The Diplomat’s Daughter

by Karin Tanabe

  “Lied and told the government that we were a bunch of Nazis, which is why we got sent to Crystal City. It’s an internment camp in Texas.”

  “Oh, that,” said Menkins. “You’re definitely a Nazi. I’m not going anywhere near you when they ship us off, guns in hand. And here I thought only Japs were in those camps.” He pointed to Christian’s third letter and said, “This one’s not from your mother, so I didn’t bother to open it. Next time you write her, tell her I love her and ask her to send another picture. This time, with less clothes on. Something cut low in the front, like an open robe. Silk would be a nice touch. They got those in the prison camp?”

  That night, when the men were lined up washing their boots, Menkins asked Christian who the third letter was from.

  “Jack Walter. A friend,” Christian said. “Telling me he enlisted.”

  “You hear that? Pretty boy’s lover enlisted!” Menkins shouted. “Congrats, pretty boy.”

  “Fuck yourself,” said Christian, who, never vulgar at home, had learned the art of cursing since he’d joined the Army. He took the letter from his pocket and walked off to read it again.

  Jack had left the Children’s Home, he said, and was in basic in Missouri, but in five weeks he would be joining the Seventh in Oahu.

  “Rumor has it that everyone in the 7th dies easier than a blind housefly,” Jack wrote, “so it doesn’t seem too hard to get assigned in, Hawaii or not. They practically cheered when I told them I wanted the 7th. I think those internment camp people lied to your face about doing you a favor because from what I hear, people go in but they don’t come out. But what of it, right? Because would you rather be alive in Texas or dead in Hawaii? Never mind, I know your answer to that. Hawaii is closer to Emi, and that’s why you’re there and not stuck in Camp Kraut. Love in a time of war. That’s so poetic of you. I’ll see you soon and I’ll knock that soft side right out of you. Until then, River Hills.”

  Christian kept the letter in his pocket as training continued, along with the one from his mother begging him not to die.

  At the end of December, just over a month before the Seventh Infantry Division was due to ship out from Pearl Harbor for an offensive on Japanese territory, the base was flooded with new men. Since Christian hadn’t heard from Jack in weeks, he thought he might be in the group and during a rare moment of freedom set out to look for him.

  In one of the barracks where the arrivals were getting settled amid the piercing commands of a new drill sergeant, Christian asked the man closest to the door where they had come from.

  “Jefferson Barracks, out of LeMay, Missouri,” the man said quietly, standing at attention, his shirt already sweat-stained around the collar and under the arms.

  “Really?” Christian exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting for the boys from Jefferson all week. Was Jack Walter on your boat? Black hair, about five foot seven. Loves to fight. Probably punched half the men on the ship in the face.”

  “Sorry,” said the boy, motioning to the sergeant and indicating that he didn’t want to get in trouble. Christian turned to leave but was hissed at as soon as he was out the door.

  “I know Jack Walter,” a recruit whispered from the doorway. “He was in my barracks at Jefferson and looks like the fellow you described. Where is your Jack Walter from?”

  “Milwaukee. And yours?”

  “Milwaukee.”

  “Know where I can find him?”

  “He’s supposed to be here, but he’s at a bar in Chinatown called the Hula Hula. It’s on Hotel Street. You know it?”

  “’Course I do,” said Christian of the Honolulu club where every prostitute in town eventually showed up. “Thanks for the tip.”

  When he could leave the base that day, after the evening mess hall cleanup, he hitched a ride to Chinatown with an officer who dropped Christian at the Hula Hula, saying they had the best girls, and headed off to a place down the street, declaring that he wasn’t looking for the best. “Uglier girls are better at making love,” he said before Christian closed the door. “They have to try harder.”

  “Even prostitutes?” asked Christian. “Aren’t they getting paid no matter what?”

  “Don’t get philosophical, Lange,” said the officer, pulling the door shut.

