But the true wonders of our alley were the children. I could neither count them nor forget them. They had round faces, very red cheeks, straight black bangs, fat little legs and boundless joy. I don’t think I ever heard a Japanese child cry. Certainly I never saw one struck and I came to believe that the most delectable children I had ever seen were these noisy, hilarious children. Whenever they crowded around me as I came up the alley I loved Hana-ogi more.
Each house in our alley was desperately packed, so that one tiny room often became the equivalent of a full-sized American home and these teeming masses of people lived and worked and had babies and argued politics just like all people across the world. But there was this difference. Not a shred of anything was wasted, not even the human manure which was so patiently gathered each morning and from which sprang the flowers and the food. I recall certain evenings that spring when I entered this narrow alley at close of day and the front of every house would be open and dozens of children would run, black-bobbed, to greet me and from every open room facing the alley the people of Japan would speak with me and I shared a warmth and goodness that I had never known in Lancaster or the camps where I grew up. I was one of the people—one of the millions of people who cling to whatever shred of hope and property they can grab hold of, and from this alley with the myriad children and the brawling and the flowers and the unwanted American-Japanese baby and the pachinko games and the sake drinking I borrowed a strength I had never had before.
CONSULAR REPORT: “Eskivan, Peter. Mother says, ‘No damned good.’ ”
It expressed itself in an unforeseen way. I was in my office at Itami Air Base when a sergeant appeared to tell me that Lt.Col. Calhoun Craford was outside. The florid colonel stepped in and got right down to business. “You think you’re smart” (he said it: Yawll thank yore smaht) “gettin’ a four-star giniral to come out and save your neck. You accustomed to hidin’ behind your pappy’s back?” Then he let me have it. “My men been trailin’ you, Gruver. We know you and that tramp are holed up in enlisted man’s quarters. But we can’t touch you because of your pappy. So we’re doin’ something better. We’re sendin’ Joe Kelly back to the States.”
“But what’ll happen to Katsumi?”
The fat colonel looked at me with disgust. “Who’s Kats-what’s-his-name?”
“Kelly’s wife.”
“The Jap girl. Not up to us to worry what happens to her.”
“You’re not breaking up this family?”
“Don’t call it a family. The girl’s a cheap Jap tramp.”
I said that Katsumi was a decent girl, that she was studying to become a Catholic, like her husband, but apparently Lt.Col. Craford hated Catholics worse than he hated colored people, for he said, “And when we finish with Kelly we’ll figure out some way to handle you. Father or no father.”
He left me and I sat for a long time staring at my desk, contemplating the mess I had made of things. I had proved myself a shoddy officer. I had loused up the life of an enlisted man. I had made Eileen look ridiculous and I hadn’t done much better with Hana-ogi. Then I began to weigh what I had accomplished in Japan and things looked brighter. I had come to know what a home meant, an unpretentious home where love was. I had found a beautiful girl filled with tenderness and grace and wit. I had learned at last to share my heart with another human being. And most of all I had discovered the tremendous passion of turning down the bed roll at night and seeing the slim, perfect body of Hana-ogi. I jumped up and cried, “Gruver-san, if you lose that girl you’re nuts. Marry her, stupid. Marry her.”
But as soon as I had said the words I began to sweat and I remembered all the predictions my father had made that night in the Marine Barracks. My career gone, my wings and their promise lost, my place in my American world vanished and I with an Asiatic wife. It was then that my new-found courage asserted itself.
I recognized the trick my father had played on me. He had planted those poisonous seeds so that they could flourish at just such a moment, and I decided that it was against such tricks that I was revolting. I did not want to become a general like my father, with his cold cut-offness from the world. I didn’t want to be a second General Webster, ruled by Eileen. And I certainly didn’t ever want to become a Lt.Col. Craford. I wanted to be one man, standing by myself, sharing whatever world I could make with the woman who had helped me to discover that world. In my moment of resolution and light I knew that I would never waver from my purpose. I was going to marry Hana-ogi.
