Vlad continued to translate. “My brother hopes you will enjoy the dance tonight. Everybody’s fixing good stuff to eat.” He grinned. “And some of us . . . well, we can make pretty good music. You’ll see.”
“Please expect us!” Swede declared. He glanced at Tom. “Maybe we should learn more about markets in Japan. Too bad Mr. Tsurifune will miss the party here tonight.”
Tom shrugged. “If he wants to stay we’ll put him up.”
“Back at the ship we can radio your pilot not to come for you today,” Swede said to the Japanese. “Go tomorrow instead.”
The Japanese seemed pleased and excited, although he appeared to be trying to hide it. “This will be . . . very nice, sir!”
“Then what the heck,” Tom declared and entered into the spirit of it. “Two ship’s owners here, so I declare a majority. Maybe even serve you some of our crab and salmon. You might as well see we’ve got a good product.” He stretched, and the notion seemed to grow on him. “Done. Stay the night. We have at least one bunk vacant that I know of. In the cabin where you sleep, Jones. And he’s welcome to it, right, Jones?”
Jones tried not to show his anger and disgust since it was clear he had no say in the matter. Just get out of this Jap-loving place as soon as possible.
31
ALEUTIAN DANCE
After paying their visits to the two head men of Akutan Village, Kiyoshi Tsurifune accompanied the Americans by open boat back to the catching-processing vessel Deep Sea. What luck! When he’d engaged the little plane to fly him from Dutch Harbor to Akutan, it had been merely to familiarize himself with a Native village as part of his general reconnaissance. Dealing with their Natives might be a necessary component of doing business in this part of America. But now, by visiting their new processor ship, he could actually observe a new American seafood venture. Could report on how it competed with or might be of use to a Japanese enterprise.
Once aboard the vessel Deep Sea, the man Tom took him to a cabin and indicated a bunk. “You can sleep here tonight. I’ll have them make it up with sheets. Get you a towel. Mr. Jones Henry here, he’ll—. Hey Jones, where are you? Thought he was right with us. Well, anyhow, make yourself at home. I showed you the messdeck on the way down. Get coffee or tea any time there, okay? We’ll all go back to that dance in two hours time, so rest up and get ready.”
Left to himself, Kiyoshi exited the cabin in favor of exploring the ship. Before long he had found the processing compartment—now vacant. It smelled strongly of disinfectant. At the long preparation tables he counted out spaces for the number of workers who might line them. Looking around first to make sure he was alone, he pulled open the heavy, latched door of a freeze locker. He propped a box in the doorframe to make sure the locker wouldn’t close on him and quickly pulled trays from a rack coated white with ice. His breath frosted. Big crab legs. And a red-fleshed fish that was surely salmon. Yes. Here indeed was product and opportunity.
“Lose something?” At the entrance to the locker door stood the man Jones Henry.
“Ah! Only . . . looking.”
“So I can see.”
Kiyoshi rapidly followed the man outside and closed the heavy locker door behind him. “Good product, sir,” he ventured.
“Lose your way? I’ll take you to the messdeck.”
“So. Yes. Thank you.”
A few hours later, Kiyoshi stood with Tom, Swede, and Jones Henry in the boat that took them from the processing vessel Deep Sea back across the lagoon to the village of Akutan. It was nearly dusk. Lights flickered in some of the houses ashore. Against the rain, they all wore borrowed oilskin coats that dripped water around their feet. Kiyoshi wore also the dark suit in which he had come from Dutch Harbor that morning, and the same shoes, although Swede had loaned him dry socks. Behind them at the old whaling station, the expected Coast Guard ship moved in to tie behind the Deep Sea. Its black hull, brown superstructure, and even its flags appeared dimly through the rain, but Kiyoshi could tell that this was a longer vessel than the processor that had taken him aboard for the night. Good fortune thus to experience both vessels and their crews in a single visit! Six years ago at war’s end, American sailors had been kind and generous. Had given him denim pants—now patched beyond wear and folded in honorable retirement, never to be discarded. So, now, more American sailors. Would they still be kind to a foreigner?
