by Doug Walker
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Orson settled into a splendid room at the Shinjuku Prince Hotel at 1-30-1 Kabuki-cho. He admired the structure, 25 floors and 571 rooms, like a small city, perfect for vacuuming up information. With his scar and eye patch he would be the most unlikely spy.
No matter, he wasn’t quite certain of his mission. He had pay TV in his room. Knowing Japan he was certain it was porn. There was also the offer of in-room massage. Knowing Japan, Mary had warned him in a veiled way to avoid STDs.
His first choice was to get chummy with the concierge, the know-all, tell-all, about the local goings-on. A well-dressed handsome gentleman occupied that stand-up desk in the lobby. Orson placed a twenty dollar bill on the desk and said he might need information about what to do in the city.
To his surprise, the concierge brushed the money onto the lobby floor with the tart comment, “This is Japan. Our currency is the yen.”
Orson stared at the man for a moment with his single eye, then turned and walked to the coffee shop. He wondered how much time the twenty would spend on the floor. So, his mission underway, he sensed anti-Americanism.
By the time he had checked into the Shinjuku the Marines were already leaving Okinawa and all military dependents in Japan had been ordered evacuated. So there was quite a flurry on TV and in the English language papers. Orson was certain the Japanese press and electronic media would be even more strident. The relationship with America had been long, tedious and stressful. But why such a sudden turnaround?
In the U.S. members of Congress and the military were wondering the same thing. The President was lying low for the moment. She had ordered the military not to replace the numbers leaving the Japanese islands. The draw down had begun in earnest.
She had joked with Lucy Lapin about congressmen complaining that she might “hollow out the military.”
“With our defense budget, our legions aren’t about to melt away. It would take me and two or three future presidents just to get the military-industrial complex down to what one might term a defensive force. While we’re on the topic, ask the secretary of defense to make up a list of twenty-five overseas installations that might be shut down. I’ll need it the day after tomorrow.”
On the long plane ride to Japan, Orson had been studying the Japanese government. He found it Byzantine, fragmented and opaque. Otherwise, it seemed to be doing an OK job of running the country. Japanese generally thought as one. Some wag had suggested they didn’t really need a spoken language as each knew what the other was thinking.
But, whatever. Orson took a long, pragmatic view of things. He had never attempted to separate good from evil and had always enjoyed the poem with the line, “I am the slayer and the slain.” He had communicated with the President about a decided anti-American tone among some Japanese.
Seated in the lobby, across from the concierge’s desk, occasionally staring at the man with his one good eye, Orson had been going through some English language Japanese periodicals when a heavily tattooed muscular man strode by.
Calling out to him, “Sir, do you speak English?”
The man stopped and replied in the affirmative. “If you would pause a moment, I’d like to ask you a question.”
The man nodded approval and Orson said, “The man at the desk across from me. I was told if I tipped him he would help me with information. I placed an American twenty dollar bill on his desk and he brushed it off on the floor and appeared to be angry. Because you are Japanese, might you ask him why he dislikes me?”
The man seemed to show a flicker of a smile and walked to the concierge’s desk, only to return in a few moments. “It seems he doesn’t like Americans. He also told me that I shouldn’t be in his hotel. So now he has insulted both of us. What should I do?”
Orson smiled, knowing full well that the tattooed man was Japanese mafia, the yakuza. “Leave quietly, I suppose. He hasn’t asked me to leave yet. Perhaps I should start packing.”
Someone once told Orson that if you ever saw a Japanese man smiling you should get away from him as quickly as possible. But this Yakuza grinned and said, “Please don’t check out. Sit down here tomorrow when the man comes on duty. You might see a great change. I belong to a certain, you might say, ‘club.’ It does not enjoy criticism. You might say I am honor bound to respond in some way. In fact if I don’t respond the entire organization loses face. It’s a Japanese thing.”
“I see,” Orson said. “I will take your advice and be here tomorrow. A person can change his mind.”
The Yakuza turned and glared at the concierge, then strode on out of the hotel.
After a late western breakfast (two eggs, bacon, home fries and toast, plus three cups of coffee) Orson returned to his lobby couch only to find that yesterday’s concierge had been replaced by an attractive young female person. Because many Japanese women hold their youthful features until well into middle life, it was impossible to tell her age.
Orson approached her with the original comment, “You’re new here.”
Smiling sweetly, she replied, “I’m usually on the nightshift, dealing with drunks and horny older men.”
“Where is yesterday’s day shift?”
“Ill. Quite ill.”
“He looked healthy yesterday.”
“The truth is he’s in hospital. Seems he had an accident.”
“Anything to do with his insulting a member of the yakuza?”
“No one would be that stupid.”
“You overestimate your colleague’s intelligence and his ego. I was witness to that affair.” Orson placed a twenty dollar bill on the desk and said, “I might need advice as to what’s happening in the city.”
