Days of Infamy (14 page)

She was right. Her refusal to come right out and take Jiro's side left him punctured anyway. She'd been born in Oshima County, just as he had; her home village was only about fifteen miles from his. Surely she felt as Japanese as he did. What difference did it make that they'd lived in Hawaii for decades and probably never would go back to the old country? None—not as far as he could see. But Reiko didn't want to quarrel with the boys, no matter how foolishly they behaved.

Hashi
flying, Jiro finished the soba noodles. He'd been surprised to discover there were Americans who ate buckwheat groats, but he didn't know of any who made them into noodles. He drank some of the hot water in which the noodles were boiled; it was supposed to be very healthy. And he gulped his tea. Then he jumped to his feet. He barked at his sons: “Come on! We haven't got all day!”

To his dismay, they got done no more than a few seconds after he did. When they rose, they loomed over him. How could he feel he was in charge when he had to look up at them to tell them anything? But all Hiroshi said was, “We're ready, Father.”

Down to the street they went. When they got there, Jiro coughed as if he'd smoked a pack of Camels all at once. Horrible, choking black smoke swirled through the air. For all he could see, it might as well have been nighttime. The smoke made his eyes burn and sting, too. It left greasy soot everywhere it touched.

His sons made almost identical disgusted noises. They pulled bandannas out of their pockets—Hiroshi's red, Kenzo's blue—and tied them over their mouths. That struck Jiro as a good idea. All he had was a dirty white handkerchief. He used it. Everything would be dirty in short order. Maybe the
hankie kept some of the nasty smoke out of his lungs. He could hope so, anyhow.

The streets were crowded. It was Monday morning, after all. But people moved as if in slow motion. In the black, stinking murk, you had to. Otherwise, you'd get run into on the sidewalk or run over in the street. Cars had their lights on, but the beams didn't pierce more than a few feet of haze.

“Go to hell, you goddamn Japs!” somebody yelled in English. Jiro understood the sentiment well enough. He squared his shoulders and kept walking. Above the bandannas, his sons' eyes blazed. He wasn't even sure the curses had been aimed at them. They were far from the only Japanese on the streets.

A lot of intersections had policemen posted to keep traffic moving. Honolulu's cops sprang from every group in the islands:
haoles
, Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans (which Jiro found revolting, but Koreans weren't subject to Japanese authority here). Normally, the police got obeyed because they were the police. Now people who weren't Japanese swore at the Japanese cops—and sometimes, if they were ignorant, at the Chinese and Koreans, too. When the cursers guessed wrong, the policemen angrily shouted back. Stoic as samurai, the officers who were Japanese ignored whatever came their way.

Some of the intersections that didn't have cops had soldiers. They wore helmets and carried bayoneted rifles, and looked nervous enough to shoot or skewer anybody who rubbed them the wrong way. They were cursing Japanese as loudly as any civilians. Jiro pretended not to hear; arguing with armed men struck him as suicidal madness. His sons muttered to themselves, but not loud enough to draw notice.

The Aala Market was half deserted. That shook Jiro. He hadn't thought anything could keep the dealers away. Only the smell of fish lingered at full strength.

He and Hiroshi and Kenzo went on to Kewalo Basin. But more soldiers waited, along with a few fishermen who'd arrived ahead of the Takahashis. Some of them, the younger ones, were talking with the soldiers in English. Jiro's sons joined the discussion. After a little while, Hiroshi's voice rose in anger. One of the soldiers aimed a rifle at his chest. Jiro sprang forward to push his son out of harm's way. But Hiroshi took a step back on his own, and the soldier lowered the Springfield. He and Hiroshi went on speaking English, not quite so furiously.

“What's going on?” Jiro asked. The soldier scowled at him, probably for speaking Japanese. He ignored the man. It was the only language he could speak, and he needed to know.

“We can't go out.” Hiroshi's voice was hard and flat.

