The Japanese Lantern

by Isobel Chace

  “The tea ceremony is very Japanese,” he explained. “Ninety-nine per cent anticipation and a rather bitter liquid, that nobody would ever drink under any other circumstances, at the other end.”

  “So it isn’t all over?” she asked.

  “No. We’re about halfway through,” he said.

  At that moment everyone started to go back inside again and they hastily tacked on to the others and made their way through the minute doorway, back to the smiling Mitchi Boko.

  This time everyone sat down in a large circle, sitting on their feet with an ease born of long practice, an attitude that Jonquil found very painful after a few minutes. She and Jason were put next to Mitchi Boko and she realized that they were indeed the chief guests and that it hadn’t been a joke after all.

  Mitchi Boko passed round the various implements that she was going to use to make the tea and everyone duly admired them. They were lovely, not perhaps because of their shape, but because of their colouring and the magnificent varnishes that had been used to finish them.

  Then came the big moment and at last Mitchi Boko began to make the tea.

  She put a spoonful of ground tea-leaves into the bowl and poured water over it, frothing it up as she did so, while everyone watched with fascinated eyes. Then carefully, keeping the bowl completely level, she passed it to Jason, who raised it to the level of his forehead, lowered it, raised it again and drank from it, lowered it, carefully wiping it, and passed it to Jonquil.

  She asked him with her eyes if she were to do the same, and when he nodded, went through the same motions, finding that the tea was exactly as he had said, bitter and rather unpleasant. But then, having come to the end of the ritual, she didn’t know what to do with the bowl and was rather relieved when Mitchi Boko held out her hands for it and drank from it herself, apologizing for the poorness of the brew. The other guests, it seemed, were not even going to be allowed that one sip of the beverage they had been honouring.

  Here, however, Jonquil was wrong, for Kanaya-san’s daughters brought in some other brew of tea for the others, and they sat drinking it happily, complimenting each other as they did so.

  Once again the bowl was passed round the guests and was again admired and Mitchi Boko was congratulated on the way she had presided over the ceremony, and then everyone began to depart. The great event was over.

  Kanaya-san came over to them to entertain them until Mitchi Boko was ready to go and they stood talking to the old man by the waterfall, admiring his garden. He spoke no English, so he contented himself with smiling at Jonquil, picking an occasional flower and passing it to her, caressing each bloom in his gnarled old hands as he touched it.

  “Please thank him very much,” Jonquil begged Jason.

  “Thank him yourself,” he said. “Say ‘arigato’.

  “Arigato,” she repeated hopefully.

  The old man beamed at her.

  “Dozo, dozo,” he said.

  Then at last Mitchi Boko came hurrying up to them, bowing as she did so.

  “It is so nice that you come with me,” she said. “I take her to the Chioh-in temple, Jason-san. You think that nice? I like to show her the uguisu corridor. How you say in English?”

  “Nightingale corridor,” he translated obligingly.

  “Yes, yes. Very nice, no?”

  “Very nice,” he agreed solemnly. “You girls had better start off. I want to thank Kanaya-san for his hospitality and I hope he’s going to show me over his house.”

  Mitchi Boko led the way out into the street, her geta scuffling over the cobbled path.

  “I am exhaust!” she exclaimed. “Tea ceremony very tiring. You find too? We take streetcar.”

  She rushed Jonquil round the corner of the street and on to the first streetcar travelling south, keeping up a flow of nervous talk all the way.

  “That Shimogam Shrine. That Kyoto University. There Heian Shrine, but we not go there. Municipal Art Gallery; Miyako Hotel—” and then she burst into tears. “Oh, Jonquil,” she said pathetically. “I not know what to do!”

  The tram hurtled them round a corner and deposited them outside the thirty-six acres of ground belonging to the Chion-in Temple.

  “Very beautiful temple,” Mitchi Boko said, her eyes swimming with tears. “I show you whole place.”

