Days of Infamy (61 page)

“How did it go?” Susie asked when he got back to the apartment.

“Pretty well,” he answered, and displayed a
mahimahi
he hadn't traded. It would be tasty tonight. He wanted to tell her he'd passed the word that she was safe. He wanted to, but he didn't. If he couldn't keep from running his own mouth, how could he expect her to manage it? Even if he couldn't talk, he'd done a good deed. Some people said the best good deeds were the ones you didn't talk about. Oscar wasn't convinced. As far as he could see, this one was just the most frustrating.

J
IRO
T
AKAHASHI LET
his sons sail the
Oshima Maru
back toward Kewalo Basin. By now, Hiroshi and Kenzo handled the sampan's rig nearly as well as he did. When they were working, they didn't have time to grumble that he'd be taking fish to the Japanese consulate once they came ashore.

Actually, they'd almost given up nagging him about going to the consulate. He was, after all, a Japanese citizen. And he was at least as stubborn as
his two blockheaded sons. They weren't about to make him change his mind. The more they tried, the harder he dug in his heels.

By now, even they seemed to have figured that out. As Kenzo swung the sail about to change tacks on the way back to Honolulu, Hiroshi changed tacks on the argument. “Father-
san
, you really shouldn't let the occupiers use you for propaganda,” he said.

“Propaganda?” To Jiro, it was nothing but a fancy word. “A reporter asked me questions. I answered them. So what?”

“If the United States comes back to Hawaii, people will remember things like that. They won't like them,” Hiroshi said.

“If
that's
all you're worrying about . . .” Jiro snorted. “The United States isn't coming back. These islands are Japanese now. They're going to stay that way.”

“Are you sure?” Hiroshi asked. “What about the American bombers? What about that submarine?”

“What about them?” Jiro said. “We bombed San Francisco. Our submarines have shelled the mainland. It evens out. We won't put soldiers over there, and I don't think they can put soldiers over here.”

“We?” But Hiroshi let it go. They'd quarreled over that ever since the day the war started. Jiro's
we
focused on his homeland and the Emperor, Hiroshi and Kenzo's on the country where they were born.

Kewalo Basin was getting close. Kenzo made a short tack, then a longer one, and slid into the basin as smoothly as Jiro could have done it. The sampan glided up to a quay. Hiroshi hopped up onto the planking and made the boat fast.

The Takahashis weighed the bulk of the catch on the scales now supervised by Japanese soldiers. The soldiers paid them by weight, as usual. With all food so scarce on Oahu, the finest
ahi
was worth no more—officially—than trash fish Jiro would have thrown back into the sea before the war.

Officially. But Jiro and Hiroshi and Kenzo didn't carry trash fish away from Kewalo Basin. Oh, no. What they carried away for “personal use” was the best of what they'd taken that day:
ahi
and
mahimahi
. They'd eat some, sell or trade some, and Jiro would take some to the Japanese consulate, as he'd got into the habit of doing.

“Waste of fish,” Kenzo said as Jiro headed up Nuuanu Avenue. “Waste of money, too.”

Jiro stopped and scowled at his younger son. “You mind your business,” he
said angrily. “You mind it, you hear me? You go sniffing round after that
haole
girl, and then you go telling
me
what to do?
Ichi-ban baka!
” He spat on the sidewalk in scorn.

He wondered whether Kenzo would come back at him as hotly as he sometimes did. If that happened, Hiroshi would pitch in on his brother's side, and Jiro would have to start screaming at both of them. Back in Japan, he told himself, such a thing would never happen. Back in Japan, youngsters respected their elders. He conveniently forgot that one of the reasons he'd been eager to come to Hawaii was so he wouldn't have to bang heads with his father any more.

But this argument collapsed instead of going on to the screaming stage. Kenzo wasn't fair-skinned to begin with. All his time on the
Oshima Maru
had browned him further. Even so, he turned red. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath and turned away from Jiro.

