The Incident at Naha

by M. J. Bosse

  “Look who I met on the street,” Virgil said, looking past me.

  “Yes, you haven’t even said hello,” Martin pointed out.

  “I really am sorry. I—I guess I’m on a downer.”

  “Virgil told me about you moving out. Under the circumstances it’s the sensible thing to do.”

  Virgil offered wine, and while I went to get the jug of cheap red and the glasses, I heard Martin repeat what he’d just said.

  From the kitchen I called out, “Martin, why didn’t you tell us the CIA had contacted you?”

  For a moment there was silence. I peered into the other room and saw Martin sheepishly staring down at the coffee table. “Didn’t want to worry you,” Martin said.

  Soon we all had wine. A few swallows began to calm my nerves. I was damn happy to be back in the apartment, with the books everywhere and the bowl of turtles and the blue clouds of tobacco smoke, the good and great typewriter on the cluttered desk, and the bed with only one pillow dented. I cooed over Georges, Henri, and Pablo, all comfy on their little rock in the middle of the bowl, their necks craning up and their unblinking eyes wide open, almost as if they recognized me.

  The two men were discussing Mr. Smith and his dangerous tactics. Martin seemed honestly concerned about Virgil, and maybe without me around they would have been as good friends as ever. But there was a strain between them. They seemed formal, and I knew why. Suddenly Martin reached out and picked up one of the books on the coffee table. “Hey,”—he turned the book in his hands—“why all the interest in Perry?”

  “I’m very interested in the nineteenth century,” Virgil jived.

  “I don’t mean your interest. Is it a fad?”

  Virgil leaned forward. “Not that I know of.”

  Martin threw the book down with a sigh. “Anyway,” he said, “you ought to confront Smith with what’s he doing to you, the potential danger he’s putting you in.”

  “Why did you ask me is the interest in Perry a fad?”

  “That?” Martin shrugged and tapped the back of his hand on the book, which I saw was McCauley’s With Perry in Japan. “I saw another book about Perry recently.”

  “Where?”

  Martin waved his wine glass vaguely to indicate he didn’t remember.

  “How recently?” Virgil persisted.

  “Oh, probably in the last few weeks.”

  “Someone had it, was carrying it?”

  “I think so. You know how it is. You see something out of the corner of your eye. What’s wrong? Someone muscling in on a research project of yours?”

  “Possibly. Can’t you remember where you saw the book?”

  Martin sipped his wine thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Maybe at the Cedar Bar. Maybe I was drinking and that’s why I can’t remember.” He lifted his glass and grimaced at it. “Anyway, I’m surprised I even remember that much. But being a writer, I guess I remember titles.”

  “And you have no idea who had the Perry book?”

  “I told you I didn’t.” Martin frowned. “Is it that important?”

  “In a way it is. If you remember, call me?”

  “Virgil, you’re a real bulldog.”

  “A real Taurus,” I put in.

  Martin lifted his glass. “All right; if I remember, I’ll call.”

  I looked at Virgil, and he looked at me. We were wondering the same things. Who else was interested in Perry? And did this person know about the manuscript?

  This could be a whole new ball game, as the saying goes.

  *

  The next morning, Virgil phoned to say that a letter from East Hampton had arrived, containing a thin coil of microfilm and a scrawled note, “Come to my next show.” So he had been right about Nick Parma and the power of gratitude. I offered to transcribe the new section immediately.

  When I arrived at the apartment, Virgil was hard at work on his dissertation. To look at him all hunched over his desk, you wouldn’t think Virgil had anything else on his mind but those file cards in French, German, and Middle English. I left quickly, giving him only a parting kiss, though I would have liked to stay and seduce him and show him what he was missing because of my stay with Linda. But I don’t bother him when he’s working. So I took off, having a last glimpse of him bent over some card like a cat stalking a mouse.

