CHAPTER III

The drive was a long one, through streets of factories and through densely populated sections of crowded wooden bungalows, lightly, impermanently constructed, as though solider homes were not worth building in the face of the earthquakes that so frequently visit those islands. More recent experiments with steel and concrete, such as had risen in that part of Tokyo which had been destroyed in the earthquake disaster of 1923, might mean a general rebuilding of Japanese cities; but until this slow process was completed, I could understand Japan’s sensitiveness to any enemy threat from the air. A sight of those unpainted matchboxes of dwellings, with hardly air space between them—and our motor moved through street after street—explained why Japan watched with unconcealed misgivings the construction of our airplane carriers and. the development of Chinese and Russian aviation. A few incendiary bombs were all that would be needed to bring about almost unimaginable disaster, and I had been told that the inflammability of Osaka and other great industrial nerve centers of the Empire was even more pronounced.

Sonya had told the driver where to go and finally, after perhaps twenty minutes, the car stopped at the entrance to one of those narrow alleys where the Japan of the Shoguns meets the life of a modern aspiring nation.

“We must walk here,” she said, as we got out. The alley was a twisting, flagged street which wound between the low façades of shops and houses.

I think those small streets will always be fascinating to a foreigner. They seem perfect and yet so fragile that a gust of wind might blow them out to sea: tiny, sliding, latticed paper windows, balconies with potted dwarf trees standing on them; minute provision and hardware shops, the flash of flowered kimonos and the clatter of wooden shoes. The alley which we traversed seemed as harmless as an illustration in a tale for children. I remember thinking that it had the same naïve quality of Germany before the war—of something not to be taken wholly seriously.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Sonya smiled. “Are you impatient walking?” she asked. “It’s so pleasant here. You and I seem like something in the book of the English writer named Swift. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, isn’t it? We are going to a teahouse where we can have sukiaki. The management is expecting us.”

As she finished speaking, she pointed to an unpainted wooden wall of a building larger than the others. “It’s here,” she said, and she pushed open a gate. Once inside the wall we were in one of those miniature gardens which represent an art so completely mastered by Japan.

Sonya and I were standing, two giants in a countryside where ponds and streams and plains and mountains rose in contours around us hardly ever above the knee. We looked upon dwarfed fir trees, the tallest not above two feet, with green lawns beneath them. Among the mosses by the pools all sorts of small flowering plants were bending over the water, and goldfish were swimming beneath the surface, peculiar breeds of goldfish whose propagation had been carried on through centuries. That small yard gave us all the perspective and vista of a huge garden, all condensed into the space of a European room. A door at the end of the walk had opened already, and three women in kimonos came out, smiling and bowing. Being familiar with the habits of such places, I sat down on the step leading to the house and took off my shoes and thrust my toes into a pair of slippers which one of the girls handed me, while Sonya did the same.

“It’s like playing dolls,” she said. “Did you ever play dolls, Casey? I used to at Odessa, long ago.”

“No,” I answered, “only soldiers, Sonya.”

“Dolls are better,” she said. “We might put on kimonos, do you think?” She spoke to the eldest of the three women, and the two girls brought out kimonos.

I took off my coat and put one on. Then one of the women pattered before us, leading the way along a matting-covered corridor and pushed aside a sliding door, smiling. We both of us kicked off our slippers and entered a private room which was already arranged for us. The furnishings were as simple as a room in ancient Sparta and as fragile as a painting on a fan. A table not more than two feet high was in the center of the room, with a cushion on the floor on either side of it. A charcoal brazier was burning at one end of the table and saucers of meat and chopped green vegetables and soybean oil were standing near it,—the component parts of that informal Japanese dish, as delicious as anything I have ever eaten, called sukiaki. At one end of the table, sliding paper windows opened on a balcony that looked out on a similar small garden. Opposite the balcony at the other end of the room there was a recess in the wall that held the only decorations,—a single porcelain figure of a god standing in a teakwood holder with a scroll painting of cherry blossoms behind him. At a lower level in the niche was a vase of flowers meticulously and perfectly arranged according to the careful dictates of the flower art in Japan. That was all; otherwise the room was bare.

