The Diplomat’s Daughter

by Karin Tanabe

  “But it must be the same in Tokyo,” said Claire, stopping Emi and pointing out a large hole in the ground. “Worse, with such a large population. You can’t find mushrooms in the middle of the city, can you?”

  “I’d be surprised,” said Emi. “Perhaps my parents were just hiding the truth from me, or they are being treated better than most, for now. I couldn’t say.”

  “This hole,” said Claire, “all this.” She ran her hands against a large wall of dirt. “It’s pumice from a terrible volcanic eruption, about a hundred and fifty years ago. It killed thousands, tens of thousands, the eruption itself and then the famine it caused.”

  “Mount Asama?” asked Emi, of the large active volcano that loomed over the town.

  “That’s the one.”

  Claire put her finger to her lips as they heard the step of a deer that had just come through the brush. “A Sika doe. Those we do eat,” she whispered. “Do you have a gun with you?”

  “Of course not,” Emi whispered back. The animal, startled by the women, turned around and bounded off.

  “Too bad,” said Claire, motioning for Emi to follow her to the main street. “Maybe you’ll get to eat venison with the German officers.”

  Emi hadn’t had meat since the Gripsholm, and the cuts of beef on the ship were mostly browned fat remolded to look like steak. She’d had venison in Germany and Austria before and though she found the taste too rich, she was coming to understand that in Karuizawa, as Claire said, if it was edible, you ate it.

  Perhaps it was luck that Emi wasn’t feeling hunger pains yet, or it was that her body had adapted to surviving on much less after her boat journey. She said as much to Claire, who pointed out that Emi’s pants were almost slipping off her frame. Emi looked down, unbuttoned her coat, and pulled them up, rolling the waistband twice.

  “Start with trying to get some sustenance at Drexel’s party,” said Claire. “My advice is play late into the night, and then when they are drunk—and they will be wildly drunk—you pack up all the remaining food and bring it home. Don’t pick and choose, just take anything. Take their half-eaten chicken legs, crumbs from the floor. Steal it all. Even if it’s soup, find a way to transport it. If you have enough, bring some to me the next day. But feed the Moris first, of course. What a way to live out their twilight years,” said Claire as the town’s main street, the ginza, came into view. “With more war.”

  * * *

  A wet snow had begun to fall the afternoon of the party, starting and stopping like bursts of tears throughout the day, but Emi rode Mrs. Mori’s old bicycle, the spokes stiff with rust, to Hans Drexel’s house at the other end of Karuizawa anyway. She felt like she deserved some sort of physical punishment before entertaining men like Drexel. The Moris had warned her that if anything untoward were to happen, that she was to leave at once, food or not, and had pleaded with her to take their old car. Emi admitted to them that she was a poor driver, always having been ferried by others, or hopping on and off public transport all over the world.

  “I understand we need food but I don’t like you going,” Jiro had said, watching Emi take the bicycle out of the Moris’ garden shed. “Especially not on that old contraption.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Emi, after she had finished putting air in the tires, but she was as nervous as Jiro Mori. What had happened to the girl in Austria who held hands with Leo? Now she was going to a Nazi officer’s party.

  In her best dress, tucked into wool pants and under a winter coat, she tried not to fall in the slush, walking the bicycle up the small hills until she reached the wooded corner that hid Drexel’s house. The large home, a former American missionary’s, was set well back, like most of the summer places were. Emi only saw three cars parked out front and guessed that Drexel was having her, one of the help, arrive before the guests.

  There were no Christmas decorations on the porch or façade, like Emi was used to seeing in Europe; instead there was the only adornment that the Nazis had cared about since 1920: the swastika. The party flag hung above the front door, attached to a line of cedar bark that edged the roof. The first time she had seen that flag hanging vertically was when Adolf Hitler spoke at the Heldenplatz in Vienna. Now she was walking into a house that displayed it, and in her own country. She pulled her eyes down, sickened to think what she was prepared to do for something to eat.

