This Scorching Earth (16 page)

"Anything else?" he added pleasantly. On the third question the compliment usually appeared, and though he admitted it was childish and unworthy of him, he did love to receive compliments—no matter how empty he knew them to be. They were so reassuring.

"I learned my father is more foreign than Japanese."

Mr. Ohara turned and looked at the expressionless face of his son. Though this was meant as no compliment, he might, if he tried, interpret it as such. But his shoes pinched him, his coat was binding his arms, his hat hurt his head. He lost his temper.

"I too learned something. I discovered that my son is not intelligent."

It had escaped before he had thought to stop it. Though he began smiling at once, he saw it was too late. Never would Ichiro understand that it was an innocent phrase. It was used all the time at Cornell.

It was, to Ichiro, a direct insult, and the color slowly left the boy's unsmiling face.

It had come to this. A public insult on the street!

Ichiro looked at his father, took off his cap, and bowed very low. Then he turned quickly and walked away, leaving his father speechless, furious, and remorseful in the street.

He was the eldest son and, though still young, carried already the air of responsibility which is so striking in the first child of a Japanese family. He was a model—industrious, devoted, dedicated. That was why the insult had reached him. Many other sons these days would have giggled and begged pardon instantly. To Ichiro the insult was also a falsehood. He could not believe he had merited it and would not forgive his father. Ichiro had no small opinion of himself.

To be sure, everything that he was he owed to his father. This was true of all sons. It had been true of his father before him. Yet, recognizing this, he could not imagine his father reacting to a direct insult as he himself had just done. His father would have begun stamping his tight Western shoes, would have shouted, and finally, would have trampled his dignity under his own feet. His father was by now a man without dignity.

Just in front of Ichiro there walked a mendicant priest, wearing the inverted-bowl-shaped hat, the dark, oddly formal kimono, the straw sandals. In one hand he held a Buddhist bead-string and a shallow pan for offerings; in the other, a tiny tinkling bell in the shape of a cat's head. He walked slowly, the crowd pressing around and past him.

Ichiro, behind, smiled. There was something reassuring about this priest, here on the crowded, modern streets of Shinjuku. Wandering priests were no rare sight, yet they were more than an anachronism—they were a reminder. They were a kind of symbol of Japan's integrity.

At the street corner Ichiro already had his hand in his pocket, feeling for small bills, when the light changed. Rather than cross in front of the priest—on principle Ichiro paid no attention to traffic lights—he waited behind him. The priest, however, seemed deep in meditation. His head down, his eyes covered by the hat, he continued walking against the traffic.

A charcoal-burning taxi, trailing a great cloud of yellow smoke like a battle banner, came around the corner at great speed and knocked the priest down.

Ichiro's first impulse was to run to the fallen priest. The hat had fallen from his head and was rolling in the intersection. His face was quite old and his eyes were closed. The pan was caught under one of the worn tires of the taxi and the bead-string was broken. The cat-faced bell had disappeared.

A crowd was gathering around the stopped taxi, and Ichiro successfully suppressed his first impulse. This was, after all, the responsibility of the driver who had struck the priest, and, now, Ichiro no more thought of going to the old man's aid than did anyone else gathered around, silent and looking. If Ichiro, or anyone else, interfered and performed any service, no matter how small, the priest, his abbot, his entire sect would be forever in debt, in theory at any rate, and there was always the possibility that this would in turn complicate the donor's life no end. It would therefore be cruel to the priest if he were still alive, and useless if he were dead.

Now he lay quite peacefully, his arms outstretched, his legs curled under him, as though he were the main figure in some Chinese assumption scene. The terrified driver had not yet climbed from his smoking cab. The crowd looking at the now feebly bleeding body was growing larger. When the driver, frightened and pale, opened the door, more and more curious passers-by stopped.

Ichiro stayed longer and watched the pale driver bend over the old man. The taxi smoked, and the cars, piled up behind it, honked incessantly. Suddenly Ichiro felt very sad and very angry. He turned abruptly and started down the street.

By the time he reached Shinjuku Station he was almost running, accidentally bumping against others, who turned, marveling at his rudeness. He bought a ticket to Ochanomizu and walked to the platform for the Chuo Line.

He had thought perhaps to go to Asakusa and walk through the park and the amusement district, feeling his spirit recoil with disgust at the naked girlie shows, the American gangster movies, the black-market cigarettes and whiskey, the hunger and sadness and poverty that was Japan. That would be punishment enough for his shocking behavior toward his father.

But then he realized that it would also be self-indulgence. It was better to carry one's shame within, until it was entirely expiated. As he waited, he solemnly pinched first one thigh, then the other. After that he cruelly twisted all of his fingers.

It was past the rush hour and the trains were less crowded. All the seats were taken, naturally, but it was possible to stand without danger of being crushed. He stood, one hand on the rail above, the other in his pocket, still wickedly tweaking his already bruised thigh.

Before him sat a young girl, and as he watched her Ichiro felt a great and satisfying wave of disgust. From head to toe she was everything a Japanese girl should not be. Her feet were forced into high-heeled shoes which he recognized as PX. Her stockings, though not the luxurious American nylon, were the Japanese substitute and wrinkled around the heel. (He decided that Japanese girls should never show their legs—not that it was immoral, it was just that their legs were not adapted to Western clothes. He'd heard GI's call them "piano legs" and that seemed most apt.) Her dress was too short, either through choice or necessity; it failed to hide the roll of her stockings above the knee. Under her coat she wore a Japanese imitation-silk blouse torn at the neckline. She had tried to hide the tear by fastening it with a pin—a Chuo University pin. Her hair was frizzed in the current "cannibal" fashion and stood straight out from her head.

