There are stores on King Street, which is one block to the south of Jackson Street. Over the stores are hotels housed in ugly structures of brick more black than red with age and neglect. The stores are cafés and open-faced groceries and taverns and dry-goods shops, and then there are the stores with plate-glass windows painted green or covered with sun-faded drapes. Some bear names of exporting firms, others of laundries with a few bundles on dusty shelves. A few come closer to the truth by calling themselves society or club headquarters. The names of these latter are simple and unimaginative, for gambling against the house, whether it be with cards or dice or beans or dominoes, requires only a stout heart and a hunger for the impossible. And there are many of these, for this is Chinatown and, when the town is wide open, one simply walks into Wing’s Hand Laundry, or Trans Asia Exporting, Inc., or Canton Recreation Society with the stout heart and the hunger and there is not even a guard at the massive inner door with the small square of one-way glass.
Inside the second door are the tables and the stacks of silver dollars and the Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos and a few stray whites, and no one is smiling or laughing, for one does not do those things when the twenty has dwindled to a five or the twenty is up to a hundred and the hunger has been whetted into a mild frenzy by greed. The dealer behind the blackjack table is a sickly, handsome Chinese, a pokerfaced dignitary of the house, whose soft, nimble fingers automatically remove bunches of five and ten and fifteen from the silver stacks. He is master for the moment over the kingdom of green felt, but he neither jokes with the winners nor sympathizes with the losers, for when the day is over and the money for the day’s labors is in his pocket he will set aside a dollar for his hotel room and give the rest back to the house because his is the hunger no longer accompanied by a stout heart, a sickness which drives him relentlessly toward the big kill which, when attained, drives him to the next bigger one and so on and on and on until he is again behind the table working toward his day’s wages from which he will set aside a dollar for the hotel room and give the rest back to the house.
The dealer flipped up Kenji’s cards and matched five dollars against the five that was bet, for the house had eighteen and the young Japanese with the cane held two face cards.
Ichiro watched Kenji ride the ten and hit twenty, then forty before he pulled it in and sat out several hands. Over at the dice table were half a dozen young Japanese who could not have been any older than Taro. A few were betting dimes and quarters, feeling their luck with the miserliness of the beginner who does not yet fully understand the game or the strained impulses within his young body. And there was one who held a fistful of bills and played with an intensity that was fearful to watch.
“Here,” said Kenji to Ichiro, “play.” He shoved a stack of ten silver dollars over to his friend.
“No,” he said, wanting to play very much.
Kenji did not urge him. He played five as usual and again ran it up to forty. “For a change, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.” He traded the silver for four twenties, a ten, and a five.
They walked from game to game, watching the players for a little while.
“I feel like drinking it up,” said Kenji, looking at Ichiro.
“Fine,” said Ichiro, wanting to say that he did not want to go anyplace where too many would know him and of him, for he was afraid.
They walked down the ugly street with the ugly buildings among the ugly people which was a part of America and, at the same time, would never be wholly America. The night was cool and dark.
Halfway down an alley, among the forlorn stairways and innumerable trash cans, was the entrance to the Club Oriental. It was a bottle club, supposedly for members only, but its membership consisted of an ever growing clientele. Under the guise of a private, licensed club, it opened its door to almost everyone and rang up hefty profits nightly.
Up the corridor flanked on both sides by walls of glass brick, they approached the polished mahogany door. Kenji poked the buzzer and, momentarily, the electric catch buzzed in return. They stepped from the filthy alley and the cool night into the Club Oriental with its soft, dim lights, its long, curving bar, its deep carpets, its intimate tables, and its small dance floor.
There were a few people at the bar, a few more at the tables, and one couple on the dance floor, sliding around effortlessly to the Ralph Flanagan tune which was one of a hundred records offered by the massive, colorful juke box.
It wasn’t until they had seated themselves at the bar and finished half their first bourbons on ice that their eyes became sufficiently accustomed to the darkness to enable them to distinguish the faces scattered around the club.
“I like it here,” said Kenji contentedly.
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
Kenji sipped his drink appreciatively, knowing that the night was long and that there would be other days in spite of the hurting of his leg. “If I didn’t have to sleep or eat, I’d stay right here. I’d work up to a nice, lazy feeling and keep it there by hoisting my arm every once in a while. That would be nice.”
