Mrs. Matsui

It was an open secret in my husband's course on modern Japanese literature at Radcliffe in the 1960s that his inspiration came not directly from the prose and poetry of Japan but from his absolute devotion to me.

I sat in his class, his alter ego, front row center. The looks on his face reflected mine. I was, even then, white-maned when seen from the back, but I could throw an eagle's eye on all of his little girls by swiveling about in my seat. I finished his sentences when the occasion warranted, spelling out the low and the high, the imperceptible color of aesthetics that Americans could not know.

I walked diagonally across the quad by his side, enveloping his fingers in mine, cold metal rungs in my fist, his soft yet formal Japanese profile in perfect outline against the ancient bricks of Harvard, Oriental brush stroke on a liver-red backdrop. And when his little girls came our way, eager beavers that they were, and greeted him, I made sure that he gazed at them full on, without the customary Japanese wavering askance. Of course, the most luscious of them merited a look back. I never denied him that pleasure. He would glance over his shoulder, on my side needless to say, and imagine himself fondling those wonderful American backsides. After all, such an imagination is truly Japanese . . . only a Japanese man can fondle with his eyes and feel relieved.

The Obsession with Backsides in the Literature of Yasunari Kawabata was an admirable and valid lecture topic, and one that my husband did much justice to.

His gaze always turned forward again, his palm sweating in mine, no doubt in reaction to the bobbing spheres that had disappeared up the steps of the library. I would then take out my silk Japanese handkerchief and wipe his palm for him, smirking benevolently at his little sin. Sometimes, if the girl had been particularly beautiful, I would hold the back of his hand up and rub his knuckles against my long fine white hair. I loved my husband. He was the greatest genius at the university. I was convinced of that. For that reason alone, I knew, we could never return to Japan. Japan is a country that rejects genius. My husband and I did not mind in the least being despised in Japan. It is natural to be despised when you are innately superior to those around you. But neither of us would tolerate being ignored.

My husband's course was open to students from both Harvard and Radcliffe, although no young men chose to attend. Each year saw some 10 to 12 young Radcliffe women sit his course. These young women were invariably the introverted type, sensitive to the subtle passions of Japanese literature to the point of being drawn into them, learning how not to express the heights of human emotion in a crude American fashion but rather to repress them, to make their ardor more painful and intense. In this way my husband's course produced, over the years, a bevy of young female enthusiasts, most of whom went to Japan to live after graduation, not returning to America for a long time, if at all.

It was in the 11th year of our tenure at Radcliffe, 1966, that the incident occurred. It was entirely due to the presence in my husband's course of one Cheryl Druckwitz. Cheryl Druckwitz was -- I saw it the moment I set eyes on her -- not the type of young American woman who should be attempting to unravel the intricate relationships described on the pages of modern Japanese literature. Her fingers were too thick for that, her inclinations entirely too frivolous and heated, and her mind too full of brazen agitation.

She began the year with a careful but rashly conceived ploy: She sat directly behind me. Having a long back, she could easily see my husband over my head, and I was unable to glare at her as I did at the others with a good twist of the neck. From my husband's perspective there were two female heads, one atop the other; one with white hair -- mine -- and the other with jet black. This visibly disconcerted him. Yet all he had to do to locate his bearings was to lower his gaze. I was willing and ready, at a second's notice, to throw him a line. I was the only person who could save my husband from the long embarrassment of silence. In the American classroom, even a short hesitation on the part of the professor invited utter derision from the students. Not so in Japan, where a well-timed silence could throw an inquisitive student straight back on her aggressive self.

The particular incident of aggression on the part of Cheryl Druckwitz began with a simple enough -- what is often incorrectly termed an "innocent" -- question.

"Who do you think will be the first Japanese author to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, professor Matsui, and why?"

It may have been my imagination, but I did feel her breath against the nape of my neck. Yet, I was not about to turn to her, oh no! She would have wanted that. I fixed my gaze ahead, on my husband, smiling at him, nodding, yes, yes, go, you may answer her, you know the answer, we have discussed this many times in the past, it's all right, do it.

