Hidden Flower

by Pearl S. Buck

  “Not his pride,” her mother replied in the same stifled voice. “It was his love that was wounded. This was why he wanted to leave America. His wounded love—yes, he loved America, and when they turned on him, as—as once the American girl did also—it was all the same wounded love, beginning when he was young and growing until in the end he left his country. America was his country.”

  “Oh, Mother, Mother,” Josui whispered. She did not know how to comfort her mother.

  “It is natural for you to love the American,” her mother went on. “And so you must marry him. It is not right for you to marry Kobori. You must do what your father never could do, and you must go back to America. It is I who belong here in Japan—only I. And so I will help you.”

  For the first time in their lives the two women embraced each other and clung together weeping.

  In the morning Dr. Sakai rose, exhausted and grim. His wife, who he had supposed always was what she seemed, a simple and obedient woman, had in the night shown him an entirely different creature. She had taken the side of Josui against him and with much injustice she had declared that he was the cause of this desertion. By some twisted sense she said that because he had not been able to marry the American woman whom he had loved as a young and ignorant man, Josui should now marry an American.

  In the middle of the night and for hours he had argued with her. “I tell you, Hariko, I am glad indeed that fate kept me from such a marriage. What would have happened to me when they wanted to put me into the concentration camp? I suppose I would have had children. Where would they have gone? Also into the camp? I could scarcely have brought children of mixed blood here to Japan. You know how they feel here about such persons. These would have been children of no country, exiles in the world. No, I am glad that I was shaken from such folly. I will try to save our daughter, also.”

  His wife had then made a wholly inexplicable declaration. “And I will save Kobori Matsui! I will save a good young Japanese man from marrying someone who is in love with an American! Josui shall not be his wife. I will go and tell him so, if you do not.”

  He had never dreamed that this quiet creature who had lived at his side for so many years could have concealed such rebellion, such determination. Because he had never so seen her he was afraid of her desperation. He knew the dark strain in their race, the easy transition from despair to suicide. For a Japanese there was a wide and ready bridge between life and death. It took too little hesitation for that brief journey. In her stubborn instinctive unenlightened way, his wife had mistaken completely the purpose of his revelation yesterday. She put into it a meaning wholly different from his own, a personal, female meaning, and he knew he could never dissuade her. It was quite possible that she would go to Mr. Matsui herself, or to Kobori, and if he forbade it or took physical means of preventing her leaving the house she would take her own life in protest.

  So in the morning he got groaning out of bed and decided in his heart that his sole hope lay in his daughter, who at least was an educated person.

  Then Josui was nowhere to be found. It was late, nearly noon, when he felt well enough to rise, and she had been gone, Yumi said, since ten o’clock. Yumi served his midday breakfast in portentous silence, knowing the disturbance in the house. When he asked where her mistress was, for she had got up early, Yumi replied that she was busy this morning making a fresh supply of cho-yu. Mrs. Sakai refused to buy this essential soy sauce, preferring to do as they had done on the farm, that is, to buy the best of soy beans and set them to the necessary process of aging and fermentation. At this task she did not like to be disturbed. There was no rest to be found in the house as it was, and he decided that he would go to the hospital and to work.

  “Did your young mistress say where she was going?” he asked Yumi as she fetched his hat and stick.

  “She said she was going to find some books at the college.”

  This was a lie. Josui had gone out without telling anyone where she was going. Seeing her master’s yellow face, however, Yumi felt the lie a kindness. He went away without speaking again.

  Josui at that moment was talking with Kobori. She had slept little but lying quietly in bed she had allowed the hours of the night to pass and by morning her determination was crystal. The sooner she saw Kobori the better. Above all, she wished it to be before she met her father again. She wanted to say, “Father, it is finished. Under the circumstances Kobori does not want to marry me. There is no going back.”

  When she had said this to her father, she would then write a letter to Allen, telling him the same news, though in different words. She would say to him that she was ready. He must tell her where to go to him.

  After her mind was clear and her spirit calm she slept. It was still early when she waked and she had risen, washed herself, and put on a dark-blue silk dress in which she felt she did not look attractive. She combed her hair plainly and did not wear rouge or redden her lips. She ate the food that Yumi served and left the house without seeing even her mother.

  She knew from Kobori’s own description of his day’s work that he reached his office late and so she walked into a park and then sat for a while on a bench beside a small lake. A few early chrysanthemums were already blooming in the beds and the goldfish were lively. There was a new coolness in the air. The heat was over at last. Sitting alone in such finality of stillness, she could feel the cessation of growth, the subsidence in the earth, the sinking into sleep. Some part of her own life, too, had ended, indeed, her first youth, her girlhood. She had chosen her fate as a woman. Had she been timid or fearful in disposition, she might have been afraid of her present solitude, but she was neither timid nor fearful. She felt in herself an immense strength, a capacity to cope with whatever came. Her natural fearlessness gave her the capacity, too, for faith, and not only in herself but in anyone whom she chose to trust, and she trusted Allen wholly. The world was changing and together they could deal with whatever came to them.

