Days of Infamy doi-1

by Harry Turtledove

  “You can make a fire. You can boil water.” The local Jap was imperturbable. “Or you can leave them there, and they will all go to the kitchen.”

  “Oh, I’ll take them,” Jane said quickly. “Will you watch the pile till I get back?” Yosh Nakayama nodded. Like her, he knew others would make turnips disappear if someone didn’t keep an eye on them.

  Jane picked what looked like the biggest and best turnips. Then she discovered that carrying a dozen of them was no easier than carrying a dozen softballs. She thought about making two trips, but doubted whether Nakayama would put up with such inefficiency. Instead, she tucked her blouse into her dungarees and dumped the turnips down her front. She looked ridiculously lumpy, but so what?

  When she got to the apartment, she hid the turnips in as many different places as she could find. Even if someone broke in, he might not steal them all. And she locked the door behind her when she went out again. She hadn’t bothered lately, but now she had valuables in there again.

  Valuables! Before the invasion, she would have turned up her nose at turnips; she’d thought of turnip greens as nigger food, if she’d thought of them at all. No more. Before the invasion, she’d been worried about the beginnings of a double chin. Where so many fears had grown, that one had shriveled and blown away. Nowadays, her jawline was as sharp as anyone could want. Her cheekbones stood out in sharp relief under her skin. She didn’t know anyone in Wahiawa who wasn’t skinnier than before the war began. From what doctors said, that would add years to people’s lives. Some of the days Jane put in felt like years.

  To give Yosh Nakayama his due, he was skinnier than he had been before the war started, too. He wasn’t living off the fat of the land for helping the Japs. In his weathered face, the prominent cheekbones put Jane in mind of the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. Nothing else in Hawaii reminded her of New England.

  “Thank you for keeping an eye on things,” she told him.

  He nodded gravely. “You’re welcome. I do it for everybody, you understand, not just for you.”

  “Of course.” She was glad he wasn’t interested in her in particular. That could have got awkward. If she said no and he didn’t like it, would he make sure she didn’t eat? Would he get her in trouble with the occupiers? The nasty possibilities were endless.

  Three men with wheelbarrows came up and started loading her turnips into them. When the wheelbarrows were full, they wheeled them off in the direction of the community kitchen. A few turnips were left. Jane wondered what would become of them. She needn’t have. One of the men, a Filipino, came back and loaded in those last few. Sweat ran down his face as he said, “Hard work!” Away he went, panting a little.

  Nakayama looked after him, an odd expression on his face-so odd that Jane asked, “What is it?”

  “We say, ‘Hard work!’ in Japanese, too. I wonder if Carlos knows that. With us, it can mean the work really is hard, or it can mean you complain about what you have to do, or it can mean you are sorry about what someone else has to do.”

  Jane hadn’t expected a Japanese lesson. She also hadn’t had the faintest idea what the Filipino’s name was. To her, he was only a face in the crowd, and not a handsome face, either. But Nakayama knew. He knew who she was, too. He probably knew who everybody in and around Wahiawa was. That had to make him all the more valuable for Major Horikawa and the rest of the Japs.

  “Your potatoes, I think, do well, too,” he said. Touching the broad brim of his straw hat, he went off to talk with another cultivator.

  How do I cook those turnips? Jane wondered over and over. Only two answers came to her. She could build a fire in the open-and risk having more company than she wanted. Or she could build one in the oven of her gas stove. It might make a fair imitation of the coal-burner her family had had when she was a little girl.

  She tried that. It worked, though the kitchen got smoky and she wouldn’t have wanted to do it every day. Boiled turnips, even with salt, were uninspiring. But they were better than nothing, and a welcome addition to the slop from the community kitchen. When you got right down to it, what counted for more than a belly that didn’t rumble? Not much. No, not much.

  X

  JIRO TAKAHASHI WANTED to spend as much time out on the ocean as he could. When he was on the Pacific, he wasn’t in that miserable tent in the botanical garden. When he was out there, he didn’t quarrel so much with his sons, either. They talked about things that had to do with the Oshima Maru, not so much about politics and what it meant to be a Japanese or an American. That was all to the good, because he didn’t see eye to eye with Hiroshi and Kenzo.

