The Bonsai Tree

by Meira Chand

  Jun drove aimlessly for a while when he left his mother, restless and disturbed. He could not face the thought of home. He had no intention of going to the place until he found himself before the door. The bar was one in Kobe he often patronised, a high-class establishment where they knew him well. It was here, long before, that he had met Chieko. The madame herself came forward as he entered, a woman in her fifties, well past the demands of easy virtue, now established respectfully in her trade.

  ‘Well, well. I thought you had forgotten us. How many weeks has it been?’ She smacked him playfully on the arm once the formal bows were finished. ‘Only last night the girls were wondering what could have become of Nagai-san. It’s that foreign wife of yours. She holds a short rein and your pleasures are ended.’ She laughed up at him, her face a round, smooth bubble of paint and affectation.

  Sachiko and Yumi freed themselves from noisy groups of men and came across the room to fuss playfully about him. He allowed them to lead him to a table. The madame too sat down with them, a drink and snacks were placed before him. Sachiko offered him a cigarette and lit it for him. Yumi stroked his sleeve.

  ‘Such a long time. We were lonely.’

  The low lights in the room reflected the pink decor, there was the glint of glass and the girls’ moist eyes and their flesh, exposed and white. The hard shapes of things dissolved within the soft décor with its insinuations of sensuality. A rainbow light revolved above the bar, changing the women’s bare skin to strange unearthly hues. Jun took a long drink of the whiskey before him and felt his mother’s face recede.

  A group of business executives in the middle of the room argued boisterously and the women sitting with them, expert in the thrust and parry of words, changed potential arguments into jokes or ribald exchanges, until the men were relaxed and the tensions of the day eased. It was unlike the lonely, impersonal drinking Jun had found abroad. He smiled at the women.

  ‘Only yesterday Chieko came to visit us. She always comes back to me for advice, tells me I’m like her mother. Of course I have an interest in my girls, even after they leave me. I care what happens to them. We talked about you, about old times,’ the madame told him, sipping a drink. Although he had met Chieko here, nobody knew of his relationship with her, he had sworn her to silence. But it was through the bar she had heard of his marriage. He assumed innocence and nodded, asking how Chieko was.

  ‘All right, but not too happy. It seems her patron is difficult. And you know she has a child now.’

  The drink worked through him, he had not to think of Kate tonight, waiting accusingly at home. She could never understand this side of life here, or the part it played in society. The evening was before him, and he accepted another drink. His mother’s face was far away and Kate’s soon also faded. He put an arm along the back of Yumi’s chair. Sachiko’s cool fingers withdrew from his lips a stub of cigarette and prepared to light him another. Soon he would tell them of his sadness about the baby, and listen to their sympathy. The groups of men began to blur before him. Something unwound within him that had been tight for days.

  It was late when he got home. The cat waited, bony and resentful before the closed front door. He greeted it with distaste and watched it bound ahead of him into the empty house. It seemed to make Kate happy and for that reason he tolerated it. Upstairs he lay down fully dressed upon the bed, his mind woollen with drink. Now he was home Kate filled his mind again. He thought of her in the nursing home, and remembered his mother’s wily words. Just the thought of Kate now fragmented him, made him live upon two planes. He must fit again the requirements of his past, and yet marriage to Kate and his life abroad had changed him. He had never forgotten, as his mother supposed, that he was a Nagai, nor the virtue of his Japanese ways, but he had lived a strange duality. The confusion exhausted him. Behind his closed eyes the world revolved nauseatingly. He pulled himself up and switched on the bedside light. Beyond the open door of the room Kate had prepared for the child. There was the basket cradle she had lined with lace, the chest of tiny knitted feet, bloomers, hats and diapers, all the peripheral features of a child that had not come to them. How could he ever tell her that destiny had already made him a father? He thought then of that other child he would never call his own. His mother’s words came back to him and filled his mind with fear. There was no knowing what she schemed. That secret part of his life was shut off somewhere deep within him, separate from the flow of things, and silence lay upon it. He prayed Kate would never know.

