December 6 (V5.0)

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “I suppose so,” she agreed.

  “Well, it may be petty of me, but I still want to come out of this war alive.”

  “Why? If we’re together, that’s what matters.”

  “And being alive.”

  She shrugged as if Harry were dwelling on nonessentials, and it finally occurred to him why she was so happy. Michiko had always admired lovers who sealed their lives together. There might be no romantic volcano or waterfall handy for a dive, but there were so many other means —Ishigami, Shozo, Kempeitai, the gun in her bag— that she was virtually skipping.

  25

  HARRY AND MICHIKO drove around the Ginza, cruising by the addresses of other Americans. Everywhere they saw the black sedans of the Kempeitai and went on circling while the needle in the gas gauge dropped. Once it touched bottom, that would be it, but Harry went on circling because he didn’t know where to take Michiko. Anywhere they stopped, there would be Kempeitai, Thought Police or Ishigami. They were all after Harry, not her, but Michiko was twice as brave as he was, and she wouldn’t have a chance.

  News continued to come over the car radio. Japanese planes had bombed Singapore, inflicting heavy damage. Another wave had caught American bombers on the ground in the Philippines. When Tojo returned on the radio to speak for the emperor —a mortal speaking for Someone too exalted to be heard directly— Harry pulled into the shadow of a railroad viaduct, removed his mask and shared a smoke with Michiko.

  “We, by grace of heaven…seated on the throne of a line unbroken for ages eternal, enjoin upon ye, our brave and loyal subjects…” And the people swallowed it, Harry thought. It was a royal horse pill, but people swallowed it every time, all over the world, from “England expects every man to do his duty” to “The Shores of Tripoli.” He found the beetle box in his jacket, released the prisoner from cotton batting and set it on the dash, where it raised its rhino horn and moved stiffly, like a rusty machine. “It has been truly unavoidable and far from our wishes that our empire has been brought to cross swords with the United States and Great Britain,” but Japan’s enemies had disturbed the peace of East Asia in their “inordinate ambition to dominate the Orient.” My country right or wrong, thought Harry. He closed the windshield vent to protect the beetle from its own curiosity. This was no stay-at-home insect, this was a bold explorer. “Our empire, for its existence and self-defense, has no other recourse but to appeal to arms.” Natch, thought Harry. Hitler invaded Poland in self-defense. “…in our confident expectation… that the sources of evil will be speedily eradicated and an enduring peace immutably established, raising and enhancing the glory of the Imperial Way within and without our homeland.” The beetle ventured out to the dashboard clock and stood as if surveying its domain while a million shouts of “Banzai!” broke out across the city. Five o’clock; the beetle seemed to point out the time.

  “Maybe we should get married,” Harry said.

  “Why?”

  “Things being unsettled as they are, we could retire to a place in the country and live the simple life. You would have children and I would have my beetles. I would walk my beetles around the garden on strings of silk.”

  “What would you do for a living?”

  “Run the village shell game. Drop jazz, pick up the shamisen, mumble around in an old kimono. That’s not bad, is it? We’d just sit under the mulberry tree and listen to the silkworms munching on the leaves.”

  “They’re just waiting to pick you up.”

  “As for the wedding, well, that’s pretty simple. Do it country-style and just share a drink.” He brought out his silver flask. “Presto, you’re married.” He continued to pay attention to the beetle, to make sure it didn’t slide off the dashboard.

  “I’m not going to let them take you,” she said.

  “Let’s stick to the subject, do you want to get married or not? I’m afraid this is a one-time offer.”

  She looked at the flask. “This is the best you can do?”

  “It’s the thought that counts.”

  Michiko took a healthy swallow, and the interior of the Datsun filled with fumes of good Scotch. Harry carefully followed suit, watching in case she decided to pull the gun and execute a honeymoon suicide by surprise. Besides, it would scare the beetle.

  “We’ll get old and gum away on tofu and tea,” he said.

  “What about sex?”

  “I didn’t know you liked sex that much. I take it back, I take it back.”