Ha!
Jiro thought.
My shot went home like a torpedo hitting an American battleship
. He went his way, while his sons went theirs. He wanted to do some more yelling at Kenzo for sniffing after a
haole
girl
now
, of all the idiotic times. Just as he wouldn't listen to Kenzo, though, his son was unlikely to heed him.

Reiko and I should have arranged marriages for both of them
. It would have happened like that in Japan. Here? Well, it might have. But the American nonsense about falling in love and living happily ever after had a grip on a lot of young Japanese in Hawaii. Who could guess whether Hiroshi and Kenzo would have gone along? No one would ever know now. That seemed plain enough.

Up the street Jiro went. The Rising Sun fluttered above and in front of the consulate. As usual, the soldiers standing guard outside both teased Jiro about the fish he'd brought and admired them. Before they went into the Army, they'd mostly been farmers or fishermen themselves—men of his own class. He laughed at their gibes, and sassed them back the same way. They understood one another.

After they got done with those friendly rituals, the soldiers passed him on to the men inside. That was a different business. Those people wore Western-style suits and had fancy educations—you could tell by the way they talked. Jiro spoke to them with careful politeness. He didn't want to seem like some backwoods buffoon.

Consul Kita was in a meeting. A secretary took Jiro to meet Chancellor
Morimura. With his long face, his large eyes, and especially with his missing finger joint, Morimura always put Jiro in mind of a samurai of old. His sharp suit somehow strengthened the impression instead of detracting from it.

As always, the young chancellor admired Jiro's catch.
His
good manners seemed natural, effortlesss, not the product of care and a constant struggle against saying the wrong thing. He asked where Jiro had taken the
Oshima Maru
today and how the fishing had gone. And then he asked, “And did you notice anything out of the ordinary while you were at sea, Takahashi-
san
?”

“Out of the ordinary?” Jiro frowned. “I don't think so, sir. Can you tell me what you've got in mind?”

“Well . . .” Morimura steepled his fingers. With that missing joint, one pair didn't meet, so the steeple would have a leak when it rained. “There are reports that another American submarine has been sniffing around—rumors, really, more than reports. Did you see one today?”

“No, sir. I didn't,” Jiro answered without hesitation. “I would have said so right away if I had.”

“All right. I thought you would.” Morimura pulled a map from one of the desk drawers. “And you were . . . here, more or less?” He used a pencil for a pointer to show just where the sampan had gone. Jiro was so impressed, he had to remind himself to nod. The consular official went on, “What time would that have been? Do you remember?”

“We got there late in the morning, and we fished till early afternoon. Then we sailed back to Kewalo Basin,” Jiro said. “We made a short trip to keep the fish fresh—not so easy now that ice is hard to get—and we didn't want to spend a night on the sea. Why, sir, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Negative information isn't as good as positive, but it's better than nothing,” Morimura replied. “Now at least I know one place where this submarine, if there was a submarine, wasn't.”

“It didn't shoot at the island here—I would have heard about that,” Jiro said. “From what you tell me, it didn't torpedo any ships. Why would a submarine come at all, if it didn't do any of those things?”

“To spy,” the young man from Japan told him. “Submarines and flying boats—those are what the Americans can use. And they do. They keep sneaking around. I don't know if there really was a submarine this time, but there could have been.”

“I see.” Jiro wasn't altogether comfortable with what he saw. Why would the United States spy on Hawaii if it wasn't thinking about taking back the islands? And if it was, that meant his sons were right. Few fathers faced a more depressing prospect than that.

Some of what he thought must have shown on his face. Tadashi Morimura smiled at him. “Don't worry, Takahashi-
san
. If the Americans try to stick their long snouts back here again, we'll bloody those snouts for them and send them home.”

“Good!” The word was an exhalation of relief. Jiro hadn't done badly under the Americans—he'd done better here than he would have in Japan. But not only did he remain loyal to the country that had given him birth, an American triumph and a Japanese defeat would be his sons' triumph and his defeat. He didn't care to think about that.

