How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

  “Last night. Father wants me to marry an American, and I agree.” My voice sounded stilted. Taro heard it.

  “Why couldn’t you be a normal Japanese girl and marry a respectable Japanese man? What you’ve done is unforgivable.” Taro shook his head. “This independence has not been good for you, Shoko.”

  I bit my lip, tasting the thick wax of my lipstick. If I were truly independent, I would have been on a train with Ronin right then. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I paid your tuition.”

  “I won’t have that anymore. I’ll pay my own way through.” Taro lit a cigarette. “Tetsuo is still in love with you, you know.”

  I shut my eyes. “He should have thought of that before he bedded my roommate.” If Tetsuo hadn’t done that, I would still be with him, getting ready for marriage. Everything would be far simpler.

  He blew smoke rings at me. “He means to have some words with your boyfriend.”

  I grew fearful. What did this mean? Words or fists? Tetsuo was notoriously hotheaded. I remembered how angry he had been when I danced with another boy. “Tell him not to! There’s no need.”

  Taro shrugged. “I told him I would take care of it, that this was between you and me, but he ran off anyway. You know Tetsuo.”

  I HURRIED to the little house on the edge of town where I knew Ronin lived. On our walks, I had asked him to show me where he lived. Always he refused. “Even I know better than to bring you to such a place,” he had said, merely pointing to the house with a small British flag being flown at his doorway. It was no more than a shack in the middle of others like it, a poor enclave in the middle of this suddenly prosperous city.

  Taro followed a few hundred feet behind me, worried, no doubt, about the reputation of our family being ruined by me venturing here. He still can’t run as fast as I can, I thought to myself. It’s the alcohol and cigarettes. I tried to lose him by wending through side streets and alleys, but he stayed within sight.

  The Eta who lived near Ronin stared at me. I paid them no mind and rushed to Ronin’s house. The door was open. A rat-nosed policeman in an olive-green wool suit was standing to the side, writing on a pad of paper. I snuck in behind him.

  “Ronin!” I screamed. “Are you there? It’s Shoko.”

  In my heart, I hoped he had left for America already. He had to have.

  It was dark inside. It smelled earthy, tangy. Blood. Somehow I didn’t retch. I saw a mostly packed suitcase leaning against the wall. “Ronin!” I called again. My mind wouldn’t let me believe what was happening. I felt like I was in a movie, watching myself move through the tiny space.

  “Get out!” The policeman hauled me backward.

  “Let go!” At the other side of the room, I caught sight of a crumpled heap of gardener’s clothes and two feet twisted in ways that feet shouldn’t be.

  Taro, arriving at last, skidded to a halt. “No, oh no,” he breathed. “What did he do?”

  “Ronin!” I shouted again, before I fainted. My brother caught me.

  I AWOKE IN TARO’S ROOM. Late-afternoon sun, the color of tangerines, bathed the Western furnishings with an eerie glow. I wondered if it had been a dream. It had to have been. Indigestion, no doubt.

  Then I saw my brother, in a chair near the window. I sat up abruptly. “You killed him!” I shrieked, launching myself toward him. My fist caught him on the jaw; off guard, he lost his balance. I hit him again, not caring about the popping noise from my hand, punching his chest as hard as I could.

  “I didn’t know! I didn’t know. Tetsuo is insane!” Taro said. I hit him again and again and he did nothing to restrain me, he stood like a scare-crow. I cracked him in the nose and he began bleeding.

  My brother would only look at me. “You can hit me if it will make you feel better. I thought he would rough him up at worst, tell him to stay away from you.”

  I gulped and sat on the bed. The sight of the blood was making me feel faint again. “Did you tell the policeman who did it? Or did you cover that up for your friend?” Tetsuo—who would have thought he was capable? For a second, I had to count myself lucky that I hadn’t married him.

  “Yes. They’re looking for him.” He brought me to him in a hug. “I didn’t know—I was trying to protect you.”

