A Thousand Stitches (22 page)

I think
there was so much press fuss because the student reporter's article about the “
Kamikaze
Professor” was published in December 1978 just a few weeks after the news of the mass suicide in Guyana. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the young girl my colleague Lloyd had sent over from the journalism school for a practice interview. With the camera crews and the wire service reports, we both had our full fifteen minutes. Interesting, and even a bit entertaining.

Memories of the war were already sketchy then, so now in 1994, almost another twenty years later, I'm glad I'm putting the whole story of “the American
Kamikaze
” down on paper. Americans have never had any clue about these kinds of things, and now, having been back in Japan for so many years, I see knowledge of the war fading away here. The young people are now like the Americans I taught for twenty years. It's not just a matter of knowing more about computers and
anime
than abacuses and
shamisen.
They don't understand how we let ourselves be led into a ruinous and doomed misadventure, nor do they remember or mourn the dead or regret the folly that took so many young lives.

My dearest Akiko thinks that I don't realize it, but I know time is short. I keep up my part of our charade by demanding the second glass of scotch and pestering her for fried chicken as if I didn't know what the doctors think—and what I'm sure they've told her. One of the sweet secrets of a long-married couple: what we pretend we don't know. Like how relieved she is that we ended up here in this small city with the beautiful castle rather than “home” in Matsuyama. I still can't help myself—sometimes I still talk about it—all those places of my childhood still call me, just as the even earlier places in San Francisco's Japantown still call too.

I started writing in English because the Mother Country tongue comes easier, especially because I started at the beginning, with San Francisco. Next year the Father Country will take over and I'll translate into Japanese.

I haven't done any serious research—it's been enough to look through my own materials and leaf through a few books over the last months. I'm sure I'll misremember some of the details and horrify any historian who may read my memoir. But I have my photographs—from San Francisco, from Matsuyama, and even the ones from the bases at Mie, Izumi, Wonson, Haneda, and Chitose that we were supposed to burn. The pictures have helped me remember so much that what I've forgotten won't matter.

I only have one goal. It is my hope that my story will help others realize that what they strongly believe in at one point in life, even to the point that they're willing to sacrifice their lives for it, may ring completely hollow in later life. No disagreements, no differences of opinion—political, economic, social, religious, or otherwise—are worth the sacrifice of human life, including one's own. If this message gets through, I will have succeeded. Writing my story will be worth it.

The Colonel
was in the center hallway outside his office and saw me as soon as I came through the front entrance. He was obviously on his way somewhere, but stopped and said, “Good morning, Mr. Imagawa.” Turning back to his office, he called, “Sergeant, take this gentleman to the Translation Section and introduce him to Lieutenant Elmenhall.” Turning again and looking at me, he said, “Good luck. Do well,” and went off down the hall.

The sergeant I had seen the day before came into the hall and said, “Come with me.” I climbed the steps behind him.
Gentleman? The enemy is referring to me as a gentleman? How can that be?

The sergeant led me into a high-ceilinged room, where I saw a tall man with sandy hair, a sprinkling of freckles, and greenish-blue eyes. At first glance he reminded me of Morgan, and I realized that I hadn't thought of my friend for years. Had he lived to have post-war experiences as strange as what I was experiencing that morning?

“Sir, here's the new translator,” said the sergeant, saluting before he turned to go back downstairs. The tall fellow looked me over and smiled.

“I understand you've passed the Colonel's famous English proficiency test,” he said. “So you can obviously manage my name. I'm Lieutenant Gregory Elmenhall, and I run this section.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said. The office was reassuring. It looked orderly and the four Japanese working at the desks looked fine.
Okay. This tall American is going to be my boss.

With great kindness Lieutenant Elmenhall explained that I was to join four others and work at translating Japanese newspaper articles into English. Lieutenant Elmenhall told me we would sometimes have to work as interpreters as well. The others were American-born
nisei
just like me, but I had never met any of them before. The two I remember best were the Sawada twins—Carol and Louise.

The Americans were serious about their work, but very casual in their interactions. Almost immediately I was Sam again to everyone. After the first week, I lost both my impulse to salute and my horror that I was inclined to salute
Americans, the enemy.
Every so often I still bristled inwardly at taking orders from an enlisted man younger than myself, but slowly, slowly I recovered a civilian mentality.

I came to realize that the Americans were the people I remembered from my childhood, not the devilish barbarians that had been the staples of the wartime propaganda. All that rhetoric, all that ugliness, had vanished like spring snow. It disappeared, of course, because of the Occupation. But it wasn't just me—my colleagues had come to terms with the Americans, and slowly, and sometimes in small bursts of joy, people began to relax. But there were long-term effects of the rhetoric of the war—we weren't left with memories of beautiful spring snow. No, even as we began to rediscover joy, we Japanese were left with shame and confusion and having to live with the knowledge that we had wholeheartedly participated in the folly of the war.

I plunged into the work. It was good to have something to do, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Like the others, I found the official documents troublesome. We often pored over our dictionaries. I was shocked at how rusty my English had become. For the two years I was in the military, I neither spoke nor read a word of English. And my command of English had always been colloquial, the language of a kid in San Francisco. I did a lot of studying in my hours away from the office, teaching myself the terminology for civil engineering, plant pathology, and medicine. It took a while, but eventually I mastered the bureaucratic jargon and was happy to learn a bit of substance in a number of different areas.

In October, the entire 24th Infantry moved into Matsuyama. Its nickname, the Taro Leaf Division, was a tribute to its home base of Hawaii. The U.S. soldiers camped on the grounds of the former Matsuyama Naval Air Base, set up checkpoints, and dispatched patrols all over Shikoku Island. All the activity caused a fair amount of local consternation, but it didn't take long for everyone to reach the same conclusion that Yamamura-sensei had known, instinctively, was correct and that I had come to in my month of working for the Occupation—they were not going to do us any harm.

Like Yamamura-sensei, Father came to this conclusion early. After my trip to the city with
Sensei,
he brought me back to Ishii and dropped me off with a cheery wave to Mother and shouted, “Thanks again for the sweet potatoes. My wife loved them when we dropped them off. Isamu has some interesting news for you.”

When Father arrived home from work, Mother and I were anxiously discussing the afternoon's events. After he listened to the lollipop story, Father laughed, and said, “Son, I think it'll be fine. You'll be a natural. And you need to stop moping around the house. Time to move forward.”

I watched Mother swallow her worries and decide to agree with Father. The next thing she said was, “A bit of chicken and some sweet potatoes,” in response to Father's inquiry about dinner.

He laughed again, “Ah, the infamous trouble-making sweet potatoes. I'm looking forward to an interesting chat with Yamamura-sensei the next time I see him. I think, Isamu, that I should thank him. I know you don't think that's appropriate, but I have a little bet with myself that you will eventually.” Turning to Mother, he said, “Let's have a taste of those sweet potatoes, and I do believe we still have a bit of
shochu
in the back of the kitchen cupboard, dear. Let's drink a toast to our son's new work.”