Soldiers in Hiding

by Richard Wiley

  “There used to be a public bath here,” I told her, “a rice merchant’s there. I remember a very old woman, a friend of your mother. She sold produce, during the war, out of the trunk and back seat of a big old American car.”

  Kazuko and I walked up along the bank of a drying stream and then down a small bar street with its many-colored doors all closed against the bright winter sun. Though it was still cold and would be for weeks, the day was marvelous, clear and clean. The pace of our walking was sufficient to give us warmth and the sidewalk was bare, empty of debris or ice.

  “It is almost Christmas,” I told her. “The big department stores in the Ginza will be well-stocked and colorful. We should go down soon, take the train as we used to do, give Milo’s car a rest.”

  For Kazuko Tokyo was really very small. She was a citizen of Meguro, not of the city at large. It may have been months since she had been to Ginza, years since she had ridden the Yama-no-te line, the train that circles inner Tokyo, binding it, defining its size.

  “ It is good,” she let me know, “for old couples to be seen doing such things together. When a man reaches his old age he should have a wife there with him.”

  Though I had not thought of myself as old before the arrival of my wife’s brother, Kazuko said what she did as if we both had known it for a long while and I found myself wondering, suddenly, if she had suffered during my middle age. When her brother and the war and my newly found sense of duty were dead to me, my wife had been too, in a way. Yet I could clearly remember my joy in finding her when I returned so early from the fighting. I remember my surprise at her easy decision to take me in, my pleasure at the stoic and gentle way she wove herself about me. When, exactly, had I begun neglecting her? Had she known about my mistressing? Did she know now that it was over?

  As we walked up through some unfamiliar neighborhoods and into the area around Meguro station, I realized that though I was not at peace with myself I was happy. I had much to do and so little time. Perhaps that, not peace of mind, is a proper definition of happiness. I had not had such clear feelings in years. My brain was active, my body alert and no longer sore, the cold winter air a proper tonic. Old age and youth have much in common, are indeed the two tips of the horseshoe in my life, their constructive and destructive natures complementing each other. I had no time to mourn the misuse of my middle age but I did want to take a moment to applaud its passing. My old age, the actions and activities of the next few weeks, at least, would rectify the awful indecision of my youth. And then I would be finished with it, ready to live again. I did not want to lose this clarity of mind, this cool vigor, this welcome change.

  We had come to the door of a famous tonkatsu restaurant but it was closed. We had been walking for an hour and, though my thoughts had fed me, I was hungry still. Kazuko, I noticed now, had not had an easy time with my pace.

  “ Here’s Tonki,” I said, “but it’s closed. There is no other place to eat around here. Let’s take the train.”

  Kazuko pushed a hand up into the cool air between us. “ Wait,” she said. “ We have not walked this far in years. Let’s rest.”

  There was a stone bench outside the restaurant so we sat down on that. I didn’t know what time the place opened. Though I ate there often I had not been up around the station so early in the day. We were looking directly through the sliding glass doors, in at the counter where individuals sat to eat.

  “ We will go for walks like this every day again,” I let Kazuko know. “ Now that we are old we need the exercise. It is the secret to a long and ambulatory life.”

  Kazuko was so winded that she was not inclined to try to speak. She had really got out of shape over the years, I am ashamed to say I hadn’t noticed. So while Kazuko sat still, calming the beating of her surprised heart, I took the opportunity to try to look at her closely. I stood and walked over to the restaurant door and then turned quickly back, imagining that I saw a stranger there. I was trying to make seeing her fresh, like the view one gets of oneself in an unexpectedly present mirror. Kazuko had been a beautiful girl, she had been a coquette with perfect timing in the pulling of the strings of a young man’s heart. Yet as I turned suddenly upon her sitting there, what I saw was a lady who could have been her mother’s own sister. The years had drawn upon Kazuko’s face similar lines to those her mother had carried when I remembered her best, during the bombing of Tokyo, during the late years of the war.

