The Persimmon Tree

by Bryce Courtenay

  Anna looked at him, genuinely astonished. ‘Limp? Of course I saw your limp. But how could it be of any importance? My heart was filled with fear. It still is. All I saw when you approached was that you had the power to destroy me. That you had absolute power and had commanded that four humans who were in front of me on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs were to have their heads removed. It was you who commanded the whole town to witness their execution. I knew that you could snap your fingers and I too would disappear. That you carried a limp was not my concern.’

  Konoe Akira commenced to laugh. ‘It is in the occupation force’s manual. Imposing discipline is the first task of an occupying force. The beheading of four Chinese and then the exhibiting of the heads of local criminals on bamboo poles was to keep the population placid and grateful because their unpaid debts were absolved — a favour granted and at the same time a reprisal. Those criminals they most feared were eliminated. You came to the town square to witness both the generosity of the Japanese people and the consequences of not possessing moral discipline.’

  Anna, even at seventeen, knew hyperbole when she heard it. She knew that fear is demoralising and cruelty is just cruelty, and neither can be justified when used as a weapon. But she did not possess the sophistication to argue with him.

  ‘Colonel Konoe-san, how then did you get this limp?’ Anna now asked ingenuously.

  ‘My limp?’ he repeated, surprised. She’d previously dismissed his limp as irrelevant. But he was now being asked about it in a simple and genuinely curious way by this beautiful young woman seated opposite him. ‘I have never been asked this question by a stranger. Only my superiors know, only my family have been informed. The limp?’ he asked, trying again, as if he had never previously been required to explain it as an incident without describing the consequences that had led from it. In fact, by the manner he kept shaking his head in denial, Anna concluded that he seemed to find the task of relating the plain facts nearly impossible.

  He began in a halting fashion. ‘As a wound it is tiresome to my body. But as a destruction of the spirit it is — unbearable. I am Bushido. My family is of the nobility. For a thousand years we have been samurai. To be a captain in the Imperial Guard is my birthright. It is what I was always meant to be. I studied to be an officer, a soldier, at the Military Academy, the Army War College, then went abroad. In England I went to Army Command and the Staff College at Camberley, and in Germany, to the Berlin War Academy at Potsdam. All to make myself the best possible soldier. This is the most glorious and noble fulfilment of my duty to the Emperor and to my honourable family. To be a samurai, a Japanese warrior, it is everything.’ He paused and Anna could see that he was momentarily overcome. He glanced up at her, then, with head bowed again, continued. ‘A bullet, a filthy Chinese bullet, not even straight to my heart where I would have been happy to receive it, to die honourably in battle, but a ricochet, a spent bullet, smashed my kneecap!’

  The Japanese officer remained silent long enough for Anna to think she should say something, but she couldn’t think of anything appropriate and instinctively knew that to offer her sympathy would be patronising and deeply insulting.

  ‘Now I am a colonel, not even in charge of a regiment but of a battalion of street sweepers, of peasants who have no bushido! Gardeners and rice planters! Bicycle riders! I am to be a nursemaid to refugees, a policeman to submissive and grateful natives and cowering Chinese trash!’ He looked at Anna and she could see the fury in his eyes, the quick blazing anger she had witnessed yesterday. And then it was as suddenly gone and he said slowly, ‘My head has no limp! My heart has no limp! Only one cursed knee has a limp and with it…’ He sighed, then in a voice barely above a whisper, said, ‘I am reduced to nothing and my guilt overwhelms me. I must be punished.’

  Anna remained silent, confused. Here was yet another part of a man whose several parts she had barely understood, a human too complex for the limited experience her years had gathered. She had worked out her father, which had been a painful enough lesson, but once she understood that self-pity consumed his life and had been the motivation for his drinking, and lately to this had been added his fear of dying, she knew what to expect from him.

