by LA Witt
At the end of the path was a concrete monument. It was inscribed with kanji that I didn’t understand and stood behind the wide mouth of a cavern entrance that went straight down into the earth. The cavern entrance was probably ten or twelve feet across, encircled by a few stone shrines and a waist-high fence. And in front of the fence was a black granite altar on which dozens of flower arrangements like the ones we carried had been laid.
Eric and I were, like most people gathered around the memorial, silent. We approached the altar, and I put my flowers on top of the others. Eric followed suit, both of us making sure we’d placed ours facing the same direction as the rest.
Then we stepped back so others could add theirs.
I gave Eric a minute or two to absorb the somberness of the memorial. There weren’t a lot of people here today—the first time I came, the flowers were piled three feet high—but it wasn’t deserted. Some people spoke amongst themselves in hushed tones. Some read the kanji with grim expressions. An elderly Japanese man closed his eyes, rested his elbows on the railing, and bowed his head behind clasped hands.
Without being able to read or understand Japanese, it was impossible to discern what exactly this was all about from the memorial alone. Still, the solemn atmosphere had a palpable thrum to it, that distinct sense that something had happened here.
Eric turned to me, and when he spoke, kept his voice low. “What exactly is this?”
I gestured toward the cave. “The cave was used as a makeshift hospital by the Japanese army during World War II. They conscripted a couple hundred Okinawan high school students, made them work down there in the most unbelievable conditions, and then when the Americans closed in? Shoved the kids out into the line of fire.”
Eric blinked. “Are…you serious?”
I nodded. “Killed most of them. I think twenty or so out of over two hundred survived. It was unbelievably horrific.”
“Yeah, sounds like it.” He turned toward the memorial again, eyes wide, and I thought he whispered, “Jesus…”
Then, just as I did when I came here the first time, he shifted his gaze from the cave to the people standing around us. He looked from one person to the next, his posture stiffening a little more as he undoubtedly realized we were the only Americans in sight.
He swallowed. “Um, should we, you know, be here?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. As long as we’re respectful, people have no problem with us being here.” I pursed my lips. “In fact, it irritates the hell out of me that you never see any Americans here. Ask around on base, and I guarantee most of them have never even heard of the place.” Rolling my eyes, I added, “Live on a major World War II site, don’t even bother to visit the battlefields or anything.”
“Does that surprise you?” he said softly but with a note of sarcasm. “Most people can barely be persuaded to leave base. Forget coming all the way down here for a little bit of history.”
“No shit,” I muttered. I gestured to the left, toward a tile-roofed building with glass double doors between a pair of terra cotta Shi Shi dogs. “There’s a visitor center and museum up there if you want to check it out. It’s fascinating.”
He glanced at it, then looked at me. “You want to?”
I shook my head. “I’ve already been through it twice. More than enough, believe me.” I shuddered. “But if you want to…”
He looked at it again, chewing his lip, probably weighing his desire to go through it against his desire to stick together.
I nudged him gently with my elbow. “Go ahead. It only takes a half hour or so to go through it.”
Turning to me, he said, “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. It’s worth going through.” I paused, then added, “Once.”
He shrugged. “Sure, I’ll check it out. What’s the admission charge?”
“It’s not much. Maybe five hundred yen. Do you have enough on you?”
“Oh, yeah, I have plenty.”
“All right.” I gestured back down the path that had brought us up here. “I’ll meet you back at the shop we passed. The one with all the Shi Shi dogs in the window.”
While he went into the museum, I returned to the safety of the twin rows of shops. I’d been meaning to come down here and get some souvenirs, T-shirts and Japanese candy for my kids anyway, so that was something I could take care of while he checked out Himeyuri.
I wasn’t kidding when I told him twice was more than enough. The only other museum that had ever had a similar effect on me was the Holocaust Museum in DC. What had happened here was significantly smaller in scale, of course, but both museums left me off-balance and in dire need of a drink.
And I was off-balance enough today without an emotional sucker punch on top of it.
I shook my head and kept walking. I went into one of the shops in search of things to send to the kids. Looking at T-shirts, I realized I needed to ask Katie what size they wore now. No point in buying any clothes for them until I knew, so T-shirts would have to wait.
Shi Shi dogs were always a winner with the kids. I’d sent them countless pairs of the dog statues that guarded every gate and doorway on Okinawa, and the twins always begged me to send more. Fortunately, the statues came in every possible shape and size, from an inch tall to waist high—which was a little big to ship home—and in everything from terra cotta to glazed ceramic. So I perused the shelves of Shi Shis, my mind only half focused on picking out a couple of pairs for Jason and Jessica.
After I’d found some, I moved on to another shelf, where I picked up a box of shortbread cookies. I absently held it up like I was reading the back of it. I could read some kanji but not enough to understand everything written on the label. Even if I were completely fluent, though, my mind wasn’t on the arrangement of Japanese characters describing the contents of the box. All I could think about was Eric. And I was thinking about him like I had no business thinking about him.
