by Lee Langley
On shore Pinkerton and Eddie elbowed their way through rickshaw men calling out, plucking at the sailors’ sleeves. Offering them a ride to a good time.
Eddie brushed them aside, as he did the pyjama-clad men smiling obsequiously and offering to escort them – ‘right here, very quick’ – to what Pinkerton guessed were whorehouses.
‘We don’t need them,’ Eddie said reassuringly. ‘Cat-houses are licensed by the government. Anything clean and decent will be in the centre of the city.’
‘Are the people okay with that?’
‘Sure. They’re not like us, Ben. They’re not immoral exactly, they just don’t have morals.’
Ben and Eddie pushed their way through the crowd and into the market district, a maze of narrow streets lined with little shops. Then, as they turned the corner, the smell hit them: seafood and fish, an ammoniac tang so pungent that Pinkerton clamped his hand to his nostrils and tried to breathe through his fingers. The street smelled worse than a polecat. His stomach heaved and he thought longingly of sweet-smelling American fish: broiled red snapper, soft-shelled crabs, clam chowder . . .
But it was not only fish that hung in the air like an evil gas. The city stank. Open sewers ran down each side of the narrow streets, emptying into larger sewers further on. The stench was overpowering. Locals, in their wooden-soled sandals, were agile, even the women carrying babies strapped to their backs, avoiding the slippery edges of the sewers, deftly sidestepping rickshaws, bullock carts, horse-drawn wagons and bicycles. The two men, immaculate in their naval uniforms, trod carefully. Pinkerton’s spirits dropped as he looked about him: what could anyone find to enjoy in surroundings so vile?
‘Eddie?’ He sounded desperate.
In the pandemonium he had to shout to be heard. He bawled questions into Eddie’s ear about whore houses and good-looking girls . . . But in truth the stink was blocking out all thought of pleasure as he pressed through the hubbub.
Eddie, an old hand, laughed away his doubts when they emerged into a quieter part of town and could talk. There was plenty of time to make themselves at home while the ship was repaired; to get a house in a nice neighbourhood, and a nice girl, a nice, clean Japanese wife provided by the local marriage broker. ‘She’ll be yours for as long as you need her.’
2
From the window of the little house on the side of the hill she could see foreign ships sitting on the water, fat and calm as swans. In the deep horseshoe of the harbour fishing boats were tied to the quay, the men working at their nets. The big ships were anchored further out, with tiny boats carrying men and supplies to and from the land. Not so long ago Cho-Cho would have walked along the sea path with her father, watching the fishermen, listening as he explained the intricacies of baiting and catching, scaling and slicing; this was his way, planting thoughts like seeds to grow inside her head, showing her things it could be useful to know. But now she waited fearfully for the unknown, and there was no father to explain anything.
She had been given certain information, but there were blank places and she had no experience to guide her. A man would arrive; a ceremony would follow. She would become a wife. Meanwhile she prepared herself; she concentrated on the surface of things, details: cloth, comb, sandals, sash.
A wedding kimono should be heavy silk, shiromuku, the whiteness denoting purity, woven to glow like shogetsu cherry blossom. What she wore on her body needed to be right in every respect, the ceremonial wig smooth as lacquer and over that the headdress shaped to conceal possible horns of jealousy and selfishness. She had no knowledge of jealousy, but could she be guilty of selfishness, even without knowing it? The headdress would help to give her strength, as would the little purse, the mirror, the fan, and the kaiken, the delicate little knife with its tasselled sheath. She wondered why a bride should carry a defensive blade. As a talisman against bad luck perhaps? And a bride dishonoured would use a kaiken; the woman’s traditional weapon.