  Anna asked herself, was Konoe Akira also consumed by self-pity? Was this the key to understanding him? She thought not. Perhaps it was guilt? But why would he feel guilty? He had not deliberately brought about the wound to his knee. Anna had heard of soldiers who shot themselves in the big toe to avoid going into battle or to be removed from the fighting. But she felt sure this was not the case with Konoe Akira. He was too proud, too disciplined, his personality much too rigid. She had never met a man consumed by guilt. Her father had felt no guilt for what he had done to her mother, only self-pity for the consequences to himself. But then, the Japanese colonel felt no guilt over the Chinese he had beheaded. Was guilt personal, individual, seemingly absolved when following military orders? Was the guilt transferred to the institution from the individual perpetrator? Emotional personal responsibility lifted as an exigency of war? Did this mean that the young Japanese soldiers in Manchuria I had once told her about were not guilty when, for bayonet practice and in order to gain bushido, fighting spirit, they disembowelled living Chinese men?

  Why then was Konoe Akira, wounded in the knee by an almost spent stray Chinese bullet, consumed by personal guilt? Why did he desire to be punished? Did it have something to do with his search for perfection? Anna knew that while she could ask the questions she could not begin to know the answers. Moreover, his admission of guilt served to increase her fear. She was reminded of what he had said the previous day, ‘I knew it! I knew it the moment I saw you in the town square where you fainted. I knew you were the one. You will be perfect!’

  The colonel stood up awkwardly, his hands gripping the arms of the bamboo chair and bracing himself in order to come to his feet. Anna rose and he clicked heels, then bowing in his usual abrupt manner said, ‘Ho!’

  Anna bowed, making sure she did as Yasuko had shown her. ‘Konoe-san,’ she said softly, ‘thank you for lunch.’

  ‘You will be here tomorrow at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Colonel-san, I must ask to be excused, I —’

  But he cut her short. ‘Tomorrow. At eleven o’clock. We have some work.’ Then he turned and limped away, back held stiff, chin jutted in the manner, Anna imagined, of the Imperial Army.

  The following day when Til arrived to pick her up she handed him an envelope. ‘Inside is my will, it is no more than I have already told you of my instructions. Put it with your Budi letter.’ She indicated the envelope. ‘See? It has his name and also Ratih’s on the outside.’ Anna smiled. ‘It is only in case you are in the arms of one of your virgins while another feeds you honeyed figs.’

  Til placed the envelope in a small leather bag that was suspended from the crossbar of the becak. He wore a concerned expression. ‘Why are we going earlier? Also, you have handed me that envelope, Anna. Will they harm you today?’ He began to pedal.

  ‘I hope not, Til. The Japanese colonel says he has some work I must do, but I don’t know what it is. I still don’t even know why he wishes me to attend lunch every day.’

  ‘It is not my place to ask, but has he made any… suggestions?’ Til asked without turning to glance back at her.

  ‘No, nothing, he has not placed a hand on me.’

  ‘The Japan man, they do not touch,’ Til said.

  Anna wondered how he knew this. Local prostitutes were forbidden to Japanese soldiers and she remembered Lieutenant Mori of the bicycle squad warning the town’s women, on pain of death, against prostitution with the military.

  Til, reading her thoughts, said, ‘The Japanese, they have now chosen some women for the soldiers. There is a place they can go. I know one of these women,’ he explained. Then realising what Anna might think, ‘I take her to this Japan place. She is always behind the brothel curtai
n,’ he added hurriedly, then added further, ‘They are all very happy, because they are making a lot of money, much more than before.’

  ‘Easy money for them, hey? You said the Japan soldiers don’t touch them?’ Anna teased.

  ‘Ahee! Anna, you are very bad with a clever tongue!’ Til said, laughing.

  Anna was met by Yasuko-san at the door, the mama-san unable to stifle her giggles as she bade her enter. ‘Anna-san, today is a big, big surprise,’ she announced.

  ‘Bigger than yesterday, Mama-san?’

  ‘Much bigger! If you please, will you follow me?’

  The housekeeper led Anna down the passageway, across the lounge room and started to climb the stairs. ‘Where are we going, Yasuko-san?’ Anna asked, concerned, pausing at the bottom of the elaborately carved circular stairway. The mansion was so typical of the local wealthy Dutch that she could have found her way around it blindfolded, but it didn’t take her knowledge of colonial architecture to know that the bedrooms were upstairs.

  Yasuko, almost at the top of the circular stairs, her face only just visible when she leaned over a curved banister, saw Anna’s cautious expression and hearing her anxious question brought her hands up to cover her lips, concerned. Then dropping them to grip the banister, she called down, ‘No, Anna-san, it is quite safe to come. The colonel-san, he has not arrived, not until twelve o’clock for lunch. Please?’ she added. ‘It is nobody here to be concerned. It is only a nice surprise.’

