The Japanese Lover

by Isabel Allende

  They spent their first night as a married couple in the bridal suite at the Palace Hotel, where Alma had once had to suffer the debutantes’ balls, surrounded by champagne, sweets, and flowers. The next day they flew to New York, and from there to Europe for a two-week honeymoon that Isaac had insisted they take even though neither of them wanted it. Nathaniel was busy with several legal cases and did not want to leave the office, but his father bought the tickets, stuffed them in his pocket, and convinced him to go with the argument that a honeymoon was a traditional obligation; there were enough rumors going around already about this hasty marriage between cousins to want to avoid any further speculation. Alma undressed in the bathroom and returned wearing the silk and lace nightgown Lillian had bought hurriedly as part of an improvised trousseau. She twirled around in front of Nathaniel, who was waiting for her fully dressed, sitting on a stool at the foot of the bed.

  “Take a good look, Nat, because you won’t have another opportunity to admire me. The gown is already tight around my waist. I don’t think I’ll be able to wear it again.”

  Her husband noticed how her voice was trembling despite her attempt to charm him, and patted the seat beside him. Alma sat down.

  “I don’t have any illusions, Alma. I know you love Ichimei.”

  “I also love you, Nat. I don’t know how to explain it. There must be a dozen women in your life; I don’t know why you’ve never introduced me to any of them. You once told me that when you fell in love I’d be the first to know. As soon as the baby is born we can get divorced, and you’ll be free.”

  “I haven’t renounced any great love for you, Alma, and I think it’s in very bad taste for you to talk about divorce on our wedding night.”

  “Don’t laugh, Nat. Tell me the truth: do I attract you in any way? As a woman, I mean.”

  “Until now I’ve always regarded you as my younger sister, but that could change when we live together. Would you like that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m confused, sad, angry; I have a chaos in my head and a child in my belly. You got a dreadful deal marrying me.”

  “That remains to be seen, but I want you to know I’ll be a good father to the child, boy or girl.”

  “He or she will have Asian features, Nat. How are we going to explain that?”

  “We won’t, and no one will dare ask, Alma. Heads held high and lips sealed is the best way. The only person with the right to ask is Ichimei Fukuda.”

  “I’ll never see him again, Nat. Thank you a thousand times for what you’re doing for me. You’re the noblest person in the world, and I’ll try to make you a worthy wife. A few days ago I thought I would die without Ichimei, but now I think that with your help, I’ll survive. I won’t fail you. I’ll always be faithful, I swear.”

  “Sshh, Alma. Let’s not make promises we might not be able to keep. We’re going to travel this path together, step by step, day by day, with the best of intentions. That’s all we can promise one another.”

  * * *

  Isaac Belasco had rejected outright the idea that the newlyweds have their own home. There was more than enough room at Sea Cliff, and the intention behind building such an enormous house had always been that several generations of the family would live under the same roof. Besides, Alma had to look after herself, and would need Lillian and her female cousins’ help and company; he declared that to set up and manage a new house would take far too much effort. As a clinching argument he used emotional blackmail: he wanted to spend what little time he had left with them, and they could then keep Lillian company when she was widowed. Nathaniel and Alma accepted the patriarch’s decision; she continued to sleep in her blue room, where the only change was to replace her bed with two new ones, separated by a night table. Nathaniel put his penthouse up for sale and returned to the family home. In his former bedroom he installed a study, his books and music, and a sofa. Everybody was aware that the couple’s daily routines did not exactly encourage intimacy: Alma got up at noon and went to bed early; he worked like a galley slave, came back home late from the office, shut himself away with his books and classical records, went to bed after midnight, slept very little, and left before she was awake. On the weekend he played tennis, jogged up Mount Tamalpais, went sailing around the bay in his boat, and came back sunburned, sweaty, and relaxed. It was also obvious that he usually slept on the sofa in his study, but this was put down to his wife’s need to rest. Nathaniel was so attentive to Alma, she depended so much on him, and there was so much trust and good humor between them that only Lillian suspected anything was amiss.

