The Matsui family was very old, and the Kyoto branch was not the most important. It was, however, the most conservative and Takashi Matsui was certainly the first and still almost the only man to begin again the tea ceremony after the war ended. Under his instruction Dr. Sakai planned, after the Occupation was over and independence restored, to build a teahouse of his own in the far corner of the garden where was the most quiet spot. Many of the new Japanese ridiculed the ancient tea ceremony but Dr. Sakai did not tolerate this attitude in his presence. He believed it important to revive the old rites and customs as soon as possible in order that the Japanese spirit could revive also. In the tea ceremony meditation upon art and nature mingled with pleasant social intercourse and delicious food. He ate sparingly of his noon meal now because he knew that in the late afternoon he would enjoy a menu which began with a soup of bean paste, was carried through fish and game and vegetable dishes, to end again with a light soup and sweets. There was also the thick green tea, made from powdered tea leaves, gathered from the most tender leaves of shaded ancient trees and mild of flavor.
After the four-hour ceremony he might or might not have time for private talk with his host. If the opportunity came he would allow the old gentleman to begin to talk about his sons. When such talk began inevitably it would lead to talk about the precious third son, and this might in turn lead, as it almost had before on two occasions, to the subject of Josui, the precious only daughter.
Neither father nor daughter spoke of what was in their minds as they finished the meal in silence. Mr. Matsui’s third son Kobori was now of an age to marry. He was in fact two years older than Josui. In the old days the two fathers would have arranged the matter but in these days they knew they could not do so. The atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had destroyed more than bricks and mortar or even human flesh. Dr. Sakai had not yet spoken to his daughter of the young man, but he had told his wife that Kobori wished such a marriage, and that Josui should consider it. This the mother had repeated to the daughter. Josui had considered, but she could not make up her mind. She felt restless and unwilling even to think of Kobori. Certainly she did not hate him. No woman could hate a young man who was handsome and well educated, earnest and proud. She met him often, never by engagement, but by chance. He went to the university in Tokyo, but he came home for holidays. She had met him at the cherry blossom festival only a few weeks ago, a large young man, whose eyes were brown. She had felt quite at ease with him, the more so because he blushed when he saw her. He had unusually white skin and a high forehead and anyone could see him blush. She had admired the clearness of his red blood and white skin, and she had complimented him in her frank American fashion on his pale-gray American suit. In spite of her admiration she had not fallen in love with him, which made her wonder at herself, for she yearned to fall in love. Her heart was trembling and ready. She wanted to love a man and be his wife. She knew desire and the longing to be subdued by love and so to yield herself. Nevertheless, when she looked at Kobori her stubborn heart withdrew from him, and desire grew cold.
She suppressed a strange inclination to be brusque in answer to his mild voice and to look away from his large long eyes, moist with love. What right had he to love her so much and so openly when she had given him no sign of encouragement?
Such rebellious thoughts fought in her bosom while in continuing silence she finished her meal and rose from the table to bow to her parents. She must return at once to the college, for she was already a little late. They accepted her bows and lingered over the tea bowls. She left them thus, and went to her room and changed her kimono for her school dress. She did not, however, wear a hat and this time, mindful of the comment upon her red cheeks, she took her green silk parasol to shade her face. The dress itself was striped green and white and made with a skirt and blouse in the American manner and yet she felt sure that it was not what girls of twenty were wearing today in America. The sleeves were long and buttoned at the cuffs and the edge of the full skirt hung just below her calves. The neck was high but today as soon as she left the gate she unbuttoned it so that the air could reach her throat.
The street was quiet as she came out of the garden gate. The Americans, she supposed, were scattered through the city, sight-seeing. Often enough they came clattering in from Tokyo or Osaka, to spend a holiday in Kyoto where, she supposed, their guidebooks told them the ancient Japanese culture still remained. She had heard that the American bombers had been ordered during the war not to destroy Kyoto, just as the Japanese had not destroyed Peking. Her father had not believed that Kyoto would be spared because he did not believe that Americans understood culture. “We are compelled to choose,” he sometimes complained, “between the savagery of Communism and the vulgarism of America.”
