The Patriot (28 page)

I-wan looked at the peaceful innocent face of his small son. His eyes were closed and his little mouth was pouted and rosy.

“He doesn’t look as though he were being trained for war,” he said, laughing.

But Bunji was sipping his wine gravely and he did not answer. And I-wan felt suddenly alone, as though he had been separated from everyone. He was conscious for the first time in the day that after all he was different from all of them, even indeed from his son.

He could not, he found, immediately ask Bunji what was changed in him. In the first place he was not sure, after a few days had passed, that Bunji was aware of change. Then also it was impossible to assume the old relationship until Mr. Muraki had made it clear who was to be the head in the office. I-wan had resigned from his own place, in order to make this decision easier, and yet he was, he felt foolishly, somewhat hurt when Mr. Muraki accepted it and placed Bunji over him, and gave him only the second place. Their salaries were so nearly the same, it is true, that I-wan could not complain of that. His was not decreased, but Bunji was given a little more.

And I-wan, again he felt foolishly, was the more hurt because at home Tama accepted this as a matter to be expected.

“Father is very kind not to give us any less now that Bunji has returned,” she said.

It was impossible for I-wan to tell her that it was difficult for him to take the lower place now and to have to ask Bunji if such and such were the right order to give and to see the clerks begin to go to Bunji instead of to him. But most difficult of all was still to perceive the change in Bunji himself. Where once he had been careless and easy to please, he was now become meticulous and careful of every detail of I-wan’s work. Once he rebuked I-wan sharply for not overseeing himself the packing of a consignment of cheap dishes to be shipped to a great New York department store. I-wan made himself smile. But he could not forbear saying, “You yourself have done worse, Bunji. I seem to remember Akio complaining of that.”

“The army has educated me,” Bunji retorted, and turned to his own office. He had wanted an office alone, and I-wan had been moved into another room with two clerks. It was not so easy to see Bunji as it had been.

But indeed this change in Bunji, manifest in many ways, became a great hurt to I-wan. His only resource was to go home more steadfastly as the months passed to find refuge in Tama and in their small son. In her bustling and busy care of them both he found his comfort. She had the genius of reality. By her warm matter-of-fact ways and her ready speech and quick response to his least need, she made him feel rooted and secure and able each morning to go out to his work. Through her he had union with life and people. Her people were his because she was his and made all that was hers his. She could so tell the story of the small happenings of the day while he had been gone that through her very telling he felt close to life and near to people, though in reality he knew almost no one.

And then there were all the things which the growing child did. He had been given the name of Jojiro, and they called him Jiro. He knew his name already, and Tama complained proudly that he was troublesome because he was wanting to creep too early and that meant he would want to walk before he was a year old and he must not, and it would take someone’s whole time to keep him from it, and he would cry when he was prevented because he was so willful he went into a rage if he were denied anything.

“That’s because you are a Chinese, Jiro,” I-wan told his son, who at that moment was sitting erect upon the mat, chewing at the large dog of papier-mâché which had been given him as the guardian of all his dreams while he slept.

“Is that what is wrong with him?” Tama cried, and then seeing what he was doing, she shrieked and snatched the dog away. “No Japanese child would eat up his guardian dog, at least!” she cried, while Jiro wept with all his might.

No, I-wan was never lonely in his home. For that matter, it was difficult to put a name to any moment when he was treated less well by anyone than he had been before. The people on the street were as courteous to him as ever. When he went into a shop to buy cigarettes for himself or a toy for Jiro, the shopkeeper was as eager as ever to please him. Why, then, did he feel that the courtesy was not quite what it had been? It was not the courtesy, he imagined, at least, which people gave to each other, but that which they gave to a guest. He was not sure whether even this was true, any more than he could be sure that it was quite true that Mr. Muraki was more withdrawn than he had been. Once he mentioned this to Tama, and she said robustly, “I-wan, you are always too ready to imagine. Father is growing old, that is all, and age cools him as it does everyone. He forgets me, too.”