  She stepped onto the porch, past a line of handcarved rockers, and knocked softly on the door. A young Caucasian woman in a perfectly steamed evening dress opened the door and looked with disdain at Emi in her thick, muddy clothes.

  “Incorrect house,” she said in accented Japanese, her face cold and dismissive. She moved to close the door but Emi was able to catch it with her shoe before it slammed shut in her face.

  “I’m here to play the piano,” Emi said in German, assuming it was her mother tongue. She pressed the door open a few more inches with her toe and looked down at the done-up woman, who was, despite her heels, several inches shorter than her. “I was invited by Standartenführer Hans Drexel.”

  She looked at Emi’s wet coat and the black bicycle against the tree behind her, raised her pencil-drawn eyebrows, and said, “Wait.”

  When Hans Drexel appeared, several minutes later, he was not wearing the heavy, gray-green Nazi uniform that he had on at the hotel, but a tuxedo-styled dress uniform covered in SS insignia. It showed off his firm build and handsome appearance, made more striking by his dark hair and light eyes. Like Leo, Emi thought.

  “You have come to entertain us. And you brought winter with you.” Drexel took in her shabby appearance with evident disapproval, his green eyes moving slowly over her shapeless, wool-covered body.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her apology turning her stomach. “I don’t intend to play in these clothes. If you let me change, I will return looking better.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said, and let her move farther inside the house. “My bedroom is just upstairs.” He put his hand on her back and rubbed it hard along her vertebrae, all the way past her tailbone. “Let me escort you up. We have some time before you need to start playing.”

  “A bathroom will suffice,” Emi said, stepping away, the feel of his fingers hot and lingering.

  Drexel laughed, his wide pink mouth turned up, amused, and held his hands up. “They all start off like this, but they change quickly,” he whispered. He pointed across the living room to a bathroom and Emi hurried over.

  As she took off her layer of wet clothes, pushing them into the bag she’d brought to hide food in, she looked in the mirror and shook her head at her reflection. His hand on her back, the uninvited touch—she couldn’t help but think of the day behind Leo’s house, Kirsten and her Hitlerjugend pin, the boys who had stripped her of her dignity between bouts of untroubled laughter. Emi had spent the years since pushing away any thoughts that might remind her of that day, that would set off the memory. She had succeeded in turning it into a distant nightmare, one that she refused to let occupy her mind or body, but Drexel’s hand on her had allowed the winter of 1938 to march right back in.

  Abruptly, she wiped off the red lipstick she had applied with precision at the Moris’. She should not have said yes to an offer like Drexel’s until she or her hosts were on the brink of starvation.

  “Fool,” she muttered as she splashed water on her face. “Stupid, ignorant fool.”

  When Emi emerged from the bathroom, she was in her figure-hugging wool dress and heeled shoes. Drexel eyed her, but she moved aside before he could touch her again.

  His hand hovering near her slender hips, encased in the red fabric, he led her to the Mampei Hotel’s piano and said, “Sit now and play. Keep playing until I tell you to stop.”

  He stayed close to her as she sat on the bench, adjusting it, then reached down and placed her hands on the keys, pushing them down forcefully.

  “Play,” he said loudly, breathing in her ear. “Play now.”

  She nodded yes, and when he finally left
her, she let out a deep breath and started Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” She had played just a few bars when Drexel rushed back and slammed his fist on top of the piano, causing heads to turn.

  “Nothing French!” he bellowed, his other fist pushing down on her fingers again. “Beethoven! Brahms! Bach! Schumann! I think Germany has produced enough composers to keep you busy. And don’t even consider the jude Mendelssohn.”

  Emi apologized and switched to Brahms, her arms shaking.

  When Drexel had moved across the room, she dared to look about, noticing that there were still very few guests, but those in her line of sight were grouped about drinking. Alcohol was hard to come by across the country, because of the scarcity of rice, but the Germans had surmounted the problem. The smell of sake being heated in the kitchen—floral but with a distinct dryness—was wafting through the house like a forgotten perfume.

