Pearl Buck - Patriot

This recalled him. He had decided, he remembered, that they would go into the mountains to the small hotel by the hot spring, and there he and Tama would spend the first week of their marriage. He had forgotten in his daze of the moment what lay ahead. Now he turned, instantly restored to himself. The wedding was over. When he and Tama were alone at last, their marriage would really begin. He forgot everything in this thought and rushed to the room in the hotel, where upon the bed he had carefully spread out only this morning before he dressed for the ceremony the new dark blue foreign suit he had bought. It was the fashion for a bridegroom to wear western clothes. Everything was new, even the red silk tie which lay beside it. He hurried into it and taking his new hat, rushed downstairs. Tama was waiting for him. He found her in the closed and curtained automobile. Someone had opened the door in time for him to leap inside, and then the door slammed and the car started with a great jerk and they were thrown at each other. She laughed, and when he heard her laughter everything turned in that instant warm and real.

“Tama!” he cried.

She had washed the red and white paint from her face, and her hair was drawn smoothly back again, and she had on a plain dark green dress and leather shoes.

“Do you know me?” she asked, still laughing. Here was her own face, rosy and brown and pretty in the old way.

He put out his arms, speechless, and she came into them and for the second time he felt the shape of her, strong, a little square but still slender, in his arms. She was more real than anything in life. That was her quality, a strong reality. She had no perfume even upon her. He put his cheek against her and smelled the faint smell of clean soap-washed flesh, and from her hair a piny smell of the wood oil with which it had been brushed.

“Tama,” he whispered, half suffocated with happiness, “are we married?”

She nodded. He felt the strong quick nod of her head.

“Yes, of course,” she said in her pleasant practical voice.

He did not answer. In his arms he felt the affirmation suddenly run over her body, a quiver through her blood.

“Now I-wan,” Tama was saying sternly, “it is necessary in our marriage that you always remember this — I am a moga.”

He laughed and she turned on him with mischief bright in her eyes. “You don’t believe me?” she demanded.

“Yes — yes, I do,” he said quickly. “I believe anything about you.”

“Ah,” she said, “that is a good beginning.”

He laughed again as he lay on the bed watching her. She was combing out her long black hair. It was still slightly wet from the bath they had taken in the pool of the hot springs, though she had coiled it up on her head to keep it dry. But they had laughed and played and splashed each other so much.

Now they were back in their rooms and he had sent the bathmaid away impatiently so that he could be alone with Tama. He knew the maids were all laughing at him, but he did not care. He had tipped them well to keep other bathers waiting until he and Tama had finished. He had not told her, but he had made up his mind before they went in that Tama was never to bathe in any other presence than his own. He was Chinese and he would not have it.

She was standing now, quite naked, as she brushed out her long hair. It was an innocent nakedness, he could see, as innocent as had been that peasant girl’s the day they had climbed the mountain with Bunji. It was as if she were unconscious of any difference in being covered or not. He felt vaguely jealous of this innocence. It was too childish. He could not endure the thought that she might have stood like this even before servant maids. But it was impossible to explain this to her. He knew by instinct that she would not understand.

“Let me see your wrist,” he said suddenly.

She came over to him and held out her wrist. Upon it was the long scar, still red. He laid his cheek upon it.

“Do mogas often cut their wrists to get their own way?” he asked. If ever he grew impatient with Tama — though it was impossible — but if he ever did, he would only need to see this wrist of hers.

“It was what my father understood best,” she said quietly. “When I did that he knew I meant what I said — that I would marry you.”

This was sweet enough, he thought, to fill a man’s heart. But he wanted more.

“And even if there had been a war,” he said, coaxing her, “you would have married me — I know you would.”

He looked up at her, still holding the wrist, to see her eyes when she acknowledged it.

But she shook her head, her eyes too candid not to be believed.

“No, I wouldn’t, I-wan,” she said. “If there had been a war I would have married General Seki. Don’t you know I said I would?”

He could not believe even her eyes.

“I can’t believe you,” he said.

“Then you still don’t understand,” she replied quickly. “If there had been a war, I-wan, I would not have belonged to myself, but to my country. In times of war everyone belongs to the country.”

“Old Seki isn’t the country,” he said with scorn.

He still held her wrist, but he felt strangely that it was different. Why had she cut it? A moment ago it had seemed pathetic and wonderful to see this red line across its amber smoothness.

“He is a very great general,” she said simply. “The Emperor trusts him.”

When she said “The Emperor,” it was as though she spoke of all the gods. He felt suddenly again jealous of something he did not understand.

“You must love only me,” he cried. He dropped her wrist and sitting up, he put his arms about her waist as she stood by him. Under his cheek he felt her firm soft belly and he could hear her heart.

“I do love only you,” she answered quietly. She took his head in her hands. “I shall always love you.”

“Then why do you say ‘if there had been war—’” He wanted her to say that this closeness would have been theirs, inevitably, though the world divided beneath them.

“That would have had nothing to do with my loving you,” she said. She was touching his hair softly. “I-wan, see — as a Japanese, if it is my duty—”

“Hush!” he cried. He did not want to hear her talk about duty.

“I am your duty,” he muttered, “I–I! You have no other!”

He seized her wrist again and moved his tongue along the scar, feeling its slight roughness with all his being.

“Don’t talk,” he whispered, “don’t let us talk.”

He wanted nothing except to feel. In feeling there was no division between them. Their blood flowed together in the same rhythm, to the same desire. That was the essential between man and woman — that only. She obeyed, saying nothing, but by delicate touches and movements accommodating herself to him. Suddenly after a few moments he drew back at a movement of her hand, half shocked. It occurred to him that it was strange, surely, for a young girl only newly married to know how to do such a thing. He drew back, stammering.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I said, how do — you know — to do that?”

She looked up at him from where she lay, her eyes full of pure and innocent surprise.

“But I was taught, of course,” she exclaimed, “by a very good old geisha. My mother hired her to teach me.”

She was so guileless, so innocent in her sophistication, that he was fascinated and horrified together. He sat up for a moment, struggling with himself, not knowing which was the stronger in him.

“But what is it, I-wan?” Tama asked.

“Your — realism,” he managed to say. “It’s — it frightens me.”

He thought, “She will not know what I am talking about.”