“Yeah, it would.”
“For me, yes, but not for you.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve been thinking about the things we said this afternoon.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, and so have you.” He looked at Ichiro with his face already flushed from the liquor.
“Sure,” said Ichiro. “Seems like that’s all I’ve been doing since the day I was born.”
“Don’t blame yourself.”
“Then who’s to blame?”
“Doesn’t matter. Blame the world, the Japs, the Germans. But not yourself. You’re killing yourself.”
“Maybe I ought to.”
“Now, you’re talking like me.” Kenji smiled and beckoned the bartender for refills.
“There used to be times, before the war,” said Ichiro, “when I thought I had troubles. I remember the first time I laid a girl. She was a redhead in my history class. Knew her way around. I guess, actually, she laid me. I was scared, but I was more scared after it was done. Worried about it for weeks. I thought I really had troubles then.”
“Sounds more like a good deal.”
“Could have been. I think about that now and I feel good about it. If I had to do it over—” Leaving the rest unsaid, he played with the glass in his hands.
“I feel for you,” said Kenji.
“I suppose that means you’ve decided not to change places with me.”
“If it were possible to, no.”
“If it were, Ken, if it were and there was just half an inch to trade for my fifty years, would you then?”
Kenji thought about that for a long while. “When it comes to the last half an inch and it starts to hurt, I’ll sell the car and spend the rest of my life sitting here with a drink in my hand and feeling good.”
“That means no, of course.”
“That means no, yes.”
“Thanks for being honest.”
“I wish I could do something.”
“You can’t.”
“But I wish I could.”
“Nobody can.”
“I want to anyway.”
“Don’t try.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
So they sat silently through the next drink, one already dead but still alive and contemplating fifty or sixty years more of dead aliveness, and the other, living and dying slowly. They were two extremes, the Japanese who was more American than most Americans because he had crept to the brink of death for America, and the other who was neither Japanese nor American because he had failed to recognize the gift of his birthright when recognition meant everything.
The crowd was beginning to thicken now. The door seemed continually to be buzzing and, from their stools at the bar, they watched the laughing faces of the newcomers, who quickly settled down at the tables with a thirst for the drinks which would give them the relaxation and peace they sought.
A swarthy Japanese, dressed in a pale-blue suit that failed to conceal his short legs and awkward body, came in with a good-looking white girl. He spoke loudly and roughly, creating the commotion he intended so that, for a moment, all eyes were upon the couple. Seeing Kenji, he boomed out jovially: “For crissake, if it ain’t Peg-leg. It’s sure been a helluva long time since I seen you.” He left the girl standing at the door and advanced upon Kenji with arms outstretched.
“Cut it out, Bull,” said Kenji quietly. “I saw you last night.”
Bull wedged himself between the stools with his back to Ichiro. “How’m I doin’?” he whispered slyly.
“She’s all right,” said Kenji examining the girl.
“C’mon, sit with us. I’ll fix you up.” Bull gave Kenji a hearty slap.
“I’m with a friend,” said Kenji.
Bull turned around and looked at Ichiro with a meanness which was made darker by the heavy cheekbones and the rough stubble which defied a razor. He wiggled out into the open with exaggerated motions and began to brush himself furiously. “Goddammit,” he said aloud, “brand-new suit. Damn near got it all cruddy.”
There was a ripple of laughter and Ichiro turned and looked at the crowd without wanting to. Someone said something about “No-no boys don’t look so good without the striped uniform” and that got a loud, boisterous laugh from the corner where a group of young Japanese who were too young to drink sat drinking. He scanned their faces quickly and saw, among them, the unsmiling, sick-looking face of Taro.
“Go on, Bull, your girl friend’s waiting,” said Kenji quietly.
“What’s with you, nuts or somp’n?” said Bull wickedly.
“Go on.”
Bull regarded the lean, solemn face stubbornly but only for a moment. “Sure, sure,” he said lightly, “a friend of yours . . .” He paused and cast the meanness at Ichiro once more and added: “. . . is a friend of yours.” Grinning at the crowd as though he were a performer who had just done his bit, he returned to his girl, who had been primping ostentatiously all the while.
