My Japanese Wife/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
This morning we have had a visit from mother-in-law and the little monkey of an Aki. It appears that Kotmasu has told her—and what is more, has made her at last believe—that we are really going away to England.
Mother-in-law is unlearned except in the housekeeper’s art, and this conveys nothing very definite as regards locality to her mind. England, Europe even, is as indefinite a place as the Shinto heaven. Somewhere out beyond the harbour, which she can see from our verandah, even beyond green-wooded Hoyaki and Cape Nomo, but that is all she knows or can imagine. We are going away, therefore she will not be the further recipient of the “handsome presents” in which her soul delights. I quite comprehend that this is the direction her thoughts will take, and it is really to assure herself that Kotmasu’s statement is absolutely true that she has toiled up the hillside in the hot sun so early in the day.
Why she has brought Aki to the family council I cannot conceive; but Aki has brought a tortoise about the size of a silver dollar, with which he contentedly plays in the sun on the verandah, where I can see his funny little shaven head, with its tufts of black hair, bobbing about, above the edge of the lower half of our sliding-panel window as we talk. No doubt he has brought some fantastically shaped and gorgeously coloured doughtoy out from the folds of his outer garment to keep the tortoise company.
“So you are going away?” says mother-in-law in Japanese, Mousmé’s efforts to teach her even a few words of English having proved quite unavailing.
“Yes,” I reply; “we are going to England soon.”
I somehow feel as though I were committing a robbery; and her next remark serves rather to deepen my disquietude.
“You are going to take my daughter with you, honourable sir?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you would only require her whilst you remained in Nagasaki.”
I have never yet succeeded in making my mother-in-law understand the permanency of my attachment, and I do not hope to accomplish the feat now; but I explain, hinting that there will be “handsome presents” to all the members of her (for me inconveniently large) household when we take our departure.
This, if nothing else, she comprehends; and she offers no further objection to Mousmé’s accompanying me.
In many respects I like this queer little painted doll of a mother-in-law, who has really wonderfully beautiful brown hair, and a childish way and smile, notwithstanding her seven children, and underlying native rapacity on a small and engagingly frank scale. So I suggest that Mousmé and I shall give a farewell entertainment to my Japanese relations, and this idea meets with her most cordial approval.
I smile to myself at having mollified her so easily, and reflect that, as Kotmasu once philosophically remarked, marriage was cheaper after all, and I should have no cash payment to make for permission to take Mousmé with me.
Mother-in-law is quite content now, and as firmly convinced as ever that I am a “velly much rich honourable English sir,” for thus Oka always describes me. She insists upon prostrating herself most outrageously, to the disarrangement of her obi, on the end of which she unfortunately steps when she takes her leave, which she does as soon as she is satisfied that it is really my intention to ask all my relations to a farewell fête.
Mousmé is, I fancy, a little alarmed at the prospect; for as soon as her mother has gone with Aki weeping at her side, and apparently refusing to be comforted by his mother’s more or less specious promises, because of the disappearance of his tortoise, which has doubtless fallen down amongst Oka’s progeny through a crack in the verandah floor, she exclaims in an awestruck voice:
“Cy-reel, do you know how many there are?”
“No,” I am forced to admit.
“They are as numerous as the bees in the garden.”
“Very well,” I answer resignedly; “we must do our best.”
“They are very strange, some of them, very strange persons indeed,” she continues, with a look of surprise that I am not frightened.
“The more bees, the greater the honey,” I reply, quoting a maxim that may be hers, or her mother’s, or one of national adoption.
Her little face—perhaps she is dreading all the fuss and bother and pain of taking leave of people she may care for—becomes more sober than ever.
“But there is a barber!”
I exhibit no surprise.
She takes my hand to prepare me for the last and greatest shock of all.
“Cy-reel, I am afraid that there may be a sampan boy.”
This is coming down in the world with a vengeance. But what are the odds? So I reassure her.
“Mother is sure to let it be known. Perhaps, even, people who are not relations may come, people I should not care to know,” resumed Mousmé, drawing herself up, and looking ridiculously funny in her sudden affectation of pride—and after the sampan man, too!
I shall have a queer party, it is certain. Never mind. Only, I must caution Mousmé not to mention her uncle the barber to Lou when we get to England, nor refer even casually to the brother-in-law who earns a living as a sampan rower.
During the next few days Mousmé is very busy. She knows, if I do not, what a superior and lavish entertainment will be expected of the “very much rich English sir;” men and women from the town seem to be clicking our wicket gate after them all day long, and walking up the path to the house interminably.
Mousmé has ordered everything which can in any way assist in confirming their belief in my importance and wealth. The piéces de résistance of the feast are different sorts of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits. I know well how little Aki’s eyes will gleam at the mere sight of the sugared ones.
