Sophie and the Rising Sun (17 page)
Read Sophie and the Rising Sun Online
Authors: Augusta Trobaugh
Tags: #Romance, #Literary, #General, #Historical, #Fiction
Then, she was in such a hurry, I think she would have turned around and dashed right off, without thinking—if I hadn’t reminded her not to let Sally see her leave in such a hurry. Reluctantly, she took off her coat and sat down, but she pulled her chair close to the bed so that we could speak privately, in low voices.
And still, I couldn’t find a way to say what needed saying. I had the impression that she wasn’t listening to much of anything right then. Just wanted to go ahead and take the supplies to Mr. Oto. I almost thought that she didn’t realize how I had lied about him, much less why. But there were too many arrangements for us to make for me to figure anything out right then and there. I’d just have to take it a bit at a time.
“Just fresh water this time,” I whispered. “Because he’s got plenty of canned goods to last him until we get things all figured out.”
“What things?”
Clearly, she was still anxious to leave, but I knew—even if she didn’t—that we had to be very careful and plan everything out. Maybe it all had to do with the questions she wasn’t asking.
“How to get this done without anyone knowing,” I said, quite carefully.
“Oh.”
It was a small and almost deflated utterance. Plainly, she simply hadn’t had time to think everything through. Yet. And I was thinking that surely, she would have plenty of questions for me later. And later was the right time for handling them.
But all in all, I felt so much better about it. Especially because she
hadn’t
acted shocked about finding out that Mr. Oto wasn’t in Canada after all. And now, we were in it together, Sophie and me, no matter where it led us.
It was close to dusk when Sophie left Miss Anne’s house, and she had to make a concerted effort to walk with reasonable slowness, so that she seemed merely to be strolling home from visiting with Miss Anne. But under the coat—her mama’s coat—her heart was pumping so warm and strong that it almost drove her feet to dance all by themselves, and a delirious song to burst from her lips.
He isn’t gone, after all. He’s here, and tonight I’ll see him again.
It was harder and harder for her to walk slowly, for what she really wanted to do was to skip deliriously and to sing at the top of her lungs all the way down the middle of the street, like she’d done once as a child.
And Sophie was so deeply intent upon keeping her feet on the ground that when she passed Miss Ruth’s house, she failed to notice Miss Ruth herself in the deep shadow of the front porch, where she had paused in watering her begonias to watch Sophie pass.
Well, I’m sure glad Sophie’s sweet mama passed on before she could suffer the humiliation of a thankless child like that. One who’s been keeping company with a gardener, for Heaven’s sake—and a foreigner to boot!—and almost dark enough to be colored, sure enough! And an infidel!
Miss
Ruth thought.
Sophie, of course, had no idea that Miss Ruth was watching her, and as it happened, it was—unfortunately—right in front of Miss Ruth’s house that Sophie’s steps slowed and almost stopped—not for any effort on Sophie’s part, but of their own volition.
My
Lord!
Sophie was thinking.
Miss Anne knows he’s
Japanese! That’s why she lied about him!
That terrible thought dragged at her heels so hard that momentarily she stopped altogether. Then she moved ahead, but at a very slow and pensive pace.
Miss Ruth, who was still watching, wondered to herself, W
ell, what on earth was that all about?
When Sophie left her house
very late that same night, she wore her rain slicker, even though the night was very clear and calm. Because she was carrying bottles of water in both deep pockets, the slicker rested heavily upon her shoulders as she went through the quiet street of the sleeping town and on out along the sandy road beyond.
In her darkened bedroom,
Miss Ruth was lying awake, as she often did of late. The deep, sweet sleep of health and relative youth had disappeared long ago for her. Sleep was something she had to dive down into. Work hard at it. As if she were wearing some kind of waterwings that kept her buoyed up toward wakefulness, no matter what careful bedtime ritual she practiced—the hot chocolate and the quiet reading. Nothing helped.
So she tossed and turned until she was irritable and afraid. What was it about the dark that bothered her so much? And wasn’t there a poem about raging against the dying of the light? Maybe that was it.
Grumbling, she threw back the covers and walked over to the window—sometimes, looking out at the palm trees standing quietly in the darkness and at the empty street, she could picture that scene in full daylight. And it helped.
But it wasn’t the usual imaginary daylight Miss Ruth saw through her window that night. It was Sophie—wearing a rain slicker and hurrying down the edge of the street before bolting across it and disappearing out toward the marsh.
What on earth is
she
up to? Running around at all hours?
Miss Ruth smiled, and suddenly, she didn’t mind at all that she was not able to fall asleep.
Sophie was nearly at the big palm
when the moon arose over the treetops, and she didn’t need a flashlight anymore to lead her to where Miss Anne had told her to leave the bottles of water for Mr. Oto to find. But when she reached the tree at last, she noticed the narrow path through the palmettos, and without a moment of hesitation, she followed it, knowing that at the very end of it, he would be waiting.