Stay controlled. Despite the fact that he now represented a fishing company, he might see the men on this military ship in their uniforms and automatically bow to them as victors still. No longer should he be ashamed to be alive—a soldier defeated. The call for honorable suicide had long passed. He was alive. With a son. Yes, representing fishing vessels. Was treated with respect. His glance, as it often did, stole toward Jones Henry. He was of Kiyoshi’s group, but yet stood apart from him. The American most important of all, to whom he owed his life. The man’s jaw stayed rigid under a cap pulled down against the rain, his eyes cold whenever their gazes crossed. Perhaps the only American he feared. Unpaid obligation. However to repay it?
When the boat’s engine stopped he could hear the chug of generators ashore. The tide was low. Kiyoshi followed Tom and Swede up the slippery ladder from boat to pier. Barely had he reached the uppermost planking when a large dog barked straight into his face. With a cry he scrambled back down the ladder and his legs tangled with the head of Jones Henry behind him.
“Watch yourself!” Jones cried.
Above them Tom laughed. “Come on up, he’s not going to hurt you. Here boy, nice fellow. Look at that tail wagging.” Trembling with shame and trepidation, Kiyoshi steeled himself to climb again and step onto the pier. If the others were so bold, better to have the terrible creature bite him than to show fear. To Jones Henry behind him he dipped his head—not bowed—in apology.
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Jones.
Two other dogs ran over, all of them barking. Large ugly black creatures! Kiyoshi pressed against his companions as much as he dared while they walked onward. But indeed the dogs did not bite. And, for what difference it made, their tails did wag. Tom strode ahead along a muddy road, past small, newly painted houses to a long low building lit brightly inside. As they approached, a nearby generator made an especially loud spitting noise and then stopped altogether. All the lights went out. A Native man came running from the door to examine it. “Guess we forgot to fill the tank again from the last party,” he muttered. “We better go pump some more.”
“Run then, lad,” directed the Scotsman, who had appeared at the door. “Run! Run! The ladies inside are all bumping against each other in the dark.” He saw the men from the boat. “Welcome. Welcome. Come in from the rain. I’ve exaggerated the dark inside, you see, to make him hurry or he might take all night, eh? Come. Welcome!”
Inside, with only a couple of windows to admit the fading daylight, it was indeed dim. As Kiyoshi’s eyes adjusted he watched everywhere the shapes of people moving about. In another circumstance, perhaps only in a dream, they could have been spirits. Soon their features took form. Among those adjusting cloths and setting platters on long tables he recognized the women from the two kitchens he had entered. Busy at women’s work. Some men shouted from ladders as they hung what appeared to be garland. Others opened folding chairs and lined them against the walls. A few men clustered on a small stage. Kiyoshi recognized the chief they had visited and his brother, the Native worker from the ship. From the sounds that followed, Kiyoshi guessed they were tuning musical instruments.
“Going to be a big night, eh?” declared the Scotsman. “Not only you fine fellows from the Deep Sea, but soon also the men from the Coast Guard cutter Sweetbrier just come in for fuel. After nothing but ourselves for weeks—nay since the last time Deep Sea tied here three months ago! And soon winter, and nothin’ coming again till spring. So this is a night!” He wiped sweat from his face with a large cloth.
Kiyoshi stepped clear as a swath of glittering ornaments flopped to the floor. Tom picked it up an
d handed it back to one of the men on a ladder who had been trying to nail it to a beam.
“No, no. You fellows now, don’t need to work. Hang your oilskins on that rack by the door. Then serve yourselves fruit punch over where the ladies are setting up. Find chairs and relax.” The Scotsman turned politely to Kiyoshi. “Tea in a pitcher there, too, sir. My wife fixed it special, since that’s what you people drink, eh?” He wiped his face again. “So! We’ll have lights back on soon. And the music. And everything! Just be patient!”
Outside, the generator started to put-put. Lights flickered and died out again. Finally, the generator settled into a steady roar and lights suddenly glared in the hall. “Ah!” exclaimed several of the townspeople. Kiyoshi looked around. Indeed, there now glowed enough red and yellow from the paper garlands draped from the roof to resemble a temple at festival.