  “How are things between you and my son?” she asked Alma in the second week after they had returned from their honeymoon, when her daughter-in-law was four months pregnant.

  “Why do you ask, Aunt Lillian?”

  “Because you two love each other just as you always did; nothing has changed. Marriage without passion is like food without salt.”

  “You want us to be passionate in front of everyone?” laughed Alma.

  “My love for Isaac is the most precious thing I have, Alma, far more than for my children or grandchildren. I want the same for you two: for you to live in love with each other, like Isaac and me.”

  “What makes you think we don’t, Aunt Lillian?”

  “You’re at the best time in your pregnancy, Alma. Between the fourth and seventh months a woman feels strong, full of energy, and sexy. Nobody tells you this, the doctors don’t mention it, but it’s like being in heat. That was how it was when I was expecting all my three children: I chased Isaac everywhere. It was scandalous! But I can’t see that same enthusiasm between Nathaniel and you.”

  “How can you know what goes on between us behind closed doors?”

  “Don’t answer me with more questions, Alma!”

  On the far side of San Francisco Bay, Ichimei was silent and unapproachable, consumed by a bitter sense of betrayed love. He buried himself in his work, and his flowers grew more colorful and perfumed than ever to console him. He learned of Alma’s marriage because Megumi had been leafing through a society gossip magazine at the hairdresser’s and saw a photograph of Alma and Nathaniel Belasco in formal attire, presiding over the annual banquet of the family foundation. The caption stated that the couple had recently returned from their honeymoon in Italy and described the splendid reception as well as Alma’s elegant dress, inspired by the flowing tunics of ancient Greece. According to the magazine, they were the most talked-about couple of the year. Not suspecting she was going to drive a stake through her brother’s heart, Megumi had cut out the page and took it to show him. Ichimei studied it without showing the slightest emotion. He had been trying for several weeks to comprehend what had happened during those months with Alma in the motel and their intense lovemaking. He thought he had experienced something completely extraordinary, a passion worthy of literature, the meeting of two souls destined repeatedly to be together across time, but while he was embracing that magnificent certainty, she had been planning to marry someone else!

  The betrayal was so immense there was not enough room for it in his chest: he could scarcely breathe. In Alma and Nathaniel Belasco’s world, marriage was more than the union of two individuals: it was a social, economic, and family strategy. It was impossible that Alma could have been preparing for it without revealing the slightest hint of her intentions; the evidence must have been there, but he was too blind and deaf to spot it. Now though he could tie up loose ends and understand Alma’s erratic behavior in their final days together, her hesitations, her subterfuges to avoid questions, her subtle devices for distracting him, her contortions to make love without looking him in the face. The falsehood was so complete, the web of lies so intricate and complex, the hurt done so irreparable, that he could only conclude he did not know Alma in the slightest, that she was a stranger to him. The woman he loved had never existed; he had built her out of his dreams.

  Tired of seeing her son drained of spirit like a sleepwalker, Heideko Fukuda decided
the time had come to take him back to Japan to discover his roots and, with a bit of luck, find him a bride. The journey would help relieve him of the despair whose origin neither she nor Megumi had been able to fathom. Ichimei was still young to start a family, but he was mature beyond his years; it was a good idea to step in as soon as possible and choose her future daughter-in-law, before her son became ensnared in the pernicious American custom of getting married out of amorous infatuation. Megumi was completely devoted to her studies, but she agreed to supervise a couple of their compatriots who were taken on to keep their flower business going. She thought of asking Boyd, as a definitive proof of his love, to give up everything he had in Hawaii and come to Martinez to grow flowers, but Heideko could still not bring herself to even pronounce the name of this stubborn lover, whom she continued to refer to as the concentration camp guard. It was to be another five years before Heideko’s first grandchild, Charles, was born and she finally agreed to talk to the white devil.

