Eighteen
Frantic, Jimmy returned to his office. He paced back and forth in front of the window, praying, one eye on the entry to the music building, the other on his watch. It had been fifteen minutes, and neither Imogene nor the commandant had come out.
His imagination ran rampant picturing in lurid detail the awful possibilities of what could be happening behind the auditorium doors.
Hang the consequences. He had to do something. Now!
As he ran across the lawn and up the steps, he prayed that God would protect her. Racing across the lobby, he thrust open the auditorium door.
He saw the commandant hovering over her, his hands moving down her arms.
He saw Imogene’s face masked in fear as she struggled to pull away.
“Sir!” Jimmy called out.
The commandant’s and Imogene’s heads turned simultaneously. But even as she jumped to her feet, the commandant did not release her. His voice was furious. “What are you doing here?” he demanded in Japanese.
Jimmy ran down the aisle, halting at the foot of the steps leading up to the stage. “Sir.” He saluted. “Uh—you have an important call from headquarters. I am sorry to interrupt you, Sir, but it demands your immediate attention.”
A growl of indignation rose from the commandant’s throat as he reluctantly thrust Imogene aside and stormed down the steps. “This had better be important,” he said, as if Jimmy would be to blame if it weren’t.
Little did he know.
Jimmy would cross that bridge when he came to it.
He waited until the commandant had marched out the door; then he turned to Imogene.
Her face was still in shock. “Jimmy—”
He shook his head and held his finger to his lips. Very quietly and with haste, he said, “I wasn’t able to get your sister released. I’m sorry.” He turned and started to move toward the door, then paused again. “And I’m sorry I got you into this. It won’t happen again.”
He hurried after the commandant, contemplating how he would explain the supposed mix-up in the telephone call from headquarters, and was not at all pleased to encounter Angier Duke skulking around at the bottom of the steps.
They stared at each other.
Angier lifted his nose and would have glared down it had Jimmy not been a head taller than he. But what the slight man lacked in stature, he made up for in disdain, as he pushed past Jimmy and scurried up the steps.
❧
Imogene rarely saw Jimmy in the weeks that followed—except at roll call. And then he was uncharacteristically brusque. From time to time he shot her a covert glance when for an instant their gazes connected. After one such exchange she looked up to find Angier Duke assessing her with a look of disapproval.
Ever since that last meeting, when Jimmy had stormed into the auditorium as her protector, Angier had hardly given her a moment’s peace. She’d tried to be sensitive to his feelings. Unfortunately he read her kindness as attraction, which could not have been further from the truth. If anything, as time went on, she had discovered more disagreeable aspects of his character and found his presence increasingly distasteful.
It seemed that Denice Diller had also picked up on the exchanges between Imogene and Jimmy and brought it up one evening as they all sat around the table after dinner.
She had invited the family, including Miss Goldie, to share her shanty at mealtimes. Unfortunately the Dukes were just next door, and too often they included themselves in the conversations.
“I think Jimmu Yamashida still holds a soft spot for you, Imogene,” Denice said. “I saw the way he looked at you this morning at roll call. It isn’t the first time I’ve noticed it.”
Miss Goldie glanced across the table at Imogene’s father with an I-told-you-so expression.
“How come I missed it, Imo?” Becky chided.
“There’s nothing to miss.” Imogene tossed Denice an agitated glance. “The only contact I have with Jimmy is when he brings bad news.”
“You can’t blame him for that,” Becky said.
“I can,” Imogene replied, wishing the whole conversation would go away.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Imogene,” Denice said. “I see him as a victim, too. It’s clear he’s not at all happy to be here. And he does his best to intercede with the commandant on our behalf.”
“His best being none too good,” Imogene said. They didn’t know the half of it.
“Denice is right. Don’t be so hard on the boy,” her father said.
“At least he tries,” Miss Goldie said.
“Which is more than I can say for most of them,” he added.
“Could it be that he’s trying to salve his conscience?” And well he should, Imogene thought. “He’s still a Japanese soldier, regardless of what we think. As such, the less I have to do with him, the better.” Did she really mean that?
“It relieves me to hear you say that, my dear.” Angier offered through the open window.
She could have kicked herself.
The shanties were close enough to reach out and hold hands, if one were so inclined.
“Imogene’s right,” Mrs. Duke said across the narrow space, as she sat next to Angier. “They are all cut from the same cloth.”
Not exactly what Imogene had meant, but she didn’t want to get into it now.
Mrs. Duke went on. “The veneer may be more polished on some, but the soul is still the same. They’re all rotten to the core.”
“Aren’t they showing a movie in the plaza tonight?” Miss Goldie leaped in before Imogene could respond.
Imogene was in no position to defend Jimmy, nor did she want to, but “rotten to the core”? The Dukes were getting more and more on her nerves.
She stood up and began to clear the plates. “I think they’re having a quiz tournament before the movie. You don’t want to miss that, Angie. You’d have a real good chance of winning.”
“Why, thank you, Imogene.”
