How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [30]
“I don’t have my clothes.” What was I saying? I wasn’t going anywhere with him.
“You don’t need them. I’ll buy you new ones.”
I laughed bitterly. “Ronin. This is madness.”
“It’s not madness. It’s love.” He pulled me down for a kiss. “There. Do you feel that with any of your Americans?”
“Stop it.” I pulled away. I needed to leave fast, before I destroyed my life. I thought about my parents. My brother, asleep in the hotel right next to us. I couldn’t devastate them. I stood.
“If you go, I’ll follow you,” Ronin said. “Everyone will know anyway.”
I didn’t turn. “I know you. You wouldn’t do that.”
He exhaled. “No. I wouldn’t.”
My head drooped so low it touched my chest. “Fool,” I whispered to myself. Ronin deserved better than me. I was a coward. “Good luck in America.”
I LOOKED UP at my brother in shock. Taro’s shoulders were shaking, his eyes wet. I had never seen my brother cry before.
“I’m so angry I could kill you,” he muttered, sitting on the bed. The covers were all messed up and I smoothed them automatically. “Once a maid, always a maid.”
I knelt beside him. “You won’t tell Father, will you?”
“Of course not. It would kill our parents to know.” He grabbed my shoulder. “Have you really broken it off with him?”
“Last night. Father wants me to marry an American, and I agree.” My voice sounded stilted. Taro heard it.
“Why couldn’t you be a normal Japanese girl and marry a respectable Japanese man? What you’ve done is unforgivable.” Taro shook his head. “This independence has not been good for you, Shoko.”
I bit my lip, tasting the thick wax of my lipstick. If I were truly independent, I would have been on a train with Ronin right then. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I paid your tuition.”
“I won’t have that anymore. I’ll pay my own way through.” Taro lit a cigarette. “Tetsuo is still in love with you, you know.”
I shut my eyes. “He should have thought of that before he bedded my roommate.” If Tetsuo hadn’t done that, I would still be with him, getting ready for marriage. Everything would be far simpler.
He blew smoke rings at me. “He means to have some words with your boyfriend.”
I grew fearful. What did this mean? Words or fists? Tetsuo was notoriously hotheaded. I remembered how angry he had been when I danced with another boy. “Tell him not to! There’s no need.”
Taro shrugged. “I told him I would take care of it, that this was between you and me, but he ran off anyway. You know Tetsuo.”
I HURRIED to the little house on the edge of town where I knew Ronin lived. On our walks, I had asked him to show me where he lived. Always he refused. “Even I know better than to bring you to such a place,” he had said, merely pointing to the house with a small British flag being flown at his doorway. It was no more than a shack in the middle of others like it, a poor enclave in the middle of this suddenly prosperous city.
Taro followed a few hundred feet behind me, worried, no doubt, about the reputation of our family being ruined by me venturing here. He still can’t run as fast as I can, I thought to myself. It’s the alcohol and cigarettes. I tried to lose him by wending through side streets and alleys, but he stayed within sight.
The Eta who lived near Ronin stared at me. I paid them no mind and rushed to Ronin’s house. The door was open. A rat-nosed policeman in an olive-green wool suit was standing to the side, writing on a pad of paper. I snuck in behind him.
“Ronin!” I screamed. “Are you there? It’s Shoko.”
In my heart, I hoped he had left for America already. He had to have.
It was dark inside. It smelled earthy, tangy. Blood. Somehow I didn’t retch. I saw a mostly packed suitcase leaning against the wall. “Ronin!” I called again. My mind wouldn’t let me believe what was happening. I felt like I was in a movie, watching myself move through the tiny space.
“Get out!” The policeman hauled me backward.
“Let go!” At the other side of the room, I caught sight of a crumpled heap of gardener’s clothes and two feet twisted in ways