For about two hours that morning as I lay awake—from three to five—I decided the whole affair was too damned silly, but toward dawn I began to see Hana-ogi dancing along the wall of my room and her classical postures, the stamping of her feet and the gestures of her right hand allured me so that I could think only of her tight and disciplined body. My thoughts were filled with the grace of her movement and as the sun rose I fell asleep knowing that somewhere within the triangle of the three cities we would meet.
OLD FARMER: “Each drop of fertilizer I place against the stalk of the plant by hand—not to waste any.”
It came unexpectedly. On a warm day in May I waited for Hana-ogi at the Bitchi-bashi but she did not appear and disconsolately I wandered down to the railroad station to purchase a ticket back to Itami, but as I approached the cage I saw Hana-ogi standing off to one side, holding a ticket in her hand and impulsively, even though we were in the heart of Takarazuka, she came to me and we went to the ticket cage together and we bought two tickets for a small town at the end of the line, and on this lovely day we walked for the first time through the ancient Japanese countryside.
Hana-ogi, unable to speak a phrase of English, and I quite as dumb in Japanese, walked along the rice fields and across the little ridges that ran like miniature footpaths beside the irrigation ditches. We nodded to old women working the fields, laughed at children, and watched the white birds flying. Hana-ogi wore her green and white kimono and her cream zori and she was a bird herself, the May wind catching at her loose garments and the branches of trees tousling her delicate hair.
Wherever we went the land was crowded Where in Texas there would be one farmer here there were forty. Where the foot-path in New Hampshire might be crowded with three people, here it was overwhelmed with fifty. There were no vacant fields, no woodlots, no mossy banks beside the wandering streams. On every foot of land there were people and no matter how far we walled into the countryside there were always more people. More than any day I ever lived in my life I treasure this day because I discovered not only Hana-ogi’s enormous love but I also discovered her land, the tragic, doomed land of Japan, and from it I learned the fundamental secret of her country: too many people.
In Korea we used to joke about enlisted men who bought Japanese girls of sixteen or seventeen—a man could buy a young girl anywhere in Japan—and we thought it a horrible reflection on Japan, but today I saw that it would always be possible to find some Japanese farmer who would be eager to sell his daughter to a kind man, for if she stayed at home and had to fight for her share of the skimpy rice in the family bowl she could never do as well as if she went off with a man who could buy rice for her. All the problems we used to laugh about as being so strange—so unlike America—I saw explained this afternoon. The Japanese were no different from us. Their farmers loved their daughters exactly as Iowa farmers love theirs. But there was not enough land. There was never enough food.
I thank God for that May evening walking among the rice fields while the crickets droned at us, for if I had not seen this one particular old man tending his field I am sure that when I finally learned the terrifying truth about Hana-ogi I could no longer have loved her; but having seen this old man and his particles of soil I loved her the more.
He stood where a trail turned off from the main road, leaving in the joint a thin sliver of useless land that in America would have been allowed to grow up in burdock. In Japan this tragic triangle was a man’s field, the sustenance of one man’s large family. On this May night he was bent over the field, digging it to a depth of fourteen inches. The dug soil he placed reverently to one side until his tiny field was excavated. Then, as we watched, he took each handful of soil and gently pulverized it, allowing it to return to its bed. Pebbles he tossed aside and sticks and foreign things, and in the two days that followed this man would finger each item of his soil. Not for him a plow or a harrow, but the gnarled fingers and the bending back.
It is difficult for me to report these things, for I cannot explain how Hana-ogi explained them to me. By pointing, by gestures, by little pantomimes with the old man she explained that he was like her father except that her father’s field—before the American bombs killed him—was slightly bigger. But her father had nine children.
It was breathlessly apparent to us as the sun sank below the distant hills that in terribly crowded Japan Hana-ogi and I were seeking a place in which to make love. There was now no thought of Japanese or American. We were timeless human beings without nation or speech or different color. I now understood the answer to the second question that had perplexed me in Korea: “How can an American who fought the Japs actually go to bed with a Jap girl?” The answer was so simple. Nearly a half million of our men had found the simple answer. You find a girl as lovely as Hana-ogi—and she is not Japanese and you are not American.
