Harry threw his clogs over the gate. Using the gate’s copper bosses for handholds, he scaled the top and went after, landing on a cushion of moss. The house was larger than it had appeared from the street, with a side garden not of flowers and trees but of large stones set among raked pebbles. In a brief illumination of lightning, Harry saw the garden as it was meant to be contemplated, as small islands in a sea of perfect waves. The pebbles chattered in the rain. Harry was so wet the downpour no longer made any difference to him.
In August, Tokyo yearned for breezes. The outer screens of a long veranda were removed, and inner screens that were nothing more than frames of paper were left half open to the night air. In the front room, Kato sat in a kimono and beret, sketchpad on his knees, working by the overhead light of a paper lantern. At first Harry thought that Kato saw him, too, before he realized that between the artist’s concentration and the lantern’s muted glow, anything in the garden was virtually invisible. A brilliantly quick artist, Kato drew fluid contours and penciled notes in the margin for color and shade. The interior dividers seemed to be open so that Kato’s eye could run the entire length of the house, although what Kato saw Harry couldn’t.
Careful to stay on the moss that trimmed the stones, Harry moved past the front room to the second. The veranda was hardwood polished to a black sheen. A chain led rainwater from the roof to the ground. Although the screens of the second room were dark and shut, it was where the sound of the shamisen emanated from. Harry admired how Kato had arranged matters, the artist with a bare minimum of light, an unseen musician in a middle room creating ambience and then, at a distance, the artist’s model bathed in light.
Not quite bathed. The screens were wide open to the garden, and Harry saw inside the third room a shallow light of candles around a canopy of mosquito netting draped from the ceiling. Outside a corner of the netting lay a bowl, a fan and a mosquito coil with wispy smoke. The netting was a gauzy green shadow. Within it, Harry could see two heads and the glint of a gold kimono. He was sure they couldn’t see him.
At a word from Kato, the figures began to shift. One climbed behind the other, and Harry heard breathing mix with the notes of the shamisen. The canopy shifted like a skirt from side to side. While the netting moved, a slim hand pulled up the green mesh on Harry’s side, and Oharu looked out. She was on all fours, her kimono bunched between her shoulders and her hips. One moon-white breast spilled out. The kimono was a peacock pattern, green on gold with an undone purple sash. Harry could imagine Kato jotting down the colors, indicating inks. In her sleeve, Oharu found a pack of cigarettes and matches. The other figure stuck his head out; it was the gaptoothed comedian, the amusing violinist. She lit a cigarette even while he pushed into her. The bowl was an ashtray. Veins bulged on the comedian’s neck as his face reddened and his eyes squeezed shut. Oharu showed no emotion beyond mild impatience and irritation. The forehead above her rounded brows stayed porcelain-smooth. Kato said something. Oharu stretched out on her side and loosened her kimono more to show her legs and black stripe of pubic hair and the man behind her still plugged in, grinding his dark balls between her thighs, his fingers on her throat.
Harry stumbled back onto the pebbles. Oharu looked up at the sound as a bolt of lightning wandered from the main storm and exploded overhead, revealing everything in the garden-rocks, rake lines, Harry with his hand across his mouth-in the white of a photographer’s bulb.
Harry ran. He clambered over the gate and landed with knees pumping. He wasn’t so much aware of his route as of houses and shops flying by. A policeman shouted, but Harry easily outstripped him, racing through a narrow alley and around the reek of a night-soil wagon. Over a wall, scattering cats, pounding through the overflow of gutters until he turned the corner to a street of one-story wooden houses that seemed to sink in the rain. In the middle of the block were the bleak accommodations he shared with his uncle. He rushed in the front door and threw himself on a mat. The house was essentially a single room. A kitchen area with a stone sink and gas stove was tucked in back with a water closet and a narrow bath. Orin Niles was out, which was a mercy. Usually Harry cursed the lack of ventilation, but now he wanted the room warm and dark, and he hung on to the sweet smell of the tatami.
When he started shivering, he stripped down to his wet shirt and underpants and curled up between two quilts. His uncle’s space was a narrow mattress on the other side. Orin could be found in bed most days, drying out. If he was out this late, the drought was over and he’d spend the night at a sailors’ bar in Yokohama, sitting in a haze of laudanum and rye. The housekeeper lived apart with her own family. Harry was alone.
His domain: the mats, the rats that lived in the tiles of the roof, a shelf of schoolbooks, a stack of baseball cards, a cigar box with playing cards and dice, a beetle named Oishi in a bamboo cage, his parents’ print of the child Christ confounding Pharisees, his print of Japanese warships sinking the Russian fleet, his money wrapped in oilcloth and hidden under floorboards. He turned his back on his earthly possessions and laid his face toward the wall.
“Harry? Harry, are you in there?”
There was a scratch at the door. It opened, letting in a moment of air and the sound of rain on macadam, and slid shut again.
“This place is almost impossible to find. You forgot your clogs.”
“Leave them,” Harry muttered and pulled his quilt tighter. He didn’t need to see Oharu in the dark, taking in his shabby port in a storm, condescending to her little errand. He hated her. He’d left his clogs in the garden of the green house. He hated his clogs, too.
“I’m sorry, Harry. It was just sex.”
Exactly what the Folies manager had said about Gen. Everyone mouthed the same hypocrisy. He didn’t dignify her with a reply.
“Do you want me to go, Harry?”
Silence was good enough. That had to be clear to the stupidest person in the world. He hadn’t heard her slip off her shoes or fold an umbrella, so she obviously wasn’t sincere.
“It was just for money, Harry, it didn’t mean anything. I am very sorry.”
There was one drip in particular that Harry heard right on the other side of the wall, a steady tapping on the ground outside. Oharu stirred. At any second Harry expected to hear the door slap shut behind her.
“You’re still wet.” Oharu felt his hair. “You must be soaked.”
“It meant enough.”
“You’re right, Harry, it did. I am so sorry. But you’re shivering.” Her hand slid down to his neck. “You’re wet all the way through.”
“How could you do it?”
“I’m getting by, Harry. Doing what a modern girl has to do. You have to take those wet clothes off. We have to dry you.”
“No.” The last thing Harry was going to do was undress in front of her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll warm you.”
Harry still had his face to the wall. He heard silk slip over skin, and then he felt Oharu crawl under the quilt with him. She was so warm it was like being by a fire.
“So cold and uncomfortable, Harry. You’re sure you don’t want to get dry?”
“I’m sure.”
She cupped herself around him, her hips against his, her breasts against his back, her breath on his neck.
“It gives me gooseflesh. Feel my skin, Harry.”
She took his hand and ran it lightly up and down her leg. She had muscular dancer’s legs.
“Like a goose, right, Harry?”
Harry’s damp back had made her breasts stiffen. He felt himself grow hard and held his breath.
“That’s all I am, a goose, a silly girl. Can you forgive me?”
He let his hand spread on her leg as if he were touching a temple column of cool marble. He was angry with her. At the same time, he was afraid that if he turned toward her, she would disappear.