He did his best to sound flippant. “Until death do us part.”
She looked into his face, her expression unreadable. The flickering light from the flames brought a soft flush to her cheeks and flecks of gold fire to her eyes. She’d never looked lovelier.
But a beat passed. He thought she might actually say no.
Those pliant lips softened into a smile, even if it came with a bit of a sigh. “Fine then. Air Corps here we come.”
He hadn’t realized how quickly until death do us part would come to feel like more than an idle phrase.
Can’t happen. I have to see her again. They claimed there was a just God. And Eileen believed it. At least, she went to church now and then.
Lord, if you’re listening—
For what had to be the hundredth time, a pair of guards burst into his cell. Dragged him down a succession of corridors. Shoved him into a chair in an interrogation room. Ohara was in conference with the officer du jour, that same smug look on his face.
Face to face with that pretentious squint-eyed sadist again. What gave him the right to torment real men?
Simple. The Japanese were armed. He and his men were not. That was it. If he ever met up with Ohara on an even footing he would put a fist straight through the man’s face. Wring the life from his scrawny neck. Snap it in two with his bare hands.
Ohara smiled pleasantly. “Shall we begin?”
Dave fixed his eyes on the table, felt his palms go clammy. His mortal enemy, the bamboo rod, was there. Along with some other old friends.
Oh no. Please no. Not the big rod today.
At what point would he finally break? Tell them anything and everything they wanted to know?
The gargoyles had varied the routine this time. They left his right arm free and positioned his chair close enough to reach the table. And something else was new. He stared down at a sheaf of papers bearing neat columns of Jap scribbles.
Ohara placed a pen in front of him. “Sign that.”
“You know I can’t read your chicken scratch. What’s it say?”
“It’s your confession.” Ohara nodded at Brutus, who picked up a thin bamboo strip.
“Confession to what?”
Brutus whipped the bamboo strip across his wrist. A ribbon of blood trickled down the back of his hand and started a slow drip onto the floor.
The officer shifted in his chair and muttered something.
Ohara drummed his fingers on the table. “Make this easy, horyo.”
Dave sat back, rubbed trembling hands across unfocused eyes. It was all he could do to hold his gaze steady. “You want me to sign it? I can’t even read it.”
Ohara nodded at Ratface. He issued a command to the others, then picked up the skewers.
Dave swallowed. His last encounter with those things had cost him days of pain.
Brutus untied Dave’s left arm from the chair, keeping a firm grip on his hand. Ratface splayed his fingers and poised the tip of a skewer against the skin between them. Picked up a tack hammer and grinned at him.
“Wait, wait!” Dave fought through a dense fog of weariness to bring Ohara’s face into focus. “If I sign it, does this end now?”
Ohara nodded. “Hai. If you sign this thing, you go back to China. We have, ah...comfortable prison for you there. Ordinary prison.” He snickered, then turned and said something to the officer, who inclined his head and spoke to Dave directly—a first.
“Hai. Sign paper, go back China. Ordinary prison.”
Ohara gave the guards an order. Brutus released his left hand and they all stepped away.
Was he really going to do this?
It was a deal with the devil. Still...No more sessions with Ohara. No more miserable hours in his cell, paralyzed with fear of the next session. And no more wondering how long it would take them to break him, get something out of him that mattered.
If he signed this paper, he won. He got out, and they got nothing they could use.
What was he signing? His death warrant? They were killing him anyway.
And then again, this might be his route back to Eileen.
He picked up the pen.
Chapter Seventeen
15 June 1942, Tokyo
57 Days Captive
The Devil does keep his deals—at least, the letter of them. Several days passed before Dave left his cell again.
He’d read it somewhere. A prisoner’s best chance to escape is in transport. Maybe, between Tokyo and China, there’d be some oversight. Maybe this would be his time.
Lord, maybe I’ve made it through the worst of it. Maybe you are listening. Please get me back in this war.
