by Emily Hahn
Jill looked dubious.
“She will,” insisted Botchan. “Then all the little girls will be company for you. You have been lonely here, my poor little Jill; you have been a good little girl, and I appreciate it.” Standing on tiptoe, he patted her head. “You will be happy with Kikusan,” he said.
“Oh yes,” said Jill, “I’m sure I shall love it.”
The day she departed Botchan’s wife gave her a most beautiful kimono, all tender blue and green. Her sorrowful farewells were the more fervent because she thought Jill was being shipped back to Australia. She sent a thousand messages to Jill’s mother, and the youngest two children cried when they saw their English teacher going away. Even Botchan’s wife wiped her eyes, and Jill, always impressionable, had to dry one or two tears herself as the car drove away from the front door–that magnificent, heavy, useless front door that opened into the empty European house.
Kikusan was prettier than Botchan’s wife, though her teeth were much more heavily inlaid with gold. With an eye trained by recent months, Jill noted and appreciated the richness of her sober brown kimono. The house was larger than Botchan’s. The best rooms were used for the gentlemen’s parties in the afternoon and evening: Jill learned the advantages and otherwise of a constantly shifting community existence with her companions, the geisha.
It was much more amusing at Kikusan’s than at Botchan’s house. There was something to do every minute, for Jill set to work immediately, learning as many as she could of the geisha’s arts. She would copy the slow rhythmic steps of the dances, collapsing in shrieks of giggles with the other girls at her own awkwardness, then starting all over again with due attention to the important details, the arrangement of the fan, the position of the littlest finger. She strummed on the samisen. She painted in water colors; she learned to make pictures in colored sand; she worked long and arduously at the interminable tea ceremony. Botchan had been right; the girls were good company. Besides, now that she was out of his house she saw far more of Botchan than had been possible before.
“But we must be careful,” he said over and over. “Kikusan would never do anything to get me into trouble, I know; we can trust Kikusan, but all these other women are bound to talk. Word will be all over the city that you are living here.”
“Why shouldn’t it? Is it against the law for me to live in Japan?”
“Oh, the law!” said Botchan with light contempt. “It is not that, but we do not wish to have the police interfering. I don’t think they will trouble us if we are quiet about it. The geisha can talk as much as they like, if only my little Jill behaves herself.”
Jill pouted. “I do behave myself. What do you mean?”
“Never, never go out where the foreigners can see you,” said Botchan. “Never show yourself at parties here, even here in the house. Don’t let other men see you. If they don’t see you they won’t talk about you.”
Sighing, Jill agreed.
“But if it ever happens,” added Botchan with impressive severity, “you must remember something, Jill. Promise me. If they ever come to question you, you must protect me, for the sake of my family honor. Never let them know my name if they ask you who is your friend. They will guess, but if you do not tell them they cannot do anything to me. We can trust Kikusan to be discreet, and if they know you, too, are discreet, it will be easier. Promise me.”
“Oh, I promise, of course I promise, Botchan. But they wouldn’t hurt me, surely; they wouldn’t dare do anything to me, would they? Why, your family is one of the biggest in Japan. The police wouldn’t dare—”
“Nobody is bigger than the police,” said Botchan glumly. “You do not understand, but never mind. Only promise that if the time comes you won’t talk. They won’t hurt you, but you mustn’t talk even if they do.”
Jill promised again and went to bed feeling pleasantly exalted. Joan of Arc had always been her favorite heroine.
