Hawaii (151 page)

"Yes."

"They all in Italy?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence, broken by the admiral, who said, "I got one son there. I worry about him all the time."

"I am worried about my daughter," the stubborn little man replied.

"And if she marries a white man, her four brothers won't be able to live down the disgrace?"

"Never."

"What do you want Admiral Nimitz to do?"

"Send Lieutenant Jackson away."

"He will go away this afternoon," the admiral said.

"May God bless Admiral Nimitz," Kamejiro said.

"That's an odd phrase," the admiral said. "You a Christian?"

"I'm Buddhist. But my children are all Christian."

When Kamejiro had been led outside, happy at the ease with which he had found a solution to his grave problem, the admiral shrugged his shoulders and said, "We'll beat the little bastards, but we'll never understand them."

Reiko-chan never saw Lieutenant Jackson again. In conformance with secret and high-priority orders he flew out of Hawaii that night, exiled to Bougainville, where, less than a week later, a body of Japanese infiltrators slipped through the jungle, attacked the headquarters in which he was serving, and lunged at him with bayonets. Knowing nothing of guns, the young lawyer tried to fight them off with a chair, but one Japanese soldier parried the chair, drove his bayonet through the lieutenant's chest, and left him strangling to death in the mud.

No one told Reiko that her lawyer was dead�there was no reason why anyone should�and she assumed that he had been fooling with her as men will, and that he had gone to other duties. When her father's barbershop had to close, because cautious Japanese families would not allow their daughters to work under a man who did not even protect his own daughter from the disgrace of a haole love affair, Reiko went to work in another barbershop, and sometimes when a naval officer came in for a haircut, and she placed the towel about his neck and saw the railroad-track insignia on his shirt, she would for a moment feel dizzy. At other times, when brash enlisted

men tried to feel her legs as she cut their hair, she would jab their hands with her scissors, as her father had taught her to do, but even as she did so, she felt confused by the great passion that can exist between men and women.

The forced closing of Kamejiro Sakagawa's barbershop was actually a considerable blessing to the family, although at the time it was not so recognized, for in the first weeks the stalwart little dynamiter could find no work other than caring for lawns, a job he did not like. Then the Okinawan restaurant keeper Senaga sent a messenger saying that he needed a busboy at a new restaurant he was opening in Waikiki, where a great many soldiers and sailors went, and he would like Sakagawa-san to take the job. Kamejiro's eyes blazed as he stared at the messenger. "If Senaga had been a friend, he would never have allowed a Japanese girl to talk with a haole in his restaurant. Tell him no." But to his wife, Kamejiro swore, "I would rather die of starvation than work for an Okinawan." Then, from a totally unexpected source, the Sakagawas received the financial aid which established them as one of the stronger and more prosperous Japanese families in Hawaii. It all happened because early in 1943 - Hong Kong Kee had made a speech.

The inflamed oratory which provoked the loan took place before the Japanese boys of the Two-Two-Two had become the popular heroes they were kter to be. When Hong Kong spoke, Japanese were still suspect, and a haole committee, seeking to whip up patriotism for war bonds, prevailed upon him to give a short speech explaining why the Chinese could be trusted and the Japanese could not. Since the committee of patriots contained many of the leaders of Honolulu, Hong Kong was naturally flattered by the invitation and spent some time in working out a rather fiery comparison of Chinese virtues as opposed to Japanese duplicity. Then, when he got on the speakers' platform, he became intoxicated by the crowd and deviated from his script, making his remarks rather more inclusive than he had planned. "The Japanese war lords have oppressed China for many years," he cried, "and it is with joy in our hearts that we watch the great American forces driving the evil Japanese from places where they have no right to be." He was astonished at the constant applause which the mass meeting threw back at him, and thus emboldened, he extended his remarks to include the Japanese in Hawaii. It was a very popular speech, sold a lot of war bonds, and got Hong Kong's picture in the papers under the caption "Patriotic Chinese Leader Flays Japs."

The affair was a big success except in one house. In her small, ugly clapboard shack up the Nuuanu, Hong Kong's grandmother, then ninety-six years old, listened appalled as one of her great-granddaughters read aloud the account of Hong Kong's oratory. "Bring him here at once!" she stormed, and when the powerful banker stood in her room she sent the others away, and when the door was closed she rose, stalked over to her grandson and slapped him four times in

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the face. "You fool!" she cried. "You fool! You damned, damned fool!"

