The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘If we ever get out of this mess, I will teach you how to read and write Javanese, but reading the Koran, that is different.’ Anna climbed back into the becak and they set off. Once again she pulled the brothel curtain down to conceal her presence. After a while Til called, ‘We are here, Anna.’

  Anna parted the curtain and they passed the disinterested guards who were, quite possibly, the same two who had been on duty at the gate the previous day. All Japanese soldiers looked alike to Anna. The guards waved them on without stopping them. It occurred to her that they wouldn’t speak Javanese, so how would they decide who was to be allowed in and who not?

  Within the gates the gardener soldiers seemed as happily busy as before, but now each one they passed bowed politely to her. They may well have been ruthless killers but at the heart of things they were still peasants, and the soil, even the fecund tropical soil, they instinctively understood and so they were cheerful.

  Anna left Til with the same instructions to wait for her, then climbed the steps to the front door, pausing once again to pluck a frangipani blossom and arrange it behind her ear. She had come to no harm on the previous day and somehow the small, perfumed blossom now became a tiny, serendipitous protection, like always touching some pretty object for luck when passing by. The blossom had not been remarked on the previous day, but now she consciously noted that it was yellow and white, with the broader part of the petals white and narrowing down to a bright yellow centre.

  Anna pressed the doorbell and soon heard the slap of slippers approaching. The door opened and the mayor’s wife, smiling, bowed deeply. ‘Welcome, Anna, I am to take you to the back, to the verandah again, those are the instructions of the colonel-san.’

  Anna smiled, greeting her in turn. The housekeeper did not refer to the incident of the previous day as she led the way through the house to the back. She paused briefly before they passed through the door. ‘There is a surprise!’ she giggled, both hands to her mouth, then stood aside for Anna to pass onto the verandah.

  All was as before, with the exception of the vase — now it was filled with dahlias of every colour, as carefully cut and arranged as the yellow and white blooms had been, not a leaf out of place. ‘Oh, my!’ Anna exclaimed.

  The mama-san beamed. ‘Konoe-san went out into the garden early this morning, before he had even taken his tea, to cut them. I think he is pleased with your honourable presence, Anna-san.’ She bowed. ‘I will bring tea, Japanese tea,’ she said, turning towards the door.

  ‘Mama-san, tell me, how must I bow when the colonel-san comes?’

  The housekeeper turned and demonstrated a low formal bow, her eyes downcast. ‘You are a woman, so your bow must be lower than his, if possible twice as low. It is the proper way,’ she said. ‘You must never look at him. It is immodest and unbecoming for a woman to do so. The honourable Konoe-san is of nobility, he may not reply when you bow. You are tall, he is also tall, you must be careful. How tall are you, Anna-san?’ she asked shyly.

  ‘Thank you, Mama-san, I will remember. How tall? Too tall!’ Anna laughed. ‘I am one hundred and seventy-three centimetres.’

  The cheerful mama-san seemed to have completely recovered from the humiliation of the previous day. She then said, ‘Your waist, it is so slim. May I see?’

  It seemed a surprising request but Anna turned so the little woman could place her hands about her waist, her fingers not quite meeting. ‘I never had a waist so slim, even when I was your age, Anna-san,’ she cried. ‘You are very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you, Mama-san,’ Anna said, smiling. It hadn’t occurred to her that the Japanese woman might see her in this way. She’d seen pictures of geishas and often wondered why the Japanese converted a woman’s face into such an elaborately made-up and formal mask as their idea of perfection. Now, left on her own on the verandah, she didn’t feel very beautiful, simply confused and scared: confused by the multi-coloured dahlias in the vase in front of her. After Konoe Akira’s didactic lecture on purity, the aesthetic perfection of one colour highlighted by the non-colour white, why had he changed his mind? If he had indeed changed it, which Anna very much doubted.

  What was he trying to say to her? She could immediately see the different effect of the two equally precise arrangements: the quiet singularity of the first replaced now by the ebullience of the multi-coloured blossoms.