A knot tightened in my gut.
You’re asking for it, Connelly.
I was. I really was.
Eric had been right to hesitate over going out together like this, but maybe not for the reason he thought. We avoided Americans, kept it all platonic in public and had cover stories at the ready in case we bumped into someone we knew. We had the stealth thing down pat.
But time together meant conversations. Conversations meant finding out all the little things we had in common, like photography, a love of history and the same taste in wine. Little things in common meant more to talk about, which meant more conversations. Even when we snorkeled and could only communicate with gestures, we were undeniably together. We didn’t just stay close and keep an eye on each other in the name of safety while we each did our own thing. If I found something cool like an eel or an octopus, I didn’t have to get his attention from ten, twenty, thirty feet away, because he was right there beside me.
So we had similar interests. We were friends. Daytime friends and nighttime lovers, as the old country song said.
Well, except I caught myself wondering if day and night were starting to bleed together. The friendly banter continued after the sun went down, and it followed us into the bedroom. The intimacy of the night showed itself in daylight with the occasional look, the banter that was dangerously close to flirting, and those moments when I almost forgot myself and touched him.
And that intimacy had followed us to Komaka Island yesterday, which was what had me off-balance and half out of my mind. Sure, we’d fucked on the beach, and it was pure lust that had driven us, but last night? No, that wasn’t just lust.
We didn’t even make it into the water this morning. We’d had every intention of another round of snorkeling before the boat came to get us. When we’d put our wet suits back on, we meant to go back in the water but didn’t get that far. A light kiss became a longer one, and we sank back onto our beach towels and kissed for the better part of a lazy, sensual hour like we wanted nothing more than to just touch and taste each other. That was until we mov
ed back into our tent, stripped out of our wet suits again and slowly, gently, tenderly fucked each other blind.
“Samosen?” Excuse me? A woman’s voice startled me back into the present.
I looked up from the box in my hand. The woman cocked her head, and I wondered how long she’d been standing there trying to get my attention. I cleared my throat. “I, um…gomenasai, I…” Then I just smiled and waved a hand. “Daijobu. Arigato.” I’m fine. Thank you.
She gave me a politely skeptical look but then bowed and left me to my distraction. After she’d gone, I exhaled hard and rubbed the back of my neck.
Jesus, what was wrong with me?
Right. Like I didn’t know exactly what was wrong.
Forcing Eric out of my mind, I tucked the box of cookies under my arm and continued looking for things to send home.
About thirty minutes after we separated at the memorial, Eric walked into the shop. He looked about as shell-shocked as I felt after going through that museum.
“Man,” he said. “I thought the Underground Headquarters was a headfuck.”
“Yeah, there’s nothing quite like standing right there where it happened and finding out how bad it really was.”
“No shit,” he said quietly.
Eric was a history buff like me, but he wasn’t just a facts-and-figures man. Dates and statistics were interesting to a point, but Eric was one of those people who actually grasped the magnitude of things. At the Underground Headquarters, when he stood in a small room that had deep pockmarks in all the walls, he’d paled when he read the clumsily translated placard: Wall Riddled With a Hand-Grenade When Committed Suicide. But then, we’d both been to war zones. Guys who’d been to the Sandbox either compartmentalized everything and refused to emotionally connect with things like this, or they understood it on a profound, too-close-to-home level. I empathized with the former—there was only so much room in a man’s head for the things we’d seen—but I related to the latter. And Eric fell very firmly into that category.
Like I needed another reason to be addicted to the man.
As we wandered through the shop, finding souvenirs for our kids, I kept stealing glances at him. After Komaka Island and the way I’d been so distracted while he wasn’t here, I was even more hard-pressed to pretend that things between us were the same as they’d been in the beginning. Back when we actually convinced ourselves we could be lovers at night and friends during the day.
A knot of apprehension twisted in my gut. There probably wasn’t an American within five miles of us right now, but I was irrationally certain someone would see the way I looked at him. Or that, whenever we exchanged glances, electricity would visibly arc between us and give us away.
Shaking my head, I focused on browsing through Okinawa souvenirs. And glancing at Eric. And browsing through—glancing at Eric.
No one knows, I told myself. No one will know unless we tell them.
As long as no one asked, I wouldn’t tell. No one would ask, because no one knew. No one knew about the secret excursions, the passionate nights behind closed doors or the fact that my feelings for him were starting to run much deeper than they had any right to. No one knew.
But I did.
Chapter Seventeen
Eric
Pacing outside baggage claim at Naha International, I glanced at the clock above the reader board.
2257.
My daughter’s flight had been delayed a few times, but it was due to land any minute. Then I just had to wait for Marie to deplane, pick up her luggage and come through the glass double doors dividing the waiting area from baggage claim.
A sparse crowd milled around the terminal, everyone throwing glances at the reader boards and baggage claim. This was probably the heaviest concentration of Americans I’d ever seen off base. Most Americans flying commercially came in on either this flight or the next one, so friends, family and sponsors actually left the safety of their bases and ventured into Naha to pick people up.
