This Scorching Earth (31 page)

There, across the moat, was the land he knew. It was a land beautiful in rain and fog—the only country on earth that was—yet even more beautiful when the smallest pebble was seen with a photographic clarity, a clarity that Michael's American background had never attained in his eyes. There was an abruptness of contour, a sharpness of line which was as invigorating as sea air. Against a brilliant blue sky, cloudless and enameled, Fuji stood, the single most preposterous object in this impossible landscape.

No, nothing was really incongruous in Japan. Temple boys in full costume on motor-scooters and neon signs by the Kamakura Buddha were not somehow incompatible with Fuji at sunset. The face of Greer Garson here might be that of the great Daibutsu itself. There was a cohesiveness here, a wholeness which might have been satisfying for someone other than Michael; it did not allow one to pick and choose, to like this or that. One must accept it all, for it was all necessarily both part and whole at the same time.

But this freedom from choice, this simple security fostered by the logic of inevitability, which had once so invigorated Michael, now merely depressed him. He wondered if this weren't perhaps the way the Japanese felt about their own country. Then his new depression created by his former enthusiasm, this new state of mind which so saddened him, was perhaps the perpetual outlook of, say, Haruko. Her choice meant that she was merely bowing to an inevitability which came from living in Japan. Would she have married him in Persia, in Iceland, in America?

This he would never know, just as he would never know if, indeed, he had been truly loved, as he thought himself to have loved. The thought that this knowledge was never to be his was so painful that again he bruised his forehead against the bark of the willow tree. The package was still pulling painfully at his arm. It, or at least that part of him that allowed him to carry it around, was, he decided, somehow responsible for his disillusion, his despair.

With a sudden and real disgust, and with no thought at all, he threw the package into the moat. It caused a big splash, and the shadowy carp disappeared in a flurry of suddenly white water.

The impulsiveness of his action did not relieve him so much as it horrified him. Just as, years before, he had, just as impulsively, taken a package of cookies he hadn't wanted from an A & P, he had now thrown the Major's package into the moat. He had secretly returned the cookies after almost an hour of gnawing conscience, but now his conscience, which felt relieved, was not what bothered him. Now he'd have to face the Major.

Bubbles were rising to the surface. He watched them and decided he had just made a kind of votive offering—to the Emperor, say. He had propitiated Japan, for which, as soon as it had revealed itself in its true incomprehensibility, he had begun to feel less fondness.

He had seen Occupation ladies who, thinking that the potted trees and the little houses and the charmingly well-mannered people were just darling, had been suddenly revolted by the knowledge that almost everything that grew in Japan was nurtured on untreated human excrement, that the little house was a prison for those who lived in it, and that these well-mannered people had smothered the soldiers of other nations by pressing their faces into liquid manure. Formerly he had laughed at the revolted qualms of the ladies. Now he knew just how they felt. Michael was thoroughly disillusioned with Haruko and Japan. It never occurred to him that Haruko might have been even more painfully disillusioned with him and with America had she lacked the foresight to refuse their marriage.

Bubbles no longer rose from the water; the splash had not only startled the carp but also Charlie Chaplin on the other side of the tree. Now, Michael looked at him more closely. He was very old. By the light of a passing car Michael saw his derby, little painted moustache, much-too-large shoes, and bamboo cane; saw he had a sandwich board over his shoulders, against which he now leaned. It advertised something or other—Michael could not read what. The man's eyes were closed and he sat relaxed, too tired to move. He was a good imitation, not of the funny Charlie, but of the real one, the one who faced life hopelessly but who must soon start down the road, twirling the cane, tripping over the ends of his shoes. The car moved on, and the man became a faint shadow in the dark.

Nearby the marquee lights of the Imperial Theatre went on. It was eight o'clock; the doors would soon open. Michael crossed the street intending not to see the opera but merely to see Haruko. How he would transfix her with his injured gaze! How she would tremble before the conqueror's boots, before the suddenly entrancing spectacle of what she could have had and, with a wantonness only too typically Japanese, had tossed aside. Michael didn't go so far as to consider himself a male and modern Chocho-san, but he did consider it quite apt that she would see him just before seeing
Madame Butterfly.

Standing before the empty and lighted lobby, he saw a student coming toward him, accompanied by an older man. The man was very formally dressed. His dark kimono was nicely cut and closely fitted. His obi was beautifully tied. His feet were in tabi and low-toothed geta which clacked softly on the pavement. In one hand he held a paper fan with several large inked characters on it; in the other, a cigarette was burning in a lacquered holder. The total effect was enhanced by a derby. The only other thing Western about the gentleman was a wrist watch, but this was hidden most of the time by his graceful sleeves.

The boy was wearing the usual student's uniform. Something about the uncomfortable way he wore his uniform seemed familiar to Michael. Just then their eyes met—Michael's vaguely curious a d the student's intensely hostile.

Instantly Michael remembered where he'd first seen those eyes—it was on the train this morning. And then later, in the office, they'd glared at him the second time. That's who they were—the Ohara father and son. And in a flash Michael realized—was it by instinct, or had he heard the name before from Haruko?—who the boy was. This was his successful rival, on his way to the formal meeting; this was the member of the defeated who had won the only thing this particular conqueror had coveted.

Michael's rapidly dissolving appreciation for Japan disintegrated even further under the cool disdain he discovered in Ichiro's eyes.