  “Then you should have been born first.” I fell onto the bed, crying and beating my fists on the scratchy coverlet. What had Ronin done besides show me some kindness? This was all my fault. My vanity. I should have told him to go away and never return, or I should have gone with him. I was too weak to do either. Fickle. I berated myself and wept until I was empty. I stared up at the ceiling, eyes burning dry.

  I stayed for two days. Taro came in and out, bringing soup, patting my back, pleading with me to get up. I ignored him.

  When Taro couldn’t rouse me, he told the hotel I’d taken ill and took me to my parents’ home, me leaning on his shoulder as though I were deathly ill as we walked through the hotel.

  The workers came out to say good-bye. “Come back soon.” Mr. Lonstein touched my shoulder softly. I wondered if he knew what had happened, if he even noticed that his best gardener and desk man were gone for good. His eyes pitied me. I leaned against Taro even harder.

  An important criterion in choosing your American mate is his blood type. Military men often wear identifying necklaces, “dog tags,” which bear the blood type. Learn the English letters and recognize them.

  AB—The worst kind. They do whatever they want whenever they want. They make horrible husbands.

  A—They are reliable and calm.

  O—They are social but sometimes need more pushing to finish what they start.

  B—Very practical, but dull.

  O goes best with other O’s and AB’s.

  A can marry A or AB.

  B can marry B or AB.

  AB can marry anyone who will let them.

  —from the chapter “A Map to Husbands,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Nine

  A week after Ronin died, I awoke to see Father sitting beside me, a lacquered box of photographs in his hand. I had done as he had asked, dutifully sent him pictures of my Americans, every one I thought I could possibly live with, or who at least would want to marry me. “Shoko-chan, feeling better?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “It’s time to look at your photos.” He sounded cheerful, as though we were going to engage in a delightful task.

  I sat up. As my father looked through the black-and-white pictures, he asked, “Is there one in particular you like?”

  I could not have cared less. I told myself I had to get over Ronin. In relative terms, my troubles were tiny.

  “Anyone?” Father prompted.

  “No,” I whispered. I closed my eyes. Father would pick this time, not me. I couldn’t be trusted.

  “I will look at their eyes.” Father flipped through. “This one looks shifty.” He tossed out the Iowa pig farmer. “Undependable.” He threw out the man from Boston. “This one, this one has honest eyes.” He stopped at Charlie. “Light in color. Are they blue?”

  “Yes.” My heart fluttered a tiny bit, thinking of Charlie’s blue eyes and his easy laugh.

  “Perhaps the eyes of your children will be blue. With a Japanese slant. How beautiful.” Father slapped the photo down beside me. “He’s the one. Has he asked you?”

  “No.” I lay back down. Did Charlie even notice I was gone? Had he gone to the hotel asking for me?

  “Then it’s time for you to go back to work. You ask him.” Father pushed a bowl of rice toward me. “You like him, don’t you?”

  I felt like I could sleep for another century or so, but I roused myself. For the first time in a week, my stomach growled. “Yes, Father.”

  CHARLIE WAS A GOOD CHOICE. At least Father hadn’t picked the pig farmer; I don’t know what I would have done if I had had to breathe in pig shit for the rest of my life.

  Charlie was a corpsman, or medic; he worked hard and made great money,
or so I thought at the time, compared to anyone else I knew. He was even a good blood type—O. I looked at his dog tags and reported what I saw to my father. “The best!” Father exclaimed with a chuckle. Charlie was also more ambitious than usual for his blood type, which was good. When he got out of the Navy, he said, he was going to go back to school and become a doctor. He was as bright as the doctors he worked for, so why shouldn’t he? He never complained about anything. He was honest. He bought me things like small jewelry boxes and handkerchiefs. Pretty things. But he had never tried to kiss me, like the others had. I worried that he didn’t like me that much. “He is simply old-fashioned, a gentleman,” Father assured me, though he had never met Charlie.

  I missed Ronin more than I could bear, but I put him aside. They never caught Tetsuo, and if they had, they wouldn’t have done anything to him. We lived in a warrior culture. People would say that Ronin got what was coming to him. I’m sure that’s what Taro told himself, if he thought about it at all.