The months passed. There was, for instance, that agreeable interval a year after Hidei’s marriage, when Botchan went abroad again and sent for Jill after he arrived in England. This time, with no daughter to serve as ostensible chaperone, Jill was excluded from some of the parties, but she gained a good deal of freedom in exchange. She was on her own now, a Briton in England, with enough money in her pocket for an occasional frock or hat. When Botchan was busy she wandered through London, happy to be alone in a strange place; she followed his suggestions, however, and obediently visited the museums and libraries. She saw plays and went to concerts. She was a mysterious figure in her little Bloomsbury hotel, and she thoroughly enjoyed the role. When men accosted her in Bloomsbury or Piccadilly she sometimes talked to them for a while, playing with fire, loving the sensations of being tempted and resisting temptation. It was good to know that men of her own race thought her pretty. Sometimes she felt that Botchan’s admiration was not so much for her as for her fairness and her difference, though she loved to be exclaimed and twittered over as the geisha did. She rather missed those little girls. It would be nice to go back to Kikusan’s and be spoiled again. She said this to Botchan, and he was pleased.
“Of course you love Japan, little Jill. Japan is the only country for pretty women. We take care of you in Japan.”
It was perhaps as well, reflected Jill, that Hidei was no longer with them if Botchan was going to talk like that. Hidei, she knew, would have smoldered dangerously. But, “Yes, you are right,” said Jill, and smiled.
Jill was not yet eighteen when she left Japan by special request of the kempeitai. She never quite understood how it happened, and it was not the intention of the police that she should. Botchan, trembling in his wife’s room two miles away, might have had a better idea. Some official complaint, perhaps, precipitated the thing; some important upstart in the police had probably noticed Jill when she was going through the immigration formalities on her return from England, or he might have recognized Kikusan’s address and followed the matter up. Of course Botchan had never been stupid enough to suppose the authorities didn’t know Jill was there, but so long as just a few important people kept the knowledge quiet, in a friendly manner, it didn’t make any difference. Botchan’s family had influential friends; on the other hand, he had equally strong enemies, and some of them were blood connections of his wife’s. He had always known in his heart that the blow must fall one day.
Sitting in the police station, Jill’s first nervousness disappeared with the long minutes of questioning, all carried on in the most painful English. She had never been terribly worried, even at the beginning when Kikusan came to her, trembling with terror, to tell her she was wanted by the government police. How could she be afraid of these little men? True, they were not as polite as she had learned to expect of Japanese men, but it was impossible to take them seriously. They were so little, and they insisted on talking so lamely!
For an hour they asked silly questions about the items on her passport, her life in Australia, her way of earning a living. (She noticed that they shied away from the fact that Botchan’s family had employed her; they knew all about that, it seemed, and were not interested.) They kept coming back to the one question which Botchan had always been sure they would ask her-who was her protector now? What was his name? With every repetition she felt more sure of herself. She was under a strong impression that she was merely a puppet with the puppet policemen, acting out something which had already been planned.
“Ahhhhh, ahhhh, and now, miss, ahhh—” The interpreter spent more time making noises of preparation than he did in speaking actual words. It was irritating. Softly Jill threw the little bombshell she had held in readiness; she turned to the chief of police.
“Why can’t we speak like this?” she asked in Japanese.
He stiffened in body and face. Somebody tittered.
“You must have someone who is taking care of you,” he said in Japanese, without making any further comment on language matters. “Who is it?”
“Kikusan takes care of me,” said Jill.
“I see no men,” said Jill. “I live at home with Kikusan and I see nobody.”
“You must not lie to the police. That is very wrong.”
“I am telling the truth.”
After another hour of this they took Jill to a little room, bowed her in, and locked the door. Later she was given food. It was good food, and there was plenty of it.
Several days followed, and with the exception of the last one they were all alike–long and eventless, save for the same questioning period. Slowly, however, Jill lost her nerve. The uncertainty of everything except hopelessness–for she knew she could never go back to Kikusan’s house–undermined her control. On the last day she gave in just a bit.
“Yes, there is a man,” she admitted. “I don’t know his name because he never told me. I know he’s important–I know he’s very rich–but I don’t know his name.”
Perhaps the police thought that she might go too far once she had started, but it is more likely that this was the answer they had wanted all along, just a bit too much and no more. At any rate, Jill was not sent back that afternoon to her little room. One of the officers, a young man who obviously admired her, escorted her to a small Japanese hotel and brought her all her belongings, neatly packed and ready for a sea voyage. She was sailing, he explained, on a mail packet for Shanghai the following day. In the meantime she was not to go out into the city, and she was not to say good-by to anyone. A visit to Kikusan’s house was expressly forbidden. All communication with anyone in Japan was forbidden.