Hong Kong fell back from the assault and covered his face to prevent further slappings. Wheni he did this his fiery little grandmother began pushing him in the chest, calling him all the while "You fool" until he stumbled backward against a chair and fell into it. Then she stopped, waited for him to drop his hands, and stared at him sorrowfully. "Hong Kong," she said, "yesterday you were a great fool."

"Why?" he asked weakly.

She showed him the paper, with his picture grinning out from a semicircle of haole faces, and although she could not read, she could remember what her great-granddaughter had reported, and now she repeated the phrases with icy sarcasm: "We cannot trust the Japanese!" She spat onto her own floor. "They are deceitful and criminal men." Again she spat. Then she threw the paper onto the floor and kicked it, for her fury was great, and when this was done she shouted at her grandson, "What glory did you get from standing for a few minutes among the haoles?"

"I was asked to represent the Chinese community," Hong Kong fumbled.

"Who appointed you our representative, you stupid man?"

"I thought that since we are fighting Japan, somebody ought to . . ."

"You didn't think!" Nyuk Tsin stormed. "You have no brains to think. For a minute's glory, standing among the haoles, you have destroyed every good chance the Chinese have built up for themselves in Honolulu."

"Wait a minute, Auntie!" Hong Kong protested. "That's exactly what I was thinking about when I agreed to make the speech. It was a chance to make the Chinese look better among the haoles who run the islands."

Nyuk Tsin looked at her grandson in amazement. "Hong Kong?" she gasped. "Do you think that when the war is over, the haoles will continue to run Hawaii?"

"They have the banks, the newspapers . . ."

"Hong Kong! Who is doing the fighting? What men are in uniform? Who is going to come back to the islands ready to take over the political control? Tell me, Hong Kong."

"You mean the Japanese?" he asked weakly.

"Yes!" she shouted, her Hakka anger at its peak. "That's exactly who I mean. They are the ones who will win this war, and believe me, Hong Kong, when they take control they will remember the evil things you said yesterday, and every Kee in Honolulu will find life a little more difficult because of your stupidity."

"I didn't mean that . . ."

"Be still, you stupid man. After the war when Sam wants to build a store, who will sign the papers giving him the permit? Some Japanese. If Ruth's husband wants to run a bus line, who will give

the permit? Some Japanese. And they will hate you for what you said yesterday. Already your words have been filed in their minds."

The shadow of a government building where all the permit signers were Japanese fell heavily upon Hong Kong, and he asked, "What ought we to do?" It was symptomatic of the Kees that when one of them took a bold step, he said of himself, "I did this," but when corrective measures had to be taken, he always consulted Wu Chow's Auntie and asked, "What must we do?"

The old woman said, "You must go through Honolulu and apologize to every Japanese you have ever known. Humble yourself, as you should. Then find at least twenty men who need money, and lend it to them. Help them start new businesses." She stopped, then added prudently, "It would be better if you lent the money to those who have a lot of sons in the war, for they will be the ones who are going to run Hawaii."

In the course of his apologies to the Japanese community, Hong Kong came in time to Sakai, the storekeeper, and Sakai said in English, "No, I don't need any money, but my good friend Sakagawa the dynamiter has lost his barbershop, and he needs money to start a store of some kind."

"Where can I find him?" Hong. Kong asked. "He lives in Kakaako."

"By the way, any of his boys in the Two-Two-Two?" "Four," Sakai replied.

"I will look him up," Hong Kong replied, and that afternoon he told Kamejiro, "I have come to apologize for what I said at the meeting."

"Mo bettah you be ashamed," Kamejiro said bluntly. "Yes, with you having four sons in the battles." "And all other Japanese, too." "Kamejiro, I'm sorry."

"I sorry for you," the stocky little Japanese said, for he did not like Chinese.

"And I have come to lend you the money to start a store here in Kakaako."

Kamejiro drew back, for he had learned that anything either a Chinese or an Okinawan did was sure to be tricky. Surveying Hong Kong, he asked, "What for you lend me money?"

