The Patriot

  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.”

  But she did. She watched him for a moment. Then she said in her calm practical way, “See reason, my husband. Would it be reasonable to allow a young woman to marry in ignorance of what will please the man she loves? I have been taught to make your clothes, to cook the food you like, to tend your house and your children. Should I know nothing of how to love you when we are alone? But that is the heart of our life. When the heart is sound, all the body is full of health.”

  But he muttered, “It is like—a courtesan.”

  “Oh, no!” she said quickly, and dropped his hand. She leaped up and reached for her robe, and he saw that now it was she who was shocked. These strange differences between them! What did they mean? He remembered the first time he had seen women in a public bath and how he had been horrified and how Bunji had said so calmly that the only harm was in looking at a woman naked. He had not understood that, but he had accepted it. Now she went quite away from him. She was standing by the window, fastening her robe tightly about her, tying the wide sash fast. He could see her hands trembling over the bow. Her back was turned to him.

  “It isn’t in the least—like a courtesan,” she said, her voice full of sudden weeping. “I am your wife. It is I who will bear your children.”

  She took up the end of her sleeve and wiped her eyes quietly and then smoothed back her hair.

  Standing there with her shoulders drooping, she was suddenly intolerably pathetic and childish to him, a child doing as she had been taught. He went over to her impulsively.

  “You are to forgive me,” he said. “I command it,” he added.

  Her shoulders straightened.

  “You needn’t command me,” she said, without turning her head. “After all, am I not a moga? A moga resents being commanded, even by her husband. Besides—I only want to do what you like.”

  He could see her lips quiver. Suddenly he wanted to laugh. This woman was dear to him, the dearest being in the world. He did not care what she was or how inexplicable her ideas and behavior. He did not care whether or not he understood her or what she thought. He only knew that his whole being accepted her.

  “Come back to me,” he said with determination.

  She turned her head then and her eyes stole around to his and they looked at each other. Then he saw in their deeps a smile rise like the ripple of light over water. She gazed at him a moment, and without a word, while he waited, she began loosening the sash which she had just tied so firmly about her waist.

  When he let himself think apart from her it was only to build higher in his soul the wall between the world and themselves. He had cut himself off from his own country and by marrying her he had in that measure cut her off also from hers. They were two creatures separate from all others as any two must be who mate out of their own kind. Chinese and Japanese, they were foreign to each other. The blood of their ancestors had not been the same blood. Their very bones were not the same. He knew when he looked at her body and at his own that their clay had never come from the same soil. They met and mingled now for the first time. Dearly as he loved her body, close as it was to his
own, it was not the same flesh. His skeleton was slender and tall, and hers was short and strong. She was not fat, but she could never be slender as he was. He loved her for the very earth quality which her body had and his had not, even as he loved her for the very simplicities at which he often laughed.

  He loved her for simplicity the more because he knew complexity was his own curse. There was nothing he did which he might not have done in many different ways, but for Tama there was only one way to do everything, and she had been taught that way. Even her pride in being independent and what she called modern, it seemed to him, only in reality made her more determined to do the thing as she had been taught to do. When he teased her for this, she could not understand what he meant, as he had teased her the evening it came to him when she was setting out the dishes of their meal in their hotel room. It was the last day of the seven he had allowed himself for their wedding pleasure. The next day they were to return to Nagasaki. He was to take Bunji’s place now, Mr. Muraki had decided. Tomorrow he and Tama would be in the small house they had taken for their new home on a hillside in a suburb of the city. Tonight, therefore, was an occasion, a feast, and Tama had ordered an especial dinner, and when it came, she dragged the low table to the open screens at the end of the room which overlooked the valleys and hills and far below under the night sky the twinkling lights along the seacoast. She would let him touch nothing.

  “No—no,” she explained, “please—it is I who will arrange everything, I-wan.”

  He sat down then and watched her, smiling inwardly. She was so serious, so busy, and every trifle was important. All afternoon when they were wandering about the hills together she had been searching for certain flowering grasses with which she planned to make a bouquet for the feast. When they came back she spent an hour arranging them, discarding almost all she had brought, and cutting and trimming in absorbed silence the few she had chosen. But he could not deny the perfection of what she had done. A few silvery-plumed stalks, standing, it seemed, in natural growth among their own long and graceful leaves—if he had not seen the intense care with which she had placed each leaf and each stalk, he would have said she had thrust them into the square pottery vase exactly as they grew. All her effort and the art which she had been carefully taught were merely this—to make it seem not art but nature. It explained, he thought, much of Tama.

  So she arranged the table and the dishes and the pot of tea, so she planned how they would sit and in what order eat the courses served them. Only when all this was done and there was nothing left to place did she suddenly laugh and clap her hands.

  “Now!” she cried merrily, “Now let us be happy!”

  “But you have been very happy, my Tama,” he said, laughing at her. “I have been watching you. You have been very happy arranging everything.”

  She stared at him across the tiny table at which they were sitting on the soft floor mats.

  “What do you mean?” she inquired. “I was only doing what should be done.”

  “No, what you liked,” he said gaily. “Do you think it is necessary to do all you did? The food could have been brought in and eaten.”

  “Oh, I-wan!” Her voice was full of pain. “But there is a way in which to do each thing in life—even the plainest. Why, I have been taught there is a way in which to sweep a room, that makes it more than mere sweeping, a way in which to serve tea, a way in which—”

  “Moga—moga!” he cried joyously.