  “That has always been good, even when you have been bad.”

  “May I?” He leaned forward and lightly put his lips on hers. He knew she disliked kissing on the mouth, but all the same, she let him linger for a moment.

  “It’s been interesting, Harry. It’s always been that.”

  The street had fallen into a shadow that put Harry in mind of two sailors sitting in a lifeboat by a sinking ship, waiting for the great, overturned hull to go under and suck them down with it, this moment or the next.

  “Listen.” Michiko put her hand up suddenly. “A sound I heard when Haruko died.”

  Harry heard the usual traffic echoes, the nasty buzz of unseen trams and the squeal of a train crossing the viaduct.

  “I didn’t catch it.”

  “Did you feel it?”

  “No.”

  Something, however, had prompted the beetle to raise its head, and the lifting of such a magnificent horn was its undoing. It slid down the dash, legs scratching and scrambling, until it fell into Harry’s palm. He let the beetle climb round and round his hands like a treadmill before he handed the insect to Michiko and shifted into first.

  Michiko was occupied enough with replacing the beetle in its box for Harry to take away her bag with the gun. She looked up sharply, betrayed.

  “Just for a minute,” Harry said. As he pulled away from the curb and started toward the train station, the car down the street did the same.

  The nearer they drew to the station, the more the sidewalks filled with exuberant draftees, families and well-wishers, newsboys, vendors of war bonds and sun flags, most arriving simply to draw on the proximity of the Son of Heaven. The throng Harry had seen earlier on the plaza between the station and the imperial palace had doubled. Wives had rushed out with their thousand-stitch belts. More than one veteran had put on his old uniform and medals. Well, this was BuckinghamPalace and the Vatican rolled up in one, Harry thought. He looked over. In her beret and cashmere coat, Michiko was French enough for Kato. With her ivory face and lidded eyes, better than French. Traffic police tried to maintain lanes for buses and trams, which was like trying to stop the waves of the sea. Michiko could, though. She was brave enough to part the sea. Harry dug out the last tael bars, tucked them in the bag with the gun and reached across to open Michiko’s door.

  “Out.” He stopped the car.

  “I won’t—”

  Harry tossed her bag out the door. As Michiko stepped out to retrieve it, he stepped on the accelerator and left her in the street. A policeman bleated on a whistle, but Harry swung behind an army truck and passed through the main crush. In the mirror, he saw Michiko fall behind a wall of flags.

  No one seemed to notice the gaijin driving toward the road along the river. In the general euphoria, people were blind to details. As the workday ended, they swept into the street, most headed to the palace or HibiyaPark but also moving in countercurrents along the river. Cadets waved flags from the roofs of the river buses, the boats competing in cheers. A collegiate type sliding by in a one-man scull hoisted a bottle of champagne. On the sidewalk, shopgirls linked arms to sing, “MountSaiko is deep in mist, waves rise on the river. Sounds that travel from afar are waves or soldiers’ cries, brightly, brightly, brightly!” As night came on, Harry became aware of streetlamps staying unlit, the first blackout of the war. A policeman walked along the cars, ordering their headlights off, although it hardly mattered with all the paper lanterns on the sidewalk. Traffic inched. Looking in the rearview mirror, Harry couldn’t find any p
articular car following him, although he felt something, as Michiko had said. He didn’t doubt he had been followed; he hadn’t exactly hidden. If anyone wondered where he was going, so did he, apart from simply gravitating to territory most familiar to him. Which gave him ample opportunity to contemplate the folly of toying with history. History was celebrating all around him. He hadn’t changed a thing, except for losing DeGeorge and Haruko their heads. Michiko was angry, which was bad enough, but she was alive and had a gun to defend herself with. Most important, she wouldn’t be trying to defend him. That was her weak spot. People called back and forth. Harry rolled down his window to hear that rallies were gathering at Ueno and Asakusa. The radio played “The Battleship March” over and over. Paper lanterns streamed, creating a soft melding of people into one entity, one heart, one Yamato spirit.

