But he grew more uneasy each day, until finally, late in July, he came home in the afternoon to find the house seemingly deserted. She wasn't waiting for him outside, as usual, nor was she in their room, or at the small brick stove in their kitchen. There was no sound anywhere, and he knocked gently on the room occupied by his mother- and sister-in-law, and there he found them. Hidemi had already been in labor for hours, and she lay there silently, in agony, with a stick between her teeth, writhing in pain as her mother and sister held her. There was steam in the room, and incense, and there was a large bowl of water, and Hidemi's sister was trying to wipe her brow as Masao glanced into the room and then backed away, afraid to enter.
He bowed low, turning away, reluctant to offend any of them, and asked politely how his wife was. He was told that she was doing very well, and his mother-in-law came swiftly to the shoji screen that served as a door, bowed to him, and closed it. There had been not a word or a sound from Hidemi, but from the little he had seen of her, she looked awful. And as he walked away, he was tormented by a thousand terrors. What if she was in too much pain? If she died of it? If the child was too large? If it killed her? Or if she lived, and she never forgave him? Perhaps she would never speak to him again. Or what if she hated him for what she'd been through? The very thought of it dismayed him greatly. He was so much in love with her, so desperate to see her sweet, perfectly carved face again, he almost wished he could enter the room where they were and help her. But he knew that all of them would have been hysterical at the mere thought of anything so outrageous. A birth was not a place for a man. Any-where in the world, a woman in labor was not to be seen by her husband, and surely not in his world.
He walked slowly through their garden, and sat down, waiting for news of her, forgetting completely to eat, or do anything. And it was dark when his sister-in-law came quietly to him, and bowed. She had prepared sashimi and some rice for him, and he was startled when she offered it to him. He couldn't understand how she had left Hidemi to take care of him, and even the thought of eating repulsed him. He bowed to her, and thanked her for her kindness, and then quickly asked about Hidemi.
“She is very well, Masao-san. You will have a handsome son before morning.” Morning was still ten hours away, and he couldn't bear the thought of her being in pain that much longer.
“But how is she?” he pressed her.
“Very well. She is full of joy to be giving you the son you desire, Masao-san. This is a joyful time for her.” He knew better than that and couldn't bear the pretense of what she was saying. He could imagine Hidemi in unbearable pain, and the thought of it was driving him crazy.
“You'd best go back to her. Please tell her that I am honored by what she is doing.” Hidemi's sister only smiled and bowed, and then disappeared back to her bedroom, while Masao strolled nervously through the garden, and completely forgot the dinner she had made him. There was no way in the world that he could have eaten. And what he had wanted to say to her, but of course couldn't, was to tell Hidemi that he loved her.
He sat alone in the garden all night, thinking about her, and the year they had shared, how much she meant to him, how gentle and kind she was and how much he loved her. He drank a fair amount of sake that night, and smoked cigarettes, but unlike his peers, he didn't go out with his friends, or go to bed and forget her. Most men would have retired, and been pleased to hear the news in the morning. Instead, he sat there, and paced from time to time, and once he snuck back to the room where she was, and thought he could hear her crying. He couldn't bear the thought of it, and when he glimpsed Hidemi's sister again later on, he asked if he should call a doctor.
“Of course not,” she snapped, and then bowed, and disappeared again. She looked distracted and busy.
It was dawn before his mother-in-law came to find him. He had had quite a lot to drink by then, and he was looking slightly disheveled as he smoked a cigarette and watched the sun come up slowly over the horizon. But he was frightened instantly when he saw the look on his mother-in-law's face. There was sorrow there, and disappointment, and he felt his heart stop as he watched her. Suddenly everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He wanted to ask about his wife, but just seeing the look on his mother-in-law's face, he knew he couldn't. He just waited.
“The news is poor, Masao-san. I am sorry to tell you.” He closed his eyes for an instant, bracing himself. Their moment of joy had turned into a nightmare. He had lost them both. He just knew it.
