The Japanese Lover

by Isabel Allende

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  Just as Alma became Irina’s adoptive aunt, so Seth played the role of cousin, since he was having no success in that of lover. Over the three years of their acquaintance, the relationship between the two young people, born of Irina’s solitude, Seth’s poorly disguised passion, and the curiosity they both felt for Alma, grew increasingly close. Any man less stubborn and infatuated than Seth would have thrown in the towel long ago, but he learned to control his impetuosity and adapted to the tortoiselike progress imposed by Irina. It was no use trying to hasten things along, because at the slightest sign of intrusion she withdrew into her shell, and it took weeks for him to make up the lost ground. If they happened to touch each other, she pulled away at once; and if he did it on purpose, she grew alarmed. Seth searched in vain for something that might justify this mistrust, but her past remained a closed book. On the surface, no one would have suspected Irina’s true nature, because she had already won the title of Lark House’s most popular employee thanks to her open, friendly attitude, and yet Seth knew that this façade hid a wary squirrel.

  In those three years, Seth’s book began to come to life without any great effort on his part, thanks to the material his grandmother provided and Irina’s insistence. Alma took it on herself to compile the Belasco family history, as they were the only family she had left after the war had swept away the Mendels in Poland and before her brother, Samuel, was resurrected. The Belascos were not part of the San Francisco aristocracy, simply among the most well-off, but they could trace their origins back to the Gold Rush. Isaac Belasco liked to say that there was only one aristocracy, that of decency, and that this was not inherited or bought with money or titles, but was only gained through good deeds. Their most famous ancestor was David Belasco, a theatrical director and producer, an impresario and author of more than a hundred works, who left the city in 1882 to go and triumph on Broadway. Seth’s great-grandfather Isaac belonged to the branch of the family that stayed on in San Francisco, put down roots, and made a fortune thanks to a prosperous law firm and a good eye for investment.

  Like all the Belasco males, Seth was expected to become a partner in the firm, even though he lacked the adversarial instinct of previous generations. He got a law degree out of a sense of duty and practiced because he felt sorry for his clients, not because he had any confidence in the legal system, still less out of an appetite for money. His sister, Pauline, two years younger, was better suited to such a thankless profession, but that did not exempt him from his responsibilities. He had reached the age of thirty-two without settling down, something for which his father reproached him. He continued to pass difficult cases on to his sister, preferring to enjoy life without caring about the cost, as he flitted between half a dozen short-lived love affairs. He boasted of his poetic vocation and his prowess at racing motorcycles in order to impress his girlfriends and scare his parents, but never considered renouncing the secure income he obtained from the family law firm. He was not cynical, merely lazy with regard to work, and much more excited by just about anything else. He was the first to be surprised at discovering that the pages of a manuscript were mounting up in the briefcase where he was supposed to keep court documents. In this digital era, the heavy caramel-colored case inscribed with his grandfather’s gold initials was an anachronism, but Seth treasured it, convinced it contained supernatural powers: that was the only possible explanation for his manuscript’s spontaneous growth. The words sprang forth unaided within the fertile womb of the briefcase and strolled tranquilly through the panorama of the imagination: two hundred and fifteen pages that came gushing out and that he never bothered to correct, as his plan consisted in setting down what he could elicit from his grandmother, adding what contributions he himself could muster, and then paying a ghostwriter and a conscientious editor to shape and polish the resulting book. Even so, the pages would never have existed without Irina’s insistence on reading them, and her boldness in making criticisms, which obliged him to produce regular batches of ten or twelve for her perusal. In this way the pages began to mount up, and without intending to, he gradually became a novelist.

