How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [25]
I drew myself up, flushing. What was he doing here? I couldn’t associate with him any longer. Holding my head high, I took the other fork of the path.
“That’s not the way to the hotel,” he said.
“No matter. I’ll find my way.”
He clipped at a bush. “You’ll find yourself in Okinawa before too long.”
I stopped. He was right. I would get lost. I spun around and headed back the way I thought I’d come.
“Still wrong,” Ronin said in a low voice.
I looked away from him. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “The Americans are here now. We’re all equal.”
I thought about what my mother would say, and my father, too, for that matter. He might have taken rice from burakumin, but it was another matter to have his daughter socializing with them. “My family is descended from the seal-bearer of the Emperor,” I said.
Ronin leaned on his clippers. “It’s a new era, is it not? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be working as a maid for foreigners.”
“I’m not a maid!” I said. “I’m a salesgirl.”
He grinned. “You’re too smart to work at that hotel. Why don’t you go to college?”
This floored me. “I can’t afford to.”
He shrugged. “Me neither. At least, not right now. Tell you what. You show me how to cha-cha, and I’ll show you how to get out of this maze.”
I pursed my lips. “Fine. But you cannot touch me.”
“Fine,” he said, looking at me in a way that made my insides wiggle like tofu.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I went walking in the gardens often after that. My job in the store wasn’t taxing—in fact, it was so mindless that I wanted to sleep—and I needed the diversion of a friend. Ronin was merely an interesting man. Completely innocent.
I never tried to find Ronin, but he always found me, falling into step so quietly that I leaped up in fright every time, making him roar with laughter.
Then he started bringing food. “I bought it, so don’t worry,” he said, bowing his head.
Now that I knew him, I was ashamed that I’d treated him so disrespectfully before. “Of course I would eat your food. I’m eating with you, after all. It’s no different.”
He looked shamefaced. “It’s just—I’m a rotten chef.”
I laughed.
We sat in the sun, eating from our bento boxes. “When I was a child,” he said, “this would have been unheard of.”
“Eating lunch with a beautiful girl or working here?” I teased.
He looked about. “Where is this beautiful girl?” Ronin swallowed his fish hard, to disguise his laughter. “Both, Shoko. We lived in the Eta village and no one would have anything to do with us.”
“Except other Eta.”
“Yes. But no one like you or your family. It was like being a ghost.” He put a cucumber into his mouth. “One day, my mother was at the market, selling the leather shoes that she had made. My mother was a beautiful woman. Almost as beautiful as you.
“She was doing her usual business when an English businessman happened by. He met her eyes and they fell in love.
“He was my father. He sent money, visited from time to time.” Ronin smiled. “I suppose he did what he could. He left for England right before Japan attacked China. He asked my mother to come with him.
“She wanted to go and take me, but the country wouldn’t let her out. They were gearing up to take over the world. No special considerations for her, especially as she was Eta.” He looked into the shrubbery at something I couldn’t see. “It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Englishman and Japanese.”
“It’s different now,” I said.
“I hope so. I don’t fit in here, I might as well try my luck elsewhere.” He finished his lunch and replaced the red lid with a click. “I have a plan.” He looked at me sideways. “America, here I come. The land of opportunity.”
I was excited despite myself. “What will you do there? Cook in a Japanese restaurant?”
“Landscape. Like I do here, but bigger. I have big dreams, my Shoko.”
How dare he? “I am not ‘your Shoko.’ ”
He ignored that. “There is nothing for me here. I want to be my own boss.”
“I wish you well.” I finished eating my own lunch,