Soldiers in Hiding Read online

  For six months we played jobs every weekend. During the week I would go back to my uncle’s store to hang about with my younger cousins, listening to talk of the high school, of what it had been like on the farm that summer. My father believed my uncle when he told him what a good musician I was, and even my mother, silent as always, came to wonder about her eldest son. Was it such a fine idea to give up a chance for college? She asked my uncle and he answered by saying, “Why don’t you go hear them?” He took her by the shoulders as he said it. “Why not?” he asked. “Why not go listen to the band play?”

  But though we gave them several opportunities, my parents never came to hear the band. My mother took my uncle’s word, believing blindly that I had talent, and my poor father laughed when he heard what Jimmy’d wanted to call the band.

  They were from Japan, those parents of mine, and they’d rebuilt that world in east Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. I knew my parents could never be American, no more than I could ever be Japanese. “Why don’t you call the band ‘American Japanese’?” my father suggested, and we all laughed. My uncle put his hands upon my father’s head, roughing him up gently, as an elder brother would. My father was a farmer, not a merchant; we all knew that. He was interested in the old things like shamisen and Noh. It had been a long time since I, or any of the others in the family, had taken him seriously or listened to the things he said.

  WHEN I FINISH AT THE STUDIO IT IS OFTEN TOO EARLY for anything but the long trip home or for a visit to my son in his terraced mansion all surrounded by his wealth. Today, however, it seems to have taken me longer than usual to reduce the “Amateur Hour” to its lowest common denominator, to the farters and contortionists who keep it toward the tops of the charts. From the studio it is a slow walk, for a man my age, to Roppongi, which is always my evening destination. My mistress, a woman I have kept for three years now, has a small business, which I set up for her on one of the narrow Roppongi streets that slip back off the main one. My mistress’s name is Sachiko, and the bar that she manages is called the Kado. She is in her late thirties so she remembers the war, but with the wide warp of her child’s memory, that is all. She is from Hiroshima and has dull scars, the shadows of bomb burns, on her arms and thighs and belly. Sachiko’s spirit is light, her laugh easy. Yet it seems to me that she is connected as I am, fused by the very blanching of her skin, to the life and technology of North America. It is for this reason that I want her. It is in her hurt that I find safe harbor, though I have a wife at home who would gladly give the same.

  In Tokyo the low winter clouds push down upon shops and restaurants, making me hurry. In Roppongi daylight leaves early and as I walk, unobserved, I pass through parts of the city that are pleasing to me. I walk for a while among cement girders, heavy highways held up by them, and the roar of traffic cast down upon the road beside me. This cement coating is what lets the country wear so well, the cloth that keeps it clean. Soon there is a side street I can enter, which takes me out of all the traffic and gives me old Japan. Here there are geisha houses behind high mauve walls, their privacy protected. Sachiko’s bar is not among these, yet it is here that she first thought to rise. The geisha, all white-faced and riding down the cobblestones in her jinrikisha, is still a mighty myth among failed bar girls.

  On a corner, at the nearest edge of main Roppongi, I can see the Kado’s neon sign, dull but brightening in the gray dark. Behind it many other such signs are coming into their own, for we are not far from a wide street where westerners go to drink, not far from plastic-looking British-style pubs where red-rouged Japanese girls go to try to find husbands, or if that’s too harsh, simply to live a little. “Hello,” I say to someone. “Konbanwa….” It is barely eight o’clock, but the banter and business of running the bars is started.

  The door to the Kado is opened a foot by a bright bucket of wash water sandwiched against its jamb. Inside it is dark, but Hanachan, Sachiko’s bartender, is there, cleaning glasses and tidying up.

  “Oi, Hana, Sachiko’s not in yet?”

  He turns and glares in his nightly way, then laughs. “Teddy Maki!” he shouts. “Your show will be on soon. Let’s turn up the TV!”

  Hanachan pulls a big bottle off the shelf, sets it on the bar, and says, “Sachiko’s down the street visiting. Do you want me to go for her?”