  I had to do what I needed to do now. Charlie’s time here was halfway over. My options were running out.

  If I stayed in Japan, what would I have? I couldn’t go to college. I couldn’t work at the hotel forever. Young women got replaced constantly with the newer, better models. Nor was finding a Japanese man that easy. My mother had exhausted her matchmaking abilities with Tetsuo; all the young men who had any ambition at all had left to seek their fortunes elsewhere. My hometown was a ghost town. I needed to get out or become one of those wrinkled spinsters, waiting at home for suitors who would never come.

  Charlie took me on a date. We had ice cream cones and went for a walk along the harbor. Like two Americans in a movie. We stopped on a metal bridge over the water and looked at the Navy boats while leaning against the railing and eating our cones. I felt a little out of breath and sick to my stomach, as I often did since Ronin was killed. This time, I figured it was due to the ice cream—vanilla—because I was unused to cow’s milk.

  We looked down at the grayish-green water at the same time. Charlie and I tried to talk sometimes, but often we were comfortable in quiet. I wiped the sweat discreetly from my brow and hoped I didn’t smell too bad. Charlie glanced at me with a shy smile. I smiled back expectantly.

  “Humid today,” he said, in his slow English.

  I didn’t understand. He made a fanning motion with his hand and pulled his shirt away from his skin.

  “Oh, yes.” I laughed. Charlie was really good at pantomime.

  I waited again. He popped the rest of the cone back in his mouth. “Time for me to report back to the ship.”

  He was never going to ask me. “You leave soon?”

  “Pretty soon.”

  I took his hand. It was cold despite the heat. Cold hands, warm heart, they say. I squeezed it. “You like date me?”

  “Of course.” He squeezed back, then put his arm around me. “I’m going to miss you,” he added, his voice husky.

  I rested my head on his shoulder. “You want to marry?”

  He put his chin on my head. “Someday. Why?”

  I stepped back, put one hand on a hip, and cocked my head to the side, pretending to be indignant. “Why you think I date you long time?”

  He laughed. “Okay, then.”

  It took some people years to get the proper marriage paperwork. The Navy always changed the rules, saying if you filled out the blue form but not the green, then fill out the yellow with three copies. It was worse than taxes, they said. But Charlie filled out everything the next day. And then, with no problem, like magic, the Navy approved it.

  About two weeks later, he took me to the courthouse. We signed our names on some papers in front of an official wearing horn-rimmed glasses, who shook our hands without smiling.

  Charlie turned to me. “That’s it.”

  I frowned. “What it?” No ceremony, no kiss, nothing? Was this American?

  Charlie grinned. “We’re married.”

  WE RENTED a nice big house in town, where the richer people lived, using up all our money. “Two bedrooms!” Charlie said. “We had two bedrooms in my family for six kids and two parents!”

  “Very nice.” I smiled at him. I was learning English little by little. Charlie said when we went to America, he’d buy me a TV set and I’d pick it up in no time. We had no money left for furniture, so we had to wait for his next paycheck to buy that. Every payday after that, Charlie bought me lots of beautiful clothes. I went to a tailor and had several fashionable American-style dresses made, a yellow silk suit, handmade shoes. My new husband loved pretty things as much as I did. I went to the beauty parlor every week to get my hair done. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to work. I felt rich. “I love to show off my beautiful wife,” he said, giving me hugs. Charlie would always take care of me.

  Around the time we married, I figured out I was pregnant. I was afraid to tell Charlie, afraid he’d figure out on his own that a baby born eight months after was not his. I decided to wait until after the danger of miscarriage had passed. I could tell him the baby was premature. I tried not to gain too much weight. A big baby would give it away.

  I took Charlie home for a traditional Japanese wedding. To pay for it, I gave my mother a hundred dollars. One hundred guests, dinner, rental for the ballroom—one hundred dollars paid for it all.

