The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley Page B

that was marked with age and seemed to be running with water. Although there were people around only I was reflected in the silvery glass, and as I gazed at myself I knew without doubt that it was a stranger looking back at me, a stranger of whom I was afraid.
    The week that I lay recovering from my abortion, Tokyo was hit by a massive earthquake of such force that after the last tremor had faded every family knew someone who was a victim of the catastrophe. We were lucky to live so close to the commercial centre as it was one of the few areas left standing. Our gas supply was severed and we returned to candlelight and charcoal burners. I liked the mysterious quality the soft light lent to the house, which reminded me of my early years in China when I would lie in my mother's bed watching her braid her blue-black hair.
    Natsuko believed that we were saved from the fury of the earthquake by the gold fish in our carp pool. She said they were of an unusually bright hue and were very lucky. 'Tokyo will never be as beautiful again,' she said sadly.
    I could hear more than the pain of the loss of the city in her voice, see beyond the tears in her tea-black eyes. I know that Natsuko felt that she was powerless in her life, that she had suffered too much loss to ever regain the happiness of her youth. I wanted to tell her that she still had the power to choose where to love, that she could choose me. But as always when faced with Natsuko, I never spoke the words I wanted to; I was as locked in my nature as she was in hers.
    How quickly things can change. One minute the landscape you know is there, the next it is gone. Kawashima, arriving back from Osaka after the earth's revolt, said that he felt that he had come to an alien city.
    Once again Tokyo began to recreate itself with buildings to match the progress that electricity had brought. There was a buzz of energy in the air and everywhere you looked modern structures were going up.
    A new breed of young woman seemed to have emerged too, secretaries, shop girls, beauticians and dressmakers who made cheap copies of popular western styles. Young women were needed to staff the hotels and business houses of the remodelled city. They came enthusiastically from their rigidly traditional homes to the equally strict conventions of the workplace. I think I envied them a little, although it has to be admitted that a princess seeks a different sort of freedom to that of a secretary or a shop girl.
    At the beginning of the winter of 1924, when I was eighteen years old, Kawashima sent the young officer Yamaga to me and I discovered what it was to fall in love.
    Yamaga's skin was the colour of copper, his eyes clear and unclouded, his lips as firm as apples. He was tender and arrogant in equal measure and it was not always easy to please him. I was half afraid of him yet I could not stop myself from loving everything about him. I adored the strength of his coarse dark hair, the uneven gap between his teeth, the way his uniform smelt of the black Russian tobacco he smoked. That bittersweet scent has the power to stir me to this day. I both loved and feared the churning feeling in my stomach that came whenever I saw him, a combination of elation and dread. I loved too the way he called me Yoshi and the way he danced me around, pulling me to him before kissing my lips or my hair. His touch emptied me of common sense.
    For the first time in my life I loved someone more than myself and although it was unsettling, it intoxicated me and kept my blood singing. I could not eat and did not sleep much, but when I did I dreamt of little else but of making love with Yamaga.
    Sometimes we would lie together the whole night without making love, just holding each other and talking and sleeping. I think that I felt more loved on those nights than I ever had before, and more confident of his love. He never brought me gifts and it could often be weeks before he visited again yet I always believed that he would