I sat on the floor at one side of the table and Sonya sat on the other side. One of the serving girls in her flowered kimono, with her hair done like a Japanese doll’s, knelt at the doorway, then bowed and entered and took her place at the charcoal brazier, filling the cooking utensil with the ingredients of the meal. It all made a pleasant sizzling sound of cooking and there was a smell of things to eat above the acrid smell of charcoal. A second girl, kneeling at the foot of the table, placed two tiny cups before us and filled them with hot sake wine.

“Here’s looking at you, Sonya,” I said and tossed off my cup, which the girl refilled immediately. There was a heady quality about that heated wine of Japan. Though it is taken in minute quantities, the cup is always full and one is apt to forget the amount one consumes.

“I hope you like it here,” said Sonya.

I told her that I liked it, and I did. Her watchfulness and preoccupation seemed to have left her as she sat there on the floor by the little table. She seemed to have thrown off care with that volatile habit of Russians. She was a hostess who had brought me to a quiet place to be shared by herself and me. Her long lashes half drooped over her violet eyes and her red lips twisted in playful interrogation.

“Why don’t you sit here beside me?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It isn’t proper now. Later, perhaps, when the servants leave.” We were each handed a green bowl with the yolk of a raw egg in the bottom and then the meal was ready. We reached toward the brazier with chopsticks for bits of the meat and vegetables.

I was aware that a certain pretense between us had been dropped. We had both of us accepted the fact that I had not asked Sonya to lunch but that Sonya had asked me, and she must have understood that I knew well enough that she had asked me for some definite reason. I was perfectly content to watch her and to drink cup after cup of the sake wine while I waited for her to lead the conversation. Her first remark was almost banal.

“Here we are,” she said, “you and I.”

I nodded and answered, “That’s my good luck, I think, and I haven’t had much luck for quite a while.” I saw that she was watching me, but not suspiciously; rather as any woman might watch a man in whom she took an interest.

“It seems strange, doesn’t it,” she remarked, “that you and I, Casey Lee, should be in this foreign room so far from any place that either of us knows? It’s such a small inoffensive room—don’t you think? And yet it represents the culture of two thousand years. It is a part of the beliefs and life of one of the most powerful nations in the world.”

“Yes,” I said, “go on—if you don’t mind my staring at you, Sonya.”

“No, I don’t mind,” she said. “Your eyes are kind. The eyes of most Americans are kind. Your life has been so secure—is that the reason? But there is no security here. Have you felt it? It’s a nervous place—Japan.”

Her words did not interest me as much as the huskiness in her voice and the lights that kept dancing in her eyes. Her eyes seemed to be asking me wordless questions. Probably we were each wondering about the other as we talked.

“Yes,” I said, “Japan is very nervous. Well?”

“Perhaps she has a right to be nervous,” she said. “Perhaps it is a state of mind. I wonder. Japan is very proud.”

“I don’t see what there is to be nervous about,” I said.

She laughed.

“Haven’t you ever felt that fate, that everything, was conspiring against you? I’ve felt that way sometimes.”

“I wonder if you feel that way now?” I asked her.

Her eyes grew hard for a moment. “Never mind about me,” she said. “Japan feels that the world is conspiring against her. It makes no difference whether she is right or wrong if she has that conviction, and she may be right. On one side of her is the United States—”

“I know,” I interrupted. That talk had always made me impatient. “What has the United States ever done to Japan except to pass the Exclusion Act?”

“There are your interests in the Orient,” she said.

I had heard enough diplomatic talk in my occasional visits to Washington to be familiar with phases of our Pacific relations.

“I know,” I answered. “That is a vague term and I’ve never heard it specified.”

“Think of it this way,” she said; “think of a great country which is always moving forward—taking. The United States is moving toward Asia—her hand has reached out over Hawaii, over Guam, over the Philippines. Where is she going to stop?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I said. Grotesque as it seemed to be talking to a pretty girl about the affairs of nations, I was curious to see where the conversation would lead us.

“Then on the other side,” her voice went on, “on the other side of these little islands is Russia.” She was speaking with a feeling that showed me that these matters were real to her. I could not understand why she was concerned when they meant so little to me. “Russia also is always reaching out; Russia was driven from Manchuria at the time of the Czar, but perhaps she is moving back again. They are double-tracking the Trans-Siberian Railway. Vladivostok is a fortress. There are great military bases along the frontier. Russia has stretched out her hand until she holds Outer Mongolia as a buffer State. Where will she go next?—That’s what they’re wondering in Japan. If you were a Japanese—” She looked at me and stopped.

