The Moonflower Read online

  “I suppose that’s why you stick so closely to Japan?” Jerome said.

  Nan gave him a steady look in which there was some meaning Marcia could not catch. Then she turned to Laurie. “Brought you something,” she said. “A presento, as we say out here.”

  Laurie left the footstool upon which she had been sitting in prim good behavior, and took the small package Nan held out. She glanced at her mother for permission to open her present, and when Marcia nodded, she slipped off the red and white Japanese string.

  “What’s this?” she asked, holding up an oddly folded bit of paper that had been stuck beneath the string.

  “That’s called a noshi,” Nan said. “It’s a symbol of the fish and it’s part of every gift in Japan. Symbol of good luck and all that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, look!” Laurie cried, unfolding the tissue. “It’s a little mask!”

  She held it up and Marcia saw that it was a miniature plaster mask—the reddish-tinted face of a small amusing demon with fangs and puffed-out cheeks and goggle eyes. But somehow this mask was only funny and not like the carved face in Jerome’s bedroom.

  “You were interested in my book of masks,” Nan said, “so I thought you might like a little one for yourself.”

  Laurie was clearly delighted. She thanked Nan and returned to her hassock, turning the little mask about in her hands, so that firelight and shadow gave it varied expressions.

  The bell sounded again and Sumie-san ushered Alan Cobb into the room. Marcia had almost forgotten how he looked, but now his thick sandy hair and the gray eyes which smiled so readily seemed quickly familiar again. After these days of Jerome’s tense, nervous presence, Alan Cobb seemed surprisingly relaxed, his hands resting quietly in repose when he was not using them, his movements calm, as though an inner sureness ruled him. She sensed however, that he watched Jerome with a certain guarded interest.

  Jerome shook hands with Alan cordially enough, though Marcia was aware of his lack of any real concern for this man who was a stranger to him. He had never made new friends easily.

  They settled about the fire in the least uncomfortable chairs, while Marcia explained to Jerome and Nan that Alan Cobb had come to teach in a Kyoto college.

  “How do you like working with a class of Japanese boys?” Nan asked.

  Alan accepted a glass from Jerome and held it up to the fire, studying the glow of amber. “I’m going to like it. I’ve been given a surprisingly warm welcome.”

  “Why should it be surprising?” Nan asked directly. “They’re eager for American teachers out here.”

  “I know,” Alan said. “But a few resentments would be natural, I should think, even at this late date.”

  “Not when you know the Japanese,” Jerome broke in. “Not when you understand how the majority of the people felt about the war. I don’t mean the soldiers, I mean the people. When you’re riding a fast express which collides with another express and a great many people are killed, you don’t blame the passengers on the other train. You blame the engineers and the railroad companies.”

  “But if the passengers chose the engineers?” Marcia began. “If the company is responsible to the people?”

  Nan took a drink from her glass and shook her head. “That wasn’t exactly the case in Japan. It’s easy to say that any people ought to be responsible for their leaders. But this was still a feudal country, even though the feudal form was supposedly done away with. The passengers hadn’t the slightest notion of how to control the engineers, or run the train. They trusted in whatever leaders were in power. There were forward thinking, liberal statesmen, of course, but the militarists opposed them, and even assassinated many of them over the years. The general populace was accustomed to doing what the ruling powers dictated, and had been so accustomed since ancient times. Democracy’s a concept that came in with the Americans and it will take a good many years to develop roots.”

  “I suppose all that’s true,” Alan said. “But since there’s still the residue of an emotional reaction in me, I wonder why it shouldn’t exist in them? I keep wondering if some fellow who is smiling at me in so friendly a fashion was at the other end of a gun during the war. Of course I don’t feel that way about the students in school—they’re too young. They only remember the bombs.”

  “You were in the war?” Jerome asked.

  Alan sipped his drink, studying Jerome as if he measured him in some way, expecting something in him which he had not found. “In a way,” he said, and let the matter drop. He had not mentioned his friends, the Brewsters, and Marcia wondered why.

