Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [13]
She had performed the tea ceremony for Pinkerton once, settling, as now, for the shorter version that lasted barely an hour, but it had not been one of their successes. He commented to Sharpless later, ‘Pretty long wait for a mouthful of dishwater.’
Sharpless had tried to explain that the ceremony required years of training and practice: ‘Chanoyu is an art, a ritual of mystical significance which must be performed in a studied, graceful manner.’
He could enjoy it, he was enjoying it now, watching Cho-Cho’s small hands lifting, pouring, whisking the liquid to a froth. The bowl she used was precious, one of her few possessions, a relic of a once-prosperous family. Black Oribe ceramic, it could be three or four hundred years old. He admired its lack of symmetry, the rustic surface. Still, he guiltily found himself acknowledging that the whole point of this extended ceremony, its arcane complexity, detail and importance, was, as Pinkerton had implied, the making and serving of a cup of tea.
After the ritual had been completed, the tea tasted, and the utensils carefully washed and dried and cleared away, Cho-Cho gave Sharpless her news. He offered his congratulations and told her he would write at once to inform Lieutenant Pinkerton that he was to be a father.
‘A big surprise!’ she said, smiling. ‘It will bring him pleasure.’
Sharpless certainly agreed with the first statement. He was less sure about the second.
When the reply arrived, a brief scrawl, the large, untidy handwriting covering the page, it was accompanied by dollar bills in large denominations. Pinkerton wrote that he was sending more than enough to cover the expenses of the confinement and extend the rental of the house. Cho-Cho, he added, was a working girl in good health, and as for the child, under the circumstances, who could know if it was even his? No personal message enclosed.
Sharpless sat for a long time at his desk, feeling a greyness settle over him; a sense of failure, of defeat, though who or what had defeated him he could not have said. Next day he called on Cho-Cho, and told her he had heard from Pinkerton. The lieutenant was, of course, delighted by the news. He had sent money to cover all expenses.
‘And does he say when he will be returning?’
‘It was a brief communication, between duties. He must be extremely busy.’
It was cowardly. It was also wrong, to continue to give her false hope. But he told himself that a woman expecting a child could not be expected also to handle news that would destroy all hope. Surely there would be a better time, a gentler way to lead her into reality?
When the child was born, Sharpless paid Cho-Cho a visit, bearing gifts.
She held out a tiny bundle, red-faced, snuffling. Sharpless saw that the infant had a fuzzy cap of pale gold hair; he stared out, unfocused, with small blue eyes. The Pinkerton genes were evident.
‘Here he is, Sharpless-san. My Kanashimi.’
He looked startled: ‘You’re naming him Sorrow?’
‘It also means Trouble.’
‘Poor boy!’
She relented. ‘It’s a little joke among mothers. You tell him, Suzuki.’
‘He is named Kanashimi meaning its opposite – Sachio.’
‘It’s to fend off the evil eye. If you’re superstitious, it’s a good idea to conceal the arrival of happiness,’ Cho-Cho said. ‘I’m not superstitious, of course, but . . .’ she laughed. ‘Just in case.’
In due course, when the boy was older and less vulnerable, Sharpless was informed, he could address the child by his true name.
He paid a flowery tribute of admiration to the new arrival, presented appropriate gifts and left.
Alone, Cho-Cho leaned over the swaddled bundle, studying the tiny features. She must learn to play a new role: that of mother. But she must first grow accustomed to the very existence of a puzzling creature, one that had grown inside her – how unlikely that had seemed at the beginning,