Her father was an extremist, she often repeated to herself and always with satisfaction, knowing that above all other accusations this was the one, did she dare to make it openly, which he would have most violently denied. He strove for tranquility, he struggled for calm, he was punishing America, she thought, for sending him away and the punishment was to love Japan only and all the old Japanese ways and beliefs. What nonsense the tea ceremony was, and how foolish it looked for grown-up men to sit solemnly in a little house in a garden gazing into space and waiting to drink a green soup made of powdered tea! Her father said that the tea was rich in vitamins, and aside from the beauty and the spiritual meaning of the ceremony, the tea itself nourished the body. She did not like it. Last autumn she had gone with her parents to Mr. Matsui’s tea ceremony, which her father insisted on calling Cha-no-Yu, although it was nothing but a tea ceremony whatever it was called. The conversation, so carefully spiritual and mental and solemn, was only boring. Mr. Matsui spoke little four-lined poems as though he were composing them at that moment, whereas she knew that he had spent hours on them beforehand. If ever she knew Kobori better she would say so. But why wait? She would say it the very next time she saw him.
She walked down the street thinking such thoughts and enjoying them, emphasizing them to herself because she knew she would never dare to speak them aloud. Even her mother would not listen to them, and if she insisted on speaking, her mother would shake her head and cover her ears with her hands and sit patiently thus until Josui stopped. Sometimes she wanted to scream at her mother and pull her hands away from her ears, but she could not do it. All over the soft hot American inside of her there was a crust of hard Japanese. She was like a volcano, sealed by its own cooling hardening lava, and yet boiling and surging within.
She glanced about the streets as she walked in the sun, her parasol making a moving circle of shade as she went. Yesterday there had been rain and now the green of old trees and gnarled shrubs, the brilliance of the azaleas everywhere blooming in the parks and gardens sharpened the spring. She walked quietly, her head high while she breathed in the sweet air of the day. Energy strengthened itself in her blood, and urged her. She wanted to run, to fling out her arms. She used to run like that in America, a crowd of the girls around her running. They tan, their arms outspread like wings, down the tree-shaded street of the suburb where they lived, running as though they were flying like birds, laughing about nothing, She had never run like that in Japan and she never saw girls running, not even little girls. They plodded in clogs or in heavy leather shoes, or they slipped along in rubber-soled cloth shoes, which would have been nice to run in.
She reached the gate of the hospital beyond which was the college. Here she had stood in the morning when the young American men passed by. She had not looked at them, beyond a quick glance of curiosity. They looked alike, all laughing, talking, pushing each other. People said they were like schoolboys, always pushing and laughing and shoving, pretending to fight. People asked each other, “Are the Americans only children?”
Over the hospital gate the wisteria was in full bloom. The purple clusters, heavy as grapes, hung thick among the pale-green leaves. It was the season of wisteria and iris and peonies, and she lov
ed them. Her father did not care for flowers. In their garden the beauty was austere, rock and pine and water, with only the bamboo for softness. Her mother grew the flowers they used for the house in the kitchen garden, except for a clump of blue iris on the north side of the house.
As usual when she thought of her father, Josui felt a strange mixed love, admiring and resentful. She wished continually that they had never left America. Her father did not understand and would not try to understand how much more difficult it was to be a woman in Japan than it was in America. When she thought of the girls in California as she remembered them, it seemed to her that they were young queens. But here the women were never queens. They were subjects, waiting, doing their duty. It was doubtful that they would ever be queens, for when the Americans went away, her father often said, the old Japan would come back, or much of it. Then the young people could not behave as they did now, he said. The Americans were like guests in the house. One was compelled to allow the children apparent freedom when strangers were present, but when the guests were gone the children would be punished.
