The Moonflower

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Several small ones paused in front of the bench where Nan and Marcia sat, and stared with wide, shoe-button eyes, their mouths slightly open. Nan spoke to them in Japanese and they smiled and came a few steps closer, more curious than shy.

  “We’d better go back to the car,” Nan said. “In no time we’ll have fifty kids standing around gaping at us. Makes a fellow self-conscious. They’re fascinated by our queer round eyes and big noses. Kyoto doesn’t get as many foreigners as Tokyo does.”

  The children followed them to the car and watched with continued interest as they got in. Marcia waved as they drove away and several of the children waved back before scattering happily about their business.

  “This humidity must be getting me down,” Nan said. “I don’t usually lose my patience like that. I’ll be glad to get off to Miyajima.”

  “You’re going away?” Marcia asked.

  “For a short vacation. Early in July I’ll go down to the island of Miyajima and loaf and feed my soul.”

  If she were still here, she would miss Nan, Marcia thought. The older woman’s presence in the house up the hill had been something to count on.

  “Well, here we are,” Nan said. “I’m afraid I haven’t helped you much today. But give me a little time to figure something out. And don’t do anything too suddenly, will you? We’ll get you away before it’s too late.”

  As she went into the house, Marcia thought over Nan’s somewhat ominous words. Was it too late already? Was she to be trapped here by a reign of terror on the part of a man who was beyond reason?

  Laurie was still playing in the garden with Tomiko, and Marcia went upstairs to the low comfortable chair she had placed on the veranda, the spot she found the most peaceful and pleasant in the house, now that the weather was warm. There she sat looking out over the garden and the rooftops of Kyoto. How strange to think of Nan’s being in love with Jerome long ago. Strange and sad. Had he known? she wondered. Certainly he seemed to count on Nan and take her friendship for granted, as he well might if he were aware of her old feeling for him.

  At what opposite poles were Jerome and Alan Cobb. She recalled the sight of the two of them together yesterday—that glimpse of light and dark. Thinking of Alan, she turned in her chair to admire the plant he had brought her, and saw that it was no longer on the veranda where she had left it. That was strange. Perhaps Sumie-san had seen it there, decided that it belonged elsewhere and carried it away.

  Marcia stepped to the rail and called to the children, playing by the fishpond. “Laurie, is Sumie-san in sight? I’d like to speak to her for a moment.”

  Before Laurie could answer, Sumie-san herself came out of the house and looked up at Marcia inquiringly.

  “Before I went out,” Marcia told her, “I brought the new plant upstairs. Have you seen it?”

  “Yu gao plant?” Sumie-san said and shook her head.

  “You didn’t move it from upstairs then?” Marcia asked.

  “No see, no take,” Sumie-san said, disclaiming all knowledge.

  Marcia let her go. There was no use asking Yasuko-san. The cook never came upstairs. And if Laurie had moved the plant, she would have admitted it by now. She was staring up at her mother with a bright, interested look.

  “Maybe the plant is what the lady from next door wanted when she came over,” Laurie said.

  “Lady from next door?”

  Laurie got up from her knees and came closer to the house. “Yes. The beautiful lady in the white kimono. A little while ago I looked up and she was standing right where you are now bending over the plant.” Laurie lowered her tone to a whisper. “She’s sort of spooky, isn’t she? I never really saw her good before. She’s so beautiful—like a lady out of a dream. Or like that lady in white in the picture in Daddy’s room.”

  Marcia listened, startled and chilled. “Then what happened?”

  “I don’t know. Tomiko wanted something and I went to help her. And when I looked back at the veranda the lady was gone. Like a ghost. I never heard a sound. She was just there, and then she was gone.”

  “And the plant?” Marcia asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t notice the plant after that.”

  “All right, dear. Thank you,” Marcia said.