  I walked a few feet and turned quickly upon her again, trying for a different view, but Kazuko said, “Stop jumping about so, Teddy. Sit down and rest,” and I could not escape her mother in the tone she chose.

  I smiled and walked over to her. “That stone will make you cold, Kazuko,” I said. “Get up and walk with me.”

  Kazuko sighed, but she did stand, letting me take her hand for a few moments while we walked to where we could catch a bus that would take us back home. Suddenly I took a step in front of her and turning to face her squarely, held her shoulders in my hands. “We are old now, Kazuko,” I said. “ You are old and I am too. Your brother has not returned to us in any real sense, but events are on the horizon which will set us free. After that we will have each other for a while.”

  I don’t know what Kazuko had been thinking or how closely her thoughts paralleled mine, but when I made my little speech she looked at me and started to laugh. And even when the bus came she was not inclined to cover her mouth or lower the steady and mirthful gaze of her eyes.

  IN HONOR OF MY AWAKENING, IN HONOR OF THE DECISions I had made, I bought a large and wonderful Christmas goose. It had been hanging in the doorway of a butcher shop and I had walked past it several times admiring its full size, the solid good color of its skin. I had been thinking that it might be difficult now to get Major Nakamura down to my studio and I ’d convinced the producer, without telling him too much, that such a show as we had planned would be better accomplished if we were to go on location. “We’ll catch him in a position of relaxed prosperity,” I said. “ He is no longer a soldier but a pharmacist. He will contrast well with the odd changes that have occurred in my brother -in-law.” The goose was to be the bait. The good Christmas tidings, delivered by me like Scrooge.

  I had always had a free hand at the studio, but organizing what we called a “remote” took time and careful planning. I wanted to cast the show, to choreograph it, so as to make it both dramatic and entertaining. This was not to be mere revenge but good television as well, a clear departure from my usual fare. I took some time to think about it, then one day I asked Junichi to rummage around in the costume room, to find authentic old army uniforms for us all to wear. My audience, I hoped, would be intrigued by my change of format. The show would be different, better than anything I had ever done. Even the sensei, though I wasn’t sure why, would appear on camera. With Nakamura, there would be six of us in the production. I had decided not to contact the major or to give him any advance notice. We would merely arrive, one day, with our cameras. I was relying heavily on the goose to get us through the door. Food is rarely a sign that an enemy has arrived.

  The day I chose for our visit to Nakamura’s drugstore was Christmas Day itself, not a particularly important day in Japan, but ironic to what was still American in me. Kazuko and Ike’s wife fixed us a large breakfast and there was much laughter, much nervous chatter, such as I had remembered soldiers sometimes had before entering battle. The studio van was in front of my house early, the cameramen and electricians already somewhere near the drugstore in one of the studio trucks. I didn’t know what I was going to do if the show was a failure or if Nakamura refused to let us in or if, in fact, he wasn’t home. This last possibility bothered me greatly so I took a moment, before we left the house, and dialed his number from the telephone in the back bedroom. It was quite early in the morning but the phone rang only once before Nakamura plucked it from its cradle and spoke.

  “ Yes, this is Nakamura,” he said.

  I waited, not responding, until he spoke again.
“Moshi moshi? Nakamura desu.”

  “Ah,” I said. “ I am calling someone named Nakamura but I fear I have made a mistake.”

  “There are many Nakamuras,” said Nakamura. “Which one are you calling? What number did you dial?”

  His voice was helpful and friendly. He was a man whose day was starting well, a man who had time enough to talk at length with a stranger.

  “ I am calling Nakamura the pharmacist,” I said. “ Nakamura the school principal.”

  “ Yes,” he said. “ You’ ve got the right man. This is Nakamura.”

  “ In that case,” I told him. “ I am coming to make a delivery. I trust you will be at home?”

  There was a moment’s silence then, when I began to feel that I had been foolish to call.

