Kimono by John Paris
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John Paris >> Kimono
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Then, suddenly from behind the cliff of one of the islands a fishing
boat came gliding with the silent stateliness of a swan. The body of
the boat was low and slender, built of some white, shining wood; from
the middle rose the high sail like a silver tower. It looked like the
soul of that sleeping island setting out upon a dream journey.
The mist was dissolving, slowly revealing more islands and more boats.
Some of them passed quite close to the steamer; and Geoffrey could see
the fishermen, dwarfish figures straining at the oar or squatting at
the bottom of the boat, looking like Nibelungen on the quest for the
Rhinegold. He could hear their strange cries to each other and to the
steamer, harsh like the voice of sea-gulls.
Asako came on deck to join her husband. The thrill of returning to
Japan had scattered her partiality for late sleeping. She was dressed
in a tailor-made coat and skirt of navy-blue serge. Her shoulders were
wrapped in a broad stole of sable. Her head was bare. Perhaps it was
the inherited instinct of generations of Japanese women, who never
cover their heads, which made her dislike hats and avoid wearing them
if possible.
The sun was still covered, but the view was clear as far as the high
mountains on the horizon towards which the ship was ploughing her way.
"Look, Asako, Japan!"
She was not looking at the distance. Her eyes were fixed on an emerald
islet half a mile or less from the steamer's course, a jewel of the
seas. It rose to the height of two hundred feet or so, a conical
knoll, densely wooded. On the summit appeared a scar of rock like a
ruined castle, and, rising from the rock's crest, a single pine-tree.
Its trunk was twisted by all the winds of Heaven. Its long, lean
branches groped the air like the arms of a blinded demon. It seemed to
have an almost human personality an expression of fruitless striving,
pathetic yet somehow sinister--a Prometheus among trees. Geoffrey
followed his wife's gaze to the base of the island where a shoal of
brown rocks trailed out to seawards. In a miniature bay he saw a tiny
beach of golden sand, and, planted in the sand, a red gateway, two
uprights and two lintels, the lower one held between the posts, the
upper one laid across them and protruding on either side. It is
the simplest of architectural designs, but strangely suggestive.
It transformed that wooded island into a dwelling-place. It cast
an enchantment over it, and seemed to explain the meaning of the
pine-tree. The place was holy, an abode of spirits.
Geoffrey had read enough by now to recognize the gateway as a
"_torii_"; a religious symbol in Japan which always announces the
neighbourhood of a shrine. It is a common feature of the country-side,
as familiar as the crucifix in Catholic lands.
But Asako, seeing the beauty of her country for the first time, and
unaware of the dimming cloud of archaeological explanations, clapped
her hands together three times in sheer delight; or was it in
unconscious obedience to the custom of her race which in this way
calls upon its gods? Then with a movement entirely occidental she
threw her arms round her husband's neck, kissing him with all the
devotion of her being.
"Dear old Geoffrey, I love you so," she murmured. Her brown eyes were
full of tears.
* * * * *
The steamer passed into a narrow channel, a kind of fiord, with wooded
hills on both sides. The forests were green with spring foliage. Never
had Geoffrey seen such a variety or such density of verdure. Every
tree seemed to be different from its neighbour; and the hillsides were
packed with trees like a crowded audience. Here and there a spray of
mountain cherry-blossom rose among the green like a jet of snow.
At the foot of the woods, by the edge of the calm water, the villages
nestled. Only roofs could be seen, high, brown, thatched roofs with a
line of sword-leaved irises growing along the roof-ridge like a crown.
These native cottages looked like timid animals, cowering in their
forms under the protecting trees. One felt that at any time an
indiscreet hoot of the steamer might send them scuttering back to
the forest depths. There were no signs of life in these submerged
villages, where the fight between the forester's axe and primal
vegetation seemed still undecided. Life was there; but it was hidden
under the luxuriance of the overgrowth, hidden to casual passers-by
like the life of insects. Only by the seaside, where the houses were
clustered together above a seawall of cyclopean stones, and on the
beach, where the long narrow boats, sharp-prowed and piratical, were
drawn up to the shore, the same gnome-like little men, with a generous
display of naked brown limbs, were sawing and hammering and mending
their nets.
The steamer glided up the fiord towards a cloud of black smoke ahead.