  As Charlie and I walked up our street, I pointed out my home. The kimonos on my mother’s clothesline flapped in the wind. Not fancy silk ones that foreigners thought we wore every day. Plain cotton yukata . I wondered if Charlie would laugh, but he didn’t. He came from poor, too.

  “Welcome, Charlie,” Mother said, managing to get the l sound out better than I could. She fixed my favorite, a rice curry, with extra-hot spice. Her hair had gone all white now, her skin devoid of any elasticity. In ten years, she would be dead.

  I knelt on the floor. Charlie had told me this hurt his knees, and taking off his shoes all the time had made his arches fall, but he was getting used to it. He was a good sport about doing Japanese things. Like a lot of the Navy people coming into Japan, he had fallen in love with the culture as well as with a woman. “My husband even likes sushi,” I said to Mother proudly.

  She was impressed. “Most foreigners can’t eat it at all.”

  Charlie took a bit of curry and his eyes welled. I gave him some tea to cool his mouth.

  My younger sister, Suki, crept up to him. She was fifteen and still our baby, even though anyone could see she was a lovely young woman with long black hair, wearing her school uniform of a white blouse and long plaid skirt. I was happy to see she was a bit plump; this meant she was eating well for once.

  Suki touched Charlie’s hair. “His hair is fire!”

  He pulled his head away. Charlie had his curls combed into a jelly roll, one on each side of his head, put into place with a lot of hair ointment. “Yes, fire,” he agreed in Japanese. He patted it back where she had mussed it.

  He had gotten used to the attention. It was probably a lot more than he’d ever gotten in the United States.

  My father knelt by him and watched him eat gravely, so intent that Charlie got nervous. His gaze meant approval. “It was a good choice, Shoko?” His hair was gray, too, and his skin already wizened. He ate slowly, as though he had all the time in the world to savor his food.

  “Yes.” I put my hand over Charlie’s, the hand that had my sparkling new rings from the Navy Exchange department store. A diamond engagement ring, surrounded by a swirl of diamonds on the wedding band.

  “Beautiful!” Mother picked up my hand to admire it. “Better than the richest ladies in Tokyo, I expect.”

  Father spoke to Charlie in the limited English he had been able to pick up. “Like Japan?”

  “Hai.” Charlie knew more Japanese than my father knew English. Charlie had gotten books on Japanese and studied them in an effort to communicate with me. He had a kimono made for himself. He waited at the shrine while I prayed and wrote a prayer for himself in awful Japa
nese letters. He tried hard.

  “Taro will be coming,” Mother said, happy to have her children all together again.

  I felt the sickness in my gut again. I hadn’t seen Taro since he had left me here after Ronin. Taro had gone back to school, finishing out the semester with my money, and then gotten a job, refusing to take any more of it. My parents thought that was natural, because now I was married and out of the family, but I knew the real reason why.

  “Does he know?” I asked my father. “Does he know we got married?”

  “Yes.” Father took a sip of tea. “He was hurt that he wasn’t there.”

  “No one was there. That’s why I’m here now.” I guessed that Taro was only hurt because he had no chance of stopping me.

  As though reading my mind, Father said, “Taro still wanted you to marry a Japanese boy.” He waved his hand at my shocked face. “He’ll accept it.”

  “Japanese boy?” Charlie said, that being the only expression he caught correctly.

  I shook my head at him in a gesture he had taught me, and smiled. “Eat.” Poor Charlie, left out by my family chattering away.

  My father felt bad also, because he leaned to Charlie and said, “You like Navy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The door opened, shining bright light into the room. Taro stood silhouetted by sun. My little brother all over again. My heart ached.

  He shut the door.

  I stood. Charlie did, too. I bowed formally. “Please meet my husband, Charlie.”

  Taro stared at Charlie. Charlie held out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” Charlie said in slow Japanese.

  “Did you start eating without me?” Taro said to my mother.

  “Taro, say hello to Charlie.” Mother switched to Japanese.

  “Hey, cowboy,” Taro said in English, shaking Charlie’s hand. “Japan is treating you real well, huh? Got a wife and everything.”