The Bonsai Tree

by Meira Chand

  © Meira Chand 1983

  First published in 1983 by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd

  This new edition published by Marshall Cavendish Editions in 2018

  An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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  National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Name(s): Chand, Meira.

  Title: The bonsai tree / Meira Chand.

  Description: Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2018] | First published:

  John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, 1983.

  Identifier(s): OCN 1039233205 | eISBN 978 981 4828 64 2

  Subject(s): LCSH: British--Japan--Fiction.

  Classification: DDC 823.914--dc23

  Printed in Singapore

  Cover design by Lorraine Aw

  To

  OSYTH LEESTON

  with thanks

  1

  There were sounds now at last. Kate went to the window, peering out into the dark, at the lamp that glowed above the tall roofed entrance gate. It was opened by Itsuko’s chauffeur and her mother-in-law appeared. In the sphere of light Kate could see each speck of snow on Itsuko’s sculptured hair and the soft fox fur around her neck. She placed a hand on the join of kimono at her knee beneath her short silk coat. Jun came through the gate behind her and opened an umbrella above his mother. They hurried forward and were soon hidden by a wing of the house. There was the sound of the front door sliding open, their voices and Fumi’s welcoming greeting. Earlier, Kate had seen Yoko arrive and her voice now joined Fumi’s. Kate continued to stand at the window, on the same few inches of bare polished board where she spent so much of each day, staring out through the pane of clear glass inserted for her in the frosted window. It was six weeks since she arrived in Japan.

  She should have gone down to greet them, as was expected, as she always did. Instead today she waited, but Jun did not come up to see her. He had left at five that morning for an early flight to Tokyo. Left before she even awoke and returned in the afternoon, going straight to the office in Osaka, and coming home only now with his mother. She listened for his foot on the stairs, wanting some moments alone with him before the evening began. Today of all days. She lingered a few moments more, but there was no sound. At last she turned to the door, knowing she could delay no longer, that they would be waiting for her downstairs.

  They were seated round the table when she entered the room, Jun, his mother Itsuko and the two aunts, Fumi and Yoko. Old Hirata-san, the maid, hurried in with hot sake jars on a tray. On the table two empty containers already awaited replenishment. There must always be alcohol when Yoko visited. It was suspected she consumed unhealthy amounts, for often on the phone to Itsuko in the evening, her voice was a gentle slur and inclined to weak emotion. She looked up with a smile at Kate and patted the cushion between herself and Jun. He nodded to Kate in a preoccupied way as she sat down awkwardly on the floor, a hand on her belly, for the child kicked suddenly inside her.

  The meal was already laid on the low table, in many small delicate dishes. A meal of yellow-tail fish and crab, hot bean paste soup with needle mushrooms, steaming hot rice, pickles and a salad of roots and sesame seeds. The food and the language were still difficult for her, even after a year of marriage.

  ‘Oh,’ said Itsuko, kneeling primly, her eyes upon Kate across the table. ‘I thought you were out.’

  ‘Out?’ Kate puzzled, meeting her mother-in-law’s gaze.

  ‘You were not at the door to greet us. What else could I presume?’ Itsuko replied. ‘It is our custom you should be there, as you know. It is a matter of etiquette, a matter of manners. Were you not well?’

  Kate hesitated, looking at her husband, willing him to speak.

  ‘You know how tired she is, Mother. She’s not yet used to our ways.’ Jun defended her but Kate could not forget he had not come upstairs to find her, today of all days.

  ‘Not used? She must get used. We have a position to maintain.’ Itsuko was in her sourest mood. A problem at the office had upset her whole day.

  ‘Gently, gently,’ Yoko cautioned. ‘She comes from another world. I know. I have travelled. There, I have seen a daughter-in-law waited upon by her mother-in-law.’ She meant to help but her sister’s face grew sharp as granite and Yoko was not displeased. In the past she too had often been victim of Itsuko’s imperiousness. The sake swirled pleasantly in her.

  ‘Oh what a pretty bracelet.’ Yoko took Kate’s wrist and examined an Indian bangle.

  From where she knelt at the end of the table Fumi darted quick anxious looks, hating the strain between them all. She bustled suddenly beside the maid, making room upon the table for yet another small dish.

  ‘Will you pour us some sake?’ Itsuko demanded more kindly, holding out her tiny cup.

  ‘Of course.’ Kate rose clumsily to her knees, anxious to please. The small jar was hot in her hands, the cup beneath it seemed little bigger than a thimble. She steadied her fingers about it, but the liquor spilt over her hands and onto a plate of pickles.

  ‘Oh,’ said Itsuko. ‘Careful, careful.’ Vexation cracked her face. Could Kate do nothing right? She was all sincerity, all spontaneity. Itsuko thought of the girl she had picked to be Jun’s wife, the daughter of a Diet member, an old and noble family. Tentatively, she had even made the first enquiries through a go-between, and found them well received. She thought of the face of that young girl, passive and touching, a face of delicacy and reticence. What an asset such a girl would have been. How much she would have furthered Itsuko’s innermost ambition. And in the house she would have known her duties, known her place. Instead, she had acquired Kate who moved about so clumsily in both the world of tables and emotions. She could not even keep the traditional slippers on her feet. Often, Itsuko heard in the corridor the skidding of a piece of footwear. Or upon the bare and upright stairs a falling thump, and the woman’s low fierce words, ‘Christ. Damn it.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Yoko comforted, pulling her legs to the side beneath her, leaning an elbow on the table, chin upon her hand. ‘I don’t like that variety of pickle, the sake will improve it. We’ll add more soy too.’ Picking up the jug she dribbled a dark stream of sauce over the limp, green pickles.

