This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie
Читать онлайн книгу.
before going in to breakfast. But Gloria's presence had spoiled this last touch.
"Well," said Dottie briskly, "I parked the car around the corner—past the station as a matter of fact. Thought I'd just walk to the Commissary. Exercise, you know," she concluded brightly.
"Yes, it's only halfway across town."
"What? Oh, yes. Well, one can't get too much exercise." Then, anxious not to seem to be avoiding the obvious, she said: "These poor drivers!"
"Why poor?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's in their eyes—that lovely melted-chocolate color, you know. And then, Japanese men are always sad looking anyway, like dogs left in the rain. Breaks your heart." Dottie was not without her sensitive side.
"The women look comparatively dry," said Gloria.
"Oh, them! Isn't it strange—the men look just like dogs, and the women look just like cats. You know—cute little triangle faces, button noses, and those lovely slanting eyes. It's really the animal kingdom."
"Maybe that's why Lady Briton likes it so much over here."
"Yes," giggled Dorothy, "someone should start a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Japanese."
Someone really ought, thought Gloria. It wasn't that the glorious Occupiers were cruel. They were merely thoughtless. There was something about having plenty in the midst of famine that made people thoughtlessly cruel. When she was good and drunk Gloria always felt like apologizing to beggars. So far she had restrained herself. She didn't like Dottie's saying what had so often occurred to her; so she asked if Dottie was going to the opera.
"Well, if you call it an opera, yes. It's good business, you know."
"You don't like Madame Butterfly?" asked Gloria.
"Oh, adore it! Simply adore it! But that soprano! Know the girl. A nice voice, though a shade overly cultivated—that is, when you realize that she had nothing to cultivate in the first place. Can't hear her except in the first three rows. Bad breathing, that's what Mme. Schmidt says. You know her, dear? My old sensei—that means teacher, you know. From Vienna and just the sweetest old lady ever. Poor thing—half-starving now. Whenever I take my lesson I go to the PX and just load up—crackers, cheese, sardines, that sort of thing, you know. I suppose they have a banquet after I go. Awfully odd position she's in—white, natch, and yet can't use the PX or, well, any of the Army things. Can't even ride Army busses, or the Allied cars on the railroad. Doesn't go out much—no shoes! Of course, she was here all during the war, and I suppose that's why. And the CIC is always investigating her—as though she cared about Hitler or Mussolini or anything but music. She'll be at the opera tonight probably—I'll bet she's off borrowing a pair of shoes right now. That soprano is another pupil of hers."
"I guess I'll be going," said Gloria. "Some major or other from the office asked me."
Dorothy looked at her intently for just a second, the look of a person who is trying to decide whether or not to tell a woman that her lipstick is smeared, that an eyelash has fallen to her cheek, that her nose needs blowing. Finally she said: "Oh, really? What's his name?"
"Calloway. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Just thought Davie or I might know him. We know scads of people in Special Services—I used to be USO, you know, and of course Davie is on the paper. Guess we don't."
"Guess not," said Gloria, wishing that Americans had a custom like bowing. It made difficult things like parting between two people who didn't like each other so much easier.
"Well, dear, I must run," said Dorothy, her eyes still intent on Gloria. "Perhaps I'll see you there tonight." She smiled briefly.
"Hope so," said Gloria and turned quickly away. She rather wanted to know just who Dorothy's officer was. In all likelihood someone she herself had known, would know, or was knowing. There were only so many officers. Well, bless the grapevine. She probably would know before the day was over. Really, Tokyo was Muncie all over again—such a small world after all. Muncie all over again, but different.
She drew a deep breath of the cool autumnal morning air and, for no reason, felt better. She breathed and smiled, realizing that, absurdly enough, she felt happy.
It was being in Japan that did it, she guessed. Here she seemed to weigh less, her body had a suppleness and dexterity that surprised her. The sun shone directly into her face, and she felt tall, beautiful, and altogether different from what she knew herself to be.
Often she had seen other Americans here smile for no apparent reason as they walked in the sunlight. Was it because they were conquerors? She doubted it. It was because they were free. Free from their families, their homes, their culture—free even from themselves. They had left one way of living behind them and did not find it necessary to learn another. Nothing they'd ever been taught could be used in understanding the Japanese, and most of them didn't want to anyway. It was too much fun being away from home, in a country famed for exoticism, in a city where every day was an adventure and you never knew what was going to happen tomorrow.
Actually, thought Gloria, there was something paradoxically reassuring about being in this country where the ground might shake at any moment, where the distant, snow-covered mountain might, for all one knew, blow the whole island to pieces. You could almost feel yourself living. At any moment the ground might crack beneath your feet and you'd find yourself face to face with eternity. It was quite different from safe, dull Muncie where habit very soon cut you from life, and Gloria was inclined to prefer Japan.
The gold-spotted leaves fell at her feet, and the cool air brushed her ankles. There was a clarity here—so different from the foggy, rainy island she had expected—a dryness, a precision in the atmosphere which made the most ordinary occurrence—a walk to the station for example—something joyous, as though a carnival were just around the corner.
There was another kind of clarity too. She felt herself a part of something larger, something benevolent, like god, engaged in kind works and noble edifices. And she could see enormous distances. Her own country—the United States, Indiana, Muncie—like an arranged vista, fell perfectly into place. She understood it; she understood her place in it and even that of her parents. It was as adorable as an illuminated Easter egg.
And here, all around her, was freedom, even license. The ruins were one huge playground where everything forbidden was now allowed and clandestine meetings were held under the noonday sun. The destruction, evident everywhere she looked, contributed to or perhaps caused this. She felt like a looter, outside society. Society no longer existed.
Here she was free, here in this destructive country where autos collided as though by clockwork, where sudden death was always a possibility, and where dogs went mad in the sun, casting their long, barking shadows behind them. More than at any other place she had been in her life, Gloria felt alive in Japan.
Two university students, black in their caps and high-collared uniforms, were walking toward her. They stopped talking to stare. When she passed them they both stood respectfully to one side of the sidewalk, their eyes never leaving her. As she walked beyond them she heard their conversation, suddenly animated, bright with words she would never understand. They were talking about her.
She turned to look behind her. Both of the students were walking backwards, gazing after her. Gloria read only appreciation in their faces. They saw her looking, blushed, and turned around.
Japan was like that. You could walk down the street and be admired. A visiting deity, deigning to step upon the common pavements. All the men would look at a white woman as though she were some rare, incalculably expensive and probably breakable object. At least, so Gloria believed.
She turned around again, but the students were gone. If she had smiled at them she might have assured for herself a kind of immortality. The handsome youngsters would reckon time from the day the American lady smiled at them. They would excitedly recall to each other just what she looked like; they would vie with each other in flattering descriptions. At least, so Gloria believed.
The next two men were middle-aged businessmen, and they didn't