CHAPTER VIII: TWO VENTURES
Brother always used the large, odd-shaped envelopes for letters to America; so I supposed that kind was necessary. One day he asked me to hand to the postman a letter enclosed in one of our narrow envelopes, embossed with a graceful branch of maple leaves. I was greatly surprised when I saw that it had an expensive stamp on the corner and was addressed to America.
“Honourable Brother,” I hesitatingly asked, “will Government allow this letter to go?”
“Why not?”
“I thought only big envelopes could be used for letters to America.”
“Nonsense!” he said crossly. And then he added in a kind tone, “I haven’t any more, and those I sent for to Tokyo, haven’t come.”
And so the delicate maple leaves went to America and my girlish heart was pleased. It was the first pleasant bond between the two countries of which I had known.
There was nothing definite in my mind against America, but I was so constantly hearing allusions to the disagreeable experiences of almost all persons who had dealings with foreigners that I had a vague feeling of distaste for the unknown land. This impression was strengthened by odd stories told by servants of “red-faced, light-haired barbarians who had no heels and had to prop up their shoes with artificial blocks.”
It was said that animals were eaten whole by these strange people, and that the master of a lordly house often entertained his guests by cutting up a cooked eagle in their presence. It was also rumoured that the cheap red blankets extensively imported at that time were dyed with the blood of stolen infants. One report, which was widespread, in city and country alike, was that the peculiar animal odour of foreigners was caused by the eating of flesh. This probably originated from the unfamiliar odour of wool noticed in the damp clothing of foreign sailors. Since we had neither sheep nor woollen cloth in Japan, the unfamiliar odour was naturally associated with the person who carried the scent about with him. The name has clung, and even yet it is not uncommon for country people, inquiring in a store for woollen cloth, to ask for “animal-smelling goods.”
Brother denied very few of these tales. I think many of them he believed, even after having lived in America. Apparently he had met while there very few people except those engaged in buying and selling. Once Grandmother said, with a sigh, “Your honourable brother seems to have learned only the ways of tradesmen in far-away America. But,” she added thoughtfully, “perhaps it is a land where only tradesmen live.”
He had been to America, but we did not realize that he had seen only one small portion of one coast city in that great land.
As time passed on, Brother seemed to withdraw from our family life, and yet he did not fall into the life of the people of Nagaoka. He was different from everybody. Sometimes he looked troubled and anxious, but more often he was only restless and dissatisfied. At such times he frequently came and sat beside me as I sew