Days of Infamy (63 page)

The closest theater was showing a Gary Cooper Western.
What can you do?
Kenzo thought again. He gave the ticket-seller two quarters. The theater had long since run out of tickets. Kenzo and Elsie extended their hands. The fellow stamped PAID on the backs of them. They showed the stamps to the man who would have taken tickets if they'd had any. He stood aside and let them through.

Gone from the snack bar were the familiar odors of hot dogs and popcorn. All it sold were lemonade and salted macadamia nuts—another local specialty. Kenzo got some for Elsie and him. They cost more than admission had.

Japanese sailors had taken a lot of the best seats. Kenzo and Elsie sat down near the back of the theater. They wanted to draw as little notice as they could. When they started to eat their snacks, they discovered that macadamia nuts were a lot noisier to chew than popcorn. Crunching, they grinned at each other.

No coming attractions filled the screen when the house lights went down. Theaters on Oahu swapped films back and forth among themselves, but even they didn't think their audiences would get too excited about it. Instead, the projectionist went straight into the newsreel.

That was a Japanese production. It seemed to have American models, but watching it was like looking in a mirror: everything was backwards. The Allies were the bad guys, the armed forces of the Axis the heroes. To blaring, triumphal music, Japanese soldiers advanced in China and Burma. Japanese bombers knocked the stuffing out of towns in Australia and Ceylon. They also pounded a British aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean. “
Banzai!
” the sailors shouted as flames and smoke swallowed the carrier.

Somehow—by submarine?—the Jap newsreel makers had also got hold of some German footage. Men in coal-scuttle helmets dashed forward with artillery support on the Russian front. More German soldiers led bedraggled Englishmen into captivity in North Africa. And U-boats sent ship after ship to the bottom off the East Coast of the USA. Those sinking freighters drew more “
Banzai!
”s from the Japanese sailors, who no doubt had a professional appreciation of their allies' murderous competence.

By the time the newsreel got done, only a Pollyanna would have given a nickel for the Allies' chances. “It's all propaganda,” Kenzo whispered to Elsie. She nodded, but she was blinking rapidly, trying to hold back tears.

Then the Western came on. That was a merciful relief. You knew Gary Cooper would drive off the Indians, save the pretty girl, and live happily ever after. The movie had no subtitles, but the Japanese sailors didn't need any help figuring out what was going on.

They made a noisy audience. Before the war, ushers would have thrown anybody that raucous right out of the theater. Obviously, nobody was going to try throwing the sailors out. Kenzo expected them to root for the Apaches or Comanches or whatever the Indians were supposed to be. But they didn't—they were all for tall, fair, white-skinned Gary Cooper. “Shoot the savages!” they called. “Kill them all!” Cooper earned as many “
Banzai!
”s as the German U-boat captains had.

Elsie couldn't understand the sailors. She did frown when they made an especially loud racket, but that was all. After a while, Kenzo reached out and took her hand. She squeezed his, and squeezed it again whenever the Japanese sailors got uproarious.

“Let's leave before the lights come up,” he said as the six-shooter epic drew to a close.

When they went out into the lobby, Kenzo wasn't so sure it was a good idea. Half a dozen soldiers with the Japanese Army's star on their caps were buying lemonade and macadamia nuts there. But he managed to get Elsie outside before their eyes lit on her.

Both of them blinked against the bright sunshine. “Thank you, Ken,” Elsie said. “It was nice to get out of the house for something besides trying to find enough to eat.”

“Can we do it again?” Kenzo asked, and he felt like jumping in the air when she nodded. He steered her away from the theater, away from trouble. As they started back toward her house, he asked, “Is it really so bad?”

She looked at him. “You're a fisherman. You don't know how lucky you are. Believe me, you don't. Nobody we know who keeps chickens lets them go outside any more. They disappear.”

