Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [56]
The bird watched her. She watched the bird. Suzuki, through an interior doorway, was observing both. Nobody moved. Finally, the finch approached the rice with little running steps and rapidly pecked up the grains. Then it slowly lowered its head as though making a bow, turned its tail towards its benefactor and deposited a spectacular splash of birdshit on the lintel.
From the next room Suzuki heard a curious choking sound and came rapidly through the door to investigate. She saw that Cho-Cho, hand to her throat, was laughing.
She turned to Suzuki.
‘You see that bird? I’ve been feeding him. In the old stories he would have had a voice, he would have spoken to me; the bird would probably have turned out to be a prince or a god. Something special. Noble. And look!’ She pointed to the greenish-white splodge, smiling wryly.
‘Not so noble!’
She laughed gleefully and the childlike giggle reminded Suzuki that Cho-Cho, the younger of the pair, was not yet twenty. In normal circumstances, the maid reflected, a mess of birdshit hardly merited a celebratory response, but circumstances were far from normal, and to see Cho-Cho’s face take on a hint of colour, her mouth curve upwards, was an indication of returning life.
‘Perhaps,’ Suzuki suggested, ‘he is offering an opinion on my rice.’ She bowed to the bird. ‘I’ll do better tomorrow, my lord.’
In the following days the bird became a regular visitor, accepting rice, along with seeds and berries procured by Suzuki. While the finch enjoyed its free meals, Cho-Cho absently nibbled her way through the small plates of food placed beside her.
Then came a day when the finch did not appear. The sky was filled with a pattern of migrating birds heading south for the winter and Cho-Cho stared up at the tight flocks wheeling overhead; wondering for a moment whether one bird might detach itself, skim low to flap a quick goodbye at his regular provider, but the flock flew on and disappeared from view.
Suzuki was watchful, fearing the effect of disappointment, another departure disastrously reawakening pain. For a while Cho-Cho continued to gaze out, across the harbour, to the point where sky met sea.
She said, ‘The birds must leave us, in order to survive.’
Next day she announced she was ready for something a little more substantial to eat.
She was not grateful to Sharpless for saving her life. To be returned to life was the last thing she had desired. She had reached the rational decision – makoto – the perfect situation: having arrived there she should remove herself from the scene. Her ‘saviour’ had spoiled everything. He was granted a brief meeting for her to express – in the politest terms – her feelings.
‘Sharpless-san, you knew my father; you are a man of honour. It must be a sadness to you, that you have deprived me of an honourable action.’
Sharpless had indeed saved her life, but he knew that it had been possible only because her dagger had missed the jugular vein by a hair’s breadth; blood had gushed, but not fatally.
Now he said, respectfully, ‘Perhaps the definition of honour needs to be reconsidered. It is possible that over time words can change their meaning.’
‘This is not a Japanese view. Tradition is not weakened by the passing of time.’
There had been time, in the hospital and later, for thinking about tradition, and about her life, and those of girls and women who, like her, had no voice, whose lives were spent as receptacles. The words of others, the actions of others, all were to be accepted by these silent figures taught to listen, to smile and laugh appreciatively (fingertips covering mouth). If they had wishes, desires, those inconvenient thoughts were held within them. A woman who spoke up, who stood out, was ugly to behold, so she would become invisible.
‘Tradition remains when everything else has fallen away,’ she told Sharpless.
But later, alone, she turned the words over in her mind, daring to examine them, question them. Nagasaki was changing, the word ‘modern’ no longer an insult. And given the dissatisfaction of a reprieve she contemplated