to the Hawaiian kingdom. You may sign in Japanese."
After signatures were affixed, the three left the office and proceeded to another room for customs inspection. Suitcases and willow trunks were in separate piles and Seikichi helped untie the ropes. As the contents were inspected by the customs official, Mr. Azumi interpreted, and Seikichi discreetly stood in the background. When the inspection was over, they went outside to the waiting hack. The luggage was to be picked up by the transfer man later. Mr. Azumi ordered the driver to go to the hotel, as he had to attend to some other affair at the immigration station.
Seated together and alone for the first time, an awkward silence ensued. Seikichi realized that he had to say something, anything.
"You must be tired after the long trip." She looked up, tried to smile, and shook her head. It did not much succeed. There was no verbal response. He must try another approach.
"The scenery of Honolulu and the customs of Hawaii are so different from our native land. Take this horse-drawn cart for example. In Japan only the elite ride; here it is for everybody who pays the price. See the dark street urchins going about barefooted. Everybody can dispense with footwear without incurring adverse criticism from others. You will find that practically everything is different. It is funny at first, but once you get used to it, it is a pleasant place to live in."
A flush came to her cheeks. Her eyes were shining. She was eagerly imbibing the news and information of this land of which she had been dreaming so long. Seikichi continued, "There are many men and women from Yamaguchi in these islands. Kauai is another island to the north. It is much more beautiful than what you now see." The vehicle was now on River Street and the scenery up towards Nuuanu Valley was very beautiful, but the mud flats of the stream, in full glare of the afternoon sun, were not a spectacle to rave about. The beautification of Hawaii was a project for later generations. Just then the infant community was busy with expansion upon expansion and had no time for the esthetic. They crossed the wooden bridge that spanned the river and were in front of the hotel. Hearing the wheels stop, a maid came out and led the bride upstairs to their bridal suite. It differed in no way from the other rooms: contained a double bed, a bureau, three straight-backed chairs, and a closet. The floor was covered with thin straw mats that were not new and had been burned in different places by cigarettes. The wall was decorated with a single print of an oil painting. It depicted a lake reflecting an imposing snow-capped mountain that abruptly rose from the water's edge. Other than that there was not a single ornament except for an ash tray on a rickety table. But to Haru, this was a release from the regimented life on the ship and at the immigration station. This room with its outlandish furnishings was new to her; it signified Western civilization. It was a symbol, her first contact with that which she had dreamed about in the past seven months. The maid showed her the bathroom and said that she would be back in an hour to escort them to church for the marriage ceremony. Funny to have a religious marriage, she thought, when she was already married for the past seven months. Perhaps it was a strange notion of the Hawaiian people to be married again and again; it was not a bad idea at that. It made the marriage knot tighter and tighter. Even she could recall members of the male sex who were straying rather easily from the marital fold in her native town. To make the occasion solemn was not without its good aspect, although in a strange land, among strangers, every added ritual was an ordeal. The femininity in her, seasoned for the past half year of living with in-laws, without the blessings due a bride, had steeled her to an independent view of life seldom seen in a virgin of her age.
The chapel was Congregational. The altar decorated with various symbolic paraphernalia was not like that of a Buddhist temple. It was not there to lend atmosphere. It was of a most austere simplicity. To her, accustomed to Buddhist rituals, a Roman Catholic ceremony would have been more solemn and significant and she could have felt some link to her past in the surge of a religious emotion. As it was, she was not particularly impressed. Only the solid gold ring placed on her finger during the ceremony gladdened her heart. After all, there was something concrete and tangible derived from this Western custom. Just as her mother had to shave off her eyebrows, blacken her teeth, and wear a new elaborate coiffure to show her married status, she would henceforth be wearing this simple but significant symbol to show that she was a wife; a station in life coveted by womankind all over the world.
It was early evening when they were at last alone in the room. The luggage had already arrived and she began to take necessary articles from the willow trunk. Seikichi came to help with alacrity. Various toilet articles that only women use began to appear on the bureau top. Kimono and underwear came out and were laid out on the bed. An odor that issues only from such feminine wearing apparel pervaded the room. Seikichi was intoxicated with this aroma. It was a forgotten sensation. This was the same odor that filled the room when his mother had taken her kimono from the tansu to doll up for some festivity or visit another village. He experienced a new satisfaction of possessiveness. This was his mate. There was also the peculiar association of his mother and this woman. The woman nearest his heart had been his mother, but the entire family had to share her love and affection. Now came this woman to arouse his male instinct and he was in a position to monopolize her completely. This association was made clear by the odor emanating from the kimono. Primitive instincts long forgotten, but lying latent in evolutionary memory, arise on different occasions to assert the truth of the Darwinian concept, despite our gilded armor of civilization. Somewhere in our forgotten past, courtship must have been instigated principally by the powerful attraction of the opposite sex perceived by the olfactory mechanism. As if to end Seikichi's reverie, the maid knocked and announced, "The dining room is ready, and awaiting your presence."
At a long table, the five new couples were seated—each pair occupying places adjacent to each other. In the center of the table, covered with oil cloth, was a calabash of steaming, boiled rice. At each place was a porcelain bowl, a pair of sterilized, sanitary wooden chopsticks enclosed in wax paper, and two empty dishes, large and small. From a large communal plate, the brides were dishing out a concoction of beef and vegetables, fish cooked in plain shoyu, and some slices of raw fish to be eaten with shoyu mixed with mustard. Seikichi sat still as Haru stood up and filled his bowl with rice and his plate with the various items of food. Then she served herself. The maid came in with a tray of soup in lacquered bowls. Haru took two. As she picked up the wooden chopsticks, and placed them on his plate, she said softly, "Oagari nasai (please partake of it.)" Such service was almost embarrassing for an erstwhile bachelor. Only after he began eating did she start, and even then her appetite was like a canary's. He marvelled at this lack of appetite; it must be reticence and bashfulness.
The women were quiet. During their long voyage they must have become friends, but now there was no carefreeness. They did not wish to appear flippant before their mates' eyes. The men were total strangers. Under the circumstances the supper table was as solemn as a sepulchre. Each finished eating with undue haste. As he led the way out, Seikichi turned to Haru, "I am going out for a little walk. You may return to the room." She bowed obeisance and went upstairs. He went out and proceeded to the corner Chinese store across the bridge where he had noticed fruits on the counter earlier in the day. There he bought some bright colored mangoes, bananas, and oranges.
When he returned to their room, Haru was sitting on one of the straight-back chairs fanning herself, for the setting sun was fierce and there was not a sign of a breeze. She greeted him with a smile that was no longer forced. To have served him, even in a small capacity at the table, seemed to have earned her the right to claim this man as her husband. To comfort him, to be a hand or a foot for her lord, was a duty to be pleasurably performed by a wife. She had been trained so at home. To have made a start in the right direction made her glad. She no longer felt, as a stranger to him. The mutual discard of the icy barrier was more speedy than the melting of late spring snow in the morning sun. She was conscious now that in this wide world there was no one to whom she could turn for help or comfort other than this man whom she had scarcely known six hours.
"Now that we have nothing to do, let me have news from home. Is everybody well? Are my parents healthy?"
"Your august parents
