“Sorry I’m late. Were you waiting long?” She was panting hard. “The streetcar was so crowded, and then every time it stopped more people tried to get on. I thought it was going to break down.” She took a handkerchief out of her purse, wiped her glasses, and then patted her forehead and cheeks. Her short hair stuck out at the sides.
Matt followed her gaze down to her plain straight skirt. The dark navy material was cheap and thin. Wrinkles stretched taut across the front of her thighs, just above her knees.
“Oh, boy, I’m a mess!” she said cheerfully.
“You look fine,” he said.
“No, I don’t.” She puffed out her cheeks.
As soon as Nancy caught her breath, they went up to the booth and Matt asked for two tickets. He was about to pay when she shot her hand in front of him and waved her yen. He tried to push her arm aside, but she insisted.
“I’m paying my own way.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, accepting Nancy’s money. He gave her a ticket and they walked through the entrance turnstile. An arrow pointed to the right and they followed a wide dirt path toward the animals.
Nancy led the way, walking past the cages so briskly that Matt barely had time to read the identifying signs. They passed a pair of dusty-looking zebras, a long-snouted Asian tapir, a crowded pen full of mountain goats. Some cages looked empty, although Matt wasn’t sure if the animals were napping and out of sight.
“Are we headed somewhere in particular?” he finally asked.
“What do you mean?” Nancy sounded hostile.
“Well, we’re walking past all the cages. I thought you wanted to see the animals. You said you wanted to come to the zoo.”
“Oh, that. I thought you might like to see the zoo. That’s why I suggested it. You’re having a good time, aren’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, flustered.
Nancy finally conceded that the only animals she really found interesting were the monkeys, so they headed to the Primate Pavilion. At one cage, they paused to observe a chimpanzee leisurely peel a banana, at the next they watched a dozen spider monkeys leap from one hanging vine to another. Eventually they came to rest in front of a large cage of Japanese snow monkeys from Hokkaido. The monkeys were sitting quietly in pairs, engaged in intense mutual grooming. Seen from the distance, they almost resembled human lovers. One large snow monkey was grooming a much smaller one, taking special care as it plucked the fleas from the other’s back.
“That must be its mother, don’t you think?” Nancy said. “Mother and child.” She seemed to be taken by this particular pair. The mother monkey, with her thick hood of white fur surrounding her face, resembled a rich old lady in a fuzzy bonnet. She worked her long agile fingers steadily up and down the little one’s back with methodical concentration. The baby had not yet developed any fur around its face, giving an impression of nakedness and vulnerability.
“I guess you must miss your family,” Matt said.
She nodded but kept her face averted. She continued to watch the monkeys.
“May I ask? How come you’re still here?”
“My God, you think I’m here by choice?” She turned to face him. “I can’t wait to go home.”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure.” He felt foolish now but there was no taking back his words.
“I’m waiting to have my U.S. citizenship reinstated.”
“But you were born in the States, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but everything got all messed up because I was here during the war.” She scratched her nose and pushed her glasses up. “I entered my name in the family registry in order to get a ration card. Now I’m told I’m not American anymore, I’m Japanese.”
The monkeys had stopped their grooming activity and started chasing each other up and down the thick branches of a large artificial tree in the middle of the cage. The mother, too, had abruptly ceased grooming the young monkey. She lumbered toward the tree and began slowly climbing. The young monkey ran after her and tried to climb on her back, but the mother pushed it away with one broad swipe of her long arm. It was hard to tell if this was an act of aggression or playful fun. The smaller monkey looked terrified, its tiny wrinkled face overwhelmed by its large anxious eyes.
Nancy leaned forward, put her fingers through the wire mesh, and began pushing the fence in and out. The fence moved only slightly, but it made a loud rattling sound. The monkeys seemed oblivious.
“Don’t do that. You’ll scare them.”
“Oh, these ones aren’t scared of anything. They’ve lived through a lot, they’re not going to get upset by a little cage rattling. Especially the ones that lived through the war. They’re tough.” Her voice rose sharply. “Hey, you guys, are you scared?”
