Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  “Americans? Save myself?” A wry smile must have crossed Kasai’s worn features. Kasai fumbled for the broken pieces of his spectacles to see a little better. “What’s there to save?”

  “Are you crazy? Everyone has left. There’s only you left in this snake pit!”

  “Finally the Americans have come,” chuckled Kasai weakly. “Being a Japanese prisoner or an American prisoner—what’s the difference? If I were you,” he eyed his disbelieving colleague through a piece of lens, “I’d stick around. At least, the Americans are sure to have food.”

  “Fool!” the man who would be Kasai’s savior yelled in exasperation.

  But it was, in fact, thus that Shigeshi Kasai was saved from certain death, stubbornly managing to get back to Brazil and the old site of his newspaper office. When I first saw Kasai at Miyasaka’s, I didn’t recognize him. Kasai stood for a long moment, staring at me. Perhaps he wondered what the war years had been like for me. I was now a man in my early forties and must have seemed still youthful to Kasai, who had been definitely aged by war and prison. I felt in myself a great vigor and tremendous energy. The passing time had been to me as a necessary period of growth, and I felt confident, sure of the maturity I’d gained by these years of experience. Still, I was the same person, full of the enthusiasm of my old baseball days. “Kasai?” I asked, finally focusing on the familiar but much-wearied face, the gray hair and eyes squinting through even thicker spectacles than I remembered. “Kasai?” I felt my eyes well with tears.

  Miyasaka’s was always filled with people, no matter the time of day or night. It quickly became a popular meeting place for the hundreds of Japanese who hurried into the big city to celebrate what they believed to be a Japanese victory. At any time you would find a crowd of Japanese there celebrating some aspect of the Japanese victory, buying drinks for everyone in the bar and carousing with the numerous young women whom Mama Miyasaka employed to serve and entertain her guests. It was known that Papa Miyasaka ran a perpetual card game upstairs, a continuous flow of gamblers coming and going through the premises. Miyasaka’s had originally begun as a small noodle shop with a tatami back room, which Papa Miyasaka used for gambling and entertaining special guests. The women who entertained in the back room wore kimonos and played the shamisen. Papa Miyasaka had managed to re-create a microscopic piece of an old floating world where, if you had the money and status to pay, you could enjoy the illusion of returning to Japan. Pretty soon, the Miyasakas realized the popularity of their hidden back room and expanded their operation to a large old mansion in the Liberdade. This mansion soon housed three floors of tatami back rooms, a large restaurant, an enormous kitchen, temporary housing for workers, a Japanese garden with a large collection of tropical animals, and, of course, Papa Miyasaka’s perpetual upstairs card game. In fact, Kasai was headed upstairs with some idea of getting lucky when he met me.

  It is said that all the Japanese bar, restaurant, and hotel owners in São Paulo and the port of Santos were kachigumi, and if they were not kachigumi, they all pretended to be anyway. For years, these places thrived on the generous flow of money spent by people celebrating a false victory, people who had sold their farms and houses and settled in Japanese hotels, awaiting the Japanese ships which were said to be on their way to take loyal patriots back to the homeland.

  Kasai leaned over the table, looking at the sliding paper door cautiously, “What is going on here?” he asked me. “The hotels are flooded with people. And you go anywhere: Banzai! Banzai!” Kasai threw his hands up. “They’re all crazy!”

  I shrugged.

  Kasai continued, “Yesterday, I was eating my lunch. ‘Have you heard the news?’ the owner asks me. She shows me a newspaper, a Japanese newspaper printed here. The headline says that MacArthur will be received by the Emperor. ‘There,’ says the owner. ‘Read it yourself. Our Emperor will give the American general an audience. What more proof do people want? Unless we were victors in this war, how could such an event even be considered?’” Kasai snickered, “What nonsense! Pretty soon everyone in the restaurant is reading the paper and buying beer and singing. Someone comes by with more copies of the paper and sells it to everyone. It’s historic information! The newspapers are perpetuating this lie!” Kasai was outraged.

