by Meira Chand
The next time he came too late, the child was in bed. He stared down at Yukio’s sleeping face, innocent of even childish guile. He sighed and turned away. She had gone before him into the living room and had a drink ready. He shook his head and walked to the door, but she pulled him back. He was tired, and sat down without argument and did not refuse the drink. He allowed her to give him another, then leaned back on the sofa, relaxed by the liquor, and the confusion he felt in this apartment. The daylight outside had faded, Chieko did not put on a light, they were silent in the shadows. She leaned forward then across him, her hair touched his cheek. On her breath he smelled the whiskey and knew from before its taste on her tongue. Slowly she placed her lips upon him and her hands upon his body. He meant to resist, he made an attempt, but her will was stronger than his. And every old need and memory of her rose up to conspire against him. He gave up and turned himself roughly upon her. And once the thing was done it seemed to make no difference then if it was occasionally, never or always. He had already broken Kate’s every trust. It made no difference now.
In the car now he lifted his head from his hands. Rain speckled the windscreen and blurred the lights of the road before him. There was the smell of damp leaves and the smell of drink upon his breath. His life wound tightly about him, his head ached and his pulse throbbed. There was no escape and no way to live but to collude with his own deceit. It seemed the past had matured and swallowed the present and bit into the future besides. He no longer asked where it might end.
6
Tomorrow she was going home. She tried to accept the death of the child. Shikata ga nai. It cannot be helped. It was what they told her, what they all said. She listened to the words that were applied so easily here to every blighted hope, and could not absorb their simple strength. In the day it was easier to carry the emptiness, heavy as a weight. But in the shadows of the darkening room and the fitful dreams of night, the child’s small face rose before her again. She could not then in the morning comprehend the meaning of those swollen months behind, or that unbelievable pain that should have been both an end and a beginning. It all lay in her mind like a strange, dark country she had visited and returned from.
At the window now the afternoon was warm and yellow, but she was full of the dread of returning home, to the small, white room with its drawers of little knitted garments and its lamp like a bunch of balloons. She remembered again the tiny appliquéd apron in Fumi’s chest, and the thought cut through her painfully. She looked at her watch and then at the silent hospital door, Paula, who had promised to visit, was late. Kate picked up her book and continued to read, of an ancient, illicit world, from that old volume The Nightless City.
‘Chopped burdock root fried in sesame oil. Cuttlefish and lotus root. Sayori fish tied in a knot. Salted fern shoots and river mushrooms, etc, all of which foods are suitable for persons who stop in brothels for several consecutive days.
‘Organised sex has always been big business in Japan, and nowhere was it more politely offered than in the Yoshiwara Yukwaku, the red light district of Tokyo, a small walled city within the city. The Yoshiwara was established in 1617, and thrived until the disapproval of Western ethical standards after the Second World War, led to its abolition in 1957.
‘The family pattern of old Japan was highly polygamous, explicitly allowing a man who could afford it any number of official mistresses. The Japanese attitude to sexual pleasure is traditionally uninhibited. Japanese wives accepted their husband’s liaisons with courtesans and prostitutes without complaint.
‘Yoshiwara life on the surface was bright, but inmates were virtually slaves. Geisha and courtesans only were allowed beyond the walls on certain days, surveillance was prisonlike and there was corporal punishment for breach of rules.
‘Romantic love was greatly disapproved of both at home and in the Yoshiwara as a disruptive influence. Geisha and courtesans who fell in love with clients had to be purchased out of service by their lovers or agree to end the affair or enter into a suicide pact as an honourable end to their shame.
‘No samurai was allowed to enter a brothel wearing a sword ... it was well known that some of the women inside would put an end to their lives if they could get hold of a weapon.
Every now and then a woman of gentle birth would be guilty of a lapse of virtue and in order that the stern code of samurai honour might be vindicated she would be sent to the public stews for a term of three or even five years as exemplary punishment for her immoral behaviour.