  She enjoyed baiting Itsuko, and felt guilty too for the severity with which Itsuko treated Kate. She herself had liked Kate immediately, and welcomed her
into their family. Everybody she knew had commented immediately on Kate’s quiet beauty. She had a slim, long-legged grace, and had no need for even the light make-up she wore, for her skin was fine. The sharp boning of her face set off the intelligence of her wide-set grey eyes. Long, thick red hair and a flair with clothes made most women envy her, and the men always clustered about her; but she appeared unaware of these qualities, and did not seem to notice the looks she drew.

  If she had been a Japanese, thought Yoko, she would have allowed herself to feel jealous. Instead she stared at Kate in admiring curiosity, Her expression was never still, but reflected each feeling in a way quite alien to Yoko. It was fascinating to watch her. She reminded Yoko of a French actress she had seen in a recent film. Yoko sighed enviously and smiled as she caught Kate’s eye.

  ‘You too, Yoko, are greatly lacking in your etiquette. It does not become you. And at your age,’ Itsuko admonished. Yoko shrugged and added more soy sauce to the pickle. She did not care. She had long ago gone beyond all limits.

  Why could Yoko not set a better example, Itsuko wondered. Look at her, leaning over the table, slurring her vowels, her expression lax and vulgar like a common bar girl. Yes. She must admit it. For this was the image that came to mind nowadays with Yoko. And she did not wish to think about it but she suspected there were lovers. However, she had long since washed her hands of Yoko, long since made it clear to the world that this younger sister was no part of the family honour. But it made Itsuko mad to see such delight with a foreign niece-in-law. No doubt Yoko liked the image. Curiosity, if not acceptance, was in her lazy eyes.

  Itsuko gazed at Kate bitterly. In the old days a mother-in-law had a daughter-in-law on trial and sent her home if proved unsuitable. Sent her home. Or even later dissolved the marriage, perhaps overruling a son’s objection. Even now some divorces were initiated not by a husband, but by his mother. But this was rare. For nowadays all was lost identity, all was interest in the foreign, a breaking with traditional ties, the old wine was in new bottles, the old concepts remodelled to modern trends. Just so had she acquired the daughter-in-law who now sat across the table. She could not forgive Jun. She should have married him off before he went to England.

  The worst shock had been to see that Kate was already with child. It had been a surprise when she first saw Kate at the airport, hanging onto Jun’s arm, waving, smiling across the barriers. Itsuko had felt quite faint, she had not known Kate was pregnant. And when they came out, Kate had moved forward, smiling, pushing her cheek against Itsuko in embrace. Such a thing had never happened to her. She had been unprepared for the distress that swept through her powerfully. She had pulled away in a short, sharp jerk and a gasp of rattled breath. Jun bowed deeply in respect while saying something low to Kate, so that she drew back, her smile fading to a blush. Even now Itsuko shuddered to remember the moment of physical contact, such gaucherie and garrulity. These were the ways of foreign lands. These were ways she did not know and never would if she could help it.

  But tonight they all annoyed her. The woman. She could think of her as nothing more, could not in her mind give her the endearment of a name. She who now competed for her son’s affection, an affection Itsuko took as her own right; the small change, the only loving return from a long and solitary marriage. And that highly unrepentant son, fussing round his wife, weak-willed, directed by her, hurrying always to spread oil on troubled waters. Troubled waters. She would give him troubled waters. And Fumi, dowdy, befuddled, indistinguishable sometimes from the maid. And did Fumi think that Itsuko had not noticed those little smiles and whispered encouragements passed surreptitiously to Kate. God alone knew what sentimental waffling she imparted to Kate through their house-bound days, while Itsuko supported them, worked for them, navigated the world of industry from her office desk. And Yoko. And Yoko? What could be said of Yoko? What had it come to, their grand family name? These few tatters round this table? Only she, it seemed, had inherited the iron vision that had always propelled her father and her grandfather.

  Itsuko stared at the small blue chrysanthemum printed in the bottom of her empty cup. For the first time in her life she dare not look into the future, nor predict it as she always had. It was enough to drive her, like Yoko, to a bottle in the evening. Instead, she thrust out to Kate once more the thimble-sized sake cup.

  Kate sat back when the round of small cups were refilled, trembling still, the heat stirring then pulsing through her. Suddenly the child began to turn, quickening in her like silver on a tooth, its heart moving against her own. So that she put a hand to her belly as if to hold it still. Across the table Itsuko’s face was stripped and brutal in its bitterness. She was expected, Kate knew, to prove loyalty to her mother-in-law, satisfying her every wish. Such obedience here was virtue. If a wife and a mother both were drowning, explained a proverb, a son should save his mother; wives were two a penny. In the old days at a family meal a daughter-in-law must sit by the side of the hearth where the smoke blew in her eyes. In this modern age these attitudes withdrew to shadows, but a residue remained. These things she knew, she tried her best, but ignorance and sometimes pride cut rents into each day.