  AzumaBridge was a span of candles and lanterns above the starry water. There were spots of rowdiness, but over all spread an awe-filled hush of self-astonishment that, in a single day, they had vaulted to the top of the world. They had dared and they had won. On the radio, announcers made the point again and again that each victory was made possible only by the “virtues of the emperor,” but they were all demigods now. Here it was barely the second week in December, and everyone had had their lucky New Year’s dream, the wealth of Asia and the Pacific in their hands. As he approached AsakusaPark in traffic that was almost stopped, the Datsun coughed and died. Harry abandoned the car in the middle of the street, sliding the beetle into a jacket pocket and adjusting the knife in his belt. Despite the blackout, the movie marquees were a bank of blinding tungsten lights. A cardboard John Wayne was the first Western face Harry had seen in hours. He debated with himself whether to hide his own face behind the germ mask. “To be or not to be,” Hamlet asked. “I yam what I yam,” said Popeye. Harry kept it off.

  AsakusaPark and the Kannon grounds were a nighttime festival. Lanterns lit the avenue of souvenir stalls leading to the double-roofed temple. Whole families were out for a spontaneous promenade, father followed by wife, trailed by children in descending size. Fortune-teller tents were swamped. Monks, too, did a land-office business with divining rods next to confectioners who fashioned candy cranes and turtles, symbols of long life. Harry drew a few astonished looks, but he was so familiar to so many shopkeepers and regulars that he passed unchallenged. A beam swung against a bell for evening prayer as Harry climbed the temple stairs. From a threshold of red columns came throaty chanting and a haze of joss sticks. Harry remembered reading that during the earthquake that killed Kato and Oharu, a hundred thousand citizens had survived by taking sanctuary at the Kannon and the park. Since then, in crises, it had been the place to come. People crowded around a grate to toss in money, clap their hands and pray. Harry emptied his pockets and said what little he had to say to the few spirits who meant anything to him. His father had written him after Nanking to say he had heard from China missionaries that Harry had helped save lives. Roger Niles wrote that the stories were painful because they were so implausible, no doubt an elaborate fraud. The old man’s problem, Harry decided, was that, having confused himself with God, he had to be right without exception. Harry’s mother, on the other hand, had great faith in exceptions. She could stand under a tree that he was hiding in and talk as if he were a cherub who happened to be snagged on an upper branch. She deserved a word or two. And Oharu. The expression of surprise painted on her brows. Would she be surprised now? She would lead him to a balcony seat so they could watch together. Kato? Harry had often wondered which work of art Kato had died trying to save. He preferred to think it wasn’t one of the French pastiches but a print of Oharu powdering herself at the backstage mirror of the Folies. What had Kato’s words been? I baptize you Japanese.

  “Harry, isn’t it fantastic?” Gen stepped next to him at the grate. In a navy coat and cap, he looked like a midshipman in a ticker-tape parade. As the sun had set, the temperature had dropped enough to turn breath to clouds. Gen slapped his hands together to keep them warm; they were gloved, as if he might have to ride away at any second on his motorbike. “What a day! Unbelievable results. Naval Operations is over the moon. I wish I could tell you. What we did today, Harry, was turn the world upside down, nothing less. American control of the Pacific? Gone! British control of Asia? Gone! The white man in Asia? Gone. And oil from the Indies? All we want! Remember how yesterday you were warning me about American bombers over Tokyo? There are no more American bombers, there’s hardly an American navy. Admit it, you were wrong. Tokyo will never see an American bomber. We called their bluff, Harry, is what we did.”

  Harry hadn’t seen Gen coming. He looked around. “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking a break, first one since yesterday. Naval Operations is crowded, a madhouse, and I needed a shave and a decent cup of coffee. The whole town is crazy, like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. It’s inspiring. How about you?”

  “I’ve been lucky, too. The Kempeitai started to take me in but made a call and had to let me go.”

  “Harry, the navy protects its friends. You don’t have anything to worry about. Where’s Michiko, isn’t she along?”