I called Joe Kelly and asked him to meet me at a tiny bar we knew in Osaka where M.P.’s never came. It’s impossible to describe such Japanese bars to Americans. How can you explain a bar so small that it has space for only four customers and two hostesses?
“Joe,” I said in greeting, “can you keep a secret?”
“Sure, Ace.”
“I mean two secrets. Big ones?”
“Hanako havin’ a baby?”
“Joe, Blubber-gut is laying for you. He’s going to ship you home first chance he gets.”
“That’s no secret. He threatened me openly two days ago. I didn’t tell anybody. Didn’t want to worry you. But he shouted, ‘All you nigger-lovers are goin’ home. Soon.’ ”
“Joe, I want you to promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Me? I should be stupid like him?”
“Look. One night I heard you tell Katsumi you were going to shoot Blubber-gut.”
“Me? I’m no rod man. What’s your other secret?”
I ordered another beer and took a big gulp. “Exactly what papers do you have to sign to marry a Japanese girl?”
Joe whistled and said, “Look, Ace. This ain’t far you. Suppose Hanako is beggin’ you to marry her! It ain’t for you.”
“Joe, don’t jump to conclusions. I haven’t told her yet. But so help me God, I’m going to marry that girl. What are the steps?” He repeated his earlier warning and I asked, “You mean you’re sorry you married Katsumi?”
A big grin broke on Joe’s face and he said, “One night I told you that bein’ married to that Buddha-head was livin’. It ain’t. It’s somethin’ much finer than livin’. It’s like you was dead and all the stress and strain was over and all that was left was the very best—and it’s the best because it’s all wrapped up in her. It ain’t livin’, Ace, I used to live in Chicago. This is way beyond that.”
I sat with my hands over my face and didn’t look up for a moment. Then I said, “I feel exactly that way about Hanayo.”
Joe ignored this and said, “Ace, I don’t believe you could take the bad time they give you.”
“What do you mean?”
“They wear you down. Enlisted men get used to bein’ worn down but you ain’t had the experience of diggin’ your heels in real stubborn and resistin’.”
“How do you mean?”
“They give you so many papers. The chaplain prays over you. And everything they do they do with crazy smiles, like you was off your rocker and only they could save you. And what’s worse, they ask the girl so many heart-burnin’ questions. Hana-ogi won’t tell you but some night when you kiss her she’ll break down and cry for an hour. I don’t think you could take it.”
I said, “Tomorrow morning I’m starting the paper work.”
He said, “Ace, you’re a big man. It would make them look silly to lose you to a Japanese girl. So they’ll hit you with big stuff.”
“I’m ready.”
“Ace, they’ll hit you with generals and admirals and men who knew your father. The only way you can swing it is to get the help of your Congressman. Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where do you live?”
“I don’t have …”
“Well, where do you vote?”
“I’ve never voted.” For the first time I realized that I was completely a military man. The Air Force was my home. I cast my vote with the talking end of an F-86.
Joe studied this and said, “Don’t worry. P
ractically any Congressman would love to fight your battle. You want me to take it up with Shimmark? He loves to get his name in the paper.”
I thanked Joe and said I’d work it out somehow, but that very night they started to throw the big reasons at me, even before I had told Hana-ogi that I was going to give up the Air Force and marry her. It happened a long way off, in Texas, for that night I heard a radio program explaining why the Democrats of Texas were going to support Dwight Eisenhower for President. I had known the general at several different bases and had played with his son. Suddenly, there in the dark streets of Osaka, Eisenhower became the symbol of what a major in the Air Force might become: a man ready for many different kinds of action if his country needed him. For one hellish hour I walked the streets weighing what I was doing and then I found myself at the entrance to my alley, and Skinny Watanabe-san had struck it rich at pachinko and ran out in the street to offer me a beer and I got a rosy glow on, and about eleven Hana-ogi came down to take me home, but I did not tell her then of the great decision I had made.