But my husband simply stood on his little platform, peering fixedly above my head, curiously resembling a stunned pigeon on a perch. He could not utter a sound, despite the fact that I had given him the clear go-ahead to speak. I smiled once again at him, even more benignly than before. Still nothing, not a word from his lips. His neck seemed locked in position; he seemed unable to remove his sight from the face of the young American woman seated directly behind me.

The long pause was beginning to cause some commotion in the classroom. The other young women present were at a loss, not knowing how to interpret it. Suddenly, Cheryl Druckwitz broke the silence, blurting out a string of shameless questions.

"Well, professor Matsui," she said, "if you can't answer that one, then maybe you can explain to us something about Junichiro Tanizaki. Why did he write a story about lesbians? I am, of course, referring to the novel 'Manji,' which you assigned us to read. Tanizaki, I presume, was not a homosexual. I have read that he was actually quite the lecher. Can you explain his motives to us? Was he merely trying to exploit a scandalous issue, to make some money from a book about illicit sex? And, finally, what do you think personally of love and sex between two women, Mrs. Matsui?"

I had been present in my front-row center seat in all of my husband's courses during his entire tenure at Radcliffe, yet I had never once been personally addressed by one of his students. Though I often thought in English, at that moment a single Japanese phrase resounded in my head. "Haji wo shire! (Have you no shame?)"

My husband continued to stare at a point just above my head, standing stiffly as if bolted to the platform from head to toe. My smiles and nods were evidently not reaching him. There was nothing left for me to do but to leave him in that position and speak for him.

"My husband has said on numerous occasions in this course," I said, turning in profile to Cheryl Druckwitz, "that Yukio Mishima will be the first Japanese Nobel laureate. In fact, to be precise, he has gone so far as to predict that this will happen four years from now, in 1970. Come November 1970, Mr. Mishima will find himself on the world stage, applauded as the unique genius of postwar Japanese literature. You may quote him on that."

I turned momentarily back to my husband, who was standing in inert silence as before.

"And as for your second question, Miss Druckwitz," I continued, once again showing her the full force of my profile, "may we turn your question to you yourself -- are you yourself a lesbian, Miss Druckwitz? Is that why you are so concerned about the nature of personal relationships in Mr.Tanizaki's novel? And may I remind you that this is a Japanese novel, not an American one. The emotions expressed in this novel are profound and delicate, perhaps a trifle too exquisite for someone brought up on 'Bonanza,' 'Maverick' and 'I Love Lucy.' "

By the time I had finished addressing her, I had found myself swiveled about 180 degrees in my seat, facing her square on. Now my husband could see her face above the back of my white head. I had never even once so much as entertained the notion of dyeing my hair black or any other color. My white hair was radiant, particularly from the back. I knew that its sheen would blind my husband, causing him to cast his eyes away from the dark, dull and, if I may say so, oddly proportioned face of Cheryl Druckwitz.

My husband, freed of his iron-bound posture, seated himself at the desk on the platform, cocked his head rather listlessly to one side, then to the other, shuffled some papers in his hands and turned a glazed look on his classroom of young women.

At that moment, as if by fate or chance -- or, as it happens, a momentary mixture of the two -- the bell tolled the end of the hour and the young women stood and left in single file. From among them only Cheryl Druckwitz remained. The three of us were alone in the room.

It was then that she said something totally flippant and outrageous.

"Why didn't you speak up, Keizo? Do you need Mitsue to put words into your mouth for you?"

Having said this, she picked up her books and proceeded to walk out of the room without a backward glance.

"How dare she call you by your given name!" I exclaimed to my husband. "And where does she get the right to use my name? Sometimes I cannot stand this country. It is the women of this country who are the most vile. They have no sense of balance in their lives."

I could not come to terms with hearing our given names coming from the lips of an American student. I was in every way a freethinking woman myself. I was deeply fond of my given name. Though it was originally written with the characters for "light" and "branch" -- a branch of light, as if at birth I were a little ray of sunshine -- I had, since my student days, taken to writing it in hiragana, using the ancient form of the letter "e." Such a rendering suited my poetic and gentle nature.

Having heard my name and my husband's spoken with such derision by an American student, I felt as if both of us had been defiled, that something precious and uniquely Japanese had been made banal, and by being made banal, had been violently wrested from us. This form of uncalled-for intimacy was intolerable!