  And he found he liked sailing the sampan. He’d put to sea with her with the diesel for so long, he’d come to take it for granted. You pointed her bow in the direction you wanted to go, started the engine, and away you went. It took about as much skill as drawing a straight line with a pencil. (Knowing where you wanted to go was a different story. That took skill.)

  When you sailed, though, every move you made depended on something outside the sampan. If the breeze shifted and you wanted to keep going in the same direction, you had to shift the sails to account for the change. If the wind died, you couldn’t go anywhere. If you were running against it, you had to go like a drunken crab, zigzagging now one way, now the other, traveling ever so much farther-and slower-than you would in a straight line.

  His sons had got the hang of handling the sails as fast as he could have wanted. He remained better at it than they did, though. He knew it, and so did they. After one long tack closer to the wind than the beamy sampan had any business getting, Kenzo said, “That was very pretty, Father.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Jiro found himself smiling. He called back to Hiroshi at the rudder: “We’re going to come about. Are you ready?”

  His older son nodded. “Hai, Father.”

  “All right then-now!” Jiro swung the sails from one side of the mast to the other. He and his sons ducked as the boom slid by, then quickly straightened again. Hiroshi shifted the rudder to help guide the Oshima Maru onto her new course. The sails filled with wind. They were off on the other tack. Jiro’s smile got broader.

  “You couldn’t have done that better if you tried for a week,” Kenzo said admiringly. Jiro bowed slightly at the praise. It warmed and embarrassed him at the same time. He knew he’d done well, too. But a proper Japanese would have said something more on the order of, Not bad. Kenzo’s extravagant compliment was much more American.

  One bad thing about even the most perfect tack: it brought the sampan closer to Kewalo Basin. However crabwise she traveled, the Oshima Maru neared land each passing minute. Jiro didn’t want to come ashore. But there wasn’t much point to fishing if you didn’t bring the catch home.

  He cut another strip of dark pink meat from the fat belly of an ahi. He and his sons ate better on the Pacific than they did on land-one more reason to want to stay at sea. The tuna’s flesh was almost as rich as beef.

  Kenzo also cut himself some ahi. As he chewed, he said, “We’ll have Doi paid off before too long.”

  “Well, yes.” Jiro nodded. “The way things are now, though, it doesn’t matter that much. So we get a little more money. So what? What can we buy with money these days?”

  “Not much.” But Kenzo couldn’t help adding, “That’s because we’re cut off from the mainland-the mainland of the United States. That’s where we got everything we needed, and that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in.”

  “Before long, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere will make up for the things we can’t get from the USA,” Jiro said stubbornly.

  His younger son rolled his eyes. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  Even on the Pacific, politics reared its ugly head. “We’ll see,” was all Jiro said; he didn’t feel like fighting. For a wonder, Kenzo took it no further, either. But the silence as they glided into the basin had the charged quality of the air just before a thunderstorm.

  When they tied up at one
of the quays, work kept them too busy to quarrel. The Japanese soldiers in charge of taking the fish weighed the catch and paid the Takahashis. As usual, the sergeant in charge of the detail asked, “Personal use?” when the fisherman took fish off the Oshima Maru.

  “Hai,” Jiro said. “And I have some for the honorable Japanese consul, too.”

  The sergeant bowed to him. “Yes, you’ve done that before-I remember. It shows a true Japanese spirit and feeling.” Delighted, Jiro bowed back. Whatever his sons were thinking, none of it showed on their faces. The sergeant waved them all away from the sampan harbor.

  Their first stop, as usual these days, was Eizo Doi’s shop. As they were going in, a tall, suntanned haole came out. He saw the fish they were carrying and started to laugh. He said something in English. Kenzo nodded and answered in the same language. They went back and forth for a little while. Then the white man walked off with a smile and a wave. “What was that all about?” Jiro asked.

  “He said he’s paying Doi off for putting a sail on his surfboard, of all the crazy things,” Kenzo answered.

  “That is peculiar,” Jiro agreed. “But he could go out a lot farther with the sail than without it. If he doesn’t have a boat, I suppose it would be the next best thing.”

