Butterfly's Child (32 page)

Nothing. He stepped back, a tight feeling in his chest. The woman emerged from the back of the shrine, her head bowed. He watched her go, then followed the path around the shrine. There was a smaller shrine set farther back, among a cluster of evergreens; as he walked toward it, he saw a stone fox to the left of the entrance.

He hurried toward it, holding his breath, and stood before the fox. It was crudely made, of soft stone that had weathered badly; part of his snout was missing. He touched its head, mottled with black spots, ran his fingers over the ears. It was the fox that had frightened him as a child. They must have lived close by.

That night he asked the Tsujis where a geisha might have lived with an American. In Juzenji, Mr. Tsuji said without hesitation, the neighborhood on both sides of the Hollander Slope, not far from Maruyama.

“Hollander Slope!” He'd walked there many times now, perhaps close to his home without being aware of it.

“Juzenji is the mixed neighborhood of Nagasaki,” Mrs. Tsuji added. “Often a foreign man lives in this place with a geisha or courtesan, and some descendants of such unions live there too.”

“Is that the only place they could have lived?”

Mrs. Tsuji said that some Japanese men married geisha or courtesans and lived elsewhere, and that a few wealthy foreigners might take their geishas to live in the Oura district overlooking the bay, but most stayed in Juzenji.

*  *  *

Juzenji was a maze of houses, small gardens, and alleyways. For several weeks, on his days off, Benji walked through the narrow alleys of the neighborhood. He encountered some foreign men: a Frenchman with a limp, several sailors in European uniforms, an American sailor who made him think of Frank. He was exhilarated to see people with light eyes or hair that was not pure black: people like himself.

Behind the rows of houses at one perimeter of the neighborhood was a huge stone wall that seemed familiar—the way it cast a deep shadow over the adjoining houses and gardens—and there was a gate here and there, the way a door was set adjacent to the yard, that made him think one or the other of the houses could have been theirs, but he was not certain. Although everything seemed smaller than he remembered, the area and the quality of light stirred him, and he was positive that he had walked with his mother on the flagstone steps of Hollander Slope, going down the hill to the shops, up the hill to look at the ships in the harbor.

He was reluctant to go from door to door to ask about his mother—Mrs. Tsuji had warned him that people might be wary of talking to a stranger—but he always carried the picture in his pocket.

One day a plump gray-haired woman carrying a string bag of groceries stopped him in an alleyway. “You come here often,” she said. Her creased face was kind, so he told her he might have been born in the neighborhood and showed her the picture of his mother and Frank. “Do you recognize either of them?”

She squinted at the picture. “Possibly I have seen the woman—I cannot say with certainty. The man looks like many Americans. He is your father?”

Benji told her about Frank's betrayal, his mother's suicide. Had she heard of it?

“There are many sad partings here in Juzenji,” she said. “The foreigner comes, the foreigner goes; that is usually the way of it. Sometimes,” she added, looking at him, “he leaves behind his souvenir.”

“Do you know of a place for rent here?” he heard himself say. “A room or a small apartment?”

“Perhaps,” she said, looking at him closely. “Please come.” He followed her farther down the alley, where she slid open a gate made of wooden slats and led him into the house. She invited him to sit at a small table in an untidy room and brought tea, grunting as she sat down to
join him. She was Fukuda Taki, she said, whose husband, a carpenter, had died recently; their one child had died quite young. She asked about his employment, how long he had been in Japan, his future plans. After he told her everything, including the years in America, the long trip here, she studied him gravely.

“I will need to speak with your employer,” she said, “but I believe a place can be arranged for you here, to our mutual benefit.”

The Tsujis said they would miss him, but the move seemed appropriate. Mr. Tsuji gave him a raise so that he could afford his new quarters.

Benji settled into a small tatami room upstairs in Mrs. Fukuda's house, overlooking the front garden. In addition to his modest rent, he helped Mrs. Fukuda with chores in the house and contributed groceries for the breakfasts and dinners she cooked for him. She was glad to have him, she said; she had been lonely.

