Hawaii - James Michener [533]
"About what?" Reiko asked.
"Sakai-san has found you a husband."
The Japanese phrase fell strangely on Reiko's ears, for although she had long suspected that her parents had employed a baishakunin to find her a husband, she had never supposed that any solid arrangement would come to pass. Steadying herself against her chair, she asked casually, "Who did they say the man was?"
"Mr. Ishii! I think it's wonderful."
Reiko-chan kept mechanically moving her fingers, and the man in the chair warned: "Not too much off the sides, ma'am."
"I'm sorry," Reiko said. She wanted to run out of the barbershop, far from everyone, but she kept to her job. Patiently she trimmed the sailor's head just right, then lathered his neck and sideburns and asked, "You like them straight or on a little slant?"
"Any way looks best," the young man said. "You speak good English. Better'n me."
"I went to school," Reiko said quietly.
"Ma'am, do you feel well?" the sailor asked.
"Yes."
"You don't look so good. Look, ma'am . . ."
Reiko was about to faint, but with a tremendous effort she controlled herself and finished the lathering; but when she tried to grasp the razor she could not command it, and with great dismay she looked at the frightened sailor and asked softly, "Would you mind if I did not shave your neck this time? I feel dizzy."
"Ma'am, you ought to lie down," the sailor said, wiping the soap from his sideburns.
When he left, Reiko hung up her apron and announced, "I am going home," and on the long walk to Kakaako she tried not to compare Mr. Ishii with Lieutenant Jackson, but she could not keep her mind from doing so; then as she approached the family store she fortified herself with this consoling thought: "He's a crazy little man, and more like my father than a husband, but he is a proper Japanese and my father will be happy." Thinking no more of her absent Seattle lawyer, who had never even written to her, she went into the Sakagawa store, walked up to her father, and bowed. "I am grateful to you, Father."
"He is a Hiroshima man!” Sakagawa pointed out.
At the wedding, which was a highlight of the Japanese community in February of 1944, the baishakunin Sakai commanded everything. He told the family where to stand and the priest what to do and the groom how to behave. Mr. Ishii had spent the first part of the afternoon showing the assembly the latest copy of the Prairie Shinbun, which proved that valiant Imperial troops had finally driven all American marines off Guadalcanal and were about to launch a major invasion of Hawaii. One guest, who had two sons in Italy, whispered to his wife, "I think the old man's crazy!"
"Ssssh!" his wife said. "He's getting married."
When the crush was greatest, Reiko-chan, in old-style Japanese dress, happened to look at her bridegroom for the first time since her engagement had been announced, and she could not hide from herself the fact that he was a pathetic, cramped-up old man; and all her American education inspired her to flee from this insane ceremony, and great dizziness came upon her and she said to one of the girls near her, "This obi is too tight, I must get some air," and she was about to run away when the baishakunin Sakai cried, "We begin!" and the intricate, lovely Japanese wedding ceremony proceeded.
When it ended, women clustered about Reiko-chan and told her, "You were beautiful in your kimono. A true bride, with flushed cheeks and downcast eyes." Others said, "It's so wonderful to think that he is also a Hiroshima man." And the crush became so oppressive that she said, "This obi is really too tight. I must get some air," and she left the wedding feast and went alone to the porch, where she began to breathe deeply and where she arrived just in time to greet a messenger boy riding up on a bicycle.
At the next moment the guests inside heard a series of screams emanating from the porch, as if an animal had been mortally wounded, and they rushed out to find Reiko-chan screaming and screaming, and they