  Sumie-san came to announce dinner and Marcia led the way to the long dark dining room, brightened with its flash of flower color and the lighted candles on the table. On the sideboard Chiyo’s arrangement caught Nan’s eye and she asked at once who had made it.

  “Mrs. Minato, from next door,” Marcia said.

  Nan nodded thoughtfully, her eyes on Marcia for a searching instant. Whatever the situation next door, Marcia thought, Nan knew all about it, that was clear.

  When she had seated her guests, she hurried into an account of her failure in trying to create a flower arrangement with the things Chiyo had used so gracefully. She made the story lightly amusing, so that Nan would think nothing of Chiyo’s coming into help, and she avoided Jerome’s eyes. When she turned to Alan to inquire about his class, she felt as though she had skated successfully over some rather thin ice.

  “Are you having any language difficulties?” she asked.

  He grinned. “That’s putting it mildly. I wanted to use an interpreter, but the authorities won’t have that. They insist that these boys have taken English in school and they understand it. But it’s pretty difficult. They want to run before they can walk and deal with complicated, subtle ideas before they have any comprehension of essentials. Everything must be said very slowly and repeated over and over. Even then I can’t be sure how much I’ve got across. The worst of it is they won’t ask questions or challenge anything I say.”

  “Of course not,” Nan said. “Asking questions is considered impolite. If you can break down that hurdle you’ll really be accomplishing something. It’s the thing that maddens every foreign teacher who comes here. Without questions, how can we have individual thinking? And goodness knows individual thinking is what Japan needs. All through lower school these kids have been taught that proper behavior consists in being exactly like everyone else. Japan is a country of ritual. You’re supposed to accept what is laid down without question.”

  Alan grinned wryly. “I’m not so sure that isn’t the trend in America these days too.”

  The soup was steaming hot and the chill of the room set the guests to eating gratefully. During a momentary break in the talk a sound stole through the silence, startling Marcia. It was the musical strumming in a minor key which she had heard before. Again the lovely, gentle voice began to sing plaintively.

  Nan looked sharply at Jerome, but if he had heard, he gave no sign that he was aware of the sounds coming from the wing beyond the partition. Yet Marcia had the strange feeling that he listened intently with an inner ear. He went through the motions of eating, of passing the plate of saltines, the celery and olives, but she sensed that he was no longer really listening to the conversation.

  It was Nan who seemed most aware of the need for carrying their attention away from the music.

  “Alan Cobb?” she repeated the name thoughtfully. “Sounds familiar somehow. Any reason why I should know your name?”

  “He writes books,” Laurie put in. “He’s famous. Reporters and people met him at the airport in Tokyo.”

  Alan shook a chiding finger at her. “Thanks for the buildup, but you shouldn’t put me in a spot like that. Makes me self-conscious.”

  “Any book that’s been published in Japan?” Nan asked.

  “It wasn’t a very good book,” Alan said shortly. “I’m trying to live it down by writing another. Something that will hit what we might call a more positiv
e note.”

  What had his first book been about that he always shrugged it aside so quickly? Marcia wondered.

  “I’m all for the positive note.” Nan smiled. “How do you propose to achieve this miracle in today’s world?”

  He didn’t seem to mind her faintly taunting manner. “It’s not as hard as you think,” he said good-naturedly. “All I do is look for people who have lived through some sort of difficult experience and come out of it having, presumably, learned something.”

  He glanced at his host, but Jerome had an absent look in his eyes, and Marcia knew that he still listened to the distant singing and strumming. Alan dropped the topic at once and Marcia made an effort to change the subject.

  “How is Yamada-san, Nan? I enjoyed meeting him so much.”

  Jerome’s attention was suddenly arrested. “Where did you meet Yamada-san?” he asked Marcia.

  “She met him at my house,” Nan put in a bit abruptly. “He came in to bring me a copy of a book he has just published.” She looked away from Jerome. “A book called The Moonflower.”

  “Nan translated a couple of the poems for me,” Marcia said. “They were strange, but rather lovely.”

  A faint color had risen in Jerome’s cheeks and he stared at Nan as if he disapproved of her intensely. If Nan noted his expression, she ignored it and went on calmly, explaining.