  “Keep the goddam television turned down,” I tell him. “Let Sachiko come back when she’s ready. You’re a nosy little twerp, Hana; how old are you now?”

  It is this kind of banter that whiles away the early hours every night. Hanachan is twenty-five but when I ask him his age he adds a few years and replies smartly. He is a senser of moods, this man, and knows when to be playful and when to leave me alone. It is now, in the early evening, that he thinks me most dangerous. He says my mean streak is what is natural but that booze brings out my best.

  A group of customers pulls open the door and Hana hurries to take the bucket out of their way and to greet them. “Welcome,” he says. “You’re in the Kado. Make yourselves comfortable; our selection is meager but we aim to please.”

  There are only ten seats at the bar, only a few tables and booths, but now that one of them is taken Sachiko appears, her white kimono shining as it’s silhouetted there in the closing sliver of street.

  “Ah, gentlemen,” she says, stern with herself for having had Hana greet them. “That you have stayed does us honor. Sorry for the slow start. Hanachan, bring these gentlemen drinks, bring otsumami, hurry!”

  Sachiko sees to it that the three men are seated, then slides in next to the one who sits alone. “Working late?” she asks. “What company are you with?”

  In the mirror behind the bar I can see her, but though she knows I am here she will not greet me; she’ll stay with the customers, letting them sing her the praises of their company, sometimes letting one she likes or one who insists swing his arm down under the table to rest his hand upon the folds of her gown. In the mirror, warped as it is, the bottles that line its ledge take on odd proportions, are oddly magnified, the levels of liquor seeming higher. And Sachiko’s arms, coming like graceful tongues from the mouths of her kimono sleeves, are also enlarged by the poor workmanship of the glass. Is it a stain or can I actually see the edge of a shining scar as she pours more booze for the businessmen?

  As I look toward the door two figures walk in, then step up behind me and put their hands on my shoulders. It is my son, Milo, and his driver, Junichi.

  “Father,” Milo says, “we’ve found you at last.”

  Milo has a penchant for silly statements such as this. He always knows where I am if he wants me. Junichi is wearing his chauffeur’s uniform and standing at attention. He is one of Milo’s childhood friends but recently has cut his hair and fashioned himself into a radical, a member of Japan’s New Right.

  “What do you want, Milo?” I ask. “I thought you were staying in tonight. Has something happened? Is something wrong?”

  Though Milo has come to the Kado for me before, he always sends Junichi in to fetch me while he waits in the long back seat of his big car. Milo’s never really met Sachiko, and though he would never say so, he doesn’t like the idea of her. He prefers to keep a balanced memory of his mother and me, though I’m sure he knows that my heart is sometimes away from home.

  Milo is awkwardly expansive. “I’m taking Junichi down the street for a drink,” he says. “It is his birthday and I’m telling him that tonight he is not allowed to wait in the car. Come. Help me make him celebrate.”

  Junichi is always dead quiet, but I like him for it. He has marvelous posture and, in his silences, I am able to imagine a certain pride and restraint that Milo usually lacks. Still, I would not leave the Kado so soon after arriving if customers were not usurping Sachiko’s time, my time with her. But I have not seen my son now for more than a week. I stand and look at Sachiko for a moment, sitting with her group of guests, but she is so busy playing bar games that she does not notice. When Hana sees me, he comes q
uickly around the bar and bows, opening the door for us. The cold outside air makes him wince…. “Bye-bye,” he says, waving.

  Milo’s car is longer than it should be, and wider. In the back seat he has most of the amenities of a home, but tonight we all sit in the front. Milo appears to want something special from Junichi, a rekindling of their earlier camaraderie, perhaps, though Junichi is miles from Milo now and is loyal to him without all that. We are only going a few blocks, so Junichi turns the big car around and then immediately begins to look for a parking place. Milo is sitting in the middle and nudges me once in an animated way. “He’s actually younger than I am,” he says, foolishly. “Would you believe it? He acts so old.”