  As she inhaled, she noticed that more Japanese guests arrived, and almost missed a note when she realized that many of the men coming in were Kempeitai. They were a branch of the army police who sought out spies and kept Japan under draconian order, but Emi hadn’t glimpsed any in Tokyo when she’d arrived. She’d seen them back in the thirties as they’d been active in the occupation of Manchuria, and knew they were deployed all over the country now, especially where there were large foreign populations, but seeing them uniformed and en masse stopped her breath.

  Our very own SS, thought Emi as she watched the Kempeitai in the room, in their olive green uniforms with tight black collars, armbands with Ken and Hei kanji—law and soldier—and polished knee-high boots. Though they were stone-faced, their body language betrayed their expressions, as they seemed happy to be attending a party rather than hunting out those deemed “undesirables.”

  “They are staying at the Mikasa Hotel, a pretty structure in the shadow of Mount Asama. But they’re in town, and here in the forest, all the time. They came and questioned us once,” Jiro had said when he was telling Emi about Karuizawa—and who she should avoid—on the day she arrived. “Because I spent so much time in America as a diplomat,” he’d explained before she could ask why. “Mostly they just spy on the foreigners, but they have deemed me, and a few other Japanese, worthy of their time as well. If they knock on the door and you are home alone, slip out the back and hide in the woods. But sometimes,” he said, clearing his throat, “they don’t bother to knock.”

  When the room had filled up with warm, hungry bodies, the food was brought out from the kitchen and set on a large, Western-style table. Emi tried not to turn her head as Japanese women brought out serving trays, but she knew she wouldn’t see such a feast for a long time.

  After the guests had helped themselves to a first and second serving, Emi was allowed to follow. She filled a plate with ham and potatoes—real potatoes, with salt—cooked vegetables, and thick slices of brown German bread with soft, flour-dusted crusts. She slathered a slice with butter and held it up to her nose—it smelled like warm salt and fat—before taking large bites of it, biting again before she’d swallowed any, the butter melting on the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t suffering from starvation or malnutrition yet, but having well-cooked, fattening food in her mouth made her realize how hungry, how desperate for flavors, she was.

  “The ham is exceptional,” she heard the girl who opened the front door say to Drexel as the guests all did the round of the table again, never moving very far away from the food. She was allowing him to have his hands on her back and elsewhere. “I thought it was only tuna fish in tin cans that came on the last boat.”

  “It was,” said Drexel. “A disgrace. But you know we have our ways. The German military has been in this town long enough to know how to enjoy life here. We are not going to let our women starve, are we?”

  “No,” said the girl, helping herself to even more ham. “But there aren’t many German women here now. We will see how generous you are when hundreds more come this year.”

  “We will be as generous as always,” said Drexel, putting his arm around her. Noticing Emi watching them, he motioned for her to go back to the piano, but before she did, she helped herself to one more plate of food—ham, chicken, different kinds of cheeses, fried bread dipped in cream sauce, carrot soup, and mashed potatoes.

  When she was finished, she brought her plate to the kitchen, which was staffed with a half-dozen Japanese girls.

  She handed her plate to one of them, and then looking to see that Drexel was still occupied, asked about the food. “How do they have this much to eat?” she asked, very curious about Drexel and the girl’s conversation. “I heard about the bread, but this is so much more.”

  “I don’t know,” said the girl, not looking at Emi. “But they always seem to have this much. When I work for them, they let me eat some if there’s a lot of fat on a slice of ham or if the bread falls in the oven.”

  Emi nodded politely and went back to the piano, where she stayed until well past midnight, when there were only ten guests left at the party, all so drunk that they looked near falling over or falling asleep.

  Drexel motioned to her with a flick of his hand that she could stop playing, and Emi stood up and looked out at the table, still covered in trays of food.

  “Give me your watch and I’ll tell you where the food comes from,” one of the kitchen girls whispered to her when she got close enough. Emi looked down at her, her apron tied around her waist twice, she was so thin. And young. She barely looked like a teenager.

