If she were going to school, she could be studying during these hours. As it was, she read books which she rented from the neighborhood library. Sometimes they were good books and sometimes not. She had no guide except her own polite request to the elderly librarian for books which told about American life. These she read with increasing surprise and puzzlement. Where did she belong among these women and their many problems? Her life was contained in this small apartment, with the one whom she loved.
And yet, could this last forever? There were hours when the house was a box too small, when her good mind was restless and reaching. Was this indeed all there was?
“Allenn,” she said on one of these days, “do you have no friends, my dear?”
She had made him a pleasant little dinner, a sukiyaki dish which he liked, and a mound of feather-light rice.
“Friends?” he repeated.
“For us to talk with,” she went on. “I could make such a nice dinner like this, maybe for two friends, and we could talk, lady and gentleman.”
“I haven’t had time for anybody outside the office, Jo,” he replied. “Later, maybe.”
She invited the couple whom she had met in the park one day, the two young Japanese-Americans, born and bred in Seattle, now students at Columbia. They were pleasant but reserved. Josui’s husband, they felt, was still the young American officer. It was hard to forget that they themselves had lived in an arid Arizona camp behind barbed wire. Still, the evening was pleasant. The young Japanese, while prisoned, had made a hobby of carving roots, the twisted roots of desert sagebrush, and at Josui’s urging they brought some of their best pieces, none for sale.
“We keep them, to remember,” the stocky little wife said.
There was hearty forced conversation and much praise of Josui’s cooking but they went home early. She did not invite them again. “You are thinking they are not your kind of people, Allenn?” she inquired when they had gone.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said really kindly. “They are very nice. I want you to have friends.”
Then suddenly all restlessness disappeared. One day when she returned from the market where she did her daily shopping she felt very weary and she lay down upon the bed. There had been signs which made her afraid, delays, small changes in herself which she thought imaginary. She had never been regular in her physical female life. The shock, a doctor had told her once in Japan, of the departure from America and the end of all that she had known at a time when she was ceasing to be a child, was becoming a woman, the breaking off of deep emotional ties, not only with her friends but with familiar landscapes, the necessity to conform to the Japanese background, at once her own and yet Allen, had set up restraints upon her spirit, certainly in her mind, which affected her body. She had wondered a few weeks ago if she were pregnant, had feared and doubted, had tried to prevent, by her own disinclination, the conception of a child. For what sort of home was this to give a child? It was not only, the boxlike compartment in which they lived, with no garden in which a child could play, it was also the park, where she had seen white women guarding their children from the children of darker color. She would not take her child to that park. A child!
“No, no,” she muttered.
Suddenly today, as she lay at rest, she felt a stir within herself, movements feather light, but not her own. The signs which she had refused to recognize fell instantly into their place in the pattern of certainty. She felt in her body the thrust of another life. It was there, it had begun, it was too late. The child lived.
She lay immobile in horror, and then she turned over upon her face and wept into the pillow.
Lucky it is that the child unborn does not know when the mother weeps. He begins gaily to live, wanted or not, and his mother’s agony does not embrace him. Wisely he lives alone and apart, preparing for a world of his own creation, greedily growing, sleeping the deep sleep of the unborn, which only death, the last sleep, can equal in peace and in forgetfulness. But each day he wakes a little more, he sleeps a little less, thrusting his legs out, stretching his arms, preparing himself for the crisis of birth, the first great separation of himself from eternity. For him time begins.
So with the world child Lennie. That his mother often wept he did not know. He was absorbed in his own process, unthinking, and yet growing. To whom he was to be born he neither knew nor cared, he was not aware of the mighty fusion in his infinitesimal frame. He slept, he absorbed his food through his navel, he moved now and again with increasing restlessness and he did not know that his existence was a profound secret between himself and his mother.
For Josui would not tell Allen of what she had discovered. She discerned that this American whom she had married so passionately, and whom she still loved most passionately, was not happy. He worked desperately hard, he was kind to her, he loved her, she believed, for there were hours of the utmost tenderness between them, hours when she lay in his arms and was given up to him, when they were melted together in love, all thought quieted, all feeling lost in the cosmic fusion of their bodies. And yet she was always aware now of the secret third. Did that one partake of this fusion? Did he wonder, did he feel his private sea disturbed by outer storms?
“What is the matter with you?” Allen asked. “What are you thinking about? You are off somewhere. Come back to me.”
“I am here,” she said putting out her hands. “See, I am here, with you.”
