Flash!
Ai-ee! My eyes. So bright to my eyes. Seto covered his eyes after camera bulbs blinded him.
Many men, some in uniform, circled around him. Even if he could run, where would he go? Did he want to live like a hunted animal again? It would be worse this time because the men knew he existed.
He sat exhausted. Too exhausted to talk anymore. He let the native boy do all the talking. He accepted he was a prisoner. Too exhausted to resist.
A Japanese man came through the door, stood in front of Seto, and bowed. “I am Japanese Consul James Shintaku,” he said in Japanese.
James, so strange, why would a Japanese man have a Christian name? Christians are foreign devils.
The man named James pointed to the chief and called him mayor, and introduced two native policemen. He pointed to a native dressed in military uniform, and said he was an army lieutenant. Him, Seto was afraid of most. Another military man snapped a camera that blinded Seto.
He couldn’t remember all of the names and titles—too many men in the chief’s office. But there was one woman—it was nice to see a woman, even if she did wear a blue uniform dress with a badge on her shoulder—about whom Japanese Consul Shintaku said, “A Red Cross lady is here to see that you are treated fairly.” Seto noticed he did not say “prisoner.” Who could he trust more? Japanese Consul with Christian name or Red Cross lady, or no one? Except maybe the baseball boy who brought him out of the jungle and fed him fish and rice. The boy kept the old man from beheading him, and the golden dog from biting him.
“Name? Rank? Squadron? Commander served under?” Consul James Shintaku interpreted army lieutenant’s questions.
For the first time since he had been brought into the mayor’s office by the old man with the machete and the boy with the golden dog, Seto stood to his feet. He straightened up as best as his feeble spine could, put his arms to his side in a soldier’s stance, and faced forward. “Isamu Seto, Corporal, Thirty-Eighth Infantry Division, Supply Unit at Talofofo Camp, Commander…” He faltered. His commander and comrades must all be dead.
Consul Shintaku urged him to sit down again. The Red Cross lady brought him water in a paper cup. The boy who no longer had the dog, and the crazy old man who no longer held the machete, were standing in the back of the crowd. No one was smiling. They all looked so serious, as if he was in trouble.
“Who are you? Where have you been living? What did you eat? How did you survive?” The consul interpreted a policeman’s questions.
Questions. So many questions. It is no use. I will tell them. I will tell them all they want to know. I am their prisoner. Japan lost the war. I have brought shame to my name and my family, as my father knew I would. I am tired. So very tired. And afraid. There is nothing worse they can do to me than the hardships I have suffered all these years living alone underground like a scared rat. I will tell all.
Seto told his tale of war and loss and hiding, but still the men did not seem to understand what he endured to survive. He told his story. He showed his pants he made. If they would only let him go back to his underground home he would show them the suit he had tailored. If he could go back, he would return the boy’s baseball since he had given him fish and rice to eat.
Seto convinced them he was indeed a soldier of Japan’s Imperial Army who did not surrender. He was a tailor who survived the jungles of Guam for twenty-eight years. The US Army lieutenant, policemen, mayor, cameraman, and Red Cross lady looked at each other, shook their heads, and wondered out loud, “Could other soldiers be hiding?”
A man and a woman—it must have been the baseball boy’s parents—rushed in through the door crying, “Kiko! Tatan!” After a bit of commotion, the boy and old man left with them. The boy raised his hand to Seto, as if he wanted to say something, but it had to wait. Seto was sorry to see the boy leave, but not the old man. The soldier had seen that crazed look before, the one he saw in the old man’s eyes when he’d held the machete. It’s the look of a man haunted by memories of atrocities better left forgotten. Atrocities one cannot forgive.
After a very long interrogation, Seto was led outside to a white square truck. They put him in the back and made him lay down on a bed.
Where they take me? Do I go to prison? What is this vehicle with flashing red lights and piercing air raid siren? I am afraid. So afraid.
Seto peered out a rear window and watched the vehicle he was in race up roads. When it finally stopped, and the back doors opened, Seto was met by polite applause.
