Butterfly (28 page)

Sachiko asked what would become of Itako. Her father would take her, Butterfly explained; there was a letter for him which he would find together with her body and his child. Of course—that was why Pinkerton had to be made to come. Sachiko would have to help him with practical matters such as finding a wet nurse; once he arrived in America, he would see to it that Itako was properly cared for, but in Japan and aboard ship, it would not be so easy. Sachiko promised to care for Itako as if the child were her own. She understood that Butterfly was not to be deterred and now girded herself to play her own role the best she could.

The next morning Sachiko helped arrange everything and stayed with Butterfly until the last. A sense of excitement and responsibility permitted her to overcome her sorrow. When the time came, she asked to second Butterfly, and Butterfly consented, though neither of them knew what this should entail in their case. “I wish you were a samurai and could wield the long sword,” Butterfly said. Clearly it was no easy matter to kill oneself with the short sword; the samurai most often had a second who would sever their head once they themselves had cut into the belly. There was a moment when Butterfly faltered, but she did not let herself weep, and once the ritual commenced, she performed it faultlessly. Her ancestors would have expected no less, but still they would have been proud of this descendant.

Sachiko was able to remain calm as long as her mistress drew breath. But seeing the beautiful body and the blood that was soaking through the white kimono onto the
tatami
,
she broke down and wept. The idea of the faithless Pinkerton taking Itako suddenly struck her as unbearable—he who had so shamelessly
abandoned the child and dishonored the mother. She, who was devoted to both, had been powerless to save the mother, but she would take care of the child. She knew at that instant what she had to do. Hastily, she wrapped the money Butterfly had given her in a kerchief together with a few necessities and the two letters Butterfly had left behind. With Itako attached to her back, she took one more look at Butterfly and hurried from the house.

At the hotel, Sachiko had some difficulty getting to Pinkerton, but eventually she made her way through to him. He was reluctant to comply with her request, but when she told him Butterfly was about to die, he turned pale and followed her. Downstairs, she had a ricksha waiting and made him get in—she herself would follow. The ricksha took him to Butterfly, but Sachiko herself fled to an aunt's house and from there eventually to Shizuoka.

Sachiko had expected to be pursued and in the beginning was very apprehensive. Days passed, however, without anything to indicate she was being sought. After a time her fear abated and she stopped living like a fugitive. For the first year or so, she worked as a servant to pay for Itako's wet nurse; after that she bought a small eating house with the money Butterfly had left. She did not marry until very late, when Itako had left to study in Tokyo. Itako never stopped feeling a little guilty, for she was convinced, no doubt with reason, that she had kept Sachiko from marrying and raising a family of her own.

Sachiko experienced a moment of great anxiety that fall when she found Sharpless waiting for her one evening. Her reaction was to run away as fast as her legs would run, which, burdened down as she was with Itako, wasn't very fast. Sharpless, understanding her fears, shouted after her that he was not there to take away the child. Heedless in her panic, Sachiko did not stop until her body gave out; but when, almost in tears, she turned to face her pursuer like a cornered cat, she saw from his face that he indeed meant no harm. When they had both recovered their
breath, Sharpless explained to her that he had sought her out to arrange for Itako to have an annuity on the money Pinkerton had left her. Sachiko at first would hear nothing of it: she had enough for the two of them; she did not want Pinkerton's money. Besides, she did not trust Pinkerton; who knew what ties the money would bring? It took all of Sharpless's patience to persuade her that a trust fund could be set up in his—Sharpless's—name without any undesired ties of whatever nature. With his broken Japanese, it was a feat for him just to explain what a trust fund was. An arrangement was eventually made whereby Itako would receive an annuity until her marriage or her twenty-sixth birthday, whichever came first; at that time the full amount would be turned over to her; until she was eighteen, the income would be paid to Sachiko. In later years, Sachiko never tired of singing Sharpless's praises, but at the time her hatred of Pinkerton rubbed off sufficiently on him—"Pinkerton's friend,” she continued to call him—for her to treat him with suspicion.

Although Sachiko spoke often to Itako about her mother and occasionally made depreciatory comments about her father, Itako did not learn the story of Butterfly and Pinkerton until she decided to marry and live in Germany. Before she left, Sachiko told her all she knew and also turned over to her the two letters that Butterfly had left. One, of course, was for Pinkerton; the other, as even Sachiko suspected, was for Sharpless. Sachiko would in fact have liked to give Sharpless his letter, but not knowing English, she had no way of deciding which one was for whom, and the letter to Pinkerton had to be kept secret. Itako, though curious about a document in her mother's hand, sent the letter unopened to Sharpless together with a note after obtaining his address through the American consulate.