At night, for the first time since his capture, they allowed him the merciful oblivion of sleep. Which was what he was doing when two guards burst into his cell.
“Toridase. Hayaku.”
They hauled him to his feet. He stumbled along the corridor, his wobbly legs barely supporting him. They brought him through a pair of heavy wooden doors. He stepped into a sunlit courtyard, blinking like a bat.
A prisoner’s best chance to escape...
His men were there, lined up. All four of them. Alive. That was the good news.
But their condition? Deplorable. Bruised, bedraggled, filthy, with bushy beards and matted hair. Grimy uniforms hanging visibly looser.
He’d felt a thrill of pride when he saw them the last time. But one glance at them now and his gut hollowed. There was no chance any of them were going to blend into the civilian population. Even if they were strong enough to attempt an escape.
He was sure he looked every bit as bad.
The Japs pushed him into place next to Watt. An impressive bruise covered the side of Watt’s face. He glanced at Dave, gave him a grim nod.
Vitty was on the other side of Watt, but Dave couldn’t see his face. He supposed the man had cooled off by now, but it no longer seemed to matter much.
The doors behind them creaked open. He stared over his shoulder and got a jolt of surprise. A cluster of Japs with two more American airmen. The fellows looked like cavemen.
Who are these guys?
The newcomers joined the line of captives on Dave’s other side. The nose of the fellow next to him had been reconfigured into a swollen mass. His eyes drooped with fatigue. Even so, it clicked: Chase Nielsen, navigator from Bomber Number Six, Green Hornet.
I’d never pick you out of a lineup.
Dave had to make a conscious effort to close his jaw. Being from different squadrons, they hadn’t been best buddies, but they’d spent weeks passing each other in the chow line and rubbing elbows at the O.C. while Colonel Doolittle was getting them trained for the raid.
The American on Nielsen’s left had to be Bob Meder, Green Hornet’s copilot.
The other three guys from Green Hornet—Hallmark and the two enlisteds. Where were they? He indulged a fervent hope they’d made it out.
A beat passed. The doors opened once more and big Dean Hallmark, Green Hornet’s pilot, staggered out between two guards.
That appeared to be it.
The Japs grouped them in pairs, putting him with Braxton. They cuffed his right wrist to Braxton’s left. A soldier knelt to manacle their ankles together. The cuffs were sized for Japs and bit at his flesh.
“You sign it, sir?” Braxton murmured out the side of his mouth.
The guard stopped work on their manacles and looked up. “Damare.”
Dave gave his gunner a tiny nod followed by a questioning look.
Braxton nodded too.
Their journey back to China lasted several long days. But it wasn’t all bad. On the first leg, Dave and Braxton, cuffed together, sat crammed into a bench seat on a local train out of Tokyo. Braxton had the window. Dave sat thigh-to-thigh with a dour-faced guard, positioned between him and the aisle.
The officer in charge popped the door to their compartment open. A skinny soldier walked in carrying a pile of boxes wrapped in newspaper. The aroma of cooked fish and piqu
ant spices wafted through the car. He made his way along the aisle, whistling, and distributed a box to each of the guards.
And, miraculously, one to each of the prisoners.
Dave steeled himself for disappointment. Unwrapped his box. Sat for an instant in reverent amazement at what the torn newsprint revealed—a neat compartmentalized wooden tray with a few pieces of flaky white fish drenched in thick brown sauce, a half cup of rice, some pickled vegetables and sliced peaches.
An actual meal.
The guards had chopsticks, but Dave’s box didn’t include any. That wasn’t going to stop him—or the other prisoners. Braxton shoveled his food into his mouth with dirt-caked fingers. Dave took one more deep breath to savor the aromas, then fell on the food himself. Once he started, an animal urge to cram it into his mouth as fast as possible took over. What if it had been a mistake, or the slant-eyed gargoyles were toying with them? What if they wrenched the box away?
