The Translation of Love

by Lynne Kutsukake

  After squinting at the map for a moment, he picked up his pointer and touched a spot so close to the edge of the map it looked like it could fall off. “Here. This is Japan.”

  It resembled a shriveled bean.

  “This is what the world looks like. This is what we will study.” He moved his pointer to the opposite side of the map and placed it in the center of the United States. “Class, what country is this?”

  He looked meaningfully at Aya, but she dropped her gaze immediately.

  “Sanae?” he said, picking the one student he could always count on. “I think you know what country this is. Can you please tell the class?”

  Sanae looked down at her desk. “America?” she whispered timidly.

  “That’s it. Speak up so everyone can hear.”

  “America.”

  “Very good. And what is America most famous for?”

  Again silence.

  It was almost time to end class. Kondo wondered if they were tired or bored or simply hungry. He slapped his pointer against the map a second time, hitting it a little harder than he intended. The metal stand wobbled unsteadily. “Come now, it’s not a hard question. You know the answer. What is America most famous for?”

  Chocoretto. He heard the whisper at the back of the room but he wasn’t sure who had spoken. Some of the girls started to giggle.

  The bell rang and he set down his pointer. Kondo tried to muster his most authoritative tone of voice—it should be confident, full of energy, in control. He wanted them to look forward to the new social studies program. He wanted them to understand everything that this map represented.

  “We’ll continue next week. That’s all for today. Class dismissed!”

  After the last student had left, Kondo sat down at his desk. He listened to the girls’ high-pitched chatter grow fainter and fainter as they walked down the school corridor. Once they had exited the building, he was conscious of them again, this time from outside, as their voices floated up to his ears through the open windows and mingled with the cries of the boys and girls in the younger grades who had been let out earlier and were playing in the school yard. From the distance, all their voices sounded so earnest. Every so often he heard shouts of “Stupid!” or “That’s mine!”—the little boys seemed particularly prone to fighting—and he felt his heart twist at their innocence and their youth. Even though the students in his class were older, they were still such young girls.

  The children struck him as so much more adaptable than adults. The younger they were, the quicker they seemed to make the transition to whatever was new. They switched from miso soup to milk, from rice to bread, and back again with barely any need to stop sipping or chewing. Maybe they were hungry, but it was more than that. Change was in the air, and the children handled it with an insouciance that he envied.

  It didn’t surprise anyone that the Americans demanded major reforms in the education system. Naturally the old teaching, especially the morals, history, and geography classes, had to go—too feudalistic, too militaristic—to be replaced by a new curriculum that emphasized principles of democracy and individualism. The secondary-school system was also radically revamped by being split into two levels: a middle school of three grades and a high school of three grades. All levels of education were ordered to become coeducational as quickly as possible. Fortunately many elementary schools already had boys and girls attending the same school, so the change was not difficult, but for the higher grades making the shift was more challenging. Many parents found it unthinkable not to have separate education for boys and girls from the age of puberty, so this delicate transition was being phased in more gradually.

  The Americans even thought the new middle-school grades should have their own separate buildings (they liked to call them junior high), but everyone recognized the absurdity of such a demand. The economy was precarious and large sections of the city were still in ruins. Many schools, like the one where Kondo used to teach, had burned to the ground during the bombings, and at Minami Nishiki, although they were lucky the foundation had been made of concrete and the building itself survived, there wasn’t enough money to repair the classroom walls or windows, never mind erecting a separate structure. So they came up with an eminently practical solution: to create the new “middle school” by simply putting a handwritten sign over the doors of the classrooms used by the girls who were twelve and up. The older boys had been sent to a neighboring school.

  If they could, Kondo was sure the Americans would have changed the school year, too, so it started in September the way their schools did. They seemed to have opinions on everything. Just thinking of the enormous disruption such a change would cause made him cringe. Anyone could see that at least in this regard the Japanese way was better. April, when the cherry trees were in full bloom, was clearly the best time to begin a new course of study.