  She hurried through the gateway, her geta clattering more than ever in her agitation. Jonquil thought how often she had been told that the Japanese never showed any emotion, and hurried after her, convinced that this must be a crisis indeed.

  “Tell me what’s the matter,” she pleaded. Please don’t upset yourself so!”

  Mitchi Boko came to a sudden halt beside one of the finest of the gateways in the temple compound.

  “It is too bad to tell,” she said, wiping away her tears with a childish movement that tore at Jonquil’s heart.

  “It couldn’t be as bad as that,” she assured her. “Come and sit down on that seat and tell me all about it.”

  Obediently Mitchi Boko followed her over to the bench.

  “Okay, I tell you,” she said. “I tell you because you like a sister to me.”

  But even then there was a long silence before she began to speak.

  CHAPTER X

  A brown-garbed, white-hatted mendicant Buddhist priest went slowly past the bench, holding out his begging bowl just in case they should see fit to offer him some alms. Mitchi Boko sniffed back her tears and tried to smile at him, while Jonquil searched in her bag for a few odd yen. She had a suspicion that he was not supposed to accept money, but he smiled when she placed it in his bowl and gave her a keen glance from his black eyes before he went on his way. They watched him disappear into one of the temple buildings and they both knew that the moment could not be put off any longer.

  “So dreadful,” Mitchi Boko muttered. “I not know how to begin!”

  With an impatient movement she stood up and glanced quickly round the temple grounds.

  “Come,” she commanded. “I show you largest bell in all Japan.”

  Jonquil followed her across the forecourt and through a number of rooms where she would have loved to linger and explore, until they came to the great bell, all seventy tons of it, impressively large and weighty to look at.

  “In my family eleven children,” Mitchi Boko began at last. She began to warm to her theme, telling Jonquil of the incredible poverty that they had lived in. She was the eldest daughter and the most beautiful, and so she had found it easy to get a job at quite an early age, serving in one of the better restaurants in Tokyo. But she had become ambitious. She had saved her money with a care born of desperation and then she had bought herself a little restaurant. It might have been just another eating house in Tokyo, but she had been lucky. Her father had long known Mr. Matsui, and his wife had liked the little Boko and had shown her how to cook and serve American food in the American manner, and, during the Occupation, literally thousands of homesick Americans had poured into her restaurant to get a taste of home.

  “I make great deal money,” Mitchi Boko said with satisfaction. “But family very expensive and Occupation not last for ever!”

  The Americans had gone home. Hundreds still came to Japan, but they came as tourists and went to the sukiyaki and tempura restaurants rather than to Mitchi Boko.

  She had tried to make her restaurant more attractive to them. She had been very active in the advertisement side of the business. She had even travelled to the United States to try to stir up enthusiasm there for all things Japanese.

  “Was that when we met on the aeroplane?” Jonquil asked.

  The Japanese girl nodded.

  “Very successful trip. New York welcome with open arms, but now very little money for family!”

  “So then what happened? Jonquil prompted

  “I met Keeving Edward—I mean Mr. Edward Keeving,” she went on in confused tones. You understand when I explain?”

  Jonquil said that she did.

  “This bad part,” Boko sa
id in a shamed voice. “He very sharp business man, want to take over Tate ad Matsui.”

  She went on to say how Edward had come to her restaurant and how he had offered to pay her quite a substantial sum if she would make use of her connections to find out just what it was that Jason had discovered that had sent Harvey Buckmaster and his wife off to the States. He knew that it would be difficult for them to persuade the American government to make the alloy in Japan, and his own firm had subsidiary groups in many places including the United States and Great Britain. It would be a simple matter to get both these governments’ backing for himself, forcing Tate and Matsui out of business. He could then have bought them out very cheaply and could have used their formula at enormous profit to himself.

  Jonquil stared up at the great bell with unseeing eyes. Edward! That Edward could have done such a thing! That he should have dared to befriend her when he was thinking of doing such a terrible thing to Jason! She felt a great anger slowly well up inside her and a bitter regret that even for one moment she should have accepted him as anything more than a doubtful acquaintance.

