Soldiers in Hiding (23 page)

“Major Nakamura had not misread what Uncle Ike was getting at, Father, I was sure by then. Yet by treating my uncle as a lost comrade he was making it impossible for Uncle to break away. He filled both their cups once more. ‘And here is to the original idea,' he said. ‘The great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.'

“Uncle drank again, this time, I think, letting the awful taste punish him.

“‘Ah,' said the major. ‘Japan is a nation unmatched in the world!'

“As each cupful of sake washed through him the major laughed more heartily, soon even calling for his wife to join them. His pace quickened a little and his voice wove through the room making us all sway. He toasted everything he could think of, the Philippines, the American prisoners of war, the pharmaceutical companies. ‘Oh ho,' he said, smiling broadly and pointing his finger through the air until it bumped the front of Uncle's shirt. ‘And Teddy Maki! We must not forget him!' He splashed the last of the sake into Uncle's cup. ‘He is so funny,' he said. ‘Is there no end to the odd things he has on his show?'

“Uncle had not said anything in a long while and had not been drinking much during the last few toasts. He waited until the major held his cup up after toasting you, Father, and then he turned his own cup over, spilling the last bit of sake onto the floor. There was no victory in the move but he did it, perhaps, so
that he would be able to call on it later when alone and analyzing the completeness of his defeat.

“Uncle put the cup on top of the stove and when he stood to leave Junichi and I stepped quickly with him, standing as tall as we could. Nakamura didn't move, Father, didn't stand, didn't say anything more. His fist was tight in front of his face, though, and he was staring deeply into it.

“I was the last to leave the building and as I turned to close the door Nakamura's wife ran past me in order to hand the shoebox full of samples to Uncle. They clinked together again, like a parody of wind chimes, and she said, ‘That Teddy Maki. I don't like him either but my husband thinks he's great.'”

 

THOUGH HE HAD CAUSED ME UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS I could not be angry with Milo after the way he told his story. He had not spoken so much in years! Milo had been moved by his uncle's ordeal, by the surprising defeat of it. And he had observed an event which concerned him far more than he knew. His uncle had traveled with him to extend an invitation which he had forgotten, in his humiliation, even to mention. I understood, after Milo's story, that Nakamura had been ready for Ike and had brought to their confrontation far more skill and energy than Ike had been able to muster. Still it was surprising; a small old man, no longer the leader of warriors, a pharmacist…

I left Ike alone with his wounds and told Milo nothing, sending him off with the assurance that I would find a way of getting the stubborn major on the show, some way of getting him before his natural audience. Kazuko was in the room with me after Milo left but I held up my hand so she didn't comment. She was already beginning to adjust, you see, to alter her own frame of mind so that it would suit my own.

Shortly after my son's return I left the house in order to walk and think, and Kazuko, to my surprise, left with me. It had earlier been a habit of ours to take long walks but I could not remember when last we had done so. All during my mistressing,
all during the last years of my benumbing middle age, I had forsaken our walks, opting rather for the lazy expanse of the back seat of Milo's car. Yet now, when I took my heavy coat in hand and stepped from the cold antechamber to the street, I found Kazuko by my side. She did not take my arm but I knew she was there. The companion steam of her warm breath stood in the air just at the edge of my peripheral vision.

“I had thought to walk along Meguro-dori,” I said. “I need the exercise, the chance to think.”

“Meguro-dori has changed,” said Kazuko. “It has still not regained itself but it is coming along now. There are many new shops and restaurants.”

Before the war Meguro had been a residential area but Meguro-dori, the street itself, had been lively, lined with shops and a joy to stroll down. Kazuko and I walked a long distance without speaking. We passed Otori shrine and then turned when we crossed Yamate-dori, stepping past the site of the Buddhist temple, the one that had burned during the war. There were several new hotels on the property now, small ones renting rooms by the hour or the half-day.