She sighed and then she smelled the penetrating yet soft sweetness of the wisteria. She had reached the hospital gate and she drew down her parasol. Someone stood beside the gate, a tall, thin young man, an American, wearing a uniform. He leaned against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, and his hands in his pockets. She looked at him, startled, and he smiled at her.
He said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
She was too surprised to speak. She stared at him, her mouth frankly open. He was blond, young, and quite beautiful. Yes, he was that. His eyes were blue, as blue as the iris. His skin was smooth and fair. He had big white teeth, and his mouth was pleasant. He looked strong and healthy, his shoulders wide and his waist thin, though the leather belt was tight enough.
His eyes were laughing. He said, “Will I do?”
She blushed. She had been staring at him as though he were some sort of strange sight. But it was because he was not strange that she had looked at him so long. He made her think of all that she had forgotten, the boys at the school in California, those boys whom she had just begun to notice when her father decided so abruptly to leave America forever. His voice was like her brother’s, his words spoken as she remembered.
“Or don’t you speak English?” the young man went on.
“I do speak English,” she said easily.
The young man took off his cap reverently. “I’ve never had a prayer answered before,” he said. “It is too much.”
“What is too much?” she asked.
“To find that the one girl in Japan I’ve wanted to meet can speak my language.”
She smiled. “How have you wanted to meet me? I never saw you before.”
“You looked at me this morning but you didn’t see me,” he said. “I saw you, though, standing under this bower. It is a bower, isn’t it? We have one in our yard at home, a wisteria bower, and I looked at it this morning because it made me think of my mother and there you were, standing under it, looking—well, beautiful.”
“I was waiting for the Americans to pass.”
“We passed. But I came back. They are on their way to Nara. A pleasure expedition, you know. We had leave. I can go to Nara any time. But I figured that if I came back here and waited long enough you’d come this way again,”
“I am on my way to school.”
“You still a schoolgirl?”
“College, please. I must go on. I shall be late.”
He was still standing with his cap in his hand and the sun shone down upon curly yellow hair, a light yellow, because his eyes were blue. His face was thin, the jaw square, and the cheekbones somewhat high. He looked very clean.
“I want to make your acquaintance,” he said. His voice was deep and big, but he kept it soft.
“I cannot,” she said simply. “I must pass, please.”
“Why not?” he persisted. He moved along at her side. Much agitated, she put up her parasol again. What should she now do? If someone she knew saw her with this American at her side and told her father, she would certainly suffer his most terrible anger. “Please go away,” she said. She hurried along without looking again at his tall figure beside her.
“There must be some way to meet a nice girl in Japan,” he insisted. “Suppose I call at your home, send in my card, meet your parents.”
“Oh, no,” she cried. “How angry would you make my father!”
“Why?”
“Oh, because so,” she answered, distracted.
“Doesn’t he like America?” he demanded with some sternness.
“He knows America very well,” she replied.
“He does?”
“Once we lived there. Then when war came we left there to live here.”
She had reached the college gates and here really she must shake him off. It was only her luck that no one had seen them at this early hour in the afternoon, when most people were sleeping for an hour or so.
“You must not come with me, please,” she said desperately; “It will truly make trouble for me if you come.”
“Then I will not come,” he said at once. “But I shall be here again tomorrow. And here is my name.”
He took a small leather case from his pocket and drew a narrow card from it and held it up to her until she could only take it—Second Lieutenant Allen Kennedy.
“Will you tell me your name?” he asked.
She wanted to refuse, but she lifted her eyes to his. He was so nice, so courteous, she thought, his mouth, half smiling, was so gentle. And she had been secretly longing to meet some Americans. She was lonely. It was hard to find friends among Japanese when none of them knew anything about the life she had lived in California most of her years. They even disliked her for that, envied her while they pretended to like her.
“My name is Josui Sakai.”
“Josui Sakai,” he repeated. “You wouldn’t tell me where you live?”