Pinkerton's letter she opened, for she execrated him and had no scruples where he was concerned. To her surprise, it was written in Japanese. The contents chilled her; it was a letter that
no doubt should have been put into her father's hands. Now it was too late, however, and she did not try to trace him through the address he had given when he went to Shizuoka to look for them six years earlier, in 1914. At that time Sachiko had prevented him from speaking to Itako: she told him how his daughter hated him, and he, sadly resigned, contented himself with a surreptitious glimpse of Itako when she returned from school. They were well provided for, Sachiko assured him, and wanted neither his aid nor his person. He left without protest but gave Sachiko an address in Nagasaki, where he intended to remain. He looked so pathetic that she almost felt sorry for him, but the memory of Butterfly lying in her blood roused her and she drove him away unceremoniously like a beggar.

89

(The Nagasaki ms.)

I spent the better part of the night writing a letter to Kate in which I set down all that I had on my mind. In closing, I excused myself for not saying good-bye: I could not, the evening had been so perfect. The letter would be taken to her with her breakfast; by then I planned to be gone.

I felt as if I had barely fallen asleep when a dreadful pounding aroused me. I was surprised to find Sachiko at the door. She was there to take me to Butterfly; I must go instantly. Sensing that something was wrong, I tried to question her. Sachiko would not listen; perhaps she did not understand my Japanese. “Hurry,” she urged. “Hurry!” Seeing me hesitate—I was wondering what to do with my luggage—she burst out almost in a shriek, “She is dying!”

There could be no doubt about her veracity. I felt myself turn
cold. Throwing on my clothes, I rushed out after her and at her behest jumped into a waiting ricksha that took me to a small house some distance from the center of the town. “Hurry,” prompted the ricksha man when I hesitated before the unfamiliar gate. A feeling of doom gripped me; I charged into the tiny front garden. “Butterfly, Butterfly!” I cried, as if my voice, preceding me, could already succor her in her distress. There was no reply. The only sounds were the song of birds and the placid trickling of water in the small fountain.

I was too late. She lay on the floor. Beneath her, blood had soaked into the
tatami,
making a dark, sinister splotch. The body was already cold. Half crazed, I took her in my arms. “Butterfly, Butterfly!” I repeated, as if the name could rouse her. To awaken her again, if only for a minute, a second even . . . But her lids did not flutter, her lips would not stir. I remained with her for I know not how long. At last I noticed that the body had become stiff; it no longer seemed related in any way to the woman I loved. I got up as if in a dream and stumbled out of the house. It was a bright day. Birds, trees, flowers—all were in bloom, but the world seemed unreal to me. I cannot remember what thoughts went through my head; I only recall thinking with complete detachment, as if I had been a mere passerby whom it did not concern, that someone should notify the mortician or the police.

Apparently I wandered about the city. Sometime in the afternoon, I was taken to a police station. It seems that I had tried to jump into the Urakami River, or looked as if I would. I told the police about Butterfly. The consulate was notified; Sharpless and another American came. The latter took me back to the hotel and explained to Kate as best he could what had happened. Kate turned rather pale when she heard about Butterfly.

After the man left, neither of us spoke. Out of inertia, we resumed the seats we had occupied in his presence. I felt no sorrow, only emptiness, as if the blood had drained from my veins. “Kate,” I said eventually. “Let me sign the contract.”

90

(From the interview with Mrs. Milly Davenport)

By the time Dada got himself over there, they'd already taken away the body. It being an unmistakable case of suicide and the circumstances being what they were, the police weren't exactly itching to start an inquiry. Dada did ask about a suicide note, but it seems there wasn't any. There wasn't any sign of Sachiko or little Itako either, but Dada was assuming Butterfly'd made arrangements for her child and thought it'd be better to refrain from asking. He recalled how upset she'd been over thinking that Pinkerton might take Itako and decided maybe it was just as well for Butterfly's wishes to be respected—he sure didn't much like the idea of the child falling into the hands of that lady.

