Lee Langley - Butterflys Shadow

LEE LANGLEY

Chatto & Windus

LONDON

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Published by Chatto & Windus 2010

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Copyright Lee Langley 2010

Lee Langley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Chatto & Windus

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Hardback ISBN 9780701184674

Trade Paperback ISBN 9780701184681

The quotation on page ix is from Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner, published by Chatto & Windus. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

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To Neil Vickers

The past is never dead, its not even past.

William Faulkner

The Only Person

Sunday Girl

From the Broken Tree

The Dying Art

Changes of Address

Persistent Rumours

A House in Pondicherry

False Pretences

Distant Music

A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire

Nagasaki 1925

From the window Cho-Cho saw the rickshaw come to a stop at the bottom of the slope. Watched them climb out and start walking up towards the house, he in his white uniform, buttons catching the sun; she, yellow-haired, in a short dress printed with green leaves. They looked like an illustration in one of the foreign magazines she had seen: a perfect American couple.

At one point, when the blonde woman stumbled slightly in her unsuitable high heels he took her arm, but she disengaged, and continued to walk up the hill, unaided.

Kneeling by the low table the child was trying to master his new wooden spinning top, throwing it on to the lacquered surface to set the red and yellow bands whirling. Trying and failing. Trying again, lips thrust out in concentration. For this meeting she had dressed him with devious care in one of the few family heirlooms she had managed to hold on to: a tiny silk kimono, intricately hand-painted and embroidered in rich colours threaded with gold. On his feet, white socks with a separation for the big toe. A stiff silk bandeau circled his brow.

In a niche on the wall she had placed a scroll, the bold brushwork of the calligraphy glowing in the dimness of the alcove. Beneath it lay a neatly folded length of dark silk, long and narrow, enveloping her fathers ceremonial sword. In her head, her fathers voice: Bushido, the code of the samurai: to fight with honour. To die with honour when one can no longer live with honour.

Honour was on her side today, she knew that. And she intended to fight. She touched the dark cloth, felt the steel within the silk; she must be like steel within her weak body. Her hands shook and she bent to stroke the childs head, as though touching a talisman.

Approaching the house, Pinkerton looked up as the door slid open. He heard Nancy give a small gasp of surprise.

Cho-Cho wore a gleaming white kimono swirling out at the hem, her hair intricately dressed, smooth ebony interwoven with pearls. Her face was whitened with make-up, her lips scarlet. The rims of her eyes were red, not from weeping, but outlined, according to tradition, with crimson. Framed by the doorway she glowed, as though lit from within. Next to him, Nancy, in her undersized frock and little hat seemed awkward, ungainly. He cut off the thought, guilty to be making such a comparison. Nancy was his fiance; Cho-Cho a leftover from a regretted past.

Nancy sensed the tension in his body; she glanced up at him, and back at Cho-Cho. She dwelt on this vision, the woman in white, gleaming like a marble statue, her neck frail as a flower stem. Oh, shes a clever one, she acknowledged with reluctant admiration. She tugged instinctively at her skimpy skirt, straightened her spine: back home she was considered the pretty one of the family.

When they reached the door, Cho-Cho bowed silently, motioned them inside.

We should take off our shoes, Pinkerton muttered.

Nancy silently kicked off her high sandals, her expression darkening. The instruction had the effect of linking him to the woman and the place, with Nancy a mere visitor ignorant of local custom.

The boy held out the wooden top to his father: Komo!

Pinkertons stiff features creased into an uneasy grin. He took the top. Komo? he repeated, Right.

As the two women watched, he squatted next to the lacquered table.

Okay Joey, here we go! He set the top spinning. The child clapped his hands, laughing, demanding more: Motto!

Only the clatter of wood on table surface broke the silence while Pinkerton repeatedly spun the top for his son. Mirrored in the lacquer, the sphere appeared to be balanced on its own tip as it twirled.

Nancy studied the child: the stiff band tied round his brow partly concealed the blond curls. In the richly patterned kimono he seemed very Japanese.

She said, formally, What a beautiful... outfit that is. Adding, to fill the continuing silence, So colourful.

Cho-Cho said, In a family, such a robe is passed from father to son. She spoke slowly, spacing the syllables with care, aware of the pitfalls of this alien tongue, where consonants jostled each other disconcertingly, giving her words an odd inflection. It is called takarabune, treasure ship design. On the ship, if you look, there are ten precious ob-u-jects connected with happy marriage.

Once again Nancy felt upstaged. Was this woman trying to make out that she had enjoyed a happy marriage with Ben? She felt anger building within her but her features remained as expressionless as Cho-Chos mask-like face.

She touched Pinkertons shoulder. Ben, will you leave us for a little. I want to speak to the lady, in private.