25.
Come to Me, My Dear, Come

MEANWHILE IN THE CASTLE above Odawara Fumiko fell asleep on the tatami of the room she shared with Einosuke and had a very disturbing dream. She was at a wedding and dressed so formally that at first she thought she was the bride. She could feel the stiff material of her kimono, heavy against her shoulders, could hear the complaining rustle of it when she walked, and could see an old Shinto priest out of the corner of a thickly powdered eye. It was worrisome, since in the dream as in life she was already married, but presently a bride and groom stepped into the picture before her, followed by a dozen attendants and flanked by rows of formally dressed aristocrats. They were somewhere in the mountains, with storm clouds threatening and banks of impending fog, but the priest performed the ritual as if everyone were enveloped in quiet and calm.

Though she couldn’t see the bride and groom very well, Fumiko knew that this was the wedding she had worked toward for years, constantly pressing for with both her sister and Manjiro, as well as Lord Okubo. She felt her breasts swell with gladness and her eyes grow moist, and she looked about for Keiko and Masako, so that she could bring them into the folds of her pleasure, share with them the success that they all three hoped for. She walked forward, to better see the looks upon those two wedded faces, but as she did so the stiffness of her kimono departed. Now she was wearing the sheerest of sleeping gowns and instead of treading upon a mountain path she was inside an inn facing a series of delicate doors. She was the bride again, she knew it for she could hear her husband singing out, “Come to me, my dear, come.” Each time she opened a door she thought she would find him, but the pattern of rooms was unending and she was always disappointed.

“Call again,” she whispered, “let me hear the direction I should go.”

Why he was singing she had no idea, but she found it slightly bothersome.

“This door,” sang the voice, “open this one, “but she couldn’t tell which of the doors he was talking about. So instead of opening more doors she did a strange thing, very much unlike her. She untied her sash, letting her gown fall away until she was naked in the hall. She had never acted so rashly, not even in the garden with Einosuke that night. She had never been so excited, either, or feared less what those in the neighboring rooms might think about it.

“Why not open it from the insider” she suggested. “Why not come out and find me if I am such a prize?”

When she spoke a door to her right opened to reveal her American standing just as she was, naked, his own bed clothes folded behind him on a futon. There was nothing fearsome about him, he was handsome and smiling, his Japanese was perfect and his body stood out toward her.

Fumiko’s desire overwhelmed her even in her dream. She felt it first in her thighs and then, like the pleasant component of a mild fever, it surged through her torso. She remembered she was married, she even remembered her daughters and her infant son, but she went to him with no hesitation and felt the boundaries of their bodies mingle until everything turned into a growing circle of heat with an achy kind of longing at its middle. She had the sensation of hanabi, of colors falling silently earthward after a series of beautiful explosions.

“My love!” she whispered, wondering, as she said it, if she ought to try to say his American name.

She was not finished, not in the least desirous of awakening, but someone was knocking on the door, someone else was lost in that hallway and calling out, “Hello? Hello?”

Fumiko squeezed her eyes tightly closed, and would have put her fingers in her ears to block out the voice, were her fingers not engaged elsewhere. It was her husband who called her, she knew it was Einosuke, but when the door opened again and a hand tapped lightly on her shoulder, there did not seem to be any outrage or anger in it, only her husband’s voice saying, “Get up and come properly to bed. If you sleep here all night you’ll be sore all over tomorrow.”

She didn’t want to do it but Fumiko opened her eyes.

“Really, my dear,” said Einosuke, “our beds are waiting for us. Why don’t we retire?”

In her husband’s smile there was no knowledge of her betrayal, but Fumiko closed her eyes again anyway, willing herself to reenter that other world so the betrayal could go on.

To her profound relief he was there again immediately and she fell against him, even as her husband took her elbow, gently pulling her off the floor.