Unknown to Geoffrey, it passed the grey Italianate Catholic cathedral,
the shrine of the old Christian faith of Japan planted there by Saint
Francis Xavier four hundred years ago. Anchor was cast off the island
of Deshima, now moored to the mainland, where during the locked
centuries the Dutch merchants had been permitted to remain in
profitable servitude. Deshima has now been swallowed up by the
Japanese town, and its significance has shifted across the bay to
where the smoke and din of the Mitsubishi Dockyard prepare romantic
visitors for the modern industrial life of the new Japan. Night and
day, the furnace fires are roaring; and ten thousand workmen are
busy building ships of war and ships of peace for the Britain of the
Pacific.
The quarantine officers came on board, little, brown men in uniform,
absurdly self-important. Then the ship was besieged by a swarm
of those narrow, primitive boats called _sampan_, which Loti has
described as a kind of barbaric gondola, all jostling each other to
bring merchants of local wares, damascene, tortoise-shell, pottery and
picture post cards aboard the vessel, and to take visitors ashore.
Geoffrey and Asako were among the first to land. The moment of arrival
on Japanese soil brought a pang of disappointment. The sea-front at
Nagasaki seemed very like a street in any starveling European town.
It presented a line of offices and consulates built in Western style,
without distinction and without charm. Customs' officers and policemen
squinted suspiciously at the strangers. A few women, in charge of
children or market-baskets, stared blankly.
"Why, they are wearing kimonos!" exclaimed Asako, "but how dirty and
dusty they are. They look as though they had been sleeping in them!"
The Japanese women, indeed, cling to their national dress. But to
the Barringtons, landing at Nagasaki, they seemed ugly, shapeless and
dingy. Their hair was greasy and unkempt. Their faces were stupid
and staring. Their figures were hidden in the muffle of their dirty
garments. Geoffrey had been told they have baths at least once a day,
but he was inclined to doubt it. Or else, it was because they all
bathed in the same bath and their ablutions were merely an exchange
of grime. But where were those butterfly girls, who dance with fan and
battledore on our cups and saucers?
The rickshaws were a pleasant experience, the one-man perambulators;
and the costume of the rickshaw-runners was delightful, and their
gnarled, indefatigable legs. With their tight trunk-hose of a coarse
dark-blue material and short coat to match like an Eton jacket and
with their large, round mushroom hats, they were like figures from the
crowd of a Flemish Crucifixion.
Behind the Barrington's _sampan_, a large lighter came alongside the
wharf. It was black with coal-dust, and in one corner was heaped
a pile of shallow baskets, such as are used in coaling vessels at
Japanese ports, being slipped from hand to hand in unbroken chain
up the ship's side and down again to the coal barge. The work was
finished. The lighter was empty except for a crowd of coal-stained
coolies which it was bringing back to Nagasaki. These were dressed
like the rickshaw-men. They wore tight trousers, short jackets and
straw sandals. They were sitting, wearied, on the sides of the barge,
wiping black faces with black towels. Their hair was long, lank and
matted. Their hands were bruised and shapeless with the rough toil.
"Poor men," sighed Asako, "they've had hard work!"
The crowd of them passed, peering at the English people and chattering
in high voices. Geoffrey had never seen such queer-looking fellows,
with their long hair, clean-shaven faces, and stumpy bow-legs. One
more disheveled than the others was standing near him with tunic
half-open. It exposed a woman's breast, black, loose and hard like
leather.
"They are women!" he exclaimed, "what an extraordinary thing!"
But the children of Nagasaki--surely there could be no such
disillusionment. They are laughing, happy, many-coloured and
ubiquitous. They roll under the rickshaw wheels. They peep from behind
the goods piled on the floors of the shops, a perpetual menace to
shopkeepers, especially in the china stores, where their bird-like
presence is more dangerous than that of the dreaded bull. They are
blown up and down the temple-steps like fallen petals. They gather
like humming-birds round the itinerant venders of the streets, the old
men who balance on their bare shoulders their whole stock in trade of
sweetmeats, syrups, toys or singing grasshoppers. They are the dolls
of our own childhood, endowed with disconcerting life. Around their
little bodies flames the love of colour of an oriental people, whose
adult taste has been disciplined to sombre browns and greys. Wonderful
motley kimonos they make for their children with flower patterns,
butterfly patterns, toy and fairy-story patterns, printed on
flannelette--or on silk for the little plutocrats--in all colors,
among which reds, oranges, yellows, mauves, blues and greens
predominate.
They invaded the depressing atmosphere of the European-style hotel,
where Geoffrey and Asako were trying to enjoy a tasteless lunch--their
grubby, bare feet pattering on the worn lino.
