The Moonflower

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  She got up and strode the length of the big chilly drawing room, then back again. Marcia watched her in silence.

  “Now that you’re here, what are you going to do?” Nan asked.

  “I’m going to stay,” Marcia said. “I want to stay until Jerome is ready to come home with me.”

  Nan whistled softly and then bent to run a forefinger along Marcia’s chin. “Hm! Alan’s right about you. There’s something to the way you set that small jaw. He said you had what it took to land on your feet.”

  “What does he know about me?” Marcia asked, feeling suddenly prickly. “Why should he discuss me with you?”

  “There’s no law about not discussing one’s friends,” Nan said mildly. “I suppose we all do it, so don’t ask to be excepted. In your case, we do it because you’ve somehow got under our skins and we don’t like to see you trampled on and hurt.”

  Marcia stiffened. “No one’s trampling on me. I think there’s something terribly wrong in Jerome’s life. Perhaps I’m the one who can help him. Sometimes I think he knows that—though he’d hate to admit it.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Nan opened her oversized leather handbag and took out cigarettes. Marcia refused the extended packet, but Nan lit one for herself, puffing absently.

  “This morning,” Marcia said, “I tried to phone Jerome at the laboratory. I couldn’t get an answer, and Sumie-san behaved in such an odd way about the call. As though she knew I wouldn’t find him there.”

  Nan shrugged. “He was probably out on some errand. Perhaps she knew about it.”

  “Then why didn’t she say so?”

  “You are getting jittery,” Nan said.

  Marcia brushed that aside. “Is he ever there? Does he do anything at all with his work any more?”

  “What you need,” said Nan calmly, “is a bit more social life than you get in this mausoleum. I’m planning a little dinner later on, after cherry blossom time. To honor publication of The Moonflower. Just a small party for Yamada-san and a few friends of Haruka Setsu.”

  It was clear that Nan did not mean to discuss Jerome’s absence from the laboratory.

  “Haruka Setsu?” Marcia asked.

  “The woman who wrote the poems,” Nan said, and it seemed to Marcia that a speculative look had come into her eyes. “You might tell Jerry what I’ve planned, since you’ll both be invited. I haven’t seen him for a week or so.”

  The need to talk to someone who was a friend surged up in Marcia. Today Nan seemed unexpectedly sympathetic and understanding. Marcia let her words come in a little rush.

  “Last night Jerry was angry with me because I refused to go back to the States, and he went out of the house and didn’t come home until very late at night.” She paused and caught her breath. “Nan, do you know where he goes?”

  Nan blew two smoke rings and followed their floating course with an absorbed interest before she spoke. “If you’re going to stay here, my girl, don’t ask questions. Just try to be what he wants you to be, and get him to go home with you. There’s a slim chance that he might. But not if you go excavating for old problems and troubles. There are some things he’d turn you out for—and make no mistake about it.”

  “But you could tell me,” Marcia persisted. “You know whatever there is to know. Don’t you?”

  The sympathy went out of Nan’s eyes and the muscles of her face seemed to tighten.

  “There’s one thing you might as well understand,” she said. “Jerry is an old friend of mine. He was a friend long before he married you. Whether you like it or not, I’ve been sorry for you. I’ve wanted to help you out. But my loyalties lie first of all with Jerry Talbot. What he wants you to know, he will tell you. So don’t come to me with your questions.”

  Bright color burned in Marcia’s cheeks at the rebuff, but her gaze did not leave Nan’s face. “Last night someone came through from the other side of the house into this part.”

  Nan’s hand halted in the act of flicking ash into a tray and the ash fell unheeded to the carpet. “Yes?” she said.

  “It was a woman in a white kimono carrying a lantern. She came into my room and stood beside my bed looking down at me.”

  “What happened then?” Nan asked. She turned away from Marcia’s look and ground out the cigarette with an almost angry gesture.