  Heideko organized the trip to Japan without asking Ichimei’s opinion. She simply told him they had to fulfill the inescapable duty of honoring Takao’s ancestors, as she had promised him on his deathbed so that he could pass away in peace. Takao had not been able to do so during his lifetime, so now the pilgrimage was up to the two of them. They would have to visit a hundred temples and scatter a pinch of Takao’s ashes in each of them. Ichimei only protested feebly for the sake of it, because deep down he did not care where he was; the geographical location in no way affected the process of inner cleansing on which he was embarked.

  In Japan, Heideko announced to her son that her own first duty was not toward her deceased husband, but to her aged parents, if they were still alive, and to her siblings, whom she had not seen since 1922. She had no hope of finding her son James, who disappeared completely after he was deported. She did not invite Ichimei to accompany her. She said good-bye casually, as if she were going to the corner store, without asking how her son was going to survive in the meantime. Ichimei had given his mother all the money they had brought with them. He saw her off on the train, left his suitcase at the station, and started walking with only the clothes he was wearing, a toothbrush, and the oilskin bag containing his father’s ashes. He had no need of a map, because he had memorized his itinerary. He walked all the first day on an empty stomach until at nightfall he came to a tiny Shinto shrine, where he lay down by a wall. He was about to fall asleep when a mendicant monk came up and told him that inside the shrine there was always tea and rice cakes for any pilgrim. This was to be Ichimei’s life for the next four months. He walked all day until he was overwhelmed with fatigue, went hungry until somebody offered him a bite to eat, and slept wherever night found him. He never had to beg and never needed money. He walked along with his mind blank, enjoying the landscapes and his own tiredness, while the effort of keeping going gradually wore away his sad memories of Alma. When he completed his mission of visiting a hundred temples, the oilskin bag was empty, and he had rid himself of the dark thoughts that had so oppressed him at the start of the journey.

  August 2, 1994

  To live with uncertainty, with nothing sure or safe, with no plans or goals, letting myself be carried along like a bird on the wind: that is what I learned on my pilgrimage. You are amazed that at the age of sixty-two I can still leave from one day to the next and set out with no itinerary or baggage, like a youngster hitchhiking, that I can go away for an undefined length of time without calling you or writing to you, and that on my return I can’t tell you where I’ve been. There is no secret, Alma; I walk, and that’s all. I need very little, almost nothing, to survive. Ah, freedom!

  I go, but I always remember you.

  Ichi

  AUTUMN

  When she had failed to turn up to meet him for two consecutive days on the park bench, Lenny went to look for Alma at her apartment at Lark House. The door was opened by Irina, who had gone there to help her dress before she began her day at the home.

  “I was waiting for you, Alma. You’re late,” said Lenny.

  “Life is too short to be punctual.” Alma sighed.

  For several days now, Irina had been coming early to give her breakfast, keep an eye on her in the shower, and help with her clothes, but neither of them mentioned it, as that would have been to admit Alma was starting no longer to be able to live on her own, and would have to move to the second level or return to Sea Cliff with her family. They both preferred to see this sudden weakness as a temporary setback. Seth had asked Irina to give up her job at Lark House and leave her room (which he called the mousetrap) to go and live with him permanently, but she kept one foot in Berkeley so as to avoid the snare of dependency, which she feared as much as the idea of moving to the second level at Lark House scared Alma. When she tried to explain this to Seth, he was offended by the comparison.