Kenzo suspected she didn't know anybody who'd kept chickens before December 7. He admitted to himself that he might have been wrong, though. Some
haole
families couldn't seem to forget they'd come off the farm in Iowa. He said, “It's not an easy time for anybody.”

Elsie drew in a breath. She was going to scorch him. He could tell—something like,
What do you know about it, with your dad licking Kita's boots?
But her anger died before it was born. All she said, quietly, was, “I forgot about your mother for a second. I'm sorry.”

Back at the theater, she'd been the one who kept squeezing his hand. Now he squeezed hers. “Thanks for remembering,” he said.

When they got back to her house, they stood on the front porch. She spoke the ritual words: “Thank you for a very nice time.”

He gave her a kiss. With the sun still in the sky, it was a decorous kiss. If her folks were watching—and they probably were—he didn't want them saying she couldn't go out with him any more. But a kiss it definitely was, and he wore a big, silly grin on his face all the way back to the tent in the botanical garden.

C
OMMANDER
M
INORU
G
ENDA
and Commander Mitsuo Fuchida met in front of Iolani Palace. They bowed politely to each other. Genda grinned wryly. “Here we are again,” he said.

“
Hai
.” Fuchida spoke with amused resignation: “Maybe we'll have better luck this time.”

“Well, it couldn't be much worse,” Genda said.

The Hawaiian and Japanese flags fluttered over the palace as the two Navy officers climbed the stairs. Japanese guards at the top of the stairs saluted and stepped aside to let Genda and Fuchida in. They climbed the koa-wood interior stairway and went into the library. Their Army counterparts, Lieutenant Colonels Minami and Murakami, were waiting for them behind that Victorian battleship of a desk. The Army men looked no more hopeful about the coming interview than Genda felt.

“We'll try it again, that's all,” Murakami said.

Izumi Shirakawa scurried into the library next. As usual, the local man looked nervous and unhappy about translating for the occupiers. Odds were he sympathized with the other side. If he did his job and otherwise kept his mouth shut, no one would have to ask him any questions about that. He
was
a good interpreter. Genda knew enough English to be sure of that.

A soldier stuck his head into the room. Saluting, he said, “The prince is here.”

“Send him up,” Genda replied. With another salute, the soldier disappeared.

As soon as Minoru Genda saw the man who called himself Prince Stanley Owana Laanui, his hopes began to rise. The swag belly, the double chin, the shrewd eyes with dark patches beneath them—all spoke of a man who thought of himself first and everyone and everything else later if at all. That was exactly the sort of man Japan needed right now.

Genda spoke to the interpreter: “Tell his Highness we are glad to see him and pleased to make his acquaintance.”

After Shirakawa turned his words into English, the Hawaiian princeling muttered, “Took you long enough to get around to me.” Shirakawa politely shaded his translation of that. Genda followed it even so.

And Stanley Owana Laanui wasn't wrong, even if he also wasn't particularly polite. It
had
taken the Japanese a while to get around to him. The reason was
simple: he had a much more tenuous connection to the old Hawaiian royal family than did Abigail Kawananakoa and several other men and women. But they'd all declined to be involved in reviving the monarchy. He was the best candidate left.

“We are sure you are a man who thinks first of your country and only afterwards of yourself,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. Genda was sure of exactly the opposite, but hypocrisy was an essential part of this game.

“Yes, of course,” the Hawaiian nobleman said, preening a little. In fact, he had more Anglo-Saxon blood than native Hawaiian. That was not necessarily an impediment; it was true of quite a few in the Hawaiian community. Some so-called Americans, prominent ones included, were also part Hawaiian. Intermarriage had run rampant here.

A bigger problem was Laanui's personality. If he were rendered for oil, he could go a long way toward replacing what the Japanese had destroyed in the third wave of attacks on December 8. (People here spoke of it as December 7, but Genda and the strike force had stayed on Tokyo time throughout.) Genda glanced at the photographic portraits of distinguished nineteenth-century Hawaiians on the walls of the library. Judging by Stanley Laanui, interbreeding hadn't been altogether for the best.