No, no, she would not tell him. For she was not his whole life. She had known for a long time that he had secrets from her. He lived apart, he had thoughts which he could not share with her. These were not merely thoughts of his home, his family from which she had separated him, his childhood which she now could not share. There was very much which she did not understand about the world which was his. He was interested in politics, and she did not understand this interest. He read books which she could not read, he grew very angry sometimes when he heard the news over their small radio, and he frowned over the daily papers. To her none of these things mattered, but if they did so much matter to him, should they not also be her interest? When she tried to understand them, asking him many questions, for whom had she to teach her except him, he answered her with impatience which he tried not to show. Nothing broke her heart more finally than his hardly controlled impatience, which grew more and more sharp.
“It is too much for you to teach me,” she decided aloud one day.
“No, it isn’t that,” he argued. “I am tired when I come home.”
But it was that. Had she been able to go to school as she planned she could have learned about America. But there could be no question of going to school. It would be no use, now that the child was coming. She could not prevent the child, though once she tried. She talked with her Japanese friend, they went to a doctor together and he told her that the child must be born. It was too late. Also he did not do that sort of thing. She was almost glad, after all. It was not fair to the child to destroy him before he was born. It was not his fault that he was a world child. This was his destiny.
The autumn passed and early winter came. She grew thin with worry over the secret, and many times she nearly confessed it to Allen, but never did she quite do it. When the words lay heavy upon her tongue she could not speak them out, not that she was afraid of him, for indeed she was not, but she felt the instability of her life. Even the lease of this little apartment was by the month. How could one live month by month?
“One of these days,” he said, “we’ll go home. The time will come. Even if my mother refuses while she lives, she will die one day. But she won’t refuse.”
“Allenn!” she cried out, horrified, “do not speak so of your parent. You will be punished.”
He was strangely callous. “Death is natural. It is a good thing that the old die. There is no progress until they are dead.”
“Allenn, she is your mother!” Josui put her soft palm against his lips.
“She is a limited woman,” he retorted, taking away her ha
nd. “She has been born and reared in that little town. She cannot or will not understand that everything changes,”
“You love the little town,” Josui said.
“I know I do,” he replied, “and I find it hard to forgive that she will not allow me to live there.”
“I will not wish her dead,” Josui said firmly. “I cannot wish death upon anyone. I would fear to do so.”
He said, still strangely, “That is because you have never killed anyone. Why, look here, Josui—I’ve been taught to kill people. It isn’t hard. Sometimes when I sit listening to our managing editor, I can’t keep from thinking how I would kill him, supposing he were the enemy. I can see the vulnerable spots in his big hulk. I would know just how to defend myself against him, the soft spot here, in the neck, or under the ribs. The bayonet would slip into his fat.”
She stood looking at him, transfixed with increasing horror. She was wiping a dish, a little pink apron tied about her waist, and she held in her hands the glass dish, which suddenly she clutched.
He laughed. “Don’t worry, Jo, I shall never do it. It was simply part of my training. I tell you to explain why death is not monstrous to me any more.”
She did not reply. She turned to the sink and began washing the dishes again in the hot soapy water.
He did love his mother, of course. He would not be so angry with her if he did not love her.
“I ought to go away,” Josui thought humbly. “I keep him from all that he loves best.”
How could she go away? She had that little money in the bank in San Francisco, but she had nowhere to go. If she wrote to her father he would send her more money perhaps, but then he had told her not to come back. Yet what sort of life would it be in her father’s house, and oh, the child, who would want the child except herself? It would not be possible for the child and her father to live in the same house. She would be always a buffer between them. She saw the little creature, looking like Allen, doubtless, for she had heard that white blood always predominated over any other, that white blood can never be hidden, and could such a little child grow up happily in a country where all people had black eyes and black hair and golden skin? Would he not be very unhappy there? He must stay here among other people like him. So how could she go away?
It became hard even to be with her Japanese friends and gradually she withdrew herself from them. She could not tell the woman what she thought day and night, so she made excuses that she did not feel well, that she must rest a great deal. The husband and wife were busy in school together, and so gradually she saw no one at all.
Then one day Allen telephoned that he was bringing a friend with him, Cynthia, the girl he had told her was his childhood playmate. She had come to his office to see him, and she had asked to meet Josui. So he was bringing her that night, and Josui must please cook a fine sukiyaki. His voice sounded gay over the telephone, and Josui was glad to hear it as she had not heard it for months.
She cleaned the small apartment, she bought a handful of small chrysanthemums and then, tempted, she bought three huge yellow ones, such as her father grew by the hundreds in the garden in autumn, and she spent two hours in arrangements, striving for the effect of space in these rooms where there was no space, and using the window finally, and borrowing the space of a patch of sky and some roof tops for background.
Oh, and the food to be prepared so carefully, the rice to be washed again and again until there was not a particle of the white starch to make it sticky when she had steamed it dry to perfection, and the radishes sliced into flowers, the bits of cress and endive designed to decorate the clear chicken broth, the fish, which she must have head and all, for she could not bear the decapitated body which the Americans presented. A fish was beautiful whole but hideous without its head, and could anyone fail to see this? She polished her bowls and dishes, she cleaned the kitchen until the child protested and she must lie down to quiet him.
