Kojiro nodded. He too, had had to overcome family objections in order to pursue his career.
“I got accepted into the Air Force Academy out of high school and by then the official policy had changed on women flying combat and I was accepted into pilot training and after that, to gunnery school.
“I’ve been very fortunate. But I’ve worked very hard to prove that I am as capable as any man,” Libby said, “and I think I’ve succeeded. And I love what I do.”
Kojiro thought he detected a hint of uncertainty in her voice, a defensiveness, of which she was probably not even aware.
She was a good pilot, he could attest to that fact. She had handled the F-16 with as much skill and aplomb as any crusty old fighter pilot, but that in no way mitigated his disapproval. But there was no point in reminding her of his objections, when they were getting along so well.
“What about you, Kojiro? How did you end up a pilot?”
He gave a self-depreciating shrug. “My grandfather was a Navy pilot. In the Second World War.” He glanced over at her, to see her reaction to that bit of family history but she did not look shocked or offended as he had feared, just interested. “He lost his life in the Marianas. It was very sad for my grandmother, with two small boys to raise and no husband. But Japanese women are strong and loyal and she always venerated my grandfather and taught her sons to honor his memory.
“His picture in his Naval uniform is on our family altar. I thought he was a great war hero and I wanted to be just like him. Unfortunately my father had other ideas. He wanted me to be a banker. The military is not popular in Japan with my parents’ generation, after what their families suffered in the war. So I went to university in Kyoto and studied economics. I have an older brother. In Japan, the younger son has it easier than the eldest, so after graduation, when my father realized I still wanted to fly, he gave his permission for me to join the Self-Defense Force. My brother is the banker.”
“You had to have your father’s permission to join the Air Force?” Libby couldn’t reconcile a grown man, let alone one of Kojiro’s stature and intelligence, having to ask his father if he could have a career in the military.
“I would not have … ” he hesitated. He was embarrassed talking about himself. And the sobering effects of the black coffee he had been drinking the last half hour, had made him suddenly more aware of his linguistic shortcomings. “I would not have … defied — I believe that is the English word I want — my father. Of course I would have been disappointed but … ”
Libby shook her head in wonder. “But … you would have obeyed.”
Resigned to riding home in a taxi, Libby was pleasantly surprised when Kojiro indicated he would take her back to Misawa. The effects of the wine had worn off and he had become quiet and edgy. Unlike the Americans, who tended to drive used cars in Japan recycled by enterprising businessmen and sold to recent arrivals from the States, Kojiro had a brand new Nissan Fairlady. Like the taxi that had delivered her to the restaurant, the leather seats were slip-covered in spotless white and the air scented with an overpowering fragrance from the air freshener on the dashboard. Libby cracked the window and tried not to inhale but between the wine and the perfume, her head began to pound.
The temperature was mild but a dense fog shrouded the coastline, obscuring the farms and the occasional shuttered village through which they passed on the narrow, winding road. Kojiro drove cautiously, his eyes fastened on the beam of yellow light slicing through the fog. The easy rapport they had shared earlier in the evening was gone. He appeared to be so absorbed trying to avoid running off the road into the drainage ditch, Libby thought he’d forgotten all about her.
But appearances can be deceptive, particularly in Japan and it was not the fog that was worrying Kojiro, as aggravating as it was, but the tall gaijin sitting next to him. All evening long he had been waiting expectantly for some sort of acknowledgement or sign from Libby that would determine his next course of action. She did not strike him as someone who would wait passively for him to make the first move but other than admire his car she had not given any indication she was aware of his intentions. It would not have been so problematic with a Japanese woman. She would have discerned his objective and let him know, by a subtle gesture or coy smile, that she was agreeable. Libby was a mystery.
He glanced in her direction, hoping to catch her eye, but she was peering out the car window at the colored lights pulsing faintly in the distance. Situated brazenly on the lonely stretch of road, a love hotel, illuminated with strings of glowing lights and flashing red neon hearts, loomed out of the mist like a mirage.