  “ Who is this?” the pharmacist asked. “I ordered nothing, am expecting no delivery. Who is speaking?”

  “The Nakamura I want was a major, a man of heavy responsibilities during the war,” I said.

  “ Identify yourself,” he said. “I am Major Nakamura but who are you? Who is calling me?”

  Now it was my turn to pause. I regretted the call but I had needed to know that the man would be home. His voice had thus far remained even and calm.

  “Major Nakamura,” I said. “This is Maki and I am coming to give you the gift of a Christmas goose, the finest I could find.”

  There was silence again so I very quickly and lightly let the phone slip back onto its cradle. I had planned the day carefully and knew then that the major would be waiting. I had given him a warning, something that I realized I had wanted to do all along. There had been no fear in the major’s voice, no apprehension. When I came out of the bedroom Kazuko was there and told me that the others had already gone outside, were waiting in Milo’s car. She had wrapped the goose for me in bright red and green gift paper and had placed it in a large basket that rested at my feet.

  MILO’S CAR HELD US LIGHTLY, BETTER THAN IT HAD WHEN, so recently, we all drove back to town from the airport. It was not my idea that Ike’s entire family, people I had yet to really speak to, should be going, but neither did I feel a need to force them to stay at home. Kazuko, I think, had arranged it all. Though Kazuko spoke no English, in the short time since her brother’s arrival, she had managed to befriend her brother’s wife, to teach his children the words of endearment she wanted them to use when calling her. This time Junichi and my son and I sat in the front seat of the car. But though there were seven of them in the back they seemed spread out, casual in the postures they chose. There was not the confinement of a first meeting.

  When we got to the major’s town, one of those small subsections of Tokyo in which many people live, Junichi found the studio van and truck and pulled directly in behind them. The drugstore, Milo told me, was close by, out of sight but just around a corner.

  “The men have business in the van for a while,” I said. “Women and children can wait on the sidewalk, but please, not near the entrance to the store.”

  Although it was early, townspeople were on the streets. There were no shops opened but there were walkers, and Kazuko and Ike’s family had no trouble joining in. They turned away and began a leisurely stroll down toward a Shinto shrine on the corner. They weren’t nervous about the show. I was sure they didn’t realize what it all might mean.

  Once inside the van the men chuckled at each other much as men have always done when women leave them in charge of the hunt. Electronic equipment filled nearly half the van and Junichi’s clothing rack, one he’d lined with old studio uniforms, took up much of the rest of the space. Now we were crowded, stood too close to each other, found, with the departure of one half our group, that we could not turn about freely, could not talk in the unrestrained manner that I had been anticipating. Through the van’s front window I could see that the cameramen were dressed and ready to go. They looked odd in the uniforms they wore. I hadn’t realized that Junichi would designate the cameramen as soldiers too but I understood that my son’s chauffeur, like Milo himself, was of an unthreatened age, one for which war was not a possibility. Perhaps this exercise, then, was his chance to imagine what it had all been like, to remember, in a way, the glory of it.

  “Each has his own uniform,” Junichi said. “Never mind the rank, they were chosen according to size.”

  Junichi was slow and gentle in the way he took the uniforms down and passed them to us, and I could see a certain light shining in his eyes. These uniforms had been washed and pressed by him, yet they were the uniforms of television soldiers, not of real ones. Where buttons and belts should have been, on these uniforms there were only Velcro strips. One folded one’s uniform around oneself and then firmly pressed it into place. It was more like being wrapped up than like putting something on, and I remembered the Christmas goose which we had left in the trunk of Milo’s car.

