Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Dec 1931 Tokyo

　

  

  The train has abandoned Kobe and is now approaching to Tokyo train station when Kazumi wakes up from her nap.

  She looks around her; Kiyoka is nowhere to be seen.

  The little boy who is sleeping peacefully on her mother’s lap besides her an hour ago now looks as excited as ever. He rises from the leather seat on which he has been sitting while stares outside the train windows that are covered with frosts; a glimpse of curiosity and expectation in his eyes.

  ‘Where are we now, mama?’ The little boy’s voice almost make Kazumi wants to be his mother.

  ‘We are nearly to the station now.’ The boy’s mother whispers gently to his ear and tries to make this energetic boy sit still whilst Kazumi secretly absorbed that precious feeling of maternal love into her bloodstream.

  She needs it so much.

  When the boy’s mother kindly hugs her young boy into her arms while makes him to finish reading a small cartoon hanbok, Kazumi involuntarily let the sensation flow through her spine once again, with hunger; and as soon as she could bear it no longer, she leans her head against the train’s window panel whilst tries to let herself ‘disappear’ into the passing tress shadows outside the running train.

  

  ‘Stop daydreaming, Kazumi! Look what I’ve got for you!’ Kiyoka comes back with a big parcel of sushi.

  Kazumi blinks her eyes several times as she tries to resume her consciousness.

  The train is slowly approaching to the terminal line now, Kazumi realised. She could have told Kiyoka to have the sushi later on, on the way home, but she knows Kiyoka is too self-centered as to pay any regards to what she says at all.

  So instead of voicing her opinions, Kazumi stayed quiet and said nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry? You hoiden!’ Kiyoka lays down the paper parcel on the small table in front of them; a trace of sarcasm in his playful voice.

  Kazumi gives Kiyoka a cold glare before grabs a sushi from the paper parcel and puts it into mouth, almost too quickly.

  ‘That is so ungraceful!’ Kiyoka exclaimed.

  The boy’s mother watched, with both distaste, and a deliberately exaggerated curiosity.

  Two young lovers who secretly escaped from home without the permission of their parents, and are determined to settle down in Tokyo. The woman thought quietly to herself, while the boy is transfixed by the sushi on the table.  

  Kiyoka is Kazumi’s elder cousin, one of the countless youths in the Kobe Military Institute whose blood only run hot for Bushido, and almost for nothing else.

  Born in a rich whilst also politically and militarily respectable household in Tokyo, it is the most strange that the first thing he learns was how to act proud hearted rather than how to become respectful himself.

  Yet the truth is an unalterable fact: despite with all his arrogance and self-indulgence, he is an obedient and hardworking son of his father, Lieutenant General Benjoku.

  At the age of fourteen, this young man has already gained third rank in Kendo which his father proudly claim that his son was indeed born to be a Samurai for the emperor.

  And as soon as the theory of racial superiority and Kokutai poured itself again and again onto his mind after his entry into the Kobe Military Institute at the age of seventeen, so is his common sense been washed over again and again.

  Kazumi’s sudden and unexpected arrival to the Benjoku household five years ago has brought some dramatic changes to the Benjoku household and significantly disrupted Kiyoka ’s wish to pursue his unwavering belief of ‘racial purification’ with wholeheartedness.

  He was fifteen at then, and Kazumi, who was three years younger than him, came into the waiting salon of his grand home one morning after he had just had his breakfast, and was wandering around to find his old wooden sword.

  He could still clearly recall that two medium sized luggages with the Hanzi ‘Made in Shanghai’ labelled on the sides and which had looked so incongruent with the surrounding.  

  There his relative stood, in her white flower dress, next to the luggages with the stumpy plaits into which she twisted her hair. And when he stared at her with confusion, her swollen eyes looked up at his with both disillusion and almost intense horror, as if she was rather in an execution round, not in a luxurious salon.

  Kazumi’s sudden arrival to the Benjoku household is no mystery to those living under its roof: her dear and kind mother, Chiyo had died that year before Kazumi moved into the Benjoku household, to live with her stringent uncle, Akio Benjoku, arrogant aunt and her self-centered cousin, Kiyoka.

  ‘The poor Chiyo, she was such an amiable sister-in-law of mine. Always so agreeable, charming and kind, but too soft, that is perhaps why her heart breaks so easily.’ Fuji Mizu, Kazumi’s aunt, often tells the tragic story of her sister-in-law to her only son, Kiyoka.  

  ‘The poor Chiyo, what a miserable life and fate she had! Fate would not have been so unkind to her had she married any other men, any other men in the world, whoever it was other than that selfish and cruel uncle of yours! He almost knows and cares nothing in the world but his laughable revolutionary works!’ Lady Mizu said to her son one night, after they had retreated from a late dinner, without the presence of General Benjoku.

  Kazumi’s father, Chen Haikuo, is a native Shanghainese and was brought up in an academically dominated family in the north of Shanghai. At the age of twenty, driven by a intractable sense of curiosity to explore the outside world and to delve into the concepts of democracy, political liberalism and equality which had at the time just emerged into the political, legal and social system of Japan after the death of Emperor Meiji, Chen Haikuo travelled to a new land, away from his home, and threw himself into the study of Japanese Literature and Politics at the University of Tokyo.

  This is also where he met Mr. Hiroshi Benjoku, Chiyo's father and also one of the assistant tutors who taught him Japanese Literature at his university.