  She stopped. “You mean—as a moga—” she faltered, “it is not necessary—I suppose,” she said very slowly. “I am really somewhat old-fashioned. It is true—I am, perhaps—more than I think.”

  He had hurt her, he perceived. He had taken the joy out of all her small arrangements, and he hated himself.

  “No—no,” he insisted, “I love it. I love all you do. Don’t mind my teasing you, my heart. No, I won’t tease you any more.”

  “Yes, you must tease me, I-wan, if you like,” she said quickly. “I will learn to be teased.”

  She was so grave that he could scarcely keep from reaching across the table for her. He would have, indeed, except that a maid was bringing in a fish. Instantly Tama forgot.

  “I-wan, here is the fish!” she cried. “I chose it myself today in the pool. Now you must like it, I-wan, because it is a beautiful fish, and I myself gave the recipe at the kitchen.”

  “I shall like it,” he promised, “and it is beautiful.”

  She separated the fish with a pair of silver chopsticks and he held out his bowl for her to fill and she filled it and he took it and looked at her.

  “I take whatever you give me,” he said.

  She blushed and he saw, or thought he saw, alarm in her eyes.

  “But you know I want to give you only what you want,” she said.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. He must, he perceived, make his way delicately with this young wife of his. She was old and new, child and woman together. He must treat her as each and all together.

  In a moment she was laughing at him. Then they spoke of Bunji and of how he would have enjoyed such a feast as they were having, and how out of all the world they would have minded him less than any other. Where he was they did not know, except now somewhere in China. And then Tama said, “Tell me about China. Is it like our country?”

  I-wan shook his head first, and then said, “Yes, it is—no, I don’t know. No, it is not like.” He thought of the strong racial difference between Tama’s body and his own. That difference went into mind and thinking and feeling. They would hurt each other again and again because of that difference.

  He waited for Tama to ask him more. But she did not. Instead she rose and put out all the lights except one. The maid had taken the last dishes and left them fresh tea, and Tama brought her bowl and sat beside him at ease, now that the feast was over. She had forgotten China and whether it was like what she knew or not.

  Instead she was gazing out across the mountains, her whole look one of peace and pleasure. His eyes went with her and for a moment they were silent. And in the silence all differences faded and they were simply together, man and wife. This union of man and woman—it was the deepest in life—deeper than race and ancestry. He was not afraid of his marriage. He would give himself to it, for it was his only world. He had no world into which he could take her, but he would enter as far as he could into her world. But the real world would be the new world which they would make. A new world—he put the phrase away with the shock of old pain. No, nothing so important and large as a new world. What he and Tama would make would be a small secure place, large enough only for themselves and their children. Their children would be like them, without a country of their own. They would need the more the small close security of home. It occurred to him now, for the first time, that his children might not thank him for being their father. They might even have preferred an old Japanese general. In Shanghai, he remembered, there were certain people, born of mixed blood, who were nothing. But that was white blood and yellow—intolerable mixture. His children and Tama’s would at least not look as those did.

  “Tama!” he cried, “what are you thinking about?”

  It seemed to him suddenly necessary to hear her voice.

  “I am thinking of our house,” she answered peacefully. “I am thinking of how I shall arrange everything.”

  “Ah, I wish we need never go down from this mountain!” he cried with passion. “It has been so safe and so quiet—we have been alone together as though there were no one else in the world.”

  It seemed to him at this moment that the whole world lay in turmoil about this one peaceful spot where they sat alone in the stillness of evening.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t like to live all the time on top of a mountain,” Tama said. “It is too difficult.”

  “Difficult?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” she said, “to get meat and vegetables and charcoal and all the things we need every day.”

  “Ah,” he said, thoughtfully, “of co
urse it would be difficult.”

  The things of every day—they had not occurred to him.

  The days ran after each other so quickly that before he could lay hold of one to treasure it another had come. They went nowhere, except he to his work, now again in his old office, but alone since Bunji was gone. From it he hurried back to Tama in their small clean house. And day followed day, and month slipped into month, and they wanted no change, he because it was such sweet change to have this house and this woman for his own, and she because surely Tama was the goddess of everyday things. He thought, “I have never known her really until now.”

  For now he perceived that it was in doing her everyday tasks that she seemed most free. When they had been together on the mountain she had been, he thought, perfect—a little more than perfect, he had sometimes felt, as though she had set for herself a pattern of what she would be at such a time and had faithfully followed the pattern. But now in her eagerness and in her being so busy in making the house as she wanted it, she forgot to keep her hair always smooth and her sash straight and uncrumpled. Instead she ran about in a cotton kimono girdled with a strip of the same cloth instead of a sash, and she tied back her long sleeves in the way the small maidservant did, and her hair was loosened, and more than half the time when he came home those first days to his noon meal she had a smudge on her nose or her cheek from the charcoals upon which she cooked his dinner.

  There was always a good dinner for him. She was a zealous cook because, he found, she loved cooking. A soup, different each day, and two dishes at least, awaited him. And each dish was a surprise. She made great excitement over lifting the cover and disclosing a boned fish or tiny balls of meat or chicken steamed to tenderness and hid under a sauce of fresh bean curd smoothed into a gravy.

  “How can you know so much?” he cried.

  “Ah, you don’t imagine how much more I know!” she answered proudly. “I still have scores of things I haven’t made for you.”