The Makioka Sisters Page 22

  “Ask him in, please.” It was a good opportunity to break free of Mrs. Stolz, who still waited by the fence. “I am terribly sorry, but I have a caller.”

  She went upstairs to retouch her face. Her eyes were swollen from weeping.

  The electric refrigerator was not working. Sachiko had one of the maids take Okubata a glass of barley-tea cooled at the well. When she came down herself, he shot up at attention, exactly as on his earlier visit. The blue-serge trousers were neatly creased and almost spotless, a striking contrast to Shōkichi’s. He had heard that the train was finally running from Osaka to Aoki, he said. He had come as far as Ashiya station and walked only the mile or so from there. In places there had been water, but nothing serious—he had only to take off his shoes, roll up his trousers, and stroll across.

  “I should have come earlier, but I heard about the flood only a little while ago. I knew this was one of the days Koi-san would be at the sewing school. Was she still at home when it began?”

  Sachiko’s main reason for deciding to see Okubata had been that she thought he would best understand her feelings. If she told him how extremely worried she was about her husband and sister, at least a part of the terrible uncertainty might leave her. But as she sat across the table from him, she wondered whether it would not be better to say very little. No doubt he was worried about Taeko, but there was something just a little artificial about the concern written on his face. Sachiko began to suspect that he thought this a good opportunity to work his way into the Ashiya house. In answer to his questions, she told him in as businesslike a fashion as possible what she knew: that the water must have risen very shortly after Taeko arrived at her sewing school; that the land around the sewing school was the worst flooded of all; that, noting her concern for Taeko, Teinosuke had decided to go as far as he could in the direction of the school, and had left the house at eleven that morning; that an hour or so before, Shōkichi from the Osaka house had arrived and left again; and that she was most uneasy because no one had come back. Okubata fidgeted; then, as she had expected, he asked whether he might wait there for a time. “Please do, as long as you like,” Sachiko said pleasantly, and went back upstairs.

  The guest would wait, she told one of the maids, and should be given a magazine or two and a cup of tea. She did not go downstairs again herself. She noted that Etsuko had made several trips to peek in at Okubata from the hall.

  “Etsuko, come here, please,” Sachiko called from the head of the stairs. “That is a bad habit of yours. Must you go looking into the parlor when there is a guest?”

  “I was not.”

  “You are not to lie to me. I saw you. It is very rude.”

  Etsuko flushed and hung her head, and rolled timid eyes up at her mother; but almost immediately she started downstairs again.

  “You are not to go downstairs. You are to stay up here.”

  “Why?”

  “You can do your homework. You will probably have school tomorrow.”

  Sachiko sat Etsuko down with her books, and, after lighting incense under the desk to drive off mosquitoes, went back to her own room and knelt looking out from the veranda at the street up which she hoped soon to see Teinosuke and Taeko coming. She heard a deep voice next door—”Hilda, Hilda!”—and turned to see Mr. Stolz walking around to the back of his house. After him came Peter and Rosemarie. Mrs. Stolz, who had been doing something in back, threw herself upon him with a happy shriek. The garden was still light, and through the leaves of the plane tree and the sandalwood at the fence, Sachiko looked down upon the sort of embrace one is treated to in foreign movies. When Mrs. Stolz had finished kissing her husband, Peter and Rosemarie had their turns. Sachiko, who had been leaning against the veranda railing, quietly pulled back out of sight.

  “Mrs. Makioka!” Mrs. Stolz was apparently unaware that she had been seen. She danced about the garden, and her voice was quite mad with happiness. “My husband is back. Peter and Rosemarie are back.”

  “I am so happy for you.” Sachiko stepped out to the veranda again, and at the same moment Etsuko was at the window of the next room.

  “Peter! Rumi!”

  “Banzai!”

  “Banzai!”

  The three children raised their hands in the cheer, and Mr. and Mrs. Stolz waved with them. “Did your husband go to Kobe?” Sachiko asked. “He found Peter and Rumi. On his way to Kobe. They came home together.”

  “How nice, Peter, that you were able to meet your father.” A little impatient with Mrs. Stolz’s Japanese, Sachiko spoke instead to the boy. “And where did you find your father?” “Not far from Tokui, on the National Highway.” “Did you really walk all the way to Tokui from Kobe?” “We took a train from Sannomiya to Nada.” “The trains are going through as far as Nada?” “Yes. And then I walked on to Tokui with Rumi, and we met Father.”