  “They sell a lot of copy,” I nodded.

  “I am going to find out who is behind this.”

  “You might get killed. People have been killed.”

  “This has got to stop. Look everywhere. It’s the middle of the afternoon, when normal people are working. These are all simple people from the interior, country folk like you who should be turning the land into food. Fools all of them! They are spending their money like water!”

  “Would you be as indignant if they were gambling?” I asked slyly, knowing Kasai’s old inclination for an occasional game.

  “Of course not!” retorted Kasai. “Gambling is different. Taking a chance is different. It’s the delusion that’s wrong.”

  “They did not come here to settle,” I sneered. “They came here to return to Japan. Can you fault them for a little delusion?”

  “It’s more than a delusion.” Kasai shook his head. “It’s all gone. I was there in Tokyo while the bombs fell day after day. And then, Hiroshima. Nagasaki.” Kasai’s voice fell into a painful whisper. “I know. Things too horrible to speak of. I know. These people need to know. For some of us, there is no home to return to.”

  “You mean Japan lost,” I confirmed.

  “Of course Japan lost! Are you crazy?”

  A shuffle of feet outside the door brought Kasai’s voice to a halt. Two young women ushered a man into the private room and then entered themselves with trays of tea and food.

  “Ah, Sawada,” I motioned to the man entering through the door.

  “Excuse my delay,” said Sawada, making himself comfortable on the mat next to me.

  “As I came in, I met an old friend of mine,” I said, introducing Kasai.

  Umpei Sawada nodded politely, removing the jacket of his silk suit. He was a very tidy, meticulous man with, appropriately, banker’s hands. One of the women poured Sawada a glass of fine brandy without asking. Sawada rolled the thick golden liquid around the glass, tentatively sniffing the stuff. “So,” he toasted us, “how do you like it here?”

  I nodded. “We don’t have anything similar in Esperança.”

  “Esperança?” one of the women piped up. “They say only intellectuals come from Esperança.” She looked at me with interest. “Are you an intellectual?”

  “Intellectuals, Junko,” Sawada smiled with gracious urbanity, “are people with ideas. Kantaro is not only a man with ideas but a great idealist.”

  Junko demurred properly, quickly moving to light Sawada’s cigarette, but the other woman sat quietly, only observing. I watched the reactions of the two women. Junko was a small lively woman with cute features, but the second woman had a long elegant face and an imperial aloofness. Her strange beauty stunned me.

  Sawada continued, “We are here to celebrate the closing of an important deal, and if I am not mistaken, the beginning of a great future and a lasting relationship. Kantaro’s proposal is the kind of project the bank needs to finance, the kind of commitment the bank needs to make for the future of this colony.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” Kasai smiled.

  “It’s Befu’s old plan,” I said, somewhat distracted by the attending women. “Now we will be able to go forward with it. We want to buy trucks, incubating units, new poultry stock. We want to expand our entire operation. We have an agreement with the Sarandi Cooperative to distribute our eggs and, eventually, our meat products. This is just the beginning,” I beamed.

  “So,” Sawada smiled behind his glass. “Shall we?” The two women poured a round of beer, and the deal was neatly closed in a toast. As more beer and brandy were poured, the occasion began to lose its formality, and Sawada relaxed into the more jovial position of a host, initiating Kasai and me into the delight
s of an unknown and forbidden world. Some people have said that I was nothing more than a country bumpkin who went to the big city and was taken for a fool. Well, that may have been true in the beginning, but I soon learned my lessons well—learned the suave methods of the banker, learned to juggle the arrogance and egos of men who had it in their power to finance my projects, learned to charm and to capture the hearts and minds of the countless people with whom I came into contact. I was no fool. This meeting with Umpei Sawada, the head of the newly opened Nibras Bank, was only the beginning.