Who are these people? These many people? Seto wondered as a nurse in a white uniform dress and hat escorted him down metal steps. Why, they are Japanese. Who are they? And why they dressed in Western clothes? Where are their kimonos, obis, and slippers? Is this a trick? I do not understand.
When he asked the consul in Japanese, the consul told him news had leaked out that a Japanese straggler had been brought out of the jungle and taken to Guam Memorial Hospital. The consul said there were many Japanese businessmen from the airlines, hotels, and shipping companies who live on Guam to support the tourist industry.
“They wish to see with their own eyes the soldier who stayed true to the emperor long after they themselves had been told he was not a god but a defeated man,” Consul Shintaku said.
“The emperor? Of course he is a god. Who would suggest such blasphemy?” Seto said.
The Japanese community clapped politely. “Hurry and get well,” a few called faintly in Japanese as he shuffled through two gray doors that swung open in the middle.
A nurse sat him down on a green wobbly chair balanced between bicycle wheels. He rubbed the fabric with his fingers. It was coarse, but not as coarse as hemp or the clothes he had woven in the jungle. The fibers were so closely knit he could not imagine what wondrous loom had made this cloth. It must be strong to hold my weight.
The nurse with the crisp white hat, and nylons—why, they had no seams up the back!—and shoes, pushed him to a ceramic tile room with a Western toilet stool and above-ground tub. The woman asked him something in English and when he did not respond, she began to take his clothes off, even though he grasped the brown trousers tightly in his fists. He was used to being naked. When he grew up in Japan they bathed together—men, women, and children—in one great bathhouse.
There was no shame in nakedness. Yet it had been a lifetime ago since he had bathed with anyone other than shrimp and fish and frogs. So when the woman rubbed a cloth over his body and scrubbed his neck and ears and face, he wished this once not to be touched and found himself embarrassed, an emotion he did not know he possessed. She dressed him in a gown slit open in back. He was grateful when she handed him a pale blue kimono—though thin and cotton, a cloth inferior to silk—to cover himself. She called it a bathrobe.
After the bath, and he did not stink as much, doctors and nurses poked and prodded, observed and pricked his body.
Too many people. Too much light. Needles should be used for sewing, not stabbing me. I wish to be left alone.
Seto raised his arm, bent it at the elbow and squeezed his bicep between his fingers and thumb. “See? I am good, no?” he said in English.
The doctors nodded their heads and murmured. “A little malnourished.” The Japanese consul translated. “You are amazingly healthy.”
That night, Seto did not sleep. On top of the bean-green sheets tucked tight over the hard, high bed he lay on his side, curled in a ball, and watched the door for intruders. The nurses came in often, shoved a glass stick in his mouth, and clamped a black cloth around his arm, then squeezed a rubber ball like how a snake wraps itself around a mouse and squeezes it to death before swallowing it whole.
The next day, a young lady in a red-and-white-striped apron over her white dress brought in much food on a tray. At the very smell of food, Seto’s stomach rolled and gurgled. She lifted the lid and revealed slices of pig fat slabbed on the plate. No wonder his belly threatened to throw up what he had eaten the day before. He ate one egg instead.
A nurse wheeled Seto down many halls to face new interrogators—Amerikan reporters.
Questions. Did I see strange airplanes? Did I know war was over? Did I know Japan lost? Why did I hide?
So many questions. What did I eat? Where was I born? Was I married?
They make my head spin.
A reporter asked, “What will you do when you go back to Japan?”
Consul Shintaku interpreted.
Go to Japan? Is it possible? Would Amerikans really let me go? Go home to Motherland? Japan?
The consul repeated the question.
“I… I will take back bones of dead friends and bury them in a mountain… I will pray for dead Japanese soldiers.”
The Amerikans wanted to know where these bones were, and who were the friends he spoke of. Seto told them everything. He had nothing left to keep secret.
The questions kept coming. “Have you seen television?”
“I heard they have one at college in Japan.”
“Oh, you must mean motion pictures.”
“Do you know about the atomic bomb?”