‘Only the very best houses of the Yoshiwara did not exhibit their women. But before the majority the women sat, displayed in vermilion barred cages, exposed to view as living samples, engaged in nothing so crass as whoring, but rather in ‘selling Spring’.
‘On a calm Spring evening, when the women of the quarter enter their cages it seems as if flowers were being scattered in the Yoshiwara by the bell announcing nightfall. The main avenue at night is lighted by thousands of lanterns, the cherries are in bloom, a great row of them planted down the centre of the Yoshiwara from the main gateway.
‘The naming of courtesans: Faint Clouds. Little Purple. Fragrance. Nine Folded. Floral Fan. Pine Mountain. Flower Willow. Little Sleeve.
‘A woman wishing to become a courtesan or a prostitute must send a written petition to the police station of jurisdiction. Included must be a document of consent signed and sealed by applicant’s father and mother.
‘When a first class prostitute was sick a brothel master might go to much expense to cure her and even pray at the temple for her recovery. A lower class girl was merely entrusted to a quack and thrust into some gloomy room.
‘A letter to The Japan Times 1899. Sir ... if misery, starvation and vicious habits drive women in other countries to immoral calling, here we must add the mistaken motive of filial piety ... because some women will sell their bodies and inhuman parents sell their daughters, does not justify the state making a percentage per year per girl as at present.
‘The only affection a respectable man might show his wife was the affection of a master for a domestic pet. Romantic love was considered an effeminate emotion and offended the canons of masculine superiority. The function of women was differentiated into woman as domestic manager and breeder and woman as charming plaything, in the separate personalities of wife and concubine. Thus was a woman divided upon her separate selves and a man master of her divided parts.’
The door opened and Paula appeared.
‘I thought you’d never come,’ said Kate, and put the book down.
‘This wretch was told to wait on the swings for me after school, but naturally was nowhere to be seen.’ Paula shook the firmly clasped hand of her small son James. ‘You look better, even a smile. That’s good.’
The room was all movement now, all Paula. Firm, strong voice, well-fleshed bones, sandy, freckled solidity. Immediately it was a different world that Kate entered with relief. Paula sat down and began a recounting of her universe.
‘Oh,’ Paula said, ‘many things have changed in just the few years we’ve been away. As you know we’re back in the same company house. It’s a historic old house and we find we’re now one of the sights on the tourist route around Kitano-cho, and the Ijinkan houses, those quaint houses built by the early foreigners here in Kobe. We have to lock our doors you know. I feel like something in a zoo. We add exotic colour to the area, I suppose. Real life foreigners in real old foreign houses.’
The world seemed comfortable now to Kate, a place in which she fitted and where even the unpredictable was not entirely unknown. She leaned back upon the pillows and let Paula’s gossip fall about her like warm sun. She called James to her and gave him one of Itsuko’s oranges.
‘Wow. So big. Where d’you get ’em?’ His eyes grew round.
‘My mother-in-law.’
‘The old witch?’
‘James!’ Paula exclaimed in horror.
‘Well, you call her that, Mom. I’ve heard you.’
‘J
ames ... look, why don’t you go down to those machines in the entrance and get yourself a drink.’
‘O.K. Money.’ The door shut behind him.
‘The old witch! I must learn to keep my mouth shut. Did she come?’ Paula asked.
‘Yes. Never been more attentive,’ Kate reported as brightly as she could. ‘Even peeled me an apple.’
‘Well. That’s a change.’
‘Not really. She’s just glad the baby died.’ Kate spoke bitterly. ‘Jun can’t seem to stand up to her at all.’
‘I should think she’s enough to silence anyone,’ Paula exclaimed.
‘If he would only be firm, and have it out once and for all. But he won’t.’ Kate admitted.
‘I’m sure he would like to. He can’t enjoy seeing you suffer. But he’s in a difficult position. No wife traditionally expected affection from her husband, she demanded it from her son as a substitute for everything she never had from her marriage. Here a man can ignore his wife, but no man can ignore his mother.’
‘But I can’t live like she wants me to. Jun must make her see.’
