Sayonara: A Novel Page 9

  “She’s been takin’ English lessons,” Joe said proudly, “and I study a little Japanese.” He rattled off a few phrases and Katsumi beamed at him as if he had written an encyclopedia.

  “It’s nice here, Ace,” Joe said expansively. “Two rooms, the canal down there, a good job and good food. Ace, I’m livin’. For the first time in my life I feel like a human bein’.”

  He showed me where to put my shoes and bow to prop myself up with pillows as we sat on the tatami mats. He said, “I grew up in an orphanage but I was sort of adopted by a family. They found me disappointin’ and deserted me—not that I blame ’em, I was a stinker—so I went back to the orphanage and then to reform school. I tried to enlist in the Army for the last war but they trapped me into tellin’ my real age and I wound up in Chicago and then the Air Force. Now I’m a family man.” He looked at Katsumi with glowing approval and asked, “Notice the big change, Ace?”

  “I like the kimono,” I said, for Katsumi was one of those ordinary Japanese girls who in flowing kimonos become almost attractive.

  “It ain’t the kimono, Ace. Watch her smile!” In Japanese he commanded his wife to smile but when she did so I still didn’t catch on, so Joe cried, “The tooth, Ace! The tooth!” Then I saw. The big gold tooth had been removed and in its place some Army dentist had fitted a trim porcelain crown. Katsumi really did look attractive in kimono and tooth.

  “It’s a reformation,” I said.

  “It’s a miracle,” Joe sighed. “And she don’t giggle no more, do you, Babe?” He dragged Katsumi toward him and kissed her on the cheek. “Because I told her that if she ever giggled again and stuffed her fist in her mouth I’d break her arm off at the wrist.” He gave Katsumi a solid wallop on the bottom and she giggled like mad, stuffing her hand into her mouth.

  “Sometimes she forgets, Ace, but this is livin’.”

  He explained to his wife that I bunked at Takarazuka and she spoke in rapid Japanese which he interpreted for me: “A hell of a fine idea, Ace. We’re goin’ to Takarazuka tomorrow to see the new show. Join us.”

  “I’d like to, but I have a dinner date in Kobe.”

  “So what! Show’s over by six and I’ll race you right in to Kobe, no stops.” He pulled an imaginary cord and made like a train whistle. “It’s a deal, Ace, because with Katsumi you’ll really enjoy it. She knows all the actresses and can tell you what’s goin’ on.”

  He gave Katsumi a command in Japanese and she went to a chest where she kept her prized possessions, appearing shortly with a magazine in bright covers. It started at the back, the way Jap books do, and she showed me the photograph of a dazzling stage set. I asked what the magazine was.

  “Fan magazine for the Takarazuka shows,” Joe explained. “She subscribes to three of them.” He shuffled a pile of colorful magazines and I could tell from the devoted way in which Katsumi put them back in order that she had once been one of the enchanted girls who stood each night by the bridge to watch the great stars pass. Now she had become the typical housewife who still treasured autographs of the leading actresses.

  “I suppose she belongs to a fan club,” I joked.

  “Don’t kid!” He spoke in Japanese again and Katsumi returned to the chest from which she handed me a stack of photographs. Apparently they went far back in time to when Katsumi had been a child. I asked, “Does she have the pictures of the girls who were in last month’s show?”

  Katsumi immediately shuffled through the pictures and assembled the entire cast of principals and explained what each did. She even sang two of the songs and I asked, “Does she know all the shows as well as this one?”

  Joe patted her arm affectionately and said, “She never misses one. Hasn’t for years.”

  “Then it’s a date for tomorrow. But you promise to get me back to Kobe for dinner.”

  He didn’t have to because when I called Eileen next day she played hard-to-get and told me abruptly, “I’m having dinner with a Marine.” I said, “That’s too bad, how about Friday?” and she said Friday was booked too, so I said, “Boy, I’m playing in tough luck. I’ll call you later.” But neither of us would have bet much money on when that later would be.

  FUMIKO-SAN: “When Japan know America win, my father kill himself—honorable—Japanese style.”