“I’d be upset,” I said. “Is that what you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything,” she answered. “I want you to see how certain people feel. The world, through the League of Nations, has repudiated certain political bets of Japan. She has suffered, like all the other nations, from the economic depression. It is not hard to see why a Japanese must feel surrounded. China dislikes and fears Japan. China is building an air force and Japan is vulnerable from the air. Do you blame the average Japanese if he feels hemmed in?”

“No,” I answered, “I don’t blame him.”

“Neither do I.” Sonya’s voice grew softer. “He looks to the east and seems to see the gray wall of the American battle fleet. He looks to the west and seems to see the Russian army and the Russian air force. And China. Mongolia is full of agents, Harbin is full of spies. He is unhappy—he is restless. The thing which makes him unhappiest is that he has not the understanding and the approval of other nations. I’m sorry for Japan.”

“Perhaps they’ve got themselves too much on their own minds,” I said.

“Perhaps,” she answered. “But so have you. I seem to have known you for a long while, Casey Lee.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

I had a sudden desire to end this general conversation, though I knew it would have been wiser to have waited. “Have you seen my dossier?” I asked.

“Your dossier?” She smiled again. “How should I see that?”

And I smiled back. “Because Japan is a suspicious country,” I explained. “Every foreigner is thoroughly investigated by the secret police. I can imagine what my dossier says, Sonya. ‘Casey Lee, a former American naval aviator, and a free-lance air fighter in little wars, who publicly expressed his discontent with his own country. A drunkard, discredited.’… Why don’t we get down to business, Sonya?” She did not smile when I had finished.

“Business,” she said. “All right. May I ask you a question, Casey Lee? You have fought under other flags, your nationality does not tie you particularly. Am I right?”

“Dead right,” I said, and drank another cup of sake. “So you were sent to sound me out?”

She nodded simply.

“Because I would talk more freely to a pretty girl?” I suggested.

She nodded again.

“It’s true,” she agreed. “The word has come that the people in America will not pay for your transpacific flight. There are certain persons here—never mind who—who wish to ask you a question. Would you fly the Pacific in a Japanese plane—and let Japan have the credit?”

She must have known before I spoke what my answer would be. It seemed to me like the chance of a lifetime. I would have my own revenge if I succeeded.

“Sonya,” I said, “for the last hour I’ve wanted to kiss you, but even if I hadn’t, I’d want to now. If you can get me a plane, if you can give me this chance, I’ll do anything in the world for you—anything at all.” I could see her looking at me with the same expression of pleasure that I have seen a player wear when he has finished a game successfully.

She knew she had me then. We were no longer people but abstractions. Her voice was cool, almost businesslike, as though she said, “Very well, I do not have to bother with you any more.” But instead she said:

“Will you please wait here,” and she rose from her cushion on the floor, tall, lithe and straight, and moved toward the little sliding door.

I rose also from my cushion beside the little table, becoming aware as I did so that a foreigner was not fitted for dining in the Japanese manner. The joints of my knees and ankles were stiff from my unaccustomed posture, so that I was glad to stretch myself. It could not have been more than three minutes later when the door slid open. I was not greatly surprised to see my friend Mr. Moto exactly as I had remembered him, with his Prussian-cut hair, cutaway coat and somber studious eyes.

Sonya had evidently given him back the ring, for it was again on his finger just as it had been the previous afternoon. He smiled, bowed and drew in his breath between his teeth. I wished that I could imitate the perfection of the Japanese bow where the head drops forward suddenly as though a knife had severed the spinal cord and then snaps back upright.

“Mr. Moto,” I said.

“You remember me, then?” said Mr. Moto. “That is kind of you, when I thought you might have forgotten. I am so glad to see you here.”

My gaze seemed to glance off the smoothness of the little man’s determined courtesy. “The pleasure is all mine,” I said.

“I can well understand,” he answered. “Miss Sonya is so charming. I am pleased that you have both come to understand each other. A very remarkable girl.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

Mr. Moto smiled again. “She will be back,” he replied; “have no fear. But first I wish to speak to you alone. I represent a group, if you understand me, that has been seeking for someone to fly the Pacific in a Japanese-made plane. You would not object, I hope, to taking our side in a friendly rivalry between Japan and the United States.”

