The Moonflower

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Thank you for being the very dear and courageous person you are. Now I am asking of you something more. My freedom. It is impossible to continue like this, torn between two worlds. I find I must give my allegiance to one or the other. But I am thinking of you, as well as of myself. You are caught in a marriage that is not a marriage …”

  There had been more, a lot more. He had tried to use the knife gently, to tear the flesh as little as possible on the way to her heart. But all her being had cried out in pain and disbelief. Where had she failed him? To what in Japan did he owe more allegiance than to his wife and daughter? What held him there? Or who?

  She had never been one to weep silently in a dim room. “My little actionist,” he had called her once, teasing because she was so ready to go after what she wanted without troubling to do much thinking first. And once she was on her way, she could hold on blindly and never give an inch.

  Upon reading his letter, she had acted quickly, telling herself that she had brought him out of such delusions before, and he had thanked her for it. She could do it again. Only the coward gave up his life without a struggle, and she was never that. So she had taken Laurie out of school and made swift preparations for this trip. Her mother had been against it, but Marcia would not listen. She could hear her mother’s words now: “Darling, we all have to learn when to let go. It isn’t always possible to make things come right by hanging on blindly.” But her mother had never truly liked Jerome, and Marcia could not let go. She had never learned how, nor wanted to learn.

  Action had brought confidence and hope sweeping back. Nothing could stop her in her flight across the ocean to Jerome. And once she was in his arms, all would be well again. Comforted by this ability to take some action, she had even been able to enjoy the new experiences of the trip, and to look forward to seeing the country Jerome’s letters had told her so little about, but which she had read of voraciously, so that she might share his background through the printed word.

  Here in the plane she felt increasingly keyed up. Yet she must have dozed fitfully through the hours, for she was suddenly startled awake when the lights came on and there was a stirring throughout the cabin. The loudspeaker announced that they were about to land on Wake and would be on the ground for an hour. The seat belt sign, with Oriental characters beneath the Occidental words, clicked on, and Alan Cobb rose quickly, picking up his blanket and pillow.

  “You haven’t done much sleeping, have you?” he asked frankly, and went to change places with Laurie.

  When they had landed on Wake, Alan did not urge his company upon them, but Laurie had adopted him as their friend and benefactor. For a little while they stood together in the strong Pacific wind and looked up at the close, bright stars.

  “Laurie tells me you’ve been in Japan before,” Marcia said idly.

  “My father was Army,” Alan Cobb said, “and I was born in the Orient. We went to Japan now and then on vacations, but I don’t know it well. I understand you’re going to Kyoto too?”

  “To be with my father,” Laurie put in before her mother could answer, and added proudly, “My father is a very famous person.”

  Alan Cobb cocked an eyebrow at her. “Is that right? Talbot—Kyoto?” He glanced quickly at Marcia. “Is your husband Jerome Talbot, the physicist?”

  “Yes, he is,” Marcia said, and let it go at that.

  But Alan Cobb’s interest had come keenly to life. “I know about your husband’s work in nuclear science. We have some mutual friends in Washington. Perhaps you know the Brewsters?”

  “I’ve heard him speak of them,” she said guardedly. She had a feeling that Jerome had cut his ties with most of his friends at home.

  “In fact,” Alan Cobb went on, “Mark Brewster asked me to look him up if I went to Kyoto. Though of course I’d have wanted to do so anyway.”

  “In that case you must certainly come to see us,” Marcia said, but she could not put much heart into her words. She did not know whether Jerome would want to see anyone from home. Perhaps not even his wife.

  Alan made no response to her invitation. “I’ve read a lot of your husband’s things in scientific journals. I’ve always had a good-sized admiration for his work. Thought I haven’t heard much about him lately.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, then decided against it.

  Laurie glanced up at him with interest. “Why do you want to teach in Japan?” she asked. “Why don’t you just teach Americans at home?”