“Hidemi is well.” He opened his eyes and stared at her, unable to believe his good fortune, as his throat tightened and his eyes filled with tears that many men would have been ashamed of.
“But the baby?” This time he had to ask her. Hidemi was alive. All was not lost. And how he loved her.
“Is a girl.” His mother-in-law lowered her eyes in grief that her daughter had so badly failed him.
“It's a girl?” he asked excitedly. “She's well? She's alive?”
“Of course.” Hidemi's mother looked startled by the question. “But I am very sorry….” She began to apologize, and Masao stood up and bowed to her in elated excitement.
“I am not sorry at all. I am very happy. Please tell Hidemi …” he began, and then thought better of it. He hurried across the garden as the sky turned from peach to flame, and the sun exploded into the sky like a bonfire.
“Where are you going, Masao-san? You cannot …” But there was nothing he could not do. It was his home, and his wife, and his baby. He was law here. Although seeing his wife at this point would have been highly improper, Masao had no thought of that at all, as he bounded up the two steps to their second bedroom, and knocked softly on the shoji screens that shielded her from him. Her sister opened them instantly, and Masao smiled at her, as she looked at him with eyes full of questions.
“I'd like to see my wife.”
“She cannot …She is …I …Yes, Masao-san,” she said, bowing low to him, and stepping aside after only a moment's hesitation. He was certainly unusual, but she knew her place here, and she disappeared, and went to the kitchen for a moment to prepare tea for him, and join her mother.
“Hidemi?” he asked softly as he entered the room, and then he saw them. She was lying peacefully, wrapped in quilts, and shivering slightly. She was pale, and her hair was pulled back off her face, and she looked incredibly lovely. And in her arms, tightly wrapped so only the tiny face showed, was the most perfect child he had ever seen. She looked as though she had been carved out of ivory, like the tiniest of statues. She looked just like her mother, although, if possible, she was even more beautiful, and he gazed down at her in wonder as he saw her. ‘Oh … she is so beautiful, Hidemi-san…. She is so perfect….” And then he looked at his wife, and saw easily how much she'd been through. “Are you all right?” He was still worried about her.
“I am fine,” she said, suddenly looking very wise, and a great deal older. She had crossed the mountains from girlhood into womanhood that night, and the journey had been far more arduous than she'd expected.
“You should have let me take you to the hospital,” he said anxiously, but she only shook her head in answer. She was happy here at home, with her mother and her sister, and her husband waiting in the garden.
“I'm sorry she is only a girl, Masao-san,” Hidemi said with genuine emotion, and her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him. Her mother was right. She had failed him.
“I am not sorry at all. I told you. I wanted a daughter.”
“You are very foolish,” she said, daring for once to be disrespectful.
“So are you, if you do not think a daughter a great prize …perhaps even far greater than a son. She will make us proud one day. You will see, Hidemi-san. She will do great things, speak many languages, go to other countries. She can be anything she wants to be, go anywhere she chooses.” Hidemi giggled at him. He was so silly sometimes, and it had been so much harder than she'd thought, but she loved him so dearly. He reached out and took her hand in his
, and bent low to kiss her forehead. And then he sat for a long moment, looking with pride at their daughter. He meant everything he had said to her. He didn't mind at all that they had had a daughter. “She is beautiful, like you…. What shall we call her?”
“Hiroko.” Hidemi smiled. She had always liked the name, and it was the name of her dead sister.
“Hiroko-san,” he said happily, looking from his wife to his child, and engulfing them in the love he felt. “She will be a thoroughly modern woman.”
Hidemi laughed at him then, beginning to forget the pain, and then she smiled, looking suddenly a great deal older. “She will have a brother soon,” she promised him. She wanted to try again, to do it right for him the next time. No matter what he said, or how wild his ideas were, she knew she owed him more than this girl, and that there was nothing more important in life than bearing sons for her husband. And one day, he would have one.