  But what difference did the views of one individual like himself make? Whatever was going to happen would happen—a new social studies curriculum, different classroom arrangements, American food for the school lunches. He had to admit that the students seemed to display no resistance at all. Maybe the Americans were right, and even if they weren’t, it didn’t matter because no one here could stop what was happening. Change was moving fast, like a giant tsunami, and Kondo did what everyone else around him did. He ran as fast as he could to keep from being crushed by the wave.

  He was lucky; he knew that, too. Many former teachers had been purged at the end of the war. They were the ones who had been too patriotic, the kind who were a bit too eager to report on others who they felt were not contributing as fully to the war effort as they should. These teachers hadn’t thought much of Kondo, whose special subject area was English, the language of the enemy, and whose ineligibility for the draft seemed very suspicious. He explained that he had tried to sign up many times, but no matter how desperate the army recruiters were, even when they were taking older men, they said they had no use for someone so nearsighted. One of them had laughed in his face. “With your eyes, you’d shoot one of us, not the enemy!” In the last three years of the war, he had spent most of his time in a munitions factory, supervising students who had been deployed from school to the war effort. He sometimes wondered what had become of them. How many had been sent to the front and died there?

  His relatives and neighbors had felt sorry for him. What a shame he couldn’t serve, what a shame he couldn’t sacrifice himself for the empire, as their own sons were doing. After the war was over, although no one said it, he sensed that people didn’t pity him so much as they resented him. He was alive, their sons were not. He was whole and able-limbed, while their boys had returned damaged and broken.

  “Give it back!”

  “Bakayaro!”

  Kondo got up and stood at the window. Two boys in the school yard were fighting. One boy was holding something up over his head, trying to keep the other from getting it.

  “Say you’re sorry, you baka.”

  “No way! You stink! Kusotare.”

  “You stink more.”

  “Your father stinks!”

  Kondo thought he recognized one of the boys. He looked like the younger brother of one of his students, Akiko Hayashi. What was his name? Masayoshi? Masatomi? Something like that. Both boys wore tattered clothes that were no better than rags and even from a distance Kondo could see the outline of their ribs through their thin undershirts. What could they possibly be fighting over? Probably some useless scrap. Well, let them enjoy their scuffle. He wondered if they knew that they were also the lucky ones. He’d seen plenty of boys their age at Ueno train station, orphaned and forced to fend for themselves. You grew up quickly in a circumstance like that. Those little boys had no compunction about following the GIs and their panpan women, cadging cigarettes, chewing gum, and who knew what else. A school-yard scuffle belonged to another era for them.

  He turned away from the window and looked at the front row of empty desks, his eyes resting on the spot whe
re the new girl sat. She didn’t seem able to talk at all, and he wasn’t sure how much she understood of what went on. What on earth was she doing here? Who ever heard about Japanese coming back from America? Why would anyone in their right mind do that? Leave a land of plenty for this. Only the desperate came here, and there were lots of those. They were from places like Manchuria and Korea, boatload after boatload of hikiagesha, repatriates driven out of Japan’s former colonies. They flooded back to the homeland with nothing except the clothes on their backs and the few possessions that they managed to strap around their shoulders. “Go home.” He mouthed the words in English. Was he talking about the repats? Or was he really thinking of the Americans? “Go home, GI Joe.” He tested the sound of this phrase, speaking the words aloud this time and listening self-consciously to the echo his voice made in the empty room. It wasn’t that he hated the Americans—he didn’t even really dislike them—but it seemed as if they had already been here long enough. A year and a half, soon it would be two years, and no sign of anyone leaving.

  As for Aya Shimamura, well, he’d done what he thought best, but look at what had happened. How could he have predicted that Fumi would behave the way she had? The principal had some ludicrous idea that Aya’s presence would somehow stimulate English-language learning. “Kondo-kun,” he’d said, “I want our school to get a head start with all this English study. You figure out how to do it. It’s going to be English all the way from this point on, you mark my words.” Kondo couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he had the sense that something beyond sheer love of pedagogy was behind the principal’s method of running his school. He was a hustler in his own way, yet Kondo had to admit that the principal was able to get things done. Hadn’t he managed to make their school one of the first to receive the new maps from America? Of course, all schools were going to get them sooner or later, but the fact that the principal had gotten his hands on one of the first was an accomplishment you had to admire.