  Seth was the only member of her family that Alma missed, although she would never have admitted it. If several days passed without his calling or visiting her, she grew irritable and soon invented an excuse to summon him. Her grandson scarcely needed any encouragement. He would arrive like a whirlwind, bike helmet under his arm, hair disheveled, red cheeked, and always with a small gift for her and another for Irina: sweet dulce de leche alfajores, almond soap, sketching paper, a zombie video. He was visibly upset if Irina wasn’t there, but Alma pretended not to notice. He greeted his grandmother with a pat on the shoulder; she responded with her usual grunt; they were frank and trusting in their dealings with each other, like companions on an adventure, but they avoided all demonstration of affection, which they considered corny. They talked at length like old fishwives: first they would briefly discuss the news, including what the family was up to, and then soon immersed themselves in what really interested them. They were endlessly caught up in a mythical past full of improbable anecdotes and people from before Seth’s birth. As she reminisced with her grandson, Alma showed herself to be an imaginative storyteller: she would recall in precise detail the Warsaw mansion where she had spent her early years, with its dark rooms and massive pieces of furniture, the uniformed servants gliding along the walls without raising their eyes—but she would add an imaginary wheat-colored pony with a long mane, which, according to her, was turned into stew during the years of hunger. She could resuscitate her Mendel great-grandparents and restore to them everything the Nazis had looted. She would picture them sitting at table for Passover with their silver candelabra and cutlery, French crystal, Bavarian porcelain, and tablecloths embroidered by Spanish nuns.

  She was so eloquent in her description of the most tragic episodes that Seth and Irina felt they were accompanying the Mendel family on its way to Treblinka; they traveled with them inside the boxcar amidst hundreds of other desperate hungry people, without air or light, vomiting, defecating, dying before their eyes; they went naked with them into the chamber of horrors, vanished with them in the chimney smoke. Alma also told them about Seth’s great-grandfather Isaac Belasco, and how although he died one month in the spring, that night there was an ice storm that completely destroyed his garden, and how he had two funerals, because there wasn’t enough room in the first for all the people who wanted to pay their respects: hundreds of whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, and others who felt indebted to him filed past his grave, so many that the rabbi had to repeat the ceremony. And she described Seth’s great-grandmother Lillian, eternally in love with her husband, who on the day he died went blind and spent her remaining years in darkness, as no doctors could trace a cause for it. She also mentioned the Fukuda family and the evacuation of the Japanese in the Second World War, which had blighted her childhood—although she did not give any special emphasis to her relationship with Ichimei Fukuda.

  THE FUKUDA FAMILY

  Takao Fukuda had lived in the United States from the age of twenty without feeling any desire to integrate. Like many issei, the first generation of Japanese immigrants, he had no wish to dissolve in the American melting pot in the way that other races from all four corners of the world did. Proud of his culture and his language, he kept them intact and tried in vain to transmit them to his descendants, who were seduced by the grandeur of America. He admired many aspects of this immense land where the horizon blended with the sky but could not help feeling superior, although he never allowed this to show outside his home as this would have been an unforgivable lack of courtesy toward the country that had received him. As the years went by, he inevitably fell into the trap of nostalgia; the reasons why he left Japan became blurred, and he ended up idealizing those same stuffy traditions that had led him to emigrate in the first place. He was shocked by the Americans’ self-confidence and materialism, which he saw not as character building and pra
gmatic, but as vulgarity; he suffered to see his children adopt the individualistic values and brash behavior of the local population. His four children may have been born in California, but they were Japanese on both sides of their family, and so there was no justification for their lack of interest in their ancestors or lack of respect for their elders. They were unaware of the position destiny had allotted each of them; they had become infected by the foolish ambition of the Americans, to whom nothing seemed impossible. Takao knew that his children were betraying him even over small things: they drank beer until their heads were spinning, they chewed gum like cattle and danced to the frenetic rhythms that were fashionable, with greased hair and two-tone shoes. He was sure Charles and James sought out dark corners where they could fondle girls of dubious virtue, but at least he trusted that Megumi didn’t do such things. His daughter copied the ridiculous fashions of American girls and in secret read the magazines full of love stories and gossip about movie idols that he had prohibited, but she was a good student and on the surface at least was respectful. The only one Takao could still control was Ichimei, but soon his youngest too would slip through his fingers and become a stranger like his brothers. That was the price to pay for living in America.

