Pearl Buck - Patriot

“Why don’t you?” I-wan said, smiling.

Bunji turned red.

“I know my own face,” he said humbly. “I wouldn’t ask her to look at it.”

I-wan burst into a laugh. Monkey or not, it was impossible not to like this Bunji. And in this return of affection he walked back with Bunji and asked him what he had wanted to ask all evening and had not, because the strangeness of the day separated him somehow from everyone.

“Bunji,” he said as soon as they were in his room again, “what of Tama?”

He stood by the table waiting. And Bunji sat down on the bed and looked at him honestly.

“I’ll tell you,” he began. He fumbled in his coat pocket. “Well, there’s a letter she gave me, but she said, ‘Don’t give it to I-wan until you tell him everything first.’” Bunji pulled out a long narrow envelope scattered over with the tracing of delicate pink blossoms which I-wan now knew so well. He put out his hand, but Bunji drew back.

“She said—” he began doggedly.

“I’ll only hold it,” I-wan said hastily. “I promise!” he added to the doubt on Bunji’s face.

“We-ell,” Bunji agreed. He gave it to I-wan and watched him a second. Then he cleared his throat. “It’s this way with Tama,” he began. I-wan, waiting, bit back his need to hasten him. This Bunji was so slow it would be dawn before he got to any point.

“Let’s see,” Bunji was saying very slowly and thoughtfully, “two days ago she seemed just as usual. She arranged fresh flowers and dusted the rooms. Well, then, when she was alone with me she told me to tell Akio to tell Sumie that she would come to see Sumie just before twilight. So she went to see Sumie. I don’t know why, except that something was between them…. But that was afterwards.”

“After what?” I-wan groaned.

“After General Seki came to see my father,” Bunji said.

“He came to see your father?” I-wan cried.

Bunji nodded. “And my father called her into the room and they talked to her and talked to her. I was late myself that night because I had gone to see an American film called — let me see, what was it called?—”

“Ah, in Heaven’s name!” I-wan groaned.

“No,” Bunji said brightly, “you are right — it doesn’t matter, though I can think of it if I give myself to it — a pretty girl, and a robber in her bedroom, who she finds afterwards is a man she once knew and they marry — it was — Well, about Tama — when I came home the light was still on where they were talking to her. So—”

“Had she my letter then?” I-wan broke in.

Bunji stared at him, his eyes blinking questions. But I-wan had no time to explain now. He tore Tama’s letter open.

“I didn’t say—” Bunji began.

“I can’t wait,” I-wan replied grimly.

“Well, I was about finished,” Bunji said amiably. He threw himself back on the bed. “All these tangles of love—” he began to laugh.

But I-wan did not hear him. His eyes were eating up the words on the patterned paper.

“I-wan, I said to you I wanted to marry no one,” Tama wrote. “But my father has told me there is going to be war with China. And so everything is changed. Even my mother says that now it is my duty to marry General Seki, since he has to go to fight for our country. She delays it no more. And I see my duty. It is fate. Tama.”

She had brushed out a word before her name. But he knew what it was. “Your Tama,” she had written. Then she had brushed away the word “your.” Duty! It was like a drug, a poison in them all. But if Madame Muraki — he must not waste a moment.

“Will the train or the plane get me there first?” he demanded of Bunji.

Bunji sat up.

“Where?” he asked.

“To Kyushu,” I-wan cried.

Bunji shook his head. “My father won’t let you see her,” he said pityingly.

“I’ll see her somehow,” I-wan swore.

“Well,” Bunji said, hesitating, “the night train has gone, and of course the plane is quicker than the morning train, if it goes. But there’s the chance of storm or something.”

I-wan threw open the window. There were no clouds and the moonlight was clear and still over the city.

“You can see Fuji-san!” Bunji exclaimed.

“I’ll go on the plane tomorrow,” I-wan decided. Only there was the rest of this night to be passed somehow!

“I shall sleep,” Bunji said with firmness.

“Then you may have my bed,” I-wan replied. “I can’t sleep.”

He sat down by the table and put his head on his arms. What could he do — what could he do?

“I would help you if I could,” Bunji said comfortably, “but then I have to report tomorrow.”

“The through plane doesn’t go until noon,” I-wan muttered.

“No,” Bunji agreed. “Well, if Shio doesn’t want me for anything, I might go back with you after I have registered. If you wanted to write a letter or something, then, if you haven’t been able to see her, I could give it to her.”

“Yes!” I-wan cried, looking up, “that is a good thought. Bunji, how good a friend you are to me!”

“Hah!” Bunji answered. “Well — yes — I like you, you know.” He laughed and began to undress.

But I-wan had already found paper and pen. He would see Tama, of course — but in case he could not find an immediate way, Bunji could give her this letter. He wrote on and on into the night, begging, pleading, pouring out his love.

“Even if our countries should go to war, my Tama,” he wrote over and over, “it has nothing to do with us. You and I, we are ourselves. We belong to each other. It is an accident that governments—” He felt no loyalty to that government now in China — it was not his!

To the sound of Bunji’s steady deep breathing he wrote everything to Tama. Then for a long time he sat reading all he had written. When he folded the pages at last the moon had gone, and it was the dark before dawn. He turned off the light and lay down, dressed as he was, beside Bunji, and fell asleep as a man stumbles exhausted and falls into a well.

He waked the instant Bunji moved.

“What time is it?” Bunji asked thickly. Sunlight was streaming into the room.

I-wan looked dazed at the watch still on his wrist. “Half-past-eight,” he answered.

Bunji leaped across him.

“Akio and I must catch the train at nine!” he shouted. He began flinging on his clothes and dashing to the water basin; he laved the running water over his face and head.

“It’s a long way,” he sputtered. “I’ll have to buy a bit of something and eat it on the train as I go.”

He brushed up his spiky hair as he talked. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised. “If Shio doesn’t want me, I’ll go—” He was knotting his tie crookedly and buttoning his coat and searching for his hat, all at the same time. Now he was at the door. “So — hah!” he grinned and was gone.

And I-wan got up slowly, still exhausted in spite of sleep, and undressed and washed himself and put on fresh garments. Then he sat down and read carefully again Tama’s letter and his to her. Then exactly as though the day were like the one before, he went to the restaurant and ate and then went to the warehouse.

The great jade piece which Shio had so caressed was gone. Shio had taken it, doubtless, to his own home. He felt suddenly angry, as though he himself had lost a treasure. But he worked doggedly, checking and rechecking. Nothing now mattered except the one thing — could he reach Tama in time, and having reached her, could he persuade her …? Then, it occurred to him, persuade her to what? What would he tell Tama she must do? Where could he take her? He paused, in his hands a twist of the root of an old cherry tree, carved and polished and stained into the appearance of an ancient impish face. When he looked down at it, it seemed to peer up at him with the mocking eyes of a merry and cynical old man. Where in the world was there a place for Tama and him …?