As we walked into the twilight we drew closer together. She took my hand and also took my heart and as dusk fell over us we searched more urgently from side to side. We were no more looking at the white birds or the old men bending over their fields. We were looking for a refuge—any kind of refuge—for we were desperately in love.
I remember that once I thought I saw a grove of trees, but they were houses, for random trees were not allowed to grow in Japan. Again Hana-ogi pointed to a barn, but it was occupied. In Japan there was not even spare land for love.
But at last we came to a structure that was familiar to me, two inclined massive poles with two more set across them at the top like an enormous capital A, flat at the point. It was the timeless symbol of a Shinto shrine and here there were trees, but as always there were people too. We watched them come through the towering A, stand silently before the shrine, clap their hands three times, bow and depart, the torn white paper and the rice ropes of their religion fluttering quietly in the wind above them.
Hana-ogi took my hand and led me past the shrine until we came to a grassy bank partially protected by four trees. Villagers passed ten feet from us and dogs barked nearby. Across the mound we could see the dim lights of houses, for there was no empty countryside as I had known it in America. There was no place where there were not people. But at last we had to ignore them and it seemed to me as I sank beside Hana-ogi in the May twilight that we were being watched by the million eyes of Japan.
I remember vividly two things that happened. I had no conception of a kimono and thought it a kind of wraparound dress but when we embraced and it was clear that Hana-ogi intended that we love completely, I tried to undo this gossamer dress, but it led to another and then another and to still more and although we could not speak we fell to laughing at my astonishment. Then suddenly we laughed no more, for I was faced with the second vast occurrence of the day, for when in the fading light I at last saw Hana-ogi’s exquisite body I realized with shock—even though I was prepared to accept it—that I was with a girl of Asia. I was with a girl whose complete body was golden and not white and there was a terrible moment of fear and I think Hana-ogi shared this fear, for she caught my white arm and held it across her golden breasts and studied it and looked away and then as quickly caught me to her whole heart and accepted the white man from America.
We returned at last to Takarazuka and as we approached that lovely place we went into separate cars and I waited long till Hana-ogi had disappeared across the Bitchi-bashi before I appeared on the streets, heading for the Marine Barracks. Mike Bailey was in the shower and when he heard me go by he yelled and brought me back to military life with a fearful bang.
He said, “Mrs. Webster saw me in Kobe today and asked me a lot of questions.”
“About you and Fumi-chan?” I asked, nonchalantly.
“Don’t play coy, son. About you and Eileen.”
“What’d’j tell her?”
“It isn’t so much what I told her as what she asked.” He waited for me to press the point, but I called downstairs for some cold beer and he said, “She asked me if you were going with a Japanese girl.”
/> I sort of gulped on my beer and Mike said promptly, “Of course I said no. You aren’t, are you?”
I took another drink of beer and pondered a long time what I ought to say. Then the pressing desire to talk with someone overcame me and I said, “I’ve been walking with Hana-ogi. We must have walked for five miles and I’m so deep in love …”
Mike was a fine character to talk with at a time like this. He laughed and said, “I feel like a traitor, Ace, getting you into this. Hell, I’m the one who’s supposed to be in love.”
I said, “It hit me like a propeller zinging around when you aren’t looking. Jesus, Mike, I tell you the truth, I’m desperate.”
Mike laughed again and said, “No need for a guy to be desperate in Japan. If you can’t cuddle up to Hana-ogi because she’s an actress, there’s always the Tiger of Takarazuka. Better men than you …”
I started to say boldly, “But we …” My voice trailed off and I ended lamely, “The stars came right down and knocked me out.”
Mike looked at me quizzically, then said without joking, “Look, Ace, I know better than most men around here how sweet a Japanese girl can be. But don’t get involved. For the love of God, Ace, don’t get involved.”