  Kondo stood up and walked over to the map where it still hung on its spindly metal frame. He was about to roll it up and put it away when something held him transfixed. Slowly, softly, he began pronouncing the English names he saw stamped in thick black letters across the different countries. The world was so vast, it struck him, so much vaster than any of them could ever imagine, living as they did in their one tiny corner of the globe.

  He should write the names of the most important countries and capital cities in Japanese underneath the English lettering, he thought. That would help his students. They were good girls but not all of them were as sharp as he wished they were. Yes, he could do that much. He had a fine calligraphic hand, and he would bring his good brush and ink from home. But it would have to wait until next week. Right now he had to set off for his spot in the Alley, a place near Shibuya station that he felt confident none of his fellow teachers knew about. As the weather was so nice, he decided to walk. It would take well over an hour but he wanted to save on streetcar fare.

  4

  Corporal Yoshitaka “Matt” Matsumoto had the office to himself. Everyone else in the section had left: the officers, the other Nisei, the typists. The room was silent except for the electric hum of the clock that hung high in the center of the wall to the left of Lieutenant Baker’s desk. There was something very satisfying about the clock’s perfect roundness, the fullness of the sweep of its hands, the large plain numerals stamped in a circle that were easy to see from anywhere in the room. There was no second hand, just the minute needle that quivered ever so slightly before it stuttered into the next position with a faint but decisive plip.

  Before leaving, Lieutenant Baker had paused at his desk. “Still working on that letter, Matsumoto?”

  Matt jumped to his feet. “Almost finished, sir, just a few more lines.”

  Baker smiled. “Good work. But there’s no need to overdo it. Make good use of your pass.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They both knew there was no need for him to work so late on a Friday, yet Matt sensed that Baker was grateful for his dedication. All of today’s translations had already been typed up and sent by military courier the short three-hundred-yard trip down the street to General Headquarters. By now the letters were sitting on MacArthur’s desk where the general himself, everyone had repeatedly been told, would personally read every single one. A full day’s work was something to be proud of, especially given the pressure the translators and typists were under, but there was little time to rest or engage in self-congratulation. Bags of incoming mail arrived twice daily and were emptied on the large oak table in the middle of the room, where the pile was quickly building into a little Mount Fuji.

  So many letters!

  When a brief announcement had been posted in the Japanese press at the beginning of the Occupation—The government is interested in hearing from the people—no one could have possibly anticipated the reaction. This was supposed to be a nation of robots, people who blindly followed their emperor, people who would never challenge authority. Who would have thought they would write so many letters, all of them directly addressed to MacArthur? Who would have thought they had so much to say? The Occupation was already well into its twentieth month, yet the flood of letters to MacArthur showed no sign of abatement. If anything, it seemed to be increasing. Hundreds of letters arrived every day, and while a few were written in English, the vast majority were in Japanese and required translation. Matt was part of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, ATIS, a division primarily staffed with Japanese Americans, most of them second generation—Nisei. Some were enlisted servicemen like himself, while others were locally hired foreign nationals, Japanese Americans who had been trapped in Japan during the war and unable to return home. Everyone worked under a handful of American officers, most of whom had received intensive Japanese-language training in the States and had served in wartime intelligence.

  The main assignment for Matt’s section, currently its only assignment, was to translate personal mail addressed to General MacArthur.

