Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [12]
Pinkerton watched the procedure indulgently.
‘Tradition?’
‘Tradition.’
Early next morning, tucked together as close as two birds, they rested for the last time in the nest of the futon.
‘You will come back, Pinkerton?’
He nodded sleepily.
‘When?’
He tried to think of something vague enough not to tie him down but encouraging in a way she could accept. Outside the window he saw birds filling the sky, flying high, wing tips almost touching; tiny silhouettes speeding away from land.
‘One day, after the birds come home.’
He was pleased with the reply; he felt it was a bit Japanese.
She followed his upward glance and watched the swallows darken the sky, wave after wave. Birds left. Birds came home. She nodded. She understood.
She curled up, into his shoulder, stroking the golden hairs on his arms, delicately licking with the tip of her tongue first one nipple, then the other, as he had taught her. He groaned with pleasure, and a touch of sadness, momentarily sharing a sense of loss.
He would forget that fleeting twinge. It did not cross his mind that the pain would stay with her.
When the ship steamed out of the harbour Pinkerton was busy and failed to notice the moment when they slipped between the lighthouses and out to the open sea. As the wind sharpened and the waves creamed against the hull, he glanced back at the receding coastline and became aware of a sense of freedom, as though a fragile, yet unexpectedly powerful chain that had wound its way round him like a clinging ivy, had suddenly snapped.
Cho-Cho stood outside the house, watching the departing ship through the telescope he had brought her. Surely that was him, on deck, arm raised, waving? Behind her she heard a small sound and glanced round: in the morning breeze the hand-shaped tegashiwa leaf fluttered, up and down, waving farewell and beckoning, come back.
When the last trace of the ship was lost beyond the horizon she felt a chill as though the sun was covered by a sheet of ice and hurried into the house.
She planted the seeds and watered the ground. Small green shoots appeared and, to her delight, leaves and then buds that opened into flowers, bright and glowing. Where earlier she had watched for the cherry blossom, the plum, the chrysanthemums, now she hovered over these small saucers in colours she would once have considered too bright, too obvious. She was getting the garden ready for Pinkerton’s return. For, of course, he would return.
And it was not only in the garden that new life was growing.
*
Calling on Cho-Cho one evening, Sharpless saw that she was busy at the far end of the garden, stooping to tie up a showy orange flower whose stalk was too fragile to stand without support. Suzuki showed him into the house and stood nearby, eyes lowered. In the weeks following Pinkerton’s departure, he had seen how tenderly she cared for Cho-Cho, anticipating her needs, small, bright eyes following her mistress’s every movement. But today her broad face was closed, she seemed distant.
‘Suzuki? Is something wrong?’
‘In one way, you could say so. In another, things could not be better.’
He knew enough of the form to wait.
‘She is expecting a child.’
This was an appalling indiscretion, as they were both aware. But Suzuki, less naïve than her mistress, was also aware of the realities involved.
‘If Lieutenant Pinkerton could be informed—’
But Cho-Cho was approaching, and the conversation ceased.
He should not have been surprised. Indeed, he was saddened rather than surprised. The girl’s future had narrowed.
When the evidence was visible to all, Cho-Cho invited Sharpless to tea. She had not previously honoured him with the ceremony. Now he sat, legs folded under him, while she knelt, setting out the little cups, the scoop and powdered green tea and bowl; boiled the water, whisked and waited, concentrating on every movement.
Self-consciously he smoothed back his lank hair, almost Japanese in its darkness – not a grey hair to