  “You were lucky to find him. And how did you come from Tokui?”

  “We walked along the National Highway. And along the tracks too, and higher up in the hills. And in some places where there was no road at all.”

  “How dreadful. Was there still a good deal of water?” “Not a great deal. Just a little, here and there.” There were many obscure points in Peter’s story when she pressed him for information. It was not clear how they had come, and which sections were still flooded, and what they had seen along the way, but if a little girl like Rosemarie had come through, and without even getting muddy, they could not have met any serious obstacles. Sachiko was more and more uneasy. If children could come all the way from Kobe in so short a time, then Teino-suke and Taeko should have been home long ago. Had they then made some tragic mistake? The mistake would have been Taeko’s. And had Teinosuke, with perhaps Shōkichi, found himself in trouble as he tried to bring her out? “Your husband and your sister. Are they back?” “Not yet. And here your husband is. What can have happened to them? I am terribly worried.” Sachiko could not control the tremor in her voice. Mrs. Stolz, her face partly hidden by the trees, clucked sympathetically. “Mrs. Makioka.” O-haru knelt in the doorway. “Mr. Okubata asked me to tell you he is going to have a look at the sewing school,”

  7

  OKUBATA was standing at the door, in his hand an ash cane with a gleaming gold head.

  “I heard what they said. Those foreign children came through, What can have happened to Koi-san?”

  “I wonder too.”

  “There is no reason for her to be so late. I am going out to see what I can find. I may stop by later.”

  “Thank you. But it is almost dark. Possibly you should wait a little longer.”

  “I am too nervous. And I can be there and back in the time I would be waiting.”

  “Oh?” Sachiko felt she must be grateful to anyone kind enough to show concern for her sister. In the end she was not able to keep Okubata from seeing her tears.

  “I will see you later, then. There is really no need to be so upset.”

  “Thank you. Do be careful.” She saw him to the door. “You have a flashlight?”

  “Yes.”

  Okubata picked up two objects that lay under his Panama hat, and hastily shoved one into his pocket. He did not try to hide the flashlight, but the object tucked out of sight was clearly a Leica or a Contax—probably it embarrassed him to be caught with his camera all ready.