  Anna climbed the stairs slowly, prepared to retreat if needed. She arrived at the top where Yasuko was waiting for her. ‘Anna, Anna,’ she cried, ‘do not be frightened.’ The mama-san led her to a small room Anna knew to be common to every large Dutch house, the sewing room. Yasuko held the door open for Anna to enter. There standing in the centre of the small room beside a Singer sewing machine was the Mayor of the Squashed Hat. The little mama-san bowed to her husband. ‘Anna-san, this is my honourable husband, Tokuma Onishi-san.’

  Anna managed to conceal her surprise with a quick smile at the surrogate mayor, who bowed stiffly but greeted her in Javanese. Anna dutifully bowed lower and returned his greeting, wondering what this sudden confrontation with the self-styled mayor was all about.

  The little Japanese tailor then said, ‘I will leave the room.’ He bowed once again to Anna, who returned the gesture, and then said something to Yasuko in Japanese. She nodded and then bowed as he left the room.

  Anna was becoming accustomed to the fact that the Japanese do a lot of bowing. Somewhat bemused, she asked the Japanese woman perhaps a little clumsily, ‘Is your husband, the mayor, my surprise?’

  Yasuko laughed. ‘Of course not, a tailor is not a surprise!’ She walked the three steps to a small wardrobe and opened the door and withdrew what Anna saw was an unfamiliar silk garment of extraordinary beauty. She didn’t exactly say ‘Da-da-da-dah!’, but as she held up the garment for Anna to see, her triumphant expression suggested she wanted to say the equivalent in Japanese. ‘It is your kimono, Anna-san, it is silk. The most beautiful I have ever seen.’

  ‘Mine?’ Anna asked, confused. ‘It is beautiful, Yasuko-san, but… but I am not Japanese.’

  ‘Tokuma-san has worked two days and two nights, he has not visited the mayor’s office once and has slept every night only four hours.’ She stepped forward and held the garment against Anna’s body. ‘We have made it for your size, one hundred and seventy-three centimetres.’ She giggled and held her hands, fingers slightly bent to indicate a circle. ‘And for your waist I have to guess with my hands. Now you must try it on. My honourable husband will make the necessary alterations, he is waiting to do a fitting.’ She paused. ‘You must be ready when the honourable colonel-san returns for lunch.’

  Anna knew that there would come a time when she would have to resist Konoe Akira, but as quickly realised that if she refused to wear the kimono it would be the little Japanese housekeeper who would be blamed and punished, not herself.

  ‘I am not sure, Yasuko-san. It is very beautiful — but it is for a Japanese woman.’

  Yasuko had been too excited to sense her reluctance and now looked utterly crestfallen. ‘But Anna-san, it is silk, even in Japan a silk kimono, only the highborn, the very rich, can have one! I myself cannot ever hope to own such a kimono. It is the highest compliment. The colonel Konoe-san is showing you great honour with this gift of silk!’ It was clear that the mama-san found it impossible to comprehend Anna’s reluctance to wear the beautiful gown.

  Anna decided she would wear the kimono to protect the little Japanese housekeeper, but did so with a great sense of foreboding. Konoe Akira was, she realised, beginning to shape her, to do what he had done with the dahlias. Even if he admitted to himself that she was not the yellow and white vase, he had made the multi-coloured one stand to attention in the same way, leaves and stems and blossoms. She was to be that combination of discipline and perfection he strove so hard to attain as an aesthete — a beautiful thing, tamed and under his control, his ultimate achievement.

  Anna slipped off her blouse and sarong, and Yasuko, fussing and happy, helped her into the silk garment. The kimono fitted surprisingly well and Yasuko informed her that the cut was the one used by young women for it had longer sleeves and the waistband, about nine centimetres wide and known as an obi, was tied in the fukura suzume way (the sparrow style) so that it resembled a sparrow and was suitable for an unmarried woman. The silk that was used for a young woman’s kimono is traditionally more colourful, and this one was a design of cherry blossom against a blue sky, the blue almost, but not quite, matching the deep violet of her eyes. Anna, looking into the full-length mirror, could see that it was simply stunning. The mayor entered and nipped and tucked and left again for Anna to slip out of the gown so that he could complete it.