But nothing disturbed his meal. The fish was a little dry, but the mild, sweet sauce made up for it. The vegetables were nothing he recognized. The tangy pickled flavor was a bit surprising, but not unpleasant. The peaches were ripe and perfect. They burst with flavorful juice in his mouth.
It was the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten.
He ate left-handed, since his right hand was cuffed to Braxton. But that didn’t keep him from picking every grain of rice and every drop of sticky sauce out of that wooden tray.
The moment ended all too soon. He was licking juice off his fingers when the guard came around to collect the empty box.
Braxton leaned his head up against the window and closed his eyes in contentment. “That was a religious experience.”
The guard in the aisle seat glared at him. “No talk, baka.”
Braxton just grinned and gave his belly a pat.
Tuesday, December 28, 1948
Osaka, Japan
Miyako hit the floor hard in the corridor where Captain Oda flung her. The double doors to the Cancer Ward closed behind her, Papa-san on the other side. Inaccessible—perhaps forever.
She curled up on the hard tile and lay there.
Papa-san. The thought was a long cry of anguish from her very core.
If she could make herself small enough, perhaps she could be a little girl again. Run to his arms as he came in through the front door of the tiny house she’d grown up in. Burrow her head in his strong chest. Plant her feet in his big street shoes.
Everything had gone wrong since the day of the bombing.
After a long moment she stirred, but only to sit. She pushed herself against the wall and wrapped her arms around her knees. She heard Yamada-san’s voice, but it meant nothing to her.
“Midori. Mi-chan. Come on.”
She felt tears on her face, but she was detached from the feeling. Like the nerve endings belonged to someone else.
“Get up. Let’s go home.” Yamada-san shook her shoulder. She produced a handkerchief from her capacious handbag and wiped the spit from Miyako’s face. “We have to go home now.”
Home? The Oasis wasn’t home. And without Papa-san, what did home even mean?
Miyako had no clear recollection later of the trip back to Tobita. She did remember the horrified look on Imai-san’s face. The way it took her three full seconds to lower her cigarette from her mouth.
“You’ve been bawling. What under heaven happened to you?”
Miyako couldn’t bear to be in her room. She huddled on the bench in the wintry courtyard, shuffled one foot across the fine gravel, and stared at the stone lantern with its handsome carvings of deer and rabbits. Prey. Like she’d always been.
No more.
There was only one path to reestablish her worth. One means to clear her haji. Avenge herself on the gaijin bomber. Show Papa-san she could restore her family’s honor and her own. And if he couldn’t see it, perhaps the ancestors would.
She had to get to Kamura-san.
Imai-san stepped out from the building, arranged her fur stole, and picked her way across the stepping stones to the bench. “Midori-chan, would you like to come in for dinner? You could meet the other girls before things get hectic.”
Miyako pulled her coat around her and shook her head.
Imai-san studied her. “I trust you don’t think your father’s unconsidered reaction alters our arrangement?”
“No, Imai-san, it doesn’t.” Not at all. She was there until she could figure out how to get to the gaijin.
“Good. You’re wise, child. I’m sure your papa-san will reconsider.”
Hai. When eels sprout feet.
Miyako had no interest in food or company that evening, so she went to bed early. Her stomach was rumbling like a freight train by the time the clatter of dishes and the rise and fall of women’s voices greeted her the next morning.
It was time to crawl out and meet them.
Her black eye was beginning to turn interesting shades of teal and lavender, but she made herself as presentable as she could. She slipped from her room and followed the voices along the hall toward the building’s rear and into a small, bright common room.
The room was cozy, almost cramped, with paneled walls and cheery blue-and-white café curtains. Imai-san and Yamada-san knelt on opposite sides of a square table. A quartet of younger women ringed the table, a tea service spread before them. Their chatter—like magpies quarreling over a rice ball—lapsed to silence when she eased her way in.
“Good morning.” She bowed to each of them.
“Midori-chan, it’s wonderful to see you up and about.” Imai-san scooted a serving dish out of the way. “Sit here, please.”
