This Scorching Earth

by Donald Richie

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the next coach, and the student stared at the younger soldier, whose eyes had inadvertently followed the other soldier's thumb. The old soldier stuck out his underlip, then suddenly smiled expansively and dug the other in the ribs with his elbow.

  "But—we should worry, huh? We never had it so good." He laughed good-naturedly and blew his nose.

  Michael did not turn away this time. He looked steadily at the nose and the good-natured eyes for a second. For some time he had known that just as he had come to love Haruko as a personification of Japan, so had he come to despise representatives of America like this soldier. What happened to Americans abroad? They changed somehow. This fellow in the fields of Arkansas or the hills of Tennessee would have been a nice guy. But here he became a kind of monster. Was this what came from being a native of the richest, most powerful country in the world? Or was this what came from being a conqueror? Or was it both?

  He didn't know, but he did know that one either went the way of this bastard or else went the way he himself had gone. No one ever felt lukewarm about Japan—you either loved it or hated it. It brought out a strong emotion in any case. The only difficulty was that either way it also changed your opinion of your own country. It made men like this think America was best because it was richest. And it made men like himself critical of America, just because it was the richest, most powerful, and because it could create sons of bitches like this one. He shook his head and turned away.

  The soldier leaned forward and touched Michael's shoulder.

  Michael moved his shoulder quickly. She had touched his shoulder last night. She had bent forward and said: "If I love, I love Michael." He shook his head, wondering how it was possible not to be certain whether one loved or not. You either did or you didn't.

  He had looked so unhappy that she had laughed again, the way Japanese always laugh when they are about to tell you something particularly sad.

  "Michael," she said, "come sit. More close." She pointed to her narrow futon. "We talk."

  They talked until the moon had long faded and the first sunshine turned the panes of the paper shoji a faint pink. She argued that marriage was impossible. She could not leave home. She could not disappoint her parents. He said that if she loved him as much as he loved her she wouldn't even think of reasons like those. Surprisingly, she agreed with him and seemed to feel sad that it was so. Frightened, he explained to her that she did indeed love him very much. She appeared to believe it and was happy again. He told her how he would take her home and how his parents would love her as though she were their own daughter and how happy they would all be. She said nothing, merely sighed.

  Later on, he kissed her, and she turned her head shyly and laughed.

  "What's so funny?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she said, still laughing. "This is my first time to be kissed. It is strange."

  He leaned over her, holding her by the shoulders. "Does it seem nice?"

  She wrinkled her forehead, thinking, then said: "If we do it again, we will know, won't we?"

  He kissed her several more times.

  "Yes," she said finally, "it very nice. Now it is morning. I'll get tea for you—at last."

  She made him sit in the corner so that anyone opening the doors would not at once see him. The Japanese house had absolutely no privacy. There were no locks on the doors, no doorknobs—actually no doors in the usual meaning of the word. He had always vaguely approved of this until now.

  So he had sat and watched the new sunlight creep slowly across the tatami.. ..

  He opened his eyes. The train was going through a large park. In the distance was a dome. Near the track were a number of small new houses and beside them a stretch of burned ground with a single tall chimney in the middle. Children were playing in roads, and beyond them a fleet of kites rose from behind a clump of dusty trees.

  The Nisei soldiers pointed the kites out to each other. The very young soldiers were still deep in their comic books.

  "Where are we?" asked the older soldier.

  Michael looked out of the window. "Shinano-machi."

  "Boy, that's a mouthful," said the other.

  Michael didn't answer.

  "Boy, I bet you get tired of the same old route. I know just what you mean. There's a little old streetcar out of Tachikawa and, Jesus, do I get tired of that thing—take it to see my girl. The new one, that is."

  "I usually take the subway," said Michael. It made him feel a bit noble, being polite to someone he hated so.

  "Do you now?" He had at last sensed the formality of Michael's manner and, in turn, spoke a bit stiffly and politely himself. "I always wanted to do that, but it's kind of unsafe, isn't it? Hell, I wouldn't want no DR." He laughed self-indulgently. "I got enough of them as is."

  Michael rubbed his eyes and felt the beard on his chin. "Never saw any MP's on it. It used to be on-limits, you know."

  "Don't I know!" said the older soldier, drawing himself up. He had been offended. "Hell, man, I was one of the first GI's on Jap soil. I came in with the Bataan boys. Why, we used to have the run of this place. Nothing chicken like now." He smiled in reminiscence. "Sure, subway and all. Boy, used to get right in among 'em. And the smell! Damned if I see how the gooks stand it. I never could. Hell, how you stand it, man?" This was a joke but, now unsure of Michael, he laughed to show it was.

  Michael didn't see the laugh though. He was looking out the window, and the train had started again.

  The older soldier scratched his head, then turned around and looked covetously at the comic books.

