No-No Boy

by John Okada

  “Where we headed?” asked Ichiro.

  Kenji drove calmly, not tensing up the way some fellows do when they drive beyond their usual speeds, but he kept his eyes on the road. “I want you to meet a friend,” he answered.

  “Do we have to? Tonight, I mean.”

  “What’s a better time?”

  “I’m not exactly sober,” said Ichiro, and he fought off a shudder. He wished he had a drink.

  “She won’t mind.”

  “She?”

  “She.”

  He could have asked who she was, what she did, why he had to meet her tonight, and so on, but he’d find out soon enough. He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He was sound asleep by the time they drove up to the small farmhouse situated in the middle of forty acres, partly wooded but mostly cleared.

  Letting the motor idle, Kenji turned the car heater on low and walked the narrow curve of concrete leading to the front door. He brushed his hand alongside the door and found the button. The faint, muffled notes of the chime were barely audible. The pale, brownish glow visible through the window of the living room flicked twice into a warm brightness and, immediately after, the porch light snapped on.

  Emi was several inches taller than Kenji. She was slender, with heavy breasts, had rich, black hair which fell on her shoulders and covered her neck, and her long legs were strong and shapely like a white woman’s. She smiled and looked beyond him into the darkness.

  “You left the car running.” She questioned him with her round, dark eyes.

  “A friend,” he said, “sleeping it off.”

  “Oh.” Leaving the porch light on, she followed Kenji into the living room. An old Zenith console, its round face with the zigzag needle glowing, hummed monotonously. She turned it off, saying: “Station just went off.”

  Slouching comfortably in an overstuffed chair beneath the lamp, Kenji grabbed a picture frame from the end-table and examined the several snapshots preserved under glass. There was one of a muscular-looking young Japanese sitting on a tractor. He looked from it to the fireplace mantel, where a large color portrait of the same fellow in uniform stood among an assortment of animals of glass and china. The other snapshots were of an elderly couple, pictures taken by a happy daughter on sunny days, with the mother and father posing stiffly as they would in a photographer’s studio.

  He set the frame back on the table asking: “Heard from anyone?”

  “Dad wrote,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  “Sick. Sick of Japan and Japanese and rotten food and sicker still of having to stay there.”

  “What can he do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No hope of getting back here?”

  “No.” She kicked her shoes off and rested her chin on her knees, not bothering to pull the skirt down over her legs.

  Kenji stared at the legs and beyond, seeing but unresponsive. “Nothing from Ralph?”

  Emi glanced briefly at the picture on the mantel. “No,” she said, “Ralph is not the writing kind.” It was said bravely, but her lips quivered.

  He looked at her with a touch of sadness in his tired face. She met his gaze with the sadness all in her eyes, the deep, misty-looking eyes in the finely molded, lovely face.

  “Still love him?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know what.”

  Dropping her feet to the rug, she squirmed uneasily for a moment. “Do I?” she said almost shrilly.

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “I think so. No, perhaps I should say I thought I did. Then again, there are times when I’m quite sure I do. Does it make sense to you, Ken?”

  “Sounds mixed up.”

  “Yes.”

  From the end-table, Kenji helped himself to a cigarette. “If I were you and my husband signed up for another hitch in Germany without even coming home or asking me to go over and be with him, I’d stop loving him. I’d divorce him.”

  “That makes the twenty-ninth time you’ve said that and it’s still none of your business.”

  “I didn’t say it was.”

  She stood up abruptly, snatched the cigarette out of his hand, and turned her back on him, saying sharply: “Then stop saying it.”

  He reached out and squeezed her elbow tenderly.

  Slowly, reluctantly she looked at him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She smiled, gazing fondly at him for a moment. “Coffee?” she asked sweetly.

  “Sure. Make enough for the friend.”

  As soon as Emi had gone to the kitchen, Kenji decided to awaken Ichiro. Just as he was about to rise, Ichiro came into the house.

  “Snap the light off,” shouted Kenji.

  Ichiro looked stupidly at him.

  “The porch light. Switch is on the wall.”

  Looking around uncertainly, Ichiro located the switch and did as he was told. He examined the house, the pictures, the radio, the books, the lamps, the curtains, and the old upright near the fireplace but not flat against the wall. It was, rather, almost perpendicular to the wall so that the heavy, unpainted casing was in plain view. He caught Kenji’s eye and tossed the car keys to him. Touching the piano keys hesitantly, he punched out several notes, then tried a series of chords with both hands.

  “Sounds good. Play something,” said Kenji.

  Sliding onto the bench, Ichiro executed several runs before starting into a simple but smooth rendition of “Sentimental Journey.” It sounded good, almost professional in spite of the monotony of the chording, and Kenji listened appreciatively.

  Hearing the playing, Emi came out of the kitchen. As she turned toward the piano, the look of inquiry on her face suddenly changed to wide-eyed surprise. It wasn’t horror exactly, but there might have been a trace of it. She let out a sharp utterance.

  Ichiro stopped and twisted about until he was facing her.