It pleased him to watch them, playing their game of _Jonkenpan_
with much show of pudgy fingers, and with restrained and fitful
scamperings. He even made a tentative bid for popularity by throwing
copper coins. There was no scramble for this largesse. Gravely and
in turn each child pocketed his penny; but they all regarded Geoffrey
with a wary and suspicious eye. He, too, on closer inspection found
them less angelic than at first sight. The slimy horror of unwiped
noses distressed him, and the significant prevalence of scabby scalps.
* * * * *
After their dull lunch in this drab hotel, Geoffrey and his wife
started once more on their voyage of discovery. Nagasaki is a hidden
city; it flows through its narrow valleys like water, and follows
their serpentine meanderings far inland.
They soon left behind the foreign settlement and its nondescript
ugliness to plunge into the labyrinth of little native streets,
wayward and wandering like sheep-tracks, with sudden abrupt hills
and flights of steps which checked the rickshaws' progress. Here, the
houses of the rich people were closely fenced and cunningly hidden;
but the life of poverty and the shopkeepers' domesticity were flowing
over into the street out of the too narrow confines of the boxes which
they called their homes.
With an extra man to push behind, the rickshaws had brought them up a
zigzag hill to a cautious wooden gateway half open in a close fence of
bamboo.
"Tea-house!" said the rickshaw man, stopping and grinning. It was
clearly expected of the foreigners that they should descend and enter.
"Shall we get out and explore, sweetheart?" suggested Geoffrey. They
passed under the low gate, up a pebbled pathway through the sweetest
fairy garden to the entrance of the tea-house, a stage of brown boards
highly polished and never defiled by the contamination of muddy boots.
On the steps of approach a collection of _geta_ (native wooden clogs)
and abominable side-spring shoes told that guests had already arrived.
Within the dark corridors of the house there was an immediate
fluttering as of pigeons. Four or five little women prostrated
themselves before the visitors with a hissing murmur of "_Irasshai_!
(Condescend to come!)."
The Barringtons removed their boots and followed one of these ladies
down a gleaming corridor with another miniature garden in an enclosed
courtyard on one side, and paper _shoji_ and peeping faces on the
other, out across a further garden by a kind of oriental Bridge of
Sighs to a small separate pavilion, which floated on a lake of green
shrubs and pure air, as though moored by the wooden gangway to the
main block of the building.
This summer-house contained a single small room like a very clean box
with wooden frame, opaque paper walls, and pale golden matting. The
only wall which seemed at all substantial presented the appearance of
an alcove. In this niche there hung a long picture of cherry-blossoms
on a mountain side, below which, on a stand of dark sandalwood,
squatted a bronze monkey holding a crystal ball. This was the only
ornament in the room.
Geoffrey and his wife sat down or sprawled on square silk cushions
called _zabuton_. Then the _shoji_ were thrown open; and they looked
down upon Nagasaki.
It was a scene of sheer enchantment. The tea-house was perched on a
cliff which overhung the city. The light pavilion seemed like the
car of some pullman aeroplane hovering over the bay. It was the brief
half-hour of evening, the time of day when the magic of Japan is at
its most powerful. All that was cheap and sordid was shut out by
the bamboo fence and wrapped away in the twilight mists. It was a
half-hour of luminous greyness. The skies were grey and the waters of
the bay and the roofs of the houses. A grey vapour rose from the town;
and a black-grey trail of smoke drifted from the dockyards and from
the steamers in the harbour. The cries and activities of the city
below rose clear and distinct but infinitely remote, as sound of the
world might reach the Gods in Heaven. It was a half-hour of fairyland
when anything might happen.
Two little maids brought tea and sugary cakes, green tea like bitter
hot water, insipid and unsatisfying. It was a shock to see the girls'
faces as they raised the tiny china teacups. Under the glaze of their
powder they were old and wise.
They observed Asako's nationality, and began to speak to her in
Japanese.
"Their politeness is put on to order," thought Geoffrey, "they seem
forward and inquisitive minxes."
But Asako only knew a few set phrases of her native tongue. This
baffled the ladies, one of whom after a whispered consultation and
some giggling behind sleeves, went off to find a friend who would
solve the mystery.
"_Nesan, Nesan_ (elder sister)" she called across the garden.
Strange little dishes were produced on trays of red lacquer, fish
and vegetables of different kinds artistically arranged, but most
unpalatable.
A third _nesan_ appeared. She could speak some English.
"Is _Okusama_ (lady) Japanese?" she began, after she had placed the
tiny square table before Geoffrey, and had performed a prostration.
Geoffrey assented.
Renewed prostration before _okusama_, and murmured greetings in
Japanese.
"But I can't speak Japanese," said Asako laughing. This perplexed the
girl, but her curiosity prompted her.