  “Nothing, really. I asked who she was and what she wanted. I don’t know whether she understood me or not. She said, ‘Gomen nasai,’ and went away.”

  “And did you see who it was?”

  Marcia had the feeling that Nan was waiting for some special answer, but she had no idea what it was. “The woman had a white drape over her head. It could have been Chiyo. But I don’t think so.”

  Nan seemed oddly relieved. She came back to Marcia and put her hands on her shoulders. “Listen to me. Don’t tell Jerome about this. Don’t mention that this woman came into the house. It will only make things more difficult.”

  “I’ve already told him,” Marcia said. “I was too frightened to lie there shivering after she left. I went to his room and told him right away.”

  “I see. And what did he say?”

  “That I’d dreamed the whole thing,” Marcia admitted.

  “Perhaps you did. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Marcia regarded her steadily. “You know it’s not. I won’t be frightened and confused like this. I won’t let Jerome make me doubt my own senses. Or you. There must be another woman besides Chiyo in the Minato household. I saw a woman in the garden once before and she stared at me in the strangest way until Minato-san took her inside. If there is another woman, you might as well tell me who she is.”

  Nan hesitated as if she sought for words, then, abruptly, she seemed to make up her mind. “I suppose there’s no harm in your knowing. She’s a penniless relative. Chiyo is wholeheartedly attached to her because of what they went through together during the war. They were bombed out of their home and lost not only all their possessions, but every other member of the family as well. Family ties are very strong in Japan, and Chiyo and this cousin—she’s about ten years older than Chiyo—are all there are left. Chiyo was young enough to make a recovery from the experience. The older girl grew more and more—well, melancholy. The whole thing is very sad.”

  “Is she dangerous?” Marcia asked. “Chiyo’s cousin, I mean?”

  “I—I don’t imagine so,” Nan said, but she sounded oddly uneasy.

  “Nan—will you tell me the truth about one thing? For Jerome’s own sake I need to know. Has he been having an affair with Chiyo Minato? Is that why Minato has a grudge against him? Is that why Jerome won’t put the family out of the house? Why he doesn’t want me here?”

  Nan looked abruptly at her watch. “Glory be! I’m already ten minutes late for my appointment. Got to run, girl. Thanks for the tea.”

  Marcia followed her to the door and Nan turned back for a moment as she stepped into her shoes. “I’ve told you where my loyalties lie. There are some questions you must see I can’t answer, or even discuss. You’d better save them for Jerry. But that’s one I wouldn’t ask him, if I were you.”

  She was off as breezily as she had come, and Marcia found that she had been left with more unanswered questions than ever. Was this “melancholy” cousin mad? Was insanity the answer to the mystery that seemed to shroud the house beyond the dividing wall? Why should everyone be so secretive about it?

  Jerome came home at dinner time as calmly as though he had never stamped out the house yesterday, or been away most of the night. He seemed quite cheerful, as if he had come to some conclusion, or made a decision. At dinner he once more bent his interested attention on Laurie and Marcia ached a little over the way the child held out her heart to him. One ought to be able to do that with confidence to any father, but Marcia had no faith in Jerome’s whims. He could hurt Laurie all the more if he took something of her love before he turned away from her in boredom.

  At the dinner table Marcia told him of Nan’s vi
sit and that a party was planned to celebrate the publication of Haruka Setsu’s book. Jerome turned a quick look of surprise upon her at the news, but he made no comment other than that he would talk to Nan about it.

  The matter of the phone call had continued to trouble Marcia and she saw no reason why she should not ask Jerome about it directly.

  “I tried to call you at the laboratory today,” she said casually. “But I suppose you were out at the time.”

  He made no effort to be evasive. “I’m more likely to be out than in. There’s not much use in trying to get me there.”

  “But weren’t you working there with some Japanese in the beginning? Isn’t anyone there these days?”

  “Only the spiders and mice,” Jerome said wryly. “And they can’t answer the telephone, or make the mess of things that the scientists have. My Japanese friends dropped out of the picture long ago. We decided to follow different roads.”

