This Scorching Earth (39 page)

The chariot of Elija—Mr. Ohara often thought in Biblical metaphors remembered from the days of his impressionable Christianity—surely the chariot of Elija was no less glorious that this limousine. Except for one thing: he hadn't received his dollars. Still, one couldn't expect to understand big business all in one evening. Now that things looked so bright, however, he did hope nothing would go wrong.

From the back seat Ichiro saw a group of students standing half-hidden by the shadow of the marquee. One of them was Yamaguchi. He turned quickly away so the student would not see him, but at the same time he hoped with some amusement that he was looking, for Yamaguchi's seeing him in a chauffeured limousine would seem to justify every one of his former suspicions and accusations.

But Yamaguchi, looking unusually glum, was apparently seeing nothing. He was staring at the pavement and looked very much like a dirty little bird caught in the rain.

As the car pulled away from the curb Ichiro felt Haruko beside him. She had touched his hand, as she had when they were children; feeling very proud, he slyly put his other hand on top of hers.

Both her parents studiously ignored them and looked out of the windows.

As the limousine moved away, Comrade Yamaguchi looked up. He had seen Ichiro all along, but now one more capitalist made little difference to him. He was a miserable failure, and more than that, he was not alone in this opinion. The other students, all former comrades, looked at him suspiciously, and the girl with the cannibal-frizzed hair was whispering in shrill syllables. The Japanese, he began to realize, did not make good communists.

And he had been one of the worst. His first command had been an utter failure. And when it should have been so glorious—stench bombs, a false fire-alarm, and he would have been making a small speech over the shambles of
Madame Butterfly
scenery. But it was all ruined now: at the last minute the demonstration had been canceled, and this hardy little group had stood in the cold outside the theatre all during the performance waiting for further orders. It was the frizzed young lady who had brought them, and by overhearing her whispers, Yamaguchi was at last able to piece together what had happened.

He had been denounced and reported to the Committee as having ideas inimical to the aims of his student organization. And tonight there was to be a disciplinary meeting. He didn't yet know what the precise charges would be, but he did overhear that he had been seen talking with Ohara, a most suspicious character, and that, on the whole, Yamaguchi's character was regarded as "controversial"—a damning description within his organization.

But, worse than anything else, they had discovered his books. They had gone through the tiny room in the boarding house where he lived and had confiscated his Emerson and O. Henry, his Longfellow and his Melville. They had taken them all away, and soon he would have to account for his possession of them. And he didn't know what to say other than that he liked them. The Committee was, he realized, quite stupid, but even they weren't stupid enough to believe any "know the enemy" explanation.

Now, for the first time, he really began to wonder about what had happened to him. Standing in the cold, the wind at his neck, he realized that until now no enthusiasm of his had ever been questioned, none of his interests had been called to account. He had never had to apologize for himself. And he realized that he could not do it, that he wasn't all black and white, and that what he could say in his defense would seem the most damaging of admissions.

He wanted to run away, but his ex-comrades were regarding him with veiled suspicion and would probably run after him. They were waiting for the truck which was to carry them to the meeting, which would carry him to his judgment. He thought with sudden affection of Michéle Morgan and a really nice pre-War German airmail stamp, in mint condition.

He looked in either direction. The street lights faded endlessly into the distance. There was no escape for him.

"Special call for Tadashi's number," said the blond lieutenant on night duty at the Motor Pool as he turned from the routing chart.

The Nisei sergeant raised his eyebrows. "What gives?" he asked.

The lieutenant looked at the trip ticket. "A Mrs. Dorothy Ainsley, to be precise."

"Probably forgot her glasses or something and will expect to find 'em," said the sergeant. "These DAC's kill me—go around taking the driver's number, checking license plates. That all they got to do?"

"Probably," said the lieutenant, giving the ticket to the sergeant.

The sergeant went into the next room, where the drivers were warming their hands around a stove. "One more, Tadashi," said the sergeant. Although he knew Japanese well enough, he never used it if he could help it. "O. K., one more, you go, yes? You hubba-hubba one more, O. K.? Be careful. You go Mrs. Ainsley. Understand. Bad Mrs. Ainsley. This morning—remember? DR. One more DR, and you go right out of Motor Pool. Understand? O.K. Mrs. Ainsley pretty, no?"

The sergeant laughed, and Tadashi, smiling weakly, stood up. "O. K. Hayaku!" said the sergeant.

Tadashi buttoned his collar and went out to his sedan. It was cold, and he shivered, the trip ticket in his hand.

Again the ticket said Naka Hotel. He hoped Mrs. Ainsley would be more punctual than she had been that morning. As he drove through the empty streets, he told himself that if she wasn't in the lobby, he would turn right around and go back and she'd have to get herself another driver. The sergeant hadn't told him he'd been requested by number.

He was pleasantly surprised to find his passenger outside waiting for him—at least he presumed the tall woman in the fur coat who walked to the car as though expecting him was his passenger, the Mrs. Ainsley who had failed to show up that morning. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he didn't bother to try and recollect—after all, all Americans look rather alike.

He opened the back door, and with a gracious smile she seated herself inside. Behind the wheel, Tadashi awaited instructions. The lady in the back seat said nothing, so he turned slightly, took off his cap, and said: "Where, please?"

"Oh, you speak English," said the lady.

"I no speak English," said Tadashi, making a small negative sign with his hand before his face.

"Nonsense. You're doing very well."

"Where, please?"

