Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [9]
The futon was as uncomfortable as he had feared and there were one or two misunderstandings and a few tears, but she took instruction well.
Afterwards she looked into his face and enquired, ‘Nice?’
‘Oh, sure. Nice.’
‘Good.’
He was surprised. ‘You speak English!’
She shook her head, serious. ‘I learn.’
He laughed. That was cute and it was also true. She had much to learn, but she was learning fast.
Later, while Pinkerton slept, snoring gently, she explored her body, the silky folds he had pushed his way into so forcefully, still raw, so sore that even the touch of her tentative fingers caused her to cry out, softly. Her husband, stepping out of his white trousers, had revealed a startling body part, bright crimson, as thick as her wrist. Men could be rough, they had warned her in the tea-house, but no one had warned her of the pain, sharp as a knife blade, a burning flame between her legs that split her apart with each thrust. She slipped cautiously from the bed.
Among her few possessions was a doll, a Cho-Cho doll, dressed in a kimono and obi sash, tied in the butterfly bow that gave her the name. She had sewn clothes for the doll, a kimono from a scrap of discarded silk, tiny beads binding the stiff black hair. But she had never undressed the doll completely. Now she removed the white underclothing and examined the pale body. Between the legs was nothing. Limbs flowed smoothly up to hips and waist. The doll could not be entered. The doll could feel no pain.
She washed away his stickiness, her blood. Applied a cooling ointment made from herbs. Summoned back to the futon, she was obedient, her small body pliable.
She was learning all the time. She no longer cried out, biting her lips as she flinched. She managed to smile, and learned that she was required to move in various ways, the better to accommodate him. There was still more she could learn, and did. And though sometimes she still wept, the tears trickling into her obediently smiling mouth, always she would enquire afterwards, anxiously,
‘Nice?’
He was surprised, from the evidence of the sheet that first time, to discover she was a virgin. Or was she? These girls had ways of fooling you. All part of the game.
And she was learning fast.
‘American way?’ she would ask, nodding, when he showed her something new. She had an admiration of things American that he found appealing. These people sat on the floor to eat and had some pretty funny ideas, but she was open to instrucion, and not only in the bedroom.
As with the matter of the yard. He saw that her idea of a yard consisted of a few rocks, a bit of moss and a trickle of water. He showed her magazines from home and he could tell she picked up on the difference.
She walked down the hill and asked to see Sharpless.
‘I was seeking guidance on a small matter . . .’ She looked at his desk, piled with documents. ‘Ah, but you are busy. Another time.’
He was swamped with applications from locals seeking work and a better life in America; there was much checking of dates and stamping of documents, but he waved her to a seat.
‘Guidance?’
‘Sharpless-san, I want to create . . .’ She paused, moved into English, ‘American garden.’
‘Yes?’
‘Please help me.’ She paused and retreated into Japanese: ‘I want you to tell me what I should plant.’
‘It’s not just a matter of what you plant. It’s how you plant. There are gardens and gardens.’
‘I want one that will be beautiful but not in the Japanese style.’
For Sharpless, growing ever closer to this austere land with its culture of discretion, the desire seemed perverse. He smiled sadly.
‘If that’s what you want.’
He abandoned his desk and summoned a rickshaw.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll soon see.’
The rickshaw man grunted as he pulled them up the curving hillside path. Cho-Cho had never seen the harbour from the opposite side, and she looked about, noting the differences: the houses were larger, two-storeyed, built of stone and solid wood beams, with