Kojiro eased his foot off the accelerator as they approached the entrance. The “hotel” filtered through the charitable lens of the fog looked like a whimsical Disney castle uprooted from the Florida swamp and transplanted to the wilds of northern Japan. Libby leaned forward for a better look.
She knew all about love hotels. Charlie had gleefully filled her in on the prurient details. They were like little theme parks — for adults only — where couples could go for an hour or more of uninterrupted pleasure.
The proprietor never showed his face. Rates were posted on the door and payment was deposited in a small box that could be accessed from the inside and out. Guests parked their cars under the portico adjoining each room and their license plates, after being carefully recorded in the manager’s ledger book, were screened from passers-by.
Americans looked upon the love hotels with amusement or dismay. But to the Japanese they were a practical solution to the problems of privacy and space that vexed their lives.
“You wouldn’t think they’d get much business way out here,” Libby said. “It’s miles from Hachinohe.”
On closer inspection, the “castle,” which from a distance had looked so captivating, was a disappointment — the medieval façade like a cardboard cutout, tawdry and insubstantial.
Kojiro grunted, yeah or nay, she wasn’t sure which. He’d been so quiet the last half-hour, Libby had given up trying to talk to him and let him concentrate on his driving. For all that it had been an enjoyable evening, she was relieved it was almost over.
She wondered if he would ask to see her again. She hoped not. She didn’t want to be put in the position of having to make a decision one way or the other.
Libby needn’t have worried. A second date was out of the question. By the time they reached Misawa they were no longer speaking to one another.
At the entrance to the hotel, illuminated by an archway of florid lights, Kojiro braked sharply, turned in and parked the car in the first available stall. It happened so swiftly it took Libby a few moments to grasp what exactly the major had in mind. Surprise, shock, rage at his presumption left her speechless. She couldn’t believe it. The diffident officer had metamorphosed into a lecher in the time it took to cross the “moat” and turn off the engine. He couldn’t even wait to get into the building to get his hands on her but had her pinioned in the seat smothering her face with wet, sloppy kisses.
“Ribby,” he crooned, oblivious to her consternation.
“Stop it. Stop it now.” She shoved him off her and started shouting. Kojiro shifted a little lower in his seat, mortified at his mistake.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, bringing me to a, a … ” She waved her hand in his face. “A sleazy place like this! Of all the nerve. I think you’re one of the most despicable men I’ve ever met.”
Kojiro wasn’t sure what despicable meant, but he had a good idea.
“What kind of a woman do you think I am? Some slut who goes to bed with any man who buys her dinner?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Oh, I get it now. Blonde hair, big boobs. I bet she knows the score. Am I right?”
“Please, Ribby … ” Kojiro wanted to apologize but he was so intimidated by her anger and his own shame, he couldn’t remember the English wo
rds.
“And to think that I was actually enjoying myself … ” Her voice caught, and he thought she was going to cry. He was mistaken. Libby adjusted her seat belt, folded her hands in her lap and in the frosty, resolute voice of an Air Force officer advised him to take her home, immediately.
Once Libby had recovered from her indignation, she was able to look upon the incident with a degree of amusement — a “cultural experience” along the lines of learning to use chopsticks, or eating raw fish, or mastering the distinctive plumbing. She had certainly never felt threatened by Major Yoshida. His amorous attention had been more comical than it was alarming. But he must have assumed she would sleep with him or misinterpreted something she said or did, as implying consent. Otherwise she did not believe he would have taken her to the love hotel.
That was one of the pitfalls of dating someone from a different culture. Men and women got their signals crossed. What was acceptable in one place was verboten in another. Heck, sometimes it even happened with Charlie. She was always on her guard around him, because he made assumptions about their friendship that simply weren’t true.