Humbly Hong Kong replied, "Because I've got to prove I am really sorry."

It was in this way that Kamejiro Sakagawa opened his grocery store, and because he was a frugal man and worked incredibly hard, and because his wife had a knack of waiting on Japanese customers and his barber daughter a skill in keeping accounts, the store flourished. Then, as if good fortune had piled up a warehouse full of beneficences, on New Year's Day, 1944, Sakai-san came running with breathless news.

"Pssst!" he called to Sakagawa as the latter sprayed his vegetables. "Come here."

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"What?" the grocer shouted.

"Out here!"

Sakagawa left the store and allowed Sakai-san to lead him to an alley, where the latter said in awed tones, "I have found a husband for your daughter!"

"You have?" Sakagawa cried.

"Yes! A wonderful match!"

"A Japanese, of course?"

Sakai looked at his old friend with contempt. "What kind of baishakunin would I be if I even thought of proposing anyone but a Japanese?"

"Forgive me!" Sakagawa said. "You can understand, after the narrow escape we had."

"This man is perfect. A little house. More than a little money. Fine Japanese. And what else do you think!"

"Is he . . ." Sakagawa would not form the words, for this was too much to hope for.

"Yes! He's also a Hiroshima man!"

A thick blanket of positive euphoria settled over the two whispering men, for the go-between Sakai was just as pleased as Sakagawa that a fine Japanese girl had at last found a good husband, and a Hiroshima man at that. Finally Sakagawa got round to a question of lesser importance: "Who is he?"

"Mr. Ishiil" Sakai cried rapturously.

"Has he agreed to marry my daughter?" Kamejiro asked incredulously.

"Yes!" Sakai the baishakunin cried.

"Does he know about her . . . the haole?"

"Of course. I was honor-bound to tell him."

"And still he is willing to accept her?" Kamejiro asked in disbelief.

"Yes, he says it is his duty to save her."

"That good man," Sakagawa cried. He called his wife and told her, "Sakai has done it! He has found a husband for Reiko-chan."

"Who?" his practical-minded wife asked.

"Mr. Ishii!"

"A Hiroshima man!" And before Reiko-chan knew anything of her impending marriage, word that she had found a Hiroshima man flashed through the Japanese community and almost everybody was truly delighted with the girl's good fortune, especially since she had been mixed up with a haole man, but one girl, who had been through high school, reflected: "Mr. Ishii must be thirty-five years older than Reiko."

"What does it matter?" her mother snapped. "She's getting a Hiroshima man."

Reiko was in the barbershop on Hotel Street cutting the hair of a sailor when the news reached her. The girl at the next chair whispered in Japanese, "Congratulations, dear Reiko-chan."

"About what?" Reiko asked.

"Sakai-san has found you a husband."

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The Japanese phrase fell strangely on Reilco's ears, for although she had long suspected that her parents had employed a baishakunin to find her a husband, she had never supposed that any solid arrangement would come to pass. Steadying herself against her chair, she asked casually, "Who did they say the man was?"

"Mr. Ishii! I think it's wonderful."

Reiko-chan kept mechanically moving her fingers, and the man in the chair warned: "Not too much off the sides, ma'am."

"I'm sorry," Reiko said. She wanted to run out of the barbershop, far from everyone, but she kept to her job. Patiently she trimmed the sailor's head just right, then lathered his neck and sideburns and asked, "You like them straight or on a little slant?"

"Any way looks best," the young man said. "You speak good English. Better'n me."

"I went to school," Reiko said quietly.

"Ma'am, do you feel well?" the sailor asked.

"Yes."

"You don't look so good. Look, ma'am . . ."

Reiko was about to faint, but with a tremendous effort she controlled herself and finished the lathering; but when she tried to grasp the razor she could not command it, and with great dismay she looked at the frightened sailor and asked softly, "Would you mind if I did not shave your neck this time? I feel dizzy."

"Ma'am, you ought to lie down," the sailor said, wiping the soap from his sideburns.

When he left, Reiko hung up her apron and announced, "I am going home," and on the long walk to Kakaako she tried not to compare Mr. Ishii with Lieutenant Jackson, but she could not keep