  Actually, when I went to the theater that afternoon I was rather relieved. It seemed to me that Eileen and I were pretty well washed up and I didn’t have to worry any more about Mrs. Webster. I said to Joe, “I’m sort of steamed up to see this show,” but I was hardly prepared for what Takarazuka did to Madame Butterfly. At any moment they might run in a scene unconnected with anything that had gone before or would come after. There were old Japanese dances to please the classical fans, jitterbugging to represent 1890 America, wrestling, microphones, a dance hall sequence, mutiny aboard an American ship, twenty stupid Japanese cops and a fire.

  But running through this burlesque of a great opera there was one solid thread: ridicule of American military men. I have to admit that Mike Bailey’s girl, Fumiko-san, was terrific as a ravishing geisha holding the American fleet at bay. Her fine long face and expressive movements made her hilarious when wrestling with a drunk G.I. on leave in Tokyo. There was nothing really offensive with her pantomime but you felt that all the Japanese in the audience were egging her on because they had had a bellyful of Americans.

  But the star’s performance was quite different. The girl in slacks who had reprimanded us in the restaurant played this part and her Lieutenant Pinkerton was blatantly ridiculous. He was arrogant, ignorant and ill-mannered. Yet at the same time the actress herself seemed more essentially feminine than any of the other girls on stage and it was this that made her version of Pinkerton so devastating. She was all Japanese women making fun of all American men.

  One act of such petty nonsense was enough for me. I didn’t think I was stuffy, but I couldn’t tolerate people making cheap fun of men in uniform, and when the people doing the burlesque were Japanese I drew the line. When the Act I curtain fell I got up to go, but Katsumi put her hand on mine and said, “No, no! Now is the best!”

  From a side entrance the star appeared dressed in old-style samurai costume, pursued by two villains. They attacked her, and in the highly ritualistic dance which followed I for the first time fell under the spell of Japanese art.

  I cannot tell you what there was about this dance that captivated me. It might have been the haunting music, for now the Western instruments like violins and oboes were silent and in their place were three horribly weird sounds: the hammering of a slack-headed drum, the clicking of wooden blocks thumped together, and the piercing wail of an Asiatic flute. Or it might have been the dazzling curtain before which she danced, a vast gold-and-blue-and-red affair with eight gigantic embroidered irises standing in solemn Oriental perfection. But mostly it was this remarkable woman I had seen in the restaurant, this Hana-ogi. She wore no shoes, only white tabi drawn tightly about her feet and it was principally her feet that impressed me. She used them as a very great athlete might and slowly I became aware that I was watching one of the greatest dancers in the world. Silently, in the Japanese manner, she wove back and forth between her assailants. Instead of a sword she used the traditional symbol, her right hand held vividly upright, and as I watched this hand it traced a wonderful pattern against the gold curtain. I had never before seen a dancer like this, one who could fill an entire stage with her authority.

  The scene came to a frenzied close with Hana-ogi stamping an unforgettable rhythm and weaving that bright hand through the darkness. The crowd burst into applause and I whispered to Kelly, “Tell Katsumi I’d like to meet that girl.”

  To my surprise Kelly said, “That’s easy. Katsumi knows ’em all.” But when he spoke to his wife she became grave and Joe reported, “Katsumi says that your particular girl wouldn’t speak to an American.”

  “Why not?”

  “We hung her brother as a war criminal. Killed her father with our bombs.
”

  I sat back in my seat and, strange as it may seem, felt exactly the same kind of relief I did when I heard that Eileen couldn’t have dinner with me. I had the distinct sensation that I was back in St. Leonard’s engulfed in important decisions that I simply couldn’t make. At that moment I desperately wanted to be in a jet plane rousting about up around the Yalu. Up there I felt safe and here in Japan I felt dreadfully loused up. As if I were coming back to earth from another world I looked at Joe and thought, “Jesus! What am I doing? Lloyd Gruver, West Point ’44, propositioning an enlisted man to arrange a date with a Japanese girl!” I said to Joe, “Let’s get some air.”

  Joe said, “Why not? We’ll blow and Katsumi can come home by train.”