  The park flashed past, and Michael realized he was hungry. The tea, soup, and pickled vegetables that Haruko had finally brought him wasn't very much for breakfast.

  "I thought you could eat some miso-shiru," she said, uncovering the soup.

  "You've been gone an hour," he said accusingly.

  "Yes," she said. "But no one hear—talk quiet." She was speaking English again.

  The tray she put before him was a work of art. She'd had to clean a whole daikon in order to make a single slice, like a full moon on one side of the plate; she'd gathered and cut scallions so that a touch of green balanced it; she'd made a fish-cake flower, all pink and white in the middle, and had balanced this with a carefully grated mound of red radish. This alone must have taken the hour.

  He drank the soup, wondering if she would ever realize other things were sometimes more important than etiquette, than the art of graceful serving, than the conferring of favors like the exquisite plate before him.

  "I'd rather have had you with me during that hour," he said softly.

  "If we be married, you have me many, many hours. Too many, I think maybe."

  "No, not too many. You mean a great many."

  "Yes," she laughed, "I always mistake. Many, many."

  She had already started to ask him about a fine point of English grammar when he suddenly realized what she'd said. "You said—if we are to be married!"

  "Yes. If."

  "But then, you will marry me?"

  "Oh, yes. I would. Happy, many happy."

  "Then you will?"

  "Will? Oh, no. I don't know about that. I must think much."

  They talked until almost seven. Their voices grew more and more soft, and they held their breath when the old servant passed along the corridor outside the door, separated from them only by paper. Fortunately she was hard of hearing.

  Haruko had wedged a small table against the fusuma opening into the corridor, but it wouldn't hold if anyone used a bit of force. Like most Japanese things, it too was intensely fragile. If you moved too swiftly in a Japanese house, you broke something.

  It was full morning and he was sleepy. "Please," he said.

  She smiled and then said he must go. They would be discovered if he remained. And he must not allow the neighbors, who almost always saw everything anyway, to view his departure. He must be very swift and very silent.

  He said he wo
uldn't go until she said either that she would marry him or that she wouldn't.

  Quite suddenly she kissed him and said: "Yes, yes, I will marry. Now go."

  She pushed him from the shoji into the garden and then, kneeling, waved good-by, though they were only a few feet apart.

  He let himself out the gate and took the crowded subway downtown. So now he was going to get married. And the sooner the better....

  "Shinjuku," said the older soldier, looking out of the window. Ahead, a group of higher buildings rose above the small houses, above the maze of small streets—four or five high buildings, all white in the sun.

  "I know; I live there," said Michael.

  "You live there? What d'ya know." He was starting another conversation, but the train was slowing down, so he stood up. He laughed and carefully laid his half-smoked cigarette on the floor. "Boy, you can't say I'm not good to these gooks. Hell, I never step on my butts." With exaggerated care he stepped over it. "When Junior comes by and takes his dust pan into that closet again to count over the butts, he's gonna have a real nice surprise."

  He swayed slightly. The car came to a sudden stop and threw him off balance. He had stepped on the cigarette and swore, then laughed and turned to Michael: "Well, here we are!"

  "I know," said Michael shortly.

  The other looked at Michael over his large, pitted nose. "Hey, how's about showing me around a little? I don't know this place, you know. You could just steer me a bit. Hell, I got money. I'm gonna have me one hell of a good time."

  "I told you I had to be in. I'm supposed to be at work now."

  "That's right," said the other. He seemed dimly aware that he had antagonized Michael, and it disturbed him. "Just a drink maybe—some good ole Shinjuku saké."

  They were all alike. Show them you didn't like them and they came fawning like puppies. Any number of Americans he knew just couldn't stand not being liked. They liked being conquerors, but they wanted the conquered to like it too. He remembered overhearing an American woman's dismissing the entire population of Japan by saying: "They really don't act like they're glad we won the war." This craving for being liked—it was the American's soft spot, and it was a yard wide. And they could never understand why sometimes people didn't like them—they all got childish hurt eyebrows such as this one had now.

  The coach door was thrown open and the train boy called the station in the typical high chanting voice that all train boys in Japan have used, apparently, ever since there have been trains. The two soldiers were thrown together, surrounded by those pouring from the other coaches. Women with children on their backs, old men, girls going to school, young businessmen, all pushing each other unmercifully, safe in their anonymity.

  "Jesus!" said the older soldier.

  Down the stairway, on the street level, the crowd was less dense. Both soldiers passed through the Allied entrance, and Michael started down the street.

  "Hey, Mac," called the older one, "come on. Let's have ourselves a real time. Come on!"

  Michael did not not turn around until he reached the street corner. By then the old soldier with the red nose was standing there, stupidly looking around him.