But, inadequate as he was, he was what the Empire of Japan had to work with at the moment. Genda said, “You must be sorry, your Highness, that the United States has occupied these islands for so long and robbed them of their independence.”

“Yes, that is very unfortunate,” agreed Laanui, who'd probably still been making messes in his drawers when the Americans put an end to the Hawaiian monarchy, and who no doubt hadn't lost a minute of sleep over what had happened from that day to this.

“You can help us set a historic injustice to rights,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. He was smoother and more polished than his Army colleague.

Lieutenant Colonel Minami proved as much by adding, “You can give the Americans a good boot in the ass.”

Izumi Shirakawa looked pained. “How am I supposed to translate that?” he asked plaintively.

“Just the way I said it,” Minami snapped. Sighing, the interpreter obeyed.

And a broad smile spread over Stanley Owana Laanui's greasy face. “By God, that's just what I want to do!” he said. Genda and Fuchida exchanged
faintly disgusted glances. Until the Japanese came, the useless noble's main goal in life had surely been to suck up to the Big Five in every way he could.

“You could give the islands a powerful symbol of their restored freedom,” Genda said. What he was thinking was,
I hope I can get through this without being sick. It's worse than the North Atlantic in January
.

“That would be good. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sounds like a real smart idea to me,” Laanui said.

Now Genda eyed him in some surprise. That the nobleman knew the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere existed proved he wasn't as dumb as he looked. But if he spoke well of it . . . “Hawaii will have its proper role to play, I assure you,” Lieutenant Murakami said: a promise that promised nothing. Hawaii's proper place would be whatever Japan said it was. Would Stanley Laanui see that?

If he did, he didn't show it. He said, “The Americans have had their boot heels on us for too long. It's time for a change.” If that meant,
It's high time to put a crown on my head
—well, what was the point of this exercise if not putting a crown on his head?

Commander Fuchida said, “You do understand, your Highness, that the restored Kingdom of Hawaii would still find it advisable to cooperate closely with the Empire of Japan?” That meant,
You do understand you'll be a puppet?
Genda wanted to applaud. He couldn't have put it so delicately himself.

Stanley Owana Laanui nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. He might have been talking about the weather. “After all, you came all this way just to liberate us.”

Was he an idiot after all, or only an extravagant hypocrite? Genda would have bet on the latter, but how much did it really matter? Either way, he was a tool, and Japan needed a tool right now. Genda said, “Well, your Highness, before long your subjects will start calling you ‘your Majesty.' ”

“
Yes
.” It was a whisper, Laanui talking to himself, but Genda heard the harsh hunger in it. Idiot or hypocrite, this man would definitely do.

Lieutenant Colonel Murakami must have thought the same thing, for he said, “We will arrange your coronation at a time convenient to you and to the Japanese Empire. I hope this is agreeable?”

“Oh, yes,” Laanui repeated, and nodded once more. Then he seemed to take courage, adding, “It could have happened a while ago if only you'd decided to talk to me before you had anything to do with those other people.”

Those people with better claims
, he meant, though he probably didn't think
of it in those terms. No, he was bound to be the hero in his own story—as who was not? Minoru Genda was sad for him. Even with a crown on his head, he was most unlikely to be a hero in anyone else's.

That didn't matter, though, not to anyone but Laanui. Japan would do what it needed to do with him—and would do what it needed to do to him. He might have done better to decline the honor, as other Hawaiian nobles had before him. He might have . . . except he could no more help rising to it than a trout could help rising to a fly. What did a trout know of hooks? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“I think we have an agreement here—your Majesty,” Genda said. He gave Stanley Owana Laanui a seated bow. Fuchida, Murakami, and Minami followed suit. Maybe the Hawaiian thought that was the ceremony they would have shown the Emperor. If so, he only proved himself an ignorant trout indeed. The Emperor was hedged round with degrees of ceremony no other mortal even approached.