  For a time after he left, Sachiko stood leaning against the gate and staring off into the darkness. She finally went back into the parlor. In an effort to calm her nerves, she lighted a candle and sat down. When O-haru came in and announced timidly that dinner was waiting, she saw that it was indeed well past dinner time, but she had no appetite. Have Etsuko eat first, she said. O-haru came downstairs a minute or so later to report that Etsuko too would rather wait. It was strange for Etsuko, who hated being alone upstairs, to be so quiet now that her homework must be finished. Perhaps she knew that if she hung on her mother as was her habit she would find herself in trouble. No calmer after twenty or thirty minutes, Sachiko went upst
airs and, without speaking to Etsuko, on into Taeko’s room, where she lighted a candle. She stood as if bound to the four photographs over the south lintel. They were photographs of Taeko’s “Snow.” All through the dance, Itakura had clicked his shutter industriously, and in the evening, before Taeko changed clothes, he had had her pose before the gold screen for several more pictures. Taeko picked these as the four she liked best, and had them enlarged. All four belonged to the specially posed group. Itakura had been extremely particular about the lighting and the effects, and Sachiko was much impressed to see how carefully he had watched the dance. He would ask for certain passages—”There was something about ‘a freezing bed,’ I believe, Koi-san,” he would say, or, “How about the passage where you listen to a hailstorm at night?”—and he even remembered particular poses well enough to demonstrate them himself. The photographs were among his masterpieces. Looking up at them, Sachiko remembered with astonishing clearness, down to a glance or a gesture, the inconsequential things Taeko had said and done that day. She had danced surprisingly well, considering that she was dancing “Snow” in public for the first time. Sachiko was not alone in thinking so; Saku, the dance mistress, had also praised Taeko. And even if it was her own sister, thought Sachiko, and even if much of the credit should go to the devoted teacher who came all the way to Ashiya each day, still Taeko’s progress must be owing in very large part to her peculiar qualifications, to the fact that she was naturally graceful and that she had danced since she was a child. Quick to weep when anything moved her, Sachiko had not been able to keep back her tears that day—Koisan had come so far, then, she said to herself—and now, looking up at the photographs, she felt the tears come again. Of the four photographs, she especially liked that of the passage where the dancer, her heart far away, listened for a midnight temple bell: an open umbrella behind her, Taeko knelt with her flowing sleeves brought close together, and, bending the upper part of her body to the left and throwing her head a little to one side, listened intently to that bell fading away in the snowy night air. Watching Taeko practice to a hummed accompaniment, Sachiko had thought it the pose she liked best, and perhaps the clothes and the high Japanese coiffure on the day of the recital made it even more effective. Sachiko was not sure herself why she was so taken with it, unless she found there more than anywhere else a certain delicate winsomeness and grace quite lacking in the usual Taeko, so showy and up-to-date. Taeko alone of the four sisters was the brisk, enterprising modern girl who went ahead quite without hesitation—sometimes even to the point of making herself a little unpleasant—when she had decided where she was going; and yet one could see from this photograph that there was in her too something of the old Japanese maiden, something quietly engaging that pulled at Sachiko as the usual Taeko did not. And then the Japanese coiffure and the old-fashioned make-up had erased Taeko’s girlishness, and given her a beauty more in keeping with her years, and this too Sachiko found pleasing. It was perhaps not by accident—it was perhaps an unhappy omen—that her sister had exactly a month earlier been photographed in this particularly beautiful pose and dress, thought Sachiko. The photograph of herself and Etsuko and Teinosuke with Taeko in the middle—might it not become a horrid memorial? Sachiko remembered how moved she had been at the sight of Taeko in her other sister’s wedding clothes, how ashamed she had been of her tears; and it had been her prayer that she would soon see this younger sister dressed with similar care for her own wedding. Was the prayer then to come to nothing, and had that in fact been the last time Taeko would put on festive dress? Trying to fight back the thought, Sachiko found the photograph a little frightening. She looked down at the shelf beside her. On it was one of Taeko’s most recent dolls, a girl playing at battledore and shuttlecocks. Two or three years before, Taeko had gone time after time to the Kabuki Theater in Osaka to watch the sixth Kikugorō, and she seemed to have studied his dancing well. The face was not Kikugorō’s, but somewhere in the lines of the figure Taeko had captured his particular traits so successfully that the great actor himself stood there before one. Koi-san was really very clever. The youngest sister, she had had the least happy childhood, and she was wisest in the ways of the world. Sachiko herself and Yukiko sometimes found Taeko treating them as if they were younger than she. It had been wrong of Sachiko, in an excess of affection and concern for Yukiko, to neglect Koi-san. From now on she would give the two of them impartial care. Koi-san could not die. If she would but come home safely, Sachiko would talk Teinosuke into agreeing to the trip abroad, and they would let her marry Okubata if she liked.

  It was quite dark, still darker for the fact that the electricity was out. In the still distance, she could hear the croaking of a frog. Beyond the foliage in the garden she suddenly saw a light. It was a candle in the Stolz dining room. Mr. Stolz was talking in a loud voice, and after him Peter, and then Rosemarie. No doubt they were gathered around the dinner table, recounting their adventures to Mrs. Stolz. The flickering candle told of the happiness next door and emphasized Sachiko’s own misery. Just then she heard Johnny run out across the lawn.

  “Hello, hello.” It was Shōkichi’s hearty voice.

  “Mother!” Etsuko called excitedly.

  “They are back, they are back!” An instant later the two were running downstairs.

  The hall was so dark that Sachiko could not make out the faces. The first voice was Shōkichi’s, and he was followed by Teinosuke.

  “Koi-san?”

  “Koi-san is here,” said Teinosuke. But why did Taeko herself not answer?

  “What is the matter, Koi-san? What is the matter?”

  As Sachiko peered into the darkness, O-haru came up behind her with a candle. The uncertain light fell here and there in the hallway. Sachiko saw Taeko staring at her with wide eyes. The kimono was not one Sachiko remembered, and there was no trace of the foreign clothes in which Taeko had left the house that morning.

  “Sachiko.” Taeko’s defenses collapsed. With a great, wailing sob she sank to the floor.

  “What has happened, Koi-san? Are you hurt?”

  “No,” said Teinosuke. “But she had a time of it. She was finally brought out by Itakura.”

  “Itakura?” Sachiko looked into the darkness behind the three, and saw no sign of Itakura.