“I am involved.”
“Mrs. Webster said the M.P.’s have instructions to pick up officers seen holding hands with indigenous personnel. That’s a lovely phrase, isn’t it?”
“I just don’t give a damn, Mike. To hell with the M.P.’s and to hell with Mrs. Webster.”
“I agree with you, Ace. But while I was talking with the general’s main tank division her daughter came up and I got a good look. For Christ sake, Ace, that girl’s a ravin’ beauty. Why do you have to mess around with a Japanese actress if this Eileen is on tap?”
I put the beer down and stared at the floor. That was the question I had not wanted Mike to ask. I saw Eileen as I had known her at Vassar, bright, eager, a wonderful sport. I saw her that winter in Texas when her father was a colonel at San Antonio and I was at Randolph Field. Why hadn’t I married her then? Why had she turned down the other young officers and insisted upon waiting for me? I felt like the announcer who asks the burning questions at the end of each radio program about breaking hearts, but I knew that you could turn my radio on the next day and still not get the answers.
I looked up at Mike and said, “I don’t know.”
He asked me directly, “Are you afraid of American women?”
I said, “I hadn’t thought of it.”
He said, “I’ve been over here a long time, what with one thing and another. I’ve watched lots of our men go for these Japanese girls … Hell, I won’t be superior about it. I do myself. Frankly and all kidding aside, Ace, I’d a damned sight rather marry Fumiko-san than Eileen. But I just wondered why you felt that way?”
“I don’t feel that way. At least if I do I don’t know about it. But why do you?”
“With me it’s very clear. One thing explains it all. You ever had your back scrubbed by a Japanese girl? Not a bath attendant, mind you. That’s simple. But a girl who really loved you?”
“What’s back scrubbing got to do with it?”
“Ace, either you understand or you don’t.”
“What are you driving at?”
“I’m trying to say there are hundreds of ways for men and women to get along together. Some of the ways work in Turkey, some work in China. In America we’ve constructed our own ways. What I’m saying is that of them all I prefer the Japanese way.” He laughed and saw that I didn’t entirely understand, so he banged his beer down and shouted, “All right! One easy question! Can you imagine Eileen Webster scrubbing your back?”
It was a crazy question, a truly hellish shot in the dark, but I could immediately visualize fat little Katsumi Kelly the other night, taking her sore and defeated husband into the bath and knocking the back of his neck and getting him his kimono and quietly reassuring him that her love was more important than whatever Lt. Col. Calhoun Craford had done to him, and I saw runty, sawed-off Joe Kelly coming back to life as a complete man and I had great fear—like Mike Bailey—that Eileen Webster would not be able or willing to do that for her man. Oh, she would be glad to storm in and fight it out with Lt. Col. Craford, or she would take a job and help me earn enough so that I could tell Lt. Col. Craford to go to hell, or she could do a million other capable things; but I did not think she could take a wounded man and make him whole, for my mother in thirty years of married life had never once, so far as I knew, done for my father the simple healing act that Katsumi Kelly had done for her man the other night.
Mike said it for me. He laughed and said, “There are all kinds of things wrong with Japan. But Japanese women aren’t one of them and their view of love suits me fine.” Then he added, “But I hate to see you be the one to take it all seriously. Because the Air Force would never let you marry a Japanese girl …”
“What would the Air Force have to do about it?”
“You’d see. You’re one of their bright young men and they’d bring all sorts of pressures to bear …”
“Who’s talking about marriage?”
Mike sighed. “That’s better. The way you started, you were talking about marriage.”
“I said I was confused.”
“I’d be confused too if I was involved with two women like Eileen and Hana-ogi.” He grew thoughtful and added, “It’s very strange. I’d never have picked Hana-ogi. She’s always so mannish. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her in girl’s clothes. Have you?”
I thought of her rare charm and started to speak reverently but this scared Mike and he said, “Ace, I know damn well you’re thinking about marriage and it’s going to be tough. Son, it’s going to be tough.”