She shook her head in a panic and then could not resist the handsome pleading eyes. She felt warm, she wanted to laugh, and not knowing what to do, she put down her parasol and ran into the gate and slipped behind a mass of bamboos just inside. He came to the gate and stood, gazing this way and that. Then, hesitating a moment longer, he went away. But under the wisteria bower he paused. The sweetness of the flowers was suddenly penetrating. He had not noticed the fragrance before. Yet how had it escaped him? He breathed it deeply into his lungs, an intoxicating sweetness, always, forever, to be associated with the lovely hidden girl. He lingered, hesitating, overcome with a portent he could not comprehend. What was he getting into here, entangled in what fragrance of desire?
From her hiding place she saw him look upward in some amazement and then suddenly she saw him go away.
She came out from behind the bamboos then, half expecting him to be hiding near the gate. But he was not there. She felt sorry, though relieved, and believing she would never see him again, she sat through her afternoon classes, remembering his young and beautiful face, which though every feature was different from her own, still seemed so natural to her, a part of her childhood and never yet forgotten.
Dr. Sakai, refreshed as always by the tea ceremony, sat in a meditative silence with the other guests. There were few homes now where the ceremony was performed with its full spiritual meaning. He considered himself an amateur, since in his childhood home in California there had been no such place as a teahouse. His parents were too busy and too wearied in coping with the new country to teach their children even what they remembered. Therefore it was with humility that Dr. Sakai had become the friend as well as the physician of the Matsui family. He confessed to the aging Japanese gentleman that though he had returned to his own country it was as a stranger and that he must learn again how to be a Japanese.
“It is not that I have forgotten,” Dr. Sakai explained. “I have read and I have studied about Japan all my life, so that when the choice was given me, I knew that I must
come home. Alas, now that I am here, there is much I must learn how to do.”
“You have the spirit and all else can be mastered,” Mr. Matsui had replied.
He himself had never left the shores of Japan, and it was with curiosity that he welcomed the tall somewhat severe-looking doctor who with all his effort to be wholly Japanese would remain American, without knowing it. In the teahouse on this very afternoon he observed, for example, the too zealous spirit of Dr. Sakai. The meditative spirit does not come upon demand. Instead of saying this, Mr. Matsui endeavored to guide the conversation into peaceful ways. Thus he took out of its silk-lined box his tea bowl, a treasure which he prized above all else he had,
“This bowl,” he said, “belonged to a friend of mine who is now dead. He was a master of Cha-no-Yu and it was from this bowl that he always drank. When he died he gave it to me, because his son, though an only son, would not learn the rites.”
Dr. Sakai received the bowl with exaggerated care, leaning his elbows properly on the floor mats. One does not hold a valuable bowl simply with the unsupported hand. When Mr. Matsui drank from the bowl he placed it in the palm of his left hand and held it with his right. Dr. Sakai contemplated the bowl, a pale-green shape upon which was no carving or design. It was as restful as still water, pure circle and curve. When he handed it back to Mr. Matsui he sighed and looked about the room. The hanging scroll, the tea caddy, the vase, the kettle brazier and tray, and all the implements of the ceremony were beautiful in their simplicity. The five guests, all men, sat erect upon their folded legs and yet at ease, their spirits calmed by the perfection of their surroundings. These were men who understood beauty. They were connoisseurs, comprehending that form without spirit is void, and this comprehension led them from one step to another in pursuit of beauty for spirit’s sake, man and nature in complete unity. Thus they believed that the principles of beauty must permeate every detail and article of life, architecture, ceramics, decoration. The iris today in Mr. Matsui’s teahouse were arranged in two stalks, one in bud, one in flower, combined with a long leaf and a short one. Seeming artless, leaf and flower were placed with reverent care, but all knew that while this simplicity appeared natural, it was beyond nature. To achieve simplicity was the ultimate of sophistication. The fully matured mind reaches simplicity as its final development.
Hidden Flower Page 2