The Occupation of Joe

by Bill Baynes

  The captain saw the car on a prior tour and claimed it for himself. It’s scheduled to be loaded aboard before the ship departs.

  The caves are littered with construction gear, military equipment, uniforms, and other clothing. The workers apparently dropped everything and left the job when the Emperor surrendered.

  Joe discovers a small room plastered with posters of Japanese baseball players. In one corner are canvas bags full of bats, balls, gloves, catchers’ chest and shin protectors, bases, and uniforms.

  “I didn’t even know they played baseball,” he says.

  “We helped them get it going before the war,” Wade says. “Some Americans played over here.”

  Wade is a big baseball fan. With three teams in New York, it’s hard not to be.

  Sam stares at the posters of famous players, but shows no interest in the equipment. The men pack a canvas sack full of gear for themselves.

  When he hands over Cookie’s lunch at the end of the day, Joe points to the bag, then points away, then points to the boy. He holds his hands wide with a questioning expression of his face. Where do you go?

  Sam pantomimes sleeping, the place where he sleeps, home.

  Joe makes the fingers of one hand run over the back of his other hand, then raises his eyebrows. Why did you run?

  The boy makes grabbing motions with both hands and looks around fearfully. He’s afraid someone will take his food.

  Joe scowls and grips Sam’s shoulder reassuringly. His father used to do that to him. He takes off his cap, turns it over and packs the sandwiches inside. He hands it to the boy.

  Sam puts the hat on his head carefully and gently pushes it down. It’s much too large, but the food keeps it above his ears. He has to smile.

  Joe too.

  5

  Isamu

  He dumps the night soil into the ditch everyone has been using. The stink follows him across the block back to their room. He hopes the rains will bring relief from the reek soon.

  Later he will help Mama gather provisions, but this morning he makes his way to the river and over the bridge to the docks. He takes his time. No sense getting there too early. Joe never appears before 10:00 a.m.

  He’s developed alternate routes across the ravaged lots, taking advantage of standing buildings, windbreaks, hidey holes, and little-used paths. Isamu stays alert for bigger boys, for people he knows or for opportunities.

  He’d found a smelly blanket the day before. He had no way to launder it, but he managed to trade it for a scarf, which he tried to give to Mama. She insisted he wear it.

  He wraps it around his neck and his mouth and plunks his oversized Navy hat on his head. He disappears into his clothing.

  The landscape is constantly evolving, piles of debris disappearing, sections of buildings being exposed. People relocate to better shelters. Black marketeers set up stalls and tear them down in a few days.

  How much easier it would be if Riku were with him, Isamu thinks. The two used to be inseparable. His friend was a jokester. He could find a way to make anything fun, even scraping by day-to-day. He would have made a game of it.

  Like most children, Riku left Tokyo and went to the countryside to live with his relatives when food shortages and power outages got worse. Mama has no family outside the city, so they had no place to go.

  Isamu watches as Joe moves closer across the choppy bay. While the pilot idles the small craft at the pier, the young officer hops out and hands the boy a bulging sack.

  “Three days’ worth,” he says, holding up three fingers.

  He pats Isamu on the cap and chuckles.

  The boy takes four sandwiches out of the bag and inserts them in his hat, which he puts back on his head. It rides considerably higher.

  Joe laughs again. He laughs a lot. Isamu likes that.

  “I’d like to meet your parents,” Joe says. “I’d like to figure out a way to help them.”

  The boy doesn’t understand.

  Joe signs. Sleeping, you, me, away. Take me to your home.

  Isamu gets it, but he shrugs as if he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to refuse the man. That could cut off the supply of food. He bows to him and trots back the way he came.

  He thinks of the lectures they used to endure at school. Each morning a soldier brought a sheet of paper to the teacher, who made the students stand before he read it to the class. The papers were about the Americans, their adversaries, how they were soulless demons. Every day there were new examples. The Americans enslave their citizens. They’re sadistic. They’re unclean.