  Kenzo nodded. “That’s what he said.”

  Jiro talked about it with the handyman after they gave him his fish. “Yeah, I thought the haole was a baka yaro,” Eizo Doi said. “Who besides a prime jerk would come up with something that weird? But he says it works pretty well, and he gave me some good mackerel. These days, you don’t complain about any food you get.”

  “Hai. Honto,” Jiro said, and then, “You’re getting so much fish from so many people, you could do some dealing on your own.”

  “It’s against occupation regulations,” Doi said. For a moment, Jiro thought that meant he wasn’t doing it. Then the fisherman realized Doi hadn’t said any such thing. If he was dealing on the side, keeping quiet about it was a good idea.

  After they left the handyman’s, Jiro and his sons went their separate ways. They headed back to the tent while he went on up Nuuanu Avenue to the consulate. Hiroshi and Kenzo wanted nothing to do with that. Jiro hadn’t tried to persuade them to join him, even if that might have looked good to the occupying authorities. He knew he would have got nowhere.

  By now, the sentries outside the compound recognized him. They nudged one another as he came up the street. “Hey, it’s the fisherman,” one of them said. “What have you got today, fisherman-sama?” He and his pals laughed. Jiro smiled, too. Lord Fisherman sounded ridiculous. With Oahu so hungry these days, though, the fancy title was less absurd than it might have been.

  “See for yourselves.” Jiro held up a good-sized fish with a long, high dorsal fin and a body blue and green above and golden below. The soldiers exclaimed-its like hardly ever got up into Japanese waters. “They call this a mahimahi here,” Jiro said. “It’s very good eating, as good as any tuna.”

  “If it tastes as good as it looks, it’ll be wonderful,” said the sentry who’d called him Lord Fisherman. “But you can’t tell by looks. The fugu ’s the ugliest fish in the world, near enough, but it’s the best eating-if you live through it, anyway.”

  Jiro nodded. “That’s the truth.” The fugu was a puffer fish that blew itself up into a huge, spiny ball to keep other fish from eating it. Its flesh was uniquely delicious-and deadly dangerous, for the puffer also produced a paralyzing poison. Skilled chefs knew how to cut away the dangerous entrails and leave only the safer meat behind. Dozens of Japanese fishermen killed themselves every year trying to prove they knew how to do the same thing.

  “Well, I’m sure the consul will be glad to see you. Go on in,” the sentry said.

  “Thanks,” Jiro said, and he did.

  Secretaries and clerks exclaimed at the mahimahi. Jiro wondered how much fish Nagao Kita shared with them. That was something he couldn’t ask. It was the consul’s business, not his. He didn’t get to see Kita, either. “So sorry, Takahashi-san,” a clerk told him. “He’s in consultation with Army officers right now.”

  “He’s come out before,” Jiro said.

  “Not this time, I’m afraid. They’re… very serious, these Army men,” the clerk said. Jiro got the feeling he didn’t care for the Japanese officers at all. The fellow continued, “Morimura-san will take charge of the fish, though.”

  “Ah.” Jiro brightened. “That will do.”

  He liked the chancellor at the consulate. Tadashi Morimura was young to hold such a responsible post-he couldn’t have been more than thirty. He had a long face, handsome in a slightly horsey way, and had lost the first joint of his left index finger in some accident. “Thank you very much, Takahashi-san,” he said. “That is a very thoughtful gift for the honorable consul. I know he will be glad to have it.” He didn’t say anything about whether Kita would share, either.

  “I am glad to be able to help. I know times are hard,” Jiro said.

  “They will get better.” Morimura rose from behind his desk. He was of slightly above medium height, which made him several inches taller than Jiro, and wore a sharp Western-style suit. “I am going to put the-mahimahi, did you say? — in the icebox for now, to keep it fresh for Kita-san. Please don’t go-I’d like to talk for a little while.”

  “Of course,” Jiro said. “It is a privilege to talk to such an important man.”

  “You give me too much credit,” Morimura said with becoming modesty. “Please wait. I’ll be right back.” He was almost as good as his word. Maybe he has to make room in the icebox, Jiro thought as he sat in front of the desk. It’s a big fish. When Morimura came back, he offered Jiro a cigarette from a gold case.