‘Kate, listen. By refusing to stand up to her, he’s not showing weakness, as you think. He’s showing strength and virtue. That’s how it’s seen here. He has a special obligation to his mother, a kind of limitless debt of love which is different from our idea of love as something given freely and unfettered. That’s the meaning of filial piety, that places parents in such authority over children. A child must always strive to repay that debt. Jun can’t speak up as you want against Itsuko, it’s unthinkable.’
‘I don’t understand it, any of it. I don’t understand why they don’t break out of their places,’ Kate said sullenly.
‘Well, it’s not that everyone accepts things contentedly, terrible resentments steam below the surface, sometimes with terrible results. Nothing is done directly. There is always a go-between, a third party to negotiate, so that nobody need openly lose face. Face and place. There, I’ve summed it all up for you.’ Paula laughed.
There was a sudden noise outside the room.
‘I didn’t do it Mom. I swear I didn’t do it.’ James appeared in the doorway held firmly by a nurse.
‘James, what have you done now?’ Paula started up.
‘He’s tried to break the soft drinks machine. He was hitting the glass window in it with a metal object. I saw him.’ The nurse said tartly.
James, did you do that?’
‘No, Mom ... I swear I ...’
‘But she saw you, she says.’
‘Well, I hate the horrid machine. Everything is written in Japanese and I cant understand it and I lost my money.’ James yelled, red in the cheeks.
‘James! Wait with Kate, I’m going with the nurse to see.’ Paula’s face was flushed and angry. James sobbed loudly, his eyes defiant.
‘James,’ said Kate when Paula was gone. ‘Come here and let me wipe your nose. Why did you do a thing like that?’
‘Told you. Cause I hate the machine. Cause I hate everything here.’ James sniffed morosely.
‘But why? It’s a beautiful country and your school is so nice.’ Unused to small children, Kate sounded condescending.
‘Well, I hate it. Everyone stares at me all the while, real rude.’
‘But when they stare James, they’re just curious, you look different from them. They only look in a friendly way.’
‘They don’t, they laugh and say rude things about me.’
‘I’m sure they don’t mean anything rude James.’
‘Well, I hate it. And I hate school. And I hate being a third culture kid. I haven’t any friends. Why can’t Mom and Pop go home. Why do we have to live in all these different countries?’
‘A third culture kid? What’s that James?’ Kate asked in puzzlement.
‘Aw, what would you know? What would you understand?’ James said scathingly, and turned to the wash basin in the room, turning the taps on and off.
‘James ... James,’ Paula rushed in and yanked James from the basin, ‘I am fed up with you, James Bailey. Just wait until your father hears about this. Now they’ve been real nice about that machine downstairs. In any other country you would be in serious trouble. Now, you come downstairs with me and apologise.’ James stuck out his lower lip and looked down at his shoes. Paula turned to Kate and raised her eyes despairingly.
‘You’ll be leaving the hospital tomorrow, I’ll phone you at home in the evening.’ She turned out of the door dragging James behind her. The room fell suddenly silent.
Kate took up the book again and read. ‘In the winter of 1872, all prostitutes and geisha engaged in brothels throughout the country were unconditionally set free. The losses sustained by the nation’s brothel keepers at this time were enormous. However, through debts and circumstances, the unfortunate women were compelled to apply for new licenses to continue their calling in the brothels, now renamed kashi zashiki, a house with rooms to let.
‘Letter to The Japan Times 1899.
‘Sir ... if the authorities decide to prohibit the present system of exhibiting women in cages, it will mean men will be obliged to enter the houses in cold blood for a definite purpose, and not be exposed to the temptation of being drawn in by a pretty face on sale ...’
Kate put down the book. That illicit world of the past somehow plunged her back into the present, into all the strangeness of the world that had enclosed her. There was nothing of Paula now left in the room. The last, thin sun of the afternoon settled into greyness. On the wall a glossy calendar showed a Zen temple drawn into mountain pines and mist. Itsuko’s oranges stood in a bowl beside the bed. Out in the bay a ship honked mournfully, a dog howled in reply. Paula would sooner or later return to the security of known things.