In the dark cabin, Mr. Oto slept, dreaming that he was tending the flowers in his father’s garden and with the warm California sun glowing against his back. His grandmother was standing in front of where he was working in the flower beds, and he could see her feet encased in tiny, brocaded shoes, and he heard her saying, “. . . so that the great crane turned into a beautiful bride who came to the old woodcutter’s hut to bring him love and good fortune.’’
Then, in the dream, he stood and looked past her tiny shoulders to the snow-covered land where the great cranes were dancing with their wings spread wide and their heads pointed toward the heavens. The great, horned feet prancing and dancing in the pure snow and the red streaks on their heads against the white snow and the white feathers like silent fireworks.
One lone crane, a female with no mate, separated herself from the dancing flock and walked toward him slowly. Majestic head held high. And the deep eyes gazing at him out of the glare of winter sun.
But even in his sleep, Mr. Oto knew of the movement of the blanket nailed over the open doorway, and he sat up, half-asleep and looking at where the Crane-Wife stood, gazing down at him and with the beam of a bright light coming from her eyes to illuminate the darkness.
When Sophie pushed aside the blanket from the open doorway of the cabin and shone the flashlight inside, she was completely startled by Mr. Oto’s face directly in its beam, even though she knew he would be there. But nothing could have prepared her for this face.
Certainly, this was the same kind and gentle face, but now wreathed in a glow of childlike wonder. If ever she had doubted him, that doubt dissipated now. This was, most assuredly, not the face of an enemy. Not in any way.
She stood silently in the confirmed gladness, looking at the way his hand reached toward her, a gesture that at one time both broke her heart and gladdened it.
Such a gesture she had seen only once before, when her Aunt Minnie had called to her in the middle of one night and Sophie had gone to her room, anticipating that she would be disoriented and confused, as she usually was. But that hadn’t happened. Instead, Aunt Minnie was in one of her last lucid states that Sophia could remember, and she held out her hand to Sophie in just such a way. And Sophie had sat on the side of her bed while they talked and laughed together for hours.
“I know what you’ve been doing,” Aunt Minnie laughed, looking sideways, the way she always did when she was teasing, instead of that full-face stare with nothing behind her eye.
“What have I been doing?”
“It’s the birds,” she answered. “In the pantry.”
“What about them?”
“You didn’t throw them out like I told you to do.”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“You put then all in a box, though.”
“Yes ma’am. I did that.”
“Why didn’t you throw them out?”
“Because they were Mama’s.”
“They weren’t your mama’s,” she said emphatically. “Birds don’t belong to anyone except to themselves; throw them out. Find something that
will
last.”
“You have come.”
His voice was so soft that she barely heard it, almost as if the words were those he was afraid to speak.
“Yes, I have come,” she answered, moving into the room and carefully replacing the blanket back over the doorway while he lit the kerosene lantern and its comforting light filled the inside of the cabin.
“Did you see it?” he asked.
But she didn’t even hear the question, for her eyes had fallen upon the painting of the Crane-Wife. And she was face-to-face with the pale, slender arms and the smooth, unlined face. Herself. So that was the mysterious painting he did not think was worthy for her to see! And was that beautiful lady in it truly her? Is that the way he saw her? Like that? It was almost more than she could comprehend.
Very slowly it became obvious to her—and with no doubt whatsoever—that this painting had been created by an artist who deeply loved his subject. Undeniable truth.
Love portrayed, too, in the powerful, sensual image of the huge bird behind her in the painting, its wings spread out in imitation of her own arms, and each wispy feather captured in paint against the deeper green of the shadows and the palmettos near the live oak tree.
“Did you see it?” he repeated.
“The painting?” Sophie whispered, still gazing at it, taking into her own being everything that was in the heart of the artist.
How could I not have known?
she wondered.
“No, not the painting,” he replied. “The great crane itself. It’s right outside. I saw it only a little while ago.’’
Sophie waited before answering. “Nothing is outside,” she finally said, but she didn’t know what her words were.
“Well, it’s gone again, then,” Mr. Oto said. Then he added, “But you are here.’’
Sophie tried to look at him, but her eyes refused to move from the painting. “It’s very, very beautiful,” she whispered finally.
“You don’t mind?” The question was a very old one, worn smooth around the edges from having been in his thoughts for so long.
“I don’t mind,” she whispered. Then, “What is the bird?’’
“The great crane. From outside, tonight. But earlier, from Miss Anne’s own garden,” he said. “And before that, from the land of my father’s ancestors. And a very old story about happiness.” He did not add and love. Because he didn’t have to. She knew. He could tell—she knew.