  “What road are you following?” Marcia asked.

  He regarded her coolly. “That, my dear, is my affair. I’m sure you will be happier here if you will stop behaving like Pandora.”

  Once more she had come up against a blank wall, with no way through and no way over.

  After dinner he suggested that Laurie come for a walk with him along the hill, and when she ran eagerly to get her coat, he spoke casually to Marcia.

  “Let’s say that you stay a month or so. Through the cherry blossoms, at least. Then we’ll re-examine the situation and see where we stand. Will you agree to that?”

  It was more than she had expected after last evening. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said quickly.

  He smiled at her. “All over the bad dream?” But before she could answer, Laurie came dashing back, stuffing her arms into the sleeves of her coat.

  “At least this will give me some chance to get acquainted with my daughter,” Jerome said, still smiling at Marcia disarmingly over the child’s head.

  They went out together and not even Laurie thought of inviting her mother to go along. Marcia tried to be pleased over this new interest in Laurie on Jerome’s part. It was foolish, she told herself, to feel uncomfortable about it, but she was worried about so many things concerning Jerome these days.

  The remark he had made about mice and spiders taking over the laboratory, his admission that he no longer went there regularly, continued to haunt her. This aspect made her worry more than a merely personal matter. Jerome Talbot had been a man to reckon with in the world of science. She had often heard him spoken of with respect by friends of her father and she was well aware of the larger picture he had once filled. Now, clearly by his own wish, he was being forgotten. Forgotten, not by reason of failure, but because of his own lack of willingness to contribute. At home there might have been some pressure put upon him, since the country could not afford the waste of a man like Jerome. Out here they could not reach him and perhaps they had given up trying.

  As the days ran along the camellias bloomed and faded and the trees unfurled the green banners of spring. The air was tinged with bright warmth and the time of the flowers was approaching. In her loneliness Marcia turned to the solace of burgeoning beauty and took Japan to her heart, as so many had done before her.

  Already, in the southernmost island of Kyushu, cherry blossoms were blooming, and the excitement of spring was moving slowly northward through the islands of Japan. There were days when it was possible to throw open doors and windows to the warmth, and in Japanese houses the sliding doors stood open to the gardens.

  In these days of early April Laurie seemed ecstatically alive. Jerome took her about with him often, and a closer relationship appeared to be growing between them. Yet it seemed to Marcia that there was a nervous eagerness about the child that was not altogether reassuring.

  One afternoon Marcia missed Laurie and received no answer when she called her. The child was in none of the downstairs rooms, nor was she out in the garden, and Marcia went upstairs for a glimpse next door, to see if she might be there. Instead, she found Laurie on an upstairs gallery.

  She sat curled in a corner, the sliding doors open beside her. Laurie, however, was wasting no time on the view. There were tears streaking her cheeks and she held something in her hands that seemed to give her cause for grief.

  “Is something the matter?” Marcia asked gently. “What’s troubling you?”

  When she saw her mother, Laurie jumped to her feet and put her hands behind her back. The tears dried on her cheeks and she looked almost defiant. Since rebellion had never been part of Laurie’s nature, Marcia was taken aback.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

  With a swift, explosive movement, Laurie took one hand from behind her back and hurled something far out into the side garden. The small dark object went sailing over shrubbery and through the trees, to drop out of sight on the far side of the garden. There was defiance in the way she faced her mother.

  “What was it you threw away?” Marcia asked, suppressing her own sense of alarm.

  “Nothing,” Laurie said and would not meet her eyes.

  Marcia held out a hand to her daughter. “Never mind, if you don’t want to tell me. But I can’t very well help you if you won’t tell me about it.”

  Laurie shook her head so vehemently that her braids flew over her shoulders. “There isn’t anything the matter,” she said and slipped away to run ahead downstairs.