  “Forgive me. You looked—you reminded me of someone, sitting there like that.” She turned toward Kenji.

  “Hadn’t thought about it,” he said, “but, I guess you’re right. Ichiro is big and husky like Ralph. Emi, that’s Ichiro. Ichiro, Emi.”

  Getting up from the bench self-consciously, Ichiro nodded to her.

  “How are you at ‘Chopsticks’?” she asked, recovered from her initial shock.

  “So-so,” he replied.

  Emi pulled him back onto the bench and sat beside him. They fumbled the beginning several times, laughing at their own ineptitude and quickly losing the sense of strangeness in their mutual endeavor. Finally, getting off to an even start, they played loudly and not always together to the finish.

  “You play much better than I do,” she commented gaily.

  “I try,” he said modestly.

  They walked together to the sofa and sat down facing Kenji.

  “Never knew you could play at all,” said Kenji.

  “I learned from an old German named Burk,” replied Ichiro. “He was a good guy, a real musician. Played one time with some symphony outfit—San Francisco, I think it was. He was fifty years old and looked sixty-five with flabby creases on his face and his shoulders stooped over. His hands were big, with thick, stubby fingers more like a bricklayer’s than a pianist’s. He made music with those ugly hands and he also used them to choke his wife to death. He taught me while I was in prison.”

  “Prison,” echoed Emi. “You were in prison?”

  “Yeah, I guess Ken doesn’t talk enough. I was in for not wanting to go in the army.”

  “I’m sorry, frightfully sorry,” she said sincerely.

  “So am I.”

  She studied him quizzically, then rose to get the coffee.

  “Where are we?” he asked Kenji.

  “You’ve sobered up,” he replied.

  “Tha
nks for keeping me warm.”

  “Didn’t want you to catch cold.”

  “Drunks don’t catch cold.”

  “You’re out of practice. You weren’t really drunk.”

  “I was.”

  “Okay. You were.”

  “Where are we?” he repeated.

  “Out in the country. Away from it all. You’ll see what it’s like in the morning.”

  Ichiro jerked his head up and waited for an explanation.

  “We can sleep here. Emi doesn’t mind.” Kenji reached out and pulled the coffee table in front of them as Emi returned from the kitchen.

  The coffee was black and hot. Emi sat beside Ichiro, looking at him with wondering eyes. It was as if she yearned to reach out and touch him. Ichiro felt uncomfortable, yet drawn to her, for she was young and lovely and attractive.

  Kenji sat smiling, so much so that Ichiro commented upon it.

  “Just feeling good and satisfied,” said Kenji, leaning back and lifting the stiff limb with both hands onto the coffee table.

  They sipped their coffee, saying little and occasionally looking at one another. Kenji kept grinning, apparently with meaning to Emi, for she began to fidget nervously. Suddenly, she stood up and said not unpleasantly that she was going to bed.

  “I’ll sack down on the sofa out here,” said Kenji, watching Emi intently.

  Her face flushed. She started to say something, then merely nodded her head and, without looking at Ichiro, left them.

  “What goes on?” inquired Ichiro.

  “I didn’t notice anything. Why do you ask?”

  “I must be getting sleepy. Forget it.” He stood up and studied the sofa. “We might as well fix up the bed. How does this thing work?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Aren’t we sleeping here?”

  “I am.”

  “And me?”

  “In the bedroom, of course.”

  “Which one?”

  Kenji said steadily, “There’s only one—that is, only one with a bed in it.”

  Appalled by the realization of the fantastic situation, Ichiro sank down upon the sofa. “Where,” he said pointedly, “does she sleep?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  “What the hell is this?” he boomed out indignantly.

  “She likes you.”

  “Sure, that’s great. I like her too, but this is crazy. I hardly know her.”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “She needs you,” said Kenji. “No, I should say she needs someone. Just like you need someone. Just like I need someone sometimes. I won’t apologize for her because then I’d have to apologize for myself. She waited four years for Ralph to come back. We were in the same outfit. Ralph signed up for another hitch. Don’t ask me why. He did. He asked me to look her up and tell her he wasn’t coming back for a while. No explanations. Just tell her he wasn’t coming back just yet. Would you wait?”

  “No.”

  “I’m only half a man, Ichiro, and when my leg starts aching, even that half is no good.”

  The hot color rose to his face as he lashed out at Kenji angrily: “So you’re sending in a substitute, is that it?”

  Kenji sighed. “The conversation is getting vulgar, but the facts aren’t vulgar because I don’t feel that they are wrong or loose or dirty or vulgar. You can sleep on the floor or take the car and go back to town.” He threw the keys on the sofa beside Ichiro.

  Ichiro sat and fumed, struggling to do the right thing and not knowing what it was. If Kenji had said another word or allowed even a tiny smile to rise to his lips, he would have snatched the keys and rushed out.

  His face an unchanging mask of serious patience, Kenji sat quietly.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” said Ichiro placidly.

  Kenji grasped the leg and lowered it from the table, wincing as he did so. With his cane, he pointed beyond the kitchen.