Seto could not pronounce the word even after Consul said it a second time. Consul tried to explain, how it had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, utterly destroying everything for miles around.
“I do not understand,” Seto said, then paused as if trying to comprehend. “Was it a Japanese bomb?”
A reporter said, and Consul interpreted, “No, an American bomb. They used it to end the war faster.”
The interrogators droned on and on, like planes Seto heard from his cave beneath the bamboo thicket.
He grew weak under the weight of heavy questions and lights and cameras. He grew weary under the weight of newfound knowledge.
“Did you know… ?” reporters asked. “Did you know… ?”
“What would you like now?” one asked.
“Something salty to eat,” Seto said, hoping his wish would be granted and the press conference would end.
Finally, it did. However, a Japanese businessman taping the interviews made one more request, “Ah, ah. Arigato, say one more word. Everyone in Japan is surprised and is waiting for you. One word, arigato.”
“Dai-jobu,” Seto said. “Dai-jobu.” He couldn’t imagine life ever being dai-jobu. But then, it hadn’t been all right for a very long time.
CHAPTER 27
SETO’S LAST DAYS ON GUAM
JANUARY 26–FEBRUARY 3, 1972
“Did you read about the Japanese soldier?” I waved Wednesday’s newspaper over the breakfast table as if shooing flies.
“Did you see my picture in the paper with the straggler I brought out of the boonies? My name’s in the paper! I found him. Honest.” I crossed my heart. “All ’cause Tatan got lost.”
I’d told them the story a hundred times since I turned the straggler over to authorities two days ago. I loved how my story made Nana and Tata laugh. I’d missed hearing them laugh, especially since Sammy went M.I.A. Nana kissed the top of my head and whispered, “We’re proud of you, Son.”
Tatan didn’t laugh, though. “Don’t you go telling that, boy! You’re a liar! Never been lost a day in my life.”
Tata and Nana stifled their laughter. But I knew by the way Tata’s eyebrows twitched and Nana’s eyes danced my parents were pleased with me.
I couldn’t wait to take the paper to school. After I had gotten home from the police station I’d called Tomas and Daphne. Boy, was she surprised to hear from me! I was so wired, though, that it wasn’t hard to talk to her at all. In some ways it was easier than talking to her in person. The best part was that Daphne said she forgave me for being such a jerk the night of Fiesta. She said she could tell I’d been under a lot of pressure lately. Man, was that an understatement.
“So,” I asked my parents, “what scoop Officer Perez giving out?”
“Well,” Nana said as she scrambled eggs to mix with leftover rice and beans for breakfast, “hear tell a plane-load of Japanese journalists are flying in today.”
“Yeah,” Tata added, “along with some old war buddies of Seto’s. Hear tell he plenty scared and the authorities are having trouble convincing the old soldier it’s all right to go back to Japan.”
“Darn shooting, that old Nip ought to be scared,” Tatan said. “Enough of us war prisoners would like to sneak into his hospital room and fill him full of lead. That’d teach him.”
I was tired of hearing Tatan talk that way about the Japanese. I was ready to go to school for a change. I folded the newspaper under my arm, grabbed my transistor radio, and shoved it in my pocket. Tomas and I listened to it as we rode to and from school by holding it against the bus window to get reception. We listened to KUAM for news of the straggler every chance we got. Even some teachers turned radios on low in their classrooms. When news updates came on, they stopped teaching to let us learn history firsthand. It was neat, really, to think I helped make history. I wondered if my name would be in the Guam history book someday.
By Thursday, the third day after Seto had been captured, Tatan and Bobo were pacing at the bus stop after school. Bobo’s cut had been healing nicely. Nana had said I’d make a good medic, the way I cleaned it up and put salve on it.
Seeing Tatan acting so agitated, I started worrying again. Tomas got off the bus with me.
“Tatan, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Damn Japanese. Whole lot of them. All dressed like you and me… like civilians.”
I looked back at Tomas and shrugged to see if he was okay with Tatan mouthing off about the Japanese again.
Tomas grinned and tilted his chin skyward as if to signal, I’m with you, bro.