  Though we are very close to Sachiko’s, the street, in the direction we are going, is far busier. Milo spots a parking place right in front of his favorite bar and proudly points it out to Junichi. “Here!” he says. “What luck! What luck!” He wants to give the parking place to Junichi, another birthday present for his chauffeur.

  Milo’s favorite bar is very elegant, with long leather lounge chairs and real roses in the washrooms. When we get out of the car I notice two tall foreigners leaning against a set of motorcycles parked up next to the building. They hold their helmets tight against their stomachs, under their jackets, like hard pregnancies. They are speaking English and one of them is demanding something from the other. They speak roughly and with abandon, assuming anonymity, willing to say anything about anybody.

  “Look at the size of that car,” one of them says. “Look at the jerk driving it.”

  There is a line of people waiting to enter the bar but Milo waves his hands and soon we are inside. We are quickly taken upstairs and shown to a table, poor Junichi still standing stiff, here because he’s told to be, nothing more. Milo orders several bottles of champagne, then excuses himself and goes off around the room shaking hands with important people. He’s got very long hair and the blue jeans that he constantly wears have holes in them. He is as surely in uniform as his chauffeur in his dark and braided suit, though I’d wager he’d deny it.…I lift my mood above Junichi’s and speak to him.

  “Well, Jun, when was the last time we drank together? How old are you now? What birthday is this?”

  He chooses the last two of my questions and answers lowly. “I am thirty-seven. It is my thirty-seventh.”

  Junichi’s entire weight rests upon the first four inches of his big chair. He carries himself like a military man, filling the contours of his uniform properly.

  “That is a good age for politics,” I tell him. “A good age for strong beliefs. When I was thirty-seven too much had happened to me for such luxuries. I was jaded young.”

  Junichi’s downcast eyes do not hide well his disdain for the stories of old men. There is no humor in him—that’s one problem—no love for such decadence as this bar allows. I do not resist the urge to pick on him.

  “Are you still a practicing politician, Jun? A believer in the Imperial way?”

  “It is not proper, sir, to discuss it here.”

  “But surely,” I say, “Japan was a power once. She can be so again.”

  As soon as I speak I regret it, for Junichi will not answer. With Milo I have cultivated a tendency toward teasing, but Junichi is unconnected to all of that. He is outside my sphere of influence and if I am to tease him it must be in subtler ways.

  “Listen,” I say, taking a ten-thousand-yen note from my pocket and placing it before him. “Excuse me, will you? I don’t believe in anything political myself, but please accept this birthday gift. Think of it as a donation.”

  I place the note carefully on the table, where it rests upon the polished brim of his chauffeur’s cap. I am anxious to see the actual act of Junichi picking it up and putting it into his pocket, for such an act will defy his disdain, his aloofness and formality. I know he needs the money, but if he takes it I will grin widely at him and he will know that he has lost.

  The champagne has arrived and Milo is opening it before I fully realize that he is back. Junichi is smiling oddly at the money and Milo is newly determined to show his belief in equality. It isn’t a very Japanese endeavor and I fear that he must have inherited it from me. All Junichi wants is to be left alone by Milo, to drive my son’s big car, and, perhaps, to dream of victories for the New Right.

  “Now,” says Milo, “forgive my disappearance.” He is looking directly at Junichi and smiling, but his words carry the distinct cadence of a command and I wonder if Junichi and my son have been having a quarrel. He slides two full glasses of champagne easily across the table, making a path through the few drops that he has spilled. He picks up a third glass and holds it above his head, making me fear, for a moment, that he might include the whole room in his toast.

  “To Junchan,” he says. He looks at his chauffeur with misting eyes. “To his future and to the fulfillment of his desires.”

  I do not want to sit here under the influence of Milo’s mood all evening, but that crisp new bill is still resting against his chauffeur’s cap. Under normal circumstances Milo does not speak so much to Junichi, and I can see that he is having trouble holding things together now. He is smiling hard but can think of nothing more to say. When Milo proposed his toast Junichi had put the brimming glass to his lips, but he didn’t drink. Milo, on the other hand, continues to pour furiously, filling my glass and his own. There are three bottles in the ice bucket and I fear we’ll have to drink them all.