“You should sleep now, little one,” he said softly, as his sister-in-law brought in a tray with tea for them. Hidemi was still shaken from the loss of blood and the shock of all she'd been through.
Hidemi's sister poured tea for both of them, and then left them alone again. But Masao left the room a few minutes later. Hidemi was very tired, and her sister needed to tend to the baby, who was stirring.
His mother-in-law went back into the room then too, and pulled the fusama screen to divide the room and give Hidemi privacy. Masao walked through his garden, smiling to himself, prouder than h2 had ever been in his entire life. He had a daughter, a beautiful little girl. She would be brilliant one day. She would speak English perfectly, and perhaps even French, and German. She would be knowledgeable about world affairs. She would learn many things. She would be the fulfillment of all his dreams, and just as he had told his wife, she would be a completely modern young woman.
And as the sun rose in the sky, he smiled up at it, thinking what a lucky man he was. He had everything he wanted in life. A beautiful wife, and now a lovely little baby daughter. Perhaps one day he would have a son, but for now, this was all he wanted. And when he finally went back to his own room to sleep, he lay on his futon and smiled, thinking of them …Hidemi …and their tiny daughter …Hiroko….
Chapter 2
THE EARTHQUAKE that leveled Tokyo and Yokohama in the first week of September that year rattled Kyoto as well, but not as badly. Hiroko was seven weeks old by then, and Hidemi clung to her, terrified, when the quake struck, and Masao hurried home to find them. There had been considerable damage in the town, but their house withstood the shock fairly well. And it was only later that they learned of the total devastation of Tokyo. Most of the city had been leveled, fires blazed, and for weeks people wandered the streets, starving, and desperate for water.
It was the worst earthquake in Japan's history, and for weeks afterward Masao talked about leaving Japan and moving to California like his cousin Takeo.
“They have earthquakes in California too.” Hidemi had reminded him quietly. She had no desire to leave Japan, no matter how great the risk there. Besides, Masao had just been promoted. But he didn't want to risk his family, now that he had one. To him, they were far more important.
“They don't have earthquakes as often there,” Masao had snapped at her, unnerved by everything that had happened. He had been terrified for her and the baby. And for weeks they were horrified to hear stories about what had happened to relatives and friends in Tokyo and Yokohama, and the surrounding towns around them. His cousin Takeo's wife, Reiko, had lost both her parents in Tokyo, and other friends had lost relatives as well. It seemed as though everyone in Japan was affected.
But eventually, after the initial excitement died down, Masao turned his attention to world news again, and forgot about moving to California. The war in China was continuing. There was trouble in Germany in October and November, which fascinated him too. And in November, the young National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, tried to effect a coup against the German government, failed, and was arrested. Masao was greatly intrigued by him, and taught several of his more advanced political science classes on the subject of the young German radical, whom he felt certain would change the course of Germany before much longer.
In January, Lenin died, which provided further fodder for discussions among the political scientists. And in February, Masao discovered that once again Hidemi was pregnant. The baby was due in June this time, and Hidemi was going to the shrine daily to pray for a son, although Masao again insisted that he would be just as happy with another daughter. Hiroko was seven months old by then, and Hidemi had already started making the traditional silk princess ball for her, just like the one her own mother had given her for her wedding. And when Hiroko wasn't strapped to her mother's back, she was crawling everywhere, and laughing and giggling, and thoroughly enchanting her father. He spoke English to her, and although his own English was not totally without flaws, he was fairly fluent, and even Hidemi could now manage a simple conversation in English. Masao was proud of her. She was a good wife to him, a wonderful friend, and a loving mother. She was everything he had hoped for, and in letters to his cousin in America, he always told little stories about her, and praised her. And he often included photographs of their baby. She was a pretty little girl, tiny for her age, and even more delicate than her mother. But what she lacked in size, she made up for in energy. And at nine months, she started walking.