She looked at the blossom beyond the window, and became aware of birdsong. Would she one day learn to recognise new and different birds? And what flowers would she see, would a different sort of sunlight fall on the green places, if she was lucky enough to be taken to America? What was an American garden? Not moss and shale and water, not stones set calmly in raked gravel. She pictured bright orange flowers and trees towering into a bright blue sky, houses taller than the trees, with windows that glittered – in the magazines she had seen, brought by visitors returning from their travels, the pictures sparkled: ice cream parlours and hot dog stands, the women’s little dresses, their tilted hats, everything in America was brightly coloured.
She returned to the details that carried no uncertainty: a white nuptial gown and a scarlet kimono, its hem padded to swirl and trail. It should have long sleeves and a stiff obi sash. A sash tied in a cho-cho knot that resembled a butterfly – she must learn to tie the sash . . .
Slowly, as though her bones were melting, she sank to the floor, resting her head against her knees. She could no longer hold back the tears that welled and spread, soaking the cloth of her garment.
She was shivering as if from a fever; her hands icy, although the air was not cold. The room was bare; no ceremonial costumes were spread out around her. She tried to hold on to the imagined bridal scene, doggedly listing the traditional items. She dwelt on silk, ivory, tortoiseshell. Pretty pictures. But she knew that in due course, when a wedding ceremony of sorts had taken place and the sliding shoji doors had closed against the outside world, she would be alone with a stranger who had purchased her body. He would expect her to remove the kimono and please him.
Shikata ga nai. The old expression said it all: nothing to be done about it.
But she was fifteen and she was afraid.
The curving path led up from the harbour, came into view at the headland, then vanished behind maple trees. She had been watching closely, but she must have glanced away and missed a moment, for she saw now that a man was walking towards the house and was already halfway up the hill. Dressed in white, the peak of his cap shading his face, until with a sudden movement he removed it to wipe what must be sweat from his brow, and revealed gleaming gold hair. She was astonished: golden hair, so bright, so American!
He turned back and waited, and she saw that a second man was following him, a thin, dark, older man in a sombre suit: the consul, Sharpless-san. She had met him before; he knew her father. The two men continued up the hill, walking side by side, and to Cho-Cho watching them it seemed as though the bright shining American was accompanied by a man-shaped shadow.
3
Sharpless made the introduction: ‘Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, Cho-Cho-san . . .’
In the course of a working week the consul frequently found himself introducing strangers for one reason or another, though not usually to assist in selling a girl to a sailor. This exercise was distasteful, he would have preferred to withdraw, but he was needed, to translate, to lend a veneer of social normality to the transaction.
The formalities of arrival had been observed, the two men removing their shoes by the door. Now Pinkerton attempted a handshake just as Cho-Cho folded her body into a fluid bow, so that his knuckles collided glancingly with her cheekbone.
‘Ah!’ She recoiled, apologetic, feeling the mishap must be her fault.
‘Shit! Sorry!’ He waved his arms helplessly. In this fragile, papery room he felt huge and clumsy, at a loss.
The girl made a small, traditional speech of welcome and bowed again. Sharpless translated. Pinkerton nodded.
‘Right.’
He tried to think of something more. There was a pause. He glanced at Sharpless for guidance. The pause lengthened into a silence, then a few words exchanged, in Japanese.
‘She asks what religion you observe.’
‘Oh! Right.’ This was way beyond what he had been expecting. ‘My family . . . we’re Methodist. Not relevant here, I guess.’
Sharpless passed on as much information as he felt wa
s helpful. She nodded. Another pause. More murmured words. Sharpless translated as the girl turned expectantly towards the lieutenant.
‘She asks when you wish the ceremony to take place.’
‘What ceremony?’
‘The wedding.’
Pinkerton frowned and Sharpless added, ‘I explained earlier—’
‘Oh, sure, right. It’s a marriage.’ A note of impatience. ‘I didn’t think we needed an actual ceremony . . .’ Unspoken: to hire a hooker.
‘In her eyes she will be your wife, lieutenant.’
To Pinkerton’s growing irritation Sharpless went over the situation again: there would be formalities; the girl was not a prostitute.
‘She expects a ceremony.’