  “She ditched me. You know, it turned out that she’s some kind of patriotic fanatic. Won’t have anything more to do with me. Then there’s Haruko.”

  Gen frowned as if it were unfair how a headless girl could cast a shadow on a glorious day. “Any news there?”

  “Not that I know of. I could make a wild guess.”

  The press of bodies wanting their turn at good fortune pushed Gen and Harry down the steps. As they descended, Gen said, “Troops are being recalled, all leaves are canceled. Ishigami will probably be back in China within a day or two.”

  “So you think Ishigami did it?” Harry asked.

  “Isn’t that what you think?”

  Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairs for a cigarette. His last pack of Luckies, the end of the line. He shared one with Gen. “Well, I’ve seen Ishigami at work. The colonel is a real craftsman even under pressure. I saw him take off five heads in a row with only one false swing. Haruko alone suffered two unnecessary cuts. Made me wonder.”

  “The less we hear about Haruko, the better. You know what I’m looking forward to, Harry? The two of us going back to California when the war is over. San Francisco. Hollywood. But this time as conquerors.”

  “When is that?”

  “Soon. The C in C’s got it all worked out, a negotiated peace that leaves the Pacific to us. After all, we won.”

  A scholar gathered a crowd with an impromptu speech on how the number eight symbolized Japan: the Eight Views of Japanese places, the EightGreatIslands that made up Japan, and now the victorious December Eight. A boy with a popgun startled pigeons. He aimed at Harry, but the sight of Gen made him post arms and salute. A policeman gave Harry a long scrutiny.

  Gen asked, “Is somebody following you?”

  “I think so.”

  “Shozo and Go?”

  “I haven’t seen them today, but I’m sure I will.”

  “Have you been back to your place since the news?”

  “No.”

  “Harry, they’re probably waiting for you. I’ve been protecting you, but what if they take you in and don’t call me?”

  “You think there’s a chance of that?”

  “With Thought Police? Are you kidding? I heard that all Americans except diplomats are being taken to Sugamo Prison. If Shozo and Go get you back there, they’ll throw away the key.”

  “Well, what’s your plan?”

  “Get you to a naval base, put you under protective custody until things get sorted out. If everything goes according to plan, you could find yourself in a great situation.”

  “You could put me in charge of Hawaii?”

  “The sky’s the limit.”

  Harry blew on his hands. It wasn’t this cold in Hawaii. “What’s happening to the British?”

  “Same as Americans. The diplomats are going to have
to camp out in the embassy for a while.” Gen looked at his watch. “I don’t have to be back at Operations for another hour. Let’s just see if Shozo’s waiting for you.”

  “You’d do that? Go to the club with me?”

  “Of course.”

  As they moved toward the lights of the Rokku, Harry was struck by the deference paid by the crowd to the sight of such a dashing officer, and by how Gen took admiration as his due. The drumming of the temple fell behind, but a separate, deeper drumming kept pace.

  “I still can’t get over Haruko,” Harry said. “Why would Ishigami want to kill her?”

  “That’s what I asked you when I found you with her.”

  “And I appreciate that. But why would anyone want to kill Haruko? Killing Michiko, that I could understand. Maybe it was a mistake. I have a theory. You know how Haruko imitated Michiko. I can see someone being confused, especially in bad light. Someone goes with certain expectations, hasn’t done this sort of thing before and wants to be fast. That might account for the less than accurate swings, too, don’t you think? Some people think chopping a head off is like hitting a golf ball. It’s not.”

  Harry shouldered his way through the excitement caused by a newsstand offering postcards of warships. A display of Ginger Rogers photos hit the ground. The drumming grew closer, a bubbling timpani, a reverberation that Harry felt through his bones.

  “Another thing,” he said. “When a real swordsman uses his sword, he flicks the blood off with a swing that produces a telltale kind of spray that wasn’t there with Haruko. Ishigami is sort of fastidious about that.”

  Gen asked, “Did Michiko see anyone?”

  “No, she was gone.”