I insisted that I didn’t know what I was thinking about, but my problem was solved for me in an unforeseen manner. Katsumi and Joe dropped by the air base the next afternoon and Katsumi took care of everything. Haltingly she said, “We have find house for you, Ace.”
“A house!” I drew her toward a wall where no one could listen.
“Yes, one small house.”
“What do I want with a house?”
“Where else you and Hana-ogi-san stay?”
“Wait a …”
“You not love Hana-ogi?”
“Sure I love her, but …” I appealed to Joe, who grinned and said, “When a Japanese girl loves you, Ace, it’s solid. How you suppose I got my house?”
I said to them, “Hana-ogi could get into trouble …”
Katsumi looked at me incredulously and said, “When Hana-ogi come our house to see you it mean she love you. When she walk to Shinto shrine it mean same thing. Where you two make love? Here at Itami? I don’t think so. (She pronounced it, “I don’ sink so.”) Officers Club Kobe? I don’t think so. Takarazuka? No!”
I was about to call the whole affair off when Katsumi handed me a map showing that the house was not far from hers. Then she said, gravely. “Today Hana-ogi-san number one girl at Takarazuka. She work very hard for this. You be good man not tell anyone you love Hana-ogi. She make very dangerous come Osaka for you.”
“If it’s so dangerous …”
“But she tell me all time she work hard she think some day she meet …” Katsumi blushed and could not continue, so I waited until she gained courage, whereupon she whispered, “Hana-ogi tall girl. Not little fat girl same me. Long time she dream she meet tall man—same you.”
I must have shown my disappointment at being chosen because I was six-feet-two, so Katsumi said, “She meet many tall men but no one brave like you—no one brave to stand at bridge many times to see her.” That was Katsumi’s speech and as she left she said, “Hana-ogi come your new house tonight seven o’clock.”
I was now overboard in the slipstream where things happen so fast you never get your parachute open. I was tumbling about and all thought of General Webster’s orders, my promotion in service and my early ideas about the Japanese enemy were sw
irling in confusion. But of one thing I was determined. I would go to that house in Osaka early in the afternoon and I would clean it and I would stock the shelves with food and I would make it a home.
But at three-thirty I was called into an urgent meeting and it was nearly seven when I reached Osaka. I hurried up the main street to where my canal ran off to the right and I passed along the narrow footpath until I came to a little store, where I bought an armful of things to eat. Then I took a deep breath and walked out into the May twilight.
As I approached my house I saw that the sliding doors were open and from them came a bright light and a sight I shall never forget: a tiny cloud of dust followed by the merest flick of a broom. Hana-ogi had hurried to the new house to clean it for my arrival.
I dashed into the room, threw the food on the floor and took her in my arms. I kissed her wildly and pressed her golden cheek next to mine, but instead of the flood of kisses I anticipated she pushed me away, pointed to my shoes and cried, “Oh, Rroyd-san!” For a moment I was bewildered and then she knelt down and started to untie my offending shoes. Quickly I prevented her from doing this, so she picked up the food I had dropped and when she placed it on the shelf I saw that with her own money she had already stocked the kitchen.
There was a pot cooking over the brazier and I looked in, then turned quickly to find Hana-ogi cleaning my shoes and placing them in the corner. I took three steps, lifted her away from my shoes and carried her into the middle of the room, where I stood looking about me helplessly till Hana-ogi laughed and with her expressive head indicated a closet which I kicked open, releasing the bed roll. I spread it as well as I could with my feet and gently placed Hana-ogi upon it. She closed her slanted eyes for a moment, then looked up and smiled, pulling me down beside her.
EASY LESSONS IN ENGLISH, 1879: “Ever your devoted and humble servant.”
In the days that followed I often recalled the stories I had read about American and English sailors who had fallen in love with island girls and of how idyllic it was. But these damnable stories invariably ended with the big kiss and it had not occurred to me that after the big kiss these island lovers must have had things they wanted to talk about. But how did they talk without any language? How in hell did they talk?