  “Yamada-san merely happened to drop in,” she said. “I didn’t expect him. I’m glad Marcia had a chance to meet him—he’s as fine a Japanese gentleman as I know. His only son was killed during the war and he carries a deep grief behind that serene exterior. Yamada-san is thoroughly old samurai stock. Poor dear.”

  “Why poor dear?” Marcia asked.

  “Because of his wife. Mrs. Yamada has demokurashii between her teeth and refuses to be a proper Japanese wife. Democracy’s a big thing in Japan today. She no longer walks behind her husband, she votes and makes speeches to other Japanese women. It’s all pretty bewildering to Yamada-san, who finds himself being reproached by the husbands of ladies his wife is influencing. To his way of thinking a regrettable new day is dawning in Japan.”

  Jerome, who appeared to be paying little attention to the talk, suddenly fixed Alan with a look that seemed oddly antagonistic. “Marcia tells me you know the Brewsters in Washington.”

  Alan nodded casually. “I did an article about Mark Brewster for a scientific journal some years ago. We’ve kept in touch ever since and I look him up whenever I’m in Washington. You stand pretty high with him, as you probably know.”

  “He’s inclined to overrate people,” Jerome said shortly.

  “I doubt that,” said Alan, but the words had no ring of flattery in them and it was Jerome who looked away.

  Marcia had the curious feeling that under the casual words there had been a crossing of swords and that Alan had somehow drawn blood, though he did not look happy about it.

  There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then, just as Nan started to speak, Sumie-san hurried in. She said something in Japanese to Jerome, sounding upset, and Marcia caught the name “Minato-san.”

  Jerome put his napkin beside his plate and pushed his chair back. But before he could rise Ichiro Minato came to the doorway of the room and there was agitation in his manner. The ugly scar that cut down from his scalp across his forehead looked red and angry and there were runnels of sweat streaking his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Jerome said. “A crisis has apparently arisen next door. Will you excuse me, please?” Without a word to Minato he stood up and went out of the room. The Japanese man remained in the doorway a moment longer, his eyes moving from one to another at the table, as if he had a special interest in this gathering.

  “Komban wa, Minato-san,” Nan said. He repeated the good evening greeting and bowed to her. His gaze rested briefly on Alan Cobb, and moved on to Marcia, for whom he had a long, slow stare. Then he turned with almost military precision and followed Jerome out of the room.

  “That one’s been a soldier,” Alan Cobb said.

  Nan nodded. “Yes indeed. And a nasty fighter, I imagine. Trouble is, he doesn’t take kindly to doing anything else. Jerry got him a good job up north in Hokkaido last year, but his wife wouldn’t go up there and he only stuck it for two months before he came trotting home.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want to leave his wife,” Alan said.

  “I gather that was the basic idea,” Nan agreed. “I’m not unsympathetic to Ichiro, but I wish he’d find some positive answer to his problems. I feel as sorry for Chiyo as I do for him.”

  Did the pretty Chiyo want to be rid of her husband, Marcia wondered. But she did not ask the question. It came too uncomfortably near her personal concern.

  “He gives me an uncomfortable feeling,” Marcia said. “I keep thinking he’s watching me for some reason—as if he were waiting for something. But he doesn’t say anything. He just stares.”

  “You’ll have to get used to being stared at here,” Nan warned her. “In Tokyo westerners are less of an odd breed. But there aren’t too many of us in Kyoto, and you can’t blame people for being curious.”

  Over the excellent steak they talked about various aspects of Japan. Time ran along and Jerome did not return. The music and singing had stopped and there was a distant murmur of voices speaking in Japanese.

  “Do you suppose someone is ill?” Marcia asked Nan uneasily. “What do you think has happened?”

  Nan shrugged without answering and Marcia felt that she knew more than she was willing to put into words.

  “Maybe it’s the fox woman,” Laurie said in sudden inspiration and Nan stared at her in something like dismay.

  “What do you mean—fox woman?” Nan asked.