  8

  The room combined the pomp of cathedrals and circuses. Encrustments of mirrors and chandeliers reflected light. A garish modern tapestry hung above a forest of men in dark suits. There were three hundred guests, all of them men. Apart from three geisha and the waitresses, the only woman was his mother. Jun watched her across the banqueting hall of the hotel. About him the room was brilliant, as Itsuko had planned. A large placard outside the room announced “Centenary Celebration of Nagai Spinning Mill”. There were pictures below of the mill at the turn of the century, great drab sheds, surrounded by a squalid huddle of wooden huts and roofs that were the suburbs of Osaka.

  Beside this was a photo of the present modern mill, bordered by the paranoia of industrial activity that now made up Osaka. Jun greeted the president of an electronics company and over his shoulder caught sight once more of Nubuo Tamura standing with a plate of food beside a knot of men, and embarrassment filled him again. He could not understand what made his mother invite Tamura, it was hardly politic. Itsuko only wished to flaunt herself before him. He was surprised Tamura had even come. Recently they had been awarded by the government, in preference to Tamura, the whole export quota of yarn to Senegal. They heard many rumours afterwards of how Tamura smarted, and they knew his dubious ways from long ago. What good would it do to antagonise him with their superior success? He saw his mother had seen Tamura and made her way towards him.

  Tamura stood across the room, his face already flushed by drink. Itsuko Nagai approached him, like a small, bright bird of prey. Her eyes if they could would have petrified the corpulent form before her. They bowed and Itsuko, observing the proper etiquette in the depth and length of bow, was careful to lower herself less than the man before her. In this manner they straightened with identical timing, saving a further performance.

  ‘How good of you to come.’ Her words were whetted as a pebble. The plate he had collected from the buffet tipped in Tamura’s embarrassed hand, some salmon fell to the floor.

  ‘Careful.’ Itsuko put out a hand and straightened the plate with a little laugh, and the sound whipped the blood to Tamura’s face. She was without charity. Tamura coughed a cough that did not deceive. He flushed deeper in annoyance above the congratulations he was obliged to offer again.

  Long before he had worked for Itsuko’s husband, but leaked important information to a rival enterprise. He left in disgrace but never forgot the slur this cast upon him. By accepting a leftover spinster as wife, he married into money. His contacts were many and dubious. He made his first wealth through the occupation and then by supplying dried blood plasma to American forces in Korea. A few yen, and a meal to any vagrant who would donate blood, had been the basis of his wealth. Then came black market tie-ups with the Japanese underworld.

  One way or another he rose, outside the aristocracy of money. He dared compete with the haughty Nagais and threaten their monopolies. He was not a man Itsuko cared to be seen with, she was anxious to move on. But not for a moment would she have omitted to ask him to the celebration, not have seen the salmon slip from his plate. Satisfied, she left him for the manager of a bank, and she continued her progress across the room. Her formal, black kimono embroidered with the family crest, had a lavish hem with designs of peonies and birds. The bronze brocade of her obi warmed about her like dull metal under the chandeliers. Among the dreary horde of men she was not without splendour. On the back and sleeves of the kimono was the small veined leaf of a paulownia that was the family crest, a
nd she carried it proudly through the room. She had risen to where she was through the fortune of circumstance, but also upon her own merits. She was the only woman in the room, and as she observed the men about her she thought of that great collective army, their married halves. It would be unusual to invite them, and few would anyway choose to come. They led separate social lives from their husbands, bright and active, but safely contained in exclusively feminine meetings. Wherever Itsuko moved men parted and regrouped about her, always respectful of her presence, unsure of how to handle her. She looked about with satisfaction; everyone who should be there had come. The room rippled like a mirror with the reflection of her life.

  On the long tables of the buffet light trembled in aspic, silver and glass and the thin glaze upon a pâté. On great platters goggle-eyed, open-mouthed fish, were devoured to their spines.

