by Bill Baynes
A gunshot!
And there, finally, is Doc, sprinting up the street, his hand in the air carrying a pistol.
He shoots into the air. The dogs pause.
Blamblamblam!
Dirt spurts into the air near the dogs’ feet.
Blamblam!
The animals whirl and scatter into the wreckage of the surrounding block.
Joe slaps Doc on the back.
“Never knew how much I missed you.”
“Jesus, Joe, don’t you carry your gun?” Doc says, hands on his knees, breathing hard.
After they repair the cart, the men make it to Sam’s home in less than a half hour. The boy is just coming out of the door of the old hotel.
“Sam,” Joe chimes.
“At last,” Doc pants.
When he sees how much food they’re bringing, Sam hurries to get his mother. Aiko descends the stairs, a blanket wrapped around her and her infant. She puts her hand to her mouth.
Joe is beaming. He points to the pails, then to himself and Doc, then to her. We’ve brought this for you.
Aiko bows, points to the food, and waves her finger back and forth.
Joe looks puzzled. Aiko shakes her head, a painful smile stuck to her face.
Joe doesn’t understand why she is refusing his gift. It doesn’t take long for him to figure it out. People crowd behind Aiko on the stairs.
One person, then two, then three push Aiko aside, almost knocking her down, and rush to the cart. Others appear outside, carrying cups, bowls, pots, and other containers. Joe and Doc back away in the face of the onslaught.
People attack the pails, jostling each other and elbowing the two Americans aside. Some try to eat where they are, but they can’t keep their position by the pails. Most scoop Cookie’s stew as quickly as they can and make their way out of the mob, bending over their food to preserve it.
A few fights break out. One young man grapples with an older woman and takes her stew for himself. The woman shrieks. A child forces another man to drop his pot. Precious food slops onto the street.
Joe thinks of how his parents fed the neighbors from their grocery store when he was young during the Depression, how everyone made do with less, how everyone tried to be polite and orderly.
“These people … they’re like the dogs,” he says.
“Dog-hungry,” Doc says.
Aiko stands to one side, one arm around Sam, watching. She catches Joe’s eye, smiles sadly, and shrugs.
The stew is gone in less than five minutes.
9
Isamu
All the way to the train station, people know who he is. Nods from passers-by, nudges among vendors behind stalls framed by icicles, whispers floating like smoke in the chilled air.
“There’s the kid who got the stew. Special delivery from the U.S. Navy.”
“Why did they bring so much?”
“An officer’s wife, you know. She can never get enough.”
Giggles follow Isamu like mice as he scurries across the square, both arms crossed over his chest to ward off the cold and the comments he is meant to overhear.
“I hear they were handsome …” a teasing female voice.
“So ugly …” another woman’s voice.
Isamu always relied on being small and quick, on being invisible most of the time. Now it’s not possible. He’s the talk of the neighborhood.
It’s okay. This is the new Isamu.
He doesn’t care if they stare. No more skulking, no more hiding. That’s over. It’s not working. The blue blotches across both cheeks prove that. He’ll wear his bruises as badges, proudly, enjoying the unspoken reactions wherever he goes. If staying out of sight isn’t making it, he’ll try look-at-me.
His ribs are still sore and his knee stiff, but he’s recovering from his beating, at least physically. But Isamu lives in fear—of hunger, of bigger boys, of being trapped. It’s with him all the time.
He’s got to be braver, or at least seem to be, so no one will bother him. That’s what he believes. He slows his pace and lowers his arms. He won’t let people see that their comments upset him. He squares his shoulders and strides through the market.
Tucked inside his trousers is a short steel rod, something the old Isamu could have used a few days ago.
He swivels his head, searching for a break, an idea, an opportunity. Nothing interesting this morning. The merchants assume he has money, but he has none. He has nothing to trade either and he’s too visible to pinch anything.
