Hawaii

by James Michener

  When President Roosevelt read the report he asked his aide, "Who is this Mark Whipple again?"

  "You knew his father, Dr. Hewlett Whipple."

  "The boy sounds intelligent. Is he the one who's leading the Japanese?"

  "Yes. They're on their way to Italy now."

  "We should expect some good news from that outfit," the President said.

  One night in September, 1943, Nyuk Tsin asked her grandson Hong Kong, "Are we overextended?"

  "Yes."

  "If war ended tomorrow, would we be able to hold onto our properties?"

  "No."

  "What do you think we should do?" the old lady asked.

  "I seem to have acquired your courage," Hong Kong replied. "I say, 'Hold onto our lands.' We'll pay off as much debt as we can, and when the war ends we'll tighten our belts and live on rice until the boom starts."

  "How many bad years must we look forward to?" the old matriarch asked.

  "Two very difficult years. Two reasonably dangerous. If we can get through them, the hui will be prosperous."

  "I'm worried," the old woman confessed, "but I agree with you that we must fight to a finish. However, I've been thinking that we might start to sell off a few of the houses, to relieve the pressure."

  "The pressure is only on you and me," Hong Kong pointed out. "The others don't know about it. If you're not afraid, I'm not."

  It was a curious thing for an old woman of ninety-six to be worrying about the future, but she was, and it was not her future that concerned her, but that of her great family, the on-going thing that she had started but which was now more powerful than she. Therefore she said, "It is not only our money we are gambling with, Hong Kong, but that of all the Kees, those who are working and the girls in the stores and the old people. Thinking of them, are you still willing to hold onto everything?"

  "It is for them that I'm doing it," Hong Kong replied. "I know the delicate structure we've built. A house on top of a store on top of a job at Pearl Harbor on top of a little piece of land on top of an old man's savings. Maybe it's all going to crumble, but I'm willing to gamble that when it starts to totter, you and I will be smart enough to catch the falling pieces."

  "I think it's beginning to totter now, Hong Kong," the old woman warned.

  "I don't think it is," her grandson replied, and for once he ignored his grandmother's advice, and she said, "This is your decision, Hong Kong," and he replied, "We started our adventure when the haoles ran away from the war, and I'm not going to run away now," and she promised, "At least I won't tell the others of my fears."

  He therefore held onto the fantastic, teetering structure--depending solely upon his own courage--and as Honolulu rents rose, and wages at Pearl Harbor, and profits from the stores, he applied the money Asia provided to further gambles, and the structure grew higher and more precarious, but he was never afraid of his perilous construction, and his old grandmother grew increasingly to realize that in Hong Kong she had developed a grandson she could truly admire. "In many ways," she reflected, thinking back to the High Village and the warm days of her youth, "he is like my father. He is bold, and willing to engage in great battles, and he will probably wind up with his head in a cage in the center of Honolulu." Then she thought of her father's grisly visage, staring, neck less, down upon the years, and she concluded: "Was it a bad way to die?" And the perilous gamble of the Kee hui continued.

  WHILE the four Sakagawa boys were in uniform, righting for an unqualified citizenship, their parents and their sister Reiko were experiencing grave contradictions and confusions. On the one hand, the older Sakagawas prayed for the safe return of their sons, and this implied an American victory, at least over the Germans, and accordingly they listened with gratification when Reiko-chan read them the local Japanese newspaper, the Nippu Jiji, which told of victory in Europe. But on the other hand, they continued to pray for Japanese victory in Asia, for their homeland was in trouble and they hoped that it would triumph, never admitting to themselves that American victory in Europe and Japanese victory in Asia were incompatible.

  Then one day Mr. Ishii appeared furtively at the barbershop, whispering, "Tremendous news! I must stop to see you tonight." And before Sakagawa-san could halt the little man, the latter had vanished into another Japanese store.

  That evening, after Sakagawa had closed the barbershop and walked the girl barbers safely home; ignoring the whistles of American sailors who loafed on Hotel Street, Kamejiro said to Reiko, "You can be sure that Mr. Ishii has something very important for us," and the two hurried through the dark streets to the little cottage in Kakaako. There Mr. Ishii waited, and after the household was settled and the blinds drawn, he strode dramatically to the table where the day's issue of the Nippu Jiji lay and with fury tore it to bits, threw it on the floor, and spat on it.