  Twice each month, the children sat quietly in the lunchroom and listened to a man with a chest shining with medals. He told them the Americans are evil and they only care about themselves.

  Then why is Joe feeding him?

  The boy prefers the coins that the men give him after a tour. American money goes a long way in the stalls. But the men haven’t gone anywhere in the last week and Isamu doesn’t have the nerve to rub his fingers together to Joe. He doesn’t want to push his luck.

  Why does Joe want to come to his home?

  Back at the room, Mama puts the sandwiches on a plate. She is almost ready for their neighborhood expedition. She had changed from her baggy, worn pantaloons and tattered blouse to a plain brown kimono, the best outfit she has left. She carefully arranges a comb in her hair. She straps the baby to her back, using twine and a burlap sack. She brings a second sack and she hands Isamu a pail.

  On the way down the stairs, she takes the hat off his head.

  “American,” she says. “Shame, shame.”

  “It’s mine,” her son says, reaching for it. “Give it back.”

  “I am your mother.” She slaps his hand. “Don’t be rude. Don’t call attention.”

  She puts the hat in her sack.

  “It keeps me warm. You might as well take this too.”

  He unwinds his scarf and tosses it at Mama. It falls at her feet.

  She keeps her back straight so she won’t disturb the infant as she lowers and picks it up. She stashes the scarf in the sack.

  “Americans. Pah! They teach you to be this way.”

  Mama pulls her son close as they step outdoors. She peers around furtively. It seems to the boy that she becomes an old woman.

  She always loved to shop. Isamu remembers going with her, reaching up to hold her hand, as they strolled all the way to the train station. She was so elegant, so beautiful. Everyone admired her. Sales clerks jostled to serve her, she had such exquisite taste. An officer’s wife, she had leisure to appreciate their offerings and she was generous with her compliments.

  Now she doesn’t want to chat. She doesn’t want to meet anybody’s eyes. She’s like all the rest of them. She’s meek and quick. She doesn’t want to be here any longer than she must.

  Isamu is worried about her. She is thin and wan. The baby doesn’t let her sleep. Yet she is stronger from the food he brings home. She has milk again. She has more energy than when they only ate the thin rice gruel. They both do.

  Everything is in short supply. The most ordinary household items are scarce since the fires. The cost of fresh produce, when you can find it, is outrageous. Salted fish, miso, they haven’t been available for weeks.

  Mama spent the last of the coins Isamu brought home a week ago. She barters with a woman in a stall she’s never seen before. She trades some shirts her son has outgrown. She had hoped to save them for the baby. She finds some sweet potatoes and some wheat bran. There is no rice.

  A young girl with a swollen belly sucks on an orange peel. Two small boys struggle with arms full of scrap wood. On another woman’s back, a skinny baby cries feebly and lolls his head.

  Mama lines up at the neighborhood faucet. She keeps turning her head to see in all directions. Young hooligans come sometimes and steal the women’s groceries.

  Isamu fills the pail with drinking water and strains to carry it. He spills some of it climbing the stairs.

  Mama is tired when t
hey get back. The baby is squalling. She still wants to talk.

  “I … I thank you for what you’re doing. It’s important to our family. Your sister thanks you too.”

  She turns away as she takes out her breast. She looks over her shoulder.

  “Your father would be proud of you. I am proud.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  Isamu looks down, roiling with conflicting feelings.

  His father would never have thanked him. The man was imperious. Everyone was expected to obey him, not just the servants in their fine officer’s quarters. Everyone, especially his only son. He never earned his father’s affection, only his disapproval.

  “You, boy, make yourself straight.” Isamu remembered the constant admonition, his father’s hand in the middle of his back. “Let people see you are proud.”

  He never minded when his father went away on extended assignments. He didn’t miss him then. But now with all their privilege gone, with everyday existence so difficult, it was impossible not to remember how easy it had been.

  “I wish you didn’t feel like you have to do this,” Mama says.

  “I want to do it, Mama. I can’t just sit here. Not anymore.”