Ichiro leaned over the bar, the fury inside of him seething uncontrollably, and shame, conceived of a great goodness momentarily corrupted by bitterness and the things he did not understand, deprived him of the strength to release the turbulence.
“Want to go?”
“No,” he muttered savagely before he could stop himself.
“Bull didn’t mean it. He might be a brute, but he’s all right.”
“He meant it. They all mean it. I can see it in their faces.”
“You see too much.”
“I feel it.”
“Then you feel too much.”
As if hoping to find escape in the whisky, he downed it quickly and motioned to the bartender to fill it. When the smiling Chinese behind the bar tipped the bottle over the glass, he held it down until the liquor spilled over the lip.
“Leave it, Al,” said Kenji to the Chinese.
Al nodded his head and left the bottle in front of Ichiro.
They drank in silence, Kenji taking his leisurely and Ichiro gulping his purposefully.
“Take it slow,” warned Kenji in a voice which was softer than usual because the whisky made him that way.
“Doesn’t help,” grumbled Ichiro thickly, “not a goddamned bit it doesn’t help.” He swung around on his stool and surveyed the crowd, which had long since forgotten about him. He noticed hazily that Taro and his friends were gone. “Son-of-bitches. That’s what they are, all of them. Dirty, no-good son-of-bitches.”
“I agree,” said Kenji peacefully.
“You too.”
Kenji nodded his head, “Sure, I’m a member too. World’s full of us.”
“I mean it. Everybody except me. Me, I’m not even a son of a bitch. I’m nobody, nothing. Just plain nothing.”
“Let’s get some air.”
“No, no. After a while. Right now, I’m going to get stinko.”
“You’re drunk now.”
“Hell, I’m just starting. I want to get so drunk I’ll feel like a son of a bitch too.” He lifted the glass to his mouth and emptied it, almost toppling off the stool.
Kenji grabbed his arm and straightened him out.
“Thanks. Thanks, Ken. You’re okay and you’ve done plenty for me. Now, it’s my turn. I’m going to do something for you.”
“What’s that?”
“You go over there and sit with your friend, the monkey in the blue suit, and I’ll go out the door and I’ll forget I ever saw you. Fair enough, huh? Best thing I can do for you. Forget you, that’s what.”
“That’s no good.”
“It is. It is. You go get fixed up with that blond. Take her away from that monkey and I’ll walk out the door and keep right on going all the way down Jackson Street and into the drink. I got no right to let you be my friend. I don’t want you for a friend, friend. Please, huh?”
“We’re going for a ride, remember?”
“Nope, you go, with blondie. That’s for you. I don’t want to go anyplace with you no more.”
They stared at each other, Kenji smiling patiently at his friend, who spoke with drunken earnestness.
Someone said “Hey” softly and they both turned. It was Taro.
“Hay is for horses,” he blurted out stiffly at his brother. “Don’t you even know your own brother’s own name? I’m I-chi-ro, remember?”
“I wanta talk to you.”
“Talk then.”
“C’mon outside.”
“I like it here.”
Taro fidgeted uncertainly and looked hostilely at Kenji.
“I have to hit the John anyway,” said Kenji obligingly.
“No, stay. Piss on the floor. This ought to be good. He’s finally got something to say to me and I want you to hear it. Well? What is it?” he demanded impatiently.
“If you’ll come outside, I’ll tell you.”
Ichiro threw up his arms in disgust. “Come back when you feel like talking in here.” He turned around to get his drink and did not see the two young Japanese step inside the doorway and look questioningly at Taro. Taro waved them away with a furtive motion of his hand, which Kenji noticed. The two youths hurried back out.
“You gonna come out?” asked Taro.
“Your brother is busy. Come back later,” said Kenji.
“For crissake. Okay, okay, so I’ll go.” Ichiro tumbled off the stool.
“I’m coming too.” Kenji reached for his cane.
Ichiro held back his friend’s arm. “Nope. This is a family powwow. You keep my glass warm and I’ll be right back. Right back.”
“Watch yourself,” cautioned Kenji.
“I’m not that drunk,” laughed Ichiro. He lumbered after Taro, the weight of his body urging his legs unsteadily forward in quick, clumsy spurts.
Taro walked rapidly, turning down the alley away from King Street. Some thirty yards from the club entrance he angled off through a vacant lot which was gloomily illuminated by a distant street light.
