They arrived at a two-story wooden corner guesthouse, its small entryway leading to a dimly lit sitting room. Three wicker chairs faced a shoulder-high rice-paper window opposite the reception desk. With a bell on the desk, Griff summoned the owner-manager, a short, middle-aged man with eyeglasses who was wearing a yukata. The manager recognized the letter and asked Griff in English for his passport and to sign a room register, and then he peered at Yoshida, who was scrutinizing their every move.
After Yoshida had withdrawn, the manager whispered to Griff that he’d made Yoshida out to be a secret police agent, probably with the Tokkō or Kenpeitai, since he wasn’t a local. He could see Yoshida tracking everything, and he mentioned the black notebook visible in Yoshida’s pocket. Griff smiled with a wink.
“We do not receive many visitors here,” said the manager. “People in this prefecture keep to themselves, mind their own business, obey orders, and expect others to. They let police do the observing.” He added, “Oh, and this agent thinks you are a spy.”
In his room, door closed, sweat dripped from Griff’s forehead. In the bathroom, he splashed some water on his face and looked in the mirror as he hung up the towel. He saw Yoshida through the window, watching from across the street.
He thought about Alice, their journey to the Philippines with the baby, the fights, and her walking out and filing for divorce. It weighed on him. He had never faced anything like it before in his life. Perhaps he should feel humiliated, disgraced by her allegations, or maybe they were just the made-up, run-of-the-mill incidentals in Reno divorces. He was probably already determined to return stateside, clear his name, and regain custody. But first he needed to clear his head. His prime objective in Japan was just to take time off and see something new.
At dusk, he went to an eatery that smelled of grilled fish and sat at one of its few tables, Yoshida still shadowing him. Griff ordered the same grilled sardines, rice, and miso soup he saw a nearby patron eating and dug in when it arrived, maybe figuring that—Yoshida’s tail notwithstanding—the factory incident was over. But he saw the cook-server behind the counter looking back and forth between Yoshida and Griff, fear showing on his face.
Griff returned to his hotel, Yoshida still tagging him. In his room, Griff could have reasoned, The people in town resent these secret police. No wonder there was such tension. It wasn’t about me. It was about their fear of that agent. Even with Japan’s economic recovery under way, pressure from Tōhōkai—Japan’s fascist party—right-wing zealotry, and terrorism were creating an atmosphere of anxiety. It had begun with an assassination attempt on the emperor several years before. Griff had decided to visit Japan anyway. He’d seen fear in the faces of the factory employees, guest-house manager, and cook. I’m no damn spy, he thought. And there’s nothing secret about that dang furnace. I’d just never seen one like it before.
A night’s sleep helped, the bed firm—a simple futon. He woke early, probably looking forward to his day, and at a breakfast bar suggested by the manager learned that a Japanese breakfast is a dinner meal with smaller portions, not the porridge of soybeans or rice common in China. That morning he ate rice, more soup with cabbage and onion, green tea, and juice.
He emerged to return to the guesthouse when a uniformed policeman, accompanied by Yoshida, confronted him. The policeman introduced himself in English as Officer Akio Nakamura and Yoshida as an agent of the special police, Tokkō (Peace Police), from Osaka.
“You will come with us,” Nakamura instructed and directed Griff first back to his guesthouse to gather his things.
Griff might have objected but didn’t—yet—and simply told the manager he’d be back. Flanked by Yoshida, Griff followed Nakamura out the door, probably wondering what they’d ask and where it was all headed. His pulse throbbed in his throat. Could this be a real police affair? Sino-Japanese relations were strained. His military passport and Shanghai duty—likely known to the Japanese—could raise suspicions.
They took him to a bare-front building shared by the town government and police that baked in the late June sun. Inside, two kimono-clad clerks nervously tried not to be noticed, perspiration on their brows, eyes confined to desks. Nakamura and Yoshida directed Griff to a dark, windowless room with a table, four chairs, and dented desk lamp, where they told Griff to sit. They walked out and closed the door behind them.