"Oh, heavens, I don't know. Why not go to... to Ueno? Yes, that's it."

"Ueno?" asked Tadashi, a bit surprised. No Americans lived near there.

"Yes, Ueno," said the lady more positively.

Perhaps she wanted to go to the railway station there, thought Tadashi. He started the sedan.

Behind him the lady tried to light a cigarette, but her hand trembled. "Oh, really!" she said.

Tadashi turned his profile. "What, please?"

"Nothing, nothing," she said, and looked at the line of his neck, black against the approaching lights. She leaned back in the seat and smelled his clean rice smell which mingled with her perfume and the dusty odor of the cushions, his hair pomade and the gritty odor of oil and grease. She bit her lips and closed her eyes....

Gloria had waited in the empty, darkening lobby until they actually closed the theater. But neither the Major nor Michael came back. Lonely and baffled, feeling completely left out, she marched back to the hotel. She wanted a bath: it seemed she had been wearing these same clothes for a week instead of a day. But she didn't want to go to her empty room. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she saw that a couple was kissing in one corner. She looked away, tried to feel virtuously disgusted, and only succeeded in feeling envious. This was no longer for her. Nevertheless, she quietly took a seat in the lobby from which she could secretly watch the couple.

No, not tonight, nor any other night, she remembered. She was going to have to watch herself closely. The only trouble with her was that she wanted her cake, and then tried to eat it too. Well, if she were still stupid enough to want to be virginal Miss Dew Blossom from Muncie—and she apparently did want just that—then she'd just have to watch her step. No more casual officers, and no more Private Richardsons either.

Watching the man and the girl on the sofa, she again felt that familiar sensation of abandoned despair. Her father, during one of the few times he ever talked with her, and on one of the even rarer occasions when he tried to tell her a little about the more intimate relations between the sexes, had informed her that although men often looked at women and wanted them, women never looked at men that way. With women love—that kind of love—was all highly intellectualized, and they never thought with their bodies the way men did. Thus, for women, a handsome male form meant nothing—it was only their other qualities, mainly their souls, that counted. Really, Father, thought Gloria, her eyes caressing the recumbent male, you should see me now.

With sudden irritation she ground out her cigarette and stood up. Now was the time for bed she decided—a nice, cold, empty bed, to be nice and fresh for that damn party tomorrow morning. But as she walked toward the elevator she knew she would have to pass the telephone booth, knew too that, despite all her good intentions, she would not go past it. She would stop there.

It was almost midnight, and she would do what she had been thinking of doing for almost twelve hours—perhaps longer. At seven that morning the thought would have been impossibly cruel, insanely wicked. But it wasn't seven now. It was the mysterious, Oriental hour of midnight.

She had picked up the phone and called the Motor Pool.

Later, waiting in front of the billet, she'd had time to think the whole thing over and regret it. But, still, it was a lark of sorts and, though doomed to failure—she was sure of that—it would still be worth the kicks.

She got no kicks standing in the cold outside the door, watching a group of girls return to the billet, laughing on the arms of civilians, sergeants, lieutenants, majors. She wrapped her fur coat around her and tried to ignore them, but that was difficult. How, she wondered, had she so successfully remained unaware of their glances up to now, of their sarcastic smiles, their half-pointed fingers and swiftly whispered words?

Now she looked straight ahead and ran the gauntlet of their derision. "Go on—cast the first stone!" she said under her breath, and tried to be the great lady, lovely, unapproachable, on business of her own at midnight in a fur coat, leaning against a brick wall.

The slamming of the billet door cut off their laughter, and Gloria shivered with the cold. Well, at least she had been right all along. These people were fools—like her parents. And since they were so foolish they could be led to believe her especially virtuous. They could be made to think twice before so much as swearing in her presence. And they would too! She would make her plans later—tomorrow.

Right now she was engaged in more practical thoughts. She would simply
have
to be more circumspect, or else she could cut herself off completely from the world of laughter and mockery. After all, she'd been limiting herself rather severely, rather artificially, in entertaining only the Occupation personnel. There was the entire Japanese nation at her feet, as it were. A whole new world existed just pleading to be taken advantage of. And there was no liaison between Japanese and American, no channel for rumors, at least not on the level at which she intended working. Little Miss Ambassador—that's what she'd be.

She had never been one of those who found Japanese males unattractive. To be sure, there was a high percentage of short little men with glasses and bad teeth. But she'd been around—she'd seen students who looked like Genghis Khan, lumber workers built like Greek statuary, bus boys as beautiful as Polynesians, pedicab men with the straight, hard faces of extraordinarily handsome prize fighters. Yes, she'd been around all right.

"There, see!" she said to herself, "life is just beginning." At once she felt much better.

And, beside all this, adventure too. She now admitted she'd never been particularly excited by the prospect of a lieutenant or a major. The outcome was always known. But this would be different. She felt so entirely the aggressor and knew that the outcome was so entirely in her own hands that her palms became wet with anticipation.

Just then the sedan appeared. She worried for fear the driver might have gone off duty, but, no, it was the same driver she and the Major had had that afternoon. As she stepped into the car she remembered having seen him someplace else and then remembered that he was Dottie Ainsley's driver after all. She'd seen him that morning. Perhaps it had been this subconscious memory which had led her to give Dottie's name when ordering the sedan to which she herself was not entitled. Well, well, wasn't it a small world after all... and the car door slammed, separating her still further from the girls inside the billet.