In the morning I sneaked into Kobe, for I did not want either General Webster or Lt.Col. Craford to see me, and I went to the American consulate. Luck was with me, for Mr. Carstairs, the fuddy consul, was not yet in and I could talk privately with his secretary, the horse-faced girl who had married a G.I.
She recognized me at once and said, “You made my kid brother the hero of his whole block.”
“How do you mean?”
“Your autograph. The kids take Korea seriously, even if grownups don’t.”
Although she said this with a smile I noticed that she was eyeing me suspiciously and after I had made a few awkward starts at conversation she put her two hands firmly on her desk and said, “Major Gruver, did you come here to find out about marrying a Japanese girl?”
I gulped and must have blushed, for she added immediately, “I can spot you guys a mile off. What are you ashamed of?”
I asked her what she meant by that and she laughed. “You all think there’s some tricky way to get around the red tape. And you’re all ashamed to speak to your superior officers.” She looked up at me with such infectious amusement that I had to laugh, whereupon she said, “But you, Ace Gruver. I never thought you’d tumble for a Buddha-head.”
I fumbled a bit and asked, “Just what are the paper requirements?”
“I can’t tell you a thing, Major.”
“You work here.”
“Forbidden. You military heroes have to clear everything through your chain of command.”
“You mean it’s as tough as that?”
“It’s tougher, Major. We don’t want men like you marrying Japanese girls. We make it extra tough for men like you.”
“I was only asking,” I said.
“Sure! There hasn’t ever been a soldier in here who really intended to get married. They were all only asking!”
“Then you won’t help?”
The big girl looked out the door to see if Mr. Carstairs had arrived yet. Satisfying herself on that point she said, “Old Droopy Drawers lives by the book. He’d fire me if he saw me talking with you about legal matters. But I figure if a man can shoot down seven MIGs he’s entitled to some help.”
She showed me a completed file on a sailor who had married a Japanese girl. I had heard of the paper work. I had even seen some of it during Joe Kelly’s marriage. But I had not comprehended how repetitious and degrading it was. I began to understand what Joe meant when he said that only an enlisted man, conditioned to standing in line and taking guff, could see a Japanese wedding through.
I said, “Isn’t this a pretty tough obstacle course?”
The girl laughed and said, “If I had my way, we’d make it tougher. Men like you oughtn’t to grab Jap girls just because they’re available.”
“I don’t want a lecture,” I protested.
“Look, Major. I’m your big sister. Remember? We just made a study of which Americans were marrying Japanese girls. The findings aren’t pleasant.” She riffled some papers and read off the dismal case hostories: “Wyskanski, Noel. Orphaned. No education. Had a fist fight with the Catholic priest. Reform school.” “Merchant, Nicholas. Ran away from home. Been in guard house regularly since being drafted. Two court-martials. Threatened the Japanese social worker who proved that the first girl he wanted to marry was a notorious prostitute.” “Kelly, Joe. Your friend. Worst record in the Air Force in Korea. Constant discipline problem. Accused of murdering a drunk in Chicago but case thrown out of court on technicality. Always on the verge of criminal prosecution. Recommended twice for dismissal from the Air Force.” She tossed Kelly’s paper aside and asked bluntly, “How’d you get mixed up with a dead-end mutt like him?”
“He was in my unit.”
“Did you meet your Japanese girl through Kelly?” I hesitated a moment trying to frame an answer but the smart girl understood. She put aside the file and said patiently, “Major Gruver, you’re simply not the type. These men—these perpetual failures …” She hammered the file and turned away to blow her nose. At that moment the front door opened and in came prim Mr. Carstairs. In one instantaneous glance he saw me and the marriage file and his secretary wiping her eyes. He stepped precisely into the middle of the doorway and said, “My goodness, Major Gruver isn’t thinking of getting married to a Japanese girl, is he?”
The secretary looked up and sniffed. “Yes, damn it all, he is. And I’ve been telling him he’s a complete fool.”
