The China Lover (23 page)

   16   

I
HADN’T HEARD
anything from Yoshiko since I left Tokyo. Typical of her. Out of sight, out of mind, I’m afraid. I hadn’t rated her chances of coming to America very high. Only one movie actress had managed it since the war: Tanaka Kinuyo. She was a very grand lady, and rumor had it that General MacArthur himself intervened.

So I was astonished, to say the least, to open my
New York Times
one morning and read about the arrival in Los Angeles of none other than my beloved Yoshiko. “Madame Butterfly Flies into Town” was the headline. Madame Butterfly had actually changed her name a little; she was now Miss Shirley Yamaguchi. She told reporters that she had always been a huge fan of Shirley Temple. She also told reporters that she had come to America “to learn how to kiss.” Whereupon the photographer from the
San Diego Union
offered his cheek and shouted: “Why don’t you start right here, honey.” The photograph of Shirley planting a kiss on the grinning snapper’s mug was reprinted all over the country, even in the august pages of the
New York Times
.

I still didn’t see Yoshiko (I couldn’t bring myself to call her “Shirley”) for several months. She was busy touring California and Hawaii, giving concerts for her Japanese fans. Then, a short note, in English, which read:

Dear Sidney-san,

Long time no see. Weather in California so sunny. Arriving New York on 5 June. Meet me at Delmonico’s for lunch on 6th.

Thank you. So long.

XX Shirley Y.

Once again it was she who invited me. I couldn’t possibly have afforded Delmonico’s, anyway. I arrived there first. When I told the maitre d’ that the table was booked under the name Yamaguchi, he looked at me a bit curiously, as though I were some kind of imposter. Japanese names were not yet so commonly heard in New York in those days. Thank God she soon came sweeping in, every inch the diva, in a high-collared crimson Chinese dress with a pattern of silver chrysanthemums. “Yoshiko!” I cried, glad to see her finally after such a long time.

“Sid-san, I’m Shirley now, we are in the States, no?” She was bubbling over with excitement. There was so much to tell. Oh, the people she had met! Charlie and Yul and King! I had no idea who she was talking about, so I asked her to elaborate, while carefully avoiding the use of her name. By the time we got to our porterhouse steaks, I was firmly in the picture. She had met Charlie Chaplin; Yul Brynner, an actor; and King Vidor, the director who happened to be an old acquaintance of Kawamura. Charlie, apparently, adored Japanese culture and showed a great interest in her views on world peace. “And Yul is such a sweetheart, Sid-san. You know we might star together in
The King and I
, on Broadway. On Broadway! I’ll be a Siamese princess, and Yul the King of Siam. Yul loves my singing. Can you imagine, Shirley Yamaguchi in a musical on Broadway! And after Broadway, I want to be in a Hollywood movie.” Oh, how she loved “the States,” its openness, and its businesslike manners. “Sid,” she squealed, “I think I feel at home in this country. You know something, it reminds me of China.”

I was pleased for her, of course, but curious to know how she had
managed to come to America at all, despite all the travel restrictions. After all, Japan was still an occupied country. “You remember Major Gunn?” I did, with a great deal of distaste. “Well, he fixed it for me. He’s a good guy, really. He makes sure my family gets enough food from the PX.” I didn’t wish to know what price he had exacted, nor, quite understandably, did Yoshiko volunteer any such information.

Instead, she gushed on about Charlie and Yul. Charlie loved Japan. They had met at the house of Richard Neutra, the architect, and Charlie had entertained the guests with his version of a Japanese country dance. And she had sung Japanese folk songs. She was so glad no one had asked her to sing that vile “China Nights” again. She refused even to sing it for her Japanese fans in L.A. and Honolulu, no matter how many times they requested it. That’s why it would be so great to do
The King and I
. It would be a new beginning, a rebirth, as it were, the launch of Shirley Yamaguchi on a world stage.

“Yul is half Asian, you know,” she said, as her plate of half-eaten porterhouse steak was efficiently removed by the waiter. “The first time we met, it was as if we had known each other forever. Like me, he is a citizen of the world, a Western man with an Asian soul. His real name was Khan, you know, and he was raised in Harbin. His father was a Mongolian and his mother a Romanian gypsy. He invited me for dinner at Charochka’s Russian Restaurant. It brought back so many memories of home, of Masha, who saved my life, of the phantom film we made in Harbin, of Dimitri and the Harbin Opera Company.” Here she paused, drying a tear with her little finger. It was no more than a second, though, before the words came tumbling out again: “Then Yul took me to his house in Santa Monica and played his guitar and sang Russian songs for me. He understands my feelings, like no one else before . . .” And then what happened? She giggled and slapped my arm. “Sid-san, you’re so naughty.”

“Oh, honey,” I said.

“But,” she burbled, “you can’t meet him, I’m afraid. He’s very jealous, you know.”

“But,” I began.