  A little before noon she rose and walked toward the main street of the city to a tall modern building where the Matsui offices were. The elevator carried her to the sixth floor and there opened to admit her to the entrance of Matsui House. A young Japanese in a western business suit came forward.

  “May I help you?” he inquired in English.

  She replied also in English. “Please tell Mr. Kobori Matsui that Miss Sakai wishes to speak with him for a few minutes.”

  Had she answered in Japanese it is doubtful whether she would have been admitted so quickly. As it was, he left her at once and then she saw Kobori himself, looking very clean and pleasant in a western suit of gray flannel. He came to her with just the right shade of warmth and welcome. They bowed without touching hands.

  “Come in, please,” Kobori said.

  “I am afraid you are very busy,” Josui said in Japanese.

  “I am never very busy,” Kobori said with a slight smile. “Shall I call my secretary?”

  This he said, not knowing whether she might dislike to be seen to enter his office alone with him.

  “Please, no,” Josui said.

  He led the way then into his office and left the door a little open.

  “Please sit down,” he said and moved for her a comfortable western chair. The room itself was large and all the furniture was heavy. The white walls were bare except for a pair of fine scrolls behind his desk.

  He did not sit there. Instead he took a chair like hers and so they sat as though they were in a living room, perhaps in the Matsui house, where there were both Japanese and western living rooms. Thus facing him Josui felt a deep unhappiness that she was here with such cruel purpose. He sat there, a big kind man, his smooth pale oval face smiling, his brown eyes beaming at her. She could see his simple trust in her, his pleasure at their relationship, his complete faith in his own good fortune. It was easy to perceive that he had never known disappointment or pain, the well-loved son of a rich man and heir to all his father had. How pleasant his love could have been
had she never met Allen!

  Then she reproached herself. How could it have been pleasant? The height of life was love and she could never have known love had she simply married Kobori.

  She leaned forward, holding her leather handbag with both hands. “Kobori, I am come to do a strange cruel thing. It is difficult.”

  He sat quite motionless. “You need not be afraid of me, Josui.”

  She dealt the blow. “I cannot marry you, Kobori.”

  He looked at her, still motionless, waiting. Oh, she thought, he is going to feel this too much!

  “I take the blame on myself,” she said swiftly. “I should never have promised. That was my fault. I knew what I hid in my own heart. But I thought it was dead. Now, without the slightest expectation on my part, and even without my wish, it has come to life.”

  He spoke carefully, and even dryly. “Will you express yourself concretely?”

  She looked at the handbag. “Last spring I met an American. We soon discovered that we loved each other. We decided against our love, and he went away. I thought I could forget this experience, but yesterday he came back. He, too, was compelled. We know now that we cannot forget. It would be an injustice to you to conceal the truth.”

  He wet his pale lips. “Thank you for telling me,” he said.

  She waited for him to go on and could not look at him while he delayed. But there seemed nothing more for him to say.

  “How do your parents feel?” he asked at last.

  “They do not approve,” she replied, “but my mother feels as I do—that I must do what I am doing. My father is only angry. He does not suggest anything constructive. He hates America, as you know. It is dreadful to him that I should return there.”

  “But you love America,” he mused. “I have always known that you do. I planned that I would take you there sometime for a holiday. We do business with American firms, and will do more when the Occupation is over. I planned that we might stay several months in California, perhaps.” He leaned forward suddenly and hid his face in his hands.

  “I am very sorry, so sorry,” she muttered.

  “Yes,” he said behind his hands, “well, it cannot be helped. It is honorable of you to come and tell me yourself. Of course, for some time I must—collect my thoughts.”

  “I hope you will find someone else,” she said and knew how foolish this was.

  “I cannot think of that,” he said. He took his hands away and she was relieved to see that he was not weeping, although he gazed at her with sad and loving eyes. “I suppose we shall not meet again alone, Josui?”

  “There will not be need, I think,” she replied. “It will be easier for us not to meet.”

  “Then I had better say what I wish to say now, if you allow me.”

  “Surely I should not forbid it,” she replied.

  She was aware of a lightening of the heart, and she was eager to be gone. Yet at least she must stay to hear what he wanted to say.

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, to look at her the more deeply. “Josui, it is quickly said. Only this—if ever you need me again, for any reason whatsoever, call upon me. Do not let pride prevent you.”

  “Oh, Kobori,” she cried. “I shall be very happy, there will be no need, but how good you are!”

  He tried to smile. “Keep the path open, that is all I ask.”

  She was on her feet now, restless, anxious to escape.

  “I promise you that, Kobori.” It was an awkward word to use, and she knew it as soon as it was spoken. Promise! She had not kept her promise to him. But now she put out her hand and for the first time felt his clasp, a large warm soft hand covering hers entirely, which was so small and firm within.

  He seemed shaken then and his eyes shone suddenly with tears. But he smiled and bowed and she bowed, and so it was over.

  After she was gone Kobori sat for some time in the easy chair. He allowed the catastrophe to flow over him like a great wave. Long ago, as a little boy, his father had taught him how to deal with the sea. They had then a house on the shores of Kyushu, and in the summer he spent most of his daytime hours in the water. He had learned early to swim, but it was his father who taught him how to swim without exhaustion.