  He seemed to weigh the question carefully in his mind before he answered. Then he said, “I suppose because it will give me a chance to find out something about myself.”

  “About yourself?” Laurie echoed, puzzled.

  “Why not? Are you so sure you know everything there is to know about you?”

  “Of course,” said Laurie, and Marcia smiled at her youthful confidence.

  Nevertheless, Alan Cobb’s words had an enigmatic ring and Marcia found herself growing curious about him.

  “What subjects are you going to teach?” she asked.

  He chuckled ruefully. “Just modern American literature. And it’s going to be a tough course. For me. Of course I’m only teaching part time, so I hope we’ll all survive.”

  The loudspeaker summoned them back to the plane and Laurie was tucked into the double seat again, sleepy now from the wind and air. Marcia too found herself drowsy and she curled up against her pillow and closed her eyes. For a moment or two she found herself wondering idly about the man next to her. But sleep came quickly and she forgot him.

  It was Alan Cobb who lay awake and quietly thoughtful.

  2.

  Clouds blanketed the islands of Japan as the plane came down in a flurry of snow at Haneda Airport outside Tokyo. Laurie peered eagerly through the window at the observation deck, where a little crowd of people stood in the open, with snow falling about them as they waved and smiled at the plane.

  A bit breathlessly Marcia leaned over her toward the window while they waited to disembark, but she could not see Jerome among those on the deck. Not that his absence meant anything. If he had come to meet them he might well wait inside on such a day. Her heart was thumping now in anticipation. She had a feeling that she would know the fundamental answers the moment she saw his face.

  When the quarantine officer had finished his sketchy inspection, Alan Cobb was beside them again. He helped casually with their hand luggage and went with them into customs. She was grateful for his presence, for here, suddenly, was a strange land, strange faces, a language she did not understand.

  “I suppose your husband is meeting you?” Alan Cobb said, when they were ready to leave the restricted part of the airport.

  “I don’t really know,” Marcia faltered. “He may not have been able to get away. If he’s not here, we’ll go right to the Imperial Hotel, where I have a reservation.”

  “That’s where I’m heading,” he said. “If you’re not met I can see you that far.”

  When Marcia and Laurie entered the waiting room there was still no sign of Jerome, but a Japanese stepped up to ask if their companion was Alan Cobb. Plainly surprised, he admitted his identity, and at once several reporters and a photographer surrounded him.

  He gave Marcia a look of mock despair and rolled his eyes heavenward. “I hardly expected this!”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll get to the hotel all right.”

  “He must be awfully famous,” Laurie murmured as they left him to his admirers and boarded the limousine.

  The Imperial Hotel was an indestructible landmark in Tokyo. No earthquake had ever managed to shake it down, and bombs and fire had also spared the low, sturdy stone structure.

  There was no message from Jerome waiting for Marcia at the desk. It appeared that once more the moment of reckoning had been pushed ahead and Marcia hardly knew whether to feel relieved or more anxious than ever. When the phone rang in midafternoon Alan Cobb’s voice answered hers.

  “Hi!” he said, cheerfully informal
. “Did that husband of yours show up?”

  “Not yet,” Marcia said. “I—I’m afraid there’s been some sort of mix-up.”

  “Japan’s the place for that,” he said lightly. “Can I help by getting your tickets to Kyoto when I get my own?”

  He could indeed, and by the time he hung up, it had been arranged that they would take the train to Kyoto together in the morning. Marcia was happy enough to have the details taken out of her hands.

  When she hung up the phone she thought of trying to call Jerome in Kyoto, then rejected the notion. He knew the time of their arrival. If he had wanted to meet them, if he had wanted to get in touch with her, he would have done so. And if she spoke with him and he told her flatly not to make the trip to Kyoto, what would she do then?