In the shop, Benji learned to use the abacus and to make change in Japanese currency. He made an addition to the inventory—Western-sized shoes and socks for men, sent by Mr. Matsumoto—that proved to be popular with tourists and businessmen from the Oura district. With the money Mr. Matsumoto sent him, Benji shipped objects made of tortoiseshell—eyeglasses, hair ornaments, jewelry—to San Francisco. His career in import/export had begun.

He returned often to the fox shrine, where he showed the photograph to anyone who seemed approachable: a man who worked on the grounds, a woman—beautiful, possibly a geisha—who gave him a slight smile as she was leaving. He went deeper into the pleasure district, going farther down small alleyways and lanes, to shops and teahouses and bars. A few people said her face might be familiar, but no one could recall her name. No one remembered Cio-Cio-san.

Keast settled Ulysses in
what he still thought of as Pinkerton's barn, gave him a good brushing and an extra measure of oats. It had been a hard day. On the way to the house, he looked out at the late-afternoon sunlight on the greening meadow, the plums in flower along the river, thinking of the day Benji lost his ball. It had been a warm day in autumn, Indian summer.

“You're late, Horatio.” Lena met him at the door. “I was worried.”

He consulted his watch. “It's the usual time.”

“You said you'd be home early.”

“I'm sorry, darling.” He kissed her and brushed a smear of flour from her cheek. “We had to go from one end of the county to the other. And I stopped by the post office.” He drew the envelope from his coat pocket to show her, but she was already headed toward the kitchen. The twins were in their high chairs at the dining-room table, Elmer throwing crumbs to the cat, Rose sucking her thumb.

“Hello, sugar lumps.” He gave each one a kiss on the head. “Where's Charlotte?” he called. He'd looked forward to holding her.

“Already in her bassinet. She wore herself out crawling all day.”

He returned the letter to his pocket and sat down. The table was set with Lena's best china, and wineglasses stood at their places.

It wasn't their anniversary, and she'd already told him she was pregnant again.

Lena came in smiling, bearing a huge platter of pork roast surrounded by crusty potatoes. Sylvie followed with a bowl of peas fresh from the garden, baked apples, yeast rolls. His mouth watered.

“Pour the wine, Horatio, it's on the side table.”

He reached for it—an excellent burgundy they'd been saving for a special occasion.

“What's this all about?” he said.

“Your birthday! Why do you always forget?”

“Because I want to,” he said, too quickly, then saw the shadow cross her face. “But this is wonderful, sweetheart, thank you so much.” He poured their wine, lifted his glass. “How could a man be happier, with such a wife, such a family?”

They began to eat; he was ravenous. He'd tell her about Benji later. The children were fussy and had to be put to bed in the middle of the meal, he carrying Elmer, Lena with Rose.

“Quite a family we're accumulating,” he said as they closed the nursery door. He embraced her and patted her stomach.

“I want to have more,” she said.

“More?”

“Four or five total, including the twins.”

“Oh, my.” He followed her down the stairs.

“You don't want me to teach—I might as well have a class at home.”

They sat down at the table. He picked up his knife and fork, put them down. “I'm an old man, Lena, fifty-five. I can't leave you with a house full of children.”

“You're as healthy as a horse. And you certainly don't act like an old man,” she said with a sly look.

“You're an inspiration,” he said. “But it's something we have to talk about.”

“Later,” she said. “Let's enjoy the evening.”

She brought in a cake, fresh coconut, and two wrapped gifts—onyx cuff links and a fine shirt she'd made for him. He took off his work shirt, put on the new one, and she helped him with the cuff links. “There,” she said. “More handsome than any young blade.”

“Ha,” he said, and kissed her. He hoped their child would be a male, to help Lena in her old age. Not that he didn't have something set by, but she'd need a man.

After cake and coffee, they went to sit in the porch swing. It was the loveliest time of day, the gloaming, with its dusky, mysterious light. The air was perfumed with the lilacs he'd planted for Lena when they moved here.

