“Yes!” I-wan cried, looking up, “that is a good thought. Bunji, how good a friend you are to me!”
“Hah!” Bunji answered. “Well — yes — I like you, you know.” He laughed and began to undress.
But I-wan had already found paper and pen. He would see Tama, of course — but in case he could not find an immediate way, Bunji could give her this letter. He wrote on and on into the night, begging, pleading, pouring out his love.
“Even if our countries should go to war, my Tama,” he wrote over and over, “it has nothing to do with us. You and I, we are ourselves. We belong to each other. It is an accident that governments—” He felt no loyalty to that government now in China — it was not his!
To the sound of Bunji’s steady deep breathing he wrote everything to Tama. Then for a long time he sat reading all he had written. When he folded the pages at last the moon had gone, and it was the dark before dawn. He turned off the light and lay down, dressed as he was, beside Bunji, and fell asleep as a man stumbles exhausted and falls into a well.
He waked the instant Bunji moved.
“What time is it?” Bunji asked thickly. Sunlight was streaming into the room.
I-wan looked dazed at the watch still on his wrist. “Half-past-eight,” he answered.
Bunji leaped across him.
“Akio and I must catch the train at nine!” he shouted. He began flinging on his clothes and dashing to the water basin; he laved the running water over his face and head.
“It’s a long way,” he sputtered. “I’ll have to buy a bit of something and eat it on the train as I go.”
He brushed up his spiky hair as he talked. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised. “If Shio doesn’t want me, I’ll go—” He was knotting his tie crookedly and buttoning his coat and searching for his hat, all at the same time. Now he was at the door. “So — hah!” he grinned and was gone.
And I-wan got up slowly, still exhausted in spite of sleep, and undressed and washed himself and put on fresh garments. Then he sat down and read carefully again Tama’s letter and his to her. Then exactly as though the day were like the one before, he went to the restaurant and ate and then went to the warehouse.
The great jade piece which Shio had so caressed was gone. Shio had taken it, doubtless, to his own home. He felt suddenly angry, as though he himself had lost a treasure. But he worked doggedly, checking and rechecking. Nothing now mattered except the one thing — could he reach Tama in time, and having reached her, could he persuade her …? Then, it occurred to him, persuade her to what? What would he tell Tama she must do? Where could he take her? He paused, in his hands a twist of the root of an old cherry tree, carved and polished and stained into the appearance of an ancient impish face. When he looked down at it, it seemed to peer up at him with the mocking eyes of a merry and cynical old man. Where in the world was there a place for Tama and him …?
Then before he could answer, he heard someone crying and shouting for him. It was Bunji. He burst into the door, his eyes wild and his face twisted with weeping.
“I-wan,” he gasped, “Shio — where is Shio?”
“I haven’t seen him,” I-wan said, frightened. The old man dropped from his hand, “Bunji — don’t — what—”
“Akio—” Bunji sobbed. “Akio — Akio—”
He held out a sheet of paper to I-wan. Upon it was written in Akio’s fine neat brush strokes:
“To my father and to my brothers, this: I have considered well this step which I now take. I know why I am called to register myself again as a soldier. We are to be sent to China to fight. But there is nothing in life for which I care to fight. Especially I wish to have no part in killing innocent people of any race. Yet it is not possible to refuse the Emperor when he commands except by the one means which I now take. When this comes to your hands, I shall have given my body to Fuji-san. And with me now, as ever, is Sumie.”
“When — when—” I-wan stammered. “When I reached the station to get my free ticket,” Bunji sobbed, “when I had declared my name, they said this had been left for me. So I took it and read it, and when I burst out weeping — an officer took it and read it — he was so angry — he said — he said Akio was a traitor — and he had no right to — to kill himself at a time when — when the Emperor needs men—” Bunji’s tears were streaming down his face.
“Does Shio know?” I-wan asked in a low voice.
Bunji shook his head.
“Come,” said I-wan. He put out his hand and took Bunji’s, and felt Bunji’s short wide fist clutch his own slender hand. Then without a word they went to Shio’s office. He was there at his desk. Before he could do more than lift his head to look up, I-wan put Akio’s letter before him. He read it, his eyes blinking, his face changing from surprise to consternation, to a quivering understanding. Then he put the paper down.
“I always knew Akio would do this some day,” he said quietly. “He was so continually poised between life and death. Death seemed as sweet as life—” he paused and swallowed. “When we were children — if anything went wrong — he used to — want to die.” They were all silent. Then Shio said heavily, “Bunji, you must go home at once. I must see if — there is anything to find of their bodies. Sometimes they — people — don’t leap clear of the rocks into the crater—”
“I cannot,” Bunji said. “I am to report for duty this afternoon. I was given these few hours only—”
They looked at him, startled.
“I must sail in three days,” Bunji said simply, “to Manchuria—”
They stood there, not knowing what to say to each other.
“As a Japanese,” Bunji said thickly, “I have to go.”
“I know,” I-wan said slowly, “I understand that.”
He turned to Shio. Even now he had thought of something.
“If you will trust me,” he said, “I will go in Bunji’s place to your father.” He had a strange sense now of an arranging fate. What if indeed there were such a thing?
“Then go,” Shio said. “And tell my father not to be too angry with Akio.”
So death opened the door for him to Tama.
She sat there on her knees, quietly, a little behind her parents, while he told them what had happened. Mr. Muraki had received him first alone. When he had heard, when he had read the letter, he said nothing for a while. He folded the letter carefully into a small square and put it in the pocket of his sleeve. Then he said, “Let my daughter and her mother be called.”
So I-wan went out and found a maidservant and told her. Then he went back into the room where Mr. Muraki sat. He had not moved. He did not speak as I-wan sat down.
In a few moments the door opened and Madame Muraki came in. I-wan rose, without looking up. It would not be courteous to look, and he stood turning a little away. But he knew, he could feel, that Tama was in the room. Then he could see from under his lowered lids the edge of her blue kimono upon the floor. At least she was here!
“Sit down,” Mr. Muraki said.
So they all sat down. And Mr. Muraki drew out of his sleeve Akio’s letter. He paused a moment, his teeth clenching and the muscles working in his jaws. Then he began to read, quietly and clearly, what Akio had written. When he had finished he folded the letter again and put it in his sleeve. They sat in silence. Once I-wan heard a sob, instantly choked. But he knew it was Tama. He looked up quickly. She was biting her lips and her hands were folded tightly together. Madame Muraki sat rigidly, her tears flowing down her face. She took up her sleeve and wiped her eyes, but she said nothing.
“For a son disobedient to his Emperor and to his father,” Mr. Muraki said in the same still voice in which he had been reading, “there can be no mourning. Let there be none, therefore, in my house.”