The Wind Cannot Read

by Richard Mason

  When he came to teach us the first time he delivered a prepared speech.

  “I am speaking frankly. I am a civilian, you are officers. To me that is nothing, for I am an instructor. Therefore let us discount distinction. Without such a discount, I cannot teach. If you are wrong, I will tell you without standing upon ceremony. I shall also reprimand.”

  He meant that he had no intention of calling us ‘Sir.’ I did not like him, though it was not for this reason, but because I knew a great deal of scheming went on behind his expressionless eyes. Everything he said was carefully worked out in advance, and when he scored off someone it was a premeditated revenge.

  In the same way, he planned his lessons with remarkable industry. Each day he would give us a list of new words, round which he had written sentences. These were inscribed in meticulous handwriting in his black file, the Japanese characters by the side of the English translation. Some of them showed a curious knowledge. “The sun is ninety-three million miles from the earth, but the moon is only two hundred and forty thousand miles away.”

  “In England there are sixty-six varieties of butterflies.”

  His information was always correct.

  He was also fond of giving us tests. He would go round the class putting a series of questions to each of us in turn. Then without passing any verbal comment, he would write something in Japanese characters opposite our names. We were never told what he had written down.

  His favourite was Fenwick, because Fenwick was the hardest worker. When the rest of us were happy to let the class deteriorate into an informal discussion, Fenwick would look irritated and eventually blurt out, “I’d like to remind you fellows that you’ve come here to learn Japanese.” In the evenings he would study at the hotel, and then he began to get up at six in the mornings and put in an hour before breakfast.

  “The application of an Asiatic clerk!” Mervyn said about Fenwick and we all felt scornful, as though it was a base ambition. But it was very soon clear that he was getting a good start on us. If he had not been there, perhaps we too should have worked in the evenings, and during the long middle-day siesta, but Itsumi San held him up to us as an example, and demanded that we should emulate him. The thought that it was emulation was sufficient to deter us. We left our Japanese mainly to school hours.

  Itsumi San would scold us. If he asked me a question that I was unable to answer, he would look for a long time at his file in silence, as though pondering upon the best line of correction. He would then lecture me on the error of my ways. It was my duty, he told me, to pay more attention. In the same way it was his duty to teach me. He did not want to teach me any more than I wanted to learn, but he was doing his best. Then a sentimental note would creep in. Did I not think he was a good teacher? Was there any improvement in his method that I could suggest? Did I realise that when he was angry it was for my own good? Was it not clear to me that his only concern was to see that we passed the examination, that he wished, not to bully us but to help us? The lesson was resumed. Mollified now, he would give me some easier sentences to translate, and for the time being all would be well.

  I did not let any contretemps upset me, and I settled down to the routine of learning. I became interested.

  One night I met the Brigadier in the bar of the Cricket Club.

  “You’re all making good progress,” he said.

  “Itsumi San is less complimentary.”

  “You mustn’t take him too seriously. He’s in an awkward position.”

  “But he can teach,” I said. “He takes a lot of trouble.”

  “You find Japanese difficult?”

  “It’s worse than Greek or Latin.”

  “It’s really very difficult,” he said. “But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It’s a pity you can’t learn to read and write, too—but you’d have to know at least five thousand characters to make it worth while.”

  “If I can talk the language that’ll be enough,” I said.

  “There are few who can do that. It’ll be a valuable knowledge for after the war.”

  “After the war I shan’t have any use for it.”

  “You won’t go to Japan?”

  “Perhaps for a holiday. I shan’t live there.”

  “But there’s no knowing,” he said. “Life is full of surprises.”

  “I shall live in England or France—where there are people that I like.”

  “There are also good people in Japan, you know.”

  “I’m prejudiced,” I said. “I’ve fought them in Burma. I’ve run away from them. I’ve had nightmares about them. They killed my brother.”

  “In the war?”

  “He was in Hong Kong. They did some pretty cruel things there.”

  “Yes,” said the Brigadier. “They can be cruel. Soldiers can be cruel. When they’re drunk they do wicked things.”

  “It isn’t only when they’re drunk.”

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “It isn’t only when they’re soldiers, either. There are a lot of wicked things in the world. Sometimes it’s very hard to see round them at all.”

  “I’m not trying to see round them,” I said.

  “You don’t hate all Japanese?”

  “I haven’t any reason to love them.”

  “You don’t hate the instructors?”

  “I don’t love them, either.”

  “Miss Wei, too, is Japanese. I don’t think you’ll hate her.”

  “At any rate,” I said, “I promise not to show it.”

  (2)

  I saw the ship arrive. It was a great three-funnel liner. It came in the evening and anchored in the harbour, and three launches went out to it. Their wakes, darker blue than the blue of the undisturbed surface, spread out into huge arrowheads that converged at their tips. It looked very proud and magnificent and stately lying there, ignoring the fishing-boats that drifted in and clustered in front of it.