  “Thank you, Morimura-san.” Jiro bowed in his seat. He hadn’t tasted tobacco in a couple of weeks. He savored the first drag. “That’s very good.”

  “Glad you like it. It’s the least I can do.” The younger man lit a cigarette, too. After blowing out a long plume of smoke, he asked, “Where did you catch such an interesting fish?”

  “It was southwest of here, sir,” Jiro answered. “We sailed for about half a day-we had a nice strong breeze to take us along.”

  “How many other sampans did you see while you were on the fishing grounds?”

  “All told? Let me think.” Jiro puffed on the cigarette, smoking as slowly as he could to stretch out the pleasure. It did help him concentrate. “There were… five or six. Those were just the ones I could see, you understand. Bound to be plenty more out there.”

  “Yes, I understand,” the consular official said. “Were they all sailing boats? Did you see any that had motors?”

  “No, sir. Not one with a motor.” Jiro didn’t need to think about that. “Where would a boat with a motor get fuel?”

  “Well, you never can tell,” Morimura replied-and what was that supposed to mean? “But I thank you very much for telling me what you saw… and for the mahimahi, too, of course. Kita-san will also be very grateful for the fish. I’ll be sure to tell him you were the one who brought it.”

  He let Jiro finish the cigarette, then eased him out the door. Jiro scratched his head. Unless he was crazy, Morimura cared more about the sampans that he’d seen than about the lovely fish. Jiro wondered just what exactly the chancellor at the consulate did to earn his pay.

  KAPIOLANI PARK WAS a big place. Before the Japs turned it into a POW camp, it had had plenty of trees-mostly pines. A lot of them had already come down to give the Americans firewood. Now, as a pair of prisoners banged away with axes, another pine swayed as if in a strong breeze.

  Fletch Armitage stood in a good-sized crowd watching the amateur lumberjacks. It gave him something a little out of the ordinary. Two squads of Japanese soldiers also watched the tree-fellers-and the other prisoners. They were there to make sure the axes didn’t disappear into the camp after the job was done. None of the Americans got close to them. When other trees came down, everyone had seen that they had short fuses. />
  “No more shade,” a prisoner near Fletch said sadly. Fletch nodded, but his heart wasn’t in it. He liked shade as much as the next guy, but you didn’t have to have it in Hawaii, the way you would in a place where the sun could knock you dead. He was as pale as anybody in the camp, but even he could see that firewood counted for more. He wondered what the POWs would do when no more trees were left inside the barbed-wire perimeter.

  A crackle like distant machine-gun fire snapped his attention back to the pine. “Timberrrr!” yelled one of the woodcutters-a cry he’d surely learned at the movies and not in the great north woods. Down came the tree, and slammed into the grass. Fletch wished it would have fallen on the Japs, but no such luck. They were too canny to let themselves get smashed.

  The sergeant in charge of the guards collected the axes. Only after he had them both did he shout something in Japanese to his men. They chose volunteers-that was what it amounted to-and handed out saws. The POWs they’d picked went to work turning the fallen pine, which had to be sixty or seventy feet tall, into chunks of wood convenient for cooking food and boiling water. The guards watched these prisoners no less intently than they had the axemen. As far as they were concerned, saws were weapons, too.

  Watching a fallen tree turned into firewood was less interesting than watching it fall in the first place. Along with most of the crowd, Fletch drifted away. If he hung around, there was always the chance that the Japs would find work for him, too. The Geneva Convention said officer prisoners genuinely had to volunteer to work, but the Japs hadn’t signed it and respected it only when they wanted to. They didn’t feed him well enough to make him feel like doing anything more than he had to.

  “How’s it going, Lieutenant?” That was Arnie, the ersatz artilleryman who’d surrendered along with Fletch.

  “What could be better? It’s the beachfront by Waikiki, right?” Fletch said. “I’m just waiting for the waitress to bring me another gin and tonic.”

  Arnie grinned. He was skinnier than Fletch remembered. Of course, Fletch was probably skinnier than he remembered, too. He just didn’t get to see himself very often. Arnie said, “You got a good way of looking at things.”