Smells of stale tea, cigarette ash, and neglected sweat pervaded, but the place wasn’t as unnerving as dank police-interrogation chambers back in Shanghai, in which Griff had observed quaking Japanese suspects questioned by Chinese and Americans.
Nakamura and Yoshida returned with a third uniformed officer, whom Nakamura introduced as his superior, a Captain Yoshirou Kimura, chief of local police. The man spoke no English, so Nakamura translated. The men looked at Griff and observed him, pencils poised.
They asked him to identify himself, and then the captain rapidly fired a series of questions, translated by Nakamura: Where did you come from? What brought you to Shiojiri? What unit are you in? Why look at the factory? Don’t you know factories in Japan are secret? Where is your uniform? Where are you going next?
Griff made contact with each question pitched to him, listening carefully, and answered one at a time, without dramatic points—just speaking truth. He recapped his Shanghai-to-Osaka trip, day in Osaka, train to Shiojiri, walk around town, tourist picture taking. At the factory, he had heard a noise and was curious and so looked inside. The furnace had seemed odd. He’d grown up in a small Texas town, working in groceries. He’d never seen one like it.
When all had been asked and answered, the chief spoke to the others, and they gathered their notes. Nakamura bowed in haste and excused himself and the other two men, offering Griff a drink. Griff waited in darkness.
They returned to examine Griff’s possessions, from the contents of his jeans pockets to his backpack: his C rations, dictionary, clothes, and family photos and a carved driftwood piece from Quanah. They puzzled over his toiletry bag from the Philippines, which led to questions about his role as a military observer. An observer does just that, Griff explained. He observes and acts as a liaison. It was a training assignment. They asked about American intentions regarding Japan. He knew nothing.
They seemed perplexed by Griff’s explanation, their brows furrowed. They remained polite but were clearly puzzled, unable to grasp that nothing he’d revealed to them could be of concern, clearly still suspecting he was on a spy mission.
He kept cool. Patience would see him through. He had seen suspects under questioning. The more he maintained that he was being honest, the deeper seemed their confusion and the more intensely they demanded further explanation, until he ran out of neutral things to say. He held his tongue. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you. The interview dragged on for two hours, until they excused themselves once again.
Once again the three returned, Chief Kimura and Yoshida remaining standing, Nakamura sitting down across from Griff.
“That will be all, Lieutenant. You may leave now. But I will be accompanying you for the rest of your stay in Japan. We hope you will not mind; my superiors have ordered that I escort you while you remain in our country.”
Griff hesitated, then asked, “Can I take my things?”
“Yes,” replied Nakamura.
“I have some other places I’d like to visit. All right?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. You may go where you wish. But you may not photograph factories. Do you understand?”
Griff nodded, packed up, and returned with his gear to his guest-house, Nakamura at his side, who asked Griff to address him as Akio from now on. Griff agreed, if Akio would call him Griff.
Akio accompanied Griff to lunch—urging him to eat one of the rice balls with pickled plum in the center that school children eat to reinforce their patriotism—and then ushered Griff on a walk to the Hiraide Iseki archeological dig on the edge of town, a collection of ancient settlement ruins, where Akio now served as Griff�
��s interpreter and guide. But although Akio gamely answered Griff’s questions and was quick to offer translations, he gave Griff no reason to trust him.
They boarded the train to Osaka, where Griff checked back into the same hotel in which he had stayed upon first arriving on the island. In the morning, Akio was waiting in the lobby when Griff finished breakfast, ready to show the American old Osaka Castle and other sights in the city.
Griff finally broke away only upon boarding the ferry back to Shanghai. From the deck, he watched the receding Osaka harbor and then the last trace of land fade into the horizon. He filed away the week’s events for reflection.
