And indeed, they were. When Kojiro informed his parents he was marrying Libby Comerford, his father threatened to disown him. How could his son — so intelligent and successful — want to marry a gaijin? It was one thing to be infatuated with a beautiful foreigner but marry her? Never.
Kojiro admitted he didn’t know anything about Libby’s family. Most Americans couldn’t trace their lineage back more than two or three generations. No telling what undesirable forefather or tainted blood lurked in her ancestry.
Kojiro was his parent’s favorite. Perhaps because he was so small and frail when he was born they had been too lenient with him when he was growing up. He had such winning ways and pleasing looks and keen mind, Yoshida-san often wished Kojiro was the first born son. The elder brother wasn’t half the man Kojiro was, but at least he had had the sense to marry a respectable Japanese girl.
“What will their children look like?” His wife wept. The thought of grandchildren who were neither one thing or another was too appalling to contemplate.
“I think she will be too busy to have a family,” he said. “I don’t believe you can fly fighters and have babies. Even in the American Air Force.”
“Oh, oh, oh. What will I say to my friends? How can I tell them Kojiro’s wife flies jet airplanes like a man? I won’t even be able to talk to her!”
“She’s studying Japanese. Kojiro said she was a very diligent student. And General Sato has given his blessing to the marriage. It seems the general knows the young woman and is very fond of her.” But nothing her husband said, could allay the horror of having a foreign daughter-in-law. Mrs. Yoshida had enough trouble with her Japanese daughter-in-law, the prospect of having an American one was mind-boggling.
In fact, General Sato had been as surprised, and as skeptical, as just about everyone else on the base, American as well as Japanese, when Kojiro told him his plans. He was so shocked by his aide’s unconventional choice of bride he conferred with Colonel Long, in the hope that Libby’s commanding officer could prevent the marriage. Colonel Long assured him he had tried to discourage the romance but he could not legally intervene to avert it.
When General Sato told his wife, who he expected to be appalled by the news, she smiled and nodded her head.
“Oh, I knew they were very attracted to each other,” she said.
“But you only saw them together once. At the garden party! They hardly said two words to one another. And you don’t understand English.”
“Ah, but it was not what they said that I observed, it was the way they looked at one another. Major Yoshida could not keep his eyes off her and she kept smiling at him. It was not the same polite smile that she gave to you or to me, or to our other guests. It was the loving smile a woman gives to a man who has touched her heart.”
“I don’t believe it,” the general grumbled.
“I’m very happy for them,” Mrs. Sato said. “And I would be honored to attend the wedding. If I am invited, of course, and if you approve.”
General Sato patted his wife’s hand. “You’ll have your invitation,” he said. And then: “I suppose I’ll have to write a new wedding speech for Major Yoshida about how this marriage symbolizes the strong friendship and trust that exists between the Americans and Japanese at Misawa.”
“It will have to be in English,” his wife reminded him gently.
“I’ll make it short,” he grinned.
Kojiro’s friends in the squadron couldn’t believe it when he told them who he was marrying. They thought it was some kind of joke. Kojiro and the gorgeous American F-16 driver? Getting married? You looked at pictures of women like that and fantasized about the size of their breasts. You didn’t marry them. They weren’t real.
Libby’s cohorts were as incredulous as the Japanese when they heard about the engagement — for different reasons. Major Petrowski made a few lewd remarks about Asian men — behind the Colonel’s back — but his fellow pilots were not amused. They might not wholeheartedly approve of Libby’s fiancé but they respected her too much to impugn her judgment. Perhaps most surprisingly to Libby, a message arrived in her Gmail from Charlie, wishing her well. Libby had smiled when she read it.
But the obstacles, either real or imagined, that lay ahead did not impede the happiness of Kojiro and Libby. They spent as much of their free time together as possible. When Kojiro wasn’t busy attending to the general’s affairs, he was with Libby. They rented a restored merchant’s house in the town, a beautiful wooden home built in the late eighteen-hundreds with rice mat tatami floors and a sunken kotatsu table where they shared the meals Libby cooked, Japanese cuisine one night, American the next.
His colleagues accused him of forsaking his old friends, of becoming “Americanized.” “You’ll get tired of spending all your evenings with a woman, once the novelty has worn off,” they warned. “Your wife will expect you home after work to help clean the house and cook the dinner. American women won’t let their husbands out of their sight.” But Kojiro ignored them. If they had someone as beautiful and loving and exciting as Libby waiting for them at the end of the day … .
The major and his American wife were familiar figures in Hiroshi Takamatzu’s restaurant. If they were alone, they always requested the secluded alcove in the back — for sentimental reasons. They sat close together and held hands under the table and marveled at how quickly the first year of their marriage had gone by. Why, it seemed like only yesterday that they had repeated their vows to the base chaplain and exchanged the prescribed three cups of sake before the Shinto priest, and been feted by friends and relatives at the reception in Hachinohe.
Considering their respective parents’ reservations about the nuptials, things had gone quite smoothly. The Comerfords were quiet and cordial, the Yoshidas polite and reserved. Both mothers wept. The two fathers stood in dignified silence, their emotions held in check by pride.