He needs a new way to get by. No more Americans. They’re causing problems. He’s going to stay away from them. He was lucky to find those sailors when he did. That plan worked pretty well for a while, but it’s getting out of control. Yesterday showed that.
One of the bigger boys who ganged up on him is leaning over a booth, brandishing a sweet potato, and intimidating a vendor. Takeo smashes his hand down on the shelf of black-market goods, spilling rice, tea, wooden clogs, and kettles onto the dirt street.
“You don’t pay me,” the boy smiles sweetly, “you don’t stay here.”
Distraught, the merchant flaps his hands and bows repeatedly.
“Please, please, please.”
“Do you want to stay in business?”
“I do. I do. I pay. I pay.”
Takeo glances at Isamu.
“What are you looking at, kuso?“ he laughs. “Bring us some more of that Navy grub.”
Isamu wants to cower and scamper away, but he makes himself stand straight and look calmly at his tormenter. He casually continues down the aisle. He’s feels like he’s balanced on the edge of a deep pit, but he doesn’t let it show, and Takeo turns back to the vendor.
Isamu draws a fluttery breath. He pulled it off. With a little bounce to his step, he circles toward home.
He comes upon Mama, hurrying across an ashen lot with Hana-chan strapped to her back, carrying a few vegetables.
“Oh, Isamu. I’m glad to see you.”
She seems so tired. She smears dirt on her face with the back of her hand.
“I took these from our plot. I was afraid to leave them in the ground. Someone will take them.”
“They’re awful small,” the boy says, receiving them from her.
“They’re better than nothing.”
He’s determined to declare his new role at home too. He’s a little shaky, but he pushes the feeling down.
“We’ve got to discuss the Americans,” he says, as they trudge back to their place. “Everybody’s talking about them. There are a lot of nasty remarks.”
“I heard them too.”
“We’ve got to get rid of Joe and the other one,” Isamu says. “It was a mistake to show them where we live.”
“What will we do to eat?” Mama asks. “You can’t count on the rations.”
They enter their room and Isamu unties his sister and lifts her to his shoulder. Mama busies herself with arranging their meager harvest on the table.
“The garden certainly isn’t going to give us what we need,” she says.
“I am the man of the house,” Isamu says, his voice breaking. “I will provide. You must not be troubled.”
Mama purses her lips and looks away. She allows silence to build.
Isamu takes it as assent. He can feel the power shift within the family. He will be responsible. He will be the dependable one. He ignores the knot in his stomach.
“Good,” he says. “It’s settled.”
“We are never to see the Americans again?”
“Hai,” he barks. That’s right. He sounds like his father.
“Why do you think we need to do this?”
“So people won’t hate us,” Isamu says. “So they won’t steal from us.”
Mama shakes her head.
“And Hana-chan? What will become of her?”
Before Isamu can answer, they hear steps rising on the stairs. Mama is moving toward the door, as heavy knocking begins.
It’s Joe, unanno
unced, uninvited, filling the frame.
“Konnichiwa,” he says, taking off his cap. “Hello.”
He grins broadly, pleased with himself to speak Japanese, the boy assumes.
Surprised, Mama smiles, perhaps more than politely, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. She’s embarrassed to be caught in her blouse and pantaloons.
She steps back, inviting the big American inside.
“Just wanted to stop by and make sure you’re okay,” he says. “I’m sorry we caused such a fuss.”
Neither the mother nor the son can make out what the man is saying. Isamu picks out “okay” and figures from Joe’s tone of voice that he’s apologizing for the ruckus yesterday.
Isamu is mortified by his own behavior, by his tears at the docks the day before last. He shouldn’t have let his emotions show, especially in front of the gaijin. He’s too old for that. He sits against the wall, brooding, Hana-chan in his lap.
The American is so loud, he brays like a farm animal. So rude, he stomps his feet like a horse, still in his shoes.
Mama motions for him to sit, lights the fire under the teapot and drapes a scarf over her shoulders. She shoves the vegetables on the table into a bag. She still has a dirty streak on her cheek.
