This Scorching Earth (23 page)

Just then one of the pageboys approached and said that a lady wished to see Mrs. Ainsley. Even though the boy spoke good English, Mr. Swenson made him repeat the message in Japanese, then corrected his grammar and patted him on the head. Dave raised his eyebrows quizzically, and Dottie made big, wondering eyes.

"Whoever do you suppose?" she asked. Then she followed the boy through the swinging doors into the main lobby.

"Oh, Sensei, Sensei," screamed Dorothy and ran as swiftly across the deep rug as her heels would permit, dropping breathless beside Mrs. Schmidt. "What a
nice
surprise!"

Dottie looked at the fawn breast-pin and wished her teacher wouldn't wear it. She also wished she could afford American stockings to show off her still shapely legs. Too, she would have liked it had Mrs. Schmidt not insisted upon a shawl—at least not that one. It looked dreadfully Old World to Dottie—not the old world of cathedrals and the La Scala that she'd read about, but the real old world, the world of poverty and wailing walls, of persecution and hungry children. To be sure, Dorothy had only read about this world, but the morning headlines every day seemed to her much more real than, say, a guide book to Chartres. Sometimes she spoke to Mrs. Schmidt about her clothes, about how much better she ought to dress, and then her teacher would look at her sadly, as she might have looked at a brutally uncomprehending child, and remind her that she had no others. Today, however, Dottie was careful to say nothing. She had been saving for some time to buy Mrs. Schmidt a new winter coat from the PX and didn't even want to hint about the surprise until it was all ready. (In her mind she'd already buried the fact that the last time she had enough money saved she'd sent away for two ridiculously expensive pairs of shoes for herself.)

"I suppose it is rather a surprise, isn't it?" said Mrs. Schmidt. "You'd never expect to see me against this kind of background, would you?" As she spoke she indicated the high ceilings and decorated pillars of the lobby. "But I've been here before, years ago, often. This used to be a favorite meeting place for foreigners in Tokyo. It was expensive in those days and very elegant. Naturally, in Vienna it would have been third-class, but here, in Tokyo, in those days it was the most popular of places to go."

"Has it changed much?" asked Dottie. Whenever Mrs. Schmidt talked about the days before the war, which was rather often, Dorothy always felt as though she were listening to a kind of fairy tale, an unlikely story of something which occurred when she was a little girl thousands of miles away. Now she imagined the tired and familiar American Club with crystal chandeliers and hundreds of candles; she heard the sound of taffeta and the strains of a string ensemble playing Strauss; and there she was, on the arm of a handsome cavalier wearing a kind of Regency costume—Dottie's nearest approximation to the period.

"Oh, not so very changed," said Mrs. Schmidt, looking around. "The people look much the same, except now they have what we call the frank and open American look and they're in uniform, many of them. Not really changed at all."

"Oh, really," said Dottie, a bit disappointed. "But tell me, Sensei, how did you know I was here?"

"I didn't know, really. But I called your house and found you had left with Mr. Ainsley, and so I decided to go various places until I found you. I was fortunate, for this is the first place I went."

"You find everyone here eventually. There's no place else to go—all the Japanese things are off limits and all. You're lucky—you can still go to the theaters and restaurants. Everything like that."

"But you, dear," said Mrs. Schmidt, "can come to places like this where, alas, in these days I can't."

"It isn't fair," said Dottie, pouting, "it isn't fair at all. After all, it isn't as though you're Japanese."

Mrs. Schmidt hid her smile by adjusting her pin. "But," she said, looking up, "here I am keeping you, and you must be rather curious to learn why I've come to hunt the fox within his lair, as Schiller says."

"No," said Dottie casually, "but I am pleased. I'm always pleased to see you." This was said with the simplicity of truth, for Dottie had long ago decided that if there was anyone whom she really liked in the whole wide world it was Mrs. Schmidt. This didn't prevent her from making fun behind her teacher's back, nor from slandering her when the occasion seemed appropriate, but her affection was genuine. Mrs. Schmidt was one of the things that Dottie lived by.