  “What did you have to do?” she asked.

  Mitchi Boko began to walk away from the bell.

  “I had to listen. One hears much in eating house. I hear all about new alloy and write it down.”

  “And then what did you do?” Jonquil asked.

  The Japanese girl fell silent and she led the way quickly out into the open again, pausing every now and again to make sure that Jonquil was still with her.

  “I saw you at Oeshiki Festival,” she said at last.

  Jonquil took a deep breath.

  “So you were there!” she exclaimed.

  Mitchi Boko nodded unhappily.

  “It was all arranged,” she said. “I was to put note in handle of mando and give to Mr. Keeving. But I sorry for bad plan—” She broke off, hiding her face in her hands. “I so ashamed,” she said again.

  “Did you give it to Edward?” Jonquil coaxed her.

  Mitchi Boko shook her head.

  “I show you the nightingale corridor,” she said suddenly, in bright unnatural tones. “Great wonder in Japan. You astonished. And no wonder! Very lovely work, not found anywhere else.”

  She set off at a great rate, never once looking at Jonquil, hurrying away from her own thoughts and from the necessity of finishing the story she had begun.

  When they got there, Jonquil had to admit that it was well worth the visit—an incredible floor, worked in wood, that sounded exactly like a nightingale when walked over, each step forcing the wood to emit a note.

  Mitchi Boko insisted on walking backwards and forwards several times, her face full of smiles and delight.

  “It is nice, no? Very clever, don’t you think?” Then her gaiety dropped from her and her face was serious again with an almost childish inconsistency. She stood stock still in the middle of the floor and began to weep again.

  “I could not give to Mr. Keeving,” she sobbed. “Matsui-san my friend. Help my family, keeping them in paternal eye.”

  “Come and sit down again,” Jonquil suggested. They walked slowly back again to their original bench, with Mitchi Boko dabbing at her tears with an impossibly feminine-looking handkerchief. Not even crying could take away from her beauty. The tears fell from her eyes, leaving them quite unmarked. Not for her were the agonies of aching, red eyes and the muffled explanations that one either has a cold coming or a splitting headache, which is probably only too true. After a few steps her smile peeped out again and it seemed she felt better again.

  “I gave mando to you,” she said softly. “I saw friend in crowd and told him to give to English lady—he not know you Australian—and he say yes.”

  Mando, Jonquil remembered, was the name given to the lanterns the pilgrims had been carrying at the Oeshiki. She remembered how frightened she had been in that milling crowd and how that totally strange man had smilingly handed her his lantern.

  “I left it in Jason’s car,” she said faintly.

  Mitchi Boko opened her eyes until they were wide and accusing.

  “You knew?” she said. “You knew about plan that you gave to Jason-san?”

  Jonquil shook her head.

  “He took me home from the Oeshiki,” she explained.

  “I thought you burn mando,” Boko said accusingly. “Always burn mandos!”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t know,” Jonquil said guiltily. “I got lost and Jason found me and took me home. We put it in the boot so that it wouldn’t get crushed, it was so pretty, and then I’m afraid that I forgot all about it. It’s probably still there!”

  They looked at each other in consternation and with one accord made for the entrance to the temple grounds. It didn’t occur to either of them that if it had stayed safely there all this time, it would more than likely still be there after they had finished their sight-seeing. They hurried out into the street, ignoring the white-clad beggars, most of them ex-service men from the last war, and hailed the nearest taxi as it came towards them.

  “Oh, dear,” Mitchi Boko groaned as it came to a halt beside them. “We should have found sixty yen type. This a hundred yen!”

  But they scrambled in just the same, sitting on the edge of the back seat, as though by doing so they could urge the driver on to greater speed. It was only a matter of a few moments before they drew up outside Jason’s house and alighted, paying the driver as they did so.