Resolutely, Ichiro followed, his breath coming hard and the hot smell of the whisky swirling through his nostrils nauseatingly. He started across the lot and spied Taro far ahead. “Where in the hell you going? I’m tired.” He stopped and fought for breath.
His brother had stopped too and faced him silently from the shadow of an old garage. Ichiro had to squint his eyes to barely see him.
There were sounds of feet shuffling in the gravelly earth. The sounds advanced from all sides. The darkness of the night and his own drunkenness made it difficult for him to realize immediately what was happening. Two youths stepped between him and Taro.
“That’s a Jap, fellas,” sneered one of them bravely.
A voice concurred from behind: “Yeah, this one’s got a big, fat ass, fatter than its head.”
“It’s got legs,” came a voice from the side, “and arms too. Just like us.”
“Does it talk?”
“Talks Jap, I bet.”
“Say something,” egged the first youth. “Say no-no in Jap. You oughta be good at that.”
“Yeah, I wanta hear.”
“Me too. Say no-no.”
Ichiro wove unsteadily, the humiliation and anger intensified by the dulling effect of the liquor into a heavy, brooding madness. He strove to keep his brother in sight, catching an occasional glimpse of the now fear-stricken face.
“It doesn’t look very happy,” said a voice, shaky but inspired by the knowledge of being on the stronger side.
“That’s ’cause it’s homesick.”
“It’s got a home?”
“Sure, on the other side of the pond.”
“Comes from Japan, doesn’t it?”
“Made in Japan. Says so right here.”
A brutal kick on his behind sent Ichiro stumbling forward. His anger frothing over, he picked up momentum and lunged at the dim shape that was his brother. He swung his arms wildly at the two youths who stood between them. One of them threw himself athwart his legs and Ichiro sprawled heavily to the ground. He shook his head wearily and struggled to his knees.
“Pretty game,” said one of the tormentors calmly.
“Wants to fight,” said another.
“Just like a dog.”
“Dogs don’t wear pants.”
“Right. We can’t let it run around with pants on.”
“No. People will think it’s human.”
Before he could struggle to his feet, his arms were pulled painfully behind him. Furiously, he attempted to kick himself loose. Immediately arms were clawing at his trouser legs and it was only a matter of moments before he was stretched out helplessly.
There was a sharp snap and a slender youth bent over him with a wide grin and started to slip the knife blade under the leather belt.
“That’s enough. Let him go.” Kenji limped across the lot and advanced upon the group. He poked his cane at one of the youths who hovered over Ichiro. Slowly, they backed away from their prey. Only the youth who held the knife did not move.
“You heard,” said Kenji to him.
“Keep out of this. It’s none of your business.”
“It’s certainly none of yours.” The cane swished and smacked loudly against the wrist of the knife wielder.
Dropping the knife with a yelp of pain, the youth backed off, swearing menacingly at Kenji.
“Let’s get out of here,” said one of them urgently.
“Yeah, I heard about this guy. Kill-crazy, that’s what. Even his buddies were afraid of him.”
“Just like a madman. Couldn’t kill enough krauts.”
“I’m gonna beat it.”
“Aw, he’s just another Jap.” The slender youth stooped over to retrieve his knife, mumbling “Jap-lover.”
Kenji raised his cane and aimed a stiff blow at the youth’s back.
“Ahh!” The youth fell across Ichiro, then picked himself up hastily and dashed into the shadows. The others followed in a mad rush.
“Your brother has nice friends,” said Kenji, helping Ichiro to get up.
“No-good rotten bastard.” Ichiro brushed himself with heavy, limp arms.
“Want to drink some more?”
They walked silently to the car and, a short while later, were driving swiftly along the highway leading southward out of the city. With both windows rolled down, the dulling effects of the whisky soon wore off.
Ichiro rested his head on the door, exposing his face to the stream of cold air. Hazily, he thought disgustedly of the recent happenings, of Bull and of Taro and his gang of weak hoodlums. He could understand Bull’s subjecting him to the indignity in the Club Oriental. Bull’s mind was about as thick and unpliable as a brick and the meanness which had prompted him to make a spectacle of him was less to blame than the dull, beastly desire to feel the approval of the crowd, which had laughed with him for a moment instead of at him. The blond was a compensation for his lack of acceptance also. Somehow, he had managed to date her but, before the night was done, Bull would be looking stubbornly for her while someone else took her to bed. He could forgive Bull, but not Taro, who had baited him into the lot and was too cowardly to join in the game which he had made possible and too cowardly to come to his defense when the horror of what he had done dawned too late.