  It looked huge and old and nature-made, like a mountain.

  I took a pair of binoculars to examine it more closely. Along the decks were a thousand white pinpoints that were British soldiers.

  Night came down. In the morning it lay there still, immensely strong and solid in the glistening harbour.

  I watched it from the classroom, saw it move with gigantic sloth until it was hidden by the great stone archway that is called the Gateway of India.

  (3)

  She came in with the Brigadier.

  Of course the Brigadier had told us before: “Wei is a Chinese name. She is using it because it is not advisable to have a Japanese name now. But Miss Wei is Japanese—you will find she speaks the best Tokyo language.” That was all he had told us. We had waited expectantly; most of us had never seen a Japanese woman before.

  We were all silent, watching her. She stood nervously by the Brigadier, looking at the corner of the desk, very slim and tiny in a light summer frock.

  “I will introduce you,” the Brigadier said. “This is Miss Wei.”

  We murmured, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” she said with her lips, and gave a quick little stoop, a suggestion of a curtsy.

  “Miss Wei has come all the way from England to help us out.” He smiled at her gallantly and gratefully. She smiled too, dropping her eyelids in self-depreciation. Then she sat down next to him behind the desk.

  There were general signs of approval: Miss Wei had passed the first test—she was pretty. She was a spot of fresh colour in the schoolroom, with its blackboard and its piles of books and its tables and its inkpots. For a time nobody looked out of the window, and there was a certain amount of winking.

  “She is exquisite!” Peter whispered.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “We are going to have delightful classes.”

  “We probably will.”

  “Once she has got
over her shyness,” he added.

  It was not surprising that she was shy when there were ten of us there, ten strange faces ranged in front of her. Ten of us judging her critically as a woman.

  The Brigadier took out an exercise book.

  “I want you particularly to imitate Miss Wei’s pronunciation,” he said. “I will ask her to read a paragraph, and afterwards we’ll repeat it.”

  She started very softly. Then she cleared her throat and began again.

  “I think it would be better,” the Brigadier said, “if you wouldn’t mind reading a little bit slower.”

  She looked up and blinked and her eyes were almond-shaped and enormous.

  “I am so sorry.”

  After a while the Brigadier left us, and she said to us in Japanese:

  “If you will ask questions one by one, I will do my best to answer them.”

  She used the most formal and polite words; it was as if she had said:

  “If you will kindly deign to ask questions, I will answer humbly.”

  “Did you have a good journey?” an Army officer asked in halting Japanese.

  “It is kind of you to ask,” she said. “It took a long time, but there was somehow always something to do. I tried to read a lot of English books.”

  She had in front of her a register containing our names.

  “The next one? Quinn, is it?”

  I had been preparing a question on a piece of paper, looking up the words in a dictionary.

  “Is it true that when Japanese husbands return home drunk, their wives sit at their feet and untie the laces of their boots?”

  Miss Wei shook gently with laughter. She hid her face behind her register so that we should not see her laughing. All we could see was her black hair over the top of her book. She remained there for a minute.

  “Is it true?” I insisted when she looked up.

  “I cannot say. It is a funny question.”

  “You don’t know?” I said.

  “I expect they do sometimes. Now, who is next?” She looked at her register. “Is it—Fenwick?”

  I suddenly noticed that Fenwick was flushed with anger, and the veins were standing out in his neck.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You have a question?”

  “I’ve not got a question,” he said in English, “but there’s one thing I should like to point out.” He pressed his hands down on the table; his hands were red too. He had worked himself up into a kind of frenzy, in order to force himself into raising this blunt objection. “We’re all officers in this class. It’s usual for our rank to be used when we’re being addressed. If you don’t know our ranks, as a matter of courtesy you might use Mister.”

  There was a long silence. The rest of the class was horrified.

  “Of course as a foreigner,” Fenwick went on, trying to make a clumsy conciliation, “It’s rather difficult for you to know our customs.”

  “Shut up!” Peter said in a loud whisper. “My God!” he said, “isn’t it quite unbelievable?”

  Miss Wei was lost in confusion. She buried her face in her register. At last she said:

  “I am sorry, I did not realize . . . I had heard the Brigadier speak in that way.”

  “That is hardly the same thing,” Fenwick said.

  “It was very rude of me,” she said. I was afraid that tears were on the point of welling in her eyes. But they did not come.

  “Has anyone any more questions?” she said, the scarlet fading a little from her cheeks. She was afraid to use a name now.

  “I hope,” Peter said in Japanese, “that you’re going to stay here a long time. We are glad to have a new instructor.”

  He said this kindly, to show that we were not all of us sympathetic with Fenwick’s crude complaint.

  “Thank you,” she said, bowing her head. “I do not deserve that compliment. Thank you very much.”

  After the class we did not speak to Fenwick. He gathered his books together with studied nonchalance, whistling through his teeth, expecting us to comment on the way in which he had stood up for our rights; but we said nothing.