Morimura smiled again. “You are a true Japanese,” he said. “One of those times when you visit us, you must record your feelings about your mother country.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” replied Jiro, who wasn't quite sure what he meant by that. Tadashi Morimura smiled once more.

W
HENEVER THE
J
AP
commandant strutted into the POW camp that had swallowed Kapiolani Park, trouble followed. Fletch Armitage had seen that was an unbreakable rule. The local Jap who scurried along in the commandant's wake and did his translating for him reminded Fletch of nothing so much as a lapdog at the heel of some plump matron.

The prisoners assembled in neat rows. Fletch thought about how easy mobbing that arrogant Jap and tearing him to pieces would be. The POWs could do it. But the price! It wouldn't be just the soldiers with submachine guns who extracted it, or even the guards with machine guns in the towers out beyond the barbed wire. That slaughter would be bad enough. Afterwards, though . . . If the Japs didn't massacre everybody in the camp afterwards to avenge the miserable son of a bitch who ran it, Fletch would have been amazed.

The rest of the POWs must have thought the way he did. No one charged the commandant as he got up onto a table so he could look down on the sea
of tall American prisoners. He barked something in Japanese. Of necessity, Fletch had started picking up a few words of the conquerors' language. He couldn't follow the commandant's harangue, though.

“You prisoners have benefited too long from the mercy and leniency of the Empire of Japan,” the interpreter said. Even among the cowed throng of POWs, that produced a stir and a murmur. If this was mercy, Fletch didn't want the Japs getting mad at him. He was filthy. He stank to high heaven. He didn't know how much weight he'd lost, but guessed it was somewhere between thirty and forty pounds. His shirt hung on him like a tent. He could tie a fancy bow in the rope that held up his pants. The only reason he wished he had his belt back was so he might try to eat the leather.

“This mercy and leniency will end,” the interpreter went on. “Many of you—too many of you—do not do a lick of work. And yet you still expect to be fed. You want to live off the fat of the land, and—”

After that, the interpreter had to stop. The murmurs grew to raucous jeers. Fletch gleefully joined in. With so many men mouthing off, the Japs couldn't shoot all of them. He hoped they couldn't, anyway.

Those jeers were enough to make even the commandant pause. He spoke in a low voice to the local Jap, no doubt demanding to know what the obstreperous Americans were saying. He didn't like what the translator told him. He shouted angrily and put a hand on the hilt of his samurai sword. Then he spoke again, this time with harsh purpose in his voice.

“You prisoners will be silent. You will be punished for this outrageous outburst. How dare you behave so, you who have forfeited all honor? This whole camp will go without food for three days because of your intolerable action,” the interpreter said. “At the end of that time, the commandant will return to see whether you have come to your senses.”

Out strode the commandant, the local Jap again in his wake. He was as good—or as bad—as his word. Three days with nothing to eat would have been no fun for men in good condition. For those already on the edge of starvation . . . They were the worst three days of Fletch's life. He didn't go quite without food: on the last day he caught a gecko about as long as his thumb, skewered it on a stick, roasted it over a tiny fire in his tent, and ate it scales, claws, guts, and all. It should have been disgusting. He remembered it as one of the most delicious things he'd ever tasted.

Several men quietly died during the enforced fast. Odds were they would
have died soon anyhow. So Fletch told himself, watching two prisoners drag an emaciated corpse toward the burying ground. He half envied the dead man, who at least wasn't suffering any more. And the poor, sorry son of a bitch didn't look a whole hell of a lot skinnier than he was.

The commandant spoke again to the assembled POWs before the kitchens reopened. The warning was clear as a kick in the teeth: if the men gave him a hard time, maybe the kitchens
wouldn't
reopen. By then, Fletch was almost beyond lessons. Standing at attention took not only all his strength but also all his concentration. He didn't have much concentration left; he felt dizzy and light-headed.