  Right there I could have avoided all that followed, but I cried, “No! I didn’t mean that. I want to see the rest.” Then I asked, “How does Katsumi happen to know an actress like that?”

  Joe laughed and grabbed his wife’s handbag, rummaging through it till he found half a dozen pictures. They were all of the dancer, showing her in some of her famous roles. She was a Spanish bullfighter, a Venetian gondolier, a Broadway playboy and a Japanese samurai. She was always the man and she always looked devastatingly feminine.

  Joe explained, “Katsumi organized a fan club. Osaka girls who idolized Hana-ogi.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  Joe asked Katsumi and said, “Just Hana-ogi. It’s a stage name. My wife is crazy about her. Until Katsumi married me she was a real moron. Used to stand in the rain to see her goddess.”

  “But why?”

  “Look, Ace. Suppose you were fat and dumpy and had to work like a slave all day. Then there’s this tall slim beautiful girl who’s famous all over the country and makes a lot of dough. One actress like Hana-ogi proves what a girl can become. If you ever break into our house you can steal the pots and pans but don’t steal these photographs. Katsumi worships them.”

  Katsumi understood our conversation but said nothing. Quietly she recovered the photographs, restored them to some preferred order and replaced them in her bag. Then she explained in broken English the story of Act II, which she read from one of the magazines which Takarazuka mailed out to its faithful patrons. It contained a large picture section, which I leafed through. I saw some sixty excellent photographs of the Takarazuka girls off stage. They were knitting, or skiing, or promenading, or going to a symphony concert, or strolling. Gradually I began to notice a curious pattern. Always the girls were in pairs or larger groups. Never were they alone and never with men. The photographs portrayed a rich and successful and celibate world and I recalled Mike’s insistence that a wise man always looks for love in that kind of world, because, as Mike so eloquently pointed out, such women have everything but l’amour. I felt this especially when I saw the three photographs of Mike’s Fumiko-san. She was perhaps the most striking of the Takarazuka girls, for she wore her clothes with dazzling effect and her pictures were additionally interesting to me because in each of her photographs she was standing with Hana-ogi, the star of today’s performance, and Hana-ogi invariably wore men’s clothing—yet it was Hana-ogi who looked the more feminine and desirable.

  Act II was an amazing experience, for Hana-ogi proved that she was much more than a mere dancer. She had a fine clear singing voice, striking power for dramatic scenes and a wanton comic sense. I leaned across Katsumi and asked, “Joe! Do you think this girl could get by in New York?” He whispered back, “I never been to New York.”

  But Katsumi heard my question and she realized even before I did that I was determined to meet Hana-ogi that day, so in the darkness she touched my hand and said, “After, we go on flower walk. I speak you to Hana-ogi-san.”

  When the final curtain fell on Butterfly I started to leave but again Katsumi whispered, “No, Ace-san. Now everybody so beautiful.” Quickly the curtain opened and there was the entire cast of 120 standing in glorious kimonos, singing a farewell song. A runway reached out into the audience and the stars came down and posed right above us. Our seats were such that Hana-ogi stood very near me and for the first time I saw her in woman’s clothes. She was adorable. True, she was also proud and combative, nervously excited at the end of an extremely long performance. But above all else she was adorable in her triumphant moment. Her kimono, I remember, was green and white.

  Katsumi now led me through the crowd and we came to the flower walk and the tiny little gate through which the Takarazuka girls passed on their way to the Bitchi-bashi. A large crowd had assembled to applaud them as they appeared and dozens of round-faced little girls pressed tight against the gate, hoping to touch the great actresses, and as I looked at the girls it seemed incredible that any of these pudgy figures might one day grow up to replace Fumiko-san or Hana-ogi.

  Now the lesser Takarazuka girls appeared, then Fumiko-san and the dancers in green skirts and leather zori. At last the leading actresses came through the gate as the crowd pressed in upon them and above the clamoring heads I saw cool Hana-ogi. We looked at each other cautiously, as if testing to see if either had been offended, then slowly she moved toward me through the great press of people and I think my mouth fell open slightly, for on this day, fresh from triumph, she was a glorious woman.