Taro, my brother who is not my brother, you are no better than I. You are only more fortunate that the war years found you too young to carry a gun. You are fortunate like the thousands of others who, for various reasons of age and poor health and money and influence, did not happen to be called to serve in the army, for their answers might have been the same as mine. And you are fortunate because the weakness which was mine made the same weakness in you the strength to turn your back on Ma and Pa and makes it so frighteningly urgent for you to get into uniform to prove that you are not a part of me. I was born not soon enough or not late enough and for that I have been punished. It is not just, but it is true. I am not one of those who wait for the ship from Japan with baggage ready, yet the hundreds who do are freer and happier and fuller than I. I am not to blame but you blame me and for that I hate you and I will hate you more when you go into the army and come out and walk the streets of America as if you owned them always and forever.
I have made a mistake and I know it with all the anguish in my soul. I have suffered for it and will suffer still more. Is it not just then that, for my suffering and repentance, I be given another chance? One steals and goes to prison and comes out a free man with his debt paid. Such a one can start over. He can tell himself that the mistake which he has made has been made right with the world. He can, without much difficulty, even convince himself that his wrong has been righted and that, with lesson learned, he can find acceptance among those of his kind. I, too, have made a mistake and I, too, have served time, two years all told, and I have been granted a full pardon. Why is it then that I am unable to convince myself that I am no different from any other American? Why is it that, in my freedom, I feel more imprisoned in the wrongness of myself and the thing I did than when I was in prison? Am I really never to know again what it is to be American? If there should be an answer, what is it? What penalty is it that I must pay to justify my living as I so fervently desire to?
There is, I am afraid, no answer. There is no retribution for one who is guilty of treason, and that is what I am guilty of. The fortunate get shot. I must live my punishment.
Overcome by the sense of futility which came back to him again and again, he moaned helplessly.
Kenji pointed the Oldsmobile down the broad stretch of concrete at an unwavering fifty-five. “Head starting to hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“We can stop for a drink.”
“No. That wouldn’t help.”
They sped past a drive-in movie, catching a glimpse of the silent drama on the part of the screen which was unobscured by the fence.
“Speed make you nervous?”
“No.”
The Oldsmobile lunged up to seventy, then struggled more slowly to seventy-five and, soon, they were hurtling along at eighty. They rolled up the windows to stop the wicked rush of air.
“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.
“Thanks 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.”
He fidgeted uneasily, then saw the truth in her words. “No, it wasn’t.”
“There’s a jacket in the hall closet,” she said as she bent down to grab the hose and pull the sprinkler closer to the concrete walk.
It wasn’t any longer than a minute or so before he had come back out with the snug-fitting leather jacket. Emi was sitting on the bottom step and he dropped down beside her. She sat with her wrists on her knees, her soiled hands carefully arched away from the soiled overalls as if she were wearing a clean skirt.
“There’s someone out there,” he said, peering into the distance across the level field and catching the movement of a tiny, dark shape stooped over in earnest industry.
“That’s Mr. Maeno,” she replied. “He leases my land.”
“Looks like he’s all alone.”
“Oh, no. There’s Mrs. Maeno, of course, and they have two young daughters who help after school and they hire help when necessary.”
“And work from daylight till sundown, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I can tell he’s that kind of a man without ever having met him but by just watching him from here.”
“Is that bad?”
“Bad?” He thought about it for a while before answering. “It’s good. I used to think farmers were crazy working the way they do. I don’t any more. I envy him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s got a purpose in life. He’s got something to do. He’s got a goal of some kind and it gives meaning to his life and he’s probably pretty satisfied.”
“And me?”
He turned and looked at her. She was smiling, half seriously, half teasingly.
“I envy you too,” he said without hesitation.
“And Ken? Poor Ken.”
“Him also.”
“You’re bitter and you’ve no right to be.” She brushed her palm against her eye irritatedly.
