Silent Honor (13 page)

“We must think about this very seriously, Peter-san,” Hiroko said, looking older and wiser than he felt at the moment. Peter felt like a child in her arms, and at the same time like a man filled with passion. He would have married her at that moment if he could have. “We must be very wise, Peter-san …and per-haps”—her eyes filled with tears as she said it—-”perhaps we must be very strong, and give up what we want most…. We cannot hurt anyone, Peter-san. …

I cannot do that,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks slowly, but as he held her close again, she knew how much she loved him.

“Are you two all right in there?” Takeo called from the kitchen, with an edge of worry in his voice. And neither of them were sure what to answer. Peter answered him and said they were fine, and Reiko said she'd be out with the coffee in a minute. She was still talking to Tak about them in the kitchen. Reiko thought they ought to let them be young and follow their feelings. And Tak was trying to tell himself it was harmless, but he wasn't convinced yet.

“Will you go for a walk with me tomorrow afternoon?” Peter asked nervously. “Perhaps we can talk about this some more…. Maybe we could even go to a movie.” Hiroko looked at him, unable to believe what was happening to them, and she nodded. She couldn't even imagine going to a movie with him, and being alone with him frightened her. Yet, although she had never been alone with any man, except her father in Japan, she knew she could trust Peter Jenkins.

Reiko arrived with the coffee then, finally. The foursome talked for a while about Christmas plans, and the university, and a little while later, Peter left them. He thanked Reiko for another wonderful Thanksgiving. This one had been a special year for him. He knew that something had happened there that would change his life forever.

Hiroko bowed low to him, as she always did, but she seemed even more solemn this time. He had al-ready promised to come the next afternoon to walk with her. There was suddenly so much to say and think about. And yet she was silent after he left. She said nothing to either of her cousins once Peter was gone. She simply walked upstairs, thinking of him, as they watched her. She had no idea what would happen to them now, and neither did Peter as he drove home, but they both knew that without even planning to, they had left safe shores, and
set
sail on an extraordinary journey.

Chapter 7

P
ETER CAME
to pick her up the following afternoon, and as it turned out, no one else was home. Hiroko was wearing a dark green kimono, which was a serious color for her, but she was in a serious mood as they walked along slowly together. Peter explained again how he felt about her, and when he had realized for the first time that he loved her. She had known it too. She had tried not to, and she was still a little taken aback by her own emotions, and the fact that he felt the same way toward her. But each time she had seen him, she had been aware of an irresistible pull in his direction. And now they had both given in to irrevocable forces.

“What are we going to do, Peter-san?” she asked him then, looking deeply troubled. She didn't want to hurt anyone, or betray her ancestry. She had not come to America to disgrace her family, or damage their honor. Yet a part of her told her that she had come here to find him, and she could no longer turn away from what had happened.

“We have to be very sensible, Hiroko-san. And very wise. You will be here until July. Many things can happen between now and then. Perhaps I can come to Japan to see your father next summer.” The fact that he scarcely knew her was the one thing that didn't trouble her at all. She would have been prepared to marry a man found by a go-between, and she would have known him even less than she knew Peter Jenkins. The problem they shared was that he was not Japanese, and that was potentially an insurmountable one. “What do you think your father will say?” he asked, looking anxious.

“I don't know, Peter-san,” she said honestly. “It will be a great shock to him. Perhaps Uncle Takeo can speak to him also next summer.” And then she looked at him with a womanly smile that surprised him. “And until then?”

“We see where life takes us. Perhaps by next summer you won't want to see me again.” He smiled, but the way they both felt, it seemed unlikely.

He had driven her to a small lake, where they'd been walking, and they sat on a bench for a while and kissed. He took her breath away, and she had never known anything so exciting.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair, completely inebriated by her. She was the most wonderful woman he'd ever met, the best thing that had ever happened to him. And suddenly, he didn't even want to tell her cousins what had happened between them. Even sharing it with Tak and Reiko might spoil it.