Pinkerton was short of time, already due back on board for a duty watch. He reached into his back pocket and brought out a flask of bourbon. On a low side table were two tiny porcelain cups, and unscrewing the bottle he poured a measure into each. He handed one cup to Cho-Cho, and raised his own, encouragingly, in a toast.
She waited, the cup held lightly in her fingertips, eyes flicking from one man to the other, seeking guidance. Pinkerton’s cheerfully expectant mood had sagged. He raised his porcelain cup again, attempting to revive the festive spirit.
‘Bottoms up!’
She watched as he drained the cup.
‘I now pronounce us man and wife.’
Pinkerton nodded at Sharpless. ‘Can you tell her we just had the ceremony? Tell her it’s the American way.’
He liked the phrase, he felt justified: you could say it was the American way under present circumstances. Sharpless kept repeating she wasn’t a hooker, but what other kind of girl would sign up to a ‘marriage’ with a visiting sailor? She must know the ropes. If it was a case of keeping up appearances, he was prepared to go along with the game, though it wasn’t cheap: the licence cost $4, the lease of the house $30, and there would be running expenses, food and so on. He had noticed a dumpy servant girl hovering outside the door; she’d probably need to be paid. Still: the place looked clean, and he could end up spending three or four weeks here. It was definitely preferable to a dubious Madam establishment in some backstreet in town.
‘You will need to put your signature to the marriage contract,’ Sharpless said, ‘to observe the correct procedure—’
Pinkerton found his fellow countryman a bore, a real pen-pusher.
‘Right. Just fix it.’
He felt the consul’s eyes on him; cold yet fierce, the look a senior officer might hand out. Pinkerton found himself straightening up to attention. He adjusted his tone:
‘Sir? Thanks for your help.’
To his dismay, the girl was now kneeling, her forehead touching the woven mat that covered the floor. What was he supposed to do here? Uncertain, he reached out and took her hands; raised her to her feet. For the first time they were close, touching, her face lifted to his. He was aware of the texture of her skin: smooth, not rosy like the girls back home, but pale, a sort of ivory, with a sheen like a peeled almond. And her eyes were almond shaped, as he had heard them described, but shining, with the glow of an uncut gem. She was smiling up at him. Even though she stood very straight the top of her head was way below his shoulder. For a moment he was caught up, sensed an odd churning in his chest, and held on to her hands, the smooth fingertips cool against his palms. Did she guide his hand? He was momentarily confused, and to his surprise found himself raising her fingers briefly to his lips. He was relieved to see that Sharpless, glancing out of the window, had missed the embarrassing moment.
‘Tell her I’ll be back with my stuff.’
Pinkerton glanced around the bare room. No closets, no chests that he could see. What did these people do with their belongings? The houses were flimsy affairs made of wood and what looked like paper screens. And as for home comfort, forget it.
Sharpless had told him the word for goodbye:
‘Sayonara.’
He pronounced it awkwardly in his flat American drawl. Then more awkwardness, as he put on his shoes and slid open the flimsy door too forcefully, so that wood banged against wood.
The girl watched him go as he swung off down the hill back to the ship, saw his slouching ease, the way his body moved, the confident stride. In the sunlight he glittered white and gold. He glanced back and sketched a brief, good-humoured salute. She caught his smile: found herself smiling back. He looked younger when he smiled, almost a boy. She folded her hands into her kimono sleeves and squeezed her elbows nervously. Everything was different: what she had undertaken as an unpleasant duty, an obedient acceptance of fate, had changed its aspect. She continued to watch the American as he dwindled into the distance, then out of sight. She recalled his eyes that echoed the sea in the harbour; his hair that blazed like fresh wheat, his strong hands gripping hers, the shock of his lips on her fingertips. The way he towered over Sharpless-san, his head almost touching the ceiling. His smile. She saw that Lieutenant Pinkerton was beautiful.
The transaction was precarious; she was aware that the marriage was not intended to be permanent, but she could try and make it so. She could become useful, valuable, even. She could, perhaps, be taken back to America.
