THE JAPANESE EYE

By CARL FALLAB

WHEN I lived in japan I chose, to begin with, a country inn built of glass and wood in a suburb of Yokohama. This was very convenient. For just across the bridge outside our gate was the canal, and every morning one could go up to town on a steam barge ; it was a journey of about two miles for a fare of one penny. Of course, there were the electric tramcars, but the canal trip was smoother, more leisurely and very picturesque, with its stone-buttressed wall—solid as Tower Hill—and the long shallow wharf lined with low- roofed buildings, some of brick but mostly of wood, and not very sturdy in a gale, you would think. But in this country they are safer than the others of stone, for they give gently when the earth trembles. And the earth so often trembles. And as to gales, well, their heavy blue tiles alone would prevent their being blown away.

All the same, they are an assortment of the oddest wooden pavilions I have ever seen—all those weathered mossy roofs of such chequered shapes, and the close chimneys looking from a distance like chess-board figures, and the perpendicular figured signs.

Once in a while the canal would be blocked by some enor- mous log-wood raft that had come down from the north. Perhaps a few prone logs, thirty or forty feet long, had come adrift. It was a sight to see the raftsmen, already nearly naked, their muscular bodies bronzed under the sun, strip and plunge into the water. Reaching the driftwood they would ride it astride for a moment, taking stock ; then, dropping in again, swimming strongly, they shoved the log round into place and held it there, kicking out their legs behind, while those on the raft secured it.

After I had thus travelled to and fro a score or more times a gendarme in a white uniform, with a sword at his hip, came aboard the barge. , He had a pleasant, engaging air. I had not resorted to the interior saloon which occupied the long central part of the deck ; that was filled with girls and women who sought shelter from the bright sun. The youngest wore the gayest and prettiest patterned kimonos, their elders were in quite drab garments, but all had the bold and brilliant sash, with its great tucked-in fold at the back ; they were poor, as their very plain wooden clogs alone suffici- ently indicated. But as it was a very hot day hardly one was without her short but large-spreading paper parasol—equally useful in case of a sudden summer shower.

The gendarme came and stood beside me, and we gazed over the rail together—like two old friends with so much in common that they need not even speak. This casual mutu- ality lasted about half a mile.

Then the gendarme said in excellent English : "Why do you travel like this, please, instead of on the tram ? "

"Because I like it," I replied.

" Ah ! " he said. "You like it ? "

I said : " Yes, it is very nice."

He looked round, surveying the waterway, which was almost choc-a-block with barges and ferry steamers.

"Yes," he agreed peacefully, with a happy smile, "it is nice." Then, after an interval, in which he had continued to examine this familiar scene of life on the busy canal as if it were something new to him, he asked carefully : "Will you stay long in Japan ? "

"As long as I am happy," I told him.

" Ah ! As long as you are happy ? "

He paused, taking another good look round. Then : "Are you happy now ? "

"Very," I said, and smiled at him.

He smiled back, then bowed courteously and withdrew to another part of the vessel. Later I saw him talking to the barge-master, but not, apparently, about me, for both were looking far ahead toward a huge liner which was just theli coming into the bay from Honolulu. When our barge arrived at the landing stage the gendarme bowed to me and went off— perhaps to the police station to make his report upon the innocence of my purpose in Japan. Perhaps he reported to his inspector that I was in pursuit of happiness !

In the afternoon there was a footstep on the stair, a mild knock, and a head was poked into my office. cc Ah 5, It was the gendarme, whose expressive smile of recognition. seemed to say so much more than his single word.

"Come in." He came in.

" Yes," I volunteered, "this is where I work. It is a news- paper office, as you see. Would you like a cup of tea ? "

He shook his head. "No. No thank you. Excuse me, please."

It appeared that he never drank tea on duty.

But when a cup was produced he agreed to drink it. And noticing from his face that he did not relish it like his own national green tea, I remarked that it was Indian tea.

" Ah ! Indian ? " His face brightened into a new and alert thoughtfulness.

And I had the odd and quite absurd notion, suddenly, that the very word, Indian, had awakened him to some obscure idea. And I said : "Now, don't, for goodness sake, put yourself about trying to trace my Indian relatives, or fellow conspirators, because there aren't any." Which took him a little out of his depth and needed explaining.

Amiably he sipped at his tea, said he was very sorry—but gave no reason for his sorrow—and asked : "Which is your hotel, please ? "

At that I laughed outrageously, which seemed to disturb him, for he became very grave and was curious to know why I laughed likellat.

"This is not—" he declared—" joke."

" It is," I said. " It is a splendid joke."

"Why, please ? "

"Why, because you know very well where I live," I told him. "Across the bridge at Kanagawa. You know, at the hotel where you've been keeping your eye on me for weeks."

" Eye ? "

Eye was the key-word.

"Watching me," I said, laughing again. " I've been watching you, too."

" Ah ! "he said, directly changing the subject. "What are your amusements, please ? " And I might have said that was one of them, but instead : "Swimming," I said. "Swimming, and—and the geisha."

He smiled, as if suddenly reassured. The geisha, Well, that was at least a home product—not like Indian tea ; and he drank off the last of his cup, excused himself for the tenth time. We bowed to each other, I quite as deeply as he, and next I heard his long sword clanking on the two top stairs, when, doubtless, for it didn't sound any more, he picked it up out of haim's way.

He had already, it appeared, called at my hotel.

But that, the landlord assured me, was only to inquire whether my recreations were, really, swimming and the geisha. "It is nothing," the landlord said, smiling. "'Ordinary custom concerning guests from foreign land. Very ordinary custom," he said with his smile.

Daily I used to see this peaceful gendarme in his white, his spotlessly white duck suit, his long sword—a little too long, I thought—at his side, standing beside his police- box on the other side of the bridge. I used to bow to him elabo- rately, but he got *tired of acknowledging this—and at last, when he saw me coming he would turn his back, and _appear to he interested in some other object in the landscape.