Eyes of the Emperor

by Graham Salisbury

  “He didn't.”

  Herbie gaped.

  I laughed. A sad laugh.

  Because on that day Pop stopped speaking to me. As far as he was concerned, I no longer existed.

  It was a black time, those days before I reported to Schofield. Working in silence at the boat shop was the worst, long stretches broken up only when Bunichi or Herbie said something to me.

  Sometimes I dragged around feeling terrible for what I'd done to Pop. Even Sharky could tell something was off. He mostly kept out of sight. Dogs know, somehow.

  Other days, I told myself, Listen, it's your life, not his.…You gotta do what you think is right. If you don't, then you're just his shadow. And serving your country is right.

  I tried to think…How can I please my family, and honor them—when at the same time I have something to prove?

  And then I thought, Pop needs help at work—I got to be there for him. Without me, how will he get by?

  I passed my physical exam and was inducted into the U.S. Army on October 15, 1941. My new home was a two man tent down in the lower quadrant of Schofield Barracks.

  Boom Town, the city of tents.

  I shared mine with a small guy named PeeWee Okazaki, a kid from Maui who played poker like a professional. He could make cards disappear in his hands like magic. Other guys I met were just as full of surprises. There was Shig, full of opinions; and Golden Boy, a dimple-faced ladies' man from Kauai. Another guy, Slim, was over six feet tall. Made the rest of us look like shrimps.

  All together there were six hundred of us new island recruits living in those tents with mud trails like roads winding between them—Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, lots of races.

  Down in Boom Town we didn't have phones or drinking fountains or regular latrines like the mainland guys up in the barracks, but still, I liked it.

  I could take it.

  Basic training was like swimming with barracudas—you were always on edge; somebody screaming in your face hour after hour, day after day.

  “New recruit, repeat the army motto!”

  “What?”

  “Did I ask you to ask me a question?”

  “What question?”

  “I don't want to hear anything but one of four responses, and those four responses are ‘Yes, sir!’ ‘No, sir!’ ‘No excuse, sir!’ And, ‘I do not understand, sir!’ Do you understand that, new recruit?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand, sir!”

  “Are you stupid, new recruit, or just plain dumb?”

  “What?”

  Grunts, they called us. And that was what grunts had to face. It wasn't so bad if you could laugh about it.

  Anyway, I was part of something big now, and was too busy learning army rules to worry about anything else, even the Red Hibiscus or the Japanese problem.

  When I came home on my first pass seven weeks after I'd started basic training, Pop still wouldn't speak to me.

  To him, I was a ghost.

  Even so, I caught him studying me in my uniform one time, and, ho, did that make him angry, getting caught looking. I laughed. I couldn't help it. He huffed out of the room.

  But Ma had accepted what I'd done and wouldn't stop fussing over me. “Oh, you must be starving from all that bad army food.” “Oh, you must be so tired from working so hard—here, sleep, take a rest.” “Oh, you must be anxious to hear about what's going on—here, read the newspaper.”

  Ahhh!

  On Saturday morning, I left the house before she got up. I grabbed my throw net, woke Herbie, and whistled for Opah, and the three of us went net fishing down past the Chinese rice fields and water buffaloes, where we saw the sun rise over the mountains as we stood knee-deep in the warm ocean.

  Mostly we were quiet. But we talked, too.

  “Does Pop ever mention my name, Herbie?”

  “No.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse.”

  I puffed up my cheeks and let the air out slowly. “In a way I don't blame him.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “Yeah, that's true.”

  We managed to catch three fat moi, but we couldn't stay long. Herbie had baseball practice, and baseball to him was like fresh air. He played second base for a pretty good junkyard team called the Kaka'ako Boys.

  Ma fried up the fish that night for dinner. Pop ate in silence, staring only at the food on his plate. He wouldn't talk to me, but at least he ate my fish.

  I had a hard time sleeping that night, because I missed goading Pop into talking about this or that—didn't matter what, just trying to make him say a few words.