  Drawn by a common interest in the revolutionary affairs in China and a flammable desire to promote political liberalism through writings, the two ‘scholars’ quickly became friends. Whenever Chen came to his tutor’s office with his written works for edition, the two of them would often sit down, talk about politics and the ongoing revolutions in China for an entire hour, until their tea went cold.

 One spring and raining afternoon, Chen was walking back to his dormitory from the university library, rather hurriedly, with a stack of books tucked under his left arm when he heard a gentle call of his name behind him.

  Slowing down his pace and turning around his head, Chen was approached by his tutor Mr. Benjoku, who also had a stack of papers and books tucked under one of his arms.

  ‘You do not mind me sharing an umbrella with you, do you not, young man?’ Mr. Benjoku said. His gentle voice could only be scarcely heard in the pouring rain.

   Chen was overwhelmed in a second. ‘Urhh, yes, yes of course...Benjoku-san.’ Said Chen with clumsiness before moved his umbrella to Mr. Benjoku’s side so as to cover both of them from the pouring rain.

  ‘I am sorry I have troubled you, Haikuo san.’ Mr. Benjoku apologised as they continued to walk on. ‘ My old bones do not mind a bit about the rain, in fact I flatter they even like to be soaked by the rain; but I am afraid these would not wish to be soaked by the rain.’  Mr. Benjoku pointed at the stack of papers beneath his arm with the tip of his chin. ‘Because they are too delicate and I have to keep them safe.’

  Humbly, Chen nodded his head and pondered what those stack of papers could be.

  ‘Could political liberalism ever be realised in China with the downfall of the Qing Government.’ Murmured Mr. Benjoku after seeing his student’s questioning look.

  Chen raised his eyebrows, a tinkle of light shined in his eyes.

  ‘Is Benjoku-san drafting a new piece of work again?’ Chen asked and gave a quick glimpse of those stacks of papers.

  ‘Ahh, a piece of new work no longer I am afraid because I have been drafting on it for an entire year!’ Mr. Benjoku answered, rather shockingly.

  ‘Well, if that is the case, then I wish with all my heart Benjoku-san may complete this very piece of work in due time. I confess I long to see it and I hope I may have the privilege to be its first reader, if possible.’ Chen smiled.

  ‘You flatter me, young man!’ Mr. Benjoku exclaimed. ‘In fact I have my first draft done already. Why do not you come to my residence at Takeshita Street tonight? My whole family shall entertain you by giving you my first draft of this piece of work, if you wish.’ Mr. Benjoku chuckled and invited Chen with warmath.

  

  So that night, after their walk in the rain, Chen Haikuo was invited to his tutor, Mr. Benjokou’s house, for the first time.

  It had been Chen’s first time to visit a family, officially, on a foreign land and owing to the fact that he knew that he shall be introduced to Mr. Benjoku’s close family whom he had never met before, Chen was very much looking forward to the evening with a bit of nervousness.

   Chen was received with warm welcome by Mr. and Mrs. Benjoku. The most delicious dinner was kindly arranged by Mrs. Benjoku and the household’s cook, Japanese sake was poured cup after cup. Mrs. Benjoku also decorated the veranda of the house where they had their dinner with some new red lanterns to welcome Chen’s arrival.

  Chen felt very grateful and enjoyed the evening thoroughly.

  As the dinner was approaching to an end, Mr. Benjoku called out for tea.

  After a minute or two, the wooden door was slide open and a very young looking woman entered into the separate veranda, carrying a tray with two beautifully carved white tea cups and a dark brown wooden teapot on top of it.

  Chen turned his glance to the doorway. The young woman was dressed in a pale blue kimono with the pattern of cherry blossoms embroidered on the edges of her sleeves. She walked to him with grace, and smiled at him with a hideous bashfulness and a kind of slowness which would have suggested to him that he was rather in a dream.

  ‘I apologise, Haikuo-san, we are in fact in short of a company tonight.’ Said Mr. Benjoku as the young woman approached to the table where Chen and Mr. Benjoku was sitting. ‘My elder son, Akio, is too occupied with his rifle training and archery sessions everyday at school that he rarely comes home.’ Mr. Benjoku’s voice bore a lonely sense of sadness.

   ‘But, father, oniisan promised he would come home and visit you and mother by the end of this month.’ The young woman comforted Mr. Benjoku in her most sweet and gentle voice before Chen could have said anything.

   ‘By the end of this month? I dare say he has said it at least three times since the last time he visited us!’ Grumbled Mr. Benjoku. ‘If he prefers to run about on a horseback everyday, then let him! I have done my part in persuading him to hold the life of an ordinary.’

  Chen exchanged glances with the young woman beside her. Now, as she was sitting quite close to him, Chen could see how exquisite and refined she looked, and the bit of unwillingness in her smile only adds to her attraction.

  The young woman picked up the teapot and started to pour tea for her father and their young guest in the most elegant manner. She was very well aware of Chen’s eyes upon her exquisite face, and blushed quickly under the lantern lights.

  ‘Let us not to talk about anything unpleasant.’ Mr. Benjoku continued after his daughter handed him a cup of tea.

  ‘Pardon me, Haikuo-san. I have forgotten to introduce it to you. This is my young daughter, Chiyo.’  

   ‘Hajimemashite.’ The young woman gave a deep bow. ‘I have long heard Haikuo-san’s name from my father. It’s my honour to see you tonight.’ Chiyo finished with her bow. And when she lifted her head up and secretly glanced at Chen, she found the new guest was not drinking his tea, but was gazing at her in a manner as if he was smoothing her face with the tip of his fingers in the most gentle way.

  And that, took her breath away.

  

***