  Laurie had escaped her as she had never done before, and Marcia tried to tell herself that this was no more than a sign of growing up, that all mothers had the same problem. But she remained troubled out of all reason, and that evening, when Laurie had gone for a walk with her father, Marcia searched the garden. But the shrubbery was thick and she found nothing that Laurie might have cast away.

  With the coming of spring, the delicacy and beauty of the garden revealed itself more and more, and as the days grew warmer Marcia began to take a special pleasure in sitting outside where she could read and savor the loveliness around her at the same time. No matter how troubled she might be, the garden always lifted her spirits and brought her a quiet happiness on its own account.

  There were no flower beds. What flowers there were would present themselves in season on bush and tree, but there was an appreciation evident for the individual object, whether wood, or stone, or growing thing. The small pine tree beside the stone lantern had been carefully trained to complete a picture. The stepping stones in a curving line that led from house to fishpond, had long ago been lovingly chosen for texture, shape and color. The arch of the little red lacquer bridge curving over the pond added to the pleasing sense of balance. Everywhere the green of grass and brown of earth were contrasted to the best possible effect and the whole had been created by an artist of his craft. Only the bamboo fence cutting obstinately through what had been intended as one property, was harshly out of keeping with the rest. But Marcia could turn her back on that and enjoy what remained of the picture. There was so much for an American to learn from Japan. Perhaps western ways were aiding Japan to get back on her feet, but Japanese ways would always enrich the foreigner.

  Both Sumie-san and Yasuko-san were delighted by Marcia’s pleasure in the garden and her willingness to savor its varied detail. They went out of their way to point out its individual beauties as it grew into spring, and Marcia enjoyed their interest. She was learning that Japanese servants were far more a part of the family than they were cook and maid. It was wise to thank them after each meal and show special appreciation for their efforts. They seemed genuinely happy to have her as a member of the family, once they were sure that she would not come between them and their loyalty to Jerome, or interfere with their little services to him. Laurie’s presence pleased them, and often Yasuko-san or Sumie-san would take her along on shopping trips. Laurie was quickly picking up words and phrases in Japanese, outstripping her mother in that respect. She could manage a bit of talk to Tomiko by now when the child came over to play.

&nb
sp; Marcia’s questions about the Minatos remained unanswered and she caught no further glimpses of the woman in white. Even Chiyo seemed to keep out of sight and there had been no opportunity for Marcia to break through the tantalizing barrier between the two houses.

  Then one day early in April, something happened which shed a new and surprising light on the family next door. Minato-san had brought home some tiny turtles for his children, and little Tomiko had given one of them to Laurie. On this particular morning the two girls were playing happily with their turtles near the edge of the fishpond, while Marcia sat on the veranda steps watching.

  In through the gate from the other house swaggered the boy, Taro. He was somewhat bigger and older than Laurie, and he had all the confidence of the young Japanese male in the presence of lowly females. For a few moments he stood watching the girls, making what were plainly teasing remarks in Japanese. Laurie looked up, smiling uncertainly, and he made a face at her. Then, with calm assurance, he leaned over his little sister, picked up her turtles and tossed them into the fishpond. Tomiko’s face puckered and tears came into her eyes. But when she tugged at Taro’s sleeve, pleading with him to recapture her pets, Taro thrust out his hand roughly and pushed her down on the grass.

  Tomiko burst into tears, but Laurie, always one to hate injustice and despise a bully, hurled herself suddenly into action. Taro had turned his back and was swaggering toward the gate, when Laurie went after him. She catapulted herself into the middle of his back with a force that knocked the wind out of the boy. He stumbled and she was upon him like a fury, pummeling and pushing, until he collapsed, alarmed by what was happening to him. When she had him face down Laurie sat herself astride his back and banged his head into the earth.

  “You’re mean!” Laurie shouted. “You’re just a mean old Japanese boy!”

  Marcia watched in mingled dismay and amusement. Taro was getting exactly what he deserved. But when he let out a yell of anguish, she supposed she must go to his rescue.