The reception, an amalgam of Japanese and American customs, left the guests a little bewildered. The Americans were bored by the interminable speeches read in fractured English by Kojiro’s colleagues, the Japanese appalled at the informality. The only person oblivious to the tension in the room was General Sato. The general — being party to the romance from the day of its inception — was busy regaling anyone who would listen about the considerable merits of the bride and groom. His speech, which was mercifully short, began with a humorous description of the look on Major Yoshida’s face when Captain Comerford walked into the Samurai Squadron in a flight suit and sat down with Colonel Long to brief the mission.
Libby and Kojiro, who couldn’t believe that their marriage had really come to pass, were anxious for all the festivities to end so they could get on with their busy lives. They had so much to learn about one another. And neither knew what to expect in their new role of husband or wife. What would a red-blooded American male do after the first fight? How did Japanese couples make decisions about money? The only certainty was that they would have to compromise, and accommodate, and forgive, and love each other in large measure, in order to make their marriage succeed.
Loving was the easy part. Forgiving one another, overlooking little faults or unfamiliar patterns of behavior, was more difficult; but because they never lost sight of that love, their first year of marriage had been generally free of strife. Their most pressing problem was finding time to be together, as their schedules often conflicted and one or the other was away on temporary duty — Libby on exercises in Korea, Kojiro traveling with General Sato.
When they were on the road, the general teased the major remorselessly about pining away for his wife, but duty was duty and Libby, as a military officer, was more sympathetic on that score than most wives generally were.
The frequent separations made the time they spent together infinitely precious and they always came together with a renewed sense of awe and excitement and love.
Takam
atzu lumbered over to their table to chat. He had to be a little more circumspect in his conversation than in the past, for Libby’s Japanese was improving at an alarming rate.
“For a gaijin, your wife has a very nimble tongue,” he said to Kojiro. “Pretty soon, she’ll be speaking better Japanese than you or I.”
“She studies very hard,” Kojiro said. It was unseemly for a husband to boast about his wife’s accomplishments, but it was true that Libby had made such significant progress in the difficult language during the past year that even his mother was forced to comment on it.
“Intelligent as well as beautiful. You are a lucky man, Major Yoshida.” Takamatzu turned to look at Libby and said: “It looks like married life agrees with her. She looks radiant this evening, Major Yoshida.”
Kojiro glanced over at Libby as if to confirm Takamatzu’s compliment. He did not want to let on in public, after over a year of married life, that he was still so enthralled by her beauty or so passionately in love. But his famous host was right, with her golden hair and luminous complexion, Libby set the room alight with her loveliness. Humility vied with fierce pride when he looked at her, and he had to bow his head, lest his face reveal his emotions.
“Eat up, Major Yoshida,” Takamatzu grinned. “If you want to keep that smile on your wife’s face, you need special nourishment.”
By the time they left the restaurant, it was dark, and with the exception of the bars and a few restaurants and a Kentucky Fried Chicken take-away on the corner, the town was closed up for the night. Libby linked arms with Kojiro and steered him in the direction of the little shrine where they had taken refuge that fateful night.
In the moonlight, they could just make out the two stone figures standing side by side on the altar. Someone had been there before them. There was an offering of fruit and vegetables and a few coins, on the votive tray.
Kojiro, emboldened by memories and the suggestive nature of the dosojin, stole his arms around Libby’s shoulders. She was wearing the pearls he had given her at the ryokan in the mountains. He had returned them to her on their wedding night.
The pearls, nestled between her breasts, felt as smooth and warm as her flesh. Kojiro twisted the long strand around his fingers.
Libby turned and put her arms around his neck. Beneath the linen skirt, he could feel the taut contour of her belly and hips pressing insistently against him.
“Do you think the dosojin will ever be satisfied?” She murmured in a husky voice.
Kojiro, glancing over her shoulder at the carved figures presiding over the deserted intersection, smiled. Then fumbling in his coin purse for some change to leave on the votive tray, took Libby by the hand and led her to the car.
Weather along the coast was unpredictable and in the intervening hours Kojiro and Libby had spent in the restaurant the countryside had been blanketed by a dense, wet fog. Driving was treacherous on the narrow, two-lane road, and Kojiro drove cautiously, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Familiar landmarks and road signs were obscured in the gloom so that they had driven several miles past the turn off for Misawa before Kojiro realized his mistake.
“It will take another hour to get home, at this rate,” He muttered under his breath. Kojiro was leaving in the morning for two weeks in Okinawa and he wanted to spend what was left of the evening making love to his wife, not hunched over the steering wheel trying to avoid running off the road into the drainage ditch.
Up ahead, a replica of the Alamo, the distinctive silhouette illuminated by strings of blinking lights, appeared brazenly in the darkness.
“You wouldn’t think a love hotel would get much business on a night like this,” Libby remarked.
“Love hotels are always busy,” Kojiro said with a scowl. He didn’t like the blatant reminder of what he was missing because of the exasperating weather. He had no idea where he was or how far he had driven past the sign for Misawa.