  Shigeshi Kasai needed no initiation into the forbidden delights of such a place as Miyasaka’s. I envied that he could casually sit, accept the attentions of the two women and mentally store information on the journalist’s notepad hidden within his head. I sat somewhat stiffly, unwilling to drink a great deal, remembering in part the drunken fiasco of Befu’s wedding several years ago. I listened absently, my eyes wandering back and forth between the two women and my thoughts returning to Kasai’s assurance that Japan had lost the war. Meanwhile, Kasai filled Sawada’s cup several times and expertly pumped the banker for information.

  “Now that our capital has begun to flow again, we need to begin to invest in ourselves,” said Sawada.

  “What about an investment in a restaurant like Miyasaka’s?” asked Kasai.

  “As a matter of fact, we have invested in Miyasaka’s,” smiled Sawada.

  “Is that so?” Kasai prodded, “It’s doing quite well. Was that expected?”

  “Well, Miyasaka knows how to do business.”

  “As long as people keep flooding into the city to celebrate a Japanese victory, I would suppose so,” said Kasai dryly.

  Sawada ignored Kasai’s comment. “Well, you know that this is the way we’ve traditionally done business. We,” Sawada looked significantly at me, “have just done business right now. Miyasaka’s serves an important function in the business of the colony. And there aren’t just Japanese here, the gaijin have been attracted as well.”

  “Speaking of business,” Junko spoke up. “Can Sawada-san tell me the price of yen? Someone said you would know, of course.”

  Kasai raised his eyebrows. “The price of yen? Who is buying yen?”

  “Everyone is buying yen,” Junko asserted knowingly. “Don’t you know? Every day that the Imperial ships get closer to Brazil, the price of yen goes up.” Junko turned again to Sawada. “Sawada-san, I was told that you would know a good contact with a good price. I don’t want to wait too long.”

  Sawada pushed Junko’s question aside. “Why should I know such things? My bank only deals in Brazilian currency.”

  Junko’s face fell, yet she insisted, “But—”

  Sawada puffed a veil of smoke into the air, deftly changing the subject, while Junko made an excuse to the leave the room.

  Kasai observed these things with interest.

  “Natsuko,” Sawada asked the young woman who remained, “why would Junko want to buy yen?”

  “She won a sizeable amount on the lottery. I thought you might have heard. Everyone is talking about it. Someone suggested that she should invest in yen.”

  I stared at the strangely beautiful young woman who spoke for the first time. I was surprised to hear the sound of her voice. Despite her beauty, Natsuko did not seem to belong at Miyasaka’s. All the other women wore thick makeup, chattered and gossiped endlessly, and vied continually with Mama Miyasaka for the biggest tippers. But this woman, Natsuko, seemed quietly aloof and above the clamor surrounding her. I felt a silent communion with this woman, who, I imagined, must also feel the same discomfort in this situation. I wanted to know why she was here serving me beer and tea and waiting for my tip at the end. I thought there must be some mistake, some sad story of sacrifice and inopportune destitution, to cause her appearance, no matter how elegant, at Miyasaka’s. “If you had won the lottery,” I asked Natsuko, “what would you do with your money?”

  There was no hesitation in Natsuko’s voice. A quiet excitement made not only of dreams but determination sparkled through Natsuko’s answer, “A piano. I would buy a piano.”

  This might seem to be a simple answer, but to me, Natsuko’s words were infused with a special magic. In those days, the only person I had known who had had the luxury of a piano was Kimi Kawagoe. It was not only an item of great expense but an item of great luxury at a time when people labored for food and shelter. A woman like Natsuko, who depended on tips dealt sometimes generously, sometimes meagerly, even after many tedious hours of fanciful conversation, could not hope to buy such a luxury herself. It is true that she might attract a wealthy patron to her side, convince such a man to buy her a house and clothing, and perhaps even a piano. These were the idle dreams of women like Natsuko. That Natsuko would want a piano suggested to me that, despite the cynicism, greed, and false opulence of the world surrounding us, Natsuko was a dreamer, perhaps even an idealist like me. My thoughts about Natsuko were a curious mixture of self-recognition, charity, and sudden passion. “A piano?” I repeated. “So you play the piano?”

  “I would like to,” she smiled. “It’s only a dream.”

