Butterfly (29 page)

91

Dear Mr. Sharpless,

I write to you first and, sadly, last time. To say good-bye.

You are good to me; I always knew, but not how much. Henry told me about letters. I am deeply moved, and I am happy that you wrote them. Yes, happy because I understand. Although I cannot return your kindness, I hope that we meet again in another life and be together what in this life many things permit not.

Please think of me but not be sad. I go because I wish, and because my destiny is. I feel not regret but happiness.

B
UTTERFLY

92

(The Nagasaki ms.)

In the weeks and months that followed, I was haunted by memories of the cold, rigid body I had cradled in my arms, and of the woman who only the day before had held my hand and offered me life. How could that life-giving woman—Death himself would not have dared breathe upon her yesterday, I thought—have voluntarily yielded up her teeming, boundless vitality? Whence the mortal poison that overnight could make a
corpse of one so rich in life? From me, I thought in despair, from me alone! Death was in me—on my fingers, in my heart—and it had killed Butterfly just as it had killed my dreams, my loves. But why, how, did I come to be its cursed carrier? And what fateful hand detained me yesterday when I could and would have gone to her? Had it been dire but meaningless coincidence, or was there a significence beyond my ken?

I did not know, and perhaps it was to learn the answer that I could not die. For I wanted to, fervidly. Having made myself Kate's creature, I prayed to Kate to make me die, but she would not. Once, even, the desire overrode my devotion to her. It was on the voyage back. Standing on deck, I had a sudden vision of the rocking sea as a vast cradle of death upon which tiny specks of life floated for a few paltry instants before sinking without a trace. How pathetic, how absurd our passions, our hopes, our quixotic fight against pervading death; how vain! Perhaps the vibrant Butterfly had understood this in a similar moment of black illumination; perhaps her self-inflicted death was the natural, inevitable expression of this understanding, and the ritual suicide of the Japanese but its institutionalized version, artfully preened and civilized. No wonder then that she'd left no note, no message; she had merely let herself slip into that sea of futility. Thinking this roused me to a savage joy; wild with dark exaltation, I climbed onto the ship's railing to leap.

All of a sudden I heard close to my ear, “No, no yet!” Low, almost a whisper, yet entirely distinct, the voice was Butterfly's. I recognized it less by its timbre than by the intonation I knew so well from intense moments when she spoke to restrain me. My resolve vanished; I suddenly felt dizzy and hastened to descend from the rail lest I be seen.

Although suicidal thoughts continued to prey, I never again was incited to act. My guilt and self-loathing, however, drove me to welcome and to revel in punishment, in bodily pain. Where
before I had but thrilled at submitting to her whom I adored, I now began to take a brutal pleasure in the physical maltreatment, previously dreaded, that henceforth increasingly accompanied my subjugation. Indeed I provoked it. Even in moments when I cried out for sheer pain or, at the limit of endurance, begged for mercy, even then there would be an inarticulate wish somewhere deeper for my mistress to push the punishment to its ultimate end, to flog me veritably and inexorably to death.

So did I attempt, in the months and years that came and went, to snuff out my memory of life: in the asperity of my mistress's rod, in the sweetness betwixt her thighs.

93

(Butterfly's final letter to Pinkerton. This letter, meant to be found with her body, was removed by Sachiko and later given to Itako, upon whose death it came into the hands of the editor. Except for the opening sentence, it was written in Japanese.)

Dear Henry,

I shall write this letter in Japanese; please make translation toread.

When you read this, I shall have passed into another world. But I shall continue to watch over you—you and Itako.

As I sit here, many things come to me that I should like to say to you. But they are things of the world I am about to leave and there is no time to write of them. My decision is taken, and I must be quick in its execution, for I do not
know what she will do. At this very moment, she may be pursuing your destruction.

I cannot understand her. To me she is a demon who wants to destroy you. Why? I do not know. Perhaps she bears a grudge against you from another life, or perhaps she is jealous, as demons are. Perhaps it is simply in the nature of demons to prey and to destroy. In any case, she is powerful.

I sensed your danger before I met her. Inwardly I knew that I had to take you away. If you are with me, I can protect you, but not otherwise.

Ultimately, however, it is not for me to protect you; you have to do it yourself. But as you are, you cannot, for you are too weak. Forgive me, I must say what I have to say. You are weak because you have no purpose in life. You bend with the breeze, because you yourself have no direction. You obey your desires and not your destiny. To possess a sense of true purpose, to harken to the call of destiny—that alone can give one strength to walk the high road. The demon is beautiful, but her beauty enthralls you because your eyes are unsteady.

For you do not see. Looking with your senses, you see things but not the life that shapes and transforms; you see the petals but not what makes them open and close. Thus you do not see yourself, you do not see your destiny.

While I live, though I would give you all, I cannot give you purpose; though I would look for you, I cannot make you see. But in dying, I shall leave you with both purpose and vision. When I am gone, our child will be yours. It will be up to you to care for her, to raise her. And you alone will be answerable—to the gods, to me, and the life you planted in me, which is more than either of us.

You must take Itako and go back to America; Sachiko will help you. If you accept the charge, as you must, the demon cannot touch you. Do not be careless, for she will still be powerful. But Itako will save you: whatever happens, hold on to her like a floating branch; then you cannot sink.

Do not grieve for me, because I am happy in my destiny. If I seem to sacrifice myself, it is not for you alone but for us—for the love that joined us and brought forth our child, for the love that you must continue to nurture from day to day. Do not grieve, but think of me. I shall always be at your side, because every day you will discover me anew in Itako. Find her a good mother, bring her up patiently and steadily, like a plant you watch with love and water with care. Watch her grow and you will learn to see. As the child grows into a woman, so will you grow into a father. What you make out of her, that you yourself will become.