She knelt at the table, and Imai-san introduced her to the others. Noriko-chan, a handsome young woman, gave her a perfunctory head-bob. Hanae-chan, whose Korean accent belied her Japanese name, stared openly at Miyako’s battered face. Fusako-chan, with her soft Kansai accent, and Tome-chan, the curvy one—there was always a curvy one—cast more discreet glances her way.
Haruko-chan appeared with a tureen of soup. It looked and smelled delicious, the savory aroma of mild spices and toasted onion an open invitation. Miyako accepted a bowl with gratitude.
Fusako sipped her tea. “It’s good to see you’re recovering. When do you think you’ll be able to see clients?”
Miyako cringed inside. The idea of entertaining a string of Imai-san’s okyaku in the confines of her tiny room was suffocating. And with the way her whole body ached? “I think it may be a few more days. Although I certainly need the money.” She changed the subject. “Imai-san, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“What is it, child?”
“There are a few things in the room I’ve been renting I’d like to have.” Papa-san’s tea no longer mattered, although it hollowed her heart to think so. But George-san’s cash certainly did. And she could handle all her other business at the same time. “My own clothes, shoes, lipsticks. Do you think—"
“Absolutely not.” Imai-san lowered her penciled brows. “I cannot have you jeopardize your recovery any further with your trivial errands, dear.”
She forced herself to eat, but she excused herself as soon as it was polite and retreated to her room.
Yamada-san caught up with her a few minutes later. “About your things. I think I can help. If I ask her, Imai-san will probably be willing to send someone to collect them. She’ll simply add the amount to your ledger, with an allowance for overhead and expenses, of course. That would cheer you up a bit, wouldn’t it?”
Miyako studied the lady’s expression. How much of that overhead allowance would she receive? No matter. Perhaps she could help.
She put a hand to her throbbing temple. “Hai, it would cheer me up. If you could pick up some of my clothes, I’d be very much in your debt. But I have other loose ends I need to take care of.”
“Is it something I can do?”
“I trust it won’t be too much trouble. I have a friend named Kimi. If she comes to see me her
e, she can help me get a handle on the rest.” Kimi could find out what was happening with George-san. Perhaps get word to Kamura-san as well. “Could you kindly see if you can find her and ask her to come by?”
“Where do I look for her?”
“In the Abeno district. With the pan-pan.”
Yamada-san pinned her with a look. “You want me to find a pan-pan named Kimi. In the Abeno District. You’re teasing, right?” She rolled her eyes. “What’s the rest of your list?”
Miyako reeled off the items she needed. She debated for a few seconds about the cash. She decided trusting Yamada-san with it was less risky than leaving it in her empty room—which her landlord was sure to rifle when she didn’t turn up with the weekly rent.
Yamada-san jotted notes in blocky ideographs. When Miyako finished, she read it back, ticking off the list with her pen. “Blue dress with black lace appliqué. Both pairs of shoes. Your cosmetics box. Lingerie. Bottle of reasonably good whiskey. A tea tin with a bit of cash in it.” She looked up and snorted. “And a whore named Kimi. Impressive list.”
“I can’t tell you”—really can’t tell you—“how much this means to me, Yamada-san.”
Yamada-san tucked her note into her sleeve. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises.”
“Of course, Yamada-san.”
The “of course” meant she understood the older woman’s help was going to cost her. The question was how much, and when.
Chapter Eighteen
Wednesday, December 29, 1948
Osaka, Japan
Pearl-colored skies carried a threat of rain for later, but the afternoon was mild enough for Miyako to linger in the garden.
She had the small but peaceful space to herself. The brothel buildings wrapped it on two sides. Tall walls topped by barbed wire enclosed the other two.
“The walls are to keep you girls safe and private.” That’s what Yamada-san had told her the day before. But as Miyako studied them, something struck her. The struts holding the barbed wire angled in. That wire was to keep unwilling girls inside, not to keep intruders out.
The Plum Blooms in Winter Page 16