“Don’t shout.” Matt looked around to see if anyone else was in the pavilion. They were by themselves.
“If they lived through all that bombing, they’re probably deaf.”
The young monkey kept trying to jump on its mother’s back, but each time it was thrown off. How could the mother have turned so heartless, Matt thought, especially after she had just finished grooming her offspring so lovingly? He wondered if this was what nature was like in the wild. The youngster needed to learn how to survive on its own, and survival depended on developing a certain toughness.
“Well, at least they were lucky no one ate them during the war,” Nancy said. “People were pretty desperate and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few ducks and pheasants went missing from this place. Oh, and the fish. I bet some fish for sure.” She laughed at her own grisly humor. “Let’s see, what else? Turtles, they would make good soup. And eel. I’ll bet someone scooped up all the eel. I love kabayaki.”
Matt didn’t think it was funny at all.
“You know why there are no elephants here?” she said.
“There are no elephants?”
“Nope, not a one. They used to have three of them, though.” She crossed her arms as if to emphasize her authority in this matter.
“What happened to them?”
“They killed them.”
“Who?”
“The government, I guess.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, I heard about it from someone, I can’t remember who. It happened during the bombing. Some people got afraid of what would happen if dangerous animals like lions and tigers escaped from the zoo. So they figured it was better to kill them first before they had a chance to kill people.”
“But why the elephants? Were they afraid of elephants stampeding?”
“It doesn’t make sense, does it. Lions and tigers I can understand. They’re a bit scary. But I always think of elephants as being rather gentle. Anyway, as the story goes, the head zookeeper was given orders to kill all the big animals, including the elephants, so he laced their feed with poison. The lions and tigers ate the poison and they died. But the elephants were too smart. They refused to touch their food. Day after day, it was the same thing. Slowly, gradually, they starved to death.”
“God, how long does it take an elephant to starve to death?”
“I don’t know. They’re huge, so it must take quite a while. Months maybe?”
Matt thought about the enormity of an elephant slowly shrinking week by week. He imagined it would have been like watching a giant rubber balloon gradually deflate, growing more and more shriveled as it got smaller, all the gray folds of its hide eventually collapsing inward.
“They didn’t eat them, did they?” he asked.
“What a gruesome thought. I don’t think so.”
“Where do you bury an elephant?”
“And there were three of them!” Nancy started laughing hysterically.
“No, I meant it seriously. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“I know,” she said, gasping for air. “Sorry, I couldn’t stop thinking of a colossal elephant coffin.” She took a deep breath and composed herself. “Cremation. They must have cremated them.” She paused. “That
must have been an awful sight. Oh, and an awful stench.”
They started walking again, leaving the monkey pavilion and returning to the main path through the zoo. Matt glanced at his watch. It was almost one o’clock. He tried to calculate how long it would take him to get back and whether he could go to Hibiya Park later.
“Do you have somewhere you have to go?” She was staring at him.
“No, nowhere.”
“Okay, well in that case, do you mind going to American Alley with me? It’s only five minutes from here. I have to buy some things, and quite frankly, I’m not comfortable going there on my own. My Japanese isn’t good enough to bargain properly. They spot me right away and I always end up paying more than other people.”
“Sure, I’d be happy to. But maybe I can get what you need at the PX. It’s no trouble for me. Wouldn’t that be better? Really, they don’t keep track of what we buy, and everything’s affordable. I don’t mind.”
But Nancy was adamant. No, she couldn’t impose on him. He couldn’t understand why using the black market was better than getting him to buy something for her from the PX. There was no point arguing with her, though. She had already started walking, and she was moving fast. They left the zoo and exited the park, heading down the long slope toward the nearby maze of narrow alleys that formed Ameyoko—American Alley—the biggest black market in the city, perhaps in the entire country. As they got closer, he became aware of an increased din. Shouting, clapping, pounding, the noise of restless movement. His nose also started to detect a mixture of smells, some familiar, some strange, some downright putrid. Every so often Nancy turned around to make sure he was behind her but she didn’t pause or slow her pace. If he was going to keep up, he didn’t dare take his eyes off her for even a second.