  Laurie went back to her play and Marcia studied the veranda for a moment. The narrow gallery on this side led straight to the partition door to the other side of the house. Thoughtfully Marcia went over to it and grasped the knob. It turned quite easily in her hand and the door gave a crack as she pushed it.

  Someone had left the door between the two households unlocked.

  17.

  For just a moment the urge to fling the door open and look into the other half of the house was strong in Marcia. But she felt a little frightened as well. Nan had said gently that Madame Setsu was not quite sane. And Marcia had no desire to open a door into the presence of a madwoman. Certainly this door should not be left unlocked. Tonight she would have to ask Jerome about it and tell him what had happened.

  She said nothing at the dinner table before Laurie. Jerome ignored his wife, addressing himself only to Laurie, and as usual the child responded with the excitability her father all too easily aroused in her. When the meal was over and Laurie had gone outside to play in the soft dusk of the garden, Marcia stopped Jerome in the hallway to speak to him.

  “Something odd has happened,” she said. “Alan Cobb brought me a moonflower plant yesterday and this morning I put it on the veranda upstairs. Laurie says the Japanese woman from next door—Chiyo’s cousin—came through into our part of the house and was looking at it. When I went upstairs later this morning the door was unlocked and the plant gone.”

  Jerome reached into his pocket to take out a key chain with several keys on it and studied them. “I’ll look into the matter,” he said curtly.

  The next day when she went upstairs to sit on the veranda she found the door locked and all as it had been before, except for the missing plant. Even as she noted its absence she hoped the moonflower would give poor Madame Setsu pleasure.

  These were days of inner turmoil for Marcia. Before she fell asleep at night she tried to steel herself to take action the next day. In spite of Nan’s warning, she must make an effort of her own. She could at least get her plane tickets for the States, even if she set the date a little ahead. Then she would have time to convince Laurie that she had no choice but to go home with her mother. Yet every morning she awakened fearful of forcing the issue with Jerome and taking the actual step.

  So the days slipped one into another and the moment for action was pushed ahead. She had the feeling of being caught helplessly in a trap from which there was no escape.

  Then Alan phoned her one night when Jerome had gone out again—gone next door, in all probability.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday and it promises to be a fine day,” he said. “Would you and Laurie like to come on a picnic?”

  She accepted the invitation eagerly. Anything to get out of this house and away from her own treadmill of futility. Perhaps an afternoon in Alan’s company would clarify her thinking, strengthen her will to act.

  Laurie was getting ready for bed when Marcia returned to their room with news about the planned picnic.

  “I’ll ask Yasuko-san to fix us a nice lunch,” she told Laurie. “Mr. Cobb is coming for us around eleven. He says there are some wonderful temple grounds within walking distance of this house that he’d like to show us. Something different from Kiyomizu.”

  Laurie brightened at the word “picnic,” but when Marcia mentioned Alan’s name, the light went out of her face and she turned her back and went to stand before the empty fireplace. Marcia watched her uneasily.

  “Don’t you feel well?” she asked.

  “I feel all right,” Laurie said. Her eyes were upon the Japanese doll Alan had given her; the doll which still wore the demon mask Laurie had placed over its face.

  “You’ve always loved picnics,” Marcia said. “So what’s
the matter?”

  “It’s not the picnic.” Laurie would not look at her mother. “It’s that Mr. Cobb. Daddy doesn’t like him. He thinks that little mask is—” She broke off unhappily. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  So that was why Laurie had been crying over the mask that time, and had flung it away into the garden. Jerome had connected it in some sneering manner with Alan.

  Gently Marcia picked up the doll and removed the mask from its face. “There,” she said. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

  Laurie took the doll from her mother’s hands, studying its plump cheeks and slanted dark eyes, the lovable innocence of the round face that mirrored other young faces they had seen in Japan.

  “Why did you want it to wear the mask?” Marcia asked. “I think it’s much nicer without. Now it can be itself. Just the way Mr. Cobb can be himself, if you don’t go thinking up queer notions about masks.”