“You show me the plane,” I said, “and I’ll thank you to the end of my days. I’m a good pilot, Mr. Moto.”

“There is no need to discuss your qualifications,” he said. “I know very well you are.”

“I thought you did,” I answered.

“If you had been born in Nippon,” Mr. Moto’s voice was slow and careful, “I think you might have had more consideration. America is so large and powerful that she forgets more easily than we do, I think.”

I knew that he was referring to my wild talk at the hotel. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Without discussing my feelings,” I told him, “I can tell you frankly that my nationalistic sentiments will not interfere with my flying a Japanese plane, or even working in some other way. I cannot see how there is anything more than friendly rivalry between Japan and America.”

Mr. Moto looked at me enigmatically. There is a nameless something in a man, whether he is Asiatic or European, which raises him above the average and I knew that Mr. Moto had that attribute. Neither of us had committed ourselves in a single detail and yet Mr. Moto seemed satisfied with my answers. He even seemed entirely familiar with my thoughts and sympathetic with my situation. “You interest me,” he said softly. “Would you mind explaining yourself?”

“What I mean,” I replied, “is the event of war. Both our countries have discussed it, but I do not see the possibility of war between us. I think that possibility was over when the United States gave up using the Philippines as a large naval base. The United States has no means of attacking you. While the Hawaiian Islands are under the American flag, it is nearly impossible for you to reach the coast of North America. With the Japan sea, a Japanese lake, and with your present naval building program, I see no chance for an American fleet to approach Japan. Sensible men discount war talk, I think, Mr. Moto.”

My speech appeared to please him. “I am so glad,” he said. “I can only say that I agree with you heartily. You are a sensible man, Mr. Lee. Shall we have a drink together? Whiskysoda, eh? American whiskysoda for good Japanese and good Americans.”

He walked to the door in his stocking feet and called out an order to a servant and a minute later we were sitting down at the small table with our drinks.

I drank mine quickly and filled my glass again, but Mr. Moto consumed his in small careful sips, like a man who had no faith in his alcoholic capacity. I felt the time had come for us to be frank with each other.

“Mr. Moto,” I said, “you have found me at a time of great misfortune. I am under no illusions why you are interested in me. You probably heard something I said yesterday at the hotel. I am not prepared to retract any of my remarks. If the opportunity you offer me is genuine, I shall do a good deal to earn it. I imagine I’m close to being an internationalist, Mr. Moto. I know that you don’t offer that opportunity for nothing. What is it that you want?”

He did not reply for a while. Instead he looked at the vase of flowers in the niche along the other wall.

“I am very glad to be direct,” he said. “I do want something—nothing that will hurt your conscience, I think. You know a good many naval men in your country’s fleet. They’re friends of yours. You can meet—” he looked at my half-empty glass thoughtfully—“and drink with them, Mr. Lee. They might talk more freely with you than with one of my own countrymen. You follow me?”

“Yes,” I said, and I had a curious sensation in my spine as the end of our conversation became more obvious. The little room with its flowers and porcelain figure had assumed in my imagination an ominous aspect. I had a very definite though indefinable sense of personal danger. It was not attributable to Mr. Moto, who sat there in a conscientious parody of a European negotiator. It seemed rather to lie in the bare paper-like walls of that room. There was no disturbing sound, nothing; and yet I was willing to wager that had I started up to leave that room just then I should not have been allowed beyond the door.

“I follow you so far,” I said, “but you’ll have to go farther, Mr. Moto.”

“Gladly,” he replied, “as long as you’re thoroughly willing.”

I knew that he was conveying half a warning, half a threat, but I was willing.

“I understand you, I think,” I said.

“Yes,” Mr. Moto nodded, “yes, I think you do, so I may be correspondingly frank. A paper, a plan, to be exact, has been abstracted from our naval archives. It is probably now in the hands of some power. My government is simply anxious to learn what power. If you can find out for me that the United States navy is familiar with the plans of a certain new type of Japanese battleship, that is all I wish of you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, and I felt relieved. “I see no real harm in that. You’d find out sooner or later.”

