Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [53]
PART THREE
24
When Nancy appeared at the consulate, Cho-Cho’s child cradled in her arms, his face smeared with tears, Sharpless was disturbed by her appearance: she looked distracted. Speaking too rapidly, like a bad actress delivering lines, she said she had come to say goodbye. An agreement had been reached with the child’s mother and she was taking him to America.
‘You’re sure you understood her correctly?’
He was convinced this was an impossible outcome, but it seemed his niece had no time to tell him anything more – the liner was due to sail.
‘And Lieutenant Pinkerton—’
‘He had to get back to his ship.’
Sharpless leaned towards the child, who looked ready to dissolve into fresh tears. His embroidered kimono was crumpled, grubby.
Sharpless said gently, ‘Sachio?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘That’s his name—’
‘His name’s Joey, and I need to buy him some clothes. Right now.’
She was stroking the child’s head in a repetitive, soothing gesture, holding him close. Sharpless noted how pale she was, almost grey in the face.
‘You realise there are formalities,’ he began, but Nancy brushed the words aside: the child would go on board as a visitor. She would deal with the paperwork later.
‘Please, uncle. Leave this to me.’
He called a servant to show them the nearest clothing shop. He marvelled at how much his niece had altered in the few days since her arrival: the immaculate American girl with her flawless, smiling face was a scruffy mess, her dress dishevelled, stained.
‘I hope your frock isn’t spoiled.’
She glanced down and for the first time noticed the crimson splotch on the side of her dress, just below her breast. She frowned.
‘How did that get there? Could it be a fruit stain?’
But as she turned away to the door Sharpless noticed the boy’s kimono sleeve, the edge darkened, still wet, and his perplexity shifted into dread.
In the heat, the Nagasaki dirt roads were blanketed with a soft layer of dust that rose in a cloud from beneath the wooden wheels and lay thickly on eyelids, clogging nostrils, setting Sharpless coughing as he breathed it in.
He urged the rickshaw driver to go faster, apologising, observing the proper form: even in these circumstances formality must be maintained. He feared that in any case haste was probably not needed; he was almost certainly too late.
He was tempted to get out and run, but he knew his legs would carry him no faster than the sweating rickshaw man, though run he did, once they reached the steep approach to the house.
His muscles protested, his shoes pinched, he was gasping for breath by the time he reached the doorway, slid open the shoji panel and saw the two women: Cho-Cho crumpled on the floor, Suzuki crouched over her mistress, contemplating the crimson scarf that concealed her throat, the blood that had soaked the pale cloth and ran like a wavering banner down the white of the silk kimono and on to the tatami mat.
He dropped to his knees and peered at the darkly welling wound. Beside him lay the knife, small – the blade no more than four inches long. Sharpless recognised it, kaiken, traditionally the knife a dishonoured woman would use to kill herself; small enough to conceal in her sash until wanted.
Beneath the thick white make-up Cho-Cho’s skin was invisible, her red-rimmed eyes closed. Was there a flutter of a breath? He spoke rapidly to Suzuki, telling her to go for help, but the maid knew this was not what her mistress would want. She remained kneeling, immobile, until Sharpless shouted a savage instruction and swung his arm, striking her hard. Then she sprang to her feet and ran.
The doctor looked very young – recently qualified, Sharpless guessed. The surgical gown hung loose on him, too big for his slight body. When he lifted away the bloody garment concealing the dark, clotted wound in Cho-Cho’s throat, his face tightened in a momentary flinch. He gestured to a nurse and Sharpless was ushered hastily out of the emergency room.
In the dim hospital corridor he and Suzuki waited, silent; two fearful people presenting an exterior of composure.