  So there I was once again, seated in a library at a microviewer, preparing for my own day’s work. My attention span had probably increased lately, because I was fascinated by the drama of the old manuscript and I wanted to know what Gregory Peck, our Bostonian, was going to do.

  I quickly discovered where the new piece of film belonged in the chronology of the expedition. Part Three logically followed Part One, the original section which had described the second voyage to Japan and the treaty. Part Three went on from there to set forth the cultural exchange between Americans and Japanese; ultimately, I was to find, it ended the entire journal.

  Among other things, our Bostonian minutely listed gifts sent by the American Government to the Emperor. I think they were groovy: three hundred and seventy feet of railroad track and a quarter-sized locomotive; a printing press; telegraph instruments and fifteen miles of wire; eight baskets of Irish potatoes, if you can believe it; a set of Audubon’s The Birds of America; maps of the states; a lifeboat; agricultural implements; a bale of cotton; a potbellied stove; rifles, pistols, and swords, which our Bostonian observed were the most popular of all the gifts, and in the light of Pearl Harbor that sure makes sense; a telescope; a set of china—which was like sending coals to Newcastle, as the saying goes; a mantelpiece clock; a box of fancy soaps; a copy of Webster’s Dictionary; and last but not least, one hundred gallons of bourbon.

  As the narrative went on, it included more and more entries about Americans ashore. After Old Matt kicked up a d——able ruckus, Americans were no longer followed by hordes of Japanese spies. Our Bostonian attended banquets, and his remarks about them were pretty cute:

  In front of each sitter was placed a small cup something like a paint cup, holding about two tea spoonsful of “sam shoo,” a villainous kind of beverage tasting like bad New Bedford rum sweetened. I but sipped this fiery mixture.

  And another entry:

  We had fifteen kinds of soups handed to us, and I may safely say that I recognized the taste and flavor of cat, dog, rat and snake, but I cannot vouch for hedgehog, ant, or buzzard.

  This is pretty square humor, worthy of Virgil at his worst, but at least our Bostonian was trying to be a good head.

  Sometimes he described what he saw just for the sheer pleasure of it:

  Camellias bloomed red and white in that early spring. Natives used short handled hoes, potato hooks, iron tipped wooden spades, crude mortars and pestles for beating barley and rice. In houses I saw spinning wheels, looms. On streets were porters carrying heavy packs. In a tiny store, smelling of wood and possibly worse things, I bought assorted sea shells, a box of branch coral, and a goblet cut from conch shells, and lacquered cups. I saw groves of cedar and pine.

  I was kind of moved by this:

  In the village yesterday I saw a woman hold up her little child to see me, and the thought passed through my mind that if the child should live to maturity he would probably see many wonderful changes in Japan.

  Of course, I dug the colonialism of his remark—by “changes” he meant Western innovations—but I could almost see that child, all fat and round and big-eyed. And then our Bostonian added:

  I can only hope that his world will be more just and compassionate than ours, and for that terrible moment I remembered the black man at Naha.

  The black man at Naha. Was he referring to the “racial incident in Naha”? It was only a hint, however, on which he did not expand. Black man at Naha?

  I plodded on with the transcription, and I soon had the fleet moving out of Tokyo Bay for side trips to other Japanese ports. For a while it was like a travelogue, and I was beginning to yawn; but then the fleet entered Simoda, and once aga
in I had reason to sit right up in my chair.

  Simoda is a clean, large sized village of one story houses, built of stone, with tyled roofs. Each street has a gate at each end which is shut every night. On the street today I saw a party of engineers belonging to one of our steamers, taking conceded liberties with the persons of some young girls (of whom there were about twenty crowding around) that the most abandoned woman in the United States would not permit. Moriyama Yenosuke, an interpreter, was in my company, and in Dutch I asked him how was it possible that these young women would permit such liberties, but mayhap he misunderstood and took me to a man who was selling small pamphlets, which I discerned at once contained obscene pictorial illustrations. Of all heathen nations I have ever heard described, I think this is the most lewd. Yet my conscience reminds me of our own reprehensible behavior while at Naha.