He accepted this, and yet as time went on he still felt a change. He examined himself, then, to discover what it was he really felt, and decided that it was altogether Bunji who made the difference, and the only thing to cure it was to tell him so. For it was necessary to I-wan to feel about him the support of those who liked him and were faithful to him. He wished sometimes now that he had made other friends outside the Muraki family. But he had not, beyond a few men to whom he spoke a few words when he met them at a cafe or a theater. To them all, he knew, he was known as Mr. Muraki’s son-in-law. It now occurred to him that after Mr. Muraki died, if life went on as it was, he would be known merely as Bunji Muraki’s brother-in-law. It would not be pleasant unless Bunji went back to being his old self.

Then he put these thoughts aside and went doggedly on with his work. He had made his place here, and as the world was now, it would not be easy to do it again. He must bear with Bunji. And he learned to do this.

And when he came home and saw Jiro walking and heard him begin to talk and when Tama began to fret because now Jiro was past a year old and it was time she had another child, so that he laughed at her impatience to be about her business, then it seemed nothing was really too hard to bear in the daytime, if it brought him this at night.

Bunji, before he went to the army, was a youth who could drink scarcely a cup of wine without growing dizzy from it and wanting to sleep. But now he was able to drink a great deal and liked to do so. More than once he had come back to the office after his midday meal, his temples red, to shout out his commands and to laugh too loudly. On one of these days he thrust his head into I-wan’s room.

“There you are!” he roared. “Working like an old man! What has Tama done to you? You used to be a companion, but now you are nothing but Tama’s husband!”

Bunji bellowed out a laugh and the two clerks made themselves busy over their desks as if they saw and heard nothing.

“I am also Jiro’s father,” I-wan said, smiling a little, and looking up from his desk.

“A man is always someone’s father, sooner or later,” Bunji retorted. “Come, stop work, I-wan.”

“To do what?” I-wan inquired.

“Come out with me to a café,” Bunji said. “No more work—you may also stop work,” he declared to the two clerks. They rose instantly and bowed and remained standing. I-wan said nothing. He knew that as soon as Bunji went away they would return to work until five o’clock, which was the proper end to their day. But, it occurred to him, here might be his good chance to talk deeply with Bunji and to discover what had come to change him. He rose therefore and put on his hat.

“I will come,” he said. He nodded at the two clerks, who perfectly understood that he was humoring the son of the proprietor of the business, and then walked with Bunji out into the street.

It was autumn, and vendors were carrying on poles across their shoulders baskets of potted chrysanthemums of every size and color. Two years ago when he and Tama were first married they had bought them to plant in a corner of their garden, and now they had spread until this year they were a knot of color. Mr. Muraki looked at them and disapproved. He said, “There should be no temporary distraction of flowers in a garden.” But Tama wanted them and so they had been kept. At this moment I-wan saw a vendor carrying an especial flower which she loved, whose petals were red and gold together, and he stopped and said to the man, “Do you know the road which winds up the west side of the mountain from the city?”

The man nodded vehemently.

“Go up until on the right you see a small house roofed in green tiles which looks out between two great pines to the sea, and go in and tell the mistress her husband sent you.”

“How will she know I saw you?” the man asked shrewdly.

“Look at me,” I-wan replied. “Tell her how I look—and say also, if she doubts, that I am a Chinese.”

“So,” the man said wondering, “you are a Chinese! But you look much like us. I have never seen a Chinese before. But of course everyone has heard of them.”

He looked as though he were long of wind, and I-wan nodded to dismiss him and went on with Bunji.

“I suppose Tama is an obedient wife now and no longer a moga,” Bunji said, half sneering as he spoke. “I suppose she will buy the flowers like a good Japanese wife.”

“She won’t buy them if she doesn’t want them at his price,” I-wan said reasonably. Bunji was just drunk enough so he must not mind what he said.

“You Chinese!” Bunji said scornfully. “Hah, you Chinese!” He shook his head largely.

They were passing a small cafe now with a few outdoor tables and chairs, and he sat down heavily at a table and slapped the metal top so that it sounded like a tin drum. A thin-faced girl ran out.

“Beer!” Bunji shouted. “I suppose you can drink beer?” he inquired of I-wan.

“Certainly,” I-wan replied.