A few moments after he told her this he went out and came back with a letter. He bowed in a rather nice way as he handed the letter over, and then he left her alone to read it.
Botchan was prostrated with grief, he wrote poetically; Fate had been too good to them, too long, and was now claiming her just deserts. He would never, never forget his Jill, and he begged her to promise always to remember her first love. She was to go back to her mamma and spend the rest of her life virtuously, as he was sure she would. Tears blinded his eyes: he was incapable of writing further.
A packet of money made up the rest of the envelope’s thickness.
“Saints have mercy!” gasped Jill. “Two thousand pounds! Whatever can he have given the police?”
She wept then, perhaps for gratitude, but it is more likely that she was remembering, with foolish fondness, Botchan’s pretty little hands.
IV
In the train to Nagasaki Jill felt stunned, unable to do anything but ponder the careful contents of Botchan’s letter. She could not yet realize that she was free to make her own decisions; she was so accustomed to being told what to do that for twenty-four hours her only mood was a dull sorrow that she must go back to Australia. That was what Botchan had said, and so that was what she must do. She only hoped it would not be too difficult to find her mother, nor too unpleasant when she had done so.
Aboard ship the sea breeze blew away her stupidity. Little by little she shook herself free of it, and her pocketbook began to weigh with a delicious heaviness on her wrist.
“After all,” she thought. “After all!”
The ship rolled a little coming out of the Inland Sea. Jill walked joyously around the deck, feeling new-washed and young. It was always pleasant to be traveling and alone; she had not so enjoyed herself since that time a year ago when Botchan sent for her from England and she made the trip by herself. Once again she felt a furtive pleasure in being for a little while like everyone else, just a young girl, without a Japanese banker brooding somewhere in the background. She went down to the dining salon, exulting that there would be no whispering and wondering at her appearance, no need to brace herself against the outside world.
The steward put her at a table for four, where a young couple had already begun on their soup. Jill smiled at them both timidly.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” asked the woman.
They were Americans, going out for their first term in Shanghai. Hastily Jill fished up an adequate story for herself, in which governessing and mission work were mingled. “I’m on my way back to Australia, but I’m not hurrying,” she said. She thought that over for a moment and added, “I’m in no hurry at all. I want terribly to see Shanghai.”
Mrs. Evans studied her as she ate, taking careful note of the quiet clothes, the lack of cosmetics, the innocence of face. Mrs. Evans, unaccustomed to the Orient’s wealth of servants, was hatching a plan. All the way out from San Francisco she had been worrying about a nurse for the Evans child, a two-year-old boy now taking his nap in their cabin. Her obsession led her to make a decision after tea.
“She’s a find, a perfect find,” she insisted to her husband. “We had better ask her before the boat docks.”
“But she seems so young.”
“All the better. Junior loves young people. Besides, if she doesn’t suit we can always make a change.”
“But, dear, we don’t even know if she’d consider—”
“We can always try, can’t we?” said Mrs. Evans.
They tried that evening at dinner. Would Jill, could Jill consider a job with them as a sort of lady-help or governess? “To help me with Junior,” said Mrs. Evans. “I’ve been so worried about him; they don’t have nursery schools or anything like that in China, I’m sure, and everyone said I mustn’t dream of leaving him to the native servants. They teach children the most dreadful things. Everyone says so. Are you fond of children?”
“Oh yes,” said Jill, “I love children.” Her customary amiability swept her forward. She clasped her hands. “I’d simply love to work for you,” said Jill.