Joe clops across the room in his heavy shoes, tracking mud onto Mama’s tatami again, and drops onto the cushion. The man is never still, constantly shifting his weight, looking around, clearing his throat.
He smiles at Isamu. He notices the framed photo of Father in his uniform and picks it up. He points to it and raises his eyebrows questioningly. Isamu looks away.
As Mama serves his tea, he points to the picture and to her and raises his eyebrows.
“Where is he?” he asks, pointing to the picture.
Mama looks down.
The American puts on a sad face, but Isamu doesn’t buy it. He hasn’t reached puberty yet, but he sees how Joe gazes at his mother. He understands that Joe’s interest may extend beyond kindness and respect.
Father shipped out a year and a half ago and never sent any word home since then. He never met his daughter. But Mama is bound to him by her culture as strictly as if he were standing beside her. She is supposed to spend the rest of her life praying, waiting to die so she can rejoin him.
Joe reaches into his jacket and brings out a bag. More ghastly meat things.
“Iie!” Isamu says loudly. “Iie!” He shakes his head and his finger back and forth.
Joe is confused. He holds both hands open.
“Aren’t they any good? What’s wrong?”
Mama doesn’t know how to answer. The officer’s wife again, she’s concerned about her guest’s discomfort. She smiles graciously and holds out her hands to accept the food.
“Pah!” the boy mutters in the corner.
Mama glances at him and frowns at his rudeness.
Joe raises his cup. Mama hesitates and does the same, then bows her head.
Isamu carries the baby to his mother, then bows to Joe and walks out the door.
Enraged, he trots past the merchants in their booths, hating the mice, trying not to hear them.
He needs a new plan.
10
Joe
Four bells. Dawn over Tokyo Bay.
Salmon pink skims over the water like cursive across a page, revealing dozens of huge creatures, gunmetal gray, dozing in the gentle swells.
Prehistoric. Posthistoric.
The Allied Fleet, the destroyed city still in darkness.
Officer of the Deck on the morning watch, Joe has been on duty since 4:00 a.m., drinking mud, musing… r.
… on the new world order, the winners and losers, the apparatus of the Occupation filling the harbor.
… on being a cog in a military machine 6,000 miles from home in someone else’s country. In ordinary times, he’d never be here. He’d never have met her.
Scattered across his consciousness, his last few moments with Aiko. Her smile of apology after the boy stormed out, her unspilled tears as she turned away. The way she tilted her head into his hand when he took a chance and brushed the smear from her face.
“I … I’ve got to see you. Can I see you?”
And she said: “Joe-san.”
That’s all. “Joe-san.” And she put her hand over his.
He’s aflame with the memory.
His moods are brittle. One moment he’s unaccountably elated, another in ambushed depression for no apparent reason.
Why did the boy leave? Where did he go? Why didn’t he want the sandwiches?
It’s December. What happens to them in a month when the Chourre sails?
Why didn’t he tell her he’s shipping out? How can he tell her anything when everything he says must sound like gibberish to her?
Churning with worries, Joe is not very good company. He shows his short temper when the “fellas” rehash the food riot during a darkroom break.
“Ya got somethin’ goin’ with Sam’s mom, don’t ya?” Wade asks abruptly.
“No, not really. She’s a woman trying to feed two children with nothing.”
“Ha. Ya didn’t go to all that trouble for nothin’. Ya were trying to impress her.”
“You’re Section 8, Wade. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t? Look, don’t go to so much trouble. Just take what ya want.”
“Maybe that’s the way they do it in the big city,” Joe snaps, “but not where I’m from.”
“You’re a long way from where ya came from.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Binky.” Doc shakes his head. “You’ve got to let them go.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
The best way to punch Joe’s stubborn button (he has a big one) is to tell him he can’t do something.
“I can leave them with money,” he says.