  "Thus I treat the enemies of Japan!" he cried.

  "I haven't read it . . ." Reiko pleaded, trying to halt him.

  "Never again will you read that filthy propaganda!" Mr. Ishii announced grandly. "I told you, didn't I, that it was all American lies? You laughed at me and said, 'What does Mr. Ishii know about war?' My friends, I will tell you what I know. I know what is really happening in the world. And in America all good Japanese know. It is only you fools who have to read the Hawaii newspapers who do not know."

  Flamboyantly, he whipped out from his coat pocket a Japanese newspaper printed in Wyoming, the Prairie Shinbun, and there for Reiko to see were the exciting headlines: "Imperial Forces Defeat Americans in Bougainville." "Great Japanese Victory at Gaudalcanal." "President Roosevelt Admits Japan Will Win the War." Most of the stories appearing on the front pages had been picked up from Japanese shortwave broadcasts emanating from military headquarters in Tokyo, and all purveyed the straight Japanese propaganda line. One story in particular infuriated the hushed group in the Sakagawa living room: "American Marines Confess Stabbing Helpless Japanese Soldiers with Bayonets." The story came from Tokyo and could not be doubted.

  When the horror at American brutality subsided, Mr. Ishii proceeded with the important news, a story in which the Wyoming editors summarized, by means of Imperial releases, the progress of the war, and it was apparent to all in the little room that Japan was not only triumphing throughout the Pacific but that she must soon invade Hawaii. "And then, Sakagawa-san, what are you going to tell the emperor's general when he strides ashore at Honolulu and asks, 'Sakagawa, were you a good Japanese?' You, with four sons fighting against the emperor. And do you know what the general is going to say when he hears your reply? He's going to say, 'Sakagawa, bend down.' And when you have bent down, the general himself is going to unscabbard his sword and cut off your head."

  None of the Sakagawas spoke. They looked at the newspaper dumbly, and Reiko picked out the headlines. It was a paper published openly in Wyoming, it had passed the United States censor, what Mr. Ishii had read from it was true. Japan was winning the war and would soon invade Hawaii. In great pain of conscience Sakagawa-san looked at the paper which he could not read and asked I Reiko-chan, "Is it true?" And his daughter said, "Yes." It was one of the most exasperating anomalies of the war that whereas the F.B.I. and naval security kept very close watch on the Japanese newspapers in Hawaii, and saw that they printed only the strictest truth, with no stories at all datelined Tokyo, the Japanese-language newspapers in the states of Utah and Wyoming were free to print whatever they wished, it having been decided by the local military that the official Japanese communiques were so ridiculous that they would in time defeat themselves, as indeed they did. So the mainland Japanese press, often edited by die-hard samurai types, kept pouring out an incredible mess of propaganda, rumor, anti-American sentiment and downright subversive lies, and when copies of the papers reached Hawaii, where rumors were apt to be virulent, their effect was shocking.

  "I will tell the emperor's general," Sakagawa-san finally explained, "that my sons fought only in Europe. Never against Japan."

  "It will do no good!
" Mr. Ishii said sadly. "The emperor will never forgive you for what you have done."

  Sakagawa-san felt weak. He had always had doubts about sending his sons to war, and now the Wyoming paper had fortified those doubts. Dumbly he looked at his old guide, and' Mr. Ishii, after enjoying the moment of humiliation, finally said, "I will put in a good word for you with the general. I will tell him you have always been a good Japanese."

  "Thank you, Mr. Ishii!" the dynamiter cried. "You are the only friend I can trust."

  The Sakagawas went to bed that night in considerable torment, so the next day at her barber chair Reiko waited until an intelligent-looking young naval officer sat down, and when he had done so, she asked quietly, "Could you help me, please."

  "Sure," the officer said. "Name's Jackson, from Seattle."

  "A man told me last night that Japan might invade Hawaii at any moment. Is that true?"

  The navy man's jaw dropped; he pulled the towel away from his neck and turned to look at Reiko, who was then twenty-six and at her prettiest. He smiled at her and asked, "Good God, woman! What have you been hearing?"

