The Japanese Lantern

by Isobel Chace

  “You make me curious,” Edward said laughingly. ‘I had no idea she was crippled.”

  “There’s not much to tell. She has a rather malicious sense of humour, but one can’t help liking her.”

  Edward smiled.

  “Is that so? I hear she takes a great interest in Tate’s firm. Put a lot of money into it and that sort of thing. With reason too, I should say. Rumour has it that he’s found a new alloy that doesn’t ice up so easily.”

  “Is that a very important discovery?” Jonquil asked. It sounded somewhat disappointing to her.

  “Oh, very! It’ll save the aeroplane companies quite a bit, make it easier for them to take off in cold weather and so on.”

  “Then your firm would be interested too?” she asked him cautiously.

  Edward shrugged his shoulders casually.

  “I shouldn’t think so. I’m interested as a man, but my firm goes in for much smaller stuff than that. It leaves us much freer, not having to have such heavy equipment.”

  Jonquil wasn’t quite sure whether she believed him or not He certainly didn’t look the part of an unscrupulous trickster, trying to break up Jason’s firm and his career, but she knew very well that the two men didn’t like each other and so she couldn’t help wondering why Edward should go to such lengths to pretend an interest in some alloy or other, just as a man.

  “It all sounds very dull to me,” she said deliberately.

  He smiled at that.

  “I expect it does,” he admitted. “But if you should get to know anything at all about it, I should like to know. Think of all the air crashes it might save.”

  Jonquil thought he couldn’t possibly he a very big-time operator if he expected Jason to tell her anything about his discovery.

  Rather to her relief they talked about other things after that, until they had finished their excellent meal; then he summoned the waiter with a careless hand and rose to help her into the light coat she had brought with her.

  “It seems a pity to cover up that dress,” he said softly.

  Jonquil coloured a little.

  “Don’t you like the coat?” she asked.

  He smiled.

  “I’ll tell you later, when we’ve got to know each other better,” he said.

  Seated again in the car, Jonquil began to grow curious as to where he was taking her.

  “You promised me a slice of Japanese life,” she reminded him.

  “So I did. I thought we might go and take a look at a temple. The Himmonji temple, to be more exact.”

  He looked so exactly like a small boy with a treasured secret that Jonquil almost laughed. For the first time since she had arrived in Japan she had lost that feeling of confusion. Mitchi Boko might have scraped up an acquaintanceship with Jason, but Edward was obviously nothing more than an overgrown schoolboy, and great fun to be with!

  “It sounds exciting,” she said.

  “It might be,” he agreed, “if things go as well as I plan.”

  She looked up at him enquiringly.

  “Do you really want to know?” he asked, and then when she nodded: “I thought you were quite the prettiest girl I had ever seen in Manila—you may have noticed that I was practically flattened? And now that I’ve got you to myself for a little while, I don’t plan to waste a moment!”

  Jonquil felt uncomfortable. It was flattering, of course, that he should have gone to so much trouble for her entertainment, but she wasn’t really sure that she wanted him to think of her that way.

  “I—I—” she began.

  He smiled reassuringly.

  “I don’t expect much,” he said quickly. “I just wanted to put in an early claim. I shan’t mention it again, but just remember that I’m around, will you?”

  “Of course I shall!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Edward, I thought you were going to tell me about the temple, not—”

  He laughed.

  “You’re very sweet. I really believe that you would rather hear about the temple at that!”

  She blushed and made a deprecating movement with her hand, anxious not to hurt him,

  “The temple,” he began. “They’re celebrating—perhaps commemorating would be a better word —the death of Nichirin Shonin, the founder of the Nichirin sect of Buddhism.”

  “And that means—?”

  “A nice, pretty little festival for you and me to go and watch!”

  They laughed happily together, and Edward took her hand in his and held it loosely as he drove along. Jonquil would have liked to release herself at first, for she couldn’t believe that anyone could drive in Tokyo with only one, hand, but after a few minutes she got to like the sensation and found that she didn’t mind in the least when he took a slightly firmer grip.

  It had been dark some time, though it had not been so noticeable in “Downtown Tokyo”, as everyone seemed to refer to the area around the Ginza. But, further out, the streets seemed very dark and mysterious. An occasional street light would show up some narrow turning, down which who knew what lay? This was Tokyo proper that had hardly noticed the American occupation. The Tokyo that was still purely Japanese.

  Then before them was the temple, its outlines blurred against the black sky, the forecourt one mass of people carrying lanterns.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful!” Jonquil exclaimed.

  “We’ll go and take a look,” Edward promised.

  He managed to park the car and hurried her after him towards the thronging pilgrims. Little stalls along the way blazed with a myriad of tiny lights, most of them selling tourist objects or food, sweets and decorations for the lanterns.

  Jonquil’s eyes took in the scene with delight. Never had she seen so many human candlesticks. The lights flickered and blurred into each other until it seemed like a continuous river of light, fed by tributaries of yet more pilgrims as they arrived.