  It was only then that they began to think more clearly. The first shock was when they found the garage doors had been left wide open and that Jason’s car was not in it. The second was when Nobuko came running out to greet them, telling them that Jonquil was wanted on the telephone.

  She hurried inside, with Nobuko hard behind her, crying out:

  “Please hurry. Lady say-very important!”

  She picked up the receiver and said hullo.

  “Is that Jonquil? My dear, I’m so glad to get you! Did you know that Mitchi Boko was in Kyoto? I tried to find her all over Tokyo and it was only by accident that I learned she had gone. Are you there, dear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Tate, I’m here,” Jonquil said weakly.

  “Then what have you been doing? Have you kept track of Edward?”

  Jonquil tried to think of something reassuring to say.

  “I—I think so,” she managed.

  “Think so!” the old lady exclaimed. Think so! Have you seen them?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jonquil reassured her. “I’ve seen Edward twice, and Mitchi Boko is with me now.”

  There was a pause at the other end.

  “I never thought I’d enjoy anything so much,” Mrs. Tate said at last. “This suspense has given me a new interest. Don’t you find it exciting?”

  Jonquil remembered with dismay the weakness that was apt to go to her knees whenever she thought about it.

  “No,” she said frankly.

  She could hear Mrs. Tate chuckling to herself.

  “That’s the trouble with young people today, the old lady told her. “No stamina! No hearts at all! Why, in my young days wed have been delighted to have been included in such a thing. Nothing timid about us!”

  Jonquil had no intention of arguing with her. At the moment it seemed only too true, for, with the thought of the lantern left haphazard in the boot of Jason’s car, she was only too willing to concede that her stamina was not at all what it should have been!

  She wondered whether she ought to tell the old lady about Mitchi Boko’s confession, but that smacked too much of a betrayal of confidence and so she waited uneasily for the old lady to continue.

  “I hear Jason has to come back to Tokyo to finish off his business here. So it will be up to you to keep Edward and Mitchi Boko in Kyoto, my dear. We can’t afford to let them slip back with him, can we? I thought Jason was so tiresome before, dashing off to Kyoto like that. I can’t think why he did it!”

  “No,” Jonquil agreed meekly.

  The old lady chuckled again.
/>   “Ah, well,” she said, “we must expect these little setbacks. How will you manage?”

  Jonquil found herself smiling.

  “I don’t think we need have any particular plan,” she said. “I’ll just do whatever occurs to me, and that way we keep the situation fluid.”

  Mrs. Tate considered that.

  “I think you’re right,” she agreed reluctantly, “though I should have liked to know what was happening. You’ll have to tell me afterwards.”

  “Yes, I shall, and don’t forget you will have to look after Jason.”

  Appeased, Mrs. Tate fastened on this and after a little while rang off. Jonquil replaced the receiver with a sigh of relief and went to find the stranded Mitchi Boko. She wondered how it was that Mrs. Tate could possibly be enjoying all the excitement, even though she must often have been lonely and bored, tied as she was to her wheelchair and relying on all her friends to come and relay to her all the latest gossip.

  Mitchi Boko was in the garage, poking about in the oddments that invariably collect in the far corners.

  “It is not here,” she told Jonquil. “I thought maybe Jason-san turn it out.”

  “He may have left it in Tokyo,” Jonquil reminded her.

  Boko looked appalled.

  “Cannot be!”

  “What did you put in the note?” Jonquil asked, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to her to ask before.

  “Name of laboratory assistant who help Jason-san with formula. He boast about it to friends. Easy to find out who he is.”

  Their eyes met. Very easy, Jonquil hazarded. Why, oh, why weren’t people more careful?

  “I shall have to tell Jason,” she said.

  Mitchi Boko looked upset.

  “They talk all the time about new alloy,” she said desperately. “Other people might have overheard too.” She looked hopefully at Jonquil, who only frowned and began a new search of the garage with renewed vigour.

  “It must be in the car still,” Jonquil said regretfully. “We shall just have to wait until Jason gets back.”