In the James kitchen Clara watches Sandy James dry the baby after her bath, the baby in towels on the kitchen table, two lovely heads together and laughing at the small outstretched arms, the gurgling infant, the women laughing with pleasure. I am noticed in the doorway, the heads conspire, the flushed faces, some not quite legible comment between them as they turn and look at me, smiling and giggling in what they know and what I don’t.
I liked Sandy myself, I thought of her as my ally, the chaperone of my love, this child! I found her attractive especially in the occasional surprised look she gave me, as if she were an aspect of Clara and the current of attraction was stepped up by that.
“She was made to have babies,” Clara said to me. “You can’t see how strong she is because she doesn’t know anything about clothes, all her things are too big for her, I don’t know where she got them, but when she doesn’t have anything on you can see how well built she is in the thighs and hips.”
Clara’s attentiveness to his wife did not go unnoticed by Red James, when we were all together he did what he could to affirm the universal order of things. One night he brought out his infant girl from their bedroom. Baby Sandy had no diaper or shirt. He held her up in his hand and said, “Looky here, Joe, you see this little darlin between her legs? You ever see them pitchers of gourami fish in the National Geographical? You know, them kissin fish? Ain’t I right? Now I got two of em, two lovin women with poontangs just like that!”
This made Sandy James stare at the floor, her face reddening to the roots of her hair. “Lookit!” he said, laughing. “Colors up like the evenin sun!”
Clara sighed, stubbed out her cigarette and took Sandy and the baby into the other room.
He one night pours two shot glasses of Old Turkey I don’t know what we’re celebrating does he see Clara’s hand touch Sandy’s hair?
He says, “Hey, y’ll see this here little girl, I kin make her do what I want, laugh, cry, anythang, watch.” He begins to laugh, a silly high-pitched little laugh. Sandy ignores him, he jumps around to get in front of her puts his hand over his mouth, tries to keep from laughing, after a minute of his pyrotechnics she can’t help herself, begins to laugh, protesting too of course, “Shh, shh, your gonna wake her Loll, shhh, you’re wakin her up!” but he’s really funny and she is laughing now, a child laughing, and in fact I’m laughing too at the mindlessness of the thing and suddenly he stops, face blank, staring at her puzzled his mouth turns down at the corners a sob comes out of him, he puts his arm up to his eyes, cries pitifully, we know what he is doing so does Sandy but she goes very quiet and asks him quietly to stop, he ignores her, keeps it up, crying to break your heart. “Oh Loll darlin’,” she says, “you know I cain’t tol’rate that,” and then her eyes screw up, her lower lip protrudes, she is reduced, begins bawling, arm up, fist rubbing her eyes, she has a hole in the underarm of her dress, her red hair.
“What I tell you!” Red James says, laughing. “This li’l ole thang, look there she’s a-just cryin her heart out!” and she is, she can’t stop, he goes to her to comfort her maybe a bit sorry now that he’s done this but she’s furious. He tries to put his arms around her, she brings her leg up sharply, knees him in the groin, stalks off. Red James has to sit down, he takes a deep whistling breath.
And that’s when Clara began to laugh.
31
In a great dramatic scrawl, full of flourishes:
To Joe—
Herein all my papers, copies of chapbooks, letters, pensées, journals, night thoughts — all that is left of me. Dear Libby is to keep them for your return. And you will return, I have no doubt about it. I have thought a good deal about you. You are what I would want my son to be. More’s the pity. But who can tell, perhaps we all reappear, perhaps all our lives are impositions one on another.
w. p.
Loon Lake
Oct 24 1937
32
Three little words. Suree rittu waruz. The girls had voices like cheap violins and they kept their wavery pitch as the car careened around abrupt corners, horns blasting, peddlers and old monks falling out of the way. It was three o’clock in the morning and the shopkeepers were already unrolling their mats heaving the flimsy boxes of fresh wet seagreens from the beds of trucks pitch-black the Tokyo sky above, Warren looked up as if to pray like a seasick sailor keeping his eye on a fixed point a light in the Oriental heavens channeled by tile roofs the heavens flowing in an orderly manner unlike the progress of the Cord, its headlights flashing the startled faces of the poor Japanese street class taking their morning fish soup hunkering beside small fires in metal drums. White-gowned attendants at the Shinto shrines sprinkled the cobblestoned courts with handfuls of water. Suree rittu waruz.
The car braked to a halt and Warren and the ladies pitched forward over each other hysteric laughter they all climbed down where are we he said and they led him triumphantly to the next bistro of the infinite night this one a mirikubawa. A what? Warren kept saying as they were led in through the smoke up on the platform three black musicians were playing jazzu and a waitress got to the little table almost before they sat down and they all watched the expression on Warren’s face as the drinks were ordered and then the rollicking hysterico laughter as he tasted the white substance in the sake cup mirik it was milk this was a milk bar and their civilization had triumphed again in producing for the American their friend the one substance they never drank and were astonished that anyone could, cow’s milk, the very sort of thing that made the Westerners smell that characteristic way from their consumption from birth of the squirted churned curded and boiled issue issyouee of the ridiculous cow. They did not like the smell of course and only one garu from whom he learned the Chiara-stun and what merriment that was that they had to teach him his dance, a bold brown-eyed bow-legged thing with her bobbed hair and low-waisted dress pleated to flare out above the knees had the nerve in the intimacy of his room one dawn to hold her fingers squeezing her own nostrils while he fucked her looking down over the upraised knees upon which he rested his bulk she was lying there holding her nose and squeezing her eyes shut but making the sounds of pleasure too how odd and later he said do I smell so bad do I need to bathe no no she said with moga merriment you can never washu away you it is ura smerr, you smena butta Penfield-san a whore tubba butta
They were his friends his introduction to the world of flappers I had to come seven thousand miles from home to meet a flapper he thought and all the things he had read in the papers at home about the new people their jazz their late nights their haircuts and merry step up from provincialism he found there in Japan how odd they were relentless and because he was American he was an authority they came to him for authenticity and all the protests he made were regarded with approval as ritual modesty the kind of social grace they thought only they had so he was an ideal teacher they thought he understood the Japanese way so humble he fit right in and he learned to make decisions simply because he was their authority. I’m from the working class he had announced when he first arrived with his introductions from his Seattle labor movement friends but something was misinterpreted here or there the upper class liberals the modern boys and girls rebels of the loins of the Meiji the mobo and the moga they took him up and he was forced to have cards printed in the Japanese way everywhere you went you presented your card or received someone’s card on a salver a lacquered salver Mr. Warren Penfield Teacher of Western Customs ordinarily this consisted in not much more than appearing somewhere and allowing yourself to be observed your dark suit and rolled umbrella, one man to his embarrassment asked him to disrobe in front of the whole family to his boxer shorts so the women could see the undergarments and sock garters and make them on their own for the father the brother. Mr. Warren Penfield slowly learning the contact language by which he could communicate The Handshake lesson one The Tip of the Hat lesson two The Stroll with the Umbrella lesson three Helping Ladies Across the Street very difficurr resson four the deference shown to women the most genuinely unpleasant of the customs but they did it he looked at the jazzu pianist and the jazzu pianist looked at him and smiled and shook his head here they were together in service the smile said the frank and somewhat contemptuous self-awareness mirrored in the other doing the same thing what are we doing here man I mean I got an excuse what’s yours that look of economically dependent expatriate we really down the ladder man to be stuck on this island making nigger faces for these little yellow men.