Pearl Buck - Patriot

“Next month!” I-wan whispered.

“Oh, Tama will never do it — she will kill herself first, of course,” Bunji said cheerfully. “We all know that, but my father won’t believe it. Under all that gentle look of his, he is so stubborn. But she is as stubborn as he, and that he can’t believe.”

Bunji opened a drawer and drew out another ledger.

“You mean — all this is going on — and you—” I-wan stammered.

“Love difficulties are very common now,” Bunji said, laughing. “In these times almost any young person has love difficulties. The old want their way — and the young want love. Only I!” He burst into fresh laughter. “I have no troubles. I am not in love.”

But I-wan could not laugh with him, for once.

“Why does this — Seki — want Tama, of all women?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s a man of power and money,” Bunji answered, clacking his abacus. “Samurai stock — like my father — Japan’s honor and all that. He wants a young wife who will give him sons. Tama is so healthy — that’s why he wants her. And my father says it will help the country — old Seki’s blood and Tama’s health. The old ones worship the country, I can tell you — and the Emperor.”

“Do you think—” I-wan began in a whisper.

“I don’t think,” Bunji said quickly. “I tell you, I-wan, I don’t think about anything. It doesn’t pay. When I was in school some of the fellows took to thinking and I never saw them again. One day soldiers marched in — they were Seki’s soldiers, too — and marched them off. Seki won’t have any thinking going on in this prefect where he lives. So I made up my mind to enjoy my life.”

I-wan thought it did not seem there could be anything under the spectacled, rather stupid-looking faces of the students he passed every day upon the streets.

“Do you mean there are revolutionists here?” he asked.

“Hush!” Bunji cried under his breath. “Don’t speak that word! Someone might hear you!”

The door was shut, but he went to it and opened it and looked out. No one was even passing.

“I don’t talk about such things,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t listen to them. I have my work to do.”

He went back and began to work determinedly and I-wan turned back to his books dazed. His thoughts whirled about in his head. He got up suddenly, trying to think of an excuse to go back to the house to see Tama — to tell her — why had he not said something more to her yesterday? But he had been so happy that he had forgotten everything else. He felt compelled to turn to Bunji. “Bunji, can I — will you help me to see her — today? I must see her—”

Bunji looked up. “Tama?” he asked. “My father ordered her to stay in her own room for three days.”

“Three days!” I-wan repeated. He could not see Tama for three days!

“Once before he made her stay in for three days,” Bunji said. “There was a time last winter she told him that she would marry Seki in order not to be disobedient to her father, but that she would stab herself afterwards. He had to believe her and he punished her because he was so angry.”

“That was the time you said she was ill,” I-wan cried. There had been such a time, he now remembered.

“Yes, that was it,” Bunji said. “Tama does not disobey in small things — only in great ones, like refusing to be Seki’s wife.”

The door opened and Akio came in. He looked tired and sad, as he almost always did.

“Here is a letter from that Paris dealer,” he said to Bunji. “He complains that the blackwood stands to the Han pottery horses were crushed in shipment. Did you pack them as I told you to do?”

“In rice straw, chopped,” Bunji said, leaping to his feet.

“I told you to wrap them first in shredded satin paper,” Akio said.

“I forgot that,” Bunji said, struck with horror.

“Ah,” Akio said, “I thought so — we must replace them. It will cost hundreds of yen.”

“I could shoot myself,” Bunji said in a low voice. “I am a perfect good-for-nothing!”

“You laugh too much,” Akio said.

He went out and shut the door. Bunji sat down and leaned his head on his hand. “I’ll never be worth anything,” he said contritely. “I’m always forgetting the important thing. Akio told me — and probably I was thinking about something else.”

“Do you think I could see Tama somehow?” I-wan asked abruptly.

Bunji stared at him.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I must see her,” I-wan repeated.

“What for?” Bunji asked, astonished.

I-wan did not answer. He looked at Bunji steadily, feeling the blood rise up his neck, into his cheeks. Bunji stared at him.

“You don’t — you aren’t — not really—” he stammered.

“I know I am,” I-wan said.

Bunji’s mouth fell ajar. Then he began to laugh suddenly and loudly. I-wan waited.

“Why do you laugh?” he asked coldly.

“Oh — it’s funny,” Bunji gasped. “It’s very funny! Our house — a nest of love tangles — Akio — Tama — you — poor old father mixed up in it all — trying to — to — be the dictator—”

“It’s not funny,” I-wan said coldly. He waited for Bunji to be quiet.

“Well,” Bunji said, “if you want to hurry on the Seki business, try to see Tama, that’s all.”

I-wan hesitated, but Bunji’s look discouraged everything he wanted to say.

Beyond his window he could see the long roll of the sea, gray this morning under a gray sky. He would have to think…. But though he thought all day, he came to no conclusion except this — that now certainly he was in love with Tama.

They were in the dining room doing exactly what they did every night; yet it was all different because they were different toward each other. I-wan felt them different to him. Even Bunji seemed withdrawn. The night meal had been strange and quiet. Madame Muraki excused herself early. And then Akio rose to go.

“Akio, have you finished the monthly inventories?” Mr. Muraki asked sharply. He had said nothing all evening. Because the night was cool and wet he had commanded a small open brazier to be filled with coals and he sat smoking a short bamboo pipe.

“Yes, Father,” Akio said quietly. They looked at each other father and son, a long steady look. Mr. Muraki looked away.

“Very well,” he said, and Akio went out.

Then I-wan and Bunji were left alone with him. Usually I-wan liked to hear Mr. Muraki talk, or if he were quiet and did not talk, merely to see him sitting quietly as he smoked was pleasant. He had looked until now a figure of goodness. But tonight I-wan was confused by him. This gentle-looking old man had made his love a prisoner. Somewhere in this house, in her own home, Tama was locked up. No, there were no locks on these doors. The screens would be open to the garden. But for Tama they were locked by her father’s command as surely as though a bolt had been drawn. Then suddenly Mr. Muraki spoke.

“Bunji, go to your room,” he said. “I want to talk with I-wan. I have a message from his father.”

Bunji, startled, glanced at I-wan. But there was nothing he could do except to bow and go away, so I-wan was left alone with this old man. His heart began to beat swiftly.

He thought, watching the composed aging face, “I need not be afraid of him.” But he was somehow afraid. This face was so sure, so carven in determination to maintain its own life, the life it knew. It would never be aware of any other life. He had thought for a moment that he might speak directly to Mr. Muraki. Now he put this thought away. He must approach him in the ways the old man knew, or he would have no chance at all. Again he must wait. He sat motionless in silence.

“Your father is pleased with your progress,” Mr. Muraki said slowly. “I told him you were doing well.” He paused, seemingly to light his pipe again with a fragment of hot coal which he picked up with small brass tongs.