  To the confused Anna this proved her point. The second arrangement was a joyous thing and despite the colonel’s attempt to restrain it by means of its careful manipulation, the flowers resisted, fought back and selfishly insisted on being themselves. In contrast, yesterday’s vase had been a group of handmaidens practising to be perfect in service, to be silently, rigidly present but never to be heard to laugh, joke or tease.

  The mama-san brought green tea and placed it in front of Anna with an eggshell-white porcelain teacup, adding a second where the colonel would sit, and placing the beautiful butterfly ashtray down beside it. Then backing off slightly and bowing she said, ‘I am Yasuko,’ introducing herself at last. She brought both hands together, fingertips touching, and bowed. ‘Yesterday you were very brave and honourable. I thank you, Anna-san. To be a woman is never an easy task.’ Anna smiled, nodding her head in agreement. ‘I must go now to prepare lunch.’ The mama-san giggled suddenly, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. ‘No bad chicken today!’ Then she hurried off, still giggling, accompanied by the slip-slap of her black slippers against the sandstone floor.

  As Anna sipped the green tea her apprehension seemed to increase. Should she mention the flowers or ignore them? Pretend she hadn’t noticed, play dumb, act like a silly seventeen-year-old who remembers nothing, like some of her school friends? The flowers were clearly a message, but not one she fully understood. She heard the sharp note of a car horn — his car horn. Bracing herself at the sound she glanced down at her wristwatch. It was precisely noon.

  This time Anna rose quietly from her chair as the colonel came through the door. As he drew closer she bowed deeply. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ she said, smiling.

  The Japanese officer stopped momentarily and gave her his now familiar minimum jerk of his head. ‘Ho!’ he said, then continued to move towards the bamboo seats. He indicated her chair. ‘Please.’

  Anna turned, lifting a small batik cushion and moving it, giving him time to complete the awkward motions to adjust his bad leg before he was seated. Finally she sat with her eyes downcast, her heart beating furiously.

  Konoe Akira went through the same motions with his cigarette case as he had done on the previous day, this time not calling out to the mama-san, but instead using a slim silver lighter he carried in the breast pocket of his uniform. He lit the cigarette and leaned back, drawing deeply on it, then exhaling towards the ceiling. ‘So, Anna, we are together again to talk about differences.’

  ‘Yes, sir, if you wish, sir,’ Anna said quietly.

  ‘I would prefer it if you used the suffix “san” rather than “sir”. It has a more friendly intonation.’ As always with him, it sounded more like an instruction than a preference.

  Anna was reminded once again that the English he spoke was far better than her own. ‘As you wish, Konoe-san,’ she repeated a little more boldly, adding a quick, uncertain smile.

  He smiled. ‘The dahlias, you have seen them?’

  ‘Yes, Konoe-san.’ She didn’t look at the vase but kept her eyes downcast.

  ‘Are they vulgar or are they perfection?’ he asked pointedly.

  Anna looked up, surprised; in her mind both words were badly chosen. ‘Neither —’ She was about to add ‘sir’ but corrected herself in time. ‘Konoe-san.’

  ‘Oh? Please explain.’

  Anna was by nature honest and forthright as well, accustomed to having and offering an opinion when asked. ‘They are trapped,’ she said.

  ‘Trapped?’ The colonel was surprised by this answer but his tone wa
s curious, not indignant.

  ‘The arrangement is too formal, too perfect. These flowers, they want to dance and you are making them stand to attention. They are not an orchestra, they are a jazz group. Like people, flowers can be cut down and controlled, but that doesn’t mean it is their… their personality.’ Anna was aware that she could have expressed this better in Dutch or Javanese. ‘We are all different,’ she added lamely.

  ‘You do not believe in discipline?’ the colonel asked, stubbing his half-smoked cigarette into the pristine thorax of the beautiful glass butterfly.

