Pearl Buck - Patriot

“Akio, this is Wu I-wan,” he said.

A man in Japanese dress sat at a low desk. He was the only man in the building whom I-wan had seen who was not in western business dress, except the runners in coolie garb. He looked up without smiling and nodded, and I-wan saw a strange, melancholy, intense face. The temples were sunken and the cheekbones high, and the mouth was exquisite and sad. He did not look in the least like Bunji.

“Come in, please,” he said in English. “I am sorry I cannot speak Chinese. But you will soon learn Japanese.”

His voice had resonance, as though it were full of echoes.

“I hope so, sir,” I-wan replied.

“Undoubtedly,” Akio murmured.

They stood there for a moment, uncertainly.

“Shall I — show him his desk?” Bunji asked.

“Yes, that will be best,” Akio replied. And then, as though he feared he had been discourteous, he rose and bowed. “I hope everything will be as you like it,” he said vaguely.

“I think it is already,” I-wan replied.

But Akio seemed not to hear. He sat down again, his eyes curiously without light.

“Come,” Bunji said, and they went on and he closed the door. When they were walking down the corridor again, he sighed and said in a low voice, “My brother has a trouble — he and my father do not agree. Someday when you know us better, I’ll tell you.”

I-wan did not know what to say and so he said nothing. Certainly Akio did not seem to belong in that cheerful house.

“Here is our office,” Bunji said.

They went into a square barren room, furnished with two desks and a few straight chairs. But upon one desk was a spray of hawthorn.

“That is your desk,” Bunji said. “I had it placed so you could look toward the sea.” I-wan looked and there beyond the window was the sea line, rocky and curving sharply inward. Upon the rocks were a few pines, shaped into flat and stunted shapes by the wind. “If your eye could see straight from your window,” Bunji said, “you would see your own country.”

I-wan turned away. His country never was and never would be. He had cut himself off from it.

“What are my duties?” he asked sharply. There was a pile of books upon his desk.

“They are all records,” Bunji replied. “At my father’s wish, I had them brought here for you to examine. Here is ten years’ business. If you will study them a few days you will see the principles upon which we work and how the business has expanded. My brother Akio,” he went on, “is the best business man among us. Although my eldest brother, Shio, is the titular head after my father, Akio is the most active. Shio is too much of an artist. He judges the quality of our goods and is the one who buys our antiques. Sometimes he won’t sell them — then Akio goes to see what is wrong. Well! Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I-wan said — as well this as anything.

He took off his hat and coat and sat down and opened the books. A servant brought him paper cuffs and showed him how to put them on. Bunji had them also. He was already at his desk, a shade over his eyes, an abacus in his right hand while his left traced a column of figures. His face was not smiling now. It was shrewd and intense and his lips moved as he muttered figures. I-wan had seen the abacus all his life in Shanghai shops and he knew how to use it somewhat himself. But he had never seen such skill as Bunji’s. That short thick hand moved with an amazing speed over the beads. Then with a fountain pen Bunji put down totals in thousands of yen.

I-wan took up the books before him and began to read slowly the records. At first he thought, “This will be stupid.” And then he forgot himself in the descriptions, minutely made, of all that passed through the house of Muraki — paintings and silks, fine furniture and porcelains, embroideries and ivories and filigreed silver and cloisonné, bronzes and lacquers and rugs. It was like a great fish net, this business, scattered far and drawn together with all its gathered richness into this building, the riches to be sorted and sold and sent away. He grew curious and looked rapidly through one book after the other to see the direction. The net was cast over India and China and the South Seas, and the goods flowed out again to the West, and especially to America. He read, his eyes sorting out the Chinese names he knew — Canton ivory, Canton blackwood and teak, Canton silver and jade, blue kingfisher’s feathers from Foochow, ancient Fukien paintings and images, potteries from Kiangsi and Szechuan curiosities, and scrolls from Peking, from the imperial palaces.

He was astounded. “How can they get these things?” he wondered. Who sold the imperial scrolls? They were national treasures and could not be sold. He thought, “When I know Bunji better, I will ask him.”

He felt indignant somehow. And yet he could not justly blame the house of Muraki. They paid for what they bought, even if they sold for great profit. He was about to look up the matter of profits, when Bunji said, “I-wan, it is time to go home. You have sat for three hours without getting up. Has it been interesting?”

“I forgot the time,” I-wan said.

He looked up. It was true. The lengthening rays of sunlight were shining over the sea. They walked back together and entered the garden. In the distance he saw a girl dressed in blue, standing upon a footbridge across a small pool. She was gazing into the water.

“Tama is back before us,” Bunji remarked. He called, but she did not hear. “Ah, well,” he said comfortably, “she’s dreaming about something.”

He led the way into the house and I-wan followed. His heart grew lighter again, inexplicably, and he went to his room and stretched himself out upon the mats and lay gazing into his tiny garden. Every pebble in it was perfectly placed. The little rill of water was guided over a flat rock to fall with its small exact music into the miniature pool. It was so small and yet it continued to give, in its proportion of one thing to another, the effect of a larger nature. He lay, idly thinking of it.

It was strange how in a few hours he felt he could call this place home. There was a close security here into which he longed to fit himself. It was a fairy world — not his dream, but exquisite enough if one gave up one’s own huge dreaming. And he had given up.

This room of his became a refuge to him. He thought of it pleasurably as he worked at his desk. At the end of the day he went to it and stayed there, happy and alone. He had begun to buy a few books, such books as he had never read before, poems and novels in English. In the small second-hand bookshop where he found them he never looked for such books as he and En-lan used to read. But indeed they were not there. The shopkeeper would have been afraid to sell them, since they were forbidden.

And so instead of these I-wan now read for the first time in his life stories of love and passion openly given and taken. He lay on the mats in his room, and read and paused to look out into his garden and think of what he read. There were other worlds than those he had dreamed of with En-lan. He thought of I-ko. But I-ko could not think of such love as was to be found in these books, love so pure and powerful. He was enchanted with the books.

And then, one summer’s day, not knowing why, he felt restless. He had been four months in Japan and he was used to the shape of the days. Now on this day it was almost time for the evening meal, and he rose and changed his clothing and went into the dining room.

Someone was there arranging flowers in a vase — a woman. She turned, and he saw it was Tama.

“Ah, I am too early!” he stammered in a sweat of horror. She would think he had come early on purpose to intrude himself upon her while she was alone. In all these weeks he had never come upon her alone. He backed away, awkwardly.