Normally, I’d have had her take a military flight to save money, but she needed to be back in the States by a certain date to start a summer internship, and military flights were about as reliable as doomsday predictions.
I glanced at my watch for the hundredth time, then looked up at the list of incoming flights. Still another fifteen minutes before the plane landed.
I wandered over to the fish tank. From here, I could still see the doors but at least had some sea creatures to hold my attention so I’d stop staring at the clock.
A moray eel stuck its head out of a crevice, opening and closing its jaws as the other fish swam past. It was probably twice the size of the ones I’d seen while out snorkeling, but if we ran into something like that out in the water, I had no doubt Shane would be waving his glove in its face. I chuckled to myself.
The ten-foot-cubed tank held my attention for a while. The fish were cool to watch but not nearly as fun as when I was actually swimming with them. I wondered if we’d ever see an eel that big. So far, we’d seen a few decent-sized ones, but the fucker in this aquarium looked like he could nip someone’s arm off with minimal effort. Especially if someone like Shane gave him the opportunity.
A voice came over the loudspeaker. Though I didn’t understand much of what she said, the flight number caught my attention. People started moving toward the double doors, and my heart beat a little faster. The plane must have been unloading now, so I left the fish to their tank and joined everyone else by the doors.
Moments later, on the other side, passengers started coming down the ramp, looking exhausted and dragging wheeled carry-on suitcases behind them. I fidgeted, shifting my weight and willing myself to be patient, as one person after the other appeared.
Then, after a seemingly endless line of unfamiliar faces, my daughter came into view. I smiled and waved at her, and she waved back.
While she waited for her bag, I inched toward the door. She picked everything up, started toward the door, but had to pause to let some people ahead of her wrangle a couple of large bags through the door. As she patiently waited, I just stared at her. My God, she looked more like her mother every time I saw her. She even wore her blonde hair in a messy ponytail like Sara often did. When had my kid turned into an adult, for crying out loud?
The people in front of her finally got out of the way, and she hurried past them.
“Hi, Daddy!” Marie squealed. She dropped her bags and threw her arms around me, almost knocking me backward.
“Hey, kiddo.” I closed my eyes and held on to her for a moment. I hadn’t expected to get choked up just greeting her off the plane, but…damn.
When I was sure I could keep my composure, I loosened my embrace. “So, how was your flight?”
She groaned. “Long.”
“Uh, yeah. What did you expect?”
“Nothing less.” She picked up her bag. “I’m so sick of airports. Let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea.” I paused. “Do you have a T-shirt on under that sweatshirt?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You might want to take off the sweatshirt before we leave, or you’re going to melt.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s eleven at night. Isn’t it?”
“It is, but this is Okinawa.” I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. “It’s about eighty degrees out right now, and the humidity’s unreal. Trust me.”
She shrugged and set her bag down. She took off her sweatshirt, tied it around her waist, and we headed out. As soon as we stepped outside, she coughed.
“Oh my God,” she sputtered. “It is humid.”
I laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”
In the parking garage, after we’d put her luggage in the trunk, she started toward the right side of the car, just like I did when I arrived.
“Other side,” I said.
“What?” She looked in the car. “Oh, right. I forgot.”
We both got in on the correct sides. After I’d paid for the parking space, I fol
lowed the confusing-as-hell curving road out of the airport to the highway.
“So aside from long,” I said as we continued into Naha, “how was your trip?”
“Well, the in-flight movies were torture.”
I snorted. “Let me guess. They weren’t Cannes or Sundance material?”
She wrinkled her nose. “They wouldn’t have shown those films in the Porta-Potties at Sundance or Cannes.”
“Snob.”
“Yeah. What of it?”
I laughed. “Nothing at all.”
“So, while I’m here,” she said, grinning, “do I get to meet your mysterious boyfriend?”
My cheeks burned, though I wasn’t quite sure why. “Yes, you do. In fact, we’re going snorkeling with him this weekend, assuming you’re up for it.”
“Up for it? Of course I am.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Let’s see how jet-lagged you are before we throw you in the water.”
“As long as I at least get to meet this guy.”
“So you can approve of him?”
“Damn right.”
I chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell him to be on his best behavior. God forbid he doesn’t get the Marie Randall Seal of Approval.”
“Well, if he doesn’t,” she said with an apologetic shrug, “we’ll just have to hide the body and never speak of him again.”
“Did you bring a shovel?”
“They wouldn’t let me put it in my carry-on.”
We exchanged glances and both cracked up.
I patted her leg. “Good to have you here, kid.”
~*~
“Do you actually know where we’re going?”
“I beg your pardon?” I threw Marie a glare, then shifted my attention back to Highway 58.
“It’s a valid question, Dad.”
“Okay, I’ve never been there myself,” I said. “But Shane gave me directions, and he’s been there plenty of times.”
“You’ve been to Uncle Brett’s house plenty of times,” she said. “And your directions still got me lost.”