  ‘Now we must do the make-up and hair. In the bedroom there is a make-up mirror,’ Yasuko said.

  ‘No!’ Anna cried. ‘No make-up. I am sorry, Yasuko-san, but the appearance of my face and hair is my own decision. I will wear the kimono out of respect for you and your husband Tokuma-san — it is only a garment — but no make-up, no hair-do; my face is my own.’

  ‘But… but… he will be very angry, Anna-san!’ Yasuko persisted. ‘Those were his instructions.’

  ‘With me, perhaps, but not angry with you. I will explain it myself to the colonel-san so that you do not get into trouble.’ Anna’s heart was beating fiercely as she spoke. Why had her life become all defiance? All about men who expected, as if they possessed a natural right, to exert their will over her and to dominate and override her own self? Konoe Akira, she knew, held ultimate power over her. He could kill her if he wished, but she instinctively knew that to do so would be an admission to himself that he had failed. Anna was aware that in his mind he would not have completed the task he intended to perform and, in turn, had not received what he desired from her. She was beginning to understand the mind of the Japanese noble.

  Yasuko, relieved that Anna would take the responsibility for refusing any make-up, now said pleadingly, ‘I have geta sandals and tabi socks, will you wear them, Anna-san?’

  ‘May I see them?’ Anna asked.

  Hesitating at her reply, Yasuko said, ‘There is one more thing.’

  ‘What is it?’ Anna, at once suspicious, enquired.

  ‘I must show you how to hold your hands when you bow.’ The mayor’s wife demonstrated the height the arms are held and the width the elbows are apart so that only the tips of the fingers touch with the thumbs resting parallel to the forefingers. ‘You will be wearing a formal kimono that is usually worn when remaining in the geisha house to entertain an honourable male or when going out. It is the one the colonel-san requested. When you hold your hands and bow as I have shown you, it is to show off your kimono, so the shorter and wider sleeves fall correctly and the silk appears in perfect repose.’

  The Mayor of the Squashed Hat, now turne
d back into a very weary tailor, called out impatiently to his wife and they returned to the sewing room. He waited outside the door while Anna undressed, conscious of her simple cotton knickers and bra.

  Yasuko brought her a long slip that she termed a juban, followed by the single-layered silk kimono together with a wide obi of the same silk, which she tied in the sparrow style so that it was just below the bosom. While her husband may have been an indifferent town official, he proved to be an excellent tailor and this time the kimono fitted perfectly.

  The mama-san produced the tabi socks and Anna laughed. ‘I wore socks like this when I was a little girl,’ she said as the housekeeper, now acting as a personal maid, knelt and fitted the white socks onto Anna’s feet, then followed with heeled wooden thongs. Anna attempted to walk in them and was forced to take small steps, keeping her back rigid, if she hoped to keep them on. They clacked loudly as she walked. ‘They make an awful clack-clack sound. Am I walking incorrectly?’ she asked Yasuko.

  ‘No, that is correct. A Japanese woman, she must not approach a man so he does not hear her coming; the clack-clack is out of respect so that she doesn’t appear suddenly and he can call out to her if he does not wish her presence.’

  Anna was beginning to understand my explanation that the Japanese have a rule or a convention for everything; that this was not a society where spontaneity was tolerated or originality and individuality were thought to be important.

  She endured a final inspection by the tailor-turned-mayor-turned-tailor again. He seemed pleased with his work and, now that she had assumed an importance in his mind, bowed obsequiously and thanked her for the privilege of allowing him to create the garment.

  It was five minutes to twelve o’clock and there was just sufficient time for Anna to assume her customary place at the bamboo setting. At precisely noon the horn of the big American car announced the arrival of the senior Japanese officer. But Anna was forced to wait a further twenty minutes before Konoe Akira came through the door onto the verandah. She was surprised to see that he no longer wore his uniform but instead a black cotton robe of a crosshatch design that fell to the floor and was belted at the waist. She would later learn that it was a summer kimono called a yukata that originated from the dress of a travelling samurai warrior. It was a costume once worn by the fiercest of warriors, but Konoe Akira, approaching her with his pronounced limp in the middle of the day, reminded Anna of someone convalescing on a hospital verandah after an accident.