  She had met Jun first at one of Paula’s parties. When she arrived the room had been a crowd of strange faces to her. Paula’s husband, Pete, was talking animatedly to an attentive Japanese, he waved and called her to him, introducing her immediately.

  ‘Kate Scott, Jun Nagai. Kate is a friend of Paula’s and works at the same interpreting agency. An accomplished lady, university graduate, speaks Spanish, French and German.’ He gave her a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. ‘And Jun is from Japan, although we didn’t know him when we lived there. He came to me here to buy dyestuffs; he’s in England to study British textile methods. Jun’s from a very old family who owns spinning mills in Japan.’ Pete soon turned away, to talk to other guests.

  The Baileys were American. Pete worked for a multi-national chemical company that trundled him around the world with his family, to spread the sale of detergents and paints. Paula, who had been a teacher of modern European languages before her marriage, was working while in London at the same interpreting agency where Kate was also employed. The Baileys were in their third year in London, after a five-year posting in Japan. They had loved Japan, Paula told Kate, and hoped to have another posting there.

  Jun found a couple of empty seats and they sat down together. On a small table beside them stood a painted lacquer box. As a point of conversation Kate asked Jun its use, knowing it came from Japan. The Baileys’ were avid collectors. Japanese antiques and ornamental objects, bought on their previous posting to Japan, adorned their apartment. Retrieved from the dust of curio shops and flea markets, tansu chests, woodblock prints, chinaware and lacquerware were forced in the room to be mere decorations. A brazier became a plant stand, a candlestick a lamp, part of a painted sliding door hung framed upon a wall.

  ‘It’s a kai-oki, a box to store the shells used in an ancient game. Later the Portuguese introduced Western cards in the sixteenth century.’ He spoke slowly in good English, and she was struck by the quality of his voice.

  ‘Shells?’ she queried.

  ‘A species of clam; the shells were beautifully decorated and must be matched together. In some shells half a poem was written, and the other half in its mate. But it was all a long time ago, you know.’ He smiled at her rapt expression.

  ‘Modern Japan is another world.’ He got up to refill her glass and she watched him cross the room, aware of his interest in her. As he made his way back to her with fresh drinks, pushing his way determinedly between the groups of effervescent people, she observed the expression on his face as he concentrated on the glasses in his hands. He frowned as someone jogged his elbow, slopping drink onto his thumb. His purposeful passage through the room seemed out of place in the general frivolity and facetious conversations. He sat down again with an apologetic smile, wiping his wet hand with a handkerchief.

  ‘And what are all the
se pictures?’ she asked after he had settled, continuing their conversation, pointing to the Baileys’ collection of woodblock prints. Jun nodded, eager to explain.

  ‘Those of the big, fat men, are old portraits of sumo wrestlers. The others are all Kabuki actors.’

  Kate listened, the alien words conjuring up an unknowable world, wise and esoteric. She felt already a little removed from the gusto of the room, and protective of Jun’s special sensibility before the gaucherie of the crowd. His expression held at all times a formality and reserve.

  He was not a big man, slightly taller than her, but this did not distract from his masculinity, there was a suppleness about him that was almost feline. His skin was smooth, his hair thick and sleek; there was the scent of cigarettes and certainty about him. Even his thoughts, Kate felt, must not be haphazard like her own, but exact and polished, laid out in neat piles in his head, for he produced them with an air of such certainty. ‘You’re an oriental enigma,’ she later told him, laughing. But in the beginning it had been impossible to know what he might be thinking, until she learned to read him.

  At the table Itsuko sipped her sake, and Kate took care not to meet her eyes. It seemed impossible now to think that only six weeks before these sisters about the table had been no more to Kate than names upon a sheet of letter paper. Now she called them family, and felt as a piece of soft fruit in their hands, to be bitten by them to the core.

  It was difficult to reconcile the common blood that flowed between the sisters. Neither chalk nor cheese, nor night and day could adequately explain the differences between the elder two who lived together in the old family house, bereft of men. Both were widows, both bound within society to be no more than shadows of the dead. But Itsuko, had the boldness and the arrogance to step outside her circle. She continued to run her husband’s business, silencing male dissent, and soon placed herself at the head of the family. Such audacity in a woman was unheard of; the headship of a family was the heritage of men. But Itsuko held shares and power, she was the eldest of three daughters in a family without a male heir. As was customary in such cases, her husband was adopted, to inherit the family business. It had been he who came like a bride to live in his in-laws’ house. His own name was struck from his family register, and he took that of his wife. Itsuko had never respected these admissions of want and weakness. For what able, well-established man would accept such a loss of male prestige in return for prospective security? Of course, although impoverished he was of desirable descent; he was not just anybody; the marriage had brought connections. In public Itsuko produced the deferences demanded, but in her own mind she felt superior to her husband.