  Walking up to the partly open door, Ichiro paused and glanced back at Kenji. Slowly, he pushed it open and shut it silently behind him. There were two windows in the back, shining dimly against the darkness of the unlighted room. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he was able to make out the shape of the bed and the slender hump that was Emi. Moving cautiously forward, he glimpsed the fine trail of chain hanging from the ceiling. He raised his arm toward it gropingly.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  He untied his shoes by kneeling down and then let his shirt and trousers drop to the floor. Debating whether or not to strip all the way down, he pondered the matter for a long while. Then, like a swimmer plunging decisively into the cold water, he removed his underclothes and crawled into the bed.

  His body taut and uncomfortable, he lay stiffly and stared at the ceiling. He fought for something to say, some remark to start bridging the gap of starched sheet that stretched between them. He listened to her soft, even breathing and tried to control the heaving of his own breast. At length, she stirred and her hand found his under the covers. It was warm and friendly and relaxing.

  “This house,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You live here all alone?”

  “Very much so.”

  “No brothers or sisters.”

  “No. No brothers or sisters.”

  “Folks. How about them?”

  “Mother died in thirty-nine.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “It was just as well,” she said. “The war would have made her suffer and she didn’t have that. She had a wonderful funeral. It seemed as if everyone in the valley came with little white envelopes bearing quarters and dollars and some with even five and ten dollars and a few with much, much more. Paid for the funeral, they did. If father were here, he’d still be talking about it. It made him proud to tell people how he actually made money on the funeral. He didn’t really mean it that way, of course. It was just his way of saying that he had a lot of good friends.”

  He lay there thinking about his own mother, thinking what might have been if she had died mercifully before Pearl Harbor also.

  “Dad is in Japan,” she continued. “He asked to be repatriated and he’s been there five months.”

  “My ma thinks Japan won the war,” he said.

  “So did Dad. But he doesn’t any more. He wants to come back.”

  “What makes them that way?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like a sickness.”

  He turned to face her, his leg touching hers. “I want to know,” he said loudly and distinctly. “I’ve ruined my life and I want to know what it is that made me do it. I’m not sick like them. I’m not crazy like Ma is or your father was. But I must have been.”

  “It’s because we’re American and because we’re Japanese and sometimes the two don’t mix. It’s all right to be German and American or Italian and American or Russian and American but, as things turned out, it wasn’t all right to be Japanese and American. You had to be one or the other.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got to know,” he sobbed out, holding desperately to her hand with both of his.

  Emi reached out her free hand and drew his face against her naked breast. Lost and bewildered like a child frightened, he sobbed quietly.

  * * *

  —

  It was hardly seven o’clock when Ichiro stirred wearily and dug his chin deeper into the covers to ward off the sharp coolness of the morning country air. He rolled half a turn, expecting to encounter the soft warmth of the girl who was a woman and could not wait for her husband but waited, and she was not there. He lay there for a moment, wanting to sleep some more and finding it difficult because Emi was gone. Slowly, he eased out from under the covers and sat
shivering on the edge of the bed.

  On a chair near the bed were neatly laid out a fresh shirt, a clean pair of slacks, even underwear and socks. His own clothes were not in sight. He dressed hurriedly, his body tingling from the brisk, unheated air and his head heavy and dull.

  In the kitchen he let the cold water run over his head and neck, shocking himself into a wide-eyed yet somewhat drowsy state of wakefulness. The table bore signs of someone’s having breakfasted. There was a cup with a film of coffee in the bottom and a small plate with toast crumbs and a butter-stained knife. When he put his hand to the coffeepot, it was still warm. He poured a cupful and drank it down.

  Kenji was still sleeping soundly and, while he stood over his friend, wondering whether or not to awaken him, he heard the water spraying in the yard. He walked softly to the door and stepped outside.

  It was a glorious morning. The sun, barely starting to peek over the eastern rim, was forcing its crown of vivid yellows and oranges and reds against the great expanse of hazy blue. The utter stillness of the countryside seemed even more still against the occasional distant crowing of a rooster and the chirping of the birds.

  Through the misty, swirling pattern from the revolving sprinkler on the neat, green lawn he saw Emi kneeling over the flower bed.

  “Morning,” he said and, when she didn’t respond, he said more loudly: “Hey.”

  She turned and, smiling, waved. Taking time to pull a few more weeds, she rose finally and made her way around the flying water. She wore a pair of man’s overall pants, encircled with dampness at the knees, and a heavy athletic sweater with two gold stripes on the arm and an over-sized F on the front. It hung on her like an old potato sack, limp and faded from repeated use. She paused a short distance in front of him and examined him skeptically.

  “Pants are a little snug around the waist, but they fit good,” he said.

  “I thought they would. You’re about the same size as him.”

  Watching her standing there, he felt the need to say something about the previous night. “I want you to know—” he started hesitantly.

  The color rose faintly to her cheeks. “You mustn’t,” she said quickly. “Talking will make it sound bad and unclean and it was not so.”