  I sat up straighter in my chair at the mention of Naha.

  Surely murder is a sin of more magnitude than licentiousness.

  Murder?

  And the next entry:

  In the company of Moriyama I went for a walk in the streets of Simoda. I saw an over charge of children in various stages of age, and they behaved very much in the same manner as children everywhere, tumbling, fretting, and making themselves universally worrisome. But they were clean, well scrubbed, and in fact holystoned, inasmuch as sand does duty for soap among these Eastern Chesterfields. Seeing these children so delightfully at play, I felt a longing for home, and communicated my desire to Moriyama that I might meet a Japanese family, and I gave him to understand that I did not mean young ladies of pleasure. In this instance he understood me, and soon I was introduced into a Japanese home. I recalled the consternation that I had once caused when entering a home in Naha. Then I had entered with my Sunday scrape and bow and with my most engaging grin, but the people there had not been sufficiently prepared for my visit, because a couple of young, and an elderly specimen of the feminine gender, whose escape I had unintentionally cut off from the door, set up such a squall of unfeigned terror that I left in a hurry, fearing that they would do themselves injury if they went on. In Simoda, however, Moriyama was sensitive to the natural fear of the people who called us barbarians and so he spoke in my behalf, and soon I was having tea with a mother, a father, two small sons, and a little girl child who was tottering around on the rice mats. With Moriyama’s generous help, I became friendly with these people, and I can say that they were as good as people anywhere in the world. Moriyama and I were asked to return, and we accepted this kind invitation. Had Moriyama been one of the other spies set upon our officers by the Japanese Government, I would have had second thoughts about returning, but he and I, doubtlessly because of our ability to converse, are friends, and I feel certain now that he will not betray me I have a plan in mind.

  To me the last sentence of that entry was like a sudden blow. And then a few entries later:

  The Commo held a shipboard conference today. Many of the officers seemed restless, and of course the changing climate, hard work, and food not altogether to the liking of our stomachs, have put us all under a strain, and doubtlessly for some of us, particularly the interpreters who have witnessed so much, certain events have set our nerves on edge. At any rate, the Commo has become overweening in his pride and celebrates the Fourth of July better than he does the Sabbath. When on shore, he carries his pennant of rank and displays it like the personal ensign not of Commander but of King or Emperor. Today, for example, he spoke of his naval force as the only conducement for the Japanese to cooperate. This made a few officers feel uneasy, yet only myself and three other officers, having been at the Russian meeting, know the full extent of his ambitions. Yet hopefully behind the worldly motives of this man and his Russian counterpart lies God’s purpose of making known the Gospel to all people of the world. This is the hope that stays me from succumbing to melancholy. I have a firm conviction that the seclusion policy of the nations of Eastern Asia is not according to God’s plan of mercy for these people. Surely their governments must change that the people may be free. What I cannot help but fear is the enslavement of these people by usurpers of power.

  I stopped there and wondered if I was getting straight what our Bostonian was putting down. To me it was as if he were describing a plot between Perry and some Russian to take over Japan and maybe a lot of other places. But Virgil would have to decide that. I just did my thing, read on and transcribed.

