T. Boyle - The Women

She was thinking of this — of the invitation for the succeeding evening from Count and Countess Lubiensky of Poland, who had the most charming little house and the most charming of friends, the Russian Princess Tscheremissinoff, Count Ablomov and his wife, a very pretty woman, actually, if her style was somewhat stodgy, and had she really been wearing a bustle? — when the car pulled up in front of the hotel and Frank sprang out in his usual impatient way, barely able to wait for her to gather herself before he had her by the arm, as if he meant to drag her up the walk.

The night was clear and cold. There was the sour odor of smoke on the air, of the braziers the Japanese warmed their feet with — paper walls and no central heating, every house as cold as an icehouse and no fireplaces, of course, else the whole place would burn to the ground every night of the week — and the pervasive tang of fish in all its essences. Red-paper lanterns everywhere, floating on the faintest breeze. The lights of the hotel. Stars overhead. As they made their way up the walk, she couldn’t help noticing the cluster of sedan chairs in the street, fifty or more of them, and the coolies loitering beside them. Something must have been going on in the ballroom, Japanese high society having an evening on the town, dancing to the orchestra on the dais, just like people anywhere, in Paris, New York, Memphis. The thought arrested her and she pulled away from him just to stand there a moment and take in the strangeness of it all.

Music drifted down to her then, an odd tinkling sort of music with a rippling rhythmic undercurrent that seemed to tug the melody in another direction altogether, into the depths of a deep churning sea, but beautiful for all that, and so perfect and unexpected. She felt languid and free — all eyes were on her, every man turning to stare — and it came to her that she loved this place, this moment, these people. She could stay here forever, right here, in the gentle sway of the Japanese night.

“Miriam? What are you doing? Come on, will you?” Frank was five paces ahead of her, and he turned now to give her a look of exasperation. He was impatient, always in a hurry to move and make and do, the endless round of social engagements wearing on him, the forced smiles, his clumsiness with the language, the string of toasts with the rice wine he loathed and only pretended to drink.

“Are we in a hurry? Is this some sort of athletic competition? Can’t I stop here a minute to take the air? Will that kill you?”

His face bloomed in all its complexity, the wondering frown, lines erupting at his hairline to pull deeper lines yet across his brow and into the creases at the corners of his eyes, and he would never sit for a bust, she saw that now, but no matter, she was busy with other things, helping him, guiding him through the shoals of inelegance and insensitivity and into the safe harbor of politesse, elegance, comportment. Because she could see through all the bowing and scraping, the tender solicitations and doe-eyed looks — these people were quick to take offense and no two ways about it. They would devour him if they could. But she wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Please, Miriam. I have work to do.”

“I want a cigarette.”

Two couples passed them on the steps, the men openly gawking at her, the women riding rhythmically up off their lacquered clogs so that the movement of their haunches was exaggerated — they didn’t walk so much as undulate, their every gesture a sexual advertisement.

“Can’t you do it inside? People are staring. Come on, I want to go now,” he insisted, his voice darkening.

“You don’t like me smoking in the rooms.”

He let out a sigh, then reached for her arm, but she drew it back.

“If you were a gentleman,” she said, watching him as the lanterns washed his face in the gentlest shade of red, like a blush, “you would offer to light my cigarette. And you would stand here beside me for the whole night if that was what I wanted.” She was toying with him now, enjoying herself. She took her time extracting her cigarette case and held it out to him so that he could remove a cigarette and offer it to her. When he leaned in close to light it, he murmured her name, twice, in resignation. Very gradually, bit by bit, through moments like this or at the teahouse earlier tonight when she’d eased over all the rough spots for him or at Princess Tscheremissinoff’s when she taught him how to behave in society, how to kiss a lady’s hand and murmur “Enchanté” or “Je suis desolé de partir,” she was taming him.

The wind stiffened, rattling the naked branches of the trees and setting the lanterns a-sway. She took her time, smoking the cigarette down to the nub, and then she turned to him — finally, when she was good and ready. “I’m getting cold, Frank,” she said. “Let’s go in. And by the way, I want you wearing your navy blue suit tomorrow night to the Lubienskys’—none of this Oriental business. It just won’t do in polite society.”

They stayed three and a half months that first time, leaving in mid-April, just as the weather turned mild and the cherry trees came into bloom. She hadn’t been feeling well toward the end, some sort of intestinal disorder eating away at her — the diet, no doubt, eel and sea urchin and all the rest — and though she’d gone off on her own once or twice to make inquiries among the closemouthed, blunt-eyed physicians, she’d been unable to awaken in them even the most rudimentary apprehension of the problem or obtain any aid whatsoever and she’d had to ration her morphine tablets. The voyage back was something of a relief, however, the Western cuisine settling her — and who’d ever have thought that something as simple as an omelet could be so redemptive? And there were the wines, of course, and meats. She really tucked into the meats — she couldn’t help herself. Filets mignons Lili, the sauté of chicken Lyonnaise, the roast duckling, the squab, beef sirloin and the pièce de résistance, real pâté de foie gras served on rounds cut from a real baguette with a nice gelée de vin and a Sauterne to complement it.

Naturally, Frank was green-faced the entire time, poor man. He just didn’t travel well. Especially on a rolling sea. She nursed him as best she could, but there was life on the ship, a whole society to beguile away the dull dank gray-crested days of the voyage, and she wound up spending a good deal of time simply enjoying herself, and why not? She’d devoted herself to him in Tokyo, giving up any notion of pursuing her own art in order to help him with everything from working out the designs for the textiles to be used throughout the hotel to the chinaware and cutlery (no chopsticks, absolutely, because what they were looking for here was strictly in the Continental mode), and keeping him on his toes and alert to the nuances in the presence of Hayashi-San, Baron Ōkura and the others. Mrs. Wrieto-San. She’d done her duty.

And then they were in Los Angeles, where Frank set up another office with yet another son — Lloyd — having left John behind in Tokyo to supervise as they prepared to break ground for construction the following year. Frank had taken a commission to build some sort of Aztec fortress on a hilltop there for a fat-faced heiress with theatrical pretensions, 129and as long as she kept her hands off of him, that was fine with Miriam. There were palm trees in Los Angeles, ocean beaches, and, better yet, Leora’s husband was retiring from the exchange business in Chicago and they were in the process of acquiring property in Santa Monica. Of course, Frank’s concerns — he was always on the very lip of disaster, both financially and professionally — required a plethora of back-and-forth travel between Los Angeles, Chicago and Taliesin (and Oak Park, where the bank was threatening to foreclose on his wife’s house and he was frantically selling off his precious prints to raise money). She tried to take it in stride. Inevitably it affected her nerves — she’d begun to think she put in more hours on the rails than the Negro porters — but her doctor examined her and comforted her and provided her with just the emollient she needed. And then, as soon as she’d begun to feel settled, it was back to Japan and the raw fish and the mincing little geisha and the bowing and scraping and the only honorific she ever cared to accept or adopt, Mrs. Wrieto-San.