My husband came down with an inexplicable fever that night, and it lasted for some 10 days. I had considered taking over his lectures, but we decided to cancel the class instead, seeing as, in any case, Radcliffe and Harvard were approaching the Easter break.

On those cold nights, while my husband lay in bed, I took to walking along Brattle Street, stopping in at the Blue Parrot for a drink. I enjoyed observing earnest American students from my vantage point at a corner table. I was never looked at myself. I may as well not have been there.

One night, about a week after my husband fell ill, a young woman whom I had never seen before, came up to my table.

"May I sit here?" she asked.

"Of course you may," I answered.

She sat herself down, folded her hands on the table and looked at me in the saucy and vaguely obnoxious manner of a Radcliffe undergraduate.

Finally she spoke . . .

"You're Mrs. Matsui, aren't you. Professor Matsui's wife."

"Yes. You are not one of our students, though. I do not recognize you."

"Oh, your husband is known by a lot more people than just his own students, Mrs. Matsui."

"I see. Well, he is very brilliant, you know. He could have taken up a position at Tokyo University, but, well, he would not fit in there. Tokyo University is a place for, how shall I put this, for mental robots."

"Mrs. Matsui, I do not know if you are aware of this, but your husband has the reputation on campus of being, how shall I put this, a ladies' man."

"A ladies' man? I do not understand this colloquialism."

"A skirt chaser. A man who goes after a lot of women. He is very good looking, your husband. He is considered a real sexpot at Radcliffe, you know, a heartthrob kind of."

"I do not think that you are correct. What is your name, Miss?"

"Sandy. Sandy Glickman."

"And do you know my husband personally, Sandy Glickman? Has my husband been chasing your skirt? Has your heart been throbbing, as you say, because of my husband?"

"Me? No. But I am a close friend of Cheryl Druckwitz. I think you know her. In fact, Mrs. Matsui, I think that you really do know what has been going on between her and your husband."

"Nothing has been 'going on,' as you say. My husband is ill. He is at home."

"That's now. What about last year when Cheryl went to his office in November to talk to him about his course? You were in New York, or something, weren't you? Giving a talk at the Japan Society or something?"

The pianist, a tall dark-skinned man with a pencil-thin mustache and shiny slicked-back hair, stood up from his stool at the bar, returned to the piano and played a loud chord before sitting down.

"I'm back, folks, and just to remind you about the Bogart film festival that's on in the cinema next door during exam time, here's a little song for all you beautiful lovers," he said as he played "As Time Goes By."

'Well, I think I'll be going," said Sandy Glickman, pushing her seat back. "I heard that you have been coming here once in a while and sitting alone at this table. Maybe you're searching for something too, just like your husband, Mrs. Matsui."

She left my table and started to walk away from me.

"Wait, I said. What . . . I mean, where is Cheryl Druckwitz now?"

She stopped in the middle of the room and rested her fingers on a table.

"Huh? Oh, Cheryl's in the hospital, Mrs. Matsui. As if you didn't know!"

She had said the last words loudly, to make sure that I could hear them above the piano's melody.

"The hospital? Why?"

"Because of her face, Mrs. Matsui. Because somebody -- she is not saying who, not even to the police -- because somebody slit her left cheek from her jaw to her temple with a sharp kitchen knife."

She closed her fist and brought it down with considerable force on the table, turned to the door and walked out.

I felt as if I had been struck by her. Her plain words, spoken with such unconcealed malice -- as if you didn't know -- had hit me hard. Someone was grabbing my throat, squeezing it with a constant force, allowing me to breathe only in desperate gasps. I bolted up, feeling faint, and braced myself by resting my knuckles on the tabletop. My white hair was now a mask covering my entire face.

How could I possibly have known what had happened to Cheryl Druckwitz? I knew nothing about this woman. For all I knew she inflicted the wound on her own cheek. Any woman who was capable of humiliating my husband with such impudent questioning -- uttering his given name as if it were hers to call up at will -- was surely capable of taking a knife in hand, piercing her flesh with it and defacing herself. I would not be held responsible for the naive actions of my husband's misdirected students!