  One new group of women particularly caught her attention, for they were all in national costume, stepping carefully in their high wooden sandals. At first she was too busy looking at their beautiful clothes to notice their faces, but someone in the crowd lowered a lantern and the glow fell full on the face of one of the girls.

  “Edward, look! There’s Mitchi Boko!”

  She turned round quickly to make sure that he had heard her, but there was no one behind her. Somehow she must have been parted from him in the crowd. At first she thought that he too must have seen the Japanese girl and she pressed forward into the mass of people, trying to reach the spot where she had seen her. The pilgrims parted obligingly to let her through, but then they knitted together again and she was no longer sure exactly where she was aiming for.

  Then suddenly all around her everyone began to chant. Again and again they sang out the same words until she began to be afraid and they took on some fearful meaning for her.

  “Namu Myoho Renge Kyo! Namu Myoho Renge Kyo!”

  Someone smiled at her and thrust his lantern into her hands. It was square and mounted on a stick, with an umbrella-like decoration of flowers over it. She tried to thank him, but he had already disappeared.

  The chanting went on and on in the background. Breathlessly, she tried to make her way to one side of the forecourt. Then she thought she saw Edward and an instant later Mitchi Boko. Almost in tears she tried to get to them, but as soon as she reached the spot where she thought she had seen them, they had disappeared again.

  “Edward!” she called out, but her voice was lost amidst the chanting pilgrims.

  Hopelessly she looked about her, just as someone grabbed her by the arm and began to steer her out of the crowds. She tried to struggle, but there was no escape.

  “Hand me that mando!” a voice commanded her. “The lantern, Jonquil!”

  She gave it up reluctantly, knowing that it was Jason who had somehow appeared from nowhere to rescue her.

  “That’s better!” he said with satisfaction. “The car’s over on your right.”

  She allowed herself to be propelled towards it, becoming c
onscious of the ache in her arm where he held her.

  “Let me go,” she begged.

  He did so and she rubbed the tender spot resentfully. He held the light above her head and looked critically down at her.

  “You look about all in,” he said at last.

  “Well, I don’t feel it,” she said fiercely. “I was enjoying it all!”

  And then, quite suddenly, and much to her chagrin, she burst into tears.

  CHAPTER V

  Jason handed her a large, clean white handkerchief that she accepted with real gratitude.

  “I’m not crying,” she informed him, not really seeing the difference herself, “it’s just that I was frightened. They went on and on saying exactly the same thing! D-did you see Edward?”

  In the flickering light from the lantern she couldn’t see his eyes, but his face looked stern. , I “No,” he said sternly. “I did not see Edward.”

  Jonquil didn’t like to press the point. She reached out and took her lantern back from him. “Someone gave it to me,” she explained. “It’s pretty, isn't it?”

  “Very,” he agreed. “If you get into the car, I’ll take you home.”

  “But Edward—” she began to object.

  “Edward can see himself home. I’m not responsible for him and if he can’t look after you better he’s due for a bit of a fright!”

  Jonquil cast him a quick glance, but his face told her nothing.

  “I’m s-sorry to give you so much trouble,” she said coldly.

  He smiled at that.

  “That sounds much more like you,” he said with satisfaction. “Nice and polite, with a sting in its tail. Shall I put your mando in the boot, or are you going to nurse it?”

  Reluctantly she handed it over to him and watched him as he stowed it carefully away.

  “What were they saying?” she asked, sufficiently recovered to be curious.

  “Hail! The Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law!”

  “Oh!” She didn’t like to admit that she wasn’t very much wiser. “It was beautiful anyway.

  Jason gave her a slightly cynical look. “Yes, he was batting on a safe enough wicket taking you to the Oeshiki. I should imagine he’s pretty practised in that sort of thing. A little flattery, a pretty scene — and almost any girl. Don’t be taken in too easily, my sweet, you’ll find his type all over the East.”

  “And was that what brought you out this evening?” she asked stiffly.

  “That’s right,” he agreed.

  “Then you needn’t have bothered!” she told him with a spurt of anger. “Just because you happen to have decided that I’m young and—inexperienced, it doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of choosing my own escorts. Edward was extremely charming, if you want to know! And he didn’t put a foot wrong once!”

  “Meaning that you were half expecting him to?” Jason drawled maddeningly.

  “No!”

  “Then how come you lost him so easily? Are you sure you weren’t running away from him?”

  “So that’s what you think!” she exclaimed. “Well, it wasn’t like that at all. It was all my fault. I thought I saw Mitchi Boko in the crowd and I tried to get to her. It was I who lost Edward, not he who lost me.” In her anxiety to convince him she deliberately said nothing about her own feeling that he had already disappeared when she had turned to tell him that she had seen the Japanese girl.

  Unexpectedly Jason appeared to be quite willing to take her word for it.

  “I suppose you’d fly off the handle if I commended you for your good sense,” he commented dryly.

  In spite of herself she found herself smiling. “Probably,” she admitted.

  “Then I won’t,” he said disarmingly. “I’ll cry a truce for the drive home.”

