Years later when he heard it sworn that soon the war would be over he shook his head. No, not soon, and perhaps never. These island people had been trained to vaster foes than man. They had fought earthquake, fire, and typhoon. These had been the enemies who had trained them in war. He was always proud that through it all his own two sons had not once wept or been afraid.
It was not a war. The papers made that clear. It was not to be called a war. It was, in the Emperor’s name, nothing but an incident.
Certainly it seemed not so important to I-wan as the fact that to the house built new after the earthquake two years before he had this summer added a study for himself with firm wooden walls which could not be moved away. For the last year Tama had been urging him to it, since the two little boys were growing so noisy. He should have a place, she said, of his own. And when one day he found they had taken his paste and smeared it everywhere over his desk, in the main room, while Tama was bathing herself and the maid preparing the supper, he agreed. And it was pleasant to have his own room…. Besides, the papers made little enough of the incident — a few soldiers in a quarrel at a small town in North China.
“It will not last three months,” Bunji had declared the first day.
It was this which first made I-wan pause to wonder if this incident were graver than was said. Else why so long as three months? He waited for letters from his father, but his father did not write so often as he once had. I-wan wrote asking for what his father’s opinion was, but no answer came. This seemed strange, and yet he knew that it might mean nothing.
One day the clerk in his office resigned. He was, he said, called to army service, though he was his mother’s only support now that his elder brother had died.
“What will she do?” I-wan asked.
“Mr. Muraki is so kind,” little Mr. Tanaka replied. “He gives a weekly sum to all who must leave their families without support to fight for the Emperor.”
Two young women came to fill his place, and a partition was put up between them and I-wan, so that he had after a fashion a room of his own. He had a good deal of time now. Business began to decrease. There were few shipments. This, too, made I-wan wonder. If it were only a matter of a few soldiers, then why did Chinese exporters at once cease sending their goods to Japan? Shipments came in as usual during that month. Then suddenly nothing came in. Ships came to port and went on, and there was no business for the house of Muraki. But they had great stores unsold and these continued westward to America and to Europe. I-wan busied himself in checking off inventories and arranging for packing and shipping boxes and crates of rugs and tapestries, potteries and china, furniture and scrolls, and all the confusion of the cheap and valuable which made the business.
Then one day he received a cable from his father. Afterwards it seemed strange to him that it had come to him through Bunji. But at the moment he had not had time to think of that. Bunji sent for him one morning, and when I-wan went to see why he was wanted, Bunji handed him an envelope and sat watching as he tore it open. It was from his father. “I-ko arriving seventeenth at Yokohama on S.S. Balmoral. Meet him at dock.” The seventeenth was two days away.
“Your brother is coming?” Bunji asked.
“How did you know?” I-wan asked surprised.
“My father wishes to send a present to your father, if your brother will be so kind,” Bunji replied obliquely.
“How did Mr. Muraki know?” I-wan asked.
“He received the cablegram, of course,” Bunji said calmly. “It was sent to the house and he read it.”
“Why?” I-wan asked.
“To know whether it was important, of course,” Bunji answered as if surprised.
I-wan was about to retort, “But it was my cablegram!” but this would be rude toward Mr. Muraki, who perhaps had no sense of wrong done. So instead he said, “Please thank Mr. Muraki.”
Did he imagine Bunji was watching him strangely?
“I suppose it is necessary for you to go,” he continued.
“Certainly I feel it is,” I-wan replied firmly.
He had been half thinking as he stood there that he might take Tama and the boys to show them off to one of his own family. Now, going out of Bunji’s office, he decided against it. He had better meet I-ko alone.
He stood craning his head to watch as the ship came into the harbor with the smooth slow grace of a great swan. He did not run instantly to the gangway. He suddenly felt very shy of I-ko. They had never been close. I-ko was too much older. And I-wan remembered still that Peony had hated him for things of which she would never speak. That hatred had long made I-wan feel that I-ko was mysteriously evil, so he could not love him, even yet. And now there were these years in Germany. Who knew what they had done to him? Still, he was excited, too, at the thought of seeing his brother. For the first time he felt he had been a long time away from home. While the ship docked he stared at the row of people along the ship’s rail, recognizing no one.
Then he saw I-ko coming down the gangplank. He could not believe this upright cleanly-cut figure was that I-ko who had gone away, the slender slouching young man with thin peevish lips, who could pout like a child when he was denied and even weep to get his own way. What had Germany done to I-ko? He saw I-wan and shouted, and now I-wan saw a straight upright man, a head higher than the swarming Japanese about him, a hard-looking man with a firm mouth and haughty eyes and a foreign bearing. Behind him was a white woman dressed in some sort of shining green silk, her arms bare to the shoulder, but I-wan did not look at her. There were other men and women coming down the gangway.
He went up to I-ko shyly and put out his hand.
“I-ko,” he said.
“I-wan!” I-ko cried, and then he seized the arm of the white woman behind him. “Frieda,” he said to her, in German, “here is my brother.”
This I-wan heard. He remembered a little of the German he had learned long ago from the tutor his grandfather had hired for him. But who this woman was he did not understand. He looked at her and at once hated her. She was young but already too fat and her cheeks were too red. Her eyes were a hard bright blue above these red cheeks, and her hair under a green hat was yellow. She put out a hand covered in a yellow leather glove.
“Ach, it is so wonderful to see you!” she cried in a loud voice. I-wan felt her seize his hand in a sharp upward German clasp, and then to his horror he saw her lean forward and upon his cheek he felt her painted lips. “Brother I-wan!” she said and giggled.
“This is my wife, I-wan,” I-ko said haughtily. “Her name is Frieda von Reichausen, and her father is a German military officer of high standing.”
His voice, his eyes fixed upon I-wan, were daring I-wan to say anything. There was nothing to be said, I-wan thought. If they were married, what could be said? He merely bowed, therefore. But within himself questions were whirling. Did their father know? What would their mother say? How could this stout, hard young woman fit into their family? Why had I-ko done this? And then he remembered Tama, whom all these years he had not wanted to take home. If he should ever say a word of disapproval to I-ko, would not I-ko say at once that at least he had not married a Japanese? And yet Tama — he knew by instinct that this woman was not fit to stand beside Tama!
“We are only bride and groom,” she was saying. “Everything is so wonderful!” And again she giggled, her eyes arch upon him.
He thought, “I must not look at I-ko. She is so silly he will be ashamed of her before me.”