Hidemi was seven months pregnant when Hiroko walked for the first time. And Hidemi was even bigger this time than the last time. Masao was once again insistent that she go to a hospital and not attempt to have their baby at home without benefit of a doctor.
“It went very well last time, Masao-san.” She stood firm. Her sister was pregnant again as well, so she would be unable to come and help her, but her mother was planning to be there.
“People don't do that anymore, Hidemi-san,” he insisted. “This is 1924, not the dark ages of the last century. You will be safer in a hospital, and so will the baby.” Masao loved reading American medical journals, as well as the material that related to political science for his classes. And after reading about obstetrical complications a number of times, the idea of giving birth at home again appalled him. But Hidemi was far less modern than he, and extremely stubborn.
Just as scheduled, her mother arrived at the beginning of June, and planned to be there for three or four weeks before the baby. She helped Hidemi with Hiroko every day, and it gave Hidemi a little more free time to spend with her husband. They even managed to spend a day and a night in Tokyo, which was a treat for them, and it fascinated them to see all the reconstruction after the earthquake.
Five days after they returned, Masao and Hidemi were lying on their futons late one night, when Masao noticed that Hidemi was moving around restlessly, and finally she got up and went to walk in the garden. He joined her after a little while, and asked her if the baby was coming. And finally, after hesitating, she nodded. A year earlier she wouldn't have said anything to him, but after two years of marriage, she was finally a little less shy, and a little more open with him.
He had long since lost the battle for the hospital, and as he watched her, he asked her if she wanted him to go and get her mother. And for an odd moment, she shook her head, and then reached for his hand, as though she wanted to tell him something.
“Is something wrong, Hidemi? You must tell me if there is.” He always worried that out of modesty she would fail to tell him if she was ill or if there was something wrong with her or the baby. “You must not disobey me,” he said, hating the words, but knowing that they were the key to making her tell him if there was a problem. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head as she looked at him, and then turned away, her face filled with emotion.
“Hidemi-san, what is it?”
She turned back to look at him then, with the huge dark eyes he loved so much and which always reminded him of their daughter. “I am afraid, Masao-san….”
“Of having
the baby?” He felt so sorry for her, his heart went out to her, momentarily sorry that he had helped her do this. He had felt that way the last time, when he had glimpsed her pain. He hoped that this time it would be easy for her.
But she shook her head, and then looked at him so sadly. She was twenty-one years old, and there were times when she looked like a little girl, and other times when she seemed totally a woman. He was seven years older than she, and much of the time, he felt protective of her, and almost old enough to be her father.
“I am afraid it will not be a son …again…. Perhaps we will have many daughters.” She looked at him despairingly and he gently put his arms around her and held her.
“Then we will have many daughters. … I am not afraid of that, Hidemi-san. I only want you to be well, and not suffer. … I will be happy with daughters or sons…. You must not do this for me again, if you don't wish it.” There were times when he thought she had rushed into having another child just to please him and give him the son she felt would bring him honor. Her gift of a son for him was the most important thing she could give him.
And when her mother came to lead her away, Hidemi looked at him reluctantly. She liked being with him, and odd as it seemed, she didn't want to go away from him to have their baby. She knew that in some ways, their relationship was different than that of most Japanese couples. Masao liked being with her, and helping her, and spending time with her and Hiroko. Even now, in pain, she wanted him to be with her, although she knew that her mother would have been shocked to hear her say it. But she would never say it to anyone. They would never have understood her feelings, or the way Masao treated her. He was always so kind and so respectful.
For hours she lay in her mother's room, thinking of him, and this time she knew from the way the pains came that the baby would come before morning. She had felt the pains all afternoon, but hadn't wanted to say anything. She didn't want to leave Masao, and she had liked lying next to him, and being close to him, and all that day being with Hiroko. But now she knew she had work to do, and she lay silently as her mother gave her something to bite on so she wouldn't make a sound. She would do nothing to disgrace her husband.
Silent Honor Page 2