The passage back to Shanghai provided him time for a breather, to turn over in his mind the predicament of his military career. But what most likely absorbed his mind was the miserable state of his marriage. What a comparison this grim, solitary voyage was compared to the cruise to Manila three and a half years before, with Alice and the baby when—trapped on the ship without official duties to occupy him—he had spent a lot of time doting over the baby and remaining attentive to his wife. Back then, his relationship with her had been smooth, except for the normal getting-used-to-each-other ruffles any newlyweds must endure. But now he would be replaying their time together, scanning his recollections for early signs of the strife to come. At the same time, he likely would have reflected on his forestalled determination to make a name for himself, and the tension between that ambition and staying close to his family, turning over in his mind the compromises that would be required to take up with a new wife, perhaps with turbulence, urgency, even desperation on his mind.
Did he have his eyes on some kind of dream? Alice, gorgeous Alice, was from a blue-blooded eastern family with military roots going back generations. Her father had served in the Philippines upon graduating from West Point and recently graduated from Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff School. There were sufficient grounds to think Griff’s marriage might enjoy attraction and commonality enough to make a happy union. But life with Alice had not turned out as he had imagined. She was strong willed and used to getting what she wanted. Her parents gave it to her. And Griff was headstrong too. He had thought she would know what to expect as an officer’s wife, but he’d been wrong. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake.
On the ferry, his eyes on the blue horizon, Griff had hours to reflect. And what of his adventure in Japan and his narrow escape? No, he wasn’t a spy; he was a military observer in the US Army’s 130-year-old observer program. The duties of observers had historically included intelligence gathering, but that role had shifted to attachés, who—a generation before Griff—had taken on intelligence gathering for the Military Information Division. Observers were directed to develop themselves professionally through their peacetime observation of foreign military. By selecting Griff as an observer, the Army had marked his talent, competence, and intelligence. It did not make him a spy, but no doubt his experience in Japan, Manila, and Shanghai complemented his savvy.
However useful the adventure in Japan may have been for Griff’s professional whetting, his choice to expose himself to such an incident and his conduct during its course may have revealed something inside him—an unknown that would emerge again and perhaps grow and impel his conduct during the coming war. Griff’s personality was enigmatic, combining brusque forthrightness and a propensity to follow rules with tenderness and an almost-clumsy indulgence. Yet his adventure in Japan illustrated an extra dimension to his character. Observed objectively, Griff’s decision to go to Shiojiri in the first place, to photograph the factory, and especially to adopt a blazon posture during arrest and cavalier demeanor during his interrogation manifested a proclivity for taking unnecessary risk. Such detachment from reality in a military officer might be somewhat over-the-top and maybe even border on a wish to cause self-harm.
On the ferry, the businessmen and gaggles of revelers drank and bandied at cards and looked forward to Shanghai as their Far Eastern Babylon. The ferry approached Shanghai at dusk, with lights of oncoming ships and Chinese junks flickering on the Yangtze River. One riverbank came into view, then the other, and the ferry turned to the left and entered the Huangpu River, where Shanghai’s lights beckoned. On the right bank, lamps glistened, and smoke rose from Japanese factory chimneys.
Chains clattered on the dock, winches whirled, and gabbling dock laborers surged to unload cargo, like squirrels scurrying for food. Griff passed up the rickshaws, climbed into a taxi, and in his Texas drawl attempted to direct the driver to the Shanghai Volunteer Corps barracks. The taxi drove up dirt-scattered streets lined with shops, bars and teahouses, tailors, and watchmakers. Signs in French and Russian, Chinese and English, hawked wares and services. The driver turned down the main street in the English neighborhood, Shanghai’s Broadway: a curving oceanfront boulevard where traffic was light, with streetcars passing seven- to ten-story stone and brick office buildings, with guardsmen outside banks and offices that faced the river, whose shores bustled with junks and bantam market boats.
They passed onto the streets crisscrossing the Chinese sector, where evening life was just getting started, with open shops, lantern-covered walls, signs scrawled in Chinese characters, crowds sprinkled with salesmen and waiters chanting on sidewalks in front of eateries, steam rising from vents. They passed into the French Concession, with its entertainment palaces and shops of clothes and books, beauty parlors, hair salons, bakeries, cafes, dance halls, and cinemas.
