titter. Then she brought her own hand out from under the covers and performed the same examination in reverse. They laughed and kissed.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said, lifting the quilt to let some of the accumulated heat escape.

  “When I got home, all I could think of was Sunday. Each time I tried to imagine what would happen, it ended in a terrible argument. So I started opening my closet and drawers and wondering what I would pack to take with me. And the more I looked, the more I wanted to begin packing right away. So I did.”

  “Oh, no, don’t tell me. Your father came in.”

  “My mother. She asked me what I was doing. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt like such an idiot. I literally could not think of anything. All I could think of was you.”

  He kissed her on both cheeks.

  “So I told her exactly what we had planned. It felt so good talking to her about you, I was glad I hadn’t been able to lie.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Better than I had expected. She tried to reason with me. Of course, she said I was too young to be taking such a step. I agreed. I am, you know.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  “I told her you would wait for me.”

  “Didn’t that make any difference?”

  “I think it did make some. Things were actually beginning to look a little promising, when my father burst into the room. He said he had been wondering what the whispering was about, and he accused my mother of stabbing him in the back. Of course, she hadn’t agreed to anything, but the mere suggestion from her that she was willing to listen had been enough. While they were screaming at each other, I grabbed my purse and ran out. I didn’t even think to take an umbrella. I ran all the way to the station to get a cab.”

  “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

  “It wasn’t all your fault. Besides, now I’m here with you.”

  “Yes, but, in a way, I’m sorry about that, too.”

  A sadness came into her eyes.

  “I’m not sure I can say it right,” he explained. “Try to understand. Having you here next to me like this is probably the one thing I want more than anything else in the world … and, at the same time, I’m sorry you’re here, now … like this. I don’t ever, ever want to take advantage of you—of what I’ve made you do.”

  “I’m not afraid. Well, a little. I’ve never been this close to anyone.”

  The warmth of their bodies mingled and mounted, and he shifted the quilt away from himself. She had relaxed her cringing fetal position until now they lay together on their sides in perfect alignment.

  “Do you feel how my body wants yours?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And I know mine wants yours.”

  “I’m trying to think of a good reason to keep them apart.”

  “I’m sure there are many good reasons.”

  He pushed the heavy quilt until it slid off the bed and onto the floor. Then he stood while she raised the light summer covers. Still dressed, he slipped in next to where she lay in his oversize robe. Their arms locked around each other, and their lips sought each other hungrily.

  They kissed with their whole bodies, long and hard, and then, at the same moment, they pulled away, looking gravely into each other’s eyes.

  And when they spoke, it was at precisely the same moment.

  “Tomorrow,” they said together.

  And then they laughed.

  “It could be terrible,” she said.

  They would have to face her parents tomorrow, and they would have to do it prepared for the worst. Above all, they would have to do it secure in their hearts that her parents could fling no accusations at them.

  He switched off the light, and they lay in each other’s arms for a long time, listening to the rain, which had slowed now to a steady murmur.

  Eventually, he slipped out of bed, retrieved the thick quilt from where it had fallen, and spread it on the matted floor of the next room, which was separated from this wood-floored room only by sliding paper doors. The quilt would be his mattress for the night.

  They kissed one last time, and he stretched out on his makeshift bed under a cotton blanket, leaving the doors open.

  The next thing he knew, Mrs. Niiyama was calling to him softly up the stairway: “Mohton-san!”

  It was nearly eight o’clock, and the rain had quieted to a misty drizzle.

  Mineko was sitting up in bed, looking at him anxiously. He tiptoed across the wooden landing and down the stairs, at the bottom of which he found Mrs. Niiyama waiting, her tiny black eyes in search of trouble.

  “Mr. Morton, my husband is very angry,” she said, the stray strands of hair around her face waving as she spoke. “He saw the shoes in the entryway when he left to play golf.”

  Mineko’s pumps were still where she had stepped out of them.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Niiyama, but a friend of mine had an emergency. She had some trouble at home and needed a place to spend the night. I had no idea she was coming here.”

  “This is a private home, after all. My husband says there are plenty of hotels—”

  “Believe me, it’s not what you think. There is nothing shameful about this at all.”

  “My husband is very worried about our reputation in the neighborhood. He wants you to leave before he comes home this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?”

  “That is what he said.”

  “And you?”

  “I, of course, am carrying out my husband’s wishes.”

  “Mrs. Niiyama, have I ever caused you any trouble before?”

  “No. I think you are a very nice boy.”

  “Then do me—do us—a favor. I want you to meet Mineko—her name is Mineko Fukai. I said she was a friend, but, to tell you the truth, we are planning to be married.”