  Roasts of beef and wild boar, and the strange, black eggs of China, preserved it was said for fifty years. Plates of abalone, quail eggs, oysters, and rare mushrooms, no expense had been spared. Itsuko shook her head to a canapé offered by a waiter, this was not the time to eat. She began to make her way to an official from the ministry who had been instrumental in their acquiring that recent quota to Senegal.

  The room closed about Jun, palpable and warm. Through windows the sun set in a smear behind the density of the town. Along raised highways the lights of cars melted to a molten stream, red and white, driving West from Osaka along the bay to Kobe, where Kate waited for him.

  A group of men pressed about him. The few unfamiliar guests produced at once their visiting cards. Through gaps in the hedge of dark suits he glimpsed at times the three geisha, hired to play and sing, arranged on a dais before their instruments. The angular notes of a samisen struck small rents in the hum of conversation. One woman danced, a slow poised turning of head and hands, another sang, moving slightly with emotion beneath a voluminous wig, her throat releasing the words of song in high, contorted notes. And watching them, Jun remembered again the geisha Umeka, who had been his father’s last mistress. He heard that when they met she had been sixteen and his father forty-nine. Both his father and his grandfather had been great frequenters of the tea houses.

  Tamura was making his way across the room. He stopped first at the buffet to replenish his salmon, and then joined the knot about Jun. Soon the group dispersed and they were alone.

  ‘A splendid event.’ Tamura’s breath gushed fish. ‘My congratulations also on your new invention. I heard it will cut spinning time and cost. How shall we compete with you? But I warn you to be careful. Many competitors will be jealous. You must be careful.’ He laughed to himself, a greasy laugh. Jun tried to back away.

  ‘And your mother. Really, she is wonderful, not another woman like her. Who can compete with her? It must be hard for you who have inherited all this. I cannot see her ever retiring.’ Tamura warmed. Jun caught the eye of a politician, bowed to Tamura and turned away.

  Tamura deposited his plate upon a passing tray, and lit a cigarette. In his hand the sudden spurt of flame was reflected in his spectacles. He sucked from his teeth a fragment of food, then turned unhurriedly to the door. Jun watched him leave in relief.

  Soon the room began to clear. The remnants of the evening lay littered in giant ashtrays and dirty plates of half-chewed food. Screwed-up balls of paper napkin and the ash of cigarettes were trampled on the floor. Red-coated waiters hurried about, the geisha packed away their instruments, the last guests bowed and left.

  ‘An evening to remember.’ Itsuko congratulated herself in the lift, and bowed her thanks to the geisha who came down and followed behind them as they walked through the lobby to the massive glass doors.

  ‘Will you go and pick her up, or shall I send the car?’ Itsuko demanded when they arrived in Kobe, for Kate had gone for the evening to the Baileys. ‘Why don’t you come home for a while first?’

  ‘It’s already late,’ Jun excused himself, although it was only nine o’clock. Itsuko nodded and instructed the chauffeur to drive first to Jun’s home. There, before the open car door, he bowed formally to his mother, and bowed again as the car drove away before turning to his gate.

  In the house he went straight to the phone. ‘I’m still in Osaka. It will be later than I thought. Can you wait for me there, at Paula’s?’ he asked when he heard Kate’s voice. He looked at his watch and reckoned he had about two hours. ‘About eleven.’ He replaced the phone and hesitated a moment before walking out of the house again. It was as if a curtain came down one life and another began, and nothing connected the two. He had simply shut one door and opened another, equally part of himself. In the garage he started the car and prepared to drive to Chieko.

  ‘Nine o’clock and we’ve not even had dinner.’ Paula took a long gulp of her wine. ‘He’s asleep now. What are we to do with him?’ She pushed back her fringe distractedly.

  James had that afternoon climbed over the neighbour’s wall after a football, and trampled over the precious moss and old stones of that garden. He had been caught in the act by the owner himself, a small, grizzled man who the day before had refused to return James’ frisbee to him.

  ‘Oh that child,’ Paula moaned again, then laughed. ‘It’s terrible I know, but I’ve often thought of the revenge I also might inflict if given the chance upon that disagreeable old man.