You’re such a know-it-all.
“You folks go on,” her father said, rising. “Imogene and I will clean up and meet you over there.”
“Uh-oh, a daddy-daughter talk. Are you sure you can handle this alone, Imo?” Becky grinned.
“Have I a choice?”
“I guess not.” Becky stood up, put her hands in the small of her back, and stretched.
“You’re a little flushed, Denice dear. Are you feeling up to par?” Miss Goldie asked as she and Denice were leaving the shack.
“Just a bit tired. But they’re showing a Deanna Durbin movie tonight, and I’d hate to miss it.”
Imogene’s father scraped the plates and put them into the pot of heated soapy water. “What’s going on between you and this young soldier, Imogene?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ I have eyes.”
“Nothing personal.” She began washing the dishes.
Her father’s “Uh-huh” sounded skeptical. He picked up the dish towel.
Imogene rested her soapy hands on the edge of the pot and looked at her father. “All right. I’ll tell you, if you promise not to mention it to Becky.”
“What does Becky have to do with it?”
Imogene related her efforts through Jimmy to get Becky released. “I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you all to get your hopes up, in case it didn’t happen.” She finished washing the last plate and laid it in the rinse pan. “Which, as it turns out, was wise since it didn’t. That’s about it. As I said, nothing personal. You don’t have to worry, Daddy. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“I assume he feels the same way.”
“He said as much.” Imogene remembered Jimmy’s last words as he left the auditorium: It won’t happen again.
Her father shook his head. “It’s a pity how circumstances beyond our control can determine the course we take. Goldie seemed to think well of him.”
So it was “Goldie” now, not “Miss” Goldie. Imogene smiled to herself.
“Goldie said he has more than charm—he has character,” her father said.
“And he can sing? Did Miss Goldie tell you that? And that he’s smart and he played college football? Why, he was almost as American as apple pie. He fooled us all.” Imogene looked away. “Can you imagine me in love with a—with a Japanese soldier?”
“He wasn’t a soldier when you met him.”
“He may not have been wearing a uniform, but he was the same person,” she said sharply.
“And a pretty nice one, according to Goldie.”
“You sound as if you’re defending him.”
“I’m not—”
Imogene interrupted. “How can you defend any Japanese after what they’ve done to you—to us? Look at us.” She spread her arms. “Look where we are. They’ve abused us, murdered those we love, stolen everything we own, thrown us into prison—” She took a gulp of air. “And we’ve gotten off easy. We’re still alive—if you call this living.”
Her father opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “And don’t give me that old saw about ‘hate the sin but love the sinner.’ It won’t fly, Daddy. They’re all evil, even Jimmy—”
She had to believe that. If she didn’t, every time she looked at him, her heart would break again. “He had a choice.”
“Did he?”
“He knew what was going on in China. He wasn’t proud of it—or so he said. He could have stayed in the United States. But, no, he chose to trot back to his rich daddy in Japan like the obedient little son of the sun that he is.” Imogene closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. She’d had this conversation with herself more times than she could count, and still it hurt.
“I’m not sure he did have a choice, Imogene. That young man is as much a product of his culture and upbringing as you are of yours. Unquestioning obedience to authority has been ingrained in him since the day he was born.” Her father gave her a sardonic smile. “Unlike some cheeky American lasses I can think of.”
Imogene crossed her arms. “You are defending him.”
“I’m not defending him. I don’t even know him.” Her father put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “And I’m not suggesting that you have anything to do with him. Clearly that would be dangerous. Still I wish him no ill. But he’s not my concern. You are. I don’t like what I see happening to you, your lack of compassion, the bitterness, the pride.”
Imogene’s tone turned harsh. “It’s the only thing we have left. What else have we if not our pride?”
“Our faith. We still have our faith,” her father said quietly.
“In what? You talk about faith. How can I have faith in a God who allows such terrible things to happen?”
“We can’t have it both ways, Imogene. God has given us the gift of free choice. With free choice come consequences and responsibilities.”
“Oh, I get it. We take the consequences for the irresponsibilities of the Japanese.”
“Sadly that sometimes happens. But you can’t blame God for that. God’s plan is good and perfect. You cannot blame Him for its corruption by men.” He touched her shoulder. “But even then, from this—this caldron of despair, I’ve seen acts of courage and compassion I never thought possible, and from folks I never thought had it in them. How else would I have seen it? How else could they have discovered such goodness in themselves? That’s part of God’s plan, too.” Behind his spectacles, her father’s gray eyes mirrored his conviction.
She knew his profound disappointment. She wished she could accept the God he believed in, as she had when she was a child. But she wasn’t a child anymore. She just couldn’t.
Her father seemed to sense her withdrawal. He sat down.
Imogene came around the table and embraced him. She leaned down and rubbed her cheek against his as she had as a little girl. “You have enough faith for us both, Daddy.”
“Not so, Imogene. But I haven’t given up. As Paul said to the Corinthians: ‘Our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.’ ”