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Surely there would be a better time, a gentler way to lead her into reality?
    When the child was born, Sharpless paid Cho-Cho a visit, bearing gifts.
    She held out a tiny bundle, red-faced, snuffling. Sharpless saw that the infant had a fuzzy cap of pale gold hair; he stared out, unfocused, with small blue eyes. The Pinkerton genes were evident.
    ‘Here he is, Sharpless-san. My Kanashimi .’
    He looked startled: ‘You’re naming him Sorrow?’
    ‘It also means Trouble.’
    ‘Poor boy!’
    She relented. ‘It’s a little joke among mothers. You tell him, Suzuki.’
    ‘He is named Kanashimi meaning its opposite – Sachio .’
    ‘It’s to fend off the evil eye. If you’re superstitious, it’s a good idea to conceal the arrival of happiness,’ Cho-Cho said. ‘I’m not superstitious, of course, but . . .’ she laughed. ‘Just in case.’
    In due course, when the boy was older and less vulnerable, Sharpless was informed, he could address the child by his true name.
    He paid a flowery tribute of admiration to the new arrival, presented appropriate gifts and left.
    Alone, Cho-Cho leaned over the swaddled bundle, studying the tiny features. She must learn to play a new role: that of mother. But she must first grow accustomed to the very existence of a puzzling creature, one that had grown inside her – how unlikely that had seemed at the beginning, and then how natural. But now, escaping from her body, this small entity that had been part of her must be acknowledged as separate. She must learn to respect that separateness, while still feeling the two of them were one. She breathed in the odour of his body, as sweet as milk and rice, rested her palm on the crown of his head, feeling the faint pulse; lifted a tiny hand with its shrimp-like fingers that already could grip, the pink bud of a mouth that knew its way to her breast. Happiness. Sachio . Joy.
    Sharpless was aware that the cash from Pinkerton must be running low. He tried to give Cho-Cho money he claimed had come from the absent husband. She handed it back. Whether she believed him or not he was unsure, but the response was exquisitely reasoned:
    ‘I will wait until he returns; it is not . . . correct this way.’
    Sharpless guessed she might feel that accepting an impersonal payout reduced the relationship to the level of commerce. She was a wife. Was she not?
    Meanwhile she used her ingenuity to maintain independence. A zoologist friend of her father’s had once told her that there was as much nourishment in the larvae of silk moths as in a domestic fowl. Her father had retorted drily that it would take a considerable number of larvae to equal a chicken breast. But to nourish a growing child she was prepared to try anything. Next to the house was a white mulberry tree; the cocoons were collected and split open; the silkworms cooked with appropriate seasoning. She dug up the garden and planted vegetables; what had once been flower beds were now pushingup food crops. She kept chickens. She learned to fish, baiting the hook with limpets pulled from rocks. She collected and cooked snails. But there was one aspect of reality that was not negotiable: she could no longer afford to employ Suzuki. Any object of value had been sold; the money had run out and ingenuity could not be stretched to cover the hole that yawned before her.
    The difficulty was fundamental: how to arrive at a solution that would enable them to separate without embarrassment; without loss of face on either side.
    Cho-Cho waited until the infant’s bath time; a conveniently distracting moment, with both women concentrating on the baby. She began by expressing concern for Suzuki’s possible state of mind: her own regret that they lived so quietly, spent such uneventful days.
    ‘You must be growing restless in this small house; there is so little opportunity for you to exercise your talents. Really, Suzuki, I must apologise.’
    She reached for the towel the maid held out. ‘Sharpless-san was