Griff tipped the driver, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and entered the barracks, where he retrieved his stored gear, changed into his tropical work uniform, and repacked. Then he handed off his gear to a crewman for transfer to the ship in Chinwangtao—up the coast via Tientsin, 180 miles east of Beiping, an all-day train ride north—and, for his last day, he bid colleagues goodbye.
When Griff woke in the Shanghai barracks the next morning, he packed his jeans and other gear for the sea trip back to the States, perhaps now better grasping the narrow margin by which he had escaped danger in Japan. The blue jeans he had worn in Japan resembled the denim fatigue uniforms the Japanese marines had worn in the 1932 Shanghai skirmish between the Japanese and the Chinese in which his peace-keeping force had served. Now it may have been clearer to him that the Tokkō police in Shiojiri could well have interpreted choice of attire as a stick-in-your-eye provocation, escalating an already-tense situation with the Yank. Things could so easily have turned horribly wrong. But now, in the safety of Shanghai, he was in a better position to appreciate the risk. But why did he take it? What had driven him to it?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zay Transcends Confrontation: Paris and Chartres, Spring 1935–1937
IN EARLY 1936, ACHILLE CARLIER COMPLAINED THAT THE FINE ARTS Administration had failed to respond to his demands or in any other way endorse his plan to preserve the Chartres stained glass from destruction. Still, records reveal that the administration had felt increasing public pressure to act as Germany rearmed and remilitarized the Rhineland. Amid this change, although they had not acceded to Carlier’s plan, the Fine Arts Administration’s archives show a flurry of wartime preparations behind the scenes. It had been less than a year since France had adopted the April 1935 law making civil passive defense compulsory; the act compelled local authorities to begin organizing civil-defense measures, including establishing a committee of passive defense in each administrative department throughout the country. And so by the time Carlier’s Chartres campaign had gained public attention, the Fine Arts Administration had already assembled an experienced team as impassioned about protecting historic monuments as were Carlier and his backers.
Georges Huisman, archivist-paleographer and associate professor of history and geography, had since 1935 been leading the Fine Arts Administration as its director general. Sporting a mustache and usually a bow tie, Huisman smoked a pipe and cast an erudite aspect. In the late 1920s, he had served as chief of staff to a series of ministers and, in 1931, as secret
ary general of the Élysée—the most senior position in the cabinet—under President Paul Doumer. Later Huisman had been chosen to lead the Fine Arts Administration in the government of Prime Minister Édouard Daladier. Before the outbreak of World War II, Huisman would work to establish the Cannes Film Festival—brainchild of Minister of National Education and Fine Arts Jean Zay—and at the beginning of the war Huisman would join in the attempt to form a French government in exile, starting with his departure fleeing with more than two dozen deputies and senators aboard the SS Massilia bound for North Africa.
Other key players assisted in the running of the Fine Arts Administration. They included Jean Verrier, who had been a prior director general of the agency as well as one-time inspector general at the General Inspectorate of Historic Monuments; Pierre Paquet, an architect who had also served as inspector general of historic monuments and had restored important buildings; Eugéne Rattier, architect and former assistant to the inspector general of historic monuments, who had restored Notre-Dame de Paris in 1923; and Émile Brunet, a chief architect who had also restored other important buildings.
Before Le Journal had published Anne Fouqueray’s February 17 article bringing to the French public’s attention the potential danger that the encroaching military airfield posed to the nearby Chartres Cathedral, Huisman’s team at the Fine Arts Administration had already been planning for the protection of Chartres from wartime damage, procuring equipment and materials for removing the windows. On the day the article appeared, Huisman and members of his staff were in discussion with master glassmakers regarding methods for safely removing the windows. Days later, Huisman asked Solidevit, a Paris steel-scaffolding company, to send representatives to Chartres to study the scaffolding design proposed by Achille Carlier.
Saving the Light at Chartres Page 10