But she, Kate saw now, was adrift. She had lost the past and could not see a future. She could never again wholly belong to that world Paula carried with her. She had closed the door upon herself that autumn day in Paula’s flat, when they had tried their best to warn her. It was clear to her now she was alone, and Jun unable to help her. She drew back then in the bed in fear and listened to the dog reply once more to the mournful ship.
_____________________
* The Nightless City by J.E. de Becker anonymously published in 1899; edition by Charles E. Tuttle Company lnc. published 1971.
7
Itsuko sat like a small, nesting bird on the floor of a bare, matted room. Shadow dissolved the beams of the ceiling, before her the garden dwindled to evening landscape. At this time the smell of moss and wood reflected the past warm day. It was unseasonably mild. There was the sweetness of damp undergrowth, somewhere in the dusk Fumi watered the garden; a wet pattering upon dry leaves in the fading day, the paleness of her apron moved beyond the trees, from the pool came the rhythmic clack of the mortar. Itsuko stirred and touched her hair, she felt a restful strength in the absence of the bitterness that had consumed her these past months.
The glass doors of the veranda were drawn back, the garden seemed to fill the room. Beyond bamboo thickets the moon hung huge, red as blood, close enough to touch. Itsuko stared at it unswervingly and knew it was an omen. She had no doubt the present events were arrangements of the Gods. Why else was the child dead? She was certain now what she must do; at last she saw the way.
From the porch came the sound of Jun’s arrival, and Fumi’s greeting as she followed behind him into the house. She had returned that morning from her hospital duty, there was no longer a need for her there. She bent as Jun removed his shoes and turned them neatly, ready for departure, her voice as she spoke to him of Kate was full of concern. Listening, Itsuko felt her exclusion. In the darkness she drew down the corners of her mouth at her sister’s sudden loquacity. Fumi’s face seemed always waiting to offer a part of itself and filled Itsuko with repugnance. She could see her now through the open door. Crumbs of dry leaf stuck to Fumi’s hair, a wet patch where the hose had burst its joint flooded the front of her apron. Her clothes were loose and undi
stinguished, there was a wrinkle in her stocking. Watering the garden should be left to a servant, but no amount of prompting ever changed her. It was a mystery to Itsuko how this sister could differ so, from either herself or Yoko.
‘You’re late. It’s nearly time,’ Itsuko told Jun as he bowed before her. ‘What took you so long?’
‘I had to go home to feed the cat.’
‘A man in your position having to feed a cat.’ Itsuko gave a snort followed by a fastidious shudder, her voice opaque with disgust. The animal too was hardly worthy of the name of cat, a wretched creature Kate had snatched from death under the wheels of a car. Bony, diseased and riddled with worms, she still settled it in her home.
‘If she would employ a live-in maid there would be no need for you to feed a cat. A part-time maid is gone when she’s needed most,’ Itsuko pointed out.
‘She’s not used to maids. She feels her privacy lost with someone always in the house.’ He did not add that the maid sent to them by Itsuko, carried with her all the curiosity of the main house.
‘We are spied upon,’ Kate insisted, ‘it is your mother’s way of keeping track,’ and would have no more to do with the woman. She turned instead to an agency of part-timers Paula recommended.
‘Privacy?’ Itsuko was amazed. It was not a concept she was familiar with, its provision was not included in her way of life. ‘Another strange, imported idea. If she wants to suffer, then it’s her affair. But why should you be made to turn a hand to such domestic things? It’s neither right nor manly.’
‘I don’t wash dishes, Mother,’ Jun wearily explained. ‘We had better switch on the television, or we’ll miss the interview.’
Fumi hurried to turn on the set and they all settled before it. They waited and soon in the brilliant square Jun saw his own face stare at him, the face of a stranger, the voice unrecognisable. On the screen beside him was his mother, her expression admitting nothing, exuding social etiquette with small inclinations of the head and the delicacy of her words.