“I’m here to serve you, up to a point.” She slipped the currency off the desk.
“What point would that be?”
“You don’t buy me for twenty dollars. Information only.”
“What do you think about these stories of American troops leaving Japan?”
“I think it’s about time. That war was long over before I was born. No one is about to attack these islands. We have claws and sharp sticks.”
“Japan attacked America once. Could that happen again?”
“I was told it never did happen. We fell into the Pearl Harbor trap. But give us a year or two and we can attack anyone that displeases us.”
“You’re a nationalist.”
“Whatever that means, you’re probably right. If it means I’m a Japanese patriot, yes. Again, up to a point.”
“And what point might that be.”
“I sleep with the occasional foreigner.”
Orson thought he’d play the game. “Do you think I’m ugly?”
“What’s on your face doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me.”
“I see. You’re concerned with the inner man. Inner beauty. The true and soaring spirit.”
“If you say so, Sparky. This twenty buys quite a bit of information. Drop by anytime.”
Orson got to know the woman by her shortened name, Kaz, and chatted with her frequently during the next few days. He also talked at least once a day to the President on what he believed to be a secure line.
There was no problem spotting right wing groups in Japan. Every large city seemed to have the huge black trucks or vans that drove rapidly through the streets now and then blaring nationalistic messages through a loud speaker.
The Japanese general name for the groups was Uyoku dantai. There are an estimated one thousand such groups with a total membership of at least a hundred thousand. One of the more militant was the Issuikai, which sees Japan as a U.S. puppet state and demanded total freedom. There was even a small neo-Nazi party.
Orson’s research, plus his talks with Kaz and others he met on a casual basis, were all fodder for the President’s shadow campaign, which gradually turned attention toward the Japanese Islands as a possible threat to America. Many in the Congress applauded evacuating troops and dependents from the island nation.
There was
enough meat on the bones for publicity hungry members of both houses to call hearings. Japanese dissidents living in the States were eager to testify. All of which pleased the President and permitted her to move ahead unhindered with more important work.
Using the list of foreign climes where U.S. military units seemed to be simply wasting away, the President highlighted the top ten and ordered preparations to evacuate.
The number one on that list was Germany where the country not only had troops and equipment, but a major hospital facility. The President proposed recalling all troops and dependents from Germany and relocating the hospital operation to the United Kingdom if an agreement could be reached.
Since so many foreign countries welcomed the removal of the facilities, there would be heavy local job losses with no replacement in sight. So it was not simply a win-win situation. Some U.S. servicemen had spent their entire military careers stationed in Germany, although deployed elsewhere from time to time. They had German wives or lovers and German-speaking offspring.
Although Orson had been hanging out in the vicinity of the Shinjuku Prince for some days, no one had recognized him until a member of the Japanese Diet spotted him seated in the lobby and did a double take.
Orson looked up from his reading to see a yam-shaped, balding man in an expensive suit standing over him. “You work for the White House in Washington.”
“You’ve got that right. To whom am I speaking?”
“Taro Yamaguchi. I am a Dietman.”
“A member of the Japanese parliament?”
“Correct. Does your presence here have anything to do with the present anti-Japanese campaign being waged by your White House?”
“That’s right to the point.”
“Why beat about the bush as you might say. I spent two years at our embassy in Washington and studied at Brown for the better part of a year. I’m familiar with American politics.”
“All politics bear a similarity, dating back to Greek and Roman times. There are nationalistic groups in Japan that are happy to see us go.”
“We have been good neighbors.”
“Not so on trade matters,” Orson insisted. “You have refused to buy certain of our products for no valid reason while insisting we purchase your products. How do you account for that?”
“Business is business,” Yamaguchi insisted.
There is a certain quid pro quo even in business. We buy your transistors, you buy our rice. Yet we bought your transistors and you bought rice from Thailand. How many transistors do you sell in Thailand?”
“Transistors are passé.”
“I’m citing long ago examples. I don’t wish to quarrel with you. Our two countries seem to have differences. I suspect the Diet could do something about those differences. What have you done?”
“I am only one member of a large, sometimes unruly body. What can I do?”
“You are only one. But you are one. You cannot do everything, but you can do something.”
“It seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
“But it smacks of the truth. Have you been a good friend of my country?”
“I am a good friend of Japan. And Japan has been a loyal friend of the United States.”
“Do you fear Korea or China?”
“Certainly not. We Japanese fear no one.”
“Wonderful. Then our military pullout shouldn’t bother you in the least. It will save us a few dollars, a few billion that is.”
“But it seems a hostile act.”
“Bombing Pearl Harbor was a hostile act.”
“We were tricked into that. That’s well known.”