Your wife in death as in life,

B
UTTERFLY

Part Three

94

(The Nagasaki ms.)

Kate and I were married that fall. At her instigation, I began to dabble in politics. However, despite some ambitious plans and initial success, our interest flagged after a year or two, for neither of us really believed in my career or cared. On her side, Kate made a triumphant entry into society but soon tired of it, for it satisfied neither her intellect nor her senses. Our life in Washington had plenty of bustle but no memorable events. To the world at large, we were the epitome of the bright young couple, fêted, admired, envied; privately we lived by our contract, with minor innovations and no revision. In our own way, we led quite a normal married life.

As Kate became bored with Washington, she began to consider moving to New York or Europe. In the end she set her sights on Paris and for a while had me angling for a diplomatic post, but soon she became restless and decided to go in a private capacity; theambassadorship was not within immediate reach, and anything less, she felt, was not worth the constraints imposed on a government official. Although my personal ambition did not go much beyond my mistress's pleasure, I felt uneasy about giving up my political career. Being public figures molded the way we lived; it determined our schedules and activities, defined images that adhered to us most of the day, and even imposed a measure of restraint and sanity upon our private relations.

In Paris everything changed. Immediately we were—orrather, Kate was—drawn into a maelstrom of pleasure. All stops were pulled. We were answerable to no one, and Paris was a city without restraint. A few weeks sufficed to transform Kate; the Washington socialite, poised on her respectable eminence, had
been left behind on the staid Maryland coast. Lovers, male and female, were soon drifting in and out of our flat on the boulevard Malesherbes. Kate flaunted them and, to them, my servitude. When I protested, she responded by humiliating me first in their presence, then with their participation, and finally to their fancy. On occasion I rebelled, not purposefully—for I was past genuine revolt—but like a blinded, crazed animal; whereupon I would be beaten, and the outrage redoubled. I endured it, because no torment could overcome the fear of being sent away. For however much Kate made me suffer, the feel of her foot upon my neck at least absolved me of responsibility for my suffering.

Yet at times my love for her would turn into hate; more than once I was close to murder. But Kate sensed with uncanny precision that receding threshold beyond which endurance runs amock, and with Circean art she would draw me back each time. Then there would be the sweet moment of reconciliation, when weeks of torment, jealousy and rage would pour into her lap in a torrent of tears. After which all would recommence.

95

The door opened and Marika emerged. Her eyes, formerly so impervious and crystalline, were puffy and red as lately they sometimes were. She stopped at the window and stood looking out with an abstracted air. As she turned away, she noticed Pinkerton with a start. Immediately she drew herself up, but the traces of tears could not be erased. Suppressing an impulse to hide them, she went over and, crouching, peered into his face. Although they saw each other every day, she had not looked at him for many months. “Poor Henry,” she said, wincing slightly from pity or self-pity, and caressed him the way one would caress
a dog lame with age. “We are getting old.” In fact, tiny fishbones were now etched at the corner of her eyes. She had lost some of her bloom and feline naturalness, but possibly she had gained in allure. There was little of the soubrette about her now; she had become quite the young lady—and, he thought a little sadly, not so very young anymore either. At that moment he was free of resentment. Her insolence, her betrayals, her little cruelties that were as gratuitous as her kindness, all were forgotten; he saw only that she, too, was suffering now. How long ago it was that he had come upon her for the first time in Kate's arms and turned away in shocked reprobation; his heart fainting from jealousy, he had fled, but their laughter had pursued him without mercy. But that day now seemed faraway.

For a moment longer, they looked at one another as if tracing each in the other's face the lines of their own sorrow. Thinking to comfort her, Pinkerton reached out to take her in his arms. But at his touch, her eyes turned cold; pouting with disdain, she thrust him away and strutted from the room.

Later, as Marika lay with Kate, Pinkerton, sleepless outside his mistress's door, listened to their laughter shrilling deep into the night.

96

(The Nagasaki ms.)

Our life in Paris was a ten-year slide into depravity. Where I was concerned, it was an unending demonstration to my soul that its existence had been cancelled and that my body was no more than a hollow shell, animated for and to my mistress's pleasure. No more capable of sustaining life than a vase without earth, it had to be filled anew each day, each hour, with her commands and
abuse, with her perversities and her effluvia. Oblivious of my soul, I worshipped her, worshipped in her the godlike part that is our universal birthright and the basis of all true freedom, and which I myself had wantonly abdicated.

Yet the mystic intensity I had once experienced was gone; I did not relive the transcendent emotions discovered in my early winged devotions. There was, on the contrary, something like a transcendence downward, as if a degenerate deity, incapable of assuming her own divinity or drawing up her devotee, were dragged down lower and lower until she too sank in mire.

Sated without being satisfied, Kate turned to alcohol, drugs, and debauchery. Imperceptibly, her senses dulled, her intellect clouded, her will eroded. In later years a despair sapped her even as it pushed her on in her frenzied excesses. So that I, who in the beginning had wondered about my sanity, feared in the end for hers.

97

Once someone mentioned
Madame Butterfly
—the play was having a great success in New York—and asked what Pinkerton thought of it, he who had lived in Japan. When he replied that he did not know the play, the woman gushingly pressed them to see it the next time they went up to New York, or even to make a special trip. Kate's enthusiasm had made him want to wring the woman's neck, but to his relief Kate had not pursued the suggestion. Later, however, she had made him read to her the story by John Luther Long from which Belasco's play derived. Long, in turn, had apparently taken the story from a newspaper article. And where did the journalist get it, Pinkerton wondered with the rage that rose every time he thought of those parasitic
literary excresences. Probably from someone in the Nagasaki consulate who knew of Butterfly's death and a few odd details but nothing more; the journalist's imagination had supplied the rest, which would explain why the story was so garbled.