The Women by T. Coraghessan Boyle
And then, as if magically, a voice began speaking to him in a tone and accent so flawless he thought he’d been transported back to Wisconsin. Across the table from him, seated beside Yoshitake-San, was a young man in his late twenties, who had heretofore—through the elaborate greetings, the preliminary samisen playing, the sake toasts and the first sixteen or seventeen courses—held silence. He wore a mustache like Hayashi-San’s and a thin pointed beard. “Wrieto-San, if I may,” he was saying, and he bowed from a sitting position. “And Mrs. Wrieto-San.” A second bow. “I am Endo Arata, and of course we have met in the confusion of the anteroom, but have not till this moment had the opportunity to communicate.”
Startled, Frank simply smiled and nodded. Then he gave his own version of the sitting bow and murmured, “A pleasure, I’m sure.”
At the head of the table, Tanaka-San had paused, his hands folded patiently before him. The young man said something to him then in his own language and Tanaka-San, a full-faced man in his fifties who managed to look as if he were attempting to swallow a perpetual goldfish, even when he was speaking, grunted “Hai.”
“I am, if you will allow me,” Endo-San said, turning back to him with yet another bow, “able to act as an interpreter, as I have acquired some rudiments of your language. What Tanaka-San has said, and please do not take offense because he means only to provide you with an aphorism, one of our reverend sayings of the past: Deru kugi wa utareru. And”—a glance for Tanaka-San—“he means it not in reference to you specifically but to the Western style of architecture in general and the way in which he perceives gaijin, that is to say, foreigners, to do business—”
Beside him, her voice ringing out its richest tones, he heard Miriam say, “How charming, Endo-San. And what does this mean?”
“Literally?” He looked to Tanaka-San and back. “It means, roughly, ‘The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.’ ”
Miriam, broadly Southern now, the belle in full display: “Oh, then I take it to be an architectural phrase?”
Frank stiffened. There was something afoot here, something lost in translation, a caution, a warning. He looked to Tanaka-San, who was clutching his sake cup and swallowing his goldfish, and nodded gravely before turning back to the younger man.
“Not actually,” Endo-San said, bowing again as he maneuvered delicately round the question. “It is more a . . . general expression. You see, Tanaka-San”—a glance, a bow—“is commenting on the Japanese way of cooperation, in which the team is always held above the individual and all decisions are group decisions. He understands”—and here Tanaka-San clarified in a burst of guttural Japanese—“that some Westerners are what we call ‘one-men’; that is, people who act on their own initiative without regard for the larger group. But that you are not such a man, Wrieto-San, begging forgiveness.”
What were they saying? He kept his face neutral as he tried to make sense of it. Didn’t they understand that the Imperial was his and his alone? That he’d been appointed because of his genius, because he stood head and shoulders above all the other architects of the world and that he would brook no interference? He looked from one man to the other—and to Yoshitake-San—and now Miriam was trying to fill the silence with her lyrical voice, assuring everyone that she and Frank were as thrilled to be present at this lovely gathering as anybody could imagine. And thanking them for their kindness. And generosity. And the exquisite and absolutely delectable cuisine. She paused, a bright pink morsel of fish roe eclipsing one of her front teeth, and let her smile radiate from one end of the table to the other.
“Which is to say, Wrieto-San, with your permission, I will offer my assistance at every step of the way”—Endo-San paused, struggled to find his own smile—“both as interpreter, and in my humble way, as consultant.”128
If Frank was a bit huffy in the car on the way back to the hotel—“Good God, what do they think, they’ve hired a lackey to do their bidding? If they wanted a lackey why not have one of their own architects design the damned thing, Yoshitake or Endo or how about that man there in the straw hat and dirty yukata, he looks like he could use a job”—Miriam was floating on a cloud of serenity. She was Mrs. Wright in the eyes of an entire nation, given the respect and honor she deserved, invited everywhere in the highest circles of Japanese and emigré society—and if she wasn’t yet Mrs. Wright in her own country because Frank’s pigheaded wife wouldn’t grant a divorce, well, she would be, all in good time. And the hotel, though it was gloomy, did provide first-class service—and they had their car and driver and a pair of houseboys to see to their needs. Of course, the streets were of beaten dirt—mud when it rained—and that was something of a shock, and automobiles were as rare as shooting stars, and the food, noodles, miso, fish in one form or another three times a day, was a far cry from what she’d expected (and what she wouldn’t give for a charcuterie or even a bistro). But the climate was acceptable and the company an enormous improvement over Chicago.
She was thinking of this—of the invitation for the succeeding evening from Count and Countess Lubiensky of Poland, who had the most charming little house and the most charming of friends, the Russian Princess Tscheremissinoff, Count Ablomov and his wife, a very pretty woman, actually, if her style was somewhat stodgy, and had she really been wearing a bustle?—when the car pulled up in front of the hotel and Frank sprang out in his usual impatient way, barely able to wait for her to gather herself before he had her by the arm, as if he meant to drag her up the walk.
