Butterfly's Shadow (17 page)

‘You realise there are formalities,’ he began, but Nancy brushed the words aside: the child would go on board as a visitor. She would deal with the paperwork later.

‘Please, uncle. Leave this to me.’

He called a servant to show them the nearest clothing shop. He marvelled at how much his niece had altered in the few days since her arrival: the immaculate American girl with her flawless, smiling face was a scruffy mess, her dress dishevelled, stained.

‘I hope your frock isn’t spoiled.’

She glanced down and for the first time noticed the crimson splotch on the side of her dress, just below her breast. She frowned.

‘How did
that
get there? Could it be a fruit stain?’

But as she turned away to the door Sharpless noticed the boy’s kimono sleeve, the edge darkened, still wet, and his perplexity shifted into dread.

In the heat, the Nagasaki dirt roads were blanketed with a soft layer of dust that rose in a cloud from beneath the wooden wheels and lay thickly on eyelids, clogging nostrils, setting Sharpless coughing as he breathed it in.

He urged the rickshaw driver to go faster, apologising, observing the proper form: even in these circumstances formality must be maintained. He feared that in any case haste was probably not needed; he was almost certainly too late.

He was tempted to get out and run, but he knew his legs would carry him no faster than the sweating rickshaw man, though run he did, once they reached the steep approach to the house.

His muscles protested, his shoes pinched, he was gasping for breath by the time he reached the doorway, slid open the
shoji
panel and saw the two women: Cho-Cho crumpled on the floor, Suzuki crouched over her mistress, contemplating the crimson scarf that concealed her throat, the blood that had soaked the pale cloth and ran like a wavering banner down the white of the silk kimono and on to the tatami mat.

He dropped to his knees and peered at the darkly welling
wound. Beside him lay the knife, small – the blade no more than four inches long. Sharpless recognised it,
kaiken
, traditionally the knife a dishonoured woman would use to kill herself; small enough to conceal in her sash until wanted.

Beneath the thick white make-up Cho-Cho’s skin was invisible, her red-rimmed eyes closed. Was there a flutter of a breath? He spoke rapidly to Suzuki, telling her to go for help, but the maid knew this was not what her mistress would want. She remained kneeling, immobile, until Sharpless shouted a savage instruction and swung his arm, striking her hard. Then she sprang to her feet and ran.

The doctor looked very young – recently qualified, Sharpless guessed. The surgical gown hung loose on him, too big for his slight body. When he lifted away the bloody garment concealing the dark, clotted wound in Cho-Cho’s throat, his face tightened in a momentary flinch. He gestured to a nurse and Sharpless was ushered hastily out of the emergency room.

In the dim hospital corridor he and Suzuki waited, silent; two fearful people presenting an exterior of composure. Figures came by: staff brisk, in a hurry; patients hobbling, occasionally pausing, touching fingertip to wall for support.

Some time passed before the door opened and the doctor emerged, gown smeared with dark patches.

Sharpless got to his feet. He said, in Japanese: ‘May I enquire . . . .?’

‘She is no longer in danger.’

Then, in American-accented English, ‘I guess you know the girl?’

‘I am a family friend. Sharpless, Henry.’ He bowed. ‘And I am addressing . . .?’

‘Dr Sato.’

A long, steady look. Sharpless was aware that awkward questions lay ahead and moved to block them.

‘A most unfortunate accident.’

The doctor appeared to be lost in thought, staring at the floor. He looked at Sharpless, at Suzuki by his side He gave a tilt of the head, eyebrows raised.

‘An accident.’

A pause. ‘We’ll need some details . . .’

Sharpless said, ‘If you want to reach me, you can find me at the American consulate.’

He sensed the hint of a thaw. ‘Right.’ A nod of acknowledgement. ‘I trained in California. UCLA and Irvine med school.’

Sharpless had been surprised by the doctor’s reaction when he saw Cho-Cho’s injury. Now he made a guess – bright boy, packed off to America, returning home a westernised professional, finds himself in unknown territory, confronted with the messy savagery of a traditional suicide.

Sharpless bowed and embarked on the usual, ritualised form of thanks, but the doctor cut in.

‘You can see her later.’ A brief bow and he moved on.

