This Scorching Earth (30 page)

There was a rustle of dry leaves, and three Japanese girls, predatory in lipstick and rouge, stalked from bushes, their eyes bright in the light of the street lamps. Two soldiers were approaching. The girls stood on either side of
the
path and waited. The soldiers stopped and talked. Then one, carrying a paper-wrapped parcel, turned around and started back.
The
other came forward. It was an officer.

"Here you are finally!" said Dottie. "My god, but it's cold. You two know each other? Madame Schmidt, this is Major Calloway. He's going to help you."

The three Japanese girls returned to the bushes.

Michael, looking back, saw the Major talking with two women, one of whom he remembered seeing in the office that morning. The Major hadn't said anything about them except that this was the last time he was going to see "Dottie," only Michael had no idea which one was Dottie, and didn't much care. The Major, he gathered, had been having an affair. It was also the last time that he and the Major were to meet unofficially. In one hand he held the package containing the military scrip—for all its looking like play-money, it had a very real value here—which he was to turn over to Mr. Ohara in the theatre that night. It was heavy and probably contained a lot.

His other hand was in his pocket. In it was the note that Haruko had left at the entrance when the MP's refused to let her in.

He decided to walk to Ginza and have a cup of coffee at the PX Snack Bar. Turning his back on the park, he walked slowly back toward the lights of Yuraku-cho. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to think. He also wanted to read the unopened note.

It was only now, late in the day, that he had begun to feel at all responsible for his actions. It was only now, walking toward the bright neon lights and distant crowds, that he began to wonder why he had done what he had. It was almost with surprise that he found himself alone, walking among faces different from his own, hearing snatches of conversation he could barely understand, passing under signs he could almost never read.

The paper-wrapped package was heavy in his hand, and he thought about it first. He was taking part in a crime. He would be, to anyone who knew of it, a criminal. Yet he didn't think of himself as a criminal at all. He had regarded his part in all this merely as a way of making money—and not a very practical way at that. Besides the obvious danger of detection, the reward was by no means commensurate with the energy required. Every one, Japanese and American alike, took his profit, and there were so many middlemen that, as in all badly managed businesses, no one made any real profit, unless maybe it was the Major.

But he did like the feeling of freedom which carrying out the Major's plans gave him. It was like being a member of a gang. It was like knowing the password while everyone else remained in ignorance. It was like belonging to something greater than himself....

Yet, at the same time, he felt he was doing wrong. He again fingered the note that Haruko had left. It was small and just fitted into the palm of his hand, yet it was big enough to change his life. He knew it contained her real answer, and as yet, he had not been able to bring himself to read it.

At Sukiyabashi he suddenly turned around. He didn't want to go to the PX Snack Bar after all. He didn't know where he wanted to go. He raised his eyes. Smoke obscured the distance, and he smelled the autumnal odor of burning leaves, here as piercingly nostalgic as it had ever been at home.

Ahead was the Palace. He had passed it four times already that afternoon. Nearer were the taller buildings, now dark except for electric signs. A bus with "Galveston" on its side passed him, brilliantly lighted inside but empty, the back of the driver a light brown in the reflected light.

By the bridge an old man, standing behind a small table on which burned a single lantern, called to him. Michael stopped, and the old man reached for bis hand. He shook his head, not wanting to have his palm read, though he knew he could have understood the old man's simple prophecies well enough. He'd often seen soldiers, though, who understood not a word of Japanese stand with palms outstretched while this old man, or others like him, traced his finger on the lines of the hand. Neither understood the other, but both were convinced, as though by magic.

As Michael passed the round theater, the marquee lights suddenly switched on, and the audience poured out. It was entirely female, and that meant that one of the all-girl shows—Takarazuka or perhaps the Shochiku Review—was just over. He was surrounded by women—baby girls in furs and schoolgirls in sailor suits, others slightly older in Western clothes or kimonos, married women with children, old ladies (now old enough to wear the bright reds and greens of their childhood) with bent backs and receding lips. Two girls, arm in arm, looked at him over their shoulders, and an old lady, her hair cut short in a shingle, smiled up at him as she pushed through the crowd, forcing her way with a knotted cane.

Under the railway bridge were girls, but these had not been to the theater. They wore short skirts and tight sweaters. Scarves were over their hair, and their lips were brightly painted. Overhead a train pulled noisily into Yuraku-cho Station. The girls stared at him, and one, wearing a garrison cap whistled. Another, her hair frizzed away from her head in the current style, flashed a gold tooth and walked beside him, rubbing his leg with her hip. "Wan dollah," she whispered.

Money—that was all anyone wanted. Why else should this poor girl with her frizzed hair walk so industriously by his side, and why should he be carrying this large, brown-paper package around with him? He walked a bit faster, and the girl dropped behind.

The money was heavy in one hand, Haruko's carefully folded rice-paper note was wet in the other. If he opened one, then he should open the other. As yet he had never opened any of the packages entrusted to him, though he knew what each had contained. He'd always felt that if he didn't see the contents of the package, he would not be so guilty. There was a sheltering anonymity in delivering a package when he didn't know what—or at least how much—it contained. He was not really responsible for the crime so long as he didn't look. This distinction was important to him.