"Strange person you are, Mrs. Ainsley. You know. I actually believe you. Why? I wonder." Indeed, she had often wondered why. That Dorothy was unintelligent had to be agreed before one could begin to understand her. That she was selfish and excessively self-indulgent was manifest. Yet, somewhere within her, Mrs. Schmidt saw a childish kind of trust, not entirely free of the awe which children sometimes show toward very tall or very fat people.

This was, in fact, the kind of trust which Dottie had for her teacher. Mrs. Schmidt, though neither fat nor tall, was old and, in her student's eyes, wise.

Dottie giggled. Mrs. Schmidt was always quite direct when it came to speaking of emotions, and any talk of emotion always affected Dorothy. She became embarrassed and pleased, as though they were schoolgirls together discussing forbidden subjects. When she'd stopped giggling, she said: "I don't know. Dave says I have a mother complex on you."

"Is he jealous at all?"

"Him? If I pet a dog too much, he gets jealous."

They were both silent for a time, but it was the silence of mutual consideration, the silence that can only occur when two friends, secure in each other's company, part for a time, their thoughts going separate ways.

Dottie's thoughts didn't go very far, for she soon asked: "Have you ever had a lover, Madame Schmidt?"

"What an extraordinary question!"

"No, really, I mean."

"Now, my dear, one woman doesn't ask another that question."

"I'd ask my mother, Madame Schmidt, and I'm young enough to be your daughter."

Mrs. Schmidt smiled. Remarks like this were what made Dorothy so universally disliked, yet it was quite obvious that she had had no intention of wounding, did not even comprehend the idea that an older woman might like to receive the lie of being thought young.

"Well, then, all right," said Mrs. Schmidt. "Let us—what do you say?—oh, yes, let its blackmail each other. Are you asking because you have one or because you want one?"

"Oh, I've had them, if that's what you mean," said Dottie. "That's the only reason I'm asking. How does one manage them? Mine is here right now and with another woman. Hasn't so much as looked at me. I thought with lovers you were supposed to exchange hidden glances and notes and that sort of thing."

Mrs. Schmidt didn't attempt to hide her smile. "You are so exquisitely naive, my dear. Just what sort of romantic literature did you read when young? Besides, I've alway thought that the American way was rather to flaunt the attachment, perhaps tell the husband even."

"My husband? Oh, no, he's the type that would want to fight a duel or something."

"That's quite old-fashioned now," said Mrs. Schmidt.

"But you must have had duels fought over you, I guess."

"How old do you think I am?" asked Mrs. Schmidt, laughing. "I once heard of this kind of duel when I was very young, and that has remained my closest contact, I assure you."

Dottie was disappointed. In her mind, Mrs. Schmidt's existence in Vienna had been punctuated with duels, the intervals between being consumed by illicit trysts in vacant summer pavilions.

Mrs. Schmidt continued: "However, if Mr. Ainsley would fight a duel for you—which I don't for a moment doubt—then you should be very proud, very happy, and should stop entertaining a lover. A man who loves one that much is worth some consideration."

"Oh, I love him all right," said Dottie half resentfully. "He used to be a lot of fun, before he got this job. Big-wheel newspaperman and all. But since then—I don't know—he thinks he's so damned much and . .. You know, at home—in the States, I mean—he was nothing, just nothing, and he must have been a real lamb. But here, well, he's successful now, and god knows we could never afford to do the things we do—the money we spend is simply scandalous—if it weren't that we are here in the Occupation. I mean, but really, none of us ever had it so good. No one wants to go home and no one will until they make us. We were all just nobodies before. You know, I lie awake at night and think about that. In fact, just before you came we were talking about that very thing. I don't know, but it seems to me that just coming over here has changed us all. It's changed me a lot, I know. I don't know if it's Japan or the Occupation or the weather or what."

