This Scorching Earth (3 page)

"But what about the plague of locusts and the darkness over the land?" asked Sonoko. As part of her education she had attended Mrs. Odawara's Bible school. The objection also occurred to her that the Israelites had been brought to Egypt as slaves. "I doubt that Miss Wilson would too much appreciate the—"

"Obviously," Mrs. Odawara interrupted savagely, "we're not going to read
that
part. Besides, since I'm reading it will be in Japanese." She fixed a stern eye on Sonoko, just in case there might be a desperate last-moment refusal.

Sonoko turned her head toward the window, determined to be rude if she possibly could. As she well remembered, Mrs. Odawara read slowly—very slowly—and with maddening emphasis. But her neighbor didn't even notice and went on about the virtues of Christianity and birth control, the iniquities of Shinto and Buddhism.

The girl scarcely listened. She looked out on Tokyo and saw how much it had changed since she'd first begun these early-morning rides. It was like maple trees in autumn: one didn't notice the leaves gradually turning red and yellow until, one day, the mountain was afire with them. So with Tokyo, she had not noticed the new buildings, the new streets, the new people, until now when she looked from the window and suddenly realized that the entire bombed-out stretch of Kawasaki, which she remembered as a plain of ruins, had been completely rebuilt.

At Tokyo Station Mrs. Odawara was still fairly budding with suggestions, but Sonoko with a low bow put some distance between them, and even Mrs. Odawara had to respond to a bow. Thus, each bowing to the other, they moved farther and farther apart, and Sonoko, hidden by the morning crowd, left her companion shouting into the recesses of the station.

Once in the billet she punched the time clock, pleased as always that she was five minutes early, and walked up several flights to Miss Wilson's room. It never occurred to Sonoko to resent the fact that Japanese employees were not allowed to use the elevators, and the signs "Off Limits to all Indigenous Personnel" remained for her but delightful examples of military English at its sonorous and incomprehensible best. The great delicacy with which the signs avoided the nasty word "Japanese" was unfortunately completely lost on her.

At Miss Wilson's door she hesitated and finally decided not to go in. The dear American must have her sleep. Sonoko could just picture her there, so innocent and childlike in her little pajamas, like a large and expensive doll, her eyes shut, sweet dreams painting a smile of cherubic peace on her generous mouth. Almost in tears, Sonoko turned away from the door.

Just on the other side of the door an extremely vivid Bengal tiger crept through the bamboo, its eyes shining yellow-ochre, about to pounce on a half-used box of Kleenex and a hastily tossed brassiere. Against the other wall was a large glass case containing an equally large doll holding a spray of paper wisteria. Around its neck had been hung a sign reading "Off Limits to Allied Personnel." Beside it was a plaster miniature of Mount Fuji, the crater of which was hollowed out for an ashtray. On the wall was a Nikko travel poster in full—too full—color. Hanging above it was a paper dragon, and beneath it a silk slip. Against the other wall hung a large Japanese flag, scribbled all over in ink, the brushed characters faded into the silk. Everyone who'd signed the flag was probably now dead.

In the bed was a long, sheeted figure which coughed miserably and hoarsely. Its long brown hair was half covered by the sheet and the pillow. At the other end a foot was sticking from under the Army blanket. The foot had red toenails. Beside the bed the alarm clock clicked once and, in half a minute, rang. The figure, its head muffled in the sheet, put out an arm and turned it off, then sighed.

Gloria sat up painfully, her eyes still closed, and covered her face with both hands. She got unsteadily to her feet, licked her lips, and walked to the mirror. Her roommate was gone for the weekend, so she didn't bother with her robe. She always slept naked. Now she had a hangover.

At the washstand she took a long drink of cold water and opened her eyes. It was after some effort that she remembered today was Saturday. But where was she? She glanced covertly around the room and realized she was in Japan and not in Indiana. For years she had had an early-morning fear of opening her eyes and seeing the tiny doilied bedroom that was hers in Muncie. She had opened her eyes in all sorts of beds and on all kinds of bedrooms, but still the fear remained.

This morning even the bedroom didn't reassure her. Something was the matter. She began to brush her hair, fifty strokes every morning like
Charm
said, first thing. On the fiftieth stroke she remembered what it was: she couldn't remember what she'd done last night. Dropping the brush, she looked into the mirror and tried hard to remember. Actually she knew, from experience, what it was she'd probably done. She just couldn't remember with whom.

It had been like this every morning for years now. The alarm would drag her safely away from vaguely terrifying dreams about God and Father and Mother and Indiana. Then, washing her face or brushing her teeth or combing her hair, she would suddenly come to realize the extent of her sin. The pattern was dreadfully familiar, having been repeated so many times, but the reality of sin was always naked and new and startling.

Every morning at seven she was at her most vulnerable. Naked and alone, she stood before the mirror, hiding her face in her hands, her guilt lively as a child within her. The bedroom, despite Fuji and the painted tiger, seemed in Indiana, and soon she would force herself downstairs, to her parents, to the poached egg on soggy toast—knowing she was a sinner.

Later, after she had put on her clothes and her face, she would also put on her attitude. Her parents were narrow-minded bigots. If they thought her spawn of the devil, she returned the compliment. After all, she would think, it was just a matter of which Satan you chose.

But now she was still cringing before them as before a whip, and hungry guilt gnawed. It was worse than usual this morning because she couldn't remember her partner in sin of the night before. If she could only identify him, then some of the early-morning shame would rub off on him, but this way... it might be just anyone.