Sharpless and Suzuki, alone again, sat, lapped by sounds of pain, cries, moans, groans; the crisply spoken orders of the staff. For them, now, just the waiting.

Hours passed before they were led to Cho-Cho’s bedside. She lay, bandaged, washed clean, clad now in the white of a hospital robe, not bloodstained kimono, her skin grey against the bleached linen.

He stared down at the face, immobile as carved ivory; tried to think himself into her mind.

Sharpless had seen Cho-Cho’s father’s sword once, unthreatening in its ceremonial scabbard with the inscription ‘To die with honour, when one can no longer live with honour.’ He had used it, when disgrace was the only alternative; had prepared himself for
seppuku
, found the strength to make the appalling cross-cut of ritual disembowellment, ‘spilling his guts’, as Sharpless had once heard an American describe it, accurately enough.

For a woman, the
kaiken
, delicate and deadly, was the
traditional option. For female suicide,
jigai
, the jugular vein, not the abdomen. He pictured Cho-Cho alone in the room. She would bow to her father’s sword in its wrapping of dark silk; feel for a certain spot in the neck, almost nerveless, known to all Japanese. Then place the tip of the knife to that spot, and drive the blade inwards . . .

Sharpless was still trying to work out for himself the course of events. Nancy and Pinkerton had presented Cho-Cho with a terrible dilemma. She must weigh up what she wanted most and what was best for the child. Choose. When he last saw her she had been firm in her wish to keep the child, but something had changed her mind. Nancy had told him one thing: the evidence before him told a different story. Where lay the truth?

In Japanese he knew a word for truth:
makoto
.
Ma
meaning perfect, and
koto
, the situation. But how is the perfect situation arrived at? It can be achieved through discussion, analysis, but sometimes there is no time for anything but action.

Cho-Cho could have thought that to kill herself would create
makoto
, the perfect situation, to save the child and give him a new life. But it seemed too simple a conclusion. He recalled a conversation when they had talked about sacrifice. Her father had sacrificed his own life: ruined, his honour was at stake. Sharpless had said forcefully that he thought that was wrong; her father should have stayed to care for her. And now it seemed that she in turn had decided that to remove herself was the best solution. When had she made that decision? And why?

Sharpless’s predecessor, handing over the office, had said to him, ‘Don’t try and argue with the Japanese. They don’t argue, they withdraw from the argument. That doesn’t mean they agree with you.’

Argument and counter-argument circled inside his head as he sat waiting for some sign of life in the small, pale face, the
fragile body. It occurred to him distantly that both ships would by now have sailed, Pinkerton’s on to the next port of call, and the liner carrying away his niece with Cho-Cho’s child.

Only later did the question surface in his mind: how could blood have found its way on to the child’s kimono, and what exactly had Nancy witnessed in the house on the hill?

Cho-Cho became aware of pain. A movement of her head sent the pain twisting through her; throat on fire, mouth parched. The pain filled her. She lay flat, eyes closed, feeling her way through blankness as though stepping into night without lamplight.

Why was there pain? Where was she? And then, her heart leaping – where was
Sachio
? He should be by her side as usual, pressed against her hip, asleep, breathing noisily, mouth half open. She listened and could hear no sound of childish breath.

Sharp as a blow, recollection flooded in. The world collapsed, crushing her. She made one frantic movement, and fell back, crying out his name, but managing no more than a rasping croak that tore her throat.

A hand in hers, a voice murmuring.

And now she opened her eyes: blurred, Suzuki’s face hung above her like a waning moon, hushing her gently. She was alive, and the child was gone. A tired sadness enveloped her, a slow understanding that emptiness, bitter longing and regret would be with her for always.

As her throat healed, she found herself able to speak – after a fashion – whispering a few words to Sharpless while he leaned closer, at her bedside. The ship had sailed, of course? He nodded.

She lay still; only the tears moved, slipping easily from the
corners of her eyes, finding a path down her face, into her mouth, salty.

Whispering, she asked to be left alone.

In the weeks after the child was taken, Suzuki knelt by Cho-Cho’s futon, watching the pale face, fleshless as a skull, her eyes closed against a world she had been prevented from leaving with honour. She refused to speak to Sharpless; he presented himself regularly at her door and was turned away by Suzuki, who whispered an apology.