  We sit quietly for a very long time, and as we do so a small group of Milo’s fans form a semicircle around the table. They all carry napkins in their hands, some of them holding pencils up, trying to catch my son’s eye. Both Junichi and I view them happily. We’ve been granted a momentary reprieve.

  As the fans move in, the chauffeur and I push our big chairs slightly back. Milo is very good with fans. He likes them and will take whatever time is necessary to please them all. They bend around him, asking questions, laughing easily at anything Milo wants to say. He puts his champagne glass to one young woman’s lips. She drinks greedily, bending farther down over my son.

  Junichi’s posture and position at the table have been constantly visible to me, but as I look now I see that the money is no longer resting on the brim of his cap. How could he have pocketed it and yet maintained his stiff posture, his formality? Though there are fans everywhere he takes the trouble to glance through the forest of human limbs between us and to look directly into my eyes. There is no mockery in his face, nothing changed, no lessening of his aloofness or increase in his disdain. Only Junichi knows whether the money is folded darkly inside his uniform pocket or crumpled under the belt of a thief.

  With the money gone and all this silliness raging around me I have no more energy to stay. Already it is late and I have stayed too long. I push my chair back, standing. Milo and his fans are in a kind of choral repose, all smiling and swaying. Junichi’s hollow eyes follow me so I bow, letting him know that I respect the small defeat he has given me. He bows back but his blue uniform works like a spring, returning him quickly to his upright position.

  On the stairs that lead down to the bar’s entrance is a group of middle-aged foreigners, their Japanese host telling them that their table will be ready soon. They’re speaking English and thinking up nice things to say about Japan, yet I am too tired and have no time for them, no tricks on hand. I am willing to simply sidle past, but one, from their number, claws at my arm, attaching himself firmly to my elbow.

  “Hey, buster,” he says, and I turn to the dismal eyes of the man from Des Moines.

  “Oh hello,” I say, trying to smile. This is not supposed to be a place for tourists.

  “Helen, look here,” the man calls, and a mound of blue bursts from the part of the group that is farthest from us, closest to the top of the stairs.

  “Oh my,” says his wife. She comes down to us, her face a cloud, but recognition soon clears it up. “Well, how nice,” she says. “No matter what the size of the city it’
s still a small world.”

  “You’ll never believe our bumbling,” the man tells me. “All that time waiting for a fellow to come along who speaks English and then we get ourselves turned around before you’re two steps away.”

  Helen has linked one of her arms through my free one. “No time wasted, though,” she assures me. “When we got off the train we found ourselves quite near the zoo. You’ve got some prize pandas there. Though we’d never have been able to see them if another nice gentleman hadn’t let us in line.”

  I stand speechless while the two of them hold me captive and banter about. The maître d’ is calling them to their table, so they reluctantly say good-bye. “English is the international language,” Helen assures me. “You certainly have proven that.”

  “We’ve got the tower penciled in for tomorrow,” says Harold. “I understand the view from there is terrific.”

  I stay on the stairs for a long time after they’ve gone, leaning hard against the wall. I have to wonder how many of the others I’ve wronged have finally thought that the mistake was their own. How many others, after hours of circling the city, have said to themselves, “Why hadn’t I listened when that nice man was talking? Why hadn’t I paid more attention?” Of course it is in the nature of some people to put the blame for things on themselves. I wanted people to wonder why a man would so purposefully point them in wrong directions, and it occurs to me now that perhaps all my deeds have missed their marks. What a depressing thought! The bar, as I leave it, is full of foreigners, each one knowing where he is and where he is going. I can hear the party of the people from Des Moines and I can hear the silly din of the celebrities, the Japanese movie stars and friends of Milo’s as they herald each other’s accomplishments, all talking their nonsense. All I wanted was the simple pleasure of knowing that I had wronged slightly, now, some of those who had wronged me in the past. But from now on I’ll not know if it is I or themselves that they blame.