She was tempted to confide in Charlie about the incident. Libby thought that if she could laugh about it with someone, it would be easier to forget, but he would have gotten on his high-horse and accused her of “asking” for it. What did she expect? After all, he had warned her about Japanese males. Doubting that Darlene would be any more sympathetic, in the end, she didn’t tell anyone about her eventful evening with the major.
Kojiro’s serious nature did not allow him the luxury of dismissing the unfortunate incident quite as easily as Libby had. He was tormented by shame, and regret, and the bitter knowledge that he had no one to blame but himself. The major, who prided himself on his judgment and tact, had abandoned both in a blatant and clumsy attempt to seduce the American pilot. He felt responsible, for not only insulting her personally, but as an official representative of the United States and a fellow military officer.
Kojiro had never forced himself on an unwilling partner or taken any woman to a love hotel without her tacit agreement. What demon had possessed him to imagine for one moment that Libby would be interested in a liaison with a foreigner when she was surrounded by fellow Americans? It was unthinkable.
That was one of the problems with foreigners. They weren’t on the same wave-length as the Japanese. Incapable of interpreting the subtle, unspoken language in which he and his countrymen often communicated, they committed offenses of which they were not even aware. Kojiro’s male antennae told him that Libby was attracted to him. He could feel something alive, arcing between them when they were together and assumed that she felt it too. That was his first mistake.
The second and most unforgivable one was relying on hearsay about Western women and their insatiable sexual appetites and easy availability. Kojiro would never have had the nerve to take her to the love hotel if he hadn’t believed the myths perpetuated in men’s magazines and manga comics. Libby was perfectly justified in accusing him of thinking she was easy because she had blonde hair and big “boobs.”
“Boobs” was not in his English dictionary, but “despicable” was and when Kojiro read its definition, he felt like weeping. Instead, he went out and got very drunk in one of the intimate little hostess bars that proliferated on the maze of narrow back streets in Misawa-shi. It was comforting to sit in a booth and be flattered and consoled by the cheerful, middle-aged hostess. She was not much to look at. Both heredity and age had conspired against her. But to Kojiro she embodied what was most endearing about Japanese women, no matter their station in life, and that was their sympathy and cunning in ministering to the Japanese male. Raised from infancy to defer to the men in their lives — fathers, brothers, husbands, sons — they were modest, industrious, and above all, dutiful. Virtues that Kojiro was convinced he had underestimated in his imprudent pursuit of Captain Comerford. From now on, he would stick with his own kind.
ALL through the long and dreary night
I lie awake and moan;
How desolate my chamber feels,
How weary I have grown
Of being left alone!
Udaisho Michitsuna no haha
Chapter Four
Winter in northern Japan was a force to be reckoned with. Snow started falling in December, frosting the pine forests and the peaks of the mountains with white. By January the passes were closed and the lakes frozen.
The magnificent whooper swans from Siberia, the Hakucho, which recouped on the shores of Lake Ogawara before continuing on to a more hospitable environment, had come and gone. The lake, covered with a thick shield of ice, was dotted with the huts of ice fishermen and criss-crossed with the tracks of snowmobiles and small trucks. A phalanx of snow plows — three abreast — tried to keep the runways clear but flying was frequently curtailed, as one snow squall after another howled in off the Sea of Japan from the northwest.
The icy roads were incised with treacherous wheel-ruts and frozen potholes and the covered sidewalks glazed with compacted layers of dirty snow. Tinsel streamers and colored lights, the last vestiges of Christmas, had been taken down (the ubiquitous Christmas cakes with their shell of crusty, white icing, removed from bakery shelves), and been replaced with garlands of pine and bamboo, and the entrance to each residence festooned with a rope of straw and strips of white paper. Houses were cleaned, special foods prepared, greeting cards dispatched and gifts exchanged, debts paid, and grievances forgiven, all in preparation for the most important holiday in the Japanese calendar, New Year’s Day.
Libby and Charlie, accompanied by several other couples from the squadron, had trooped downtown to one of the popular pizza bars for dinner. Crowded close together at a long table covered with a red checkered tablecloth, the Americans were in high spirits as they contemplated the upcoming, three-day holiday.