  I'd given it a shot, though.

  “Hey, Pop,” I'd said, then waited for him to turn my way. He didn't.

  I said, “Good fishing down by the rice fields. You should go.”

  His profile said everything: Are you my son? You're not my son. My son obeys and honors his father. Are you related to me? You my flesh and blood? No.

  Finally, I fell asleep.

  The next morning Herbie shook me awake with wild eyes. “Eddy, get up, get up! Something going on!”

  “What?” I said, jumping up and tripping into my shorts. I dragged a T-shirt over my head and stumbled outside after him.

  It was noisy. Real noisy.

  The sky was swarming with planes.

  Some low, some way up.

  More were screaming toward us in squadrons from three directions—one group ripping in from the sea, another dropping down over the Waianae range in the west, and the third zipping in over the pass up by Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Field. Must have been two hundred planes, all coming down on Honolulu.

  “Who are they, Eddy? Army, navy, or what?”

  I didn't answer, because I couldn't believe it. I knew who they were, but it was impossible. How could they get here from—

  A fighter blasted overhead just above the treetops, rattling the tin roofs of Japanese camp.

  We ducked.

  “Ho!” Herbie shouted.

  The roar of engines grew louder. Planes filled the sky. One after another, swooping down, then rising to loop around and dive again. Right over our heads, like mosquitoes swirling at the edge of a campfire.

  All over Japanese camp people ran out into the street, squinting up, shading their eyes. Some stood with their hands covering their mouths. A few stayed inside, peeking out their windows.

  Fear prickled on my skin. My tongue tingled with brass needles.

  “Look!” Herbie said. “They paint um just like Japanese ones.”

  The fighters ripped down and raced toward Pearl Harbor, the round red hinomaru under their wings: the red sun. The symbol of Japan.

  A huge explosion shook the earth, somewhere down past Honolulu Harbor. Then another, and another, and after each blast ugly black smoke boiled up over the rooftops.

  I grabbed Herbie and shoved him toward the house.

  Pop was at the kitchen table when we ran in. A cup of tea sat steaming in front of him.

  Ma was at the stove, stooped over fried eggs and rice. “What's wrong?” she gasped, her hand flying to her chest.

  “Can't you hear it?”

  She glanced up at the ceiling. “Oh, that's just the military, like always.”

  A plane flew low overhead, shaking the house. Ma frowned. Opah scurried under the table.

  Pop said to Herbie, “Shinbunwa dokonanda? Kyono shinbunwa doshita?”

  “Forget the paper,” I said. “Turn on the radio.”

  He glared straight ahead, arms crossed, the radio only inches away from him.

  “Pop, please! Turn on the radio!”

  He sat like a stone.

  I tumbled down across from him and snapped it on.

  Church music.

  I spun the dial.

  Pop knocked my hand away. “Rajio kesunda!” He turned off the radio.

  I turned it on.

  Pop slapped his hands on the table, stood, and left the room, knocking his cup over. Tea sped across the tab
letop and dripped hot onto my leg.

  Herbie tried to tell Ma about the planes, but her eyes were following Pop. Eggs spat in the frying pan under her raised spatula.

  “Come on, come on,” I whispered, begging the radio to tell me something.

  The vibration of low-flying fighters rattled through the tin roof and shook the walls and the floor. I could feel Opah trembling against my foot.

  “Ma,” I said. “I think Japan is attacking us.”

  Pop heard that and stormed back into the kitchen. The veins on his forehead popped out like soda straws. “Nandato?”

  The music on the radio stopped and the announcer came on, breathless. “People ah, ah… listen, people, you better be calm, ah, people, people, we are under attack by Japanese planes.… This is not what you might think, this is not maneuvers… this is real.…”

  Pop's face flushed red and the skin around his eyes wrinkled into a squint.

  “Masaka!” he spat.

  He paced around the kitchen, filling it up. A muscle just below his right eye began to twitch.

  “It's true, Pop,” I said. “Go outside. Look at the planes, go!”