  The street was bustling with GIs and young women, some Hawaiian, but many not. He walked straight into the Hula Hula, where he could see at least two dozen girls in the dim room who looked like Emi. They had her straight black hair, and some had her tall, thin build, but none was anything like her. Of that he was sure. It wasn’t that some were prostitutes, he thought, only that no one else carried herself quite the way she did.

  Christian went up to the bar and looked around, but he didn’t see anyone who resembled Jack, either. He ordered a beer and tried to avoid the advances of the girls, bare-shouldered and hovering hopefully about the mainland GIs. As he was getting ready to polish off his drink, he heard Jack’s voice, as clear and loud as it had been on a winter day outside the home in Milwaukee. “Kraut!” he yelled.

  Christian spun around and saw Jack heading for him, his uniform sloppy, his black hair unwashed, and his face needing a shave.

  “Kraut!” he shouted again, his slight body taking up the space of a giant because of the energy he brought into the room.

  “Not really the best company to call me kraut in,” said Christian as Jack reached him at the bar and slapped him hard on the back. “Want to get me shot before we even get off this island?”

  “Nah, I don’t want anyone to kill old kraut. Say, what’s your real name again?” Jack joked as he sat down next to Christian, smelling like booze.

  “Just for that you’re not getting your shoe back, you ass,” said Christian, signaling for a second beer and one for Jack.

  “No way, Christian Lange,” Jack said. “You do not have my shoe with you. My old shoe? The best weapon ever wielded in the Milwaukee home for sad abandoned youth?” He took a long drink of his beer and said, “Guess who cried when I left? Streams of big salty tears?”

  “Braque.”

  “Yes, Braque,” said Jack. “And every girl over the age of ten.” He winked at Christian and started to laugh. “You know I miss it a little. A little,” he said, shooting Christian a look before he started to tease him.

  “I do have the shoe,” said Christian. “You can sleep with it if you want, if you miss it so much. But not the shoelace. Inge has it. She’s taking it back with her to Germany. On the train and then in the camp it became our good luck charm. Inge had the lace around her neck on the way to Texas and then I tied it around her wrist before I came here.”

  “Big kraut and little kraut. What a pair,” said Jack, lifting the cold beer to his lips and then holding the wet bottle against his forehead. “Where is she now?” he asked. “Still in that Texas prison?”

  “Yeah, still Texas, but she’ll repatriate with her family, and mine, in a year, give or take. They’re all going to Pforzheim. Unless the war ends first.”

  “It won’t,” said Jack, winking at a woman walking in the door. “Jesus Christ. Little kraut in Germany. I don’t like that prospect at all. Makes me incredibly nervous. All the bastards here can die, but if little kraut goes, I’m going to have to paddle to Germany to take care of it.”

  “She’ll be fine. She was very happy to be reunited with her mother in Texas.”

  “The only happy person in Texas,” said Jack, trying to get the attention of the Hawaiian woman he’d winked at. They both watched as she walked over, with her pretty little hips swaying in an exaggerated fashion, her floral dress tight over them. She smiled at Jack but sauntered over to an officer instead, his captain insignia shining on his shoulders.

  “Tough for you, you enlisted orphan,” said Christian laughing. All around him enlisted men, smiling big as children, were thrilled to be surrounded by women and alcohol. The décor in the bar was a garish attempt at tiki, the bar stools made of hardened straw, fake leis draped over everything, including some of
the men, but no one seemed to care. Hawaii, they all knew, could be the last welcoming place they ever saw before they moved into hostile territory, where they faced death from every angle.

  Christian motioned for another beer for Jack and prayed that he hadn’t made the stupidest decision of his life.

  “Christ, did you really give that up?” asked Jack. “Your parents, the love of little kraut—all for this?” he said, pointing to a lieutenant with his hand between a woman’s thighs.

  “Not for that,” said Christian, looking away.

  “Fine. To go chasing a Japanese girl you only knew for six months? You do know we’re not going to Japan? We are going to Kwajalein Atoll and it may be in the hands of the Japanese but it ain’t nowhere close to the empire, kraut.”

  “I’m not chasing her exactly,” said Christian, putting down his empty bottle.