  ‘Only if it is to teach me right from wrong or to keep me from temptation,’ Anna said, knowing the question was too hard for her to answer in the abstract. ‘It is not the only thing, the purpose in my life,’ she concluded.

  On some past occasion Anna had questioned me about my life as a child in Japan and I had spoken about the discipline required to live in such a society, borrowing my sentiments and explanations liberally from my father. I had been too young to regard the experience as unique and to understand or make observations myself. This is what I more or less remember saying to her: ‘It is all a matter of the space available,’ I had explained. ‘In fact, there is very little to go around in Japan and it must be carefully shared and even more carefully used. If the Japanese have the luxury of a garden, it is, at most, three or four metres in size, often much smaller. It will contain a single moss- or lichen-covered rock, seated in carefully patterned and raked white pebbles or sand. A lone blossom may have been carefully nurtured from a seedling. A perfect yellow chrysanthemum, for instance, or there might be a hundred-year-old bonsai tree, an exact miniature of a glorious forest giant. Tranquillity to the Japanese comes in tiny proportions and requires a rigid personal discipline. Cherry blossom outside a temple will bring visitors from afar to gawk at such singular beauty. Their homes are small, the interior walls of framed, opaque paper. The floors have tatami grass matting, the objects within the rooms are formal and minimal and always precisely placed — maybe a perfect vase or an elegant bowl. Beauty, to the well-born Japanese, is as much about discipline as it is about space. In fact, the two things cannot be separated in their minds.’

  I probably rabbited on a bit more at the time, attempting to show off with my borrowed knowledge. If I remember correctly, I then went on to make the comparison with New Britain’s outrageous fecundity. Its waste of space, sprawl of creepers and blossom, plethora of trees festooned with orchids growing at the juncture or clinging to the branches, exotic coloured birds with exaggerated plumage, and abundance of fierce forest life. I think I commented how, while New Britain’s was an environment not without hardship, it conspired to create an entirely different view of life.

  Anna, whose memory I was to learn was phenomenal, had obviously remembered all or some of this explanation, for now she said, ‘You are Japanese, Konoe-san. In your country space is regarded differently and the arrangement of life itself is formal, requiring great discipline. I have always lived on a tropical island. While you may have a small garden of raked sand or pebbles, containing a single rock and flower or maybe a bonsai tree, I have had two hectares of garden to play in. While you learned to treasure a visit to the cherry blossom trees flowering outside the temple, I learned how not to be lost in the hugeness of a forest, where giant trees are festooned with orchids. The discipline is different and leads to differences in all of us.’ Anna was more or less paraphrasing my words, sentiments which I, in turn, had borrowed from my constantly over-intellectualising father. But then she added an observation of her own. ‘Our differences are what make us interesting. Not just races, but individual people as well.’

  ‘That is very observant of you, Anna, very clever. How do you know about Japan?’

  ‘I heard it once,’ Anna explained modestly, ‘from a butterfly collector.’

  Konoe Akira smiled. ‘What, then, do you think it is that makes you interesting, Anna? Interesting to someone like me, for instance?’

  Anna wanted to admit that she had no idea, but knew this wouldn’t satisfy him. She thought for a few moments, then decided to answer in the abstract. ‘Well, at first it is the things we see in another person. Simply observation. I am tall for a Javanese. I have blue eyes, brown skin. I think someone could think this interesting. They would want to know a bit more perhaps, no? If they were Dutch they would think about my skin colour. If they were Javanese they would want to know about my eyes. Both would want to know how this came to be, how this happened.’ Anna looked at him, then said rather tamely with a shrug, ‘That sort of thing, Konoe-san?’

  The Japanese colonel chuckled. ‘No, Anna, in your case, let me hasten to assure you, all they will see is a very beautiful young woman. You are perfection.’

  Anna dropped her eyes. While she was not unaccustomed to compliments about her appearance, she hadn’t expected one from the conservative and disciplined Japanese officer. Nor had she expected a statement to be so openly made. ‘Thank you, Konoe-san,’ Anna said. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’

  ‘Ask — please,’ Konoe Akira said with a casual wave of the hand.