  His eyes jabbed into mine, saying, What kind of son are you to say Japan would do such a dishonorable thing?

  He stalked out, the screen door whapping back.

  Ma stood with her mouth open, eggs spitting louder on the stove top.

  The announcer said, “A lot of you people might think this is a military maneuver. Understand this: this is no maneuver. This is the real McCoy! We are being attacked by Japan!”

  Whomp!—an explosion just down the street, so big it rocked our house.

  Ma gasped and stumbled back.

  Opah ran out from under the table as another fighter boomed overhead, its engine rattling my teeth. I squatted down and picked him up, his paws raking my chest.

  Pop staggered back into the kitchen, his eyes glazed, skin ghostly gray.

  Was he hurt? I set Opah down and went to him. But I was afraid to touch him. I never touched him.

  There was no blood that I could see, no wound. Just those spooked eyes.

  I let my hand fall on his shoulder.

  “Pop,” I said. He would not have allowed this even five minutes before. But now he didn't bat my hand away.

  The announcer said, “All military personnel return to your posts immediately.…I repeat, immediately! All civilian defense workers report to your jobs.…We are under at-tack.…All civilians take cover.… Stay indoors.…This is no joke.…We're being bombed by the Rising Sun! I repeat, all military personnel return to your posts immediately!”

  That meant me.

  Pop sagged against the wall. I tried to support him, but he waved me off. Herbie stood frozen, eyes darting from me to Pop to Ma.

  I ran to my room to get my uniform on.

  Ma hurried after me, the spatula still in her hand. She grabbed my shirt. “Eddy… don't go—”

  “No!” Pop shouted.

  Ma yelped and dropped the spatula. She broke into sobs, covering her face with her hands.

  “No,” Pop said again, this time more softly. “You go, boy. Go back army.”

  My throat burned at the sound of his voice.

  And at the look in his eyes.

  Son, they said. Son.

  He blinked and looked down at his hands. For his homeland to have attacked us this way—a sneak attack—was warfare of the worst kind. Cowardly and shameful.

  I could tell there was more he wanted to say. I could read it all over his face: Eddy, do something.…Do something.…

  Herbie was backed up against the wall, as if trying to seep into it, to hide. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Stay strong,” I said. “I need you now.”

  He stood frozen.

  Ma's sobbing made my throat burn worse. I put my arm around her. “It's okay, Ma. We going be all right.”

  She looked so lost and afraid.

  “You go,” Pop demanded, his voice raspy. “Go back army. You no can stay. Bad, bad, time now. You solja.…You go back barracks.” His eyes were stunned.

  “No make haji, Eddy,” he went on, saying my name for the first time I could remember. He usually called me boy. For a second I didn't know who he was talking to.

  “Pop—” My voice broke.

  “No make shame for this family. You go. Fight for your country. Die, even, but die with honor.”

  I looked into his eyes, letting him know I understood, that I would honor him, that I would honor us all.

  “You come back dead before you shame us.”

  His eyes were steady.

  Neither of us looked away.

  In my room I ripped off my T-shirt and shorts and stumbled into my uniform. My shiny brown shoes were outside on the porch.

  Herbie sat on the bed watching me. I wondered if he had any idea how bad it was that we were being bombed by Japan. It was crazy. They'd just poked a wasp's nest with a stick.

  “Herbie, you got to watch Pop. He's in shock or something. He's confused.”

  Herbie scowled, his eyebrows drawn together.

  “It's up to you now,” I said. “You the man standing next in line to Pop.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Come, walk outside with me.”

  In the kitchen I hugged Ma goodbye and kissed the top of her head. “I gotta go. Don't—”

  She pulled me closer and buried her face in my chest.

  “Ma,” I said, pushing her back and looking into her eyes. “Don't worry about me. I going be fine, and so will you and Pop and Herbie. I promise.” I hugged her again and ran out.

  On the porch I stepped into my shoes and tied them quickly. Pop's work boots stood guard next to Ma's grass slippers, like always. I stared at them, choking up.