She didn’t wait for me to finish. “I know,” she said, “even though you’re not that kind of man. I know you’re not interested in me as a woman, but . . .” It was not quite what I had been meaning to say, but I decided to leave it at that.

   17   

W
E SPOKE A
few times on the phone, but the next place I saw Yoshiko was on television. She had landed a spot on
The Ed Sullivan Show
. This came just at the right moment, for auditions for
The King and I
had not been a success. Perhaps Yul had tired of her, but the coveted part as the Siamese princess failed to materialize. She had decided to practice her English-language skills, and hired a teacher to straighten out her pronunciation, the “l’s” and “r’s” and all that.
The Ed Sullivan Show
, meanwhile, would launch her career in America. She was tremendously excited. “You know,” she said, “that I’ll be seen by everyone in America?”

I watched the show at the Upper East Side apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Owada, friends of Brad Martin’s. Judging from his art collection (including a rare Hokusai scroll painting, and several stone sculptures by Ken Ibuki), Owada-san was a very wealthy man. He wrote essays about literature and politics for a prestigious Japanese journal and prided himself on being, as he put it, “very progressive.” The Owadas, too, had been put in touch with Yoshiko through Kawamura, who seemed to know everyone worth knowing.

Isamu was at the party, looking intense as usual. So was Brad, who had gone cool on me after I declined to continue our physical relations. I noticed how my subscription to
Connoisseur
had suddenly come to a halt. Brad was in a sour mood from the beginning and made sarcastic
comments as soon as the program started. The first guest to appear on the show was a man with a singing saw. Then came Joe DiMaggio, wearing a loud checkered suit. “My God,” exclaimed Brad, “just look at that nose!” He proceeded to chatter all the way through the interview with DiMaggio, which didn’t bother us much, since none of us was particularly interested in baseball, except Mr. Owada, but he was too courteous to complain.

I knew, as soon as the studio orchestra struck up the overture from
Madama Butterfly
, that Yoshiko’s moment had come. Sullivan announced: “All the way from Tokyo, Japan, land of Mount Fujiyama and the Geisha girls, ladies and gentlemen, the descendant of a long line of Cho Cho-sans, my good friend, the beautiful, the talented, the mysterious—Shirley Yamaguchi!” And there she was,
my
good friend, in a striking lemon yellow kimono bound with a burnt orange obi, smiling to the camera and bowing to Sullivan, who bowed back in elaborate fashion, whereupon Yoshiko bowed once again, a little deeper this time, to which Sullivan responded by falling to his knees to loud laughter from the studio audience. “Oh, my God!” said Brad. “Will you just look at that kimono. I haven’t seen anything like that since I was in Atami. She looks like a hot-spring entertainer.”

“They drink a lot of tea in Japan,” said Sullivan. Yoshiko laughed and said that was indeed so. “But they don’t drink tea like we do, do they?”

“No, we don’t, Ed-san.”

“The Japanese are a velly velly porite people,” said Sullivan. Yoshiko tittered. Brad groaned. The Owadas looked on blankly.

“Miss Yamaguchi-san here will show us just how her people drink tea, ceremoniously.”

“Yes, I will, Ed-san,” Yoshiko said, as the various utensils of a traditional tea ceremony were produced. She sat on her knees and stirred the bitter green brew with a bamboo whisk, explaining to Sullivan
and a grinning Joe DiMaggio just what she was doing. When the tea had been prepared, she offered the bowl to DiMaggio, who sniffed at it with suspicion, kept grinning, and passed it on to Sullivan, who turned the bowl, bowed to Yoshiko, took a sip, cleared his throat as though he had swallowed poison, bowed to Yoshiko once more, and thanked her for the delicious cup of tea. “Jesus,” said Brad. “Well, what can you expect,” said Madame Owada. The only one who had said nothing throughout the proceedings was Isamu. He stared at the television screen with the intensity of an artist contemplating a blank canvas or a pristine slab of stone.

The orchestra struck up another tune, a jazzier one with odd Chinese flourishes. I could hear a gong being sounded. Shirley got up behind a microphone, and Sullivan announced that she would sing us a song entitled “Cha Cha Cho Cho-san.” Gently swaying with the rhythm, smiling, continuously smiling, Shirley sang the song, which went:

I’m Cho Cho-san, Cho Cho-san, butterfly from Japan,

I’ll sing and I’ll dance and I’ll cha cha cha cha,

I’ll please you any way I can.

When it was all over, none of us knew what to say. Brad rolled his eyes. The Owadas refrained from comment. I was about to denounce Ed Sullivan for his crassness. Finally it was Isamu who broke the awkward silence: “She’s extraordinary,” he said, “absolutely remarkable. I must meet her. It is essential that I meet her . . .”

“But of course,” cried Madame Owada, as she pressed a little bell for the maid to bring in some Japanese snacks. Watching television had made us all hungry.