  In 1912, Takao Fukuda had left his family and emigrated for metaphysical reasons, but this fact had gradually lost its importance in his memories of Japan, and he often wondered why he had taken such a drastic step. Japan had opened up to foreign influences, and many young men had been leaving to seek opportunities elsewhere, but for a member of the Fukuda family to leave their native country was regarded as an unpardonable betrayal. They came from a military line and for centuries had shed their blood for the emperor. Being the only male of the four children who survived the diseases and accidents of infancy, Takao was destined to be the guardian of the family’s honor, responsible for his parents and sisters. It was he who would later lead the ancestor worship at the domestic altar and every religious festival. However, at fifteen he discovered Oomoto, the way of the gods, a new religion derived from Shintoism that was taking off in Japan at the time, and felt that at last he had discovered a map that could guide his steps through life. According to its spiritual leaders, nearly all of whom were women, there may be many gods, but they are all essentially the same, and it did not matter by what name or ritual they were worshipped. Throughout history, gods, religions, prophets, and messengers have all come from the same source: the Universe’s Supreme God, the One Spirit, which impregnates all that exists. With the help of human beings, God tries to purify and rebuild the harmony of the universe, and when this task is complete, God, mankind, and nature will coexist in friendship on earth and in the spiritual realm. Takao threw himself into this new faith. Oomoto preached peace, which could be reached only through personal virtue, and Takao therefore realized that he could not follow a military career as those of his lineage were meant to. The only way out he could see was to get as far away as possible, because to stay in Japan and renounce warfare would be seen as unforgivable cowardice and the worst affront he could inflict on his family. When he tried to explain this to his father, he only managed to break his heart, but he expressed his reasons with such fervor that the old man finally accepted he would have to lose his son. Young people who left never returned. Dishonor can only be washed away by blood. His father told him that death at his own hand would be preferable, but this alternative went against the principles of Oomoto.

  Takao reached the coast of California with two changes of clothes, a hand-tinted portrait of his mother and father, and the samurai sword that had been in his family for seven generations. His father handed it to him when they bade farewell, because he could not give it to any of his daughters. Even if his son were never to use it, the sword belonged to him by right. This katana was the Fukudas’ sole treasure. It was made of the finest steel folded and refolded sixteen times by ancient craftsmen; its hilt was of wrought silver and bronze, and its wooden scabbard was decorated with red lacquer and gold leaf. Takao traveled with it wrapped in sacks for protection, but its long, curved shape was unmistakable. The men who shared the ship’s hold with him during the tedious crossing treated him with due deference, as the weapon proved he was from a distinguished family.

  After disembarking, he immediately received help from the tiny Oomoto community in San Francisco, and a few days later he found a job as a gardener for a compatriot. Far from the reproving gaze of his father, who thought a soldier should never dirty his hands with soil, only with blood, Takao devoted himself to learning this new skill, and it was not long before he established a reputation among the issei who made a living from agriculture. He worked tirelessly and lived frugally and virtuously as his religion required, so that in less than ten years he had saved the necessary eight hundred dollars to bring a wife over from Japan. The marriage broker offered him three candidates and he selected the first, because he liked her name, Heideko. Takao went down to await her arrival at the dock in his one and only suit, bought thirdhand and worn shiny at the elbows and on the backside, but well made; his shoes were polished and he wore a Panama hat he had bought in Chinatown. The fiancée he had sent for turned out to be a peasant girl ten years younger than him. She was stockily built, with a placid expression but a resolute temperament, and she was always ready to speak her mind. As he could tell from the very first moment, she was much less submissive than the marriage broker had suggested. Once he had recovered from the initial shock, Takao decided that this strength of character was a definite advantage.