He stood up, digging his fists angrily into his pockets because she was nice and he had no right to make her partner to his gloom. “What kind of flowers did you plant?” he said cheerfully.
“Sit down, Ichiro.”
Obeying her, he said: “I want to talk about something else.”
“I don’t. I want to talk about you, about how you feel and why you feel as you do.”
“It’s a lousy way to spend a fine morning,” he protested.
She put a hand on his arm until he turned and looked at her. “I think I know how you feel.”
He shook his head. “You can’t. No one can.”
“I thought about it while you were sleeping. I put myself in your place and I know how you feel. It’s a very hopeless sort of feeling.”
There was nothing he could say to that and he didn’t.
“A hopeless feeling, however, doesn’t mean that there is no hope.”
“Are you saying there is?”
“There must be.” She rubbed her hands together, flaking the dry dirt onto the walk.
“Thanks for trying,” he said, “thanks for trying to help.”
Emi faced him with a look of surprise and hurt anger: “Do you really think it’s so hopeless? What do you propose to do during the rest of your life? Drown yourself in your selfish bitterness?”
Ichiro opened his mouth to mollify her.
“Are you blind?” she continued without waiting for an answer. “Deaf? Dumb? Helpless? You’re young, healthy, and supposedly intelligent. Then be intelligent. Admit your mistake and do something about it.”
“What?”
“Anything. It doesn’t matter what you do. This is a big country with a big heart. There’s room here for all kinds of people. Maybe what you’ve done doesn’t make you one of the better ones but you’re not among the worst either.”
“If I were Ralph, if Ralph had done what I did, would you still feel the same way?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Ralph’s a lucky guy,” he said.
“And you are too. In any other country they would have shot you for what you did. But this country is different. They made a mistake when they doubted you. They made a mistake when they made you do what you did and they admit it by letting you run around loose. Try, if you can, to be equally big and forgive them and be grateful to them and prove to them that you can be an American worthy of the frailties of the country as well as its strengths.”
“The way you say that, it seems to make sense, but I don’t know.”
“You do know,” she said quickly, for she was spurred by the effect her words were having on him. “It’s hard to talk like this without sounding pompous and empty, but I can remember how full I used to get with pride and patriotism when we sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and pledged allegiance to the flag at school assemblies, and that’s the feeling you’ve got to have.”
“It was different then.”
“Only because you think so. Next time you’re alone, pretend you’re back in school. Make believe you’re singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and see the color guard march out on the stage and say the pledge of allegiance with all the other boys and girls. You’ll get that feeling flooding into your chest and making you want to shout with glory. It might even make you feel like crying. That’s how you’ve got to feel, so big that the bigness seems to want to bust out, and then you’ll understand why it is that your mistake was no bigger than the mistake your country made.”
Ichiro pushed himself off the step and walked slowly to the end of the yard. Turning, he looked at Emi, who stared back at him with an intentness which made him uncomfortable. Keeping his eyes on her, he made his way back until he was looking down upon her.
“It’s nice out here,” he said, “nice house, nice yard, nice you. No cars whizzing by, no people making noise. It’s quiet and peaceful and clean and fresh and nice. It feels good just being here and even what you’ve just been saying sounds all right. But I don’t live here. I don’t belong here. It’s not the same out there.” He motioned toward the highway and beyond, where the city lay.
For a moment she looked as if she might scream to relieve herself of the agony in her soul for him. Fighting to regain her composure, she beckoned him to sit down.
He did so wearily, not wanting to pursue the subject but sensing that she was not yet ready to abandon it.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-five,” he answered, skeptical.
“I’m twenty-seven. So is Ralph, and Mike is fifty.”
“Mike?”
“Yes, Mike, a good American name for a good American—at least, he was. Mike is Ralph’s brother.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. Not yet anyway. I want to tell you about him.”
“Sure.”
“Do you want to go to Japan and live there?”
He furrowed his brow, not understanding. “You were going to tell me about Mike.”
“I am,” she said impatiently. “Do you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Mike did.”
“He did?”
“Yes, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“You will. I’ll start from the beginning.”
“Fine.”