The night was clear and cold. There was the sour odor of smoke on the air, of the braziers the Japanese warmed their feet with—paper walls and no central heating, every house as cold as an icehouse and no fireplaces, of course, else the whole place would burn to the ground every night of the week—and the pervasive tang of fish in all its essences. Red-paper lanterns everywhere, floating on the faintest breeze. The lights of the hotel. Stars overhead. As they made their way up the walk, she couldn’t help noticing the cluster of sedan chairs in the street, fifty or more of them, and the coolies loitering beside them. Something must have been going on in the ballroom, Japanese high society having an evening on the town, dancing to the orchestra on the dais, just like people anywhere, in Paris, New York, Memphis. The thought arrested her and she pulled away from him just to stand there a moment and take in the strangeness of it all.
Music drifted down to her then, an odd tinkling sort of music with a rippling rhythmic undercurrent that seemed to tug the melody in another direction altogether, into the depths of a deep churning sea, but beautiful for all that, and so perfect and unexpected. She felt languid and free—all eyes were on her, every man turning to stare—and it came to her that she loved this place, this moment, these people. She could stay here forever, right here, in the gentle sway of the Japanese night.
“Miriam? What are you doing? Come on, will you?” Frank was five paces ahead of her, and he turned now to give her a look of exasperation. He was impatient, always in a hurry to move and make and do, the endless round of social engagements wearing on him, the forced smiles, his clumsiness with the language, the string of toasts with the rice wine he loathed and only pretended to drink.
“Are we in a hurry? Is this some sort of athletic competition? Can’t I stop here a minute to take the air? Will that kill you?”
His face bloomed in all its complexity, the wondering frown, lines erupting at his hairline to pull deeper lines yet across his brow and into the creases at the corners of his eyes, and he would never sit for a bust, she saw that now, but no matter, she was busy with other things, helping him, guiding him through the shoals of inelegance and insensitivity and into the safe harbor of politesse, elegance, comportment. Because she could see through all the bowing and scraping, the tender solicitations and doe-eyed looks—these people were quick to take offense and no two ways about it. They would devour him if they could. But she wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Please, Miriam. I have work to do.”
“
Two couples passed them on the steps, the men openly gawking at her, the women riding rhythmically up off their lacquered clogs so that the movement of their haunches was exaggerated—they didn’t walk so much as undulate, their every gesture a sexual advertisement.
“Can’t you do it inside? People are staring. Come on, I want to go now,” he insisted, his voice darkening.
“You don’t like me smoking in the rooms.”
He let out a sigh, then reached for her arm, but she drew it back.
“If you were a gentleman,” she said, watching him as the lanterns washed his face in the gentlest shade of red, like a blush, “you would offer to light my cigarette. And you would stand here beside me for the whole night if that was what I wanted.” She was toying with him now, enjoying herself. She took her time extracting her cigarette case and held it out to him so that he could remove a cigarette and offer it to her. When he leaned in close to light it, he murmured her name, twice, in resignation. Very gradually, bit by bit, through moments like this or at the teahouse earlier tonight when she’d eased over all the rough spots for him or at Princess Tscheremissinoff’s when she taught him how to behave in society, how to kiss a lady’s hand and murmur “Enchanté” or “Je suis desolé de partir,” she was taming him.
The wind stiffened, rattling the naked branches of the trees and setting the lanterns a-sway. She took her time, smoking the cigarette down to the nub, and then she turned to him—finally, when she was good and ready. “I’m getting cold, Frank,” she said. “Let’s go in. And by the way, I want you wearing your navy blue suit tomorrow night to the Lubienskys’—none of this Oriental business. It just won’t do in polite society.”
They stayed three and a half months that first time, leaving in mid-April, just as the weather turned mild and the cherry trees came into bloom. She hadn’t been feeling well toward the end, some sort of intestinal disorder eating away at her—the diet, no doubt, eel and sea urchin and all the rest—and though she’d gone off on her own once or twice to make inquiries among the closemouthed, blunt-eyed physicians, she’d been unable to awaken in them even the most rudimentary apprehension of the problem or obtain any aid whatsoever and she’d had to ration her morphine tablets. The voyage back was something of a relief, however, the Western cuisine settling her—and who’d ever have thought that something as simple as an omelet could be so redemptive? And there were the wines, of course, and meats. She really tucked into the meats—she couldn’t help herself. Filets mignons Lili, the sauté of chicken Lyonnaise, the roast duckling, the squab, beef sirloin and the pièce de résistance, real pâté de foie gras served on rounds cut from a real baguette with a nice gelée de vin and a Sauterne to complement it.
Naturally, Frank was green-faced the entire time, poor man. He just didn’t travel well. Especially on a rolling sea. She nursed him as best she could, but there was life on the ship, a whole society to beguile away the dull dank gray-crested days of the voyage, and she wound up spending a good deal of time simply enjoying herself, and why not? She’d devoted herself to him in Tokyo, giving up any notion of pursuing her own art in order to help him with everything from working out the designs for the textiles to be used throughout the hotel to the chinaware and cutlery (no chopsticks, absolutely, because what they were looking for here was strictly in the Continental mode), and keeping him on his toes and alert to the nuances in the presence of Hayashi-San, Baron Ōkura and the others. Mrs. Wrieto-San. She’d done her duty.