  Heideko arrived in California with few illusions. On board ship, where she had shared the narrow space allotted her with a dozen other girls in a similar situation, she had heard terrible stories of innocent virgins like her who had faced the dangers of the ocean in order to marry well-off young men in America, only to discover that waiting on the quayside to receive them were impecunious old men, or in the worst cases, pimps who sold them into prostitution or as slaves in clandestine workshops. This did not happen to her, as Takao Fukuda had sent her a recent photograph and did not lie to her about his situation, telling her he could only offer a life of effort and hard work, but one that was honorable and less backbreaking than that of her village in Japan. They had four children: first Charles, Megumi, and James, and then years later, in 1932, when Heideko thought she was no longer fertile, Ichimei arrived. He was premature and so puny that they thought he would not survive, and so did not give him a name for the first few months. His mother built up his strength as best she could with herbal infusions, acupuncture sessions, and cold water, until by some miracle it began to seem as though he would pull through. It was then that they gave him a Japanese name, unlike his brothers, who had been given English first names that were easy to pronounce in America. They called him Ichimei, meaning “life,” “light,” “brilliance,” or “star,” according to the kanji, or ideogram, used to represent it. From the age of three, he could swim like an eel, at first in local pools and then in the freezing waters of San Francisco Bay. His father molded his character through hard physical work, a love of plants, and martial arts.

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  At the time Ichimei was born, the Fukuda family was struggling to deal with the worst years of the Great Depression. They rented a plot of land on the edge of San Francisco, where they grew vegetables and fruit trees to supply local markets. Takao supplemented his income by working for the Belascos, the first family to employ him when he set up independently from the Japanese colleague who introduced him to gardening. His reputation was such that Isaac Belasco invited him to create the garden for a property he had recently acquired at Sea Cliff, where he wanted to build a house that would stay in the family for at least a century, as he joked to his architect, little thinking that his joke might come true. His law firm was not short of funds, as he now represented the California Western Railroad and Navigation Company; Isaac was one of the few businessmen who did not suffer during the crisis. He kept his money in gold and invested it in fishing
boats, a sawmill, mechanics’ workshops, a laundry, and other such businesses. In doing so his intention was to employ some of the desperate folk who lined up outside the charity soup kitchens, so that he could help alleviate their misery, but this altruistic goal brought him unexpected benefits. While the house was being built according to his wife’s extravagant whims, Isaac shared with Takao his dream of reproducing the plant life of other latitudes on a steep hillside exposed to fog and wind. As they began the process of turning this crazy dream into reality, Isaac Belasco and Takao Fukuda established a respectful relationship. Together they read the catalogs, selected and ordered the trees and plants from other continents, which arrived wrapped in damp sacks with the original soil still sticking to their roots; together they pored over the instruction manual and assembled the glass greenhouse shipped piece by piece from London like a jigsaw puzzle; and together they kept this eclectic Garden of Eden alive.

  Isaac’s lack of interest in social life and the majority of his family affairs, which he delegated entirely to Lillian, was compensated for by an unbridled passion for botany. He neither smoked nor drank, and did not succumb to any known vices or irresistible temptations; he was wholly unable to appreciate either fine music or fine cuisine, and if Lillian had allowed it, he would have dined on the same coarse bread and poor man’s soup eaten by the unemployed, standing up in the kitchen. A man like him was immune to corruption and vanity. Instead, he showed great intellectual curiosity, a passion for defending his clients with artful legal subterfuges, and a secret weakness for helping the needy. But none of these pleasures could compare to that of gardening. A third of his library was dedicated to botany. His ceremonious friendship with Takao, based on a mutual admiration and respect for nature, became fundamental to his peace of mind, an essential balm for his frustrations with the law. In his garden, Isaac became the humble apprentice of his Japanese master, who revealed secrets of the vegetable kingdom to him that his botanical treatises so often failed to clarify. Lillian adored her husband and looked after him with a young lover’s care, but she never desired him so much as when she caught sight of him from her balcony, working side by side with the gardener. In his overalls, boots, and straw hat, sweating under the glare of the sun or soaked by fine rain, Isaac was rejuvenated, and in Lillian’s eyes once more became the passionate lover who had seduced her at the age of nineteen, or the newlywed who possessed her on the stairs, before they could get as far as their bed.