She really thought she would. In her bunk that night she turned and tossed and turned again, seeing sunlit visions of a future all gentle pink and blue, like the colors in a nursery; a slow, quiet life of virtue on an American hearth. She would take Junior for long walks, and people seeing her with the pram would ask each other, “Who is that sweet-looking girl with the Evans baby?” Nobody would ever know anything about Botchan; nobody would be able to conceive of that dreadful scene Botchan’s wife had made when she was ill, and Jill herself would someday forget that night Botchan stood over her with the knife. It would be comfortable with the Americans: they would have coffee for breakfast and an electric toaster.
Having decided either to marry a brilliant young banker from Ohio or to retire, after Junior had grown up, into a convent where she would rapidly rise to the position of Mother Superior, Jill fell asleep.
“Where can we get in touch with you?” asked Mrs. Evans, standing on deck with Jill as the ship plodded up the Whangpoo. “My husband’s got rooms reserved, he says, at some hotel–I don’t remember the name–but someone from the office is sure to meet us. Have you an address?”
“Oh yes,” said Jill. She thought hastily of what a girl in her position might be expected to do. “I’ll be at the Y.W.C.A.,” she said.
“Of course. Then au revoir, my dear; I must lock our trunks.”
The wharf was a dizzy mass of shouting coolies and rickshas. Confused by the anarchy that prevailed, for she was accustomed to the well-drilled quietude of the Japanese, Jill found herself hurried through the customs and out in the streets of Shanghai before she could catch her breath. Her first leisurely inhalation, however, was memorable. She fell in love with Shanghai at that moment, bowling along Broadway Road in a ricksha. Why it was she could not tell. The city was crowded, raucous, dirty, flat, ugly–for a brief moment she thought of what Botchan would say of it and longed to hear his scornful, elaborate comment. It was probably because Botchan was not there that Jill fell in love with the city. The people in the streets, especially when she had crossed Garden Bridge and found herself among a quantity of Europeans, all seemed like potential friends instead of strangers. They had a pleasant look, men and women too. They would welcome her.
This first gush of confidence was rudely checked whe
n she arrived at the Y.W.C.A. and interviewed an acidulous young woman at the desk.
“Why, we’ve no rooms,” said the young woman. “Oh dear, no.” Her eyes coldly observed Jill’s hair and clothing. “We aren’t here for foreign girls anyway,” she added. “This place is for Chinese. We haven’t nearly enough room for the girls as it is. We’re crowded for months ahead.”
“But–I thought that’s what the Y was for,” said Jill, “for girls traveling alone. I thought it was always— Is there another Y, then, for foreigners?”
“Not if you haven’t made your arrangements well ahead of time. After all, Shanghai’s full of hotels. Most people don’t come out here unless they can afford the hotels. Yes?” The woman turned to a newcomer at the desk.
“Please, just a minute. I don’t know quite what to do; you see, I’ve sent my luggage on here and given this as my address to some people—”
“Well, we can’t have the luggage here. We’re too crowded as it is. If you’ll tell me what hotel you’re going to I’ll forward it.”
“Can you forward any messages too?”
“We’re far too busy, miss; I can’t promise. If you’ll drop in now and then you’ll get your letters.”
Out in the street again, Jill looked sorrowfully about. A ricksha coolie loitered at the curb hopefully. “Oh well,” thought Jill, “I can probably find the Evanses through their office. Of course I can. Tomorrow, when everything’s settled a bit. In the meantime…”
Her handbag was invitingly heavy. After all, she was independent.
“Go to a good downtown hotel,” she told the coolie.
Next day was a holiday, as so many days are in China, and Jill could find nobody at Evans’s office. At first she was not perturbed about it but spent her time instead looking around the gaudy, narrow streets and wondering what would be best to take home to Australia, just in case she did go. A long talk with the room boy at the hotel and a dutiful reading of the local newspaper passed the time, too, but when evening arrived Jill became depressed. She was accustomed to the crowded rooms at Kikusan’s. At this time in the late afternoon the parties would have begun, and all the little girls would be dressed up and waiting for their summonses. There would be music, either the strange wailing sound of Japanese songs or the ancient cracked American records that had done duty so long on Kikusan’s gramophone.