  Though there was little space we dressed quickly, letting our morning clothes fall to the floor of the van in a heap. Junichi had said that rank was not of any consequence in this army, but I could not help noticing that both Ike and I, the primary actors, were privates (indeed, that is all we had ever been), while Junichi and Milo were military police. My son’s uniform even had a microphone placed in a Velcro band around his waist. The shoulder pads of his uniform were extra large, making him look athletic, and each contained a loudspeaker. Presumably this policeman could be called out during situations where magnification of voice was paramount; when asking television criminals to come out of buildings or when negotiating with the enemy across an expanse of open and hostile land. The sensei, alone among us, wore the insignia of an officer. Junichi helped him put them on cor - rectly and the old man smiled. “I won’t disappoint you,” he said.

  We were dressed, caps in hands, and about to step from the van, when I decided that I should say something about how we would proceed. I didn’t want to inhibit my friends but we were not all professionals. I had never seen Ike act (had I?) and I was worried about what things, unexpected, the sensei might say.

  “We will enter the store with our cameras running,” I told them. “Let us take our lead from what the pharmacist says. If he is hostile we will respond kindly; if he is kind we will raise our questions bluntly.”

  No one appeared to be about to comment so I shrugged and passed around a small hand mirror so that they might all look at themselves. When Ike put his cap on his head I felt like greeting him. This was the man I had expected at the airport, the soldier hidden for so long. The door to the van was opened, but before we stepped to the street, my son twisted the many strands of his long hair under the cap he wore. The effect was phenomenal, but the change did not seem to draw the attention of any of the others. Milo had become my garden visitor of a few nights before. I looked carefully at my son and, though he was unaware of his new role, his young face brought my heart to my throat, my pulse to the very threshold of my eyes. Something was afoot in the outside world, the one not under my control. With his jaw set the way it was, Milo was Jimmy’s double and I began to worry a little about what was in store.

  Those of us in uniform looked odd on the street but we practiced control, pushing ourselves into the roles of soldiers. The women and children were back and waiting, and when the cameramen saw us they stepped down from the back of the truck, holding their cameras at odd angles, like machine guns. We had decided ahead of time that Ike’s children would wait for us outside, either on the street or in the back of the van where they could see and hear everything that would go on. As for Ike’s wife, she could do as she pleased. Kazuko had given her a kimono to wear and she looked fine, younger and more reasonable than had been my earlier impression of her.

  Ike said something to his children and they quickly went through the van door and closed it behind them. They were well-behaved children and for them, I thought, this new world must be something unfathomable. They had been the children of an ordinary man only a few weeks before. And now they could, no doubt, see us moving across the television
monitor. Would their father seem foreign to them as he marched so resolutely away?

  “All right,” I said. “Follow the lead of good show business but do not let the man coax you from the point of our visit.”

  One of the cameramen moved around the corner in order to take our picture as we approached. Already a small crowd had formed. Onlookers. An audience. The front of Nakamura’s drugstore was in worse condition than I had imagined from Milo’s earlier description of it. It was narrow and dark, the sign bearing his name hanging loose and in need of repair. When we arrived at the front door I knocked immediately and then called out. The store, of course, might be closed all day, but I could see lights through the frosted glass. I was about to call again when the door slid away from my hand. An old woman was standing before me. She was dressed very finely, as if about to go out, as if the day were New Year ’s Day, not Christmas at all.

  “He is not here,” she said. “He told me to greet you and to tell you that he is in the warehouse at the back. If you like I can take you there.”

  The old woman spoke passively, so as not to jar the perfect arrangement of her hair. She did not shy from the camera’s red eye, nor did she say anything about the clothes we wore. She merely moved to let us know that we were to follow her through the drugstore and toward the back.

  Along the aisle of the store were the advertisements Milo had mentioned, but to my eyes they were cracked and faded, many of them out of place or falling down behind the shelves. Nakamura’s store was very poorly kept. There was dust on all the bottles, and along the counter top at the back I could see heavy streaks in the uneven light. I could see the imprints of Nakamura’s hands where he’d placed them while leaning there over the years. This was a store that had not changed since before the war; it had an old-fashioned layout, a dark and medicinal feel.