Nancy must have been waiting for some time to visit American Alley because she had a long list of things she wanted: soap, cooking oil, shoyu, rice, sesame seeds, toasted seaweed, some charcoal. She led Matt through a maze of narrow passageways lined with tiny open-air stalls squished side by side. Every so often she paused briefly to silently scan the goods arrayed on straw mats spread on the ground, and then she moved on. She did this five or six times until she finally stopped in front of a man sitting cross-legged on a blanket. He was surrounded by piles of soap bars and jars filled with gray, blue, and green liquids.
Nancy leaned close to Matt but even so she had to shout to make herself heard over the noise of the crowd around them. “I need some soap,” she said, pushing him in front of her. “Can you find out what he’s got and how much.”
The man straightened his posture, readying himself for a sale. “Some soap for the lady of the house? American soap? I have shampoo, too. Good shampoo.”
Nancy stood behind Matt, so close her chin brushed against his shoulder. “Ask him if he’s got any Camay.”
When he inquired, the man’s response was to nod enthusiastically and reach behind for a bar of soap wrapped in brown paper.
“That’s not Camay,” Nancy hissed.
Matt repeated his request, and again the man nodded. This time he pulled a small unwrapped bar of soap out of a paper bag. It was ivory-colored and had a flowerly scent. Matt passed it to Nancy who brought it to her nose and sniffed it.
“Well, this isn’t Camay, but I guess it will do. Can you try to get a good price?”
Matt wasn’t at all sure that he got the best price for the soap or for any of the other goods Nancy bought that day, but each time she seemed satisfied with the amount he negotiated. They went from stall to stall, and as the afternoon wore on, he found he was actually enjoying the challenge of bargaining.
He knew that the black market was the only thing keeping most Japanese people from starving to death, but he’d always held a dim view of illicit activity. It was why he had never been here before. He’d heard that many GIs came regularly in search of booze and drugs like hiropon, while others engaged in their own commerce, stealing army supplies and selling them to the yakuza who controlled the market. What Matt discovered on his visit with Nancy, though, took him completely by surprise. There was a raw, chaotic energy to the place that made him feel caught up in a primitive festival, thrust into a community of wild revelers. All around him he felt the heat and throb of other people pushing, shouting, hustling. He was part of something larger than himself, but it was different from being part of the military or a member of the Occupation forces. That was institutional—he was merely a cog in a bureaucratic machine. No, being in the market felt totally different. It was like being a single wave in a vast ocean, a bird flying in the middle of a huge migrating flock, a molecule in an expanding field of energy.
It was, in a word, intoxicating.
17
It was a while before Sumiko noticed that the photograph she kept in her purse was missing, and when she did, she felt oddly relieved. She should have thrown it out ages ago, she thought. The trip to Kamakura to see the Great Buddha was an event she preferred to forget.
She had only agreed to go because Yoko had begged her. Yoko had just met a GI she was trying to impress. She had some crazy notion that this time was for real and that this man would set her up in her own apartment as his only and take care of her. She wouldn’t have to work in the dance hall anymore. She wouldn’t have to worry about fighting the lines in the black market to get extra food for her parents and younger brothers and sisters. It would be Spam and eggs every day. Besides, Yoko insisted, she was in love for real this time. Everyone she met was a “potential,” and Sumiko had grown used to the tales of hope that always ended in disappointment.
According to Yoko, the GI—Sergeant Jake Pickersgill was his name—was really important because he was a driver. That meant he could sign out one of the jeeps on his day off and say he had to check out such-and-such facility in such-and-such region, and then he was free to drive wherever he wanted. As long as he brought the jeep back by the end of the day, no one cared. Jake had told Yoko that he wanted to see the “Big Buddha” in Kamakura. “All the guys talk about it. I want to see what the fuss is about.”
Yoko saw this as her chance to make an indelible mark on Jake.
“Please come with me. I can’t go alone. That’s too risky. But if you come, it will be all right. And I think that Jake has a friend he wants to bring, too.”