I believed in my heart that my husband was not capable of anything more than gazing at the curvaceous bodies of the young women on campus. I had been in New York in November of the previous year, remaining in the city for a few days after my lecture to see a play in Greenwich Village, "The Subway" by LeRoi Jones. It was unimaginable that my husband would take advantage of my absence to do more with these young women than let his eye run over their clothed bodies. Unimaginable. I decided that I would not mention my encounter with Sandy Glickman to my husband.

On my way home from the Blue Parrot I stopped in at the university medical center, enquiring as to whether a Cheryl Druckwitz was a patient there. She was.

"But it is long past visiting hours now," a petite Filipina nurse said to me.

"But I am the wife of her professor of Japanese literature, professor Keizo Matsui. I have here in my pocketbook an essay which my, well, husband has corrected and wishes to return to Miss Druckwitz. I think that the result might cheer her up."

"Oh, how very kind of you. I guess its OK. She is down the corridor in Room 6. You will see her name on the door. Thank you."

I stood at the door to Room 6. A little vertical name card, not unlike the nameplates that Japanese display beside the front gate of their houses, read "Miss C. Druckwitz." I opened the door without knocking. A chill ran down my spine, and my legs were shaking.

There were four beds in the room, but only one was occupied. Cheryl was asleep, or appeared to be. I quietly shut the door behind me and approached her bed. As I did, almost as part of the same motion, she sat up. We stared at each other for some time without saying a word. I held onto the soft plastic curtain that hung around her bed.

"I heard about this from your friend, Sandy Glickman," I finally said. "Who did this to you?"

She paused for what must have been a minute, not taking her eyes off me. Then she took hold of the bandage covering her cheek and gradually removed it. Underneath was a raised brownish scar of about one centimeter's width running the entire length of the left side of her face.

"Who did this to me?" she asked. "Why, you did, Mrs. Matsui. You did this to me."

She was squinting at me. When Japanese squint they look friendly. Their eyes smile. But when an American squints at you, you receive nothing but scorn.

"Oh, don't gasp in horror, Mrs. Matsui. And please do take your hand off of your own cheek. The gesture reeks too much of sympathy. I won't tell the police that you did it. I want to spare Keizo the embarrassment."

"But of course I did not do this to you," I said. "Where did I do it then?"

"Where? In my kitchen, Mrs. Matsui."

"But I have never been in your kitchen."

"No, I guess not. But Keizo has. Lots of times. I guess I just thought you two were inseparable, that's all."

I did not get home that night until past midnight. My husband was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching a rerun of "The Lone Ranger."

"You've never been this late before, Mitsue," he said with a wan smile. "Is everything all right?"

I asked him if he was feeling better.

"Yes," he replied. "I think so. I think I'm nearly back to my old self."

I never asked my husband if Cheryl Druckwitz had visited him in his office in November of the previous year, or if he had ever set foot in her, or any other young American woman's, kitchen. He, for his part, did not seem anxious to know where I had been during the nights of his illness.

Cheryl Druckwitz did not return to Radcliffe after the Easter break. My husband and I did not hear from her, or of her, after that. I did, however, run into Sandy Glickman in the early autumn of 1967 at a sandwich bar by Harvard Square. My husband and I found ourselves standing beside her at the counter. The man behind the counter looked at the three of us and said, "All right, who's next?"

"No, you go ahead," said Sandy Glickman to my husband, looking straight through me. "You were here before me."

That was all. Not a trace of recognition. Not a word about her close friend, Cheryl Druckwitz, or about my husband or her meeting with me -- no acknowledgment that our paths in life had ever crossed.

In 1968, Yasunari Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1970, Yukio Mishima thrust a sword into his belly and was beheaded by a uniformed cohort. In 1972, my husband and I returned to Japan for good. He became a professor of American literature at a prestigious women's college outside Kobe. We live in a spacious apartment in Nishinomiya. I teach cooking twice a week at home to a group of highly motivated Japanese women. I have gone back to signing my name with the two characters for "light" and "branch." And while I may have somewhat softened my view of life, cut my hair short and dyed it brown, I have stuck firmly to one principle: I never discuss any aspect osjnf the past with my husband. To do so would be demeaning . . . to him, if not to me.

Sometimes it seems to me that we never left Japan.

Roger Pulvers is an American-born Australian novelist, playwright and theater director based in Tokyo. His latest book, "There Was an Old Pond with a Frog" (Kenkyusha), is a collection of limericks.