  "I was told on good authority that Japanese ships might attack at any time."

  "Look, lady!" the officer chided. "If you're a spy trying to get secrets . . ."

  "Oh, no!" Reiko blushed. Then she saw her father approaching to enforce the rule against any conversation with customers. She retied the towel, jerking it back to muzzle the navy man, and started clipping. "We're not allowed to talk," she whispered.

  “Where do you have lunch?" the officer asked.

  "Senaga's," she whispered.

  "I'll see you there, and tell you about the war."

  "Oh, I couldn't!" Reiko blushed.

  "Look, I'm from Seattle. I used to know lots of Japanese girls. Senaga's."

  At the counter of the restaurant, run by the Okinawa pig-grower Senaga, Lieutenant Jackson surprised Reiko by ordering sushi and sashimi, which he attacked with chopsticks. "I served in Japan," he said. "If my skipper caught me eating with chopsticks I'd be court-martialed. Unpatriotic."

  "We all try to eat with forks," Reiko said.

  "Now about this Jap invasion," Jackson said.

  "Would you please not call us Japs?" Reiko asked.

  "You're Japanese," Jackson laughed easily. "The enemy are Japs. What's your first name? Reiko, that's nice. Well, Reiko-chan . . ."

  "Where did you learn Reiko-chan?"

  "In Japan," he replied casually.

  "Did you ever know a Reiko-chan?"

  "I knew a Kioko-chan."

  There was a long silence as they ate sushi, and Reiko wanted to ask many questions and Lieutenant Jackson wanted to make many comments, but neither spoke, until at the same moment Reiko pushed her fork toward the sashimi and the officer shoved his chopsticks at the raw fish. There was a clatter and laughter and Jackson said, "I was deeply in love with Kioko-chan, and she taught me some Japanese, and that's why I have my present job."

  "What is it?" Reiko asked solemnly, her face flushed.

  "Because I speak a little of your language . . . Well, you understand, I'm not really a navy officer. I'm a Seattle lawyer. I'm with the Adjutant General and my job is to visit Japanese families and tell them that their daughters should not marry American G.I.'s. I see about twenty families a week . . . You know how American men are, they see pretty girls and they want to marry 'em. My job is to see that they don't."

  Suddenly he broke his chopsticks in half and his knuckles grew white with bitterness. "Each week, Reiko-chan, I see about twenty Japanese girls' and argue with them, and every goddamned one of them reminds me of Kioko-chan, and pretty soon I'm going to go nuts."

  He looked straight ahead, a man squeezed in a great vise, and he had no more appetite. Reiko, being a practical girl, finished the sashimi and said, "I must go back to work."

  "Will you have lunch with me tomorrow?" the officer said.

  "Yes," she said, but when he started to accompany her to the street, she gasped and said, "My father would die."

  "Does he believe the Japanese fleet is coming soon?"

  "Not he," she lied, "but his friend. What is the truth?"

  "In one year or two we will destroy Japan."

  That night Reiko-chan advised her father that there must be something wrong with the Wyoming newspaper, because Japan was not winning the war, but this infuriated Sakagawa-san, who had brought home a second copy of the Prairie Shinbun, more inflammatory than the first, and as Reiko patiently read it to him she herself began to wonder: "Who is telling the truth?"

  Then proof came. President Roosevelt arrived in Honolulu aboard a naval ship, and the Sakagawas saw him with their own eyes and marked the way in which he rode through Honolulu, protected by dozens of secret-service men. To Sakagawa-san, this proved that America was strong, but he had not reckoned with Mr. Ishii's superior intellect, for scarcely had the long black automobiles sped by when the excited little man rushed into the barbershop with staggering news.

  "Didn't I tell you?" he whispered. "Oh, tremendous! Come to Sakai's immediately."

  Sakagawa turned the barbershop over to his daughter and slipped down a side street to Sakai's store, entering by a back door so as not to attract attention, for groups of Japanese were still prevented from assembling. In the back room Sakai, Mr. Ishii and several agitated older men stood discussing the exciting news. For a moment Sakagawa could not comprehend what it was all about, but soon Mr. Ishii explained everything.