Sumiko didn’t have anything else to do that Sunday and she was fond of Yoko, so she agreed to accompany her. Kamakura was only an hour away, and the trip there, Sumiko had to admit, was quite thrilling. She’d never ridden in a jeep before. Fortunately, she had brought a scarf to cover her hair, otherwise the wind would have blown out all the curls in her new permanent wave. And the noise of the jeep was so loud that she didn’t have to worry about making conversation with Jake’s friend, Danny, a pale skinny man who looked like he was still a teenager. He called Sumiko “ma’am,” and said “yes, sir” to Jake, who constantly ordered him around. Yet while the ride itself—the speed and the rush of wind—was exciting, the landscape they passed through was still a wasteland, much of it barren and flattened. It was a depressing reminder of how much destruction had taken place and how far her country had to go in its efforts at rebuilding.
Yoko was not dressed properly for the outing. Neither her skirt, which was too tight, nor her shoes, which were too high, were any good for walking around the hilly slopes of Kamakura. Jake had to drive everywhere, even down narrow lanes where the jeep barely fit.
“Don’t worry, babydoll. I don’t want you to injure those pretty feet,” he said.
Once they arrived at the Great Buddha, Jake parked the jeep and helped Yoko out by putting his hands around her waist and lifting her to the ground.
“Look at this, Danny. My hands fit right around this gal’s waist, she’s so tiny.”
Danny nodded glumly. Sumiko hastily jumped out of the jeep by herself in case Danny got any ideas that he should try to help. At the Great Buddha, Jake took Yoko’s hand and they slowly walked up to the base of the gigantic sta
tue. They circled it, and as they did, Yoko pointed up at various parts and seemed to be explaining things to Jake. By the time they returned to the front of the statue, Jake had his arm around Yoko’s shoulder.
“You gotta get up close, Danny. This thing sure is big. Biggest damn Buddha in the world, I bet.” Jake threw his head back and laughed. “Biggest damn Buddha.”
Yoko laughed, too, but with an uncertain look on her face. Sumiko cringed inwardly on her friend’s behalf.
“Hey, Danny, take our picture, would you?” Jake said. “This big Buddha is too much.”
“The camera’s in the jeep.”
“Well, go back and get it!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Babydoll,” Jake said, “tell your friend to come closer. I want her to be in the picture, too.” He gestured for Sumiko to stand on his other side. “Come on, now. I’d like a shot of all three of us together. You know, with the big guy in the background. Gee, his earlobes are huge.”
“Big ears, big wisdom,” Yoko said solemnly.
“Yours are nice and cute. Good thing you’re not wise,” Jake said. Yoko giggled loudly.
“Hey, Suzie,” Jake shouted again. “Come here and get in the picture.”
He grabbed Sumiko’s arm and pulled her toward his left side. Yoko peered around from Jake’s other side and smiled in a bright, false way as if to say, Please, please, just humor him, okay? Sumiko let him put his arm around her shoulder, but she didn’t like the way he gripped her so tightly. He pressed her to his side, squashing her breast.
Danny got down on one knee, looked into the camera, and adjusted the focus.
“Be sure to get all of the Big Buddha in.”
“Yes, sir. Okay. Don’t move.”
The camera clicked.
Jake released his grip on Sumiko and turned his attention to Yoko. “Baby, I want this to be a picture you’ll always treasure.” He bent over and kissed her on the mouth.
Sumiko turned her head away.
From the Great Buddha, they walked along a narrow path lined with cheap souvenir shops that sold faded postcards of Kamakura, folding fans, ceramic teacups, and miniature replicas of the Great Buddha. Most of the shops were practically empty of wares, but the shop owners sat stoically on their stools by the doorways smiling at the passing soldiers. Yoko and Jake strolled leisurely hand in hand. As soon as they passed one store, Sumiko saw the owner spit onto the ground behind them. Neither Jake nor Yoko seemed aware and Sumiko couldn’t tell if Danny had noticed anything.
The Translation of Love Page 10