An hour or so later, amid the noise, Kiyoshi had found a chair near the doorway and settled in safely while people talked and moved around him. It was informative to watch. How at first the Americans stayed apart even from the Native men who served on the same ship, though both groups served themselves punch and food elbow-to-elbow at the table. How then the Native men up on stage began to play vigorous music on a violin and two accordions. How the Native women and girls from the village came, most of them shyly, to lead both sets of men to the dance floor. How then, gradually, the people intermixed. In Japan, if such an unlikely situation had ever presented itself, neither group would have combined with the other. Yet there would have been far more politeness between the two. Surely no laughs and loud calls back and forth.
He hardly dared admit how invigorating it would be to become part of such a thing. Certainly never admit it to the vessel owners back in Shiogama, or to his wife, or even to Father. None of them would understand. He himself barely understood. So just continue to smile, he told himself, while he watched two kinds of Americans deal with each other. Suddenly the door burst open. Snow blew in and with it, three sailors in uniform. They each carried a cardboard box.
“The Coast Guard has landed!” announced one of the men. Someone in the hall called out a welcome in good cheer. It was the friendly man named Tom. Another man from the Deep Sea vessel echoed.
“And what’s that?” Tom continued. “Snow? In September?”
“Wet. Just all of a sudden. Won’t last.” The Scotsman hurried over and shook each of the Coast Guard sailors’ hands. “Stuff for the party? On the radio they said you might bring something. Over here. Over here. The man said maybe ice cream, eh? And maybe hot dogs and lettuce that I said we’ve been out of since the last steamer?”
“Ice cream’s already starting to melt, sir. We don’t have dry ice, just regular ice.”
One of the women opened a box and held up a chocolate-covered ice-cream bar. The music stopped. The stage and dance floor emptied as villagers crowded around. They tore off wrappers, some of which fell to the floor, and joked as they ate.
“Ah. And there you have a true party!” exclaimed the Scotsman as he pulled off an ice cream wrapper himself and bit into the dessert.
Others from the Coast Guard ship arrived, brushing wet snow from their coats. The sailors wore short black jackets and caps of either dark wool or of a rigid white fabric. They stayed together for a while, looking around as a group. Some of the girls came over, bashfully it seemed. Kiyoshi watched, apart as he knew himself to be, yet drawn to what was happening. Those sailors who paired to dance with the girls did not always return to their own group, which gradually scattered.
Then there were three officers, to judge from their longer overcoats and flattened hats rather than caps. They looked around, then headed toward Tom and the other, older Caucasian members of the Deep Sea, and soon were shaking hands. When the Scotsman joined them, they each shook his hand also. A few minutes later came two men in brown uniform rather than black. They entered no further than the doorway and stood against the wall near Kiyoshi. He turned only for a moment to watch them. One had eyebrows so thick and black that they looked like brush strokes, as on the makeup of a Kabuki actor. The man scowled, but his companion nodded to Kiyoshi, who kept his automatic smile but turned quickly away. He made himself concentrate on the center floor where some of the sailors had begun to dance. One of them hugged his girl close. Another pushed his partner an arm’s length and then pulled her back while his own legs bent in time to the music. Her red dress had spare pieces of cloth on the shoulders that flared out when she twirled. In both instances the girls appeared, with their happy-seeming eyes, to be enjoying themselves. Were they not the girls working with their mother in Mr. McGregor’s kitchen, those daughters who had brought out extra chairs? His own Miki back home in Japan, although forthright and lively in the privacy of their home, would surely never before their marriage have been so bold in public. Nor in front of strangers. And these men seemed so self-assured. They expected such behavior. Even if he wished to be American, he realized, there were barriers he could never expect to surmount. Nor ever wish to!
“If I wanted one, I’d take that blister in the red,” said the Coast Guard man with black eyebrows who stood near him.
“You don’t want to fool with these Native girls, Jimmy,” the other replied.