The expression of distaste which Michael saw on Ichiro's face was not directed in particular at Michael; for several hours Ichiro had been looking at everything with the same expression. Actually, he was so acutely aware that the man mincing in geta beside him was his father that he didn't even consciously recognize Michael.

Mr. Ohara, however, had immediately recognized Michael, and he cast a quick glance at Ichiro. The servant had not been slow in informing every member of the Ohara family just how things stood with Haruko, and Mr. Ohara had taken a good look at the soldier when he visited Special Services this morning. Now, when he saw that his son was oblivious to his rival, a small and secret smile appeared. He looked carefully at his son's impassive face, wondering just how much more discomfort and humiliation it might be wise to heap upon him. After all, if Haruko was going to marry the American, his poor son might lose all self-control and commit all sorts of impossible acts—say, refuse to return home.

Already he had Ichiro bursting with discomfort. This, added to the ever-present knowledge that he was facing the further shame of being publicly defeated by the American soldier, had made his face a bright red, just as though he had been drinking—another of the many pleasures in which Ichiro did not indulge. The father was fully conscious of the part he had played in bringing things to the present heat, and the thought brought a reflective smile to his lips.

He particularly relished the consternation he had created in his household by appearing, for the first time most of the family could remember, in full, formal Japanese dress. The maid had been so disturbed, and so intrigued, that she had been most reluctant to leave the spectacle and, with a look of profound awe on her face, had almost walked through the closed fusuma. His wife, a most emancipated Japanese woman who painted nudes in primary colors and had bobbed her hair, was utterly confused: should she revert to her earlier ways and bow to the tatami, or disregard this alarming change of dress altogether and merely nod as she usually did when he came into the room? She had compromised, somewhat unsuccessfully, with a most singular kind of bobbing crouch—something between a curtsy and a genuflection.

But without doubt it had been Ichiro's reaction to the innovation which had most gratified Mr. Ohara. Although quite upset by the state of his affairs with Haruko, he had been pretending to study in his room. Around him were all the emblems of his beliefs. A scabbard hung over his desk—empty now that the Americans had forbidden Japanese to possess swords—and before him were some volumes of the more austere Chinese and Japanese poets. In the tokonoma hung a kakemono, nervous with a swift, dry-brush scrawl of calligraphy; Mr. Ohara understood this to be a Chinese aphorism on the ephemeralness of all thing—even if he could have deciphered the characters, he would have thought it much too unprogressive of him to try to do so. On the floor of the tokonoma was a single chrysanthemum, already dying.

Ichiro's room was more than a different room in the house—it was a different era—and formerly Mr. Ohara had felt a bit uncomfortable whenever he had to enter it. Now, however, he felt completely at home; it was Ichiro in his Austrian-style student's uniform who was incongruous, not he. It was with a new feeling of confidence that he had suddenly strode into the room.

Ichiro, deep in a very sad and most consoling Chinese poem, had avoided looking up at the sound of his father's footsteps. They had not spoken since morning.

"Good evening," said his father.

Ichiro carefully composed his face into what he believed a masterly combination of humility, pride, scorn, and condescension and finally raised his eyes. Suddenly his expression—to Mr. Ohara it had looked more like the beginning of a sneeze—fell away, leaving behind it nothing but a wide-eyed and alarmed schoolboy.

Ichiro's initial surprise soon changed into an almost visible horror when he realized his own position, for it was he, the son, who had forced his father into this.

"Good evening," he said finally.

Bowing very low—just as low as Ichiro had that morning—Mr. Ohara left the room with light step and triumphant grimace.

Since then they had not exchanged another word. Mr. Ohara was too amused to trust himself to speak, and Ichiro was too humiliated. Of all the many things of which he believed his father capable, this transformation was not one of them.

Now, in front of the lighted and gradually filling lobby, Ichiro swallowed and turned to his father, breaking their two-hour silence: "This is perhaps the first time one has had the honor of seeing one's father in Japanese dress."

His father nodded.

"May one ask why?"

"One may."

"Why?"

"Perhaps because my son not unwisely called my attention to the fact that I have almost never done so."

This, Ichiro realized, was doubtless a compliment, but, hidden inside, was the sharp edge of irony which, if he were to receive the compliment, he must disregard. He finally digested it. "Then, it is for myself that my father does this?"

"It is, indeed. It is because I am sorry both for my un-Japanese and undemocratic outburst of this morning."

"Oh, no, that is my responsibility," said Ichiro, seeing an opportunity of which he must not fail to take advantage. "It was my outburst and through me that it was occasioned. It was my fault."

"Not at all," said Mr. Ohara sharply. "I proclaim it to have been my own." Ichiro, he decided, was cleverer than he'd thought—there was something about his line of reasoning that was commendably like that of an American businessman.

"I must differ—" began Ichiro, seeing that his father was now aware of what he was attempting. If he could shoulder the blame, then his father would have none for himself, would look like a fool in his Japanese clothing, would find himself in utter disgrace, rather than, as it was now, the other way around.

"No, no, no!" shouted his father. "I said I was sorry, and I am. No one is sorrier than I whose complete responsibility it is. You are quite innocent, wronged, betrayed. It is I who am the more sorry."

"I cannot allow that the truth be so withheld through your own self-sacrifice," said Ichiro. "Historically, it is I who am at fault. Morally, it is I. Ethically, it is I. You must not try to shield me." Ichiro was now raising his voice also.