  I wondered if I'd ever see them again.

  Maybe not.

  Herbie followed me out to the street. Planes sped past overhead, engines screaming, earth shaking, Ma's shadow framed in the screen door.

  I reached out to shake Herbie's hand. His grip was stronger than I thought it would be. I pulled him close and hugged him for the first time in my life. I slapped him once on the back, then let go.

  “Help Ma, okay? Things going get tough now. You got to be strong. I know you can do it.”

  Herbie nodded.

  We looked at each other. I felt bad putting weight on him like that. But what could I do?

  “Strong,” I said.

  Just down the street, Pop stood with his back swayed, gazing up at a sky smeared with the ugly black bursts of antiaircraft fire. Down toward Pearl Harbor fat black columns of smoke boiled into the clouds.

  I wanted Pop to see that I was leaving. I wanted him to say goodbye, to say something, anything. I wanted him to know I wouldn't let him down. I would never shame him, not in a million years.

  I mashed my lips together, then turned and headed downtown.

  Honolulu was a mess.

  Cars zipping around, ignoring red lights and stop signs. Police sirens, ambulances, fire engines, horns, people shouting. Now I could hear machine-gun fire mixed in with the rumble of planes. Nothing seemed real. Was the world coming to an end? A bomb could fall on me and—boom!—I'm gone.

  I headed downtown, looking out for Chik and Cobra, who were also home on pass. I ran by Advertiser Square, the old missionary church, the palace, cutting through yards, crossing soft grass in the shade of monkeypod trees, while all around, uniformed guys like me raced toward the Army-Navy YMCA, where the buses would be.

  Amazingly, I spotted Chik running up ahead, his unbuttoned shirt streaming out behind him.

  “Chik!” I yelled.

  He glanced over his shoulder and stopped.

  “Ho, man!” he said. “What is all this?”

  “You seen Cobra?”

  “Not since Friday night.”

  “Look at all these guys,” I said. “How we going get back to Schofield?”

  Down near Pearl Harbor more and more black smoke was piling into the sky, rising up d
arker and dirtier and uglier by the second.

  Chik said, “Man, I was only home for half an hour before all this noise. What a party last night. How come I never saw you at Jiro's place?”

  “Party? How can you even think about that now?”

  Before he could answer, a thundering explosion rocked the street just blocks away. We covered our heads and ducked, then looked at each other and took off running.

  We ran past bars and cafés and arcades and tattoo parlors, the streets tangled with military and emergency vehicles and guys trying to hitch rides back to their posts.

  But there were way too many of them.

  “Chik! Eddy!” We turned and saw Cobra shoving his way toward us.

  “Hey,” Chik said, his white teeth flashing. “How come you never showed up at Jiro's party? I thought for sure you—”

  “Are you nuts?” Cobra said. “Talking about—”

  He stopped and looked up.

  The skies had fallen eerily silent. Between the buildings that ran down to Honolulu Harbor we could see the planes racing away, little specks regrouping and zipping out to sea. I checked my watch. Eight-forty.

  “It's over,” I whispered.

  “For those guys it is,” Cobra said. “They gotta be running low on fuel. Must be a carrier out there.” He slapped my shoulder. “We got to find us a bus.”

  “Wait—I have an idea,” I said, and took off up the street, away from the crowds. A bus, if we could even find one, would take too long.

  They ran after me, Cobra yelling, “What are you doing?”

  We needed a car.

  A black Packard broke away from the traffic jam and sped toward me. The red-haired haole driver honked—Blaat! Blatt!—hunched over the steering wheel.

  I waved my hands above my head. “Stop! Stop!”

  Blaaaaaaaat!

  “Eddy!” Cobra shouted. “Get out of the way!”

  The haole slammed on the brakes. The engine stalled, and he fumbled to start it. I could see he was scared. He tried to roll his window up, but I ran over and put some weight on it.

  “Get away from me!” the guy shouted.

  Chik and Cobra crowded in.