“What? Why not?” Jiro exclaimed. “How are we supposed to make a living if we can't go out? Are the Americans crazy?” As he always did, he used the word to label other people. It didn't apply to him or, as far as he was concerned, to his family.

“We can't go out because the Army doesn't trust us,” Hiroshi answered. “It doesn't trust any Japanese. Didn't you see that yesterday, when the airplane shot up that other sampan? It could have been us just as easily. The soldiers are afraid we'll go out and tell the Japanese Navy what's going on here, or maybe that we'll go out and bring back Japanese soldiers.”

“That's . . .” Jiro's voice trailed away. He couldn't say it was mad or impossible, for it was neither. He hadn't thought about actually helping Japan against the United States, but the idea didn't disgust him. Maybe some other fishermen
had
thought about it. How could he know? If they had, they would have kept their mouths shut. That was only common sense.

And some sampans, bigger than the
Oshima Maru
, could range out five hundred miles, maybe even more. They could surely find the Imperial Navy. They could bring back soldiers, too, if their skippers were so inclined. If a boat could carry tons of fish, it could also carry tons of men, and each ton was ten or twelve fully equipped soldiers.

“That's an insult, that's what it is,” Kenzo said. “I'm loyal, you're loyal, we're all loyal.” He raised his voice: “
We're all loyal!
” Then he spoke in English, probably repeating the same thing.

The fishermen nodded. Some of them said, “
Hai!
” Others said, “Yes!” More protests in English followed.

For all the good those protests did, the Japanese men might have been talking to a bunch of stones. The American soldiers glared at them and shook their heads. One, an older man with stripes on his sleeve, made pushing noises with both hands.
Go away
, he was saying. Even Jiro had no trouble understanding that.

Fishermen who spoke English kept arguing. Jiro started to turn away. He saw they could argue till they turned blue in the face without persuading the men in uniform. Then another soldier ran up shouting something in English.
Jiro could make out
Japs
, but nothing more. All the soldiers exclaimed, some of them hotly. So did the fishermen.

“What does he say?” Jiro asked. Most of the time, not knowing English didn't bother him. Every once in a while, he felt the lack.

Grimly, Kenzo answered, “He says Japanese soldiers have landed on the northern beaches. We've been invaded.”

“Oh.” Jiro took the news in stride. “It's part of war,
neh
? If America could, she would invade Japan, wouldn't she?” But, as he knew very well, America couldn't. If that didn't show which country was mightier . . .

His sons didn't seem to see it like that. They both turned away from him. Hiroshi said, “I'm not going to translate that for the soldiers, Father. And you're lucky I'm not, too, or we'd all end up in trouble.”

Kenzo added, “This is our country. We were born here. We like it here. We don't want anything to do with Japan now that she's at war with us.”

Another fisherman, a weathered fellow of Jiro's generation named Tetsuo Yuge, shouted angrily at the two younger Takahashis: “How dare you talk to your father like that? If my boys were that rude, I'd be ashamed of myself—and of them.”

Jiro wondered what the other fisherman's sons would say if they were here. One of them worked at a gas station; the other was a bank clerk. They thought of themselves as Americans, too; Tetsuo had complained about it. Jiro said, “War makes everybody crazy for a while. Sooner or later, things will straighten out.”

Several of the tall American soldiers put their heads together. When they separated, the man with stripes on his sleeves shouted in English. Some of the younger men, the ones who understood what he was telling them, started to walk off. Kenzo translated: “He says we have to leave. He says this place is off-limits for civilians. That's Army talk—it means we're not allowed here.”

“Can he do that?” Jiro asked doubtfully. He didn't like the idea of leaving the
Oshima Maru
tied up where soldiers who hated Japanese could do whatever they wanted to her.

But both his sons nodded. Hiroshi said, “It's martial law. If the soldiers say we have to do it, we have to do it. The only ones who can change things now are other soldiers.”

“This would never have happened if Japan hadn't jumped on us,” Kenzo said.