But on the way home, they discussed whether or not to tell her cousins about all their plans and their feelings. In the end, they decided to wait for a while, to see what happened, and to keep the importance of it to themselves, at least for the moment. There was something especially delicious about not sharing it yet, and keeping their precious secret. Takeo already knew how Peter felt; but what no one knew, and Peter cherished, was how Hiroko felt about him.

“I think they know anyway,” Peter said honestly, smiling down at her, he was so much taller. “But your little cousins would drive us crazy.” Hiroko laughed at the thought, and then wondered what her own brother would say. He liked everything American, but it had never occurred to any of them that she would fall in love with one. It was the remotest thing on her mind when she had sailed on the
Nagoya Maru
from Kobe. And she knew they wouldn't have let her come, if they suspected for a moment that this would happen.

Peter left her at the corner, after the drive home, because they wanted to be discreet. He watched her walk the short distance to the house, and then started the car again, thinking about her every moment. He couldn't help thinking about Tak too, and prayed that he would be able to accept what had happened. He and Hiroko had been pulled toward each other irresistibly. They had no desire to hurt anyone, or break any rules, or defy her family. They just wanted to be together, and hoped that eventually everyone would come to understand it. But for the moment, it was going to be awkward, in more areas than one. He still had to talk to Carole and break off their affair. He knew she wouldn't be heartbroken, but she wasn't going to be happy either. And despite all his good intentions to go into the city the next day after work, he went to see Hiroko instead, and hung around in the afternoon, until Reiko invited him to dinner. She knew what was happening, but she didn't say anything. In a way, the visible pull between them was very touching. Peter was so solicitous of her, and Hiroko was so respectful of him. She seemed to be even more attentive to him these days, and bowing even lower.

But as he watched them, Takeo almost wished he didn't have to see it. It wasn't that he disapproved, but it put him in such an awkward position with his cousin Masao. How was he ever going to explain to him that Hiroko had fallen in love with Tak's assistant? And yet he couldn't help smiling as he watched them. They were so young and so vulnerable. It made Tak's heart ache just to watch them together.

After dinner that night, they all went to the movies, and Takeo invited Peter to go with them. And Tak smiled to himself at the look of complicity between Hiroko and Peter. They thought no one could possibly see what they felt, and Peter thought they were very smooth, which made Takeo turn away and hide his laughter. There was nothing secret about what the two young people were experiencing. Anyone who met them would have seen it. They saw
Suspicion
, with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, and all of them loved it, and they went back to the house for hot chocolate, and Peter finally had to tear himself away from her at midnight. Their eyes met and held for a long moment as he left them. She was going back to school the next day, and when they left the movie, Peter had said he would call her at school. Ken was going to drive her back, as he always did, or she might take the train, but neither of them thought it was wise for Peter to do it.

The next day, when she left in her black skirt and white sweater set, her Aunt Reiko looked at her, and a knowing, womanly look passed between them.

“Don't do anything foolish, little one,” Reiko said to her, holding her close for a moment, as she would her daughter. “It's easy to get carried away,” she warned, and Hiroko nodded. She didn't know much about those things, but her mother had warned her a long time ago to stay away from men. And even kissing Peter as she did, she could see how something terrible could happen.

“I won't dishonor you, Reiko-san,” she said, holding her close, and missing her mother.

“Take good care of yourself,” Reiko said, and Hiroko knew what she meant. She didn't want her to be foolish.

“I will be back soon, Aunt Rei.” She was going to stay at school for the next few weekends, because they had exams, and then she would be off for three weeks over Christmas. She was looking forward to it, especially now. And with his position at the university, Peter would be off at the same time she was.

She was quiet on the drive back to school, and Ken assumed that she was just unhappy to go back there. “It won't be so bad,” he tried to encourage her. “You've only got a couple of weeks till Christmas vacation.” She could hardly wait, and she smiled just thinking about it. He took her bag into the lobby of the dorm for her, and then he drove back to the house in Palo Alto.