“Beer for one,” Bunji cried to the girl. “For me, whisky.”

“So—” the girl whispered.

“At once!”

She disappeared.

“I hate the English, so I drink their whisky,” Bunji explained when she was gone.

“You used not to drink much,” I-wan replied.

“Oh, so,” Bunji retorted, “yes, I used to be a very good boy, didn’t I? Well, now I am better. I know how to drink and I know other things also.”

The street was quiet in the afternoon sun, but it was a small street. Across it a woman bathing her child looked up curiously.

“Let us go inside,” I-wan suggested. “That woman is listening to you.”

“Women,” Bunji declared in a loud Voice, “are all fools.” He laughed senselessly, rose, stumbled, and would have fallen if I-wan had not caught him. They went into the little cafe and sat down in a corner and the girl came with bottles and cups. I-wan paid her and gave her an extra coin.

“Turn on the phonograph as long as it will last for that, and when it is used, come to me again and I will add another to it,” he said. In a moment the room was full of scraping noisy music, and no one could hear Bunji except I-wan. I-wan began to sip his beer and Bunji poured himself whisky and drank it by mouthfuls.

“Nevertheless, I am going to be married,” he announced to I-wan.

“Have you so decided?” I-wan inquired politely.

“Yes,” Bunji declared, “it is the only thing. Poor Akio!” he sighed and shook his head. “He never learned that all women are alike.”

I-wan did not answer and he hiccoughed once and repeated, “Women are alike, I say!”

“I don’t know women,” I-wan replied.

“It is not necessary to know women,” Bunji repeated. “I tell you, they are alike!”

I-wan did not reply to this. It was, after all, he thought, a waste of time to talk to Bunji drunk and growing more drunk.

“So,” Bunji went on, “I invite you to my wedding. Who is the bride? I don’t know, I don’t care. I told my father yesterday, ‘It is time I married. Please get me a wife.’ That is what I said, ‘Get me a wife.’ He said, ‘Who?’ I said, ‘Any woman, any at all. They are all alike.’”

Bunji glared at I-wan, poured his glass full of whisky, spilling it and drinking it together, as I-wan looked away. He had seen men in Japan drunk often enough, farmers along the roadside roaring their way home from the markets, half their day’s profits burning in their bellies and their brains, young men in restaurants and old men even. He had grown used to a sight he had never seen in his own country, where men drank while they ate, without drunkenness. Even though they drank more than men did here, they were not so easily disturbed by it. Perhaps their natures were in greater equilibrium.

Suddenly, to his surprise, he saw Bunji begin to sob. Bunji sat upright, his face working hideously and the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I swear I didn’t want to do it,” he sobbed. “Why did I do it then?”

This he inquired of I-wan in a broken and piteous voice. I-wan was wholly bewildered, having an instant before seen him shouting and boisterous. “What did you do?” he asked.

“They were all doing it, you understand,” Bunji said. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “That is—all except the captain of my regiment. You understand, I was lieutenant. I kept my eyes on the captain. I said—”

He was fumbling for his glass, found it and swallowed a mouthful and coughed and shook his head and shuddered.

“Tell me, I-wan,” he whispered. “Have I drunk enough, do you think?”

“More than enough,” I-wan replied gravely.

“Ah, there you are wrong!” Bunji cried in triumph. “I drink until I see the tables begin to circle in the air. Then I know it is enough. But they are still in place. So—I must keep on.” He sighed, and drank again. “What was I telling you?” he asked abruptly.

“You said you kept your eyes on the captain,” I-wan re minded him.

“I did,” Bunji said eagerly. His thick lips were trembling constantly, and a twitch began to jerk his left eye. “The men, you see, I considered beneath me. After all, my father is a man of wealth. And influence. General Seki—is my friend. Through him—I was lieutenant. So I said, ‘I am not a common soldier.’ I was right, wasn’t I?” he demanded angrily of I-wan.

“Perfectly,” I-wan replied, not knowing what all this was about.

“So when the men did it, I said it had nothing to do with me. I said, ‘Their common nature compels them—’ wasn’t I right? So long as the captain didn’t, I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” I-wan asked.