“I'm sorry you missed your lilac wedding,” he said.

“This is just as good. Better. And we made an early start on our family.”

He sighed.

“What's wrong?”

“Benji's gone to Japan and didn't bother to tell me.” He showed the envelope. “My letter was returned from San Francisco. Look at this:
Return to sender. B. departed for Japan, will advise, Y. Matsumoto
. Benji hasn't written to me since that postcard.”

“He's on an adventure. And he's young. You'll hear from him.”

He took her hand and looked out at the pasture, the light almost gone, the oak tree a dark indistinct shape. It was true: The young didn't understand time, how it rushed by, fast as that little river.

Just before New Year's
it began to snow, blowing in first from the bay, then fanning out over the city, large flakes drifting down with a heaviness and ease that suggested something long stored had finally been released. When Benji walked from Mrs. Fukuda's house toward the shop early the next morning, it had stopped snowing, but few people were out. In the silence, with all the houses blanketed by snow, time seemed erased. It could have been a hundred years ago; it could have been twenty years ago, when he was a boy, and his mother was alive. At the bottom of the hill, he turned and looked up Hollander Slope. The children of the wealthy foreigners had owned sleds, he remembered, and he'd watched enviously as they zoomed past him, screaming with delight. His mother had given him a large metal cooking pan to use as a sled, but it hadn't worked on the hills, so she tied a rope to the handles and pulled him back and forth across a flat patch of snow.

He started to turn left, toward Funadaiku-machi. The tourists wouldn't be coming today, he realized—there was no real need to go to the shop—so he went to the right, up the slope toward Maruyama.

An old man was dragging a bag of coal down the main street of the pleasure district, leaving a gray trough behind him in the snow, and a group of boys, red faced and poorly dressed—urchins, Grandmother Pinkerton would have called them—were shouting insults as they lobbed snowballs at one another. A snowball stung his ear; he turned and grinned, tempted to join the game, but he wanted to get to the shrine while he might have it to himself.

The stone torii at the entrance and the branches of trees around the
perimeter were rimmed with white. He was glad to see that the snow covering the path and garden was pristine; his were the first footprints. When he pulled the rope to make his prayer, snow fell onto his head and down the neck of his coat. He shook out the collar, put his hands together, and closed his eyes. His mind jumped about; he needed to learn some prayers in Japanese.

He heard footsteps, barely discernible, as though the sound was part of his imagining. But then there was a woman's voice—“Excuse me”—and he stepped aside to let her pull the rope. Irritated, he moved without glancing at her to the fox shrine at the back of the grounds, pulled the rope, and closed his eyes again. But his solitude had been disrupted. He looked at the fox, his old friend, his broken snout filled in with snow, his eyes erased by it, and brushed the snow from the top of his head.

“Excuse me,” he heard again. He turned; the woman's head and the lower part of her face were swathed in a blue cloth. She looked up at him mischievously. “I was hoping to see you today,” she said.

“Oh?” She didn't look familiar, though it was difficult to tell with her wrapped up like that.

“I've seen you from the window,” she said. Her mouth moving beneath the cloth was enticing.

“What window?”

She turned and nodded toward the geisha house below them.

“You're a geisha?”

“Do you think so?” she said, still with that flirtatious expression. “Thank you.”

He looked at the fox to hide his confusion.

“You like our fox,” she said. “Is he carrying prayers for you?”

“You're very inquisitive,” he said, adopting her tone. “But you haven't answered my question. Are you a geisha?”

She pulled back her scarf, revealing a prominent nose and a pointed chin. “What do you think?” she said.

“Well … maybe so,” he said.

She laughed. “We may as well be truthful. I am a maid who cleans the geishas' floor. You and I are similar, Mr. Foreigner, both of us mongrels. I think your mother is a Japanese and your father a Westerner. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“There are many of us in Maruyama. But you have not been living in Japan.”

“How do you know?”

“Your speech confirms it. And I've seen you here often—a stranger, with urgent prayers.”

“I'm praying to find information about my mother, who was a geisha.”