I placed my hand on Tatan’s arm, hoping to calm him down. “Tell me, Tatan. Where are the Japanese civilians and what are they doing?”
Tatan stopped pacing and jerked his head toward Tomas. “He’s not one of them. Too young.”
“That’s right. Tomas is our friend. Remember his tata, Rudy Tanaka? Eh? He was one of the good guys on our side during the war.”
Tatan looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Don’t get smart with me, boy. I know Tanaka. I got to show you those damn Japanese tromping t’rough our boonies. What they doing back there? Stealing my bats?”
Tomas and I followed Tatan and Bobo to the opening by the baseball diamond. It didn’t take long until we reached where the underbrush was trampled down.
“Bet a lot of people been snooping around Seto’s cave,” Tomas said.
“Yeah, probably all those Japanese reporters who flew in yesterday,” I said.
“That’s what I been saying,” Tatan said. “Bunch of Japanese where they don’t belong.”
In the bamboo patch, there was a yellow taped-off area and Guam policeman standing guard. When we approached, the policeman yelled, “Hey! Stop! No one’s allowed here without authorization.”
Tatan went up to the officer and tapped his finger on his chest. “You’re the one on my land, Sonny. I been hunting and fishing and gathering food from these parts since before you were born.”
I touched Tatan’s elbow. “Come on, Tatan. He’s just doing his job. Let’s go home.”
Tomas mouthed to the officer, “Sorry,” as we all turned to go. The officer shrugged.
When we got to my house, Tomas and I read the newspaper account. “It says here,” Tomas read, while I peered over his shoulder, “that two war buddies brought a tape recording of relatives’ voices who are still alive in Japan. Seto tried to answer them back when they spoke.”
“Imagine that,” I said, “he doesn’t even know what a tape recorder is. Wonder what else he doesn’t know about.”
“Damn t’ing,” Tatan said. “Probably made in Japan. What they couldn’t conquer, they make.”
I held my breath and rolled my eyes. I wanted to cover my ears. I was so damn tired of hearing my tatan bad-mouth Japanese people and Japan. But I realized Tatan would never change. Still, it was embarrassing hearing him talk like that, especia
lly in front of my best buddy.
Tomas acted as if he hadn’t heard Tatan. “There’s the telephone, and, of course, TV.” He folded the newspaper and laid it on the kitchen table. “I know, how about skateboards… what else?”
I tried to think of new inventions Seto wouldn’t have known about since he holed away nearly thirty years ago. “I got it. Bikinis! Seto’d still think Bikini’s an atoll in the Pacific.”
We burst out laughing.
Tatan scowled. “What’s so funny? You two not laughing at me, are you? Eh? Better not be.”
*
Seto did not understand why he could not sleep since he came to the hospital. He had a comfortable mattress under a roof in a climate-controlled room. This was the first time since he left home that he did not have to lay on a cold, hard ground in China, or moist, damp soil in the tropics of Guam.
Though guards stood by his door, he had been assured his life was no longer in danger. War buddies, childhood friends, and relatives had flown all the way from Japan to reassure him he would not be jailed or executed. And to convince him it was true, within a week he would board his first airplane and soar back to his homeland, Japan.
Still, he could not sleep.
Even in the safe, warm comfort of a hospital, with pretty nurses, attentive doctors, and policemen outside his room, ghosts haunted him at night.
“Why are you alive and going home?” the phantoms asked in hollow voices to the cadence of their march. Specter soldiers marched, marched, marched by hundreds through his room.
“I have written your names. All of them,” Seto told them. “I will pray to the mountain. I will give obeisance to your names.”
Then appeared Privates Michi Hayato and Yoshi Nakamura. “Are you going to Japan and leaving us here?”
“No. No! I will take your bones and bury them in a shrine in the mountains. Why do you haunt me? Have I betrayed you? Do you call me ‘coward?’”
Seto waited for the apparition of his mother. She did not come.
Seto dropped his weary body on cold linoleum and curled into a ball.
No Surrender Soldier Page 15