  “Yes, you are. That’s exactly what you’re doing. You just don’t look as stupid as him.”

  Christian looked out to where Jack was staring and saw an enlisted man, too tall for his uniform, running after a girl, who had crouched down behind the wooden bar to avoid his advances.

  “Fine. I’m chasing her,” Christian admitted. “But in my own way.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Jack. “She finally deflowered you. Not in a field of flying monarchs, but the orange trees sounded all right, too.”

  Jack paused the conversation to let out a loud whistle, his fingers in his mouth like a traffic cop, as a girl walked in wearing not much more than a bathing suit. She was greeted by about a dozen men at the door and escorted to a seat at the other end of the bar.

  “Does she know you’re out of Crystal City? That you’re here and trying real hard to go over there?” asked Jack, his eyes on the peroxide blonde who had caused all the commotion.

  “Not yet,” Christian admitted. “I have her address in Tokyo but I haven’t written. I will before we sail for Kwajalein. Right now, I just don’t know what to say. Besides, Menkin said the letter will never reach her.”

  “Say you’re a pathetic fool who will chase her even with guns pointed at your head. And that you abandoned your parents. I love that part,” he said laughing.

  Christian rolled his eyes but turned around as he felt bare skin against his neck. A young Asian woman leaned in smiling, more with her cleavage than her mouth, but Christian turned back to Jack before she could say anything. “Emi’s not the only reason I didn’t want to go to Germany. I want to see her again, but she’s also a good excuse not to go. I can’t go there. I know I don’t belong there.”

  “Didn’t feel like being blown up in the cold? Would rather die under a palm tree?” said Jack, laughing and motioning to the woman that Christian had rebuffed to join him instead.

  “In Crystal City we started hearing stories about families who went back to Germany in ’42. The men, especially the young ones, the American citizens, were taken as prisoners of war. Suspected of spying. I’ve been in prison long enough. I don’t want to end up in a German prison.”

  “Plus, no sex under orange trees.”

  “Another reason,” said Christian.

  Jack whispered in the ear of the girl he was trying to woo and sent her on her way. “I’ll find her later,” he said, watching her walk away.

  Christian raised his eyebrows and looked at the men in the bar trying their best to seduce the Honolulu prostitutes without having to pay them and suggested to Jack that he not become one of them.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got you and your money now,” said Jack smiling.

  “Right,” said Christian. “So, out of curiosity, how many of the men you came over with hate you?”

  “All of them,” said Jack. “Except that one.” He pointed to a boy twice his size. “He’s Samoan and mean as hell, but we got into a fight and I knocked him out. Can you believe it?”

  “Yes,” said Christian dryly, pointing at his head to remind Jack of the concussion he’d given him.

  “Oh, right,” said Jack. “How was I to know your skull is about as solid as a paper cup.” He looked at the stocky boy and said, “That one was a lot tougher than you. No bullshit infirmary time over a made-up concussion. He just started liking me a lot more when he realized this wiry yet handsome frame hid the strength of a madman.”

  “You’re definitely a madman,” said Christian as he stood up. It was time for both of them to go back to base, but Jack shook his head no and clutched the bar. “I’ll take the punishment,” he said. “I’m not leaving here yet.”

  “Never mind madman. You’re still an idiot,” said Christian. He had to get outside quickly or he would not be in time to hitch a ride back to base with the other soldiers in the bar.

  “Idiot! That’s not what these girls have been saying. They love me. You’re right, Hawaii’s sure as shit better than Wisconsin. If we die here, we die here!” said Jack, standing up and throwing his hands in the air.

  “I’ll see you back on base,” Christian said, leaving money on the bar for both of them. “Don’t get syphilis.”

  CHAPTER 26

  EMI KATO

  DECEMBER 1943–JANUARY 1944

  While Claire Ohkawa had gone on about how much food the Germans in Karuizawa had compared to the Japanese and other foreigners, Emi still felt an enormous amount of guilt about accepting to play at Standartenführer Drexel’s party. But between Claire’s insistence and the Moris’ obviously hollow state, she felt she had a moral obligation to play and return home with food. She could not let her revulsion of the German military keep her away.

