When the Emperor Was Divine Read Online Free PDF Page A

the horses rising up through the damp linoleum floors and on rainy days when she had stayed inside writing letters to her father in Fort Sam Houston or Lordsburg or wherever it was that he happened to be her brother had gone out in his raincoat and his red rubber boots and walked around and around the muddy racetrack. One night when the flies were very bad and they could not sleep he had sat up suddenly in his cot and told her that when he grew up he wanted to be a jockey. The boy had never been on a horse before in his life. “A jockey is a small man,” she had said to him. “Do you want to grow up to be a small man?” He could not make up his mind. Did he want to ride the horses? He did. Did he want to be a small man? He did not. “Ride horses!” Mr. Okamura had shouted from the stall on the other side of the partition. “Eat lots, grow up to be big American boy!” shouted Mr. Ito from two stalls down. The next day the carpenters had come and nailed wire mesh over the windows and after that the flies were never so bad and for a long time the boy did not talk to her about horses or anything else late at night, he just slept.
    BY LATE AFTERNOON the train had run out of water. The sun shone through the dirty glass panes and the air inside was stuffy and hot. During the night in the mountains above Tahoe the steam heat had gone on and now they could not turn it off. Or maybe they could but they wouldn’t, the girl didn’t know. She was sweating and her mouth was dry.
    â€œLook at this,” the boy said to her. He was leafing through the pages of a book—
Big Game Hunting in
Africa.
He stopped and pointed to a glossy photograph of a wild bull elephant charging through the African bush. “What do you think happened to the man who took this picture?”
    The girl narrowed her eyes for a moment and thought. “Trampled,” she said.
    The boy stared solemnly at the elephant for a long time and then he turned the page. A herd of gazelles was leaping gracefully across the savanna. The girl stood up and walked to the front of the car to wait for the toilet.
    As she took her place in line she reached up to fix the bow in her hair. Her mother had tied it for her that morning but she had made it too loose. The girl yanked the bow tight but the ribbon snapped and her hair came tumbling down. She tossed the ribbon to the floor.
    â€œAre you all right?” asked the man behind her. His hair was flecked with gray around the temples but she could not tell if he was young or old. He wore round steel-rimmed glasses and a handsome gold watch that no longer told the correct time.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “How do I seem?”
    â€œI think you’re all right.” He bent over and picked up the torn ribbon and carefully tied the two ends together. His fingers were long and fine and they moved with great precision. He tugged once at the knot to make sure it would hold and it did.
    â€œYou can keep it,” said the girl.
    â€œIt’s not mine to keep,” said the man. He gave the ribbon back to her and she slipped it into her pocket.
    â€œIt’s hot in here, isn’t it?”
    â€œVery,” said the man. He pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe his brow.
    As the train rounded a curve the girl felt her legs sway beneath her. She reached out and steadied herself against the wall. “Last night it was too cold,” she said, “but now it’s so hot I can hardly breathe. Everything keeps on changing.”
    â€œIsn’t that right,” said the man.
    She looked at the letters embroidered in gold thread on the corner of his handkerchief and asked him what the “T” stood for.
    â€œTeizo. But my friends just call me Ted.”
    â€œAnd the ‘I’?”
    â€œIshimoto.”
    â€œCan I call you Ted?”
    â€œIf you like.”
    â€œAre you a rich man?”
    â€œNot anymore.” He folded