She went upstairs to her room, and Sharon was already there. She looked depressed, and said she'd had a rotten Thanksgiving in Palm Springs with her father. She didn't tell Hiroko, but he'd been drunk for four days, and had a new girlfriend. Sharon hated being with him when he was like that, but now she hated coming back to school more. She'd been getting abysmal grades, and she hated being at the mercy of Hiroko to do her homework. It made her feel so inadequate, and she was tired of school anyway. She was thinking of dropping out at the end of the semester, and trying to become an actress.

“You had a bad holiday, Sharon-san?” Hiroko asked sympathetically, and the redhead shrugged. She was wearing pants and a sweater, and everyone told her she looked just like Katharine Hepburn.

“I guess,” she said as she lit a cigarette. They were strictly forbidden to smoke anywhere on campus, but she didn't care. Getting kicked out of school would be a whole lot simpler.

“You must not do that,” Hiroko warned. You could smell the smoke easily, and they would both get in trouble.

And half an hour later, when another girl walked in to talk to Sharon and saw the butts, she went to the monitor and told them that the Japanese girl in Sharon's room had been smoking. They didn't question Hiroko about it until the following afternoon, and she didn't want to get Sharon into trouble. They questioned Sharon too, and she didn't confess or tell them it wasn't Hiroko. There was nothing Hiroko felt she could do except take the blame herself, which seemed the honorable thing to do, and she sat in her room and cried afterward at the disgrace of being on probation.

Peter called her that night, and he was horrified at what she told him. “Tell them the truth, for heaven's sake. Don't take that on yourself. Why should you be on probation?”

“But then they will hate me more, Peter-san,” she whispered into the phone, feeling as though she had failed everyone, and deeply unhappy. He was furious at what the other girl had done, reporting her, and even more so at Sharon for letting Hiroko take the blame, and not confessing.

“What kind of spoiled brats are they?” He had hit the nail on the head, and he was sorrier than ever that she wasn't at Stanford.

He volunteered to come to see her the following week if she didn't come home to Palo Alto again, but she thought he shouldn't. If he visited her, it was sure to create a stir on campus, and that was the last thing she wanted. So instead, he promised to call her.

And Anne Spencer came back at the end of that week, in time for exams, and she had nothing to say to either of them, neither Sharon nor Hiroko.

Sharon stayed out after curfew the next day, and came back drunk and got into a fight with the monitors, so she wound up on probation anyway, in spite of Hiroko's attempt to save her over the cigarette incident on Monday. And she didn't prepare for her history exam because of it, and she complained bitterly to Hiroko that she had flunked it.

But Anne paid attention to none of it. She didn't want to stoop to listening to their problems and the gossip about them. She had heard about the incident with the cigarettes, and refused to get involved. If they wanted to smoke and get on probation, it was their problem, not hers. She knew Sharon smoked, but she was surprised to hear that Hiroko had joined her.

As always, she kept away from them, studied with her friends, got straight A's, and did all her homework. She had plenty of friends, and lately she had been sleeping in their dorm rooms with them. She went to great lengths to avoid sleeping in the same room with Sharon and Hiroko. And the monitors who found her in other dorms knew why she was staying there, and they always closed their eyes to it and said nothing.

It was a long week for Hiroko after the excitement of the holiday, and on Friday night, she was sorry she hadn't gone to Palo Alto. She had spoken to Peter again, and she had been thinking constantly about everything he had said over Thanksgiving. She still couldn't believe all that he had said to her, or that she had kissed him. And she thought about him all weekend at school, when she wrote her parents a letter. She thought about mentioning him, but then she decided that was ridiculous. It would only worry them, and there was nothing to say at the moment. It would be so difficult to explain it to them anyway, she didn't understand it herself yet. And thousands of miles away, they would be even more bemused, so instead she only told them about Thanksgiving with the Tanakas.

She went to bed early on Saturday. Anne was out, as usual, and Sharon was in another room, smoking cigarettes and sneaking gin with a girl that Hiroko knew but didn't like. Hiroko was just relieved that they didn't do it in her room. She was still on probation for the last time Sharon had been smoking.