  “You cannot overcome the sea,” his father had told him. “It is as endless as eternity, as unchangeable as fate. In comparison to the sea a man is less than a small fish. Do not fight the sea. Do not combat the tides. Yield yourself and as the waves flow, let yourself follow them. Then you will be borne up, the sea itself will uphold you.”

  He thought of these words now. He was overwhelmed with what he had just heard. He had allowed himself to trust completely the sureness of his love for Josui. He had never loved any other woman. Like most men he had gone to pleasure houses, joined in the feasts that men give each other, laughed with pretty girls and listened to their music. But he had not wanted any woman for his wife except Josui. Now she would never be his wife. The thought was so monstrous that for a moment he felt giddy, as though the sand were being sucked from under his feet, as though the wave were crashing over his head. He closed his eyes and leaned back on the cushion of the chair and remained wholly passive, allowing the pain to swirl about him. So it must be—so it must be!

  After nearly an hour he opened his eyes and then he got to his feet and poured himself a small bowl of hot tea from the padded teapot on a stand near his desk. He sipped it slowly, feeling himself cold and tired, as if indeed he had been in the sea itself. He could not recover easily from this chill.

  Nevertheless after another half hour he touched the bell on his desk. His secretary came in and he began to dictate his morning letters, thinking as he did so that tonight, as soon as he reached home, he must tell his father. The arrangements for the wedding must be stopped at once. The invitations must be recalled. It was too late to return to the jewelers the gift he had prepared for Josui, a set of pink pearls, true pearls, gathered off the coast of India.

  “I have already told Kobori,” Josui said.

  Her father had not returned until midnight but she had waited for him. Her mother knew. They had put away the wedding garments which now would never be needed. What her mother had felt, Josui did not know. She folded the garments carefully, not allowing Josui to touch them, and the rich stuffs were put into camphorwood chests in a storeroom. The whole evening they had spent at this task, and her mother had asked not one question of her, not even what Kobori had said, nothing had she asked.

  “It is very late,” her father said when she asked him to hear her.

  “I shall not sleep until I tell you what I have done,” Josui declared.

  So, hiding his despair and his weariness, he had sat down, and she, standing, had told him that she was determined to marry the American.

  “I do not know how to tell my friend, Takashi Matsui, nor how he will tell Kobori,” he had said.

  So she had said that Kobori knew, for she had told him.

  “You told him?” her father demanded, unbelieving. “How could you be so bold? See how already you are changed!”

  “Kobori is so good that I could tell him,” she said drooping her head.

  “He is so good—he is so good!” her father mimicked. “But it seems he is not good enough for you to marry.”

  “He is good enough,” Josui said bravely. “It is simply that I love another man and Kobori understands this.”

  “It does not remove the disgrace,” her father declared.

  He sat frowning and gloomy but exhausted as Josui could see. His handsome face was as pale as wax and his large eyes were sunken. Then he clapped his hands three times sharply.

  “This American will never marry you!”

  “He will!” Josui cried.

  “How can he marry you?” her father demanded. “In America it is always done in a church. A civil marriage is not enough. They will not consider it enough. And how can there be feasting and guests? Who will even be the witnesses? The witnesses are necessary, from the American
point of view.”

  “I do not want to have a feast or guests,” Josui said. “And what is our religion, Father? We have no church.”

  “I am a Buddhist,” he declared. “The Americans have their gods and priests and we have ours. The ceremony would have to be in the Buddhist temple, in the presence of the gods and the priests.”

  “I am sure my—that he—will be willing for this. He wishes to do whatever you require,” Josui said.

  “Except to leave you in my house,” her father said bitterly. “That he will not do. He has stolen into my house and taken my treasure, and he will not return it. What else do I require?”

  Her head drooped still lower. Yet, watching her face, he saw no sign of yielding. That full red lower lip did not quiver. He yielded suddenly and leaping to his feet he swept her aside with his arm, a gesture which was all but a blow. “Have your way,” he said harshly, “Go to America. But when they throw you out as they threw us all out, do not come back to me.”

  She lifted her head, as proud and as angry as he. “I will not come back to you, that I promise—Father!”

  In Tokyo Allen was talking with his Colonel. The two men sat alone in the Colonel’s office. Piles of paper work lay on the desk and the Colonel eyed it secretly from time to time. In his imagination it grew of its own weight, mounting higher and higher in his distress as Allen Kennedy talked.

  “It is your personal affair, of course,” the Colonel said reluctantly. “Still, I’ve had an admiration for you. You have something more than the ordinary military mind. The military mind is all very well, but the best men are the ones who have something more than merely a soldier’s mind. You could, if you wanted to, rise as high as five stars—in my opinion. Of course, you won’t get the chance if you have a Japanese wife. A man’s wife’s very important, if he wants to rise in this profession.”

  “I know you are right,” Allen Kennedy said. Cynthia, for example, would have been the perfect wife, beautiful in her large blonde way, tactful, friendly, simple minded without being in the least stupid. Well, he was not in love with Cynthia.