“You are,” Mr. Carstairs said. He passed through our room and said sharply as he left, “But there’s nothing to worry about. The Air Force wouldn’t let such a stupid thing happen.”
When he was gone the secretary asked, “Has your Jap girl started her part of the paper work?”
I said, “Well … I haven’t …”
With great relief the big girl started to laugh. “I understand! You haven’t asked her, have you? Thank God!”
I blushed and said, “Look, we’re getting married.”
She ignored this and said, “I feel so much better. Ace, dozens of you men come in here to ask about getting married. But most of you haven’t proposed yet. Then I breathe easy because everything is all right.”
“You have some special way of stopping it?”
“No,” she said surprised. “It’s just that first-class Japanese girls won’t marry American men. They prefer Japan. Ace, believe, me, it’s ten-to-one that the kind of girl you deserve won’t marry you, and the kind you can get, you wouldn’t want.”
I looked at the shabby office and at the pile of marriage reports. Grimly I said, “You can start a new file. ‘Gruver, Lloyd. Well educated. Never in trouble. Best man the Air Force had in Korea. Clean-cut American type. Married a Japanese girl because he loved her.’ Show it to your Mr. Carstairs every day.”
In real anger I went over to the village of Takarazuka, where I waited in a vegetable stall near the Bitchi-bashi and toward noon I saw the first Takarazuka girls go by in their swaying green skirts. Then Fumiko-san passed me and I hid in the back of the store until she had disappeared. Finally I saw Hana-ogi approaching and I had that rare experience that a man sometimes knows when he sees the girl he loves picking her way along a crowded lane unaware that he is watching, and at such times—when the girls are not on their good behavior, you might say—they are extraordinarily lovely and ratify doubly all thoughts and decisions of preceding days. Hana-ogi was like that. She wore a gray kimono flecked with silver and gold, and it encased her lovingly, and her feet in light gray zori threaded an intricate pattern through the crowds of noonday shoppers, and as she drew near my vegetable stall I was fluttering like a broken propeller but at last I knew what I wanted. I reached out, grabbed her arm, and drew her in beside me. The man who ran the stall smiled and moved out onto the pavement as if accustomed to having his shop invaded in that manner every day.
“Hanayo!” I cried with a passion I had never before experienced. “I’ve made up my mind, and I’ve
started the paper work. We’re going to be married.”
Apparently she didn’t understand for she said, “What do you say?”
“I’m going to marry you. Take you back to America.”
I remember that the shop was filled along one wall with enormous white Japanese radishes, four feet long and thick as a man. Hana-ogi drew back against them and held her hand to her cheek, where in the Japanese style short hair grew down in sideburns. She looked at me for a moment and tears came into her dark eyes.
“We no speak of marriage, Rroyd-san. No. No.”
“I know it’s a surprise,” I said. “But I’ve thought it all out and I’m willing to give up the Air Force and find some other job.”
“But Rroyd, I no go America.”
“We’ll work that out, too,” I said. “Some time they’ll change this crazy law so a man can take his wife home.”
“You no understand, Rroyd-san. I no want to go.”
I stepped away from the giant radishes and stared at Hana-ogi. It was incomprehensible to me that any Japanese girl, living in that cramped little land with no conveniences and no future, would refuse America. What was it the officer’s wife in the Osaka P.X. had said: “The damned little Jap girls lay in wait at street corners with lassos and rope the American soldiers in.” I said, “I’ll explain it all to you tonight.”
But she replied most strangely, “Some day you leave Japan, Rroyd-san. Before you go I like you see pictures of real Hana-ogi. In Kyoto.”
“I don’t want to see any pictures!” I cried. “Damn it, I came here to tell you we’re getting married.”
“You get auto tomorrow morning—early.” She moved quickly toward the door of the shop, then turned to kiss me passionately on the lips. “When you go back America,” she said, “I want you remember great beauty of Hana-ogi.”
Sayonara: A Novel Page 16