  “Sumie-san says there’s a fox that gets into the Japanese lady next door and that’s a bad thing. What does she mean?”

  Nan recovered herself quickly. “You’ll meet foxes around every turn in Japan. The fox is supposed to be an evil and mischievous spirit who bewitches the unwary and can take on the human form when it gets a chance. As a matter of fact the Japanese are a bit mixed up about the fox god by now. There’s a marvelous little inari shrine near my house that I’ll have to show you, Laurie. The fox was the messenger of the gods and is always connected with the harvest gods and business transactions. But sometimes this connection is forgotten and the fox is placated as a god in itself. A naughty god who can do great harm if he becomes angry with you.”

  Laurie knew when she was being put off and would have asked another question if Sumie-san hadn’t come in just then. This time she brought with her the little Japanese boy from next door. He removed his cap from his head and bowed politely, reporting to Nan in Japanese. It seemed that “Tarbot-san” would not be able to return for dinner and had sent his apologies. Nan asked the boy a question or two, and he answered. But when the child had gone, she did not explain what he had said.

  All Marcia’s hope and pleasure in the evening died. Why had Jerome gone next door? What was happening in this house that was being kept from her?

  When they left the table and returned to the huge drawing room, Nan went to one tall window and looked out into the night.

  “Of course,” she said, as if to herself. “O Tsuki-sama is ruling the skies tonight.”

  “Who’s O Tsuki-sama?” Laurie asked.

  “My favorite Japanese goddess,” Nan said. “The goddess Moon. There are said to be ten thousand ways to look at the moon and there are moon-viewing ceremonies held at certain times of the year. The moon belongs to all those who are lonely and despairing. There’s a dangerous beauty about moonlight which is never to be wholly trusted.” She broke off, laughing. “There—I didn’t expect to make a speech!”

  Marcia could not join in her laughter. She did not like this strange talk about the moon. Clearly there was a meaning here which Nan had tried to gloss over.

  Outside the garden lay silver and black in the moonlight, and in the wing beyond the partition all was quiet. An omi
nous dread hung heavily upon Marcia’s spirit. Time seemed to be slipping away from her, carrying her always farther from Jerome. Outwardly she strove to play the role of hostess for the rest of the evening, but inwardly her worry mounted. She could feel nothing but relief when the evening came to an end and she no longer needed to pretend that her thoughts were upon her guests.

  After Nan and Alan left, Marcia stayed up, waiting for Jerome. Her feeling of apprehension had increased, and she was tense with anxiety when he finally came in. She knew at once by the closed look of his face that he would tell her nothing. He made no explanation, no apology, though he was clearly under some strain.

  “Go to bed,” he said curtly. “You mustn’t wait for me. This doesn’t concern you.”

  She longed to tell him that everything which touched Jerome Talbot concerned her, that she wanted only to help, whatever the problem might be. But she dared not put her feeling into words while his guard was so plainly raised against her.

  Silently she went into her own room and got into bed. But now, though the uneasiness did not leave her, and the sting of his words, shutting her out, still hurt, another thought returned to give her faint comfort She recalled that moment before Nan had arrived when there had been a softening in his manner. She could not forget the touch of his fingers on her hair, or the bitter sweetness of the words, “Such a pretty thing,” that were an echo from happier days. Because of that moment the gulf between them did not seem quite so painfully wide, though for the moment she did not know how to bridge it. She must be patient, she told herself, she must try to understand. Somehow she must keep faith with her love and refuse to let happenings which she could not comprehend defeat her and send her home too soon. As long as there were moments when she was able to reach Jerome, she could afford to be patient. Time and patience—these were everything.

  7.

  One windy March night when Jerome was reading in his room and Laurie long asleep, Marcia went upstairs, troubled and lonely, to wander through the dark, empty house. The air was softer tonight, with the promise of spring, and already green things had begun to grow. She was not cold in her nightgown and silk robe, and she slid back a shutter on the front gallery and stood for a long while watching the lights of Kyoto flicker in the wind. A great plain of spreading lights crisscrossed the valley, with the dark arms of the mountains reaching all about.