Well, there doesn't appear to have been much danger of that, because plain and simply Pinkerton never even asked about the child. He and his lady sailed on the next ship for home. Dada didn't hardly get a chance to say good-bye. Now, he still had that ten thousand dollars Pinkerton'd sent, and seeing as Butterfly wouldn't take it, he couldn't think of what to do with it except giving it back; but when he tried, Pinkerton didn't want to hear about it. He wouldn't really listen, just told Dada to do with it what he thought best. “Donate it in her name,” he maundered with that apathy that vexed Dada more than anything, “or give it to the child. Or whatever.”

Dada did what he could to get ahold of Sachiko, but she'd vanished into thin air. At first he wasn't too concerned—he was too distrait himself to be bothering much about it—but after a few weeks when there still wasn't a sign of either her or Itako, he realized he'd better start doing some serious looking. Well, it wasn't easy, but after a time, maybe three or four months, the people he'd set on her track finally located her in some place far
away, Shi-something or other, I can't remember. Shikota? Shikoza? Eh, how's that? Shizuoka, that's it—he went out to see them in Shizuoka.

She being out of the house, he went around again later in the afternoon and waited. It was dark by the time she finally came clattering around the corner in her wooden clogs; she had Itako strapped to her back and was carrying a bundle in her hands. Dada felt all excited, it was a little like seeing Butterfly again. He waited till Sachiko'd gotten pretty close before accosting her. But soon as she saw who it was, she turned and ran like she'd seen the devil in person. He called out, saying he wasn't intending to take Itako away if that's what was making her scared, but she wouldn't listen. So he ended up running after her, not too fast, you know, so as not to get her jittery, until finally she'd had to stop for breath. Even then he went up to her real careful. At first she looked as if she was going to scratch out his eyes, but then she must've seen he wasn't meaning to do them harm, because she calmed down some. He explained then that he'd come to arrange something with the money Pinkerton left. She wasn't in any hurry to hear it, but in the end she did take him home and fed him dinner, and in the evening they talked. She was pretty misdoubting of foreigners by then, and she bridled just to hear the name Pinkerton pronounced. But after a whole lot of persuading, he did manage to convince her that a trust fund could only be to the child's advantage. It was exhausting to have to do all that explaining in Japanese, but he was happy because he'd seen them at last and could finally go about setting up that trust fund. In the beginning Sachiko wouldn't let him touch the child, but as he was leaving, she made him go over to the cradle so he'd see how sweet she looked when she was sleeping. Dada said he almost broke down and cried for the second time in his adult life. He suddenly caught himself wishing—maybe not really wishing, just dreaming—that he were the father; he could
see himself staying there with them, marrying Sachiko and bringing up Butterfly's child. Thinking about it made him feel awful foolish, but he wasn't near so surprised as he would've been a few months back. And he realized that he had learned a whole lot about himself since getting to know Butterfly, and maybe changed some as well.

That place, Shi-whatever it is, I've already forgotten again.
(Laughs.
) Shizuoka—thank you—was far and out of the way, so Dada never went out there again, even though he often thought about the child and even about making another trip. It wasn't until years later, twenty-two to be exact, that he got the letter, like that, out of the blue—by then he'd retired from the foreign service and was living back home. It was from Itako, who was happily married and living in Germany. Before leaving Japan, Sachiko had given her an envelope her mother'd left behind at the time of her death. When she'd realized who it was for, Itako had written to the U.S. Consulate and gotten Dada's address and now, at last, she was forwarding the letter with an apology for the long delay.

It was hard for Dada to believe that he was getting a letter from Butterfly after so many years. It was like getting mail from the other side. If you like, you can read the letter—the original is buried with him, but I made a copy. It's very short, but it said just what Dada needed to hear, and it was without any doubt his most treasured possession. I say “needed,” but probably by this time he wasn't needing it anymore; he had aged so beautifully—I only got to know him ten years later, but I'm sure he was already as fine at sixty as he was at seventy or eighty. I often used to think how it was too bad that he couldn't have gotten that letter when she meant him to, because it would've given him so much comfort then, when he surely was needing it. But now I incline to think maybe there was a reason for it, like there is for everything here below. Anyhow, Dada turned out just as fine as
anyone can wish, so it's all for the best. And this way, when he finally did get the letter, it was like a bonus, or a prize held in reserve and awarded when he'd shown how well he could do on his own. Which in a way is just as nice, isn't it?