The face beneath was pretty, however, for it was the classical moon-face, always so beautiful in Japan. But the cheeks were rouged so heavily and the lips painted such a thick red that the face itself was all but hidden. The rice-powder on her nose was caked and cracked, and the mascara on her eyebrows was greasy with perspiration.

He watched her, positively enjoying his disgust. And, too, how symbolic of Japan she seemed. If he remembered, he would write a waka or perhaps, to limit himself still more severely, a haiku about her. The moonfaced beauty so reminiscent of Japan's past, the loveliness of Kyoto in the autumn, the full moon rising above Edo—then all of this mutilated and disfigured by the paste for the lips, the powder for the nose, and the American permanent wave. If he could cut it down, it would make a good haiku.

The girl looked up from her movie magazine, and he glanced rudely away, hoping to offend her as she deserved. But she was not offended, for she was not interested. She had eyes only for the next car, which she could see through the end windows. Several American soldiers were sprawling in it. Ichiro closed his eyes. This was much better punishment than Asakusa would have been. As his eyes closed he bit his under-lip. This before him could have been his own Haruko.

And Haruko might yet become like this shameless creature sitting before him. For a time he allowed himself the indulgence of imagining a meeting years from now between Haruko and himself. She would be a prostitute and he an internationally famous lawyer, devoted to his task of showing the way to Japan. It would be in Shinjuku Station. He would have come from an important meeting with the Prime Minister during which he had changed the destiny of his people several times.

Ordinarily he would be in his own car, being driven home, perhaps to Denenchofu, where they had the latest plumbing, and where his wife, a beautiful, meek, and very rich girl from the country, would be bowing low at the portal. But tonight, for some reason, he would be in Shinjuku Station, like a samurai in disguise. And this little prostitute would timidly approach him, somehow aware that she was in the presence of a great man. She would lay a tiny hand upon his arm, and he, smiling at the folly he was seeking to correct, would begin to turn away. But before he did—the Recognition Scene!

It was Haruko, her teeth blackened, her hair frizzed in the still-popular "cannibal" style, her eyes dropping mascara-like tears. Ah—she knew him also. Their eyes would meet, and the Truth would lie between them.

It would be enough that they both knew. Then he, sadder but wiser, would turn away, and she, with no backward glance, would go and fling herself under the next train.... The only thing spoiling this otherwise enjoyable vision was Ichiro's feeling that he'd seen it all someplace before.

The train stopped at Ochanomizu, and both Ichiro and the girl got off. She sauntered close to the window of the Allied car, peering in, and Ichiro suddenly remembered how he himself had peered into the Allied car that morning at the soldier from the Colonel's office—his rival. He would go see Haruko now and confront her with his evidence. Despite the fact that they were not supposed to meet until tonight, they had been seeing each other off and on since they were children, and this meeting at the opera was simply a public way of announcing an engagement. If he saw her this afternoon, he could throw her off guard. Eventually, weak and womanly, she would creep to him for forgiveness, which he would magnanimously give. It would get their marriage off on the proper footing—himself as master. The only thing the matter with Haruko was that she had big ideas about the equal importance of women and so forth. Well, she wouldn't have them long!

Meanwhile the train pulled out, and the prostitute—what else could she be?—continued her stroll along the station. Ochanomizu was a respectable district, and it seemed decidedly bad business that she should be here even at night, not to speak of noon. She was approaching a rather dirty student, and Ichiro, despite his disgust, turned to watch. He had hoped to see her rebuffed, but instead, the student smiled and bowed. After a few words she turned and strolled away. Ichiro saw that the boy was Yamaguchi, a schoolmate of his.

Just then Yamaguchi saw Ichiro and waved. He was a short boy with enormous glasses, long uncut hair, and a vast amount of dirt. Even though it was no longer in the height of fashion, he still affected the traditional filth of students, and his bare feet were thrust into high wooden geta which clattered along the station floor as he ran, his cape flying behind him.

"Hello, Ohara," he shouted.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Yamaguchi," said Ichiro, knowing he now liked to be called Comrade Yamaguchi since his recently acquired enthusiasm for communism. Before that it had been the French films and, before that, stamp collecting. Ichiro, on principle, disliked the idea of calling anyone comrade and so always declined. He nodded toward the distant swaying girl and said: "You were speaking of Marxian dialectic?"

Yamaguchi turned brusquely, head over his shoulder, and looked after the girl. His actions always seemed parodies of themselves. When he shook hands with a comradely enthusiasm, it was as though he were pumping water; when asked an opinion, he would screw up his eyes and visibly think; when told a joke, his braying laugh could be heard for blocks. Now he turned and stared back along the station as though he had been told that Marx himself had suddenly appeared there.

He looks like an ugly, dirty little bird, thought Ichiro, like the latest metamorphosis of the imperial phoenix.

"As a matter of fact, yes," said Yamaguchi, turning his head with a quick motion which threatened to dislocate it.

Ichiro laughed, but the other looked so hurt that he turned it into a polite cough and said earnestly: "Is she of the underground also?"

Yamaguchi looked innocent. "We are not to say, but as a matter of fact, yes."

Ichiro had never been able to determine exactly how much of a communist his acquaintance was. He attacked each new enthusiasm with such vigor and militancy that it became impossible to gauge accurately how implicated he was in any of his interests.