  She and Laurie might at least begin to enjoy Japan and the evening in Tokyo. They got into coats and galoshes and went out into the cold and muddy snow of the streets, equally fascinated by the shops and the Japanese crowds, though it was disappointing to find nearly everyone in westernized dress. Laurie even loved the excitement of noisy traffic that tore up and down the Ginza with a steady beeping of strident horns. From the doorway of a shop a radio blared one of the latest hit tunes from the States. Movie facades displayed the familiar face of Cary Grant and Gary Cooper, and neon lights shone brightly everywhere. At times it was hard to believe that they had really left the States.

  In fact, Marcia had no sense of being truly in Japan until the next morning, when she and Laurie were seated in the last car of the train to Kyoto, with Alan Cobb on the seat facing them.

  As the train left the dingy city environs behind and the snowy Japanese countryside began to slip past the train windows, a sense of delight filled her. Bare branches of cherry trees made a delicate black tracery against the snow-blanketed landscape, and green pine forests climbed the mountainsides. A sudden flash of vermilion from some shrine or torii gate, the tall clustered stalks of a bamboo grove—all these began at last to give her a feeling of having arrived in Japan. The train ran between sea and mountains and title views of each were like the scenes of all the Japanese prints she remembered.

  Once she spoke idly of the delegation that had met Alan at the airport the day before.

  “I didn’t expect a reception,” he said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to play up to the role they handed me. But how could I know someone in Japan would remember a book that was published years ago?”

  “What was the name of your book?” Marcia asked.

  Alan stared out the window at frozen paddy fields. He had a habit of lapsing oddly into silence at times and she felt that he did not want to answer her question. After an interval he skirted the subject somewhat carelessly.

  “It wasn’t a good book, really. It was written too soon. And it’s long out of print in the American edition. I don’t recommend it to anyone. I’m much more interested in the one I’m working on now. Maybe your husband can help me with that.”

  She glanced at him in surprise. “In what way?”

  “He may know something about my subject matter. I suppose my theme is recovery from disaster. Any sort of disaster dealt with in human terms. It’s not difficult to find material these days. Your husband was here after Hiroshima, as I recall. He may know stories, or even some of the people—” He broke off and smiled at her frankly. “The book’s an excuse to meet Jerome Talbot. Not just because the Brewsters asked me to look him up, either. I suppose I’m curious about him.”

  “Curious?” Marcia asked uneasily.

  He looked at her for a moment and then seemed to turn his back upon the subject. “Actually it’s none of my business,” he said. “What about lunch? Are you hungry, Laurie?”

  A little later they went into the dining car and had the company of a young Japanese businessman at their table. Alan struggled with the problem of giving their orders to a pretty waitress who spoke no English, and they laughed together over finding a cheese sandwich listed among the desserts.

  During the afternoon Alan amused Laurie with riddles and puzzles that led to frequent bursts of laughter. No, he had no children of his own, he told her at one point. He was not married, but he liked to borrow his friends’ children now and then just to keep his hand in with the young. Perhaps her mother would lend Laurie to him sometime in Kyoto, so they could go sight-seeing together.

  Marcia let all this flow past her and over her, lost in her own thoughts as she tried once more to plan the details of her first meeting with Jerome and exactly what she would say to him when they were alone. The trip seemed endless.

  Once she came out of her reverie to find Alan’s eyes resting upon her thoughtfully and knew that he had sensed her preoccupation and that he had deliberately taken Laurie off her hands so that she could be free to think about whatever was worrying her.

  In the late afternoon the train turned away from the sea toward a valley that lay between mist-shrouded mountains, and the journey was at an end. The loudspeaker announced Kyoto.

  “The university wrote that someone would meet my train,” Alan told Marcia. “If no one comes for you, you can get to your house all right, can’t you?”

  She felt suddenly unsure. “I—I don’t know. I mean if the cab driver doesn’t understand English—”

  “You’ll be all right,” he said almost curtly. “Just show him the written address. You’re not really scared, are you?”