“Well known in Japanese folklore. But let’s put aside our differences and be friends. We’re both in the same business. No reason to posture.”
“What is posturing? Or who is posturing?”
“The Pearl Harbor thing.” Orson was having a bit of fun. “Sending carriers across a wide stretch of the Pacific. Launching planes to wipe out our fleet. How could the brilliant Japanese be tricked into doing such a thing?”
“It can be explained.”
“Don’t bother. The truth is the Japanese will welcome saying sayonara to our troops. Except for the handful employed by them or somehow making money by their presence. But that will fade away.”
“You do have a point there. They have caused us no end of trouble.”
“Of course,” Orson agreed. “Generally they are young, fairly irresponsible men and women, many of them drink and party too much. They get into trouble here just as they get into trouble at bases in the States. Youth must be served. But they will fight, risk their lives, without thinking twice.”
“Our young men are much the same.”
“We’re also trying to draw down our forces around the globe. In Germany for instance. We have thousands, maybe as many as 50,000 military personnel there. The President hopes to bring them home. Certain Congressmen will object. Just as certain Dietmen will raise cane about our troops leaving Japan. The seasons change, but politics endure.”
“But there seems to be an anti-Japanese scent in the air,” Taro said. “Certain Congressmen have complained that we worship animals and also worship the dead, as if you Americans don’t do the same.”
“We worship animals and the dead?” Orson asked, and then remembered, “There is a group called the Grateful Dead, often referred to as The Dead, who some folks seem to worship. I don’t think it’s a religious thing.”
“I’m talking about Americans, native Americans, the only true kind. They are known to have prayed to animals.”
“Indians, of course. All sorts of tribes scattered across the country. They must have had many different beliefs.”
“But the mainstream existing Americans, the sons and daughters of immigrants, they worship the dead.”
“I’m not a religious scholar, but you might mean Jesus. He’s thought to have risen from the dead and now resides in heaven.”
“There is Jesus,” Taro agreed. “But the Catholics have maybe a hundred thousand saints and still counting. The so-called Protestants embrace some of these. I have lived in America and I know these things. Those saints are definitely dead.”
“You have a point. But that would run contrary to the Christian belief that good people also reside in heaven after death. And anyone chosen by the Catholic Church to be a saint would nominally be a good person. If they had sins, those sins would be forgiven.”
“You mean mortal man could open heaven’s gates for certain folks?”
“I am not a Catholic, but I believe those people would have to ask forgiveness and that request would go directly to God.”
“He must be a busy man. For the record, I know the Protestants don’t use all those Catholic saints. But they do use Peter and Paul, maybe the rest of that lot and a few others. I suppose John the Baptist is a saint.”
“I’m not certain, but I would guess that’s true. I believe there are churches dedicated to St. John.”
“It’s Joan of Arc that puzzles me.”
“You mean she was burned alive by the French. Many of the saints met horrible fates and refused to give Jesus up. Her case was a bit different. You see, she’s credited with more or less saving France, if that’s possible. She did this by leading the loyal armies to victory and thus restoring the king to power. Then there was talk that she was more popular than the king.
“The king didn’t like this. He was after all the king. So he ordered her burned alive as a witch, gifted with occult powers. This made some the people angry. They liked Joan. Then a dead girl didn’t really bother the king all that much. So he called in the local clergy and had her created a saint. I think that’s the word, created.”
“That’s an interesting story. I suppose all the saints were created by the Catholics. The ones the Protestants worship, prior to the breakaway. But all this talk, and that’s what it seems to be, simply talk, has created something else, an anti-Japanese feeling in America.”
“Possibly. And in Japan there is an anti-American undertone. As the Japanese like to say, nothing can be done about it.”
Taro agreed. Japanese would say such a thing when faced with a difficult problem. “Our countries will remain good friends and allies,” he said, shaking Orson’s hand. “But I wonder what you are doing in Tokyo.”
Orson grinned. “Taking in the Ginza.”
“Yes, you do appear to be a prolific shopper.” Taro nodded, then continued on his way.
Orson believed his work in Japan was done, if you could call it that. He had reported on the general atmosphere of the country without stirring far from the Shinjuku Prince. He had enjoyed sushi and sake, a sticky breakfast dish that seemed in the last stages of decay, good beer and a fairly decent French wine.
He had also stumbled on a possible mental disorder he had no knowledge of. Or was it a mental disorder? There seemed to be inconclusive evidence. Although some of those in this category were definite mental basket cases. It was called hikikomori, and the million or so young adults afflicted with it refused to work and avoided social contacts. Some shutting themselves up in their rooms, sleeping during the day, awake at nights, never leaving their parent’s homes.
Others might shop in their neighborhoods or visit a library. Orson thought the condition quite interesting and totally puzzling.
He checked in with President Warren and suggested it was time for him to return home. She agreed.