  "President Roosevelt has come to Hawaii on his way to Tokyo. He's going to surrender peacefully, be executed at the Yasukuni Shrine as a common war criminal, and the Japanese navy will be here in three days."

  Mr. Ishii's stories always featured specific details and dates, and one would have thought that after a while his listeners would recall that for three years not one of his predictions had come to pass; but the hope of victory was so strong in the hearts of some of his audience that he was never called to task for his errors. "In three days!" he said. "Ships of the Imperial navy steaming into Pearl Harbor. But I will protect you, Sakagawa-san, and I will ask the emperor to forgive you for sending your sons to war."

  When President Roosevelt left Honolulu for his execution in Tokyo, Mr. Ishii waited in a state of near-collapse for the battleships of his homeland to come steaming in from the west. For three nights he slept on his roof, waiting, waiting, and in the little house in Kakaako, his friend Sakagawa also waited, in trepidation.

  On the fourth day, when it was apparent that the Imperial navy was going to be temporarily delayed, Mr. Ishii dropped the whole subject and took up instead the rumor printed in the Prairie Shinbun that the Japanese had captured both Australia and New Zealand. He felt, he told the Sakagawas, that it might be a good idea to emigrate to Australia, for under Japanese control there would be good lands for all.

  Reiko-chan discussed each of these rumors with Lieutenant Jackson, who listened patiently as the wide-eyed barber disclosed her apprehensions. Always he laughed, and once observed: "This Mr. Ishii must be quite a jerk," but Reiko apologized for the little man: "He came from Hiroshima long ago and has lived in darkness," whereupon the naval officer said, "He better watch out what he says. He could get into trouble." At this Reiko-chan laughed and said, "Nobody ever takes Mr. Ishii seriously. He's such a sweet, inoffensive little man."

  It would be difficult to characterize as a love affair a series of meetings conducted in a barbershop under the hawklike eye of Kamejiro Sakagawa and in a crowded Okinawan restaurant run by the Senaga family, for between Reiko-chan and Lieutenant Jackson there were no crushing kisses or lingering farewells, but it was a love affair nevertheless, and on one bold Tuesday, Reiko extended her lunch hour till four in the afternoon, and that sunny day there were both kisses and enraptured embraces. One Wednesday night she slipped away from home and waited for Lieutenant Jackson's Chevrolet, and they drove out to Diamond Head and parked in a lovers' lane. Local people called this, "The midnight athletes watching the
under-water submarine races under a full moon." But a shore patrol, inspecting cars, called it country necking, and when they got to the Chevy they were astounded.

  "What you doin' with a Jap, Lieutenant?"

  "Talking."

  "With a Jap?"

  "Yes, with a Japanese."

  "Let's see your papers."

  "You didn't ask to see their papers."

  "They're with white girls."

  With a show of irritation Lieutenant Jackson produced his papers and the shore patrol shook their heads. "This beats anything," one of the sailors said. "She a local girl?"

  "Of course."

  "Can you speak English, lady?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I guess it's all right, if a naval officer don't care whether he necks with a Jap or not."

  "Look here, buddy . . ."

  "You want to start something, sir?"

  Lieutenant Jackson looked up at the two towering sailors and said, "No."

  "We didn't think so. Good night, Jap-lover."

  Lieutenant Jackson sat silent for some minutes, then said, "War is unbelievable. If those two boys live till we get to Tokyo, they'll probably fall in love with Japanese girls and marry them. With what confusion they will remember this night."

  "Will our men get to Tokyo soon?" Reiko-chan asked.

  The lieutenant was impressed-by the manner in which she said "our men," and he asked, "Why did you say it that way?"

  She replied, "I have four brothers fighting in Europe."

  "You have . . ." He stopped and on an uncontrollable impulse jumped out of the car and shouted, "Hey, shore patrol! Shore patrol!"

  The two young policemen hurried back and asked, "What's the matter, Lieutenant? She turn out to be a spy?"

  "Fellows, I want you to meet Miss Reiko Sakagawa. She has four brothers fighting in the American army in Italy. While you and I sit on our fat asses here in Hawaii. When you were here before, I didn't know."

  "You got four men in the war?"

  "Yes," she replied quietly.

  "All army?"

  "Yes. Japanese aren't allowed in the navy."