  Tokyo never sleeps, but the streets were as quiet as they ever were as the big car purred its way past the many eating houses and the thousands of neon lights. The hundreds of banners that decorated the streets by day were transferred at night into so many coloured lanterns, mostly in the national colours of red and white, but occasionally with vivid splashes of green or blue. It made Jonquil think of fairyland. A land filled with little lights, some carried, others waving gently to and fro in the light breeze.

  Jason drove with confidence, taking the lesser known streets into his route to save time and to avoid the confusion of the late night traffic. Only once did he stop, and then it was apparently in the middle of nowhere.

  “Where are we?” Jonquil asked sleepily.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She blinked at him.

  “Not hungry exactly—”

  “But you could eat something?”

  She nodded, wondering that he should ask.

  He smiled at her, a little mysteriously, and just at the same moment, her ears caught the sound of a flute being played in the street. A thin, wavering note that came and went, without much tune, but with fleeting promises of beauty.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  But before he could answer a man trundling a barrow in front of him came round the corner, pausing every now and then to announce his progress on his tin flute.

  “The soba seller,” Jason told her. “He’s early tonight, for he does most of his business when all the other eating places, are closed. Do you want some?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jonquil agreed enthusiastically.

  She hurried after him out of the car and watched, fascinated, as the vendor served them with two helpings of noodles, piping hot and delicious. With a smile the man presented them with their bowls and two pairs of cheap wooden chopsticks that would be broken and thrown away when they had finished. Anxiously, he showed her how to hold them in the one hand and, to her surprise, she found that it was really quite simple, providing that one was content to take minute morsels at a time, rather than a proper mouthful.

  Some other people, all of them Japanese, joined them at the barrow, bowing to each other and to the two Europeans in their midst, whom they apparently accepted without any curiosity.

  At first Jonquil felt rather self-conscious, sure that they would notice and be amused by her timid efforts with the chopsticks, but she soon found that they paid her no attention at all, and by the end of the little meal she found that she was quite adept with the unaccustomed tools.

  “Hungry enough for a second bowl?” Jason asked.

  She was tempted, not because she wanted any more to eat but because she was reluctant to go. Her indecision must have shown, for he grinned and nodded to the vendor to give them two more helpings.

  “Arigato, thank you,” he murmured as he took the bowls. The soba seller bowed and, if possible, his smile broadened.

  “Dozo, dozo,” he replied. “Please, please.”

  But at last they had no further excuse for lingering and they went back to the car. It seemed no time at all after that that they drew up outside the Buckmasters’ house.

  “Here you are,” Jason smiled at her. You’d better get in before everyone begins to wonder where you’ve got to.”

  She nodded, suddenly a little shy of saying goodnight to him.

  “And don’t worry about Edward, I’ll let him know what happened to you.”

  Guiltily, she realized that she had forgotten all about Edward in her pleasure in the noodle vendor. She wondered what Jason would say to him and knew that she ought to refuse his offer and telephone Edward herself to explain what had happened. She must have shown what she was thinking on her face, for his hand came down on hers and he smiled at her quite gently.

  “Don’t worry so,” he told her. “I’ll put you in the clear with him.”

  If she hadn’t been so sleepy she might have argued with him, but he looked so solid and reliable that she didn’t like to.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “And thank you for bringing me home.”

  His eyes glinted at her.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said. “I promised Janet that I’d keep an eye on you, otherwise
I should have left you to your own or, more probably, Edward’s resources.”

  She flushed, only too awake now and ready to argue the point.

  “Go inside,” he told her, “and don’t forget to lock up.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I have to put the car away and I still have a visit to make. I have my key, so you won’t be shutting me out.”

  The car began to edge forward and she had the horrid feeling that she had been delaying him. She ran into the house without looking back and locked the door behind her with great deliberation. He was impossible! And yet it had been fun, stopping in the lantern-lit street and eating noodles with chopsticks. Impatiently, she turned away from her own thoughts, and slid off her high-heeled shoes, picking them up with one hand as she wandered down the corridor to her room.

  It was difficult to say exactly what warned her that there was someone in her room, but she was hardly surprised at all when she opened the door and found the electric light switched on. Quickly she glanced round and heard a faint movement behind the screen at one end.

  “Who is it?” she asked. She meant to speak quite normally, but it came out in a sudden whisper.

  “It’s me—Yoshiko.” She came round the screen smiling broadly. “Oh, Jonquil, I have scared you! I am so sorry!”

  Jonquil smiled back, rather weakly.

  “You certainly did,” she said with feeling. “I thought everyone was in bed.”

  “No.” Yoshiko shook her head. “I waited up for you. Did Edward give you a good time?”

  Jonquil hesitated.

  “Very good,” she said at last. “We went to some festival. It was very pretty. Someone gave me one of the lanterns.”

  “The Oeshiki? Oh, you were lucky, Jonquil. It is very pretty. I wish that we in Japan were as free as you Westerners. My mother never minded, but I—I want the best of both worlds.” She sighed. “I was looking at your photographs. I do hope that you don’t mind?”