Well, someday it would be too late. There was always the chance that some day precautions would be forgotten and that she would pay, in that humiliating female way, for what she laughingly called, in the bright light of full noon, her very own "American way of life." And perhaps this was the day. Frantically she began gathering up her clothes and, just as frantically, began searching through her memory.

She remembered going to bed, sort of. She also remembered kissing someone—perhaps good-by, she hoped—in a sedan. Before that it had been either the Officers' Club or the American Club, but she couldn't remember which. And whom could it have been with?

Shivering, she put on her robe, then began brushing her hair again, feeling better each time the brush hurt her. She brushed harder and harder, until the hair started coming out. Then she stopped, thinking that one really mustn't carry masochism too far. She looked into the mirror, particularly at her mouth and eyes.

"Well, you'll never be a pretty girl," she said softly, and at once felt better. "But you do have such lovely hair." She always felt better when she could make a joke.

There was a soft knock at the door, but Gloria paid no attention, knowing it would immediately open. It did, and Sonoko, smiling, walked in with clean towels over her arm.

"Good morning, Sonoko," said Gloria brightly, hoping to sound a good deal brighter than she felt.

"Ohayo gozaimasu," said Sonoko. Then: "Hi, there." She always gave a bilingual morning-greeting, the first to show respect for herself and the next a genuflection to all great Americans. Walking to the opposite bed, still made-up, she pointed questioningly to its undisturbed covers.

"Weekend trip. Far, far away," said Gloria, making vaguely distant gestures with her hands.

"So desu ka?" said Sonoko and put the towels on the chair.

Gloria was examining her eyebrows, which she thought looked as though they'd been trampled on. "Sonoko, be a perfect lamb and run out and see if one of the girls can spare me an aspirin. I've got a little headache." Little, my god! Her head was coming off.

Sonoko looked at her and smiled, as though Miss Wilson had recited a poem, then went back to making up the bed.

"Sonoko—asupirin."

"Ah, so," hissed Sonoko, her eyes blank behind her glasses, "asupirin—I catch quick—I hubba-hubba."

She clattered out of the room, leaving Gloria wincing first at the clatter, second at Sonoko's GI English. It always unnerved her when these people used it—which was often. It was as though the Great Buddha at Kamakura had come out with Brooklynese. She slipped her feet into sandals and went down the hall to the shower.

In the shower she suddenly remembered whom it was she'd been out with. It had been Major Calloway, of course. From her own office. Imagine having forgotten! A gentleman of the old school. No passes, only comfortable, cozy talk of the just-you-and-me variety. Much explanation of power politics behind the command, climaxed by the revelation of who really ran the office—the Major himself. All of this interlarded with compliments to Gloria about her dress, her personality, and her soul—in that order. They talked shop for a while; then he told her how lonely he was and what a nice homebody she was. She'd used her little-girl smile and folded her hands. Receiving homage from the peasants was always fun.

The warm water was reviving her memory more and more. They'd had steak and apple pie at the American Club, and in the sedan coming home she'd gotten kittenish and wanted to wade in the Palace moat until he told her it was eight feet deep. In front of the hotel they had kissed good-night, very decorously, using only the lips, and she'd come in and gone to bed. As simple as that! She hadn't done anything at all. Because no one had asked her. Heavens, the Major probably had honorable intentions!

Gloria put her face under the shower. She was awake and clean. Her early-morning fears were already down the drain. She'd scrubbed her long legs and her flat stomach until they were red, and she felt much better for it. Muncie seemed just as far away as it actually was. She was in the Glamorous Orient and was one of the most glamorous things in it. The hot water gave out and put an end to further reflections for the time being.

As she dried, she said to herself very softly: "No, not really beautiful, you know, but interesting looking, awfully interesting." She had no doubt that this was what they—the men—said about her, and she also had a fairly accurate idea of what the women said. Holding the towel, she thought of the hundreds of days she'd been in Japan. Each had begun with a shower, and almost every one had ended with a man. She couldn't even remember them all.

"This is a rare and sober moment, Gloria," she told herself, and tried to remember all the men she'd ever known in her entire life.

In such moments as this she'd often thought of compiling a little history. Nothing too elaborate—just the man's name, the date, and the place, if she could remember it. Single spaced. About a dozen sheets should do it. Then she could subdivide the total and cross-reference it according to the different nationalities. There was the attache at the French Mission, the nice British sergeant at the Union Jack Club, that lovely Italian correspondent. ... Then, after she had divided them, she could take percentages. Of course the Americans would win, but it would be interesting to find out by how much.

But it was hopeless. She had forgotten too many. As she tied her robe she decided that the only immoral thing was her forgetting. This comforted her. That was her only sin, to have forgotten anyone with whom she had shared what one very earnest second lieutenant had once called "the holy happiness." He was Southern and had religion, she remembered; afterwards he'd tried to baptize her with what was left of the whisky.

Well, she'd start a diary soon. That should help her memory. Each entry burned and the ashes stomped on and eaten as soon as written. No lurid details—just the name and her thoughts for the day. What names would not grace its pages! Who would be next?

This was a favorite game, but the odds were hopelessly against her. It never turned out the way she hoped. That gorgeous Depot sergeant was virtuous; the dark correspondent at the War Crime Trials had gone completely Japanese; and the cute little dancer with the USO hadn't liked girls very much. Alas, one always remembered the failures best.