"_Danna San_ (master) Ingiris'?" she asked, looking at Geoffrey.
"Yes," said Asako. "Do many Englishmen have Japanese wives?"
"Yes, very many," was the unexpected answer. "O Fuji San," she
continued, indicating one of the other maids, "have Ingiris' _danna
San_ very many years ago; very kind _danna san_; give O Fuji plenty
nice kimono; he say, O Fuji very good girl, go to Ingiris' wit him;
O Fuji say, No, cannot go, mother very sick; so _danna san_ go away.
Give O Fuji San very nice finger ring."
She lapsed into vernacular. The other girl showed with feigned
embarrassment a little ring set with glassy sapphires.
"Oh!" said Asako, dimly comprehending.
"All Ingiris' _danna san_ come Nagasaki," the talkative maid went on,
"want Japanese girl. Ingiris' _danna san_ kind man, but too plenty
drink. Japanese _danna san_ not kind, not good. Ingiris' _danna san_
plenty money, plenty. Nagasaki girl very many foreign _danna san.
Rashamen wa Nagasaki meibutsu_ (foreigners' mistresses famous product
of Nagasaki). Ingiris' _danna san_ go away all the time. One year, two
year--then go away to Ingiris' country."
"Then what does the Japanese girl do?" asked Asako.
"Other _danna san_ come," was the laconic reply. "Ingiris' _danna san_
live in Japan, Japanese girl very nice. Ingiris' _danna san_ go away,
no want Japanese girl. Japanese girl no want go away Japan. Japanese
girl go to other country, she feel very sick; heart very lonely, very
sad!"
A weird, unpleasant feeling had stolen into the little room, the
presence of unfamiliar thoughts and of foreign moralities, birds of
unhealth.
The two other girls who could not speak English were posing for
Geoffrey's benefit; one of them reclining against the framework of the
open window with her long kimono sleeves crossed in front of her like
wings, her painted oval face fixed on him in spite of the semblance
of downcast eyes; the other squatting on her heels in a corner of the
room with the same demure expression and with her hands folded in her
lap. Despite the quietness of the poses they were as challenging in
their way as the swinging hips of Piccadilly. It is as true to-day as
it was in Kaempffer's time, the old Dutch traveler of two hundred and
fifty years ago, that every hotel in Japan is a brothel, and every
tea-house and restaurant a house of assignation.
From a wing of the building near by came the twanging of a string,
like a banjo string being tuned in fantastic quarter tones. A few
sharp notes were struck, at random it seemed, followed by a few bars
of a quavering song and then a burst of clownish laughter. Young
bloods of Nagasaki had called in _geisha_ to amuse them at their meal.
"Japanese _geisha_," said the tea-house girl, "if _danna san_ wish to
see _geisha_ dance--?"
"No thank you," said Geoffrey, hurriedly, "Asako darling, it is time
we went home: we want our dinners."
CHAPTER V
CHONKINA
_Modashi-ite
Sakashira suru wa
Sake nomite
Yei-naki suru ni
Nao shikazu keri._
To sit silent
And look wise
Is not to be compared with
Drinking _sake_
And making a riotous shouting.
As soon as the meal was over, Asako went to bed. She was tired out
by an orgy of sight-seeing and new impressions. Geoffrey said that
he would have a short walk and a smoke before turning in. He took the
road which led towards the harbour of Nagasaki.
_Chonkina, Chonkina, Chon, Chon, Kina, Kina,
Yokohama, Nagasaki, Hakodate--Hoi!_
The refrain of an old song was awakened in his mind by the melodious
name of the place.
He descended the hill from the hotel, and crossed a bridge over a
narrow river. The town was full of beauty. The warm light in the
little wooden houses, the creamy light of the paper walls, illuminated
from within, with the black silhouettes of the home groups traced upon
them, the lanterns dancing on the boats in the harbour, the lights on
the larger vessels in stiff patterns like propositions of Euclid, the
lanterns on carts and rickshaws, lanterns like fruit, red, golden and
glowing, and round bubble lamps over each house entrance with Chinese
characters written upon them giving the name of the occupant.
_Chonkina! Chonkina!_
As though in answer to his incantation, Geoffrey suddenly came upon
Wigram. Wigram had been a fellow-passenger on board the steamer. He
was an old Etonian; and this was really the only bond between the two
men. For Wigram was short, fat and flabby, dull-eyed and pasty-faced.
He spoke with a drawl; he had literary pretensions and he was
travelling for pleasure.
"Hello, Barrington," he said, "you all alone?"
"Yes," answered Geoffrey, "my wife is a bit overtired; she has turned
in."