As if preparing the story in her mind, she gazed silently over the fields before she began. “Mike was born in California and went to college there. He knocked around for a while and was doing graduate work in Louisiana when the war, the first world war, started. He’d left California because he didn’t like the way the white people treated the Japanese and he was happy in Louisiana because they treated him like a white man there. So, when the war came, he wanted to get into it and did. He spent a year in France, came back, joined the VFW, returned to California, and got into the produce business. He did well, got married, and had two children. Then the second war started. When talk about the evacuation started, he wouldn’t believe it. He was an American and a veteran of the first war. He thought there might be justification in interning some of the outspokenly pro-Japanese aliens, but he scoffed at the idea of the government doing such a thing to him. When it became apparent that the government proposed to do just that, he burst into a fury of anger and bitterness and swore that if they treated him like a Japanese, he would act like one. Well, you know what happened and he stuck to his words. Along with the other rabidly pro-Japanese, he ended up at the Tule Lake Center, and became a leader in the troublemaking, the strikes and the riots. His wife and children remained in this country, but he elected to go to Japan, a country he didn’t know or love, and I’m sure he’s extremely unhappy.”
“I can’t say I blame him.”
“I’m sure he wishes he were back here.”
“He’s got more right than I have.”
She swung around to face him, her eyes wide with anger. “You don’t understand. Mike doesn’t have any more right than you have to be here. He has no right at all any more. It was as if he joined the enemy by antagonizing the people against the government, and you certainly never did that. All you did was to refuse to go in the army and you did so for a reason no worse than that held by a conscientious objector who wasn’t a conscientious objector.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“No?” She looked at him pleadingly, her mouth quivering uncontrollably. “I want so much to help,” she cried softly, “but nothing seems to make any sense.”
He patted her back awkwardly, trying to think of what to say to soothe her.
“Ralph won’t come back because of Mike. He’s ashamed,” she whimpered. “How am I to tell him that it makes no difference what Mike has done? Why is it that Ralph feels he must punish himself for Mike’s mistake? Why?”
“He’ll come back. Takes time to work these things out.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of the sweater.
“So am I. Hungry too.”
They rose together and entered the house.
Inside, they found Kenji getting breakfast ready. He looked up from the frying eggs and bacon and grinned sheepishly. His face was drawn and pale. The cane was hooked to his belt, for he held the spatula in one hand and a water glass half full of whisky in the other.
“We were talking outside,” said Ichiro.
“Yeah, nice morning. You should have stayed out a while longer. Breakfast isn’t quite ready.”
Emi washed her hands and took over at the stove. Sadly, she watched as Kenji limped carefully to the table. “How did you sleep?”
“Not very well.” He sipped the whisky appreciatively.
“It—it—” She bit her lips for control and managed to utter: “Did it—does it . . . ?”
“It does, Emi.”
“Oh.” She flipped the eggs over unthinkingly. “I—I hope you weren’t expecting sunny side up.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Ichiro said assuringly: “Makes no difference to me.”
Moving about quietly as if fearing to jar the floor, Emi fixed the plates and set them on the table. Ichiro poured the coffee and loaded the toaster.
Kenji leaned back in his chair and gazed through the window above the sink. “Swell day for a picnic,” he said. “How about it, Emi? Pack a lunch.”
Ichiro retrieved the toast, saying: “Sounds good to me.”
“Go home and see your father and your brothers and sisters,” she answered. “They’ll want to see you before you go. We can have our picnic after you come back. Please.”
“I suppose you’re right. You always are.” He turned to Ichiro: “Feel like going to Portland tomorrow?”
“What’s there?”
Emi’s fork clattered against the plate. “The VA hospital,” she said curtly.
“Sure,” he said, looking at Emi, who was avoiding his eyes, “I’d be happy to.”
While Ichiro ate and Kenji drank, Emi got up and left them. She returned a few minutes later, shed of the baggy work clothes and wearing a trim, blue-Shantung dress and high heels. He eyed her approvingly, but Kenji seemed to take no notice until it was time for them to leave.
At the door Kenji said fondly to her: “Thanks for not choosing black. You look wonderful.”
“I’ll wait for you,” she said softly, fighting to hold back the tears. She slipped out of her shoes and, when Kenji kissed her lightly on the cheek, grasped him about the neck and put her lips to his.
As he backed the car down the driveway to the road, Ichiro saw her standing very still on the porch, neither waving nor shouting. He had a feeling that she was crying.