  ‘Which of the arrangements am I? Yesterday’s,’ Anna pointed at the vase, ‘or today’s?’

  Colonel Konoe was silent for some time, then, nodding his head, slowly said, ‘I think you have taught me something, Anna. The answer is neither.’

  Anna felt suddenly compelled to make a further point but to do so was to go where she had never been before. ‘Konoe-san, may I tell you something? Then ask you a second question?’

  Konoe Akira looked quizzical. ‘Last time you sought permission to ask a question I think I was, as the English say, “put in my place”. Now you want to pose another?’ he sighed, enjoying himself. ‘Permission granted.’

  ‘Well, you know already that I am of racially mixed parentage but not of the circumstances of my birth. Mijn father was, is, a very big man. In his family they are all big, giants. Mijn mother was Javanese and the women they are all small. Mijn father brutally raped my mother and then he has discarded her, thrown her away like a piece of worthless rubbish. I was born, of course, nine months later, in a kampong where there was no doctor and I was too big and she has bled to death giving birth to me.’ Anna paused, taking a deep breath. ‘Ja, now comes the question. To a Japanese like you — the mama-san says you are of noble lineage — how, if you are correct about perfection, how comes perfection from this?’

  Konoe Akira was silent for even longer this time, then finally and somewhat anticlimactically announced, ‘Now we will have lunch,’ and turning his head towards the door called out, ‘Mama-san’ and then a Japanese word Anna assumed meant food or lunch. Turning back to her he said, ‘I will answer your question at some time.’

  Lunch, with the beautiful porcelain dishes of yesterday back on display and with others added, was simple and delicious and eaten with barely a word spoken. To Anna’s taste there was only one culinary misfortune, a rice ball with a sour plum within it. But she watched as Konoe Akira consumed the small vile-tasting dish with obvious relish. The mayor’s wife, Yasuko, had not failed the colonel this time. Anna’s distaste for the rice ball went unnoticed by her host, who continued to eat noisily in the Japanese way.

  Anna poured tea for Konoe Akira from a fresh pot brought to the table. He leaned back. ‘You have been very honest with me about our differences. I am Japanese. It is difficult for me to understand. With us, it is all about tradition, about discipline. We have a total sense of failure if we do not take the right path, if we do not uphold and cherish the traditions of those who have gone before, if we fail in our duty to our Emperor. You are too young to understand this, Anna. But failure cannot be tolerated.’

  He reached for his cigarette case and took some time lighting up. Anna was aware that this pause was a space in which he would make a decision whether he would continue. Finally he said, ‘I have never talked about what was requir
ed of me as a soldier and how I have failed. It is not permitted to show the weakness of confession like the Christian Catholics. Now I must ask you a question. You must be honest. In Japan we mask the truth in a thousand ways, because to speak from the heart is not permitted. Words are often as important to conceal what we mean as they are to speak directly. Simplicity of words is only allowed in the haiku poem and that is about nature and seldom about people. Politeness most often supersedes the truth.’

  He drew at the cigarette, then said, ‘You asked, is it not our individual differences that make us interesting? Not only our racial differences, but also the differences found in common people? We Japanese do not praise the character of ordinary people, only those who are to be venerated for their achievement. Sometimes it is a poet and sometimes a soldier, sometimes an artist, a potter perhaps, and sometimes a politician or a priest, but never a street sweeper or a housekeeper. In everything we seek perfection, wisdom and courage, but always in the name of tradition.’

  Anna was beginning to lose the thread of what he was saying, deciding that with all this discipline it couldn’t be much fun to be a seventeen-year-old growing up in Japan.

  ‘Here now is my question,’ Konoe Akira said at last. Yet he paused again, drawing on his cigarette, then turning and exhaling towards the outside edge of the verandah as if he was clearing his head. ‘If when I saw you for the first time I saw perfection, what then did you see when you first saw me? Was it my limp?’