Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [59]
‘This place you want to open . . .’
It began as a slot between two buildings, barely larger than a shed; a counter and some stools. Cho-Cho was at the stove, Suzuki serving. Outside, a large board, boldly lettered in English.
Nagasaki American Kitchen
MEAT LOAF HOME STYLE
APPLE PIE LIKE MOMMA MAKES
The first sailors treated it as a joke; they ventured in, expecting some crazy Jap version of real food. Soon they were lining up at the door. The crowd became an embarrassment; Cho-Cho hired a waitress. They moved to bigger premises, brought in tables, expanded the menu. Beer was served.
Cho-Cho was up before dawn, off to buy vegetables at the riverside market, fish on the quayside. She had business cards printed for the Nagasaki American kitchen. Tucked into the obi of every tea-house worker, they earned the girls a small commission from Cho-Cho for each customer they sent her, customers that now included officers.
She was dishing up a New England chowder when she saw him pause in the entrance; the white uniform, the golden hair, cap tucked under his arm. She made a small, involuntary sound, then he came out of the shadowy doorway into the light, a fresh-faced stranger asking if he could make a reservation for later.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘To avoid disappointment.’
After she had engaged, and trained, a cook and a second waitress, Cho-Cho sent a message to Sharpless requesting a meeting.
The consul found himself in the unusual position of being inarticulate, for once incapable of reaching for the emollient bridging phrase, the convenient comment – the usual stuff of diplomatic social intercourse. He knew she was no longer giving lessons to the mission girls – the restaurant kept her too busy – but he hesitated to offer the normal congratulatory noises. Had she forgiven him?
For a while the two remained in silence, Cho-Cho looking down at the matting by her feet; Sharpless allowing himself an occasional glance at her face, remembering the hours he had spent by her side, watching over her, waiting for signs of returning life. She looked well, but there was an intentness in her face that was new.
He coughed nervously. Cho-Cho touched the pale scar at her throat, a gesture that had become a habit. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible.
‘Have you news from America?’
‘A letter from my sister. She says . . . everyone is well.’
She had said considerably more; Mary had written an intemperate screed, furious with Henry, who had clearly been aware of the disgraceful affair going on in Nagasaki. Was this, she asked, what the government paid him for, to supervise illicit unions between decent American boys, lost and confused in foreign lands, and local women of ill repute? Nancy, she added, had borne up bravely, but her life was ruined.
He had attempted to respond, filled page after page with calmly reasoned explanation, and then with equal calm had torn up the pages. Finally, he decided too much time had passed, and he placed her letter in a drawer and turned the key.
‘And have you replied?’
A shake of the head.
‘I think you should.’
The words surprised him, and she noticed.
‘Sharpless-san, I have lost my child. What will help me to live is to know something of his life; to know that he is growing, is in good health. Is happy. It would help.’ A pause. She touched her throat. ‘It would help me if you were to write to your sister. Ask for news of.’ Another pause. ‘The child. Will you do that?’
And so it began, Henry becoming, to his sister’s surprise, more of a family man, requesting news of Mary herself, and Louis; enquiring after the well-being of his niece and her child. At appropriate times of the year he requested a snapshot of Joey: ‘they grow so fast. I still think of Nancy as a toddler.’ To Nancy herself he was incapable of writing: the mystery of the day of her departure; her failure to tell him Cho-Cho was bleeding to death on the floor, though she must have known, all this created a barrier as solid as stone.
But for Cho-Cho’s