“I assure you I’m not getting embarrassed. In fact …”
“But you are, Etsuko, I can see you are.” Sachiko gave a laugh and clapped her hands together. “But why can’t you understand I’ve nothing to hide, I’ve nothing to be ashamed of? Why are you blushing like this? Just because I mentioned Frank?”
“But I’m not embarrassed. And I assure you I’ve never assumed anything …”
“Why do you never ask me about him, Etsuko? There must be all sorts of questions you’d like to ask. So why don’t you ask them? After all, everybody else in the neighbourhood seems interested enough, you must be too, Etsuko. So please feel free, ask me anything you like.”
“But really, I …”
“Come on, Etsuko, I insist. Ask me about him. I do want you to. Ask me about him, Etsuko.”
“Very well then.”
“Well? Go on, Etsuko, ask.”
“Very well. What does he look like, your friend?”
“What does he look like?” Sachiko laughed again. “Is that all you wish to know? Well, he’s tall like most of these foreigners, and his hair’s going a little thin. He’s not old, you understand. Foreigners go bald more easily, did you know that, Etsuko? Now ask me something else about him. There must be other things you want to know.”
“Well, quite honestly …”
“Come on, Etsuko, ask. I want you to ask.”
“But really, there’s nothing I wish to …”
“But there must be, why won’t you ask? Ask me about him, Etsuko, ask me.”
“Well, in fact,” I said, “I did wonder about one thing.”
Sachiko seemed to suddenly freeze. She had been holding her hands together in front of her, but now she lowered them and placed them back on her lap.
“I did wonder”, I said, “if he spoke Japanese at all.”
For a moment, Sachiko said nothing. Then she smiled and her manner seemed to relax. She lifted her teacup again and took several sips. Then when she spoke again, her voice sounded almost dreamy.
“Foreigners have so much trouble with our language,” she said. She paused and smiled to herself. “Frank’s Japanese is quite terrible, so we converse in English. Do you know English at all, Etsuko? Not at all? You see, my father used to speak good English. He had connections in Europe and he always used to encourage me to study the language. But then of course, when I married, I stopped learning. My husband forbade it. He took away all my English books. But I didn’t forget it. When I met foreigners in Tokyo, it came back to me.”
We sat in silence for a little while. Then Sachiko gave a tired sigh.
“I suppose I’d better get back fairly soon,” she said. She reached down and picked up the folded scarf. Then without inspecting it, she dropped it into her handbag.
“You won’t have a little more tea?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Just a little more perhaps.”
I refilled the cups. Sachiko watched me, then said: “If it’s inconvenient — about tonight, I mean — it wouldn’t matter at all. Mariko should be capable of being left on her own by now.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m sure my husband won’t object.”
“You’re very kind, Etsuko,” Sachiko said, in a flat tone. Then she said: “I should warn you, perhaps. My daughter has been in a somewhat difficult mood these past few days.”
“That’s all right,” I said, smiling. “I’ll need to get used to children in every kind of mood.”
Sachiko went on drinking her tea slowly. She seemed in no hurry to be returning. Then she put down her teacup and for some moments sat examining the back of her hands.
“I know it was a terrible thing that happened here in Nagasaki,” she said, finally. “But it was bad in Tokyo too. Week after week it went on, it was very bad. Towards the end we were all living in tunnels and derelict buildings and there was nothing but rubble. Everyone who lived in Tokyo saw unpleasant things. And Mariko did too.” She continued to gaze at the back of her hands.
“Yes,” I said. “It must have been a very difficult time.”
“This woman. This woman you’ve heard Mariko talk about. That was something Mariko saw in Tokyo. She saw other things in Tokyo, some terrible things, but she’s always remembered that woman.” She turned over her hands and looked at the palms looking from one to the other as if to compare them.
“And this woman,” I said. “She was killed in an air-raid?”
“She killed herself. They said she cut her throat. I never knew her. You see Mariko went running off one morning. I can’t remember why, perhaps she was upset about something. Anyway she went running off out into the streets, so I went chasing after her. It was very early, there was nobody about. Mariko ran down an alleyway, and I followed after her. There was a canal at the end and the woman was kneeling there, up to her elbows in water. A young woman, very thin. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw her. You see, Etsuko, she turned round and smiled at Mariko. I knew something was wrong and Mariko must have done too because she stopped running. At first I thought the woman was blind, she had that kind of look, her eyes didn’t seem to actually see anything. Well, she brought her arms out of the canal and showed us what she’d been holding under the water. It was a baby. I took hold of Mariko then and we came out of the alley.”
I remained silent, waiting for her to continue. Sachiko helped herself to more tea from the pot.
“As I say,” she said, “I heard the woman killed herself. That was a few days afterwards.”
“How old was Mariko then?”
“Five, almost six. She saw other things in Tokyo. But she always remembers that woman.”
“She saw everything? She saw the baby?”
“Yes. Actually, for a long time I thought she hadn’t understood what she’d seen. She didn’t talk about it afterwards. She didn’t even seem particularly upset at the time. She didn’t start talking about it until a month or so later. We were sleeping in this old building then. I woke up in the night and saw Mariko sitting up, staring at the doorway. There wasn’t a door, it was just this doorway, and Mariko was sitting up looking at it. I was quite alarmed. You see, there was nothing to stop anyone walking into the building. I asked Mariko what was wrong and she said a woman had been standing there watching us. I asked what sort of woman and Mariko said it was the one we’d seen that morning. Watching us from the doorway. I got up and looked around but there wasn’t anyone there. It’s quite possible, of course, that some woman was standing there. There was nothing to stop anyone stepping inside.”
“I see. And Mariko mistook her for the woman you’d seen.”
“I expect that’s what happened. In any case, that’s when it started, Mariko’s obsession with that woman. I thought she’d grown out of it, but just recently it’s started again. If she starts to talk about it tonight, please don’t pay her any attention.”
“Yes, I see.”
“You know how it is with children,” said Sachiko. “They play at make-believe and they get confused where their fantasies begin and end.”
“Yes, I suppose it’s nothing unusual really.”
“You see, Etsuko, things were very difficult when Mariko was born.”
“Yes, they must have been,” I said. “I’m very fortunate, I know.”
“Things were very difficult. Perhaps it was foolish to have married when I did. After all, everyone could see a war was coming. But then again, Etsuko, no one knew what a war was really like, not in those days. I married into a highly respected family. I never thought a war could change things so much.”