And then they were in Los Angeles, where Frank set up another office with yet another son—Lloyd—having left John behind in Tokyo to supervise as they prepared to break ground for construction the following year. Frank had taken a commission to build some sort of Aztec fortress on a hilltop there for a fat-faced heiress with theatrical pretensions,129 and as long as she kept her hands off of him, that was fine with Miriam. There were palm trees in Los Angeles, ocean beaches, and, better yet, Leora’s husband was retiring from the exchange business in Chicago and they were in the process of acquiring property in Santa Monica. Of course, Frank’s concerns—he was always on the very lip of disaster, both financially and professionally—required a plethora of back-and-forth travel between Los Angeles, Chicago and Taliesin (and Oak Park, where the bank was threatening to foreclose on his wife’s house and he was frantically selling off his precious prints to raise money). She tried to take it in stride. Inevitably it affected her nerves—she’d begun to think she put in more hours on the rails than the Negro porters—but her doctor examined her and comforted her and provided her with just the emollient she needed. And then, as soon as she’d begun to feel settled, it was back to Japan and the raw fish and the mincing little geisha and the bowing and scraping and the only honorific she ever cared to accept or adopt, Mrs. Wrieto-San.
Somewhere in there—and in looking back on it she could never be quite sure which trip it was130—Frank fell seriously ill. It was springtime, that much she remembered, because they were out in the country with Baron Ōkura, the princess and some of the others (and here the name Olga Krynska rose up in her memory in a dark gnarl of hate and envy) viewing the cherry blossoms, which were then at the height of their beauty. For the Japanese, a quaint diminutive people so much in tune with nature and the change of the seasons they might have been a nation of satyrs and wood nymphs, the sakura bloom was one of the high points of the year, and everyone, from the murkiest slum dweller to the Emperor himself, made a point of celebrating the occasion. When the Baron proposed a blossom-viewing party at his country house, Frank—who’d been working himself to death in a din of noise and dust as his army of masons pounded away at the peculiar volcanic rock he insisted on using for the hotel’s superstructure—agreed to take a hiatus. “How would you like a little ramble in the country?” was the way Frank put it to her. “Why not?” she said, because for all its brilliant company, Tokyo was an ugly squat over-bursting city, and its smells and sounds were beginning to weigh on her, especially now that she found herself compelled to leave the windows open in order to keep from stifling. A jaunt in the country sounded like just the thing.
The sky was brilliant that first day, the cherry trees marshaled in rows of pink clouds that softened the horizon as far as she could see or standing solitary on a sculpted slope where they seemed to concentrate the light, flaming out against the dull grays and greens of the surrounding landscape as if on a stage, and the entire party made a picnic of the occasion, the Baron providing boxed lunches and champagne, various people sketching or reading, lying stretched out on mats in the sun, chatting in the soft revolving tones of perfect contentment. In short, it was an idyll. And she was enjoying herself despite Madame Krynska, the little unattached Pole the Lubienskys had brought along for what seemed the express purpose of separating her from Frank, as if she would ever allow that to happen, even for a minute . . . The champagne was chilled, the sandwiches were of white bread, butter and cucumber instead of rice and raw fish, the servants attentive. She was just communing with the Baron over their mutual love for things Gallic and reflecting aloud on how much the blossoms reminded her of spring in Paris, particularly in the urban oases, the Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Luxembourg Gardens (and he was as much under her spell as Hayashi-San, leaning forward over his tented knees, his black eyes fixed on her so as not to miss a single syllable), when Frank, who hadn’t uttered a word in the past five minutes, suddenly let out a gasp as if the wind had been knocked out of him.
He’d been sitting beside her, or rather just behind her, in a circle that included the Lubienskys and Countess Ablomov, and as she turned round in alarm she could see immediately that he was in trouble—he seemed shrunken all of a sudden, deflated, his skin bleached and bloodless, his legs drawn up under him like a child’s. He gasped again, but before she could reach out to him or even call his name he buckled over on his side, both hands clutching his abdomen, his face pressed awkwardly into the grass at the edge of the mat. Her first thoug
He was wincing. He kicked his legs out. Writhed on the grass. He was trying to say something, but she couldn’t make out the words.
The others were on their feet now, gathered round in a constellation of apprehensive faces, and no one seemed to know what to do. Someone said it was appendicitis and then someone else said that if it was he’d have to be operated on, but weren’t they getting ahead of themselves? Shouldn’t someone call for a doctor? That was when La Krynska—slim, young, butter-haired, dressed in some sort of athletic costume and with a badminton racket still clutched in one hand—appeared on the scene, pushing her way through the circle to kneel beside him. “He needs water,” she said. “Ice. Here”—and she rose to dip her handkerchief in the ice bucket and press it to Frank’s brow—“try this. Does that feel better?”
Miriam felt the champagne float to her head. Here she was on her knees on the lawn of a baronial estate in the mountains overlooking the Kantō Plain and this Pole was kneeling beside her as if they were praying over a corpse, Frank’s corpse, and it was the strangest thing in the world. Fear seized her. Loathing. Terror. He was going to die, she was sure of it.