Charlie and Libby were discussing a trip to the local ski resort at Appi when Major Yoshida, accompanied by two other pilots from the Samurai Squadron, walked into the crowded restaurant. Libby had just asked Charlie about renting skis when she spotted Kojiro. He was standing a little apart from the other men, as if undecided whether he should stay or go. There was no way he could have missed seeing her — the restaurant was small and the large contingent of boisterous Americans was seated at the most conspicuous table in the house.
He did not look noticeably different from the last time Libby had seen him. Even dressed casually, in blue jeans, a bulky, hooded jacket and fur-lined boots, he was every inch the proud aristocrat. It was the way he carried himself, she thought, with such confidence. He didn’t need to boast or swagger like some fighter pilots she knew. There was an air about him that inspired respect and trust.
“You were saying?” Charlie nudged Libby with his elbow. “Libby?” He had to repeat her name twice to get her attention, she was so absorbed in watching the man in the doorway. The fellow looked vaguely familiar to Charlie but he had a difficult time distinguishing one Japanese man from another. “Do you know that guy?” He asked.
Everyone at their table turned to stare at Kojiro.
“I thought for a minute … ” Libby smiled at Charlie. “He looks like someone I met at General Sato’s party.”
“I recognize him,” Lieutenant Kelly said. “He’s an F-1 driver.”
Charlie took a closer look. Major Yoshida’s distinction as a fellow fighter pilot made him more interesting. “Good-looking guy,” he said. “Tall, for a Japanese.”
Libby, mortified at having singled Kojiro out, stared at her slice of cold pizza. Her appetite had deserted her, along with her enthusiasm for the trip to Appi. But no one else was in a hurry to leave. Charlie finished her pizza and ordered another pitcher of beer.
She tried to ignore Kojiro and join in the conversation, but his presence was so unnerving, she couldn’t concentrate on what the others were saying. Th
e fact that he and his two companions had been seated at the adjoining table didn’t make it any easier, for he had deliberately taken the chair with an unobstructed view of the Americans, with Libby in particular, and every time she glanced in his direction, he was staring at her, his brow furrowed in disapproval.
She was practically in Charlie’s lap they were squeezed so close together. His arm was resting on the back of her chair and every once in a while he patted her shoulder affectionately and nuzzled her cheek, which only added to her consternation. She didn’t want Kojiro to get the impression that she belonged to Charlie, although she could not conceive of a reason why it should matter.
For without ever intending to, Libby had drifted into a relationship, of sorts, with Charlie — partly out of self-defense, which she was reluctant to acknowledge. She felt safe when she was with Charlie, off-limits to all but the most obnoxious and insensitive men in the squadron. It got old, after a while, trying to fend off the amorous advances of inebriated fighter pilots. Sometimes Libby felt guilty for taking advantage of Charlie’s friendship but he didn’t seem to mind because he loved her and was confident that eventually, she would feel the same way about him. Sometimes, Libby thought she did. She knew Charlie so well and was so comfortable with him. And she was grateful that he did not make demands on her that she was unwilling to meet. But tonight, her gratitude was wearing thin and she wished she could be by herself.
For the life of her, Libby could not imagine why seeing Kojiro again made her feel so miserable. She had succeeded in putting him and the whole unfortunate evening they had spent together out of her mind. She liked dating Charlie. She had been looking forward to going skiing … . She had even begun fantasizing about the nature of their relationship and where it was heading.
Kojiro was as surprised at encountering Libby in the pizza bar as she was. He had decided to accompany his friends on the spur of the moment because he was feeling bored and restless cooped up in his small apartment. He hadn’t flown in over two weeks — fighter pilots got antsy when they were out of the cockpit for any length of time — the general was spending New Year’s with his family in Tokyo, and Kojiro had postponed a trip to Kyoto until the end of the week.
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