  “Coming home, you fellows?” he said. “Shortly.”

  “Make it snappy if you want a free ride in a ghari.”

  “We aren’t as poor as all that,” Peter said.

  “It’s up to you.”

  We let him go off by himself. When he had gone the rest of us went outside to look for a carriage. The road was empty.

  “I’m going to the bazaar,” I said. “I’ve got some shopping to do.”

  I turned off along the front, and then because I was still angry and rather hot, I decided that I would first go to the Cricket Club and drink a John Collins. I turned round and started to walk back along the front of the flats. I was close to the school when Miss Wei came quickly out of the entrance. There was still no carriage. She turned in my direction.

  “You’re in a hurry,” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, stopping. She looked at me in a frightened, surprised way.

  I repeated the same thing in Japanese.

  “Oh, I was running!” she said in English. “I don’t know why.”

  “I hope it isn’t because you’re already so pleased to escape from the school.”

  “No, please don’t think that.”

  “You must think very badly of us.”

  “For a month,” she said, “I don’t know how you speak Japanese so well.”

  “I didn’t mean Japanese, but our manners.”

  “What is the matter with manners?”

  “That outburst,” I said, “about handles to our names.”

  “I can’t think how I was so stupid.”

  “The rest of us hadn’t noticed.”

  “But it was so silly of me. I didn’t know what I was saying. It is first time I have tried to teach, and there seemed to be so many people.”

  “Only ten.”

  “At first it seemed like a hundred.”

  “You’ll get used to our faces. We aren’t very frightening, really.”

  “Oh no,” she said.

  At that moment an empty ghari came by on the road. The horse clopped to a standstill. The driver wore a red Muslim fez and had a black moustache that hung in a half moon over his mouth.

  “Ghari, Sahib?”

  He smiled down at us from his high seat. His teeth were red as though from pyorrhoea.

  “May I drop you?” I said to Miss Wei.

  “I am going to hotel.”

  “It’s on my way.

  “You know where it is?” she said.

  “No, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “But I don’t want to take you out of your way, please,” she said. “You take this and I shall find other ghari.”

  “What is your hotel called?”

  “The Mayfair.”

  “Then it’s on my way. To the Mayfair,” I said to the ghari-wallah.

  I climbed in after Miss Wei. The black hood was pulled down against the sun, far down at the sides, so that we were almost shut in. Only the flanks of the horse were visible in front of the driver’s seat.

  It was months since I had sat close to a woman. It was probably as long as two years. In Rangoon I had not known any women at all. On the boat out from England there had been some nurses; I sometimes thought it would have been nice to have an affair with one of the pretty nurses, but long before I had decided that they were all deeply involved with people who had more initiative than myself. When you are in the Services you have to take a lot of initiative to have a woman, because there are so few to go round.

  Then at home . . . the last woman I had sat close to was my mother. I had sat next to her in the back of the taxi on the last journey to the station. I had tried not to look at her clo
sely, because she was screwing up her face in an effort to keep herself from crying. I was keeping my own face set for the same reason. Before that, since the beginning of the war, I had only sat next to women I did not care about, and that is not like sitting next to a woman at all.

  Now I was all of a sudden aware with all my senses that I was sitting close to a woman. This sharp awareness was quite unexpected and surprised me, and I remembered what a pleasant thing it was. I remembered that when I had thought of women in places where there were none, I had forgotten about the subtle pleasures and remembered only the crude ones. At this moment I was deriving an intense pleasure from the faint, dry odour of perfume, and the fainter aura of cosmetics, and seeing the movement of beautiful fingers. Then I looked up at her face and saw that it was like ivory, a round little face full of gaiety and gentleness, with these brown, tremendous almond eyes.

  Japanese, I thought—don’t I hate the Japanese?

  (“You silly idiot,” I heard Peter saying. “You don’t know what you do hate. You’re so impossibly muddle-headed.”

  “I think I could hate this woman for being Japanese.”

  “You could?”

  “If once I thought of her as being Japanese instead of a woman.”

  “She is both,” Peter said. “Stop talking tripe.”)

  “This is better than the Delhi tonga,” I said to Miss Wei. “You face the right way, and there is no fear of falling out.”

  “But the driver has hurt mouth,” she said sadly.

  “You haven’t been in India before?”

  “No,” she said. “Are they all hurt?”

  “They all chew betel-nut. You can see them selling it in the bazaar. They make it into a sticky paste and spread it on a leaf.”

  “What is bazaar?”

  “Where the Indians go shopping.”

  “Can you go and see?”

  “I’m going there now.”

  I tried to divine from her expression whether she would like to come too. I waited, half hoping she would ask, but she was silent.

  “Have you time to look round with me?” I said, and found myself full of apprehension, not that she could not come, but that I was making a proposal she would find it embarrassing to refuse.