  Laurie didn’t answer. But she took the doll with her as she crawled into bed and set it against her pillow. Her expression was one of puzzlement and uncertainty.

  Marcia sat down on the bed and took Laurie’s hands into hers. “What is it that’s worrying you, darling? Won’t you tell me?”

  “Daddy doesn’t like Mr. Cobb,” Laurie repeated, studying the face of the little doll.

  “Your father hardly knows him,” Marcia said. “On the plane you liked Mr. Cobb a lot.”

  “I know.” Laurie’s brows drew down as she struggled with some inner problem. Then, as if, within herself, she took a step in a positive direction, the strain lifted from her face and she smiled at her mother. “I think the picnic will be fun,” she said.

  When Laurie was asleep, Marcia took the little mask and hid it beneath the handkerchiefs in her dresser drawer. She did not know the details of what had happened concerning that mask, or what poison Jerome had tried to plant in the child’s mind, but her instinct was to hide the mask and give Laurie time to forget it.

  On Sunday Jerome worked in his room and did not come out to greet Alan when he arrived. Marcia and Laurie were ready and they left quickly, with Yasuko-san’s generous lunch in a wicker basket that Alan and Laurie swung between them.

  Alan took them across a main highway and through a tunneled gateway in the hillside. Beyond the tunnel was another world of small houses, gardens, bamboo fences. The day was sunny and clear and the sweltering humidity had lifted.

  The temple buildings occupied a low stretch of ground in a pocket formed by two arms of the hills. At the main entrance a vendor sold refreshments and Alan bought a green cellophane bag of Japanese sembi, the tiny, salty crackers browned in soy sauce. Laurie had already become addicted to sembi and nibbled contentedly as they walked along. Marcia was relieved to find that her manner toward Alan seemed normal and friendly, as if the inner cloud had lifted completely.

  As always before, Marcia experienced a sense of relaxation in Alan’s company. His cheerful calm seemed to banish the miasma of fear and doubt that haunted her and befogged her path so that she could choose no road with confidence.

  Marcia looked about in delight as they entered the grounds. Tall cryptomerias with smooth, reddish bark lifted their great heads high in the air. These giant Japanese cedars were a match for the great buildings gathered toward the rear of the widespread area. They were simple, rather austere buildings, with sloping tiled roofs and carved eaves. Gray tile shone like silver amid green foliage and everywhere was the rustle of wind high in the trees, and the rushing sound of a stream nearby. Distant white walls marked the limits of the enclosure.

  “These buildings always seem to me more strongly masculine than Kiyomizu,” Alan said. “Kiyomizu is prettier, more delicate and feminine. But I like this best.”

  She felt the difference too. Beyond the first entrance rose a second gateway—massive and wide, with a dozen or more weathered brown columns of wood set in concrete. The great doors, with enormous bolts and hinges, stood open. It was a gate for a giant, towering several stories high, with two tiers of roofs and an upper gallery. Beyond the gate they could see a venerable Buddhist priest in a brown robe, leaning on a peeled staff as he tossed scraps of food to several little brown dogs. He paid no attention as Laurie ran ahead into the shadow of the great gate and jumped onto a doorsill that was at least two feet high.

  Alan and Marcia followed her more slowly.

  “I like this place because it’s always so peaceful,” Alan said. “The crowds don’t seem to throng here as they do to some of the temples. I come here whenever I want to be quiet and think.”

  To be quiet and think. Marcia breathed the pine-scented air deeply and let the tenseness flow out of her nerves and muscles.

  “This is a perfect place for a picnic right here in the gateway,” she said. “Do you suppose anyone will mind?”

  “They never seem to,” Alan said. “This isn’t the temple proper and the Japanese always use the grounds of a temple as if it were a public park.”

  They sat down on the high doorsill at the base of a treelike column, enjoying the breeze that blew through the gateway. Azaleas were at their last flowering and the low bushes were all about, flaming with bright color.