  Katsumi broke the spell by catching Hana-ogi’s hands and gabbling away in Japanese. Finally she said to me, “Hana-ogi-san hope you like her play.” The tall actress looked at me over Katsumi’s shoulder and I replied quietly, “I liked the play but not the American sailors.”

  Katsumi reported this and Hana-ogi blushed and said something which Katsumi was reluctant to translate. “Go ahead!” Joe insisted.

  “Hana-ogi-san say Americans to be funny. Not bad.” She pressed her hands into her stomach and indicated laughter.

  “It wasn’t funny,” I said. Hana-ogi caught my meaning and frowned, so I added quickly, “But Hana-ogi-san’s dancing was wonderful.” I imitated her fight with the villains and she smiled.

  Hana-ogi’s other fans now pressed in upon us and I said awkwardly, “Why don’t we four have dinner?” But when Katsumi translated this, Hana-ogi grew very angry, said something harsh and passed abruptly down the flower walk.

  I now entered upon a week of dream sequences. The Korean fighting must have exhausted me more than I knew, for my sudden relaxation on the make-believe job at Itami permitted my nerves to find their own level. It wasn’t high and I felt as I had once at the Point when we were about to play Navy and I was certain I would louse up the works. At other times I imagined I was back in St. Leonard’s totally confused about whether or not I wanted to attend the Point.

  Sometimes at night I would wake with a start and believe myself to be in a falling jet fighter up at the Yalu River, and I would struggle to regain control both of the plane and of myself. Then, as I lay in the dark Japanese night I would see hurrying across my midnight wall that lone, exquisitely lovely Takarazuka girl I had seen on the Bitchi-bashi that first day and I would try to hurry after her and find her name.

  But in all these imaginings I was kidding myself and I knew it. For inevitably I would think of Hana-ogi-san and I would see her dancing and I would follow the subtle curves of her adorable body and I would see her oval face smiling at me, ever so small a Japanese smile, and I would wonder how a man could be so tossed about by the mere idea of a girl. I had not really spoken to her. I knew nothing of her character or her personality, but almost willfully I was hypnotizing myself over this strange girl. Much later I would recognize that I was creating for myself the image of love and that without this image a man could well live an entire and empty life.

  So each evening I fed my delirium by standing at the Bitchi-bashi to watch Hana-ogi pass by and if, during the preceding hours, I had by chance begun to question whether she really was as lovely as I imagined one sight of her dispelled that heresy. She was even more desirable. On Friday I returned to see Swing Butterfly and at the final promenade I applauded so loudly that Hana-ogi had to look at me, but she betr
ayed nothing and looked quickly away. Saturday night I was really jittery and Mike Bailey dragged me along on another secret date he had with Fumiko-san and I spent most of the evening questioning her about the Takarazuka girls, hoping that she would speak of Hana-ogi.

  Fumiko-san said, “My father famous man but he kill himself when Japan surrender. No money no hope for me. I read in paper Takarazuka seek new girls. I brush my hair each night, study dance, shout with my voice. I chosen and one year I work ten hours each day and think this my one chance. Supervisor like me and I go Moon Troupe with Hana-ogi-san. She kind to me and I act parts good. I live dormitory with other girls but best time when Moon Troupe go Tokyo.”

  I said, “You in love with someone in Tokyo?”

  “Love? How I love someone?”

  “Aren’t you going to get married?”

  She looked at me quizzically. “I Takarazuka girl. What else could I want be?”

  Her answer so amazed me that I did an impulsive thing which astonished me as much as it did Fumiko-san. I took her hands in mine and said quietly, “Tonight, when you go back to the dormitory you must speak with Hana-ogi-san. Tell her that I am in love with her and must see her.”

  Fumiko-san withdrew her hands and said in dismay, “Never hoppen! Hana-ogi-san never speak men. And with American! Never hoppen!”

  “You tell her,” I repeated, for I was convinced that no one could dance as passionately as Hana-ogi without knowing the outlines and purpose of love. I knew that she could not refuse to see me.

  The next afternoon Joe Kelly drove out to Itami and said abruptly, “Wife says you’re to be at our house for supper at seven.”

  “I can’t make …”