This Scorching Earth (15 page)

"I get you," he said, and smiled knowingly.

"It's about time," said the Major.

Mrs. Schmidt was fingering her brooch again, looking at the Colonel. He looked at her fingers, busy with the plastic fawn, and realized that she found it exotic, perhaps even thought it fashionable, having no way of knowing it had been designed for children and that more selective little girls would never have worn one. This made her seem more completely different from him than anything else. Here she was, a woman of obvious culture and talent, tact and kindness and sorrow, fondling a five-and-ten plastic fawn. The saddest thing of all was that it was perhaps the only gift she had ever received from the Americans.

"I suppose you find us—what shall I say?—" He hesitated, and then continued: ".. . find us a bit barbaric."

She looked at her shawl for a second, then raised her bright blue eyes. They were surprised. "Whatever would make you say that? We—we older Europeans—find you young and brash and splendidly active. Barbaric, no. It is curious for you to ask."

"I suppose it is. We do have our culture and—"

"No, I meant you personally. I don't understand America now. I cannot connect, oh, what shall I say?—well, posters of Bita Hayworth and the laws against adultery.... Oh, now I've shocked you, I'm afraid."

The Colonel pulled his moustaches. "No, of course not, of course not."

"What I meant was that, though I don't understand America now, I think I understand you," she smiled, "as well as two people can after only fifteen minutes of conversation. But I understand your society—yours, Colonel. It is so much like my own. So much like my own was."

"I'm afraid my idea of yours is rather false," said the Colonel. "I'm always apt to think of crystal chandeliers, Strauss waltzes, and drinking champagne from slippers."

She laughed, almost like a young girl. "Oh, Colonel," she said, "it's far from the truth. As far, let us say, as my idea—since girlhood I've had it—that someone like you lived only in a great Parthenon-style house with nothing but magnolias to look at and nothing but some kind of cold gin to drink, surrounded by white-haired Negroes."

"We're both wrong, it seems," said the Colonel, tapping his cigarette in the ashtray. "Tell me, how did you happen to come to Japan?"

"My husband's business," she said at once—a bit too readily, thought the Colonel, as though she had said it often before. "He was in the export business—everyone was you know—and he was sent here, so naturally I came too. That was, well, let me see—that was ten years ago, in 1939."

"And, if I may ask, when did he die?" asked the Colonel.

She was startled. "He didn't die, Colonel. Did I say he did? No, he is alive."

"I'm sorry," said the Colonel, "I don't know what I could have been thinking of. I—"

"You were thinking of me as a widow, Colonel?" she asked.

"No ... that is ..." He didn't finish.

She sighed and rearranged her shawl. "It is truly amazing that so many people think of me as a widow. Isn't that curious? My husband is quite well so far as I know." She stopped suddenly.

"So far as you know?" asked the Colonel.

The Major and Mr. Ohara both sat back in their chairs. They had reached an equitable yen-to-dollar exchange rate, a bit different from the legal one.

"Well, it's a pleasure to do business with you, Major," said Mr. Ohara. "You're quite certain that nothing unpleasant will come of this, however?"

"How could it?" asked the Major.

"Well, I hope my bottom dollar not. I also hope there's no reason for the Colonel to know of our little arrangement. Is there?"

"Look, just between you and me, Mr. O'Hara, I wouldn't worry about what the Colonel thinks or says. I don't think he'll be with our outfit much longer."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Very sorry," said Mr. Ohara.

"Yeah, you know, he's getting on. He'll get his pension soon and go on back. Must be about over the age limit now, I'd guess."

"I am so sorry."

The Major, having made his point, could not resist adding: "And, besides, you know, he's a little old-fashioned. Doesn't know the score any more. Times have changed, and all that. Still thinks in terms of the gentleman's army, and all that."

"Gentleman's army," repeated Mr. Ohara. The phrase obviously appealed to him.

"For example, you know who he's talking to in there?"

"A lady."

"If you want to call her that—it's Frau Schmidt."

"Commander Schmidt's wife?"

"Ex-commander."

"Ah," said Mr. Ohara.

"You see," said the Major smiling, "the Colonel, he don't know these things. He'll listen to just anybody. Now I say forgive and forget along with the best of them, but you got to draw the line some place, and the wife of a former Nazi chief is the right place to draw it. Particularly since he's in jail right now."

Mr. Ohara didn't reply. He merely tried to look intelligent. He couldn't very well explain that, a decade before, he and her husband had been the best of friends and had together drawn up plans for the future.

"So," continued the Major, drawling more than usual, "you see what I mean. Getting on, the Colonel is. Fine man, of course, but this is a young man's army. So, as I say, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got his pension before too long now."

Mr. Ohara straightened his glasses, then smiled brilliantly at the Major. "Are congratulations in order?" he asked loudly.

The Major cringed and looked around apprehensively, smiling all the while so Mr. Ohara would know a joke when he saw one. "Not yet," he whispered. "You know how it is. . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know how it is. Cornell was the same way. Why, I remember..."

Mrs. Schmidt stood up. "I've taken much of your time, Colonel, but you've been most kind. I know that you would help me if you could. I know the Army well, believe me. I know what men like you must do, whether you want to or not. And I know what you cannot do. So I know that you would like to help and are sorry that you cannot."