As a diplomat and an American he had double the opportunity to experience antagonism, and he dealt with its various manifestations – disdain, contempt, resentment – with equanimity. ‘If you can’t take the heat, stay out of Japan,’ he said to one distressed businessman from Texas. ‘Why should they like us? We sent in Perry’s black ships, we opened up trade – by force. We bring change, when they prefer tradition. We’re too loud, too upfront. For good or ill we will transform this country, and neither we nor they know how it will all work out.’

So he was no stranger to hostility. He understood why Cho-Cho, who had been his friend, was now his enemy: he had saved her life, and he could not be forgiven. For the present, at least Cho-Cho was inert. When she was stronger, strong enough to move about the house, that was when he feared she might harm herself; finish what she had already attempted.

Was it the bird that brought about the change?

The bird, a finch, its dark plumage lit by an orange flash at the breast, dropped out of the sky one late autumn day and hopped about the tiny garden searching for seeds or berries, head cocked, alert. Cho-Cho, at the window, looked out listlessly. The bird hopped closer, almost to the entrance, sharp eyes taking in the motionless figure in the window. For a moment or two bird and girl observed each other. Then, with an upward swoop, the bird was gone.

Next day it was back.

Each day Suzuki placed a bowl of miso soup and a small plate of fish and rice beside Cho-Cho, hoping she might be tempted. Usually she removed the plate, untouched. Today, as the bird came up the path in a seemingly random zigzag that brought it closer to the house, Cho-Cho took a few grains of rice from the plate, slid back the
shoji
and sprinkled the rice on the lintel.

The bird watched her. She watched the bird. Suzuki, through an interior doorway, was observing both. Nobody moved. Finally, the finch approached the rice with little running steps and rapidly pecked up the grains. Then it slowly lowered its head as though making a bow, turned its tail towards its benefactor and deposited a spectacular splash of birdshit on the lintel.

From the next room Suzuki heard a curious choking sound and came rapidly through the door to investigate. She saw that Cho-Cho, hand to her throat, was laughing.

She turned to Suzuki.

‘You see that bird? I’ve been feeding him. In the old stories he would have had a voice, he would have spoken to me; the bird would probably have turned out to be a prince or a god. Something special. Noble. And look!’ She pointed to the greenish-white splodge, smiling wryly.

‘Not so noble!’

She laughed gleefully and the childlike giggle reminded Suzuki that Cho-Cho, the younger of the pair, was not yet twenty. In normal circumstances, the maid reflected, a mess of birdshit hardly merited a celebratory response, but circumstances were far from normal, and to see Cho-Cho’s face take on a hint of colour, her mouth curve upwards, was an indication of returning life.

‘Perhaps,’ Suzuki suggested, ‘he is offering an opinion on my rice.’ She bowed to the bird. ‘I’ll do better tomorrow, my lord.’

In the following days the bird became a regular visitor, accepting rice, along with seeds and berries procured by Suzuki. While the finch enjoyed its free meals, Cho-Cho absently nibbled her way through the small plates of food placed beside her.

Then came a day when the finch did not appear. The sky was filled with a pattern of migrating birds heading south for the winter and Cho-Cho stared up at the tight flocks wheeling overhead; wondering for a moment whether one bird might detach itself, skim low to flap a quick goodbye at his regular provider, but the flock flew on and disappeared from view.

Suzuki was watchful, fearing the effect of disappointment, another departure disastrously reawakening pain. For a while Cho-Cho continued to gaze out, across the harbour, to the point where sky met sea.

She said, ‘The birds must leave us, in order to survive.’

Next day she announced she was ready for something a little more substantial to eat.

She was not grateful to Sharpless for saving her life. To be returned to life was the last thing she had desired. She had reached the rational decision –
makoto
– the perfect situation: having arrived there she should remove herself from the scene. Her ‘saviour’ had spoiled everything. He was granted a brief meeting for her to express – in the politest terms – her feelings.

‘Sharpless-san, you knew my father; you are a man of honour. It must be a sadness to you, that you have deprived me of an honourable action.’