Pearl Buck - Patriot

At first I-wan could not talk for feeling this secret life into which Bunji had opened the door. The room was Japanese. There was not a single touch in it of anything new or western. It might have been the home of any middle-class Japanese man — a few books in a low case of polished wood set on the floor, a simple flowered scroll hung in the alcove and beneath it a red lily and two long leaves springing from a bottle-shaped vase. The mats on which they sat were shining clean. Akio’s paper was the only touch of disorder. He had thrown it down when he began to talk — to talk, of all things now remote to I-wan, about war.

Afterwards I-wan could not remember what Akio had said. It did not matter. The miracle was Akio himself, talking quietly and freely in this warmed and lighted room. Inside the mold which I-wan had thought of as the man Akio, was this other living man who was Akio. He said something about war and how foolish it was, and yet how men must sometimes do things which were foolish, because it was not possible for any man to judge except for himself.

“War?” Sumie’s soft voice cried. “We don’t have to fight anybody. There is always another way of doing it.”

Whenever she spoke, Akio paused to listen to what she said, and he smiled peacefully as though it did not matter what she said so long as he heard her voice.

“That’s it, Sumie,” Bunji cried. “When it comes to that, you can always do something else. But nobody will want to fight us.”

Sumie sprang to her feet and took up the sake jug.

“Now don’t please talk about such things,” she coaxed them. “It is evil to speak of them. No, not war! My grandfather was killed before I was born, in our war in China, and then we grew so poor. Even though we won such a quick victory, he was no part of it. When everybody was out on the streets to welcome the soldiers home, my grandmother stayed at home and drew the screens shut and cried and cried…. See, I will sing while you drink! It is so nice to be happy!”

So she fetched a little lute and sat down and sang in a fresh pretty voice, a song of snow on plum blossoms. “I learned it in the village where I grew up,” she said. I-wan felt quiet and good here in this house which Mr. Muraki had forbidden to be. But here it was, all the same.

They said good-by at last and he and Bunji turned homeward. All the way I-wan kept thinking of the last moment when he saw Sumie bowing at the door. He thought of her smiling simplicity, her childlike eagerness, and of Akio standing beside her, looking so different from the Akio he had known.

“It’s a shame!” he burst out to Bunji.

“Yes,” Bunji agreed, “but it can’t be helped.”

“She is good,” I-wan insisted.

“Yes,” Bunji agreed again. “We all know that. But she was not fated to be born as Akio’s wife.”

“Do you believe people are born for each other?” I-wan asked.

“Oh, yes,” Bunji said simply, “my mother says so. Not for love, of course — that is another matter. But certainly two persons are born under certain stars to be man and wife. Then their marriage is successful and good. You see, that is really Akio’s fault. He won’t marry the woman who is his fate.”

“Do you know who she is?” I-wan asked.

“Oh, yes,” Bunji replied. “It is the daughter of a friend of my father’s. Everybody says she is good and dutiful. But Akio defies his fate. My father says that will bring ill luck on us all. Oh, it was very bad at first, especially because Akio himself is good — my father was surprised at his disobedience more than at anything.”

Home again in the quiet house, they nodded good night, and I-wan went to his own room. The screens had been drawn against the night. Suddenly he felt shut in by them. He opened them. The garden was full of mist, as white and enclosing as a screen itself. It shut him in alone.

He did not know when it was during the night that he first thought of seeing Tama. He had been asleep — no, he had not really been asleep. But suddenly after long lonely hours everything seemed reasonless and foolish. Only Akio was wise in his disobedience to an old man.

“Why should I not simply go to her?” he asked himself. He sat up. Why not? If he saw Tama once, he could go more easily to Yokohama.

The moment he thought of this it became a necessity. He knew where her room was, though he had never seen it. It was on the other side of the house, beyond the rooms of her parents. He knew that Mr. Muraki dreaded the night air. They had talked about it once, and Mr. Muraki had said that the night air was poisonous, especially to the old. And Tama had cried, “As for me, I always open my screens at night!” Madame Muraki had said in her even low voice, “Hush, Tama! It is not suitable for you to talk about the night.” Tama had said to him once by chance, “Last year on my birthday my father asked me what I wanted, and I said, to have for my own the room facing the little waterfall. So I sleep and wake to the sound of the water, splashing upon rocks.”

I-wan had thought of her listening to the falling water. Now, it occurred to him, in the misty darkness he could, if he stepped into the night, be guided toward Tama by that same sound. Why not? He thought of Akio taking his own quiet determined way. And at the same instant he knew he must do it.

He rose and put on his robe and stepped into the garden. The grass was soft and wet and he trod lightly. There must be no footsteps. Mr. Muraki’s screens would be closed. So much would be safe. He crept past them, nevertheless, until he felt the corner of the house and turned to the right and stood, hidden in mists, and listened. There was the sound of the waterfall. He could hear its steady tinkling splash, and he went toward it, feeling with his hands outspread for trees and shrubs. Then he felt stones under his feet. That was the path toward the waterfall from the summer house — now he was close. The sound was clear. He reached the fall and put out his hand and felt the slight spray of it.

Now he must stand with his back to it and he would be facing Tama’s room. There was no light whatever. If she were asleep he would have to scratch a little on the lattice to waken her. But he must take great care to walk in a straight line, lest he miss the spot. What if he happened upon Mr. Muraki’s room?

He counted to himself, “One — two — three—” Now that silly goose-step would be of some use to him — goose-stepping helped one to walk in a straight line. He lifted each foot high and put it down carefully. In his excitement he laughed a little, under his breath. This was fun — dangerous fun, perhaps. He looked very silly doubtless, if Tama could see him. Lucky there was the mist! He felt his foot strike something and he put out his hand. It was the wooden edge of the narrow veranda. He felt upward with both hands, and, as he thought, the screens were open.

He was about to scratch on them a little, like a mouse, when he thought, “I’d better listen again.”

Yes, the waterfall was directly behind him. Then this was Tama’s room. He scratched on the screen softly. The night was so still he dared not call or cough.

What would Tama say? Now that he was actually standing before her door, he was doubtful of her. Suppose she would not be disobedient at all to her father? She was such a strange mixture of new and old. No one knew when Tama was old-fashioned Japanese and when she was moga.

At first he heard nothing at all. The room was so silent that it was as if no one were there. Then he heard a long sigh and the sound as of a hand flung out in the darkness upon a sleeping mat. Perhaps she was asleep. No, for he heard a wakeful little moan, a sigh again, but now made articulate.

He tapped quickly, little rhythmic taps on the wood. Then he waited a moment and tapped again. A light flickered palely behind an inner screen placed about her bed. Behind its thin silk he saw the shadow of Tama, her long hair flowing behind her. She rose from her mat on the floor and listened. He tapped again. Now she knew someone was there. He could see her shadow, undetermined, move a little away. She would be frightened perhaps.