"I am truly sorry, Mrs. Schmidt. But perhaps we might see more of you—my wife and I. We should be delighted to help in some, let us say, unofficial way. Why don't you call on us sometime. My wife would be charmed." In the next room he could hear Mr. Ohara, making another farewell speech.

Mrs. Schmidt turned to him, her eyes bright. "I would love to, Colonel. But only to meet and talk with you. No unofficial help, please. I am not begging. Not yet."

"I didn't mean—"

"You are a good man, Colonel. You mean very well. I do appreciate your intentions." She stopped and then, as though talking to herself, added: "I don't know what happens to people over here. My husband found himself in the same position. Perhaps"—she paused cautiously, then continued—"perhaps it has something to do with being on the winning side. Wasn't it your Oscar Wilde who wisely corrected the saying to read: Nothing fails like success? But, I'm being indiscreet. Here I am in the very heart of what is only too obviously, a highly successful military operation, as my husband used to say. Again, thank you, Colonel."

Rising, she turned swiftly and walked into the outer office. Mr. Ohara was bowing and smiling at the Major, who was now standing beside his desk. The Colonel started to follow her—he'd forgotten to ask her to give her husband his regards when next she visited the tuberculosis sanitarium. But she had already left the outer office, and Mr. Ohara and his son, the former still bowing and smiling, were backing out the door. The Colonel knew he could not get past them without another speech from the father and another of those even more disturbing glances from the boy.

Colonel Ashcroft walked swiftly to the window, hoping to see Mrs. Schmidt as she crossed the street. There was something very young about her, and he liked that. She must have taken another way, however, for he only saw Mr. Ohara and his son. The father walked about five steps in front of the boy but talked constantly. The Colonel suddenly had a horrible vision of Japan democratized—a hundred million Taro Oharas, clustering worshipfully about five-starred emblems.

He closed his eyes and stroked his moustaches.

In the street, Mr. Ohara wasn't talking to his son as he strode ahead. He was furiously talking to himself. Finally, near Isetan Department Store, he stopped and allowed his son to catch up.

"Perhaps it would have been better had you taken the chair the Major offered you," he said in Japanese, "and also the cigarette offered you by the Colonel. They offered. You could have sat down. You could have taken the cigarette, though offending the Colonel was not so bad as possibly offending the Major. But you didn't!"

"I didn't want to."

He didn't want to! That was just like him. Mr. Ohara turned and walked swiftly for a time. As though in this life one did nothing but what one wanted. Ichiro was eighteen and should have known better. Life was a series of responsibilities, not a series of evasions. Whether one were American or Japanese, this was true—and this was the cornerstone of Mr. Ohara's life.

He looked back at his son, who was plodding along behind him, his face turned to the sidewalk. The father shook his head and walked yet more briskly, placing his feet squarely before him, turning his head and smiling in all directions—this was his American walk.

Most fathers and sons had their little difficulties these days. Mr. Ohara knew this because he was usually on the side of the sons. One could understand their positions only too well. After all, if Japan were to take a leading place in the world, especially after the defeat, one would have to forget the old ways of doing things and become in reality the New Japan. The sons had the right ideas. Even if they took to running around the streets and going with ladies of the night and speaking GI slang in the home, it was, in Mr. Ohara's eyes, a good beginning.

But Ichiro was different. In this regard the Ohara family was ironically twisted, for it was the father who was forward-looking and the son who was the reactionary. Ichiro wouldn't even talk with American soldiers, members of the Gentleman's Army. If one came up asking for directions or some simple aid—where could he find a girl, for example—Ichiro would not help him, though his English was good enough for that. If he were forced to answer, he would give purposely detailed and inaccurate directions, or say that many ladies of the night were found in the Dai Ichi Building. That was no way to behave!

Mr. Ohara prided himself upon the fact that he could meet, on their own grounds, any of the representatives of the U. S. Army or Navy and trade stories about Cornell with them. They would leave with a better impression of Japan than they had had before, he was sure. Ichiro contributed nothing to this. Just now, for example, during that delightful call upon his friend the Major, it was he alone who had put everyone at ease in the American way, and it was his son who with his black scowling had almost ruined everything.

"Do not lag behind!" he turned and shouted at his son, regardless of the stares his rudness brought him from the passers-by. "This is
not
a feudal country. You are
not
a retainer. I am
not
a daimyo. Walk here with me."

But still Ichiro would not hurry, and his father had to wait on the sidewalk until they were side by side.

"What did you learn from this morning's interview?" he asked, determinedly pleasant. The catechism was a favorite form of conversation with him. Through it both learned, one how to ask questions, the other how to answer them. Thus a pleasant walk could be made profitable to both parties, even be they father and son.

"I learned that one should take cigarettes when they are offered by Americans though one does not smoke oneself."

This was a pleasant answer. It showed that a mistake had been acknowledged, and this in itself was pleasant, for it meant that the mistake was now dead and could be forgotten. "That is very true," said Mr. Ohara sagely. "But, more generally, in the most important sense, what is it that you learned?"

"I learned that it is politic to forget that we are Japanese when in the company of important foreigners. I learned it is important to imitate them."

This was less satisfactory, because even Mr. Ohara began to suspect sarcasm. Still, what the boy was saying was perfectly true, and perhaps in his own way—a way now fortunately as obsolete as the way of his own grandfather—he himself was right.