“There used to be a public bath here,” I told her, “a rice merchant's there. I remember a very old woman, a friend of your mother. She sold produce, during the war, out of the trunk and back seat of a big old American car.”

Kazuko and I walked up along the bank of a drying stream and then down a small bar street with its many-colored doors all closed against the bright winter sun. Though it was still cold and would be for weeks, the day was marvelous, clear and clean. The pace of our walking was sufficient to give us warmth and the sidewalk was bare, empty of debris or ice.

“It is almost Christmas,” I told her. “The big department stores in the Ginza will be well-stocked and colorful. We should go down soon, take the train as we used to do, give Milo's car a rest.”

For Kazuko Tokyo was really very small. She was a citizen of Meguro, not of the city at large. It may have been months since
she had been to Ginza, years since she had ridden the Yama-no-te line, the train that circles inner Tokyo, binding it, defining its size.

“ It is good,” she let me know, “for old couples to be seen doing such things together. When a man reaches his old age he should have a wife there with him.”

Though I had not thought of myself as old before the arrival of my wife's brother, Kazuko said what she did as if we both had known it for a long while and I found myself wondering, suddenly, if she had suffered during my middle age. When her brother and the war and my newly found sense of duty were dead to me, my wife had been too, in a way. Yet I could clearly remember my joy in finding her when I returned so early from the fighting. I remember my surprise at her easy decision to take me in, my pleasure at the stoic and gentle way she wove herself about me. When, exactly, had I begun neglecting her? Had she known about my mistressing? Did she know now that it was over?

As we walked up through some unfamiliar neighborhoods and into the area around Meguro station, I realized that though I was not at peace with myself I was happy. I had much to do and so little time. Perhaps that, not peace of mind, is a proper definition of happiness. I had not had such clear feelings in years. My brain was active, my body alert and no longer sore, the cold winter air a proper tonic. Old age and youth have much in common, are indeed the two tips of the horseshoe in my life, their constructive and destructive natures complementing each other. I had no time to mourn the misuse of my middle age but I did want to take a moment to applaud its passing. My old age, the actions and activities of the next few weeks, at least, would rectify the awful indecision of my youth. And then I would be finished with it, ready to live again. I did not want to lose this clarity of mind, this cool vigor, this welcome change.

We had come to the door of a famous
tonkatsu
restaurant but it was closed. We had been walking for an hour and, though my thoughts had fed me, I was hungry still. Kazuko, I noticed now, had not had an easy time with my pace.

“ Here's
Tonki
,” I said, “but it's closed. There is no other place to eat around here. Let's take the train.”

Kazuko pushed a hand up into the cool air between us. “ Wait,” she said. “ We have not walked this far in years. Let's rest.”

There was a stone bench outside the restaurant so we sat down on that. I didn't know what time the place opened. Though I ate there often I had not been up around the station so early in the day. We were looking directly through the sliding glass doors, in at the counter where individuals sat to eat.

“ We will go for walks like this every day again,” I let Kazuko know. “ Now that we are old we need the exercise. It is the secret to a long and ambulatory life.”

Kazuko was so winded that she was not inclined to try to speak. She had really got out of shape over the years, I am ashamed to say I hadn't noticed. So while Kazuko sat still, calming the beating of her surprised heart, I took the opportunity to try to look at her closely. I stood and walked over to the restaurant door and then turned quickly back, imagining that I saw a stranger there. I was trying to make seeing her fresh, like the view one gets of oneself in an unexpectedly present mirror. Kazuko had been a beautiful girl, she had been a coquette with perfect timing in the pulling of the strings of a young man's heart. Yet as I turned suddenly upon her sitting there, what I saw was a lady who could have been her mother's own sister. The years had drawn upon Kazuko's face similar lines to those her mother had carried when I remembered her best, during the bombing of Tokyo, during the late years of the war.

I walked a few feet and turned quickly upon her again, trying for a different view, but Kazuko said, “Stop jumping about so, Teddy. Sit down and rest,” and I could not escape her mother in the tone she chose.