  Neko’s absence had hit Alma like the beginning of a heart attack: there was a constant pain in her chest. The cat frequently appeared to her in the shape of a cushion on the sofa, a crumpled corner of the rug, her badly hung coat, or the shadow of a tree at the window. Neko had been her confidant for eighteen years. In order not to talk to herself, she would talk to him, knowing he was not going to answer her but understood everything in his feline wisdom. They had similar temperaments: arrogant, lazy, solitary. She loved not only that he was an unprepossessing street cat, but that time had left its mark on him: bare patches on his skin, a twisted tail, rheumy eyes, and the big belly of a good eater. She missed him in bed; without Neko’s weight at her side or feet she found it hard to sleep. Apart from Kirsten, that animal was the only being who stroked her. Irina would have liked to do so, to give her a massage, wash her hair, polish her nails, find some way to get physically close to Alma and make her feel she was not alone, but Alma did not encourage intimacy with anyone. Irina found this kind of contact with other old women at Lark House quite natural, and little by little she was starting to want it with Seth. She tried to make up for Neko’s absence by putting a hot water bottle in Alma’s bed, but when this absurd ruse only made things worse, Irina offered to go to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to find another cat. Alma explained there was no way she could adopt an animal that would outlive her. Neko had been her last cat.

  Lenny’s dog, Sophia, waited in the doorway, just as she did when Neko was alive and defended his territory, sweeping the floor with her tail at the prospect of going for a walk, but Alma had exhausted herself with the effort of dressing and could not get up from the sofa. “I’m leaving you in good hands, Alma,” Irina said as she left. Lenny noted with concern how much both Alma and the apartment had changed: the room had not been aired and smelled musty and of rotting gardenias.

  “What’s happened, dear friend?”

  “Nothing serious. I may have something wrong in my ears that’s making me lose my balance. And sometimes it feels like an elephant is stamping on my chest.”

  “What does your doctor say?”

  “I don’t want any doctors, examinations, or hospitals. Once you get into their hands, you never get out. And forget the Belascos! They love drama and would only make a fuss.”

  “Don’t you dare die before me! Remember what we agreed, Alma. I came here to die in your arms, not the other way around,” joked Lenny.

  “I haven’t forgotten. But if I fail you, you can rely on Cathy.”

  That friendship, discovered late in the day and savored like a fine wine, added color to a reality that was inexorably losing its brilliance for both of them. Alma was so solitary a person that she had never realized how lonely she was. Protected by her aunt and uncle, she had lived as part of the Belasco family in the vast mansion at Sea Cliff that was looked after by other people—her mother-in-law, the butler, her daughter-in-law—but had always felt she was a visitor. She felt disconnected and different everywhere else too, but far from being a problem this gave her a sense of pride, as it added to her view of herself as a distant, mysterious artist vaguely supe
rior to the rest of mortals. This meant she had no need to mix with humanity in general, whom she considered in the main stupid, cruel when it had the opportunity, and sentimental at best. She was careful never to express these opinions in public, but old age had only reinforced them.

  Looking back from this vantage point in her eighties, she had loved very few people, but she had loved them intensely, idealizing them with a fierce romanticism that resisted any assault from reality. She had not suffered the devastating infatuations typical of childhood and adolescence; she had been on her own at college, and had traveled and worked alone, without associates or colleagues, only subordinates. She had replaced all that with her obsessive love for Ichimei Fukuda and her exclusive friendship with Nathaniel Belasco, whom she thought of not as a husband but as her closest friend. During this final stage of her life she could count on Ichimei, her legendary lover; her grandson, Seth; and Irina, Lenny, and Cathy, who were the closest thing to friends that she had known in many years. Thanks to them, she was saved from boredom, one of the scourges of old age. The rest of the Lark House community was like the view of the bay: something to be enjoyed from a distance, without getting her feet wet.

  For half a century she had been part of the closed little world of San Francisco’s upper class; she appeared at the opera, charity events, and social occasions she could not avoid, saved by the insuperable distance she established from the first introduction. She told Lenny how much she hated the noise, empty chatter, and eccentricities of the human race, and that it was only a vague empathy for others that prevented her from being a psychopath. It was easy to feel compassion for unfortunate people she didn’t know. She didn’t like humans; she preferred cats. She could only take the human race in small doses: more than three gave her indigestion. She had always shied away from groups, clubs, and political parties; she was never a militant for any cause, even if she supported it in principle, like feminism, civil rights, or peace.