  She turns back to her nursing infant, wipes her face and fusses.

  “I’m glad that you’re going out,” she says so softly he has to strain to hear, “but I am … troubled about the Americans.”

  “Ha! That’s when I’m safest.”

  “That may be. It may not,” she says, glancing over her shoulder, scowling at his outburst. “But how far you must travel to get to these men.”

  “I can take care of myself. You worry too much.”

  “Don’t be disrespectful. You sound like an American.”

  “I’m a man now,” he insists.

  She shakes her head.

  “Almost.”

  She lays Hana-chan on her shoulder and turns back to her son.

  “This man who gave you those … those meat things,” she says, trying to sound sure of herself. “I would like to talk to him. But I can’t carry Hana-chan all that way. Would he come here?”

  Isamu is taken aback. He hasn’t told her about Joe’s request. He assumed she’d refuse.

  He thinks of Joe pointing at himself and pointing across the blocks. He hears his laugh. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea. Then she wouldn’t worry so much. And Joe might feel obligated.

  “He might. I will ask.”

  She holds up two fingers. “I will serve tea in two days.”

  “How can we pay for tea?”

  Mama reaches into the burlap, grinning, and holds up Joe’s hat.

  6

  Joe

  “What are you doing, Joe?” Doc asks in his mild way when Cookie brings in another sack of sandwiches. “You can’t take care of that kid. You’re not going to be around.”

  “When are we shipping out?” Joe wants to know.

  “Nothing definite, but I’m told I should finish getting my medical supplies together as soon as I can.”

  “Right after Christmas is what I hear,” says Wade, rubbing his palms together.

  The “fellas” are sharing a cup of coffee in the wardroom after coming off the morning watch. They’re talking about Sam again.

  “You’re just setting him up for a fall,” Doc says.

  “I don’t know. I just can’t turn my back on him.”

  “They made it on their own before we arrived,” Doc says. “They’ll do it themselves after we’ve left.”

  “He’s a survivor,” Wade says, “filthy little fucker.”

  Joe scowls at him.

  “What?” Wade says. “Ya seen his feet?”

  When Joe meets him at the pier an hour later, Sam is bareheaded. Several other local boys, all larger, are also waiting for “their” Americans.

  “Where’d it go?” Joe asks, pointing to his head and shrugging.

  Sam doesn’t answer. He turns and trots away. He pauses after a few paces and looks back with an impatient expression. Are you coming?

  “Why don’t we walk together?” Joe mutters to himself, putting the full sack under his arm and following the boy. Why did he invite me if he doesn’t want to be seen with me?

  They traverse the ruins in single file. The boy slows to a fast walk and rarely looks back. Joe has to hurry to keep up.

  He’s interested to see where the boy lives. A corner lean-to, covered in cardboard or scraps of wood, like the ones he sees next to the dirt road? Family members crunched and shriveled like the people huddling in alleyways?

  The filth is hard to believe. The dullness in people’s eyes. Joe shivers and pulls his jacket tight around his neck. The chill seems to touch the bone.

  Sam leads him to an old hotel, tilted slightly to one side, nearly a mile from the docks. They climb narrow steps. Open doors reveal dingy rooms, people who don’t bother to look up. Joe brings his hand to his nose to block the odor. On the third floor, at the head of the stairs, the boy opens a grayish door.

  She waits in a pale pool of light, a sleeping baby in her arms. She is tiny, excruciatingly feminine.

  Joe thought he’d encounter someone smudged and slovenly, like he’s seen on the streets. But this woman is neat and trim, immaculate.

  He inclines his head. He takes off his hat, puts it in his back pocket and steps inside.

  The room is small, about fifteen feet across. It’s neat and bare – tattered straw mats on the floor, a few bruised cushions, a couple of low tables containing photos, etc., a small charcoal burner, a kitchen area. The walls are empty, although there are several pallid rectangles where pictures or coverings used to hang. Sam is putting his shoes on a strip of concrete by the entrance. Joe hardly sees him.