“It will run out,” Doc says, “sooner or later.”
“I can go to GHQ and get them a job.”
“For the child or the woman with a baby?”
“They’ll laugh at ya,” Wade says
“I’ve made a connection with these people,” Joe says. “I can’t undo it.”
He is pining for her, but he decides to be with Sam. He thought he established a bond when the boy broke down in his arms. He doesn’t know what happened since then to turn Sam against him, but he figures it will be easier for Aiko if he can mend his rift with her son.
He locates the sack they took from Matsushiro and removes a bat, two gloves, and several balls. He throws the baseball gear into a smaller pack and walks to Aiko’s hotel. He brings his pistol, but the trip is without incident.
A rare warm day, he finds the boy outside and bawls his nickname.
“Sam!”
The boy turns, red-faced.
Joe holds up one finger, smiles, and reaches into the sack. He brings out a baseball glove.
“Ta-dah …”
He hands it to Sam and takes out the other one.
“Put it on.”
Joe demonstrates. The boy reluctantly puts his hand in the heavy leather glove.
Joe tosses a baseball, but Sam doesn’t try to catch it. It falls at his feet.
Joe takes the boy’s lack of enthusiasm as a personal challenge. Without missing a beat, he motions for him to throw the ball back to him and then he catches it.
“See? It’s easy. You know how to do this.”
He tosses another soft one. It bounces off Sam’s glove.
“Throw it back.”
But Sam takes off the glove and hands it to Joe. He picks up the ball and rocks it in his arms like a baby. Ball is for babies.
What a shame, Joe thinks. The kid has forgotten how to have fun. Another unforeseen wartime casualty.
Disappointed, he decides to go upstairs, but Sam grabs his sleeve. He shakes his head.
“Iie! Iie!”
“I just want to say hello to your mother.”
The boy continues to shake his head and waves hi
s hands. It seems important to him.
“Okay.” Joe holds up his hands. “Okay.”
A lot of people are watching. He realizes that he and Sam have been an entertainment. He came to make it better, not worse. He grabs the pack and gear and departs.
It is torture for him not to see her.
Undeterred, he fills a sack with cold weather supplies. As an officer, and a well-liked one at that, it’s easy to access lockers stuffed with unused blankets. There are plenty on board. He finds discarded clothing that no one cares if he takes.
The next afternoon he treks by himself to Aiko’s room. People peek out of their rooms at him as he strains to carry the bulging sack up the stairs.
Sam isn’t there. It is a stolen moment.
They are careful with each other, formal. She bows to him. Joe bows back. She nestles the baby in her blanket.
He holds his hand at waist level. The little one. Both hands open. Where?
She doesn’t know. A head shake, a wistful smile. She seems worried.
He shows her what he’s brought. She is delighted. She lifts a frayed pea coat and admires it. He moves behind her to help her put it on and then closes his arms around her. She jerks away, but he holds tight and kisses her head.
She relaxes against him. He touches her chin, tenderly, raising her head, turning her toward him. They embrace, her cheek on his chest, his chin on the top of her head.
It doesn’t last long, not long enough. He steps back, embarrassed by his hardness.
Laughter, very soft.
He signs. You. Me. Away.
That sad smile again.
Away, he gestures. Away.
She shakes her head, shivers.
Hana-chan whimpers and her mother goes to her, picks her up.
How can he tell her he’s departing in less than a month? Joe points to himself. Me. He waves his hand. Goodbye. He holds up four fingers. Four weeks. Then he makes an exaggerated frown.
Aiko doesn’t understand. The little girl on her shoulder, she opens one palm and shakes her head.
Joe holds up four fingers again, but she puts her hand around his, then slides two fingers around his wedding band. She looks in his eyes and cocks her head.
Joe looks down for a long moment, then stares directly into her eyes. He holds both arms close together at full length, pointing into the distance. Far away. Then he holds his hands close to his chest and motions back and forth toward Aiko. You and I here.