She had named him. One had to call a child something even before he was born. She had pondered much on this matter of a name. What name ought a world child to have? A name of his own, certainly, not his father’s nor one like his mother’s. There was an American name, Joseph. But she did not like it. She had thought of taking her dead brother’s name, Kensan. But had this child the right to her brother’s name? She did not like to use it without permission, and there was no one to give it. She imagined the child’s little face, not looking like anyone she knew, and yet looking like everyone, a world child indeed. She would not name him Allen, when the mother of Allen would not allow his existence. Allenn—Allenn! So why not simply a part of his father, and let him be called Lennie? The moment she spoke the name to herself it became the child’s name. She saw a small lively face, large eyes whose color she could not distinguish, but a vivid little face that she could see, and just such a child as the name Lennie would fit. So it became his name, and she talked to him, calling him Lennie. When he was impatient with her running about the apartment and cleaning and dusting and wiping, when she stood long chopping the vegetables ready for sukiyaki, she scolded him sweetly.
“I could sit down, Lennie. It is true I could sit down. But I never saw any woman sit down when she cuts the vegetables small. We always stand. So you must if you please be quiet.”
But he would not, and so she lay down resting.
This woman, this Cynthia, would she discern what Allen did not? Would she be friend or enemy?
The moment she saw Cynthia, she knew it was friend. A tall beautiful girl, so blonde, so graceful, came into the room with Allen, and Josui looked up to her with humble and instant admiration. This of course was the girl whom Allen should have married. It was to be seen at once, and at once she understood Allen’s mother completely. Oh, of course, Cynthia was the one, and had she known there was such a woman, she would have refused Allen because she loved him so much.
She put out her hand, unable to speak, and Cynthia took it in both of hers.
“I have wanted so much to meet you,” Cynthia said in a big warm voice, “I have known Allen all my life. We are like brother and sister. I hope he has told you so.”
“He has told me,” Josui said.
She hesitated, she was not able to take her eyes from the wonderful fair girl, the eyes the bluest, the skin so white and smooth, the sweet full mouth.
“Take off your hat, Cynthia,” Allen said. He was careless with her but he was glad to see her. “Make yourself at home, Cynthia, a poor place but our own. Josui, where are your manners?”
“I am so surprised,” Josui murmured helplessly.
“Surprised at what?” Allen demanded.
“So beautiful,” Josui said still helplessly. “I didn’t expect. You didn’t tell me so.”
They laughed at her, looking at each with understanding enjoyment. “Oh, you cute little thing,” Cynthia said ardently. “Allen, you didn’t tell me how cute she is. I don’t wonder that you are crazy about her. Why, I could pin her on my jacket, like a flower.”
Josui laughed too then and fell in love with Cynthia. Oh, she was very glad to find her like this, a big kind girl, though so beautiful.
“Please sit down,” she said, recovering herself. “I will get some tea. Allenn says tonight everything Japanese, please excuse me.”
She bowed herself out of the room and into the tiny kitchen where she shut the door. She sat down on the stool for a minute to breathe. “Lennie,” she scolded the unborn silently. “Do not jump, please. The apron covers something but not everything. You are not invited. Help your mother, please!”
He quieted at once as her heart quieted and then she got up and made tea and poured it.
The room beyond the closed door was very quiet, too. She could hear their voices but not their words. They were talking, perhaps about his home, about his mother, things they would not say before her. This was natural, though she felt a little lonely, nevertheless, and she lingered over the tea-making to give them time.
“… Allen, she is adorable,�
�� Cynthia said. “If your mother could see her just once, I believe it would make a difference.”
“I thought that perhaps at Christmas—” Allen stopped.
“I thought of that, too,” Cynthia said with sympathy. She was rich with sympathy. It glowed from her eyes and in her half-smile, in the ardor with which she leaned forward in her chair, toward him. She was without consciousness of herself, and he saw this and he wondered, detached and yet half sadly, if he had never seen Josui, whether Cynthia would have or could have loved him, or he her. If his mother would believe that they could never have loved each other, it might now make her less invincible.
“I feel I can say anything to you,” he told Cynthia.
“So you can, Allen,” she told him.
“You know what my mother always hoped, about you and me.”
“Oh, yes,” Cynthia said instantly. She did not flush and her bright eyes were as tranquil as ever.
“Even if I had never met Josui?” he asked.
“Oh, I never thought of you so,” she said robustly. “I am terribly fond of you, Allen, you know that. Dear me, I couldn’t imagine life without you, then or now, but I don’t believe that sort of fondness leads into marrying love, do you, honestly?”
“I suppose not,” he said almost unwillingly.
Hidden Flower Page 19