“I said if I wanted one, cuz. That one looks less gook than the others. Didn’t mean I was going to waste my cock in a hole like this. Where they might make you marry one if you knocked her up.”
“You’re always making jokes.”
“I never joke about some things, Hancock. See you back at the ship.”
“Come on, stick around.”
“Need to do paint locker inventory. Or rope locker. Working buoys out there in shitty weather you never get the chance.”
“That’s work you tell your striker to do, man. What’s eating you? Relax. This here’s just a party with nice people. Other times there’s plenty for the rest.”
“Times ashore here in these islands, we ought to be out shooting birds or catching fish or whatever. Not dressed up and drinking lemonade. Not tit-wiggling with girls we can’t shack up with.”
“Just a nice little party, Jim. Look how they’ve gone to all this trouble decorating for us. How they’re all dressed up for us.”
“Yeah. In red.”
Suddenly one of the Native women approached Kiyoshi and, without warning, took his hand. “You dance? You come on, now.” Before he could reply she had pulled him to his feet and led him to the open floor. What followed was exhilarating, even though the most he could do was stumble in time to the music, trying to follow her feet in their bright green shoes. She never relinquished his hand. Fortunately, she never pulled him close to her as some of the others were doing. After a few minutes he was able to anticipate her steps better. By the time that the music stopped and she had led him back to his chair. He wanted to continue, and his smile was not plastered on to guard himself.
“Lookin’ good there, buddy,” laughed the American named Tom as they passed each other.
“Hai!” he panted. Tom’s back was already turned when he remembered to say, “Yes. Yes!” instead.
He was relieved to see that the two sailors in brown had moved. They stood now by a table, loading food onto their plates. Seated again, Kiyoshi could hardly stay still. He glanced everywhere, enjoying all the sights. There were not only loops of sparkling paper draped from the boards of the ceiling, but strips of bright cloth fastened along the walls. Decorations even across the tops of the windows, where wind from outside made the material billow and ripple. His gaze traveled until it located Jones Henry. The man stood alone at another corner of the hall, staring straight at him. Kiyoshi nodded automatically. The stare continued with no acknowledgment. Kiyoshi looked away. So. Perhaps it was not so good that he would be sharing a cabin with this man.
32
FORBIDDEN HOOTCH
Look at him there, Jones Henry thought. The grin on his face could have been painted on an egg for all it told. That Jap smirk. As if everyt
hing he saw was as good as anything else. Treacherous. And the rest. Colored paper hanging like they were at some low-budget circus. Some of the ribbons had already flopped to the floor and been kicked around by the dancers until somebody ran out and grabbed it up. And that half-assed music from two accordions and a squeaking violin. At least a Victrola could have played records of real dancing music, like Glenn Miller or Tommy Dorsey. Not that he himself was any kind of fancy dancer, but just the same. Maybe if Adele was here hanging on his arm, and laughing for a change, it would be different. Be okay.
It was going to be a long night if the best thing they served at this so-called party was sugar water. Long past time to forget all this and go home to Ketchikan. Things to face there that wouldn’t sort themselves out. The move to Kodiak would have to help. Best get back there and look for a place. A move he half wanted to make and half didn’t, since it meant leaving the folks. Well, if it wasn’t Kodiak where there was fishing for a man, she’d start talking California again, with her folks and a naval base and who knew what-all.
After the Coast Guard stormed through the door, things at the dance picked up a little. The wet snow they carried in on their shoulders seemed to signal a change of more than the weather. The older women setting out the table started giggling among themselves while the younger ones pulled at their dresses to smooth them straight. If only the Coasties had brought some booze along with their ice cream.
Most of the Coastie sailors were just kids, willing enough to dance if the girls approached them. Easy stuff he himself had long outgrown, back during the war when he’d first strutted in his uniform. The couple of officers homed straight toward the college types aboard the Deep Sea and soon were talking about things like . . . banks and opera, probably. Then there were the two chiefs he knew from Eva’s on Creek Street all those years back. Guys who had inspected his bilge realistically and could tie a knot or two. His own kind, finally.
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