When he was very young he'd thought the same way. He used to steal from the large department stores or the chain groceries, but would never have tolerated any theft from an individual or even a privately-owned business. But the Army was a bit like Kroger's or Macy's: it could stand the loss. In any event, it never occurred to him that the crime itself was wrong, though he readily admitted that the context of the crime could be wrong.

He was also afraid of what he might find in Haruko's note. If the note said she would be at
Madame Butterfly,
then, despite the promise of early morning, she was lost to him, for that would mean she would officially meet her future husband. On the other hand, it might say she was not going, that she was keeping her promise. Michael really didn't know which eventuality he most dreaded. His enthusiasm of the morning had, during the day, grown considerably less now that the day of his marriage was so near, and, beyond that, he had finally begun to realize the consequences of his desires. Over and over again he kept picturing the meeting of Haruko and his parents. It would be terrible beyond belief.

This slackening of enthusiasm for the marriage—after it had been what he had thought of and hoped for so long—troubled Michael, for he realized it was not so much that he had changed his mind as that he had never known his mind at all until now. He still believed he loved Haruko, but he no longer believed he wanted to marry her.

This indecision concerning both his crimes and his love was connected: both were forbidden, both were, in separate ways, punishable. For him, honesty, integrity, and truth had only relative meanings. And so, half-disbelieving the absolutes by which he'd been raised, he had not yet discovered others for himself. It was, however, only at times of indecision, such as this, that he felt the need of them.

Near the Sanshin Building, leaning against the Provost Marshal's window, were two soldiers. One of them carried two smudged and melted Hershey bars in one hand, and in the other he held a grimy package marked with PX tape. From time to time one whistled, and occasionally the other would howl. Neither, however, had much spirit; their faces were dirty, and around their mouths and eyes were lines of fatigue. Michael thought they looked familiar but couldn't remember where he'd seen them. Anyway, all soldiers on the make looked alike.

Further on, Greer Garson, her eyes made Japanese, the bridge of her nose painted entirely away, smiled, her paper face visible and invisible with the blinking of the neon signs around her.

He crossed the street and there was the moat and, beyond it, the medieval guard towers, dimly outlined against the sky, their white walls almost visible, the pine trees around them shining faintly in the lights from passing cars. In the distance the Diet Building was illuminated like a miniature and misshapen Fuji, and in the other direction the TWA sign of the Taisho Building blinked on and off, on and off. Michael stopped by a willow which, from time to time, caught the light of passing headlights in its remaining leaves. He stood by the moat and saw beneath him the dim shapes of great carp.

The package pulled at Michael's arm, and he rested against the tree, his eyes turned toward the darkened Palace. The passing cars, the flickering movie marquees, and the neon signs illuminated his back. He felt the damp paper in his other hand and, with no further hesitation, took it from his pocket and with his finger opened the seal—a bit of red paper, carefully cut out and pasted on.

The odor of the rice paper mingled with a perfume that was Haruko's own. It was the smell of pomade. For this reason, as well as others, the message was particularly painful:

Dear Mike-san:

O, horrid dillema of Japanese girl. O, immortal confrict of will and idea. Can I choice wise between my true Japanese way and new American way? Yes, I can wisely choice. I have painful very much but now am make up mind. I no can married American soldier (you). I marry Ohara Ichiro (student only). Please forgive me, dear Mike-san, when I say you this morning I marry. I say because I make you go so. I am so sorry. But maybe sometime you come see Haruko (soon any day Madame Ohara) because you good friend. It is horrid dillema for Japanese girl but my choose is good, I think. Please never forget you Haruko, horrid Japanese girl. I you no forget—never.

I kiss once more (for time number three in my life—and all in same day) in adieu. Please take care of your healthy. I sorry.

With sincere most cordial regards I remain yours,

Haruko.

Michael looked at the careful letters, drawn with a brush, not her usual fountain pen; looked at the jaunty red seal, so lovingly cut from paper; wondered how many times she'd recopied this note against the chance the MP's would not let her see him; and, for an instant, felt sorrier for Haruko than he had ever felt for anyone in his life. But the feeling quickly changed to an even more real sorrow for himself. He read the note over four or five times, and wanted Haruko as he had never wanted her before.

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the rough bark of the willow. Now that he knew he was not to have her, all his former fears disappeared and he only somewhat vaguely realized that he was not loved and, for all he could understand, never had been.

Only this morning this thought would have been impossible: he was as sure of being loved as he was certain of being fed. Love now revealed itself as being relative, too, like truth and honesty. It too could be interpreted and questioned, and as he realized this, Michael felt disillusioned and quite bitter. He had been struck in the only portion of his moral anatomy that he had neglected to defend.

He opened his eyes, his head against the willow. There, impossible to reach, was the land he had loved, the medieval Palace guarded by giant carp. There, across the moat, was his life as it should have been. Behind him blinked the distractions of life, the brilliant, transient colors, the frenetic energy wasted in a single flickering bulb, the nervous impulse of wavering neon—life as it actually was, confused, aimless, artificial.

In this land of shaking earth, of the downfall of the most splendid hopes of heroes, where the ravages of time were not measured by ruined buildings but by hearts eaten away while yet alive, he knew that nothing further could surprise him by its hopeless incongruity—in this unexpected country there was nothing further to surprise or alarm. And there he leaned against a willow tree, and nearby—he realized for the first time—sat an old and tired Japanese, carrying a sandwich board and made up as Charlie Chaplin, looking at the timeless Palace, the ageless carp.