These biscuits, strange to say, will stamp the entertainment as one of superior character. They are, of course, very dear, and Mousmé knows they will be duly appreciated.
She tells me in an awed voice that her numerous relatives will come early and depart late.
“Will, perhaps, not go until all these wonderful biscuits have disappeared.”
I smilingly pretend to be very terrified. ****** We have entertained our vast collection of relatives; and possibly more than one stranger unawares.
What a quaint conglomeration they proved! How they all could be related still puzzles me; but related undoubtedly most of them were, from “gilded youths” (some of Mousmé’s numerous cousins-in-law) in their bowler hats and other pseudo-European garments, with the silly faces of idlers, to the much-feared sampan rower, who proved quite a gentleman in manners.
Mousmé and I received them, and listened to their profuse compliments, whilst I, at least, was inwardly amused at their salutations and kow-towing, performed even by the ladies on all-fours.
Oka and his wife hand round tiny cups of tea, equally minute plates of candied beans, plums in sugar, and cherries in vinegar; and as our guests’ tastes are satisfied, they pass out into the garden, gay with lanterns, and full of music performed by some strolling samisen players whose services I secured.
These really play well. If only they would not sing!
My numerous relatives are in no hurry to go. But at length, quite late, the last family has left us, with their lanterns in their hands and reiterated good wishes and compliments on their lips; and the garden is again silent save for the chirruping cicalas, who, like the poor, are indeed always with us, the splash of the fountains, and the hoarse, sepulchral croak, croak of awakened frogs.
We linger, Mousmé and I, a little while in the garden, which at the end of the month we shall give over into other hands, and then we go in, and Mousmé smokes a little pipe ere retiring to rest. It took me some time to get accustomed to the habit, which seems to afford her such unqualified delight, but now I am resigned. The tobacco is so mild, and the little silver pipe with its thimble-sized bowl looks so toy-like and innocent; and now I find, from the papers and magazines Lou sends me, that it is becoming quite the fashion for women and girls in England to smoke mild and scented cigarettes sub rosa.
Mousmé knocks out the ashes from her pipe on the edge of her little ember bowl, with a metallic pin, pin, pan, and then, taking off her day garment of plum-coloured brocade, slips into a dressing-gown robe of blue linen, with wide sleeves and an obi of powder-blue muslin, which she knots in the inevitable exaggerated butterfly bow round her supple waist.
I shall, after all, be sorry to leave this strange Eastern home of mine, with its queer noises at the dead of night, and its fragrant garden, the sweet perfume from which drifts in and even penetrates through our blue mosquito-curtain of stout gauze, when we leave, as we frequently do, the panels of our outer wall pushed back for air.
Then there is the trouble of packing; the bother of going through, all the letters and papers which I at first, when homesick, commenced to keep because they came from home, and afterwards because I was too indolent to destroy them. All this must be done now, however; must indeed be begun to-morrow. There are Mousmé’s belongings, too, which she is already packing in her mind’s eye in ridiculous little lacquer boxes, which would be battered into matchwood ere they were stowed in the hold.
I lie awake for some time thinking over all this, and watching the big night-moths come in through the open panel of the window, and then flutter round the idol’s head for a moment ere singeing their poor soft wings at the flame of the lamp burning before its placid features. Some of them are so big that they make quite an appreciable noise on the white matting floor when they fall headlong on to it. I fall asleep watching—
“the deadly gyrations of the poor fascinated things, on suicide intent,”
and dream that I am pursued by huge monsters of moths with heads like the awful masks I see every day in the curio shops. And I frighten little Mousmé nearly out of her wits, just as it is getting light, by my frantic attempts to escape from my dream-bred horrors, and the environment of the mosquito-curtain.
When I am fully awake we sit bolt upright on our mattress bed, and laugh just like children; I because Mousmé, with face screwed up in half-laughter, half-tears, looks so comical with her eyes blinking at the light; and she because it is such a relief for her to find that “Cy-reel is not gone mad after all.”
Mousmé and I spent the first part of the day shopping, buying Japanese curios and native silks and embroideries for those at home, a very expensive cabinet with whole nests of tiny drawers for Lou—frankly, to propitiate her—and European articles when and where we could get them for the “handsome presents” of which my mother-in-law and Mousmé’s numerous brothers and sisters are so fond.
Mousmé’s dress is an ideal one for such an amusement as shopping. It is simply astounding how much she can stow away mysteriously in the many pockets of her wide sleeves alone.
Down at Ako San’s, the jeweller, near the quay, whose shop is a general dépôt, for things European, she packs away, I can scarce conceive where, half the numerous little purchases we make. I take thy rest; and then loaded, both of us, arms, pockets and all, we slowly climb the hill to our home, which is already partially dismantled in view of our departure.