She turned briefly but sincerely to Mrs. Schmidt and said: '"Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I know very well. No one has a better view than those on the outside. I've wondered myself sometimes. Everyone knows that Americans are kind and friendly and open-hearted and often amazingly thoughtful. All of us here were very happy when the Americans came four years ago. We didn't expect them to be the way they are now. I don't know what you'd call it—what they are. They certainly mean no harm. It is the other way about. And they do no harm, because evil, you know, is a positive kind of thing. But they do nothing good. They err continually, but always through omission. My own people in these circumstances might have been evil—and again they might not have been—but your people, my dear, are not even that—they are lax, have no discipline, no guiding ideals. They think only of their own comforts and, if they remember in time, they share them."

Dottie had attempted to follow this, but had rapidly become lost. "I didn't mean Americans," she said mildly. "I meant me—me and Dave. You always talk so political all the time."

"That, I suppose, is the limitation of the outside view. After all, I well know how the Germans behaved here and how the Japanese themselves were during the war. The Americans are to be preferred, believe me. My only point is that it takes a very strong person to be able to handle unlimited power and not let it—that power, I mean—handle him. But—" She broke off in a laugh. "My English will become hopelessly confused if I attempt to explain that, and I must admit that in German I could do no better. Women are not supposed to think of these things. You are right. Better to think of yourself and your anonymous lover than to trouble yourself with these weighty problems. Let the men squabble among themselves."

"Squabble! That's all Dave and I seem to do these days. He'll never come right out and fight. Just follows me around with that dying-spaniel look until I think I'll scream. It isn't that I like the Major so terrifically; it's just that he's different—that's all. . . . But here I run on and on, and you probably had something to ask me about."

"I do," said Mrs. Schmidt. "I have a request. I don't even know if you can help me or not. But it is this. This morning I went to see a charming colonel in Special Services, as I believe you call it. I need money, you know. And I had heard that this organization puts on entertainments—like the opera tonight."

"You're going, of course. What's-her-name—your student, you know—is singing."

"I wish I were going. As you know, it is an Allied performance."

"Oh."

"And so, I thought maybe this organization would sponsor a recital. My pupils and myself. But the colonel said that he could not. I wonder if you could ask someone, could explain to them for me, could tell them how necessary—"

She broke off and looked at her. hands. When she raised her head there were tears in her bright blue eyes. "Dorothy, may you never know how terrible a thing it is to beg like this."

Dottie's face softened until she was near tears herself. "Poor Sensei," she said several times. Then her face grew hard again. "Well, I know just what I'll do. And I know just the person I'll go to. And we'll have this recital if we have to turn the Occupation inside out to do it," she said fiercely.

"Do you think you
could
do something?"

Dottie's black eyes were glittering, both with unshed tears and determination. "You bet I can! And I know just how to go about it, too."

"Oh, if you could, I would be—" Mrs. Schmidt began.

But Dorothy brushed aside her thanks, already planning her strategy. "We'll need help," she said. "Do you know the Swensons?"

"Before the war we were friends. I know them, but we haven't seen each other for years."

"They'll help," said Dorothy. "They'll have to. I know enough to hang them both. And Dave'll help, naturally.... Look, you come back here around supper time, and I'll have talked to them, and then we'll see.... Now, don't cry—there's nothing to cry about."

They both stood up, and Dottie patted the older woman on the cheek. "Now, cheer up, for goodness sake," she said. "The people around here'll think I've ruined you or something. Go some place and drink tea until time for supper."

"You're so nice, Dorothy," said Mrs. Schmidt, tears standing in her eyes. "And you're so American." Her underlip quivered slightly. "You even. .. you even call dinner supper."

As they stood, Dorothy began to feel the inequality of their positions. It made her uncomfortable. "I'm awfully sorry I can't ask you into the bar. I think the rules are just too stupid. . . . But you know how it is."