  Mrs. Niiyama’s pinched, little mouth suddenly widened into a grin, and a hand went up to the bun atop her head. “Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed.

  “We need advice from someone closer to her parents’ age. Can the three of us meet down here in the living room in fifteen minutes?”

  She nodded and shuffled off in her slippers.

  When the two of them came slowly down the steps at the agreed-upon time, Mrs. Niiyama had shed her apron and tucked in all the loose ends trailing from her bun.
She sat demurely in an overstuffed chair, motioning the young couple to the couch opposite and offering them tea.

  Mineko, having done her best to fit Bill’s large yukata to herself more respectably, was blushing bright red. The initial embarrassment of introductions was reduced considerably, however, by Mrs. Niiyama’s repeatedly gushing “What a lovely young girl!”

  Mineko explained to her with perfect equanimity the difficulty of their situation.

  Mrs. Niiyama had little advice to offer other than to urge them to go ahead with their plan to see Mineko’s parents today. She was eager to help, though, and volunteered the use of her iron and whatever else it might take to make Mineko presentable. Bill was sent to fetch her wet clothing and then was ordered upstairs again to kill time while the two women, chattering like old friends, set about their business.

  As they were leaving the house at eleven, Mrs. Niiyama assured them that she would handle her husband if things did not go well with the Fukais and they had to return together. Mineko repeatedly bowed to Mrs. Niiyama, who stood in the doorway returning the bows. Finally, they got away and, under Bill’s big, black umbrella, they walked to Ogikubo Station.

  Mineko called from Koganei Station to say that she would be home in a few minutes, bringing Bill with her. “My mother sounded very subdued,” she told Bill, “but at least she didn’t forbid me to come home.”

  They walked from the station through the misty rain to give her parents time to prepare themselves. Mineko’s tension grew more obvious as they neared her house. Bill felt as if he had swallowed his voice and would never be able to find it again.

  When Mineko slid back the front door, her mother was already there, kneeling on the floor above the entryway. The three bowed solemnly to each other. The mother was absolutely expressionless with the long narrow eyes and impassive smoothness of Buddhist statuary. Mineko took after her father. Luckily, she had not inherited her father’s heavy eyebrows. From beneath the two dark bushes, Jiro Fukai glowered at Bill when he entered the formal sitting room. Bill uneasily recalled the eyes of Seiji Miyaguchi, the deadliest of the seven samurai in Kurosawa’s film.

  “Mr. Morton and I will talk alone,” Fukai said to his daughter before she could kneel on the matted floor.

  Mineko hesitated until Bill nodded to her. She left the room with her mother.

  Fukai was seated at the low table with his legs crossed in front of him rather than in the more deferential manner with buttocks on heels. His arms were also crossed, this lordly posture doubtless intended to make Bill feel as little like an honored guest as possible. Bill knew he must play the man’s game. He lowered himself to the mats, knees first, and settled his weight on his heels. As much as he had practiced it since coming to Japan, this respectful posture was not one he could maintain for long.

  “A father does not like to see his daughter defer to another man’s authority,” Fukai said when Mineko was gone. “Especially when that man is the father’s enemy.”

  “Mr. Fukai, I am not your enemy. I only wish I could convince you of that.”

  “Yes, your own father was a very convincing man—though I was never taken in by him.”

  Bill felt himself reddening. “I am deeply ashamed of my father,” he said. “I came to Japan hoping to make up somehow for the terrible wrong he did your sister. Apparently, she told you a good deal about that.”

  “Your purpose sounds very noble, but all I know is that my family is being torn apart again by a Morton.”

  “I didn’t come here to tear your family apart.”

  “You had no intention of luring my daughter away?”

  “Your daughter? I didn’t know that she existed.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Mr. Fukai, I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “You really didn’t know I had a daughter when you came here?”

  “That’s right. I knew nothing about your family. Tsugiko gave me your name and address when I was in Itsuki. That was all.”

  “How the devil did you find your way down there if you knew so little?”

  Bill told him of the years he had spent with Mitsuko and of the lullaby she had sung to him. As he spoke, the pressure on his legs was becoming unbearable, and he shifted his weight to the side. “I came to this house for one reason only,” he concluded, “to learn from you whatever you could tell me about my mother.”

  “How dare you call her that?”

  “Because, for me, that’s what she was. That’s what she will always be.”

  “And have you told all this to Mineko?”

  “Yes, of course. Everything I have told you, I have told her.”

  “There is nothing else?”

  “What else could there be? I was hoping to hear the rest from you.”