It has that terrible, painful vacancy of a house half-deserted. It seems no longer to belong to us, as though the ghosts of possible future tenants already possessed it. Poor tiny house, which will probably know Mousmé’s laugh no more!
Whilst Mousmé is wrapping up our presents in soft, silky textured rice-paper ready for their recipients, I get together some of my things.
Alas! when I come to sort my clothing, I am made painfully aware that when I land in England I shall be shabby and out-of-date.
There is a whole pile of European clothing on the floor near my writing-table, the sunlight cruelly exposing all its shabbinesses; but little of it will be of use. I shall give some of the best of the garments remaining when I have selected mine, to Mousmé’s two elder brothers. They will be delighted even if the things don’t fit. They possess minds happily unvexed by such momentous questions as “bagging at the knees” and “a bad fit about the back and shoulders.” Happy Japanese mashers!
At last I have persuaded Mousmé that her toy trunks and lacquer boxes are no use for travelling to England. She has never had anything else, and can scarcely understand why they will not do.
I have bought her, through the kind agency of Kotmasu (who is up with us nearly all day long, now that we are going to leave so soon), a big trunk—a veritable Saratoga, I fondly believe—which had belonged to a deceased lady missionary. Into this trunk, with infinite care, Mousmé is placing all her little belongings, packed for double security in the lacquer boxes, with storks, frogs and fishes decorating them, which I had condemned.
Really, Mousmé has quite a respectable amount of luggage.
This will be something in her favour at any rate in sister Lou’s eyes. What a gorgeous little fairy she will look in all her fantastic finery!
A possible new owner of the house has been here this morning; and although he was terribly polite and ridiculous in his lengthy-phrased humility and repeated prostrations, he did not succeed in dispelling the impression all possible new owners seem to create, namely, that the old owner is an intruder whose presence is only by sufferance, though his lease may not have actually expired. This attitude of this one—the man about to take possession—is a bit of human nature; the same, I found, in Japan as elsewhere.
We finish our packing at sunset.
Nothing now remains visible in our bare-stripped home except the things we retain for our use, which will be packed in confusion at the moment of departure.
We fully intended to go down to the great tea-Louse to-night for the last time; but although we both say we are too tired, we are in truth both aware that we have no heart for mixing with the merry throng, or for watching the geishas dancing. So we go to rest.
“Our last night here,” as Mousmé says, with a little choked sob. Everything is now described as “last.”
It is terribly melancholy.
In the morning we go round the garden, and Mousmé gathers a posy of the choicest flowers, pink-cupped lotus, gardenias and roses; she buries her face in it to hide the tears I know are falling in salt dew upon the fragrant blossoms. Then we feed the gold-fish, and watch them poke their red-gold heads just above the surface, making rippling circles which widen and rock the lily-leaves and lotus blossoms. And whilst we are doing all this in the sunlit garden of our late home, we can hear Oka’s deep, gruff voice giving directions to the men who, with dilapidated rikishas now turned into hand-trucks, are loading up our luggage to take it down to the quay and on board the steamer.
“That is the last,” we hear Oka say in gruff tones; “mind that the honourable English sir’s effects are not damaged.”
“Yes, that is the last,” says one of the porters.
“This is the last,” says Mousmé, opening her hand over the gold-fish pond.
We go up the path to the house in silence; look sorrowfully into each of the bare, empty rooms; take leave of Oka, and Oka’s wife, who is in tears; press a shining new yen into each of the innumerable children’s hands, even into that of the brown baby in Oka’s wife’s arms, whose tiny fist is not large enough to hold the shining silver, in which it sees only a new plaything; and then walk away out of the garden of sweet flowers to follow our porters with the luggage.
Next morning we are to sail soon after sunrise, and we get up to see the last of Nagasaki and our home, now a mere matchbox-looking villa (when seen from the deck of our steamer down here in the harbour) perched high up on the hillside, in company with scores of other similar abodes.
As we drift out from our moorings in mid-harbour, we catch sight of it for the last time, and Mousmé through her tears kisses her fingers to it.
We wave our hands and handkerchiefs to those on shore, to Kotmasu, a tiny figure on the quay, and to the men who have congregated in their sampans, like a flock of water-fowl, to see the great jokisen off.
Then we pass through the narrow neck of the harbour, with the towering green slopes of the hills seeming almost about to fall on top of us, past Hoyaki, out into the ocean beyond.
Mousmé, who stands by my side all the time, her hand clutching my arm, gives a shuddering little sob.
Who can blame her?
With every throb of the engines, every heave of the huge vessel to the ocean swell, we are carried farther and farther into the—for her—unknown.
And it is only the unknown which is terrible.