  “A beautiful and worthy dream,” I said, suddenly smitten.

  Sawada interrupted knowingly. “Kantaro, you and Natsuko might have a lot to talk about. Natsuko is an avid reader. She is always hiding a book somewhere. If only she could find a patron who would finance her habit for reading,” Sawada pouted. I later learned that Natsuko had attracted many men, Sawada among them, at Miyasaka’s; no one had so far met the rigid set of criteria that Natsuko seemingly required. Sawada was a man with wealth and power, a man whom several women at Miyasaka’s were anxious to snare. “Natsuko is such a snob,” her colleagues all laughed, watching the disappointed men bow out before Mama Miyasaka.

  Mama Miyasaka commiserated apologetically, always suggesting some other woman. “This one is more fun,” she waved to the poor suitor. “You wouldn’t have any fun with Natsuko, you know. Pretty, but such a bookworm. Think of it. Life is too short.”

  I did not know the gossip about Natsuko in those days, but it hardly mattered. For a miraculous moment when Natsuko had spoken the word piano, I felt an uneasy stirring which would never again leave me.

  Kasai and I walked away from Miyasaka’s full of our separate thoughts. “I think we have discovered something significant, don’t you think?” Kasai suggested casually.

  “The piano?” my thoughts wandered away.

  “No. Money. The reason for this entire falsehood. Well, a part of it, but a good reason for some people at least. Don’t you see? If people continue to believe that Japan has won the war, then the yen has value.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The yen is worthless. Someone is buying worthless yen, somehow, somewhere, and bringing it in suitcases. These fools are buying it. If I’m not mistaken, Sawada himself is selling it. Or he knows who does. Maybe, maybe, he is financing the return of the bank on these deals. Can you imagine?”

  “Incredible,” I murmured.

  “I want to start up my newspaper again. Expose them all. That stupid Junko will lose her money anyway, but countless other people are being innocently duped. If only I had the money to buy a press.” Kasai shook his head sadly and then suddenly turned to head back to Miyasaka’s.

  “Where are you going?” I questioned him.

  “Upstairs for a little game. How else can I get my press?”

  “You haven’t changed,” I laughed, “but you were never very lucky, you know.” I pulled out my new checkbook. “I’ve got a nice bundle now at Sawada’s place,” I suggested wryly. “How much would it take?”

  Kasai smiled. “Put that away,” he urged me, and then thought out loud. “But then again, what if Sawada is involved—” He remembered the way Sawada had blown smoke over the table and changed the subject.

  “My loan is more than we need.” I was serious. “And if you are right, there is more money where this came from. I have other plans to su
ggest to Sawada. Why shouldn’t we have a decent Japanese newspaper in the colony again?” I signed two blank checks and pressed them into Kasai’s surprised hands.

  “I’ll pay everything back. I promise,” he said earnestly. “But you’ve signed two checks.” Kasai looked at me questioningly.

  “The second check is for the piano.” I looked at Kasai. “Give Natsuko her piano.”

  Kasai looked speechless at me. “Where are you going?”

  “Kodak,” I said. “I’m curious about a new Brownie camera. I think I saw one on the São João.”

  When I returned to the city, Natsuko had her piano. I did not necessarily think about seeing her again, but I saw a poster for a piano concert at the Teatro Municipal. I made a mental note of the concert and went off to Miyasaka’s. Junko bumped into me at the door in surprise and then ran off to find Natsuko. I could already tell that I had made an impression. All the women at Miyasaka’s looked at me from the corners of their eyes. Mama Miyasaka appeared and led me to a private room. She came in herself and poured tea for me. “Uno-san, everyone is talking about you. Such a generous man.”

  “Natsuko seems like such a bright girl. I felt sorry for her. It seems a shame that she cannot have a better life.”

  “Her family has come into difficult times, but what is new? Her father—” Mama Miyasaka lowered her voice, “such a good-for-nothing. Her mother is ill, and there’s a younger sister she dotes on. Everyone is living off of Natsuko. Poor child.”