  “You play, you eat, keep to yourself, and if possible, you bring some food with you when you leave,” Jiro Mori had suggested when Emi had returned to his home on her first full day in Karuizawa. While the Moris had insisted that they were thrilled to have her with them, she understood very quickly that they lacked the energy to play host. The war had already taken a toll on their aged bodies, and all they had the strength for was staying warm and getting enough to eat. As they had given her a tour of their house, their bodies moving slowly through the quaint summer cottage, which felt as warm as a tent in December, they had made it clear that life in Karuizawa, especially in winter, was not easy. Despite their physical limitations, they looked every day in the forest for watercress, chestnuts, acorns, and matsutake mushrooms. There was sometimes wild boar and pheasants to hunt, but they weren’t able to do that themselves, both of them nearing their mid-eighties. They had friends who would sometimes bring them those delicacies, if they were lucky enough to find them, but mostly they lived on their meager government rations. Emi promised she would help, that she would learn to navigate Karuizawa and bring home what she could. She thought of writing to her parents and asking how aware they were of the Moris’ state, if they knew she was going to have to spend winter frozen and eating hand to mouth, but decided against it. They were already terrified for her safety; she didn’t want to worry them further.

  “You played for the Nazis just now,” Claire pointed out when Emi expressed her hesitation as they left the Mampei Hotel. “That officer, Hans Drexel, he was listening to you. That’s why he approached you. So what’s the difference if you play in the hotel or if you play at a party?”

  “The difference,” Emi said, “is that at Drexel’s I can eat and bring home food for you and the Moris, yes?”

  “I hope so,” said Claire.

  “So I will go.”

  The morning of their first encounter, Claire took Emi on a brisk walk around the small town, down country roads, pointing out the places where watercress grew in streams, which kind of mushrooms were edible and which were poisonous, and the fields where strawberries would grow in the spring.

  “There used to be ducks in this pond,” said Claire, “but as you can guess, they’ve all been eaten.”

  “It’s still quite beautiful,” said Emi, unused to such dense greenery, trees tall as buildings.

  “It is,” said Claire. “That’s why so many people come here
, but mostly in the summer because it stays so cool. Before the war it was packed with American missionaries, but they’re all gone now. More space for us, I suppose. We’re one thousand meters up, and it makes all the difference in temperature. Celebrities used to visit, too. I was here—had just married Kiyoshi—when Charles Lindbergh was celebrated at a banquet in town after he flew into Japan. The American ambassador had a large summer home in Karuizawa in the early thirties. And Douglas Fairbanks—do you know him? The American actor?”

  Emi nodded her head yes.

  “He came here in thirty-three. Played golf with the ambassador. That was all before the ski resort was built in ’35. That’s when the Germans started coming. Do all Germans ski? It seems like it here.”

  “I think the rich ones do,” said Emi, pointing to a few squat mushrooms growing on a log nestled in the light green moss beneath a dense grove of bamboo grass.

  “If you see anything edible, take it,” Claire advised, reassuring Emi that the mushrooms were shiitake and not poisonous. “Do the Moris have any animals? A cow or a goat?” she asked as Emi dug in the ground with her bare hands, the only sound that of bush warblers flying overhead.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Emi, putting the dirty mushrooms in the pocket of her coat. “They don’t seem in a state to be tending animals. They are much more elderly than I was made to believe.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Claire. “We have a milking goat and it’s kept us from melting away. We drink the milk and when I leave it on the stove, it curdles and turns to cottage cheese. You’re already very thin; you’ll have to be careful. Perhaps you can trade some of your possessions for one—though it won’t be easy. I’ll try to help,” she said, pointing out a fox on the road.

  “Do you eat those, too?” Emi asked, watching the red animal dart between two small trees.

  “No,” said Claire. “Not yet. We still consider them sacred. But ask me again next year.”

  “I wasn’t aware that there was such a food shortage here,” said Emi, putting her hand against her mushrooms.