  His tone pulled her up abruptly. He seemed to be pushing her away, as if he felt that it was time for her to stand on her own feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “We’ve been an awful nuisance to you. And of course we’ll manage on our own.”

  “I’m sure you will,” he said. “There’s no reason to expect anything but the greatest friendliness in Japan. Queer, isn’t it, when only a handful of years ago—”

  He left the sentence unfinished and she wondered if he had been in the war—perhaps in the Pacific, fighting against the Japanese. He turned away from her to put on his coat, and once more she had the feeling that this seemingly open-mannered man could suddenly close a door and leave her outside, smiling at nothing.

  The train rolled to a stop beside a long, sheltered platform. Tickets had to be shown at the exit gates, then at last the trip was over. This was Kyoto. Alan Cobb held out a casual hand to Marcia, accepted her thanks as though his mind were on other matters, and said, “I’ll be seeing you, Laurie.”

  Marcia stood in the station with the crowd thinning about her, feeling strangely abandoned. Alan Cobb’s presence had gone further to make things comfortable than she had fully realized. He had begun to seem like a friend and his sudden dismissal of them had come as a surprise.

  “I don’t see Daddy anywhere, do you?” Laurie asked, standing very close to her mother.

  “We really couldn’t expect to,” Marcia said. “He won’t know what train we’re arriving on.”

  Taxis, she found, came in assorted sizes and assorted prices. She picked a middle-sized one and discovered that the driver spoke not a word of English. He was cheerful and enormously eager to be helpful, but she felt uneasy as they got under way. She had read that Japanese addresses were apt to be vague, with neighborhoods rather than streets designated. But their driver sped his car along with the horn blaring and pedestrians fleeing their path in the gray, slippery snow of churned streets. The cold was raw and damp and the heater in the taxi seemed not to be working.

  In the murk of late afternoon Marcia could see little of Kyoto as they followed winding streets between Japanese houses, over bridges, along car tracks, beeping and blaring. She gripped Laurie by the arm and held her breath. Somehow the pedestrians always leaped in time, the other cars missed them by a hair’s breadth and they slowed at last to follow a narrow residential street with high bamboo fences on either side.

  The taxi stopped at a wooden gate that had come straight out of a Japanese print. It had a sloping tiled roof, so that one might stand under shelter, and its unpainted wood was weath
ered to a dark, grayish brown. In the background, beyond a space of garden, rose the eaves of a great spreading house. There were no lights in the upstairs windows and the first floor was hidden by the fence.

  A small bell hung inward from the gate, suspended by a strip of flexible metal. When the driver pounded on the wooden gate, the bell jangled urgently. At the sound Marcia could feel the quick, suffocating beat of her heart. Her hands were damp and she could not trust her voice. This was the moment—nearly.

  The gate opened and a Japanese man peered out at them. There was an exchange of bows and a lengthy discussion. He was a short, stocky individual with a vaguely unfriendly air about him. An ugly scar puckered the skin of his forehead from one black eyebrow to the hairline. He was not discourteous, but his manner showed little interest in the cab driver’s problem.

  The driver returned to the cab shaking his head. Beyond him the gate was about to close. Marcia opened the cab door and stepped hastily out into the snow of the narrow lane.

  “Wait!” she cried. “Please wait a moment!”

  The man paused with the gate half shut and stared at her blankly. In the dim light of a street lamp he looked stolid and far from encouraging. But this had to be the place. She knew nowhere else to go.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Talbot.” Her tone was almost beseeching now. “Mr. Jerome Talbot.”

  Still he looked at her blankly, without comprehension.

  “Talbot-san,” she repeated. “This house is home of Talbot-san?”

  A glimmer of recognition crossed his face. “Ah, so desu ka?” he said. “Tarbot-san. Not here.” And he gestured indifferently into the gloom.

  “Can you tell my driver?” she asked. “Where is house of Talbot-san?”

  “He’s my father!” Laurie called helpfully from the cab.