  “My watch?” said Emi, quietly, looking down at her timepiece, which was one of her mother’s old ones. She had not been permitted to take her good watch with her to Karuizawa, since her parents wanted her to blend in. “Why would you want it?”

  “Who cares why I want it, I want it,” she whispered back in coarse Japanese. “Give it to me and I’ll tell you where they hide the ham.”

  “Hide the ham . . .” Emi replied, walking to the bathroom as Drexel had made it clear that her work was done. She just needed to change and put as much food in her bag as she could without making a commotion.

  The kitchen girl followed her in and held out her hand. Seeing that Emi had other clothes with her, she said, “Give me that dress, too. I want it.”

  Too curious to say no, Emi removed her dress in front of the girl and took off her watch.

  The girl looked at Emi’s other clothes and seeming satisfied, said, “They have a farm. The Germans. It’s a long walk from town, north of the Mampei Hotel, past the Kumanokōtai Shrine.”

  “How do you know about it?” Emi asked skeptically.

  “I worked there once,” she said defensively.

  “In what capacity?”

  “What’s it matter to you?” She paused and looked at Emi. “Give me those shoes, too. The heeled ones.”

  “They won’t fit you. I’m half a meter taller than you,” said Emi, not stepping out of them.

  “I don’t care,” said the girl. “You have the other ugly pair in that bag. I saw you when you came in.”

  Emi looked at the girl’s feet, pressed into a pair of worn heels, the shoe leather nearly porous, and gave them to her.

  “You telling me about a farm is worth all this?” she asked, slipping on her pants and coat over her silk slip.

  “They have food,” she said shrugging. “That officer seems to like you. Maybe he will let you eat some. You need it. You look like a twig.”

  “You’re not fat yourself,” said Emi.

  “Which is why I’ve been to the farm.” She slipped out of the bathroom door, leaving Emi to collect herself before she left.

  When Emi opened the door a few minutes later, Drexel was standing next to it.

  “This is what you want, yes?” He didn’t ask about the kitchen girl, instead handing her a heavy paper bag. Already, the bottom was soaked in oil from the food.

  “Yes,” said Emi, reaching out for it.

  “I will look for you in town,” said Drexel. “You’ll play for me at the hotel when I�
�m there. Whatever song I want.”

  “Of course,” said Emi, “if I know it.”

  When she left she didn’t thank him, instead opening the door quickly and leaving him to close it behind her. She stood on the porch and let the cold air, colder than even a winter in Vienna, spiral into her lungs. She was surprised and she didn’t know what to do with her surprise. The men at the party, other than Drexel when she’d arrived, had not acted like beasts. It was almost worse, she thought, to see traces of their humanity married with the barbarity of their uniforms.

  Emi got onto her bicycle, the seat wet with snow and rain, and started to pedal away from the house. She had only gone a few yards when she heard her name, and then saw Claire, stepping out from the woods behind the house.

  Emi nearly fell, the bicycle tipping, the food managing to stay in the basket.

  “Did you get any food?” asked Claire, rushing over to her.

  “You scared me,” said Emi, trying to steady herself. “I did and I would have brought you some tomorrow. How long have you been hiding?”

  “Tonight it will taste so much better than tomorrow,” said Claire, eyeing the bag.

  Emi started to untie it, as Claire asked her about the party. Consumed in what they were doing, they did not hear the footsteps until the people were next to them. Emi looked up and saw the pretty German woman who had opened the door standing next to her, one arm linked with a member of the Kempeitai.

  The woman smiled at Emi and then knocked the bag of food to the ground with her gloved hand. “No English,” she declared as her Kempeitai escort laughed.

  “No English,” he repeated, stepping on the large loaf of bread that had rolled out. He looked at the ham, too, which had also fallen out, but it was already submerged in a puddle.

  Emi and Claire stood still, watching the two walk to their car, parked by the side of the road, and didn’t move until they had driven off.

  “Quick!” yelled Claire, pouncing on the bag. “Get that ham out of the water. We can rinse it off.” Emi got on her knees and reached for it as Claire pulled the flattened bread up, trying to pull dirt and twigs off it.