  He points to himself.

  “Joe. Joe Bienkunski.” He holds out his hand.

  She hesitates, touching her throat, and then enunciates, “Aiko,” and looks down.

  “Eye-ko,” Joe repeats softly. He lowers his hand.

  Sam takes the infant, says—”Hana-chan“—and moves to a far corner.

  Apparently just the three of them. No man of the house. No signs of one.

  “Yokoso,” the woman says, her eyes straying to the sack in Joe’s hand.

  He has no idea what she’s talking about. Is she asking what he’s carrying?

  Sam points to her and opens his hands wide. She is welcoming him.

  Joe nods. He hands her the bag.

  “Arigato,” she says and bows.

  When she sees that he doesn’t understand, she gestures to the bag, and smiles before dropping her eyes.

  She’s completely different from the woman waiting back home. Joe’s wife is long and rangy, her manner direct. She moved back into her mother’s house for the duration. He thinks of the uncomfortable overstuffed chairs, the heavy mahogany of the dining room table.

  The woman sets the bag down. She picks up a cup, which she offers to Joe, at the same time motioning him to a cushion.

  “O-cha?”

  “O-cha?“ Joe repeats.

  He sits awkwardly, unsure where to put his feet. He brings his knees up, smiling at her as she pours steaming liquid into his cup. It’s some sort of Jap brew, probably tea. He hates tea. It’s something you drink when you’re sick, when you have a fever.

  She retrieves a second mismatched cup, then pulls up another cushion and sits, her legs together to the side.

  She holds the cup high and smiles at Joe. She looks down shyly, but he can tell that she’s appraising him. She’s wearing a brown kimono with a white sash across her middle. Her hair is below her ears and she’s combed it across her head, almost like a man.

  She sips. Joe gulps and tries to keep a pleasant expression in his face, despite the bitter taste. He longs for sugar.

  Joe is thirty years old. He has been at sea since spring. He hasn’t seen his young wife since his four-day leave ten months ago.

  He studies the woman. She looks down demurely. She’s a young woman of
… what … 25 or so? Her features are miniatures. She smells like some sort of flower, he can’t place what.

  Aiko rises, gets the teapot, and refills his cup.

  As she sits again, Joe points to himself and then opens his hands to include the entire room. Me. Here, this place.

  He pauses to think, then signs a circular motion from chest and offers opened hands again. Give.

  The woman nods. Yes. She puts her hands together and bows.

  She thinks he is thanking her. How can he signify what he means? He opens his hands again to indicate the room. Then he puts one hand on his chest and stretches the other hand toward the room. A questioning shrug. What can I do?

  Aiko is puzzled.

  “I feel like I’m playing a child’s game,” Joe laughs.

  Sam laughs with him, which startles Joe. He’s almost forgotten the boy is in the room.

  The infant starts spitting and grunting. There is an unmistakable aroma. Sam works with the baby’s clothing. A trace of humor flickers at the corner of the woman’s mouth and immediately disappears.

  Joe points to himself. To her. To the boy and infant. Makes the circular motion and shrugs. How can I help you? Them?

  The woman smiles softly. She seems to do everything that way. He doesn’t think she understands.

  He takes another swig of the wretched tea, sweeps his eyes around the blank walls, the barren room. The window looks out on the wooden wall of a neighboring building.

  He’s a little unmoored. He hears Doc in his head: “What are you doing, Joe?”

  He laughs again, a little self-consciously. The woman and the boy laugh too.

  These people are destitute. He should have surmised as much by the fact that the boy is begging, but he never thought about it. What an impossible situation. They need … everything.

  Curiosity, that’s what really brought him here. He wondered where the boy was from. He shouldn’t have come.

  Apparently, Aiko is curious too. She points to the bag of food and raises her shoulders in a shrug. Why did you bring food?

  Joe points to the boy and rubs his stomach. I saw he was hungry.

  Sam stuffs the soiled diaper in a pail in the corner of the room and covers it with a plate. The odor starts to dissipate.