  “Mr. Morton, I am going to ask you a question that is very difficult for me to ask, and I want you to tell me the truth.” He paused, looking straight at Bill from beneath his massive, graying brows, and when he spoke again, his voice quavered. “Have you ruined my daughter?”

  “No!” Bill shot back, looking straight into the older man’s eyes. “I could never ‘ruin’ her as you put it. I love her more than I could ever tell you. I want to marry her.”

  “Americans are so fond of love,” he said with a sneer. “That was one of the weaknesses your G.I.s taught to our people after the war. The Japanese have much to teach the white race about patience and endurance. I wonder if your so-called ‘love’ is stronger than your legs.”

  Bill’s face grew warm.

  Fukai called to his wife, who returned with Mineko, and both women joined them at the low table, mother and daughter kneeling side-by-side with the utmost formality. Mineko glanced at Bill as she entered, but he could read nothing in her face. She had become as much the inscrutable Japanese as her mother.

  “Mr. Morton, my wife tells me you are willing to wait for Mineko until she graduates from college.”

  “That is correct,” Bill replied, nodding. Again he searched Mineko’s face for some reaction, but she kept her eyes fixed on the lacquered table top, hands folded properly on her knees.

  “You realize that she will be at Tsuda for three more years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then, if your love is as strong as you say it is, the four of us will meet here like this in June of 1966. Before then, you will not see her. Good day, Mr. Morton,” Fukai said with an air of finality.

  “Mr. Fukai, you can’t seriously be suggesting that I walk out of here and have nothing to do with Mineko for three years.”

  “That is precisely what I am suggesting—what I am demanding.”

  Bill looked at Mineko. Her eyes seemed to be focused deep inside the wood of the table. What had the mother said or done to her to make her so obedient?

  “It’s out of the question. I was talking about a normal engagement.”

  “What is ‘normal’ for Americans is not necessarily normal for Japanese. When Americans speak of ‘endurance,’ it must be with qualifications, in comfortable surroundings.”

  “I am trying to be reasonable, sir.”

  “All right, then, let us be ‘reasonable,’ as Americans say to disguise their weakness. You will not see Mineko for one year—is endurance for one year within your powers, Mr. Morton?—after which time, if you are still so much in ‘love,’ you will be permitted to visit my daughter, here, under the supervision of my wife, once each month for the remaining—”

  Before he could finish setting out his conditions, Mineko’s fists flashed through the air and pounded against the table top. “No!” she shouted, the single syllable reverberating with a power that seemed too great to have come from her slim body. “I won’t live like that!”

  “Shut up!” shouted her father. “You have nothing to say in the matter.”

  “You are talking about my life,” she continued. “You can’t put me in jail. That’s exactly what you’re trying to do.”

  He raised his hand as if to s
trike her, but when she did not flinch, he backed down. Bill watched her in awe, ashamed that he had doubted her even for a moment. Now was the time to make his move. Without a word, he stood and took her by the wrist. “Let’s go, Mineko, it’s hopeless.”

  “Go with your lover!” shouted Fukai. “I should have known—it’s in the blood!”

  His wife looked at him, horrified. “Jiro, what are you saying?”

  “Get her out of here. I can’t stand the sight of her.”

  He turned to the wall. She grabbed her husband by the shoulders and shook him. “Stop her, Jiro, stop her now, before she walks out of our lives forever!”

  Bill and Mineko hurried down the polished corridor hand in hand. They stepped into their shoes and flew out the front door, pausing only long enough for Mineko to peer from beneath their umbrella one last time at the house where she had spent her girlhood.

  “You were magnificent!” Bill said as they hurried toward the station, both holding the umbrella handle. He planted a kiss on her lips, but she backed away.

  “What’s wrong, Mineko?”

  “My poor mother. It sounded as if my father almost betrayed a secret of hers. ‘It’s in the blood.’ I wonder if there was something in her past … though I can’t believe it. My mother?”

  But Bill was far too happy to dwell on the skeletons in Mrs. Fukai’s closet.

  35

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK to Ogikubo carrying packages of things they had bought for Mineko, Mrs. Niiyama charged out into the drizzle to shield them under her own umbrella the last few feet of the way.

  “What happened?” she demanded, eyes flashing, as she guided them to the front door as if they were first-time visitors.

  Once inside, Mineko said, “My parents wouldn’t listen. We had no choice.” Bill announced, “We’re getting married as soon as possible.”

  “Wonderful! Congratulations!” Mrs. Niiyama exclaimed. “But I’m also sorry. I couldn’t convince my husband to let you both stay here. You can spend the night, and maybe a day or two longer while you look for another place to live. That’s the best I can do.”

  Bill said, “Thank you for trying. We’ll begin searching for a house tomorrow.”