Braking sharply, he steered under the portals of the love hotel in order to turn around. The interior of the car was suddenly flooded with florid light from the pulsing heart on the archway overhead.
Kojiro growled something in Japanese as he slammed the gear shift into reverse and started to back on to the road.
“Wait. Kojiro?” Libby put her hand lightly on his arm. “If you want to … .”
“Want to, what?” He was in no mood to be teased by his wife about love hotels. Any mention of them, inevitably reminded him of their disastrous first date.
“Well?”
Libby glanced over at Kojiro out of the corner of her eye. His smooth cheeks were mottled with color, out of frustration or embarrassment. “We could stop here. For a little while. If you want to. Stay. For a little while.”
Kojiro swallowed. “I thought you hated love hotels. You said they were sleazy. I remember the exact word,” he said smugly, “because I had to look it up in the dictionary.”
“They are sleazy,” she said laughing. “Imagine coming upon the famous Alamo in the middle of a rice paddy on a back road in Northern Japan. It’s preposterous. It’s wonderful. And,” she added mischievously, “it’s convenient.”
He nodded. “It is.”
Kojiro was right. Business was thriving at the Alamo in spite of its remote location. Every garage but one was filled.
“We’re in luck,” he said brusquely. Although he could hardly contain his impatience to be alone with Libby, he thought it undignified for a married man to appear too eager to make love to his wife.
To someone who had grown up in a society where custom and conformity discouraged improvisation, Libby’s spontaneity was liberating. But Kojiro was not sure he would ever get used to it. When they were as old and established a married couple as his parents, he was confident she would still be doing things to surprise and excite and infuriate him.
“A cultural experience,” Libby said, marveling at the gimcrack replica of the Texas shrine.
“I thought you’d had your fill of cultural experiences after spending New Year’s with my family,” he chided as they made their way across the parking lot to the hotel.
“Not yet, Major Yoshida,” she laughed.
“Sh, sh. Someone might hear you. Love hotels thrive on our crowded islands because of their patrons’ discretion and respect for privacy. In Japan … .”
“They thrive because of their patrons’ lust,” she whispered.
Kojiro reached for her hand. “Ah, that too.”
The hourly rate for the room, named after one of the doomed heroes of the Alamo, Davy Crocket, was posted on the door. Kojiro stuffed two hours’ worth of yen into the remittance box and opened the door.
Having had occasion to visit such establishments in the past, Kojiro was neither surprised or embarrassed by the fanciful surroundings; but Libby evidently was, and from the expression on her face, looked as if she might be having second thoughts about a tryst in the love hotel. Perhaps the décor was a bit overdone, he mused. There were a lot of cowhides and Texas flags and Mexican sombreros adorning the walls — and a lot of mirrors. But that was all part of the fun.
Kojiro never ceased to be amazed at the inconsequential things foreigners found shocking or offensive in Japan — ordinary things the Japanese took for granted, like unisex toilets and arranged marriages. And love hotels. Americans were by far the most critical, he thought, eyeing his American wife apprehensively.
Kojiro put his hand on her waist, nudged Libby into the room and locked the door.
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you? I’d be very disappointed,” he added, steering her toward the king-size bed with its fringed canopy and red, white, and blue quilt.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Libby said as she tossed the coverlet aside and sank down on the starched sheets.
Her skirt was hiked up above her knees, her blouse stretched taut across
her breasts. Kojiro could see the configuration of her bra and barely perceptible swell of her nipples straining beneath the smooth silk.
“Do you always sleep in your clothes?” He asked, a boyish grin spreading over his face.
“Who said anything about sleeping? We don’t have time to sleep; you only paid for two hours.”
“Then we better not waste any more time.”
Afterwards, they sat up in bed and shared a can of iced tea and a package of sesame crackers. Kojiro experimented with the switches on the panel by the headboard and the mattress tilted and vibrated, and the lights pulsed.
Libby giggled in embarrassment as the tempo of the vibrations increased. “How much time do we have left?” She asked worriedly. It was impossible to gage how much time had passed since they rented the room. Twenty minutes? An hour?
“How do you know when your two hours are up? Does an alarm go off or does someone come and knock on the door and order you to get dressed?”
Kojiro glanced at his watch on the bedside table. “Ah, just enough time to do it again,” he said in mock earnestness. “If we hurry.”
“Hmm, yes,” Libby sighed. “We want to be sure and get our money’s worth.”
“You’ve become a very frugal Japanese housewife,” he murmured, as he pulled her on top of him. “It won’t be long before you are … ”
“And you’ve become very talkative for a Japanese man,” she interrupted.
The fog had lifted by the time Kojiro and Libby ventured out of the room and the sky was studded with stars. After the exertions of the past two hours, they were both subdued and a little shy, as they traversed the parking lot, hand in hand.
Libby smiled at Kojiro. “I was just thinking about the night you took me to the love hotel in Hachinohe. I was so angry I never wanted to see you again. And now, despite all the odds against us, we’re a respectable married couple and I’m so hopelessly in love with you, and so happy when you hold me in your arms and we make love … .
Heart to Heart Page 94