  In many ways she would miss Japan, Marcia thought. It had given her so much of loveliness and new experience. If only she could have seen it at a happier time.

  When they unpacked the lunch, Laurie ate her sandwiches with a greater relish than she had shown for a long while. Once the upheaval, the wrench of taking her away from her father had been made, perhaps she would become her normal happy self again. There was a risk involved of course, but it was a risk Marcia felt she must take.

  Laurie finished her lunch and was at once eager to explore. When she wandered off through the cryptomerias, Alan turned to Marcia.

  “I’ve discovered where your husband goes when he’s not at the laboratory,” he said.

  “Yes?” Marcia was suddenly tense.

  “He’s doing something completely out of his own line—research in a Japanese medical center. Some sort of work in medical chemistry.” Alan’s voice hardened. “The sort of work a thousand other men are better fitted to do.”

  “But—but why?” Marcia whispered. “Why, with all his background and experience in—”

  “I don’t know,” Alan said. “My purpose wasn’t to spy on him, and I hadn’t the knowledge of Japanese to get the full answer. Ogawa speaks English. If I see him again, I’ll ask for details.” He was silent for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Then he said, “Nan has told me about the problem that’s facing you.”

  She felt only relief. “I’m glad you know.”

  “Nan says she’s afraid of what Talbot might do if he’s pushed too far, but you can’t stay on in that house and let things grow gradually worse. I worry about you. I think about you quite a lot.”

  She thought of him too, she realized. He stood for someone to be counted on in her troubled world, but more than that, someone increasingly dear. It was good to be here with him now in this ancient temple gateway, removed for a little while from the fear that haunted her days.

  For a moment she did not want to hurry ahead toward something new, but only to hold to this quiet contentment of being with Alan, of not asking anything more. But nothing ever stood still and the moment was fragile. A word, a touch of his hand would shatter it. She was like a woman wakening in a strange country, not yet sure of herself, or of what the new land would bring into her life. She must be quiet for a little while so that she could become accustomed to change and be able to face it with purpose and courage. There was portent here, but the grip of the past was too fiercely upon her and she dared not look toward the future.

  She leaned her head back against a wooden pillar and closed her eyes. “Talk to me, please. Don’t let me think about myself. Then perhaps when I go back everything will seem clearer and I can do what must be done.”

  “What shall I talk about?” Alan asked.

  She kept her eyes closed. “Tel
l me about you. Tell me about Santo Tomas.”

  For a little while he was silent. She lifted her face to the breeze and listened to the peaceful sound of rushing water and of the wind in the great cryptomerias. If he chose to tell her, he would. If he did not, it wouldn’t matter.

  “Santo Tomas?” Alan said at last. “It was a university, you know. And is again. But it was only meant for a day university, so there were no dormitories. We were jammed into a forty acre area that was never meant to house four thousand internees.”

  “What did you hate most about being there?” Marcia asked, her eyes still closed. “Aside from having your liberty taken away, of course.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “I think I missed privacy more than anything else. We were so crowded in upon one another. Of course we thought about food all the time as our supplies went down. Everyone was hungry. A good part of the time we lived on smuggling from friendly Filipinos outside who helped us at the risk of their lives.”

  “Did you know what was going on in the world outside?”

  Now she watched his face as he spoke of those years from which he must have thought he might never emerge.

  “The garbage truck was our source of information.” He smiled faintly. “It smuggled in our news reports every day. And there was a fellow who’d been a radio commentator in Manila who kept us posted by the records he played over the public address system in the prison. The Japs had a system for speaking to us whenever they wished and he operated it for them. The day of the Luzon landing he played ‘Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here!’ and the Japs never understood how we knew.”

  Marcia could feel the tightening in her throat, but she said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

  “It wasn’t all bad. Nothing ever is. We could watch the sunsets over Manila Bay. And some of the internees used to hold gospel meetings in a patio. There was a serenity about those that helped us. We made a few good friends, of course.”