"So you are making the most of your opportunity, studying night-life,
eh, naughty boy?"
"Not much about, is there?" said Geoffrey, who considered that a "pi
fellow" was Bad Form, and would not be regarded as such even by a
creature whose point of view was as contemptible as that of Wigram.
"Doesn't walk the streets, old man; but it's there all the same. The
men at the club here tell me that Nagasaki is one of the hottest spots
on the face of the globe."
"Seems sleepy enough," answered Geoffrey.
"Oh, here! these are just English warehouses and consulates.
They're always asleep. But you come with me and see them dance the
_Chonkina_."
Geoffrey started at this echo of his own thoughts, but he said,--
"I must be getting back; my wife will be anxious."
"Not yet, not yet. It will be all over in half an hour, and it's worth
seeing. I am just going to the club to find a fellow who said he'd
show me the ropes."
Geoffrey allowed himself to be persuaded. After all he was not
expected home so immediately. It was many years since he had visited
low and disreputable places. They were Bad Form, and had no appeal for
him. But the strangeness of the place attracted him, and a longing for
the first glimpse behind the scenes in this inexplicable new country.
_Chonkina! Chonkina!_
Why shouldn't he go?
He was introduced to Wigram's friend, Mr. Patterson, a Scotch merchant
of Nagasaki, who lurched out of the club in his habitual Saturday
evening state of mellow inebriation.
They called for three rickshaws, whose runners seemed to know without
instructions whither they had to go.
"Is it far from here?" asked Geoffrey.
"It is not so far," said the Scotchman; "it is most conveniently
situated."
Noiselessly they sped down narrow twisting streets with the same
unfamiliar lights and shadows, the glowing paper walls, and the
luminous globes of the gate lamps.
From the distance came the beat of a drum.
Geoffrey had heard a drum sounded like that before in the Somali
village at Aden, a savage primitive sound with a kind of marching
rhythm, suggestive of the swing of hundreds of black bodies moving to
some obscene festival.
But here, in Japan, such music sounded remote from the civilisation of
the country, from the old as from the new.
"_Chonkina, Chonkina_," it seemed to be beating.
The rickshaws turned into a broader street with houses taller and more
commanding than any seen hitherto. They were built of brown wood like
big Swiss chalets, and were hung with red paper lanterns like huge
ripe cherries.
Another stage-like entrance, more fluttering of women and low
prostrations, a procession along shining corridors and up steep
stairways like companion-ladders, everywhere a heavy smell of cheap
scent and powder, the reek of the brothel.
The three guests were installed, squatting or lounging around a
low table with beer and cakes. There was a chorus of tittering and
squeaking voices in the corridor. The partition slid open, and six
little women came running into the room.
"Patasan San! Patasan San!" they cried, clapping their hands.
Here at last were the butterfly women of the traveller's imagination.
They wore bright kimonos, red and blue, embroidered with gold thread.
Their faces were pale like porcelain with the enamelling effect of the
liquid powder which they use. Their black shiny hair, like liquorice,
was arranged in fantastic volutes, which were adorned with silver
bell-like ornaments and paper flowers. Choking down Geoffrey's
admiration, a cloud of heavy perfume hung around them.
"Good day to you," they squeaked in comical English, "How do you do? I
love you. Please kiss me. Dam! dam!"
Patterson introduced them by name as O Hana San (Miss Flower), O Yuki
San (Miss Snow), O En San (Miss Affinity), O Toshi San (Miss Year), O
Taka San (Miss Tall) and O Koma San (Miss Pony).
One of them, Miss Pony, put her arm around Geoffrey's neck--the little
fingers felt like the touch of insects--and said,--
"My darling, you love me?"
The big Englishman disengaged himself gently. It is Bad Form to be
rough to women, even to Japanese courtesans. He began to be sorry that
he had come.
"I have brought two very dear friends of mine," said Patterson to all
the world, "for pleasure artistic rather than carnal; though perhaps I
can safely prophesy that the pleasure of the senses is the end of
all true art. We have come to see the national dance of Japan, the
Nagasaki reel, the famous _Chonkina_. I myself am familiar with the
dance. On two or three occasions I have performed with credit in these
very halls. But these two gentlemen have come all the way from England
on purpose to see the dance. I therefore request that you will dance
it to-night with care and attention, with force of imagination, with
a sense of pleasurable anticipation, and with humble respect to the
naked truth."
He spoke with the precise eloquence of intoxication, and as he flopped
to the ground again Wigram clapped him on the shoulder with a "Bravo,
old man!"
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