  Last night was held a final banquet, attended by Hayashi, the chief Japanese delegate, and the Commo, and their staffs. The conversation was generally of pistols and cannon, hardly fit topics for a man to encourage and pursue who is morally charged with securing Japan for Christianity or at least with setting an appropriate example of Christian charity and Yankee decency. I am resolved to carry out my plan, because I am not disposed to tolerate any infringement of my private right to set forth what I have seen and what I believe. There will of course be a search of the ship once we have embarked for home. The Commo will have his Flag Lieutenant go from stem to stern in search of private journals. The Masters Mate Edwards once saw me scribbling in my cabin, and he is not the man to forget such suspicious behavior. I have therefore resolved to dispose of this work, but in such manner that the record will be preserved in order that men will some day know what occured during this expedition. There is no doubt in my mind that the events at Naha, concerning the black man, and later the Russians, will not otherwise be made available to men of good will and a call to justice. It is my intention to go ashore for the last time tomorrow and with the sheets of this journal strapped to my ribs. Not knowing how far I can finally trust to the discretion of Moriyama, I will wait for the decisive moment and slip the journal into the hands of the —— family, praying that these honest people will retain this document until my return to Simoda, for I believe in my heart that some day I will accompany a future expedition to these waters and under circumstances favorable to the discovery of these facts herein set down. God grant me success in this venture. I have faith, after many meetings with the —— family, that they will aid me. God grant these United States of America the courage to maintain peaceful relations with the world and to treat with their own nationals in a spirit of Christian decency!

  “Right on, Bostonian!” I said aloud. He came away from that voyage a man. Maybe some of his Christian sentiments sound corny today, but what the hell, he had cut through a lot of the jive of his own time, and he had, like, the balls to fight injustice. For a moment I thought sadly that our Bostonian never did get back to Simoda, for obviously the —— family had been Ikuko’s ancestors and he never returned for his journal. Maybe he died at sea or was drummed out of the service for some other indiscretion. My image of him was no longer of Gregory Peck but of Arlo Guthrie, committed but vulnerable, in his own way heroic but ineffectual. It was plain that by the end of the voyage our Bostonian disliked Perry and, for that matter, the whole idea of the expedition. That was why he was always rapping about Christian purpose and all.

  But what actually were the injustices and things that had so turned him off? We still didn’t know about the racial incident or the secret meeting with the Russians. The two missing pipes probably contained the film that explained those events, and we had no idea where in hell those pipes were. None. What would Virgil do now? Without them we had worked for nothing. We had got only to the edge of discovery and, like, were peering down over a great precipice into nothing. I felt like smoking a joint.

  And then there was this mystery about someone with a book on Perry. I couldn’t believe that people were lugging around copies of books about him. I mean, he’s hardly newsworthy. He was no guru, led no demonstration, walked on no moon. And yet Martin had said that somebody was tuned in to Perry. Of course, around Washington Square you see every kind of book, and it was just possible that what Martin had seen was coincidental. Possible but not probable—as Virgil would say. I got on the phone to Virgil.

  “I’m done with Part Three,” I sai
d, “but it isn’t exactly what we were looking for.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “What?”

  “Hear that static?”

  I listened. Well, so it was a bad connection. “I hear it,” I said.

  “That just might be Mr. Smith and his boys. Say hello to Mr. Smith.”

  “Come on. You mean, wiretapping?” I paused. “Don’t they have to bleep or something?” And I heard Virgil laugh.

  “Better come to my place,” he said.

  “Yes, your place,” I said meaningfully.

  When I got there, Virgil opened the door and an immense cloud of pungent smoke poured into the hallway. Funny how when you live with someone you get accustomed to things. I mean, I had never noticed tobacco smoke in our apartment—not much, anyway—but now that it was his and not ours, the outrush of smoke from the apartment almost flattened me. And yet I would have waded through smoke ten times denser to get back into that little place.

  Virgil sat down with the transcription and read it immediately. When he finished, he just sat back, puffed on a Bulldog, and said, “An interesting growth in social consciousness.”

  “What about the black man?” I asked.

  Virgil tamped his pipe, which is a way he has of shrugging questions off.

  “What about murder and Russians and usurpers of power?”

  Virgil asked me quietly if I had done any work on my term paper.

  “Boy, you’ve got the nerve,” I said angrily. “What do you think I am, a machine? I feel I’m turning into a library. I’ll start dreaming I’m a card catalog or a microviewer. I’ll have nightmares of drowning in books. And here you expect me to work on the term paper too.”