I smiled and walked over to her. “That stone will make you cold, Kazuko,” I said. “Get up and walk with me.”

Kazuko sighed, but she did stand, letting me take her hand for a few moments while we walked to where we could catch a
bus that would take us back home. Suddenly I took a step in front of her and turning to face her squarely, held her shoulders in my hands. “We are old now, Kazuko,” I said. “ You are old and I am too. Your brother has not returned to us in any real sense, but events are on the horizon which will set us free. After that we will have each other for a while.”

I don't know what Kazuko had been thinking or how closely her thoughts paralleled mine, but when I made my little speech she looked at me and started to laugh. And even when the bus came she was not inclined to cover her mouth or lower the steady and mirthful gaze of her eyes.

 

IN HONOR OF MY AWAKENING, IN HONOR OF THE DECISions I had made, I bought a large and wonderful Christmas goose. It had been hanging in the doorway of a butcher shop and I had walked past it several times admiring its full size, the solid good color of its skin. I had been thinking that it might be difficult now to get Major Nakamura down to my studio and I 'd convinced the producer, without telling him too much, that such a show as we had planned would be better accomplished if we were to go on location. “We'll catch him in a position of relaxed prosperity,” I said. “ He is no longer a soldier but a pharmacist. He will contrast well with the odd changes that have occurred in my brother -in-law.” The goose was to be the bait. The good Christmas tidings, delivered by me like Scrooge.

I had always had a free hand at the studio, but organizing what we called a “remote” took time and careful planning. I wanted to cast the show, to choreograph it, so as to make it both dramatic and entertaining. This was not to be mere revenge but good television as well, a clear departure from my usual fare. I took some time to think about it, then one day I asked Junichi to rummage around in the costume room, to find authentic old army uniforms for us all to wear. My audience, I hoped, would be intrigued by my change of format. The show would be different, better than anything I had ever done. Even the
sensei
, though
I wasn't sure why, would appear on camera. With Nakamura, there would be six of us in the production. I had decided not to contact the major or to give him any advance notice. We would merely arrive, one day, with our cameras. I was relying heavily on the goose to get us through the door. Food is rarely a sign that an enemy has arrived.

The day I chose for our visit to Nakamura's drugstore was Christmas Day itself, not a particularly important day in Japan, but ironic to what was still American in me. Kazuko and Ike's wife fixed us a large breakfast and there was much laughter, much nervous chatter, such as I had remembered soldiers sometimes had before entering battle. The studio van was in front of my house early, the cameramen and electricians already somewhere near the drugstore in one of the studio trucks. I didn't know what I was going to do if the show was a failure or if Nakamura refused to let us in or if, in fact, he wasn't home. This last possibility bothered me greatly so I took a moment, before we left the house, and dialed his number from the telephone in the back bedroom. It was quite early in the morning but the phone rang only once before Nakamura plucked it from its cradle and spoke.

“ Yes, this is Nakamura,” he said.

I waited, not responding, until he spoke again. “
Moshi moshi? Nakamura desu
.”

“Ah,” I said. “ I am calling someone named Nakamura but I fear I have made a mistake.”

“There are many Nakamuras,” said Nakamura. “Which one are you calling? What number did you dial?”

His voice was helpful and friendly. He was a man whose day was starting well, a man who had time enough to talk at length with a stranger.

“ I am calling Nakamura the pharmacist,” I said. “ Nakamura the school principal.”

“ Yes,” he said. “ You' ve got the right man. This is Nakamura.”

“ In that case,” I told him. “ I am coming to make a delivery. I trust you will be at home?”

There was a moment's silence then, when I began to feel that I had been foolish to call.

“ Who is this?” the pharmacist asked. “I ordered nothing, am expecting no delivery. Who is speaking?”

“The Nakamura I want was a major, a man of heavy responsibilities during the war,” I said.

“ Identify yourself,” he said. “I am Major Nakamura but who are you? Who is calling me?”