  “Bring a bucket of water,” Teinosuke ordered. He was covered with mud, and—what had happened to his shoes?—he was wearing wooden pattens. The pattens, his feet, his legs were one solid layer of mud.

  8

  SACHIKO heard the story of Taeko’s escape in turns from Teinosuke and Taeko herself.

  At eight forty-five that morning, shortly after O-haru came back from seeing Etsuko to school, Taeko left the house. Although the rain was heavy, the bus on the National Highway was running as usual. At about nine she stepped through the gate of the sewing school, only a few yards from the highway. It was extremely informal and easy-going for a school. With rumors abroad that the river might rise, only a few students were present, and with those few becoming more and more restless, Mrs. Tamaki decided to call a holiday. She asked Taeko to stay for a cup of coffee, and the two of them chatted for a while in Mrs. Tamaki’s house, next door to the school. Mrs. Tamaki, seven or eight years older than Taeko, had a husband who was an engineer and a son who was in primary school. Besides managing her school she acted as adviser on women’s clothes to a Kobe department store. Just beyond the school gate was the gate to the neat little one-floor Spanish-style house —actually, though the gates were separate, the school and the house shared the same grounds. Taeko was a special favorite of Mrs. Tamaki’s, often invited in for a talk. Today Mrs. Tamaki was giving her advice on the trip to France. Having herself spent a number of years in Paris, Mrs. Tamaki strongly approved of Taeko’s plans. Although she did not know how much use they would be, she would like to write a few letters of introduction, she said as she put the coffee on the alcohol burner.

  The rain was meanwhile worse. What shall I do? Can I possibly go home in this? Wait he
re until it lets up a little—I will be going out myself. While they were talking, Mrs. Tamaki’s son, nine-year-old Hiroshi, came in panting. Why was he not in school, Mrs. Tamaki asked. They had been told after an hour or so that they could go home, because they would have trouble getting through after the water rose. “You mean it looks as if the water might rise?” “What are you talking about—it was coming up behind me, and I had to run as fast as I could to keep from getting caught.” They heard water while the boy was talking, and looked out the window to see that a muddy stream running through the garden promised very soon to be up over the floor. Mrs. Tamaki and Taeko hastily closed the door. Then, under the veranda on the other side, they heard a roar as of the tide, and water poured in through the door young Hiroshi had left open.

  The three of them had to lean against the door to keep it from breaking open again when they had closed it, and the water pounded angrily outside. They ran to put up a barricade of tables and chairs. Very shortly Hiroshi, who sat at his ease in an armchair tight against the door, let out a delighted laugh: the door had come open, and the chair, with Hiroshi in it, was floating free. “Terrible, terrible!” said Mrs. Tamaki. “See that the records don’t get wet.” They ran to move the records from the cabinet to the piano, already half under water. The water was waist-deep. Three small tables, the glass coffee-maker, the sugar bowl, and a vase of carnations were floating about the room. Taeko, will the doll be all right? Mrs. Tamaki was worried about the French doll, one of Taeko’s, that stood on the mantel. The water would surely not rise that high, said Taeko. The three were still rather enjoying themselves, shouting at each other in the best of spirits. They all had a good laugh when Hiroshi, reaching to grab the brief case in which he had brought home his school books, bumped his head on the bobbing radio. But after perhaps a half hour, there came a moment when the three fell silent. Almost immediately, Taeko remembered afterwards, the water was above her waist. As she clutched at a curtain, a picture fell from over her head; the curtain had probably brushed against it. It was a picture Mrs. Tamaki was especially fond of, Kishida Ryusei’s portrait of the girl Reiko. Mrs. Tamaki and Taeko could only look after it regretfully as it floated off and settled in a corner of the room. “Are you all right, Hiroshi?” The tone of Mrs. Tamaki’s voice had changed. Grunting a reply, Hiroshi climbed to the piano. Taeko thought of a foreign movie she had seen when she was very small, in which a detective was trapped in an underground room with water rising around him inch by inch. The three were some distance apart, Taeko still clinging to her curtain at a window to the west, Hiroshi on the piano across the room from her, and Mrs. Tamaki on a table that had been propped against the door, but had by now floated to the middle of the room. Probing with her foot for something to stand on as she clung to the curtain, Taeko came on one of the tables. She kicked it over and stood on the edge. (They found afterwards that the water, heavy with sand, had fastened things down. When it receded, the tables and chairs were quite immobile. Many houses were left after the flood only because of the sand that held them in place.)