  ‘But why is he being so naughty all the time? He wasn’t like this before in London,’ Kate asked.

  ‘He’s unhappy. I guess we’re up against the overseas syndrome. Poor kid’s lived in so many places.’ Pete said.

  ‘But you lived here before, he was all right then,’ Kate said. ‘He had two good friends then, his own little world. But you know the overseas circuit, everyone moves on after a few years to another posting and James’s friends have all gone,’ Paula told her.

  ‘Surely he can make more?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Oh, enough of James for one day. I’m glad Jun will be late, now we’ll have some evening together.’ They realised then how hungry they were, and came quickly to the table.

  ‘How was Jun, how was the party?’ Pete inquired, filling Kate’s wine-glass. ‘Did he say anything on the phone?’

  ‘Both fine, I think.’ Kate paused on a mouthful of dinner, her mind suddenly thick with resentment again. Pete and Paula exchanged a look above her lowered head.

  ‘Come now, don’t feel so bad,’ Pete comforted. ‘Women simply aren’t invited to things like this here.’

  ‘Well, I’m really beginning to know how a Japanese wife feels. There seem to be so many evenings alone,’ Kate replied.

  ‘Well, it’s not unusual here, you know. The women do stay at home, and expect to. Couples don’t lead joint social lives.’ Pete told her.

  ‘You should find a job. Get busy.’ Paula suggested.

  ‘What about my mother-in-law?’ Kate asked, ignoring his last comment.

  ‘Oh her !’ Paula exclaimed. ‘She’s not a woman, she’s a machine, she’s not an average woman in the Japanese sense of the word. Do you know what they call a career woman here? A hysterical woman. Yes. There is still great stigma attached to a woman leaving her rightfully considered place in the home. Few are brave enough to face the scorn. Great numbers of women work part-time of course, but a real career woman is a rare species.’

  ‘Jun seems out as many nights as he’s in. There are always so many business people to entertain. Why doesn’t he bring them home, I don’t mind? But no, they must always go to these bars and places.’ The words blew away from her now, rinsed out by the wine and before it a gin.

  ‘It’s the way things are done here. Nobody entertains at home. And as for the bar culture, it serves a purpose here. It’s the other side of the social rigidity, it’s the bridge between work and home. Every man has his bar, it’s a Japanese institution, like the English pub!’ Pete explained.

  ‘The world of the bars is the modern counterpart of the world of the old teahouses. A lot of business is successfully concluded i
n bars, as it used to be concluded in the tea houses with geisha acting the same role. As the bar hostess. Jun cannot escape this side of Japanese life.’ Paula refilled their wine-glasses and Pete continued to elaborate.

  ‘The conducting of personal relations in Japan is a highly sensitive procedure. All kinds of complicated techniques and delicate explorations are required in business negotiations. Rather like an intricate dance. Things are seldom openly stated. When they have to be, a go-between is used. And the women in these places serve that purpose, They are a kind of mixture of temporary romance, maternal concern, and sympathetic drinking companion. For the men the relationship is casual and unhampered by any overworked intimacy. They just enjoy the flattery and sympathy.’

  ‘I don’t need a lecture,’ Kate responded.

  ‘It’s not the drinking, it’s the thought of all those women,’ she added.

  ‘The rhythm of life and of relationships is different in every society. Emotional bonds between husbands and wives have their own cultural pattern.’

  In London, before they married, Kate remembered they had gone to a performance at the National Theatre of Romeo and Juliet. She arrived late and they hurried inside the auditorium, where lights already blazed on renaissance Verona. Afterwards they went for a drink in a nearby pub.

  ‘Romeo and Juliet is very popular in Japan,’ he told her.

  ‘The theme of double suicide is a very Japanese one. It is used often in our literature and films. The concept of the union of lovers in death is well understood by the Japanese because of the Buddhist philosophy of reincarnation. Fated lovers always think they will be reborn into a better life. The playwright, Chikamatsu, sometimes called our Shakespeare, also wrote a famous play about a double suicide.’