She said, diffidently, ‘Would you say, Sharpless-san, that Lieutenant Pinkerton is a fine-looking man?’
She could not express the opinion herself; that would be noroke, quite inappropriate, but to seek his view was an acceptable way to suggest it.
He frowned. ‘Many Americans have that appearance.’
He kept his voice deliberately neutral. When she had asked about the wedding ceremony, and received Pinkerton’s curt response, Sharpless had observed her small, woebegone face.
What ceremony else? He felt there was indeed something Ophelia-like about Cho-Cho; a commodity to be traded by her family, an object to be desired by a man, and in due time discarded.
When he was promoted from vice-consul he found himself saddled with the only aspect of the job he had found unwelcome – a task he felt was hardly part of the diplomatic process.
The departing consul had shrugged. ‘You can refuse, it’s unofficial of course, and doesn’t come up often – most of them go for the tea-house option. But when the ship’s in port for a while . . . You have to ask yourself; would you want one of our boys to sail home with an unmentionable disease? It’s a convenient system and it works. Everyone wins.’ And so it had seemed, until it came to Pinkerton and Cho-Cho. But the girl wanted him here: he had known her father and she trusted him. He remained uneasy.
He had seen the way she watched Pinkerton. He wanted to say to her: leave now. Run away. Find work in a respectable tea-house, learn to sing and play an instrument; you don’t have to do this. But of course she did have to do this. The marriage broker had made it plain: with both parents dead – worse, a father ruined by debt, disgraced, redeemed only by his honourable suicide – the girl belonged to her uncle, and the uncle had entered into the contract on her behalf. She was a negotiable property.
The consul had listened to the story with dismay. ‘And her own wishes?’
‘She has no wishes,’ the broker shrugged. ‘She has no voice.’
Sharpless’s mournful countenance and long muzzle did not easily crease into laughter, but the habitual grimness deepened as he glanced at Cho-Cho. She was still gazing out of the window, studying the now empty bend in the road as though it held an after-image of the man no longer visible. He found the sailor crude, ill-mannered. Luckily this liaison would be relatively brief; but he feared the girl would be bruised by it, her first such experience. He hoped that Pinkerton would be kind.
From across the room Cho-Cho was murmuring that she knew only a few words of this foreign tongue, gleaned from travellers calling on her father. She glanced again at the view from the window. She would like to acquire some American words; to speak, and to understand. She was known to be quick to learn. Could Sharpless-san do her the honour of giving her some help; perhaps there was a book
she could study . . .?
‘I’m sure we have some books in the consulate library,’ he said, and found himself adding, ‘I could give you a lesson or two. It is not a difficult language.’
‘Not like Japanese, you mean?’ He saw that the girl had a feeling for humour.
‘In return,’ he suggested, ‘you can correct my mistakes.’
‘Oh! Your Japanese is perfect, Sharpless-san.’ She hesitated, and added, barely audibly, ‘Almost.’
He watched her mouth curve into a smile, the bright glance she threw his way, and felt a pang, sweet yet painful. A paternal feeling? Or something less admissible? He bowed and moved briskly to the door. He reminded himself she was just a child.
4
The first night, after dinner, rising with aching knees from the floor cushion, Pinkerton made a mental note to bring in a couple of chairs and maybe a proper table. How uncomfortable did life have to be to qualify as ‘traditional’? He had once visited an Amish family back home and had come to the conclusion then that anyone who refused the advantages of the modern world needed his head examining. His mother had had the good sense to get herself one of Mr Hoover’s vacuum cleaners and declared herself tickled pink.
Dinner itself had been tricky, an array of mostly uneatable bits and pieces, but he managed a little rice and slices of something that might or might not have been pork. The sake was okay but he couldn’t see it knocking bourbon off the market.
In fact the whole evening had hardly gone according to plan; somehow all this Japanese . . . ceremonial had sent him off course.