“What are we going to do without a day's catch? What are we going to do without a day's pay?” Jiro asked. “And how long will the soldiers”—he almost said
the American soldiers
, but judged that would cause more trouble than it was worth—“keep us from going to sea? What will we do for money if it's a long time?”

Those were good questions, important questions. Jiro knew that. Neither of his sons had any answers. He didn't see what else they could do but go back home. Reiko would have a lot of questions for them then. Jiro didn't have any answers, either.

J
ANE
A
RMITAGE WAS
glad they'd called off school for the day in Wahiawa. Half the kids in her third-grade class were Japs. They were bright and eager. They were respectful, and they mostly worked harder than
haoles
. But she didn't think she could stand the sight of so many slanty-eyed faces right now.

She'd had a devil of a time getting used to what people in Hawaii looked like when she came over with Fletch. Columbus, Ohio, wasn't like this at all. In Columbus, the Negroes mostly stayed in Bronzeville on the east side of town. Elsewhere, even Italians were out of the ordinary. Her own blond, blue-eyed good looks were as normal as sunshine. Not here. Hawaii was different. Coarse black hair and swarthy skin were the expected; she was the one who stood out.

When she caught herself wondering how Fletch was doing, she grimaced. Without the war, she wouldn't have given a damn. Without the war, she would have just waved bye-bye if he jumped off a cliff. But she didn't want the Japs blowing him up. Even for her, that went too far.

She wondered if he was sober. If he wasn't, he'd be sorry. If he was . . . he'd be in the war, and he might be sorry anyway. “Shit,” Jane said crisply. Inside the apartment she no longer shared with him, who'd hear her swear?

Bright sunlight streamed in through the window. It would be another warm day—not hot, for it probably wouldn't get to eighty, but warm. Tonight, it would drop into the sixties, which was as cold as it ever got. Columbus might have snow on the ground. Jane hadn't needed any time at all to get used to the weather.

The window was open. Why not, when the air was the sweetest in the
world? But along with the smells of flowers that bloomed all year around, the stink of smoke came in today. The Japs had jumped on Wheeler Field and then on Schofield Barracks with both feet. By what the breeze said, some of those fires were still burning.

And what the Japs had done to Pearl Harbor! The smoke in the south blotted out a big part of the sky. It reached up toward the sun, and looked so very thick and menacing, it might bring down night at noon if it climbed high enough to blot out the source of light and warmth.

After lighting a cigarette, Jane turned on the radio, a fancy set Fletch had bought with money that could have been better spent elsewhere. So Jane had thought at the time, anyhow. Now she did some more swearing when the ordinary bands brought in nothing but silence and static. The Hawaiian stations were still off the air, then. She switched to the short-wave tuner. She'd never dreamt how desperately she could crave news from the outside world.

As she turned the dial, she got more static in snarling bursts, and then a man speaking a language she didn't understand—Italian, she thought, or possibly Spanish. Whoever he was, he sounded full of himself, and also full of hot air. Jane spun the dial some more.

She got a squawky, singsong Oriental language next, and then a program of dance music that could have come from almost anywhere on the planet. Music wasn't what she was after now, though. The next station she found featured somebody—Hitler?—bellowing in German. She understood some German; she'd studied it at Ohio State. But this fellow used a dialect she had trouble following, and he was going a mile a minute. All she could do was pick up a word here and there. She gave the dial another twist.

English at last! A strong, New York–accented voice said, “—Twelve-thirty this afternoon, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war against the Empire of Japan. He called December seventh, the date of the Japs' unprovoked attack against Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii, ‘a date which will live in infamy.' ”

Jane looked at a clock on the mantel. It was half past eight here. Washington was five and a half hours ahead of Hawaii time, so the President had spoken about an hour and a half before.

“Swift Congressional approval of the request is expected,” the announcer went on. “There are rumors that the Japs are trying to land soldiers in the
Hawaiian Islands, but these are so far unconfirmed. If they prove correct, it is expected that the soldiers of the Hawaiian Department will drive the invaders into the sea.”