  Dear General MacArthur, the letters would begin. After that, there was no telling what the writer might have on his mind. Topics ranged far and wide: sugar shortages, land reform, the difficulty in obtaining train tickets, the evils of prostitution, the lack of adequate housing, the high cost of soy sauce, women’s rights, corruption among city officials, gambling, smoking in elevators, the need to liberalize taxes. Furthermore, the letters came in all sizes and shapes and materials. Matt was impressed with how inventive people were despite the continuing paper shortage. Anything that could be written on was fair game: paper as thin and translucent as the skin of onions, yellowed sheets from old student notebooks, toilet paper, posters torn off poles, pieces of cardboard neatly cut into the shape of postcards, strips of clean white cloth. He once translated a letter comprised of heavy black brushstrokes written directly onto the front page of an old newspaper. He had felt like an archaeologist holding an ancient palimpsest, his eye constantly distracted by the headlines and advertisements on the faded newsprint.

  Most letters came in envelopes sealed shut with sticky rice glue but some were rolled up like scrolls and tied with string. Others were folded so many times they looked like strange forms of origami. Some letters were long—page after page of tiny Japanese characters like rows of dark seeds—and some were short, no more than a line: We wish you good health, or Welcome to Japan. Some were not kind: Get out, Americans. Some letters were written in blood.

  There were gifts for MacArthur, too. Ink paintings mounted on silk, calligraphy brushes, white clay Hakata dolls, a Noh mask, serving trays made of polished lacquer. A set of rice bowls, a frying pan (accompanied by a letter offering to provide cooking lessons to Mrs. MacArthur), a tea caddy, a collection of white tabi, countless neckties, a dozen silk handkerchiefs, a hand-carved pipe. And many—too many!—folding fans with pictures of goldfish, cherry blossoms, maple leaves, string balls, plump children at play, dancing maidens. One fan came with tiny arrows marke
d on its spine—Push this way to open. The gifts of food included packages of green tea, dried seaweed, white radish pickles, jars filled with homemade umeboshi, small pots packed with dark miso paste. A freshly plucked chicken, chunks of salted salmon. A basket of roasted sweet potatoes.

  Any notes that accompanied the gifts had to be translated.

  Matt smiled to himself, thinking of the things Sab Kawakami liked to say. “Who are they trying to kid? Does anyone really think the Old Man reads all this stuff?” Sab’s desk was next to Matt’s, and he kept up a constant patter. “I mean, I hope not. Let’s hope he has more important things to do with his time. And I bet he throws out most of the presents, except maybe the expensive pictures and pottery. Wish he’d send some stuff our way.”

  Sab had lots of quips to share. “Hey, Matsumoto, know what GHQ stands for?”

  “General Headquarters,” Matt had answered solemnly. GHQ stood for General Headquarters, the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers—SCAP. Matt had been so proud to be assigned to work here.

  “Nope.” Sab tapped two pencils on his desktop like he was doing a drumroll. “Think hard now. GHQ. Wanna guess again?”

  Matt shook his head.

  “Give up?”

  He sighed. With Sab it was always a game. “Yeah, I give up.”

  Sab beamed. “GHQ. That’s short for Go-Home-Quickly. G-H-Q. Get it?”

  When Matt shook his head in disapproval, Sab pulled a face and protested. “Hey, I didn’t make it up. That’s what some Japanese think, you know, deep inside. Not everybody is crazy about being occupied.”

  Matt returned his attention to what he had translated so far. He was working on a letter urging rapid reform of the ration system and better distribution of goods. The letter was written in a particularly convoluted style of formal Japanese and he’d had to look up almost every word two or three times in different dictionaries to be sure of the meaning. He crossed out the last sentence and rephrased it. There, that was it. He was finished. But the scrawl on his pad was an indecipherable mess, and he would have to write everything out again in a neater hand. It would be faster if he typed it himself, but he was not allowed to type—it didn’t matter that he could—because that was the job of the secretaries. Instead, like all the other translators, he had to handwrite his work on lined sheets of foolscap and place them in the big wire basket that was next to where the three secretaries in the typing pool worked. One was Nancy Nogami, a Nisei woman, who hardly spoke a word unless it was absolutely necessary. She spent her days bent over her typewriter so close her nose was only inches from the keys. Every time she made a mistake, she muttered “Darn” under her breath. Sab was betting that she’d say “damn” before the summer was over and he wanted Matt to help keep track of her building frustration.