“Exactly so.” Mr. Moto also looked relieved. “It is a harmless commission. I should not strain your loyalty by giving you a greater one. As a matter of fact, we shall be pleased if your government has this. We fear other powers more. I am being quite open with you. I hope that you agree.”

“Very well,” I said, “I’ll do anything I can.” The request seemed harmless enough, but I had an idea that it would have been dangerous if I had refused, and Mr. Moto’s next words, distinct and devoid of tone or emphasis, convinced me I was right.

“I am very glad,” he said. “You will obey orders then?”

“Yes,” I said, “I can mind orders.”

“I am very glad,” Mr. Moto said again. “I am afraid, Mr. Lee, you must obey them, now that we’ve gone as far as this. No one would be greatly surprised if you were to disappear—would they, Mr. Lee?”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” I asked.

He paused a moment before he replied.

“I will leave the answer to your own intelligence. When you get back to the hotel you will find a ticket in your room for the Imoto Maru, which sails from Yokohama to Shanghai tomorrow night. You will be given ample money for expenses. You will simply mix with the colony of your countrymen in Shanghai—particularly naval officers. There will be further instructions for you later. You understand, I hope.”

“Yes,” I said, “I understand. And it’s understood I have a plane to fly the Pacific when this job is over.”

Mr. Moto nodded and held out his hand. “That is entirely understood, and now, I am so glad to have met you. Miss Sonya will see you back to your hotel. There must be no mistakes.” There was something in Mr. Moto’s manner that showed me there must be no mistakes.

My opinion was confirmed when he slid open the door and I saw several men lounging in the narrow hall outside. A minute later Sonya and I were walking up the narrow street and at its end the same car was waiting for us. Though she was beside me, I had never felt so completely friendless or so cut off from everything I had known. The business I had accepted, though not wholly creditable, seemed harmless enough, particularly when the reward was considered; yet I wondered—was it harmless? Sonya walked beside me, humming a little tune, strange and wild—some Russian peasant song.

“There is one thing,” she said, when we were seated together in the automobile. “You must recognize no one on the boat.”

“Very well,” I answered. Her eyes were on me curiously. She was looking at me soberly and somehow she seemed dangerous competent. I could imagine that she had an automatic pistol in the white handbag on her lap.

“Any other orders?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “not now. So you are one of us, Casey Lee. We are both without a country now.” Her words were like the slamming of a door. All my past seemed to be definitely closed and definitely behind me.

I was aware in some way that I had sold part of my soul. I did not mind just then, so long as I was getting value for it. “It is flattering that they have set you to watch me, Sonya,” I said. “You’re a pretty nurse. Shall I call you nurse?”

“You’re right,” she answered. “Im watching you.”

“Sonya,” I asked her suddenly, almost involuntarily, “what are you getting out of this?”

“Never mind.” Her eyes were hard. “I’m being paid a price. You’ll do well not to ask questions after this. Simply obey orders, Casey Lee.”

I looked at her. Her figure beneath her tailored dress was lithe and strong. Her long fingers were strong and capable. “You’re a pretty nurse,” I said, “but I’m sorry you’re a nurse.”

“Let that be as it may.” Her throaty voice tinkled like ice in a glass. “We’re only even. I’m sorry you’re what you are.”

“We’ve got that much in common,” I answered cheerfully. “I guess we neither of us have much to boast about, but we’re professionals, Sonya. We can earn our pay.”

I have tried to set down an accurate and unbiased record of these scenes, without a single effort to put myself or my motives in a favorable light. I wish emphatically to affirm that I meant every word which I said to Moto, that I entered in good faith into a contract which doubtless would seem shocking to many of my fellow citizens. The only reason I can conscientiously offer for my conduct is a humble one, not valid in any court of law—that I did not understand. I did not understand, until subsequent events forced the comprehension upon me, how strong the ties of nationality and race become, when they are presented clearly. There is no quibbling with those ties; there is no way of rationalizing them, when events force one to make an actual decision. I was faced with that decision sooner than I expected—on the very night, in fact, when I boarded the Imoto Maru, which reminds me that I am writing a record that has no room in it for moralization. I had better get on with my report, only pausing for one addition. Men die for their faith who have never been inside a church, and men die for their country, although they may have spent their lives criticizing all its works. The amazing thing about it is that they are probably surprised by their irrational willingness to die.