  Shinjuku was where the farmers came, and Michael was glad he was stationed there. Around the station, street stalls lined the gutters, and opposite them stood small open shops. Sides of red beef hung from the ceilings on hooks; whole fish, brittle and dusty, fastened through the gills, lay against the walls; and the floors were covered with barrels and boxes. In the stores were country people carrying large bundles carefully wrapped in pieces of cloth. The bright colors of other parts of town were missing. Instead there were the somber blues and browns and grays, the slight checks and stripes of country people's clothing.

  Whole families loaded with bundles struggled through the crowds, calling to each other at times. Cocks in wicker cages crowed, and pigs in baskets squealed. Some little children, playing a game like hide-and-seek, ran skilfully between the passing legs.

  Further along the street the stalls disappeared. There was no more room for them on the sidewalks. The buildings were taller now and the busy intersection was the center of Shinjuku. There were small hardware-shops, teashops, small theatres, and geta-shops where rows of wooden clogs and sandals stretched in lines of yellow unfinished wood, white in the sunlight.

  Michael smelled the clean rice smell of the Japanese. In close quarters it tended to grow musty, but in the open air the smell was exhilarating. He smelled something else, and it reminded him of Haruko—as did everything Japanese. He finally located it. A Japanese war veteran, with one leg and one arm gone, was standing on the corner in his clean white robe and field cap. His long hair was beautifully parted, and Michael could smell the same rich odor of pomade that he had associated up until now only with Haruko.

  Further on was an antique store. There were English signs in the window as well as a suit of ancient Japanese armour, a hand-wound phonograph, and a Petty-girl calendar. An elderly American couple, man and wife apparently, and a young lieutenant were looking in the window.

  "Oh, but it can't be. It just can't. Not here, not right out in the open," said the woman in little screams, her white hair upswept and held in place by several lacquered geisha combs. She was uncommonly white.

  "Well, my dear, as they say in New York, step in and try it on," said the elderly gentleman, also quite white.

  "But not here, not here where we've combed every alley for years. Not a real piece of celadon. I simply can't believe it."

  "That's what it looks like, ma'am," said the lieutenant. "Let's go in and see."

  "But you know it couldn't be. You just don't find, things like that—except in Korea, of course."

  The lieutenant took off his cap and ran his fingers boyishly through his brown, curly hair. "Well, I don't know much about stuff like pottery, ma'am. But you never can tell." He put one hand rakishly on his hip and with a bow, like an Oriental shopkeeper—or his idea of one—indicated the door.

  Michael purposely chose this moment to salute. The lieutenant, with a glance of alarm, put on his hat and saluted in return. By that time, however, Michael was past.

  The lady laughed merrily. "Oh, Lieutenant, your hat's on sidewise. You look just like Napoleon."

  Her husband laughed too, gruffly, like an old campaigner. As Michael turned the next corner he could still hear her, even above the noise of the traffic:

  "Oh, but—it simply couldn't be! Not celadon, not in Shin-jew-kew."

  Outside the office building where Michael worked and lived two soldiers were leaning against the wall, gazing at all the prettier girls that passed. One of them ostentatiously carried two Hershey bars, and the other had a package sealed with PX tape. First one would whistle and the other would howl; then they would exchange comments. Thus far no girls had stopped nor, apparently, been even interested. The sun shone on both, and thin lines of perspiration had appeared at their temples and over their lips.

  At the main entrance to the building was an MP; inside were two more. To all of them Michael showed his pass.

  "Look, Private, I know you live here and have it real cushy, but if you keep on shacking up outside every night I'm going to report you."

  "What you talking about?" said Michael innocently. "I just went out half a hour ago to run an errand for Colonel Ashcroft."

  The MP rolled both eyes high under his eyebrows. "Oh, these kids," he said to the other MP, who sighed mockingly.

  "All right, Private Richardson," said the first, "you run on in. But next time"—he waved a forefinger—"Papa will spank."

  Michael smiled wanly at the MP. They had what was called a kidding relationship.

  The first MP turned to the other. "My, these recruits aren't what they used to be. Remember a year ago? Things are much too soft for them now. Can't even get a rise calling them recruit any more."

  "Oh, well," said the other, "things are soft all over." He nodded down the corridor to where the private had stopped and was talki
ng with a rather tall girl in a long fur coat.

  "Darling boy," she was saying, "where on earth have you been?" She shook her finger at him. "The Major has been simply furious. And the only reason I came to work on this festive morning—imagine, working on Saturday—only peasants work on Saturday—the only reason was to see you. And then you weren't even here. Where do you spend your nights anyway?"

  He turned toward the two MP's who were listening.

  She waved her hand airily. "Michael, dear, don't you know they don't do anything but stand there—they're supposed to be guardians of the peace, and goodness knows we're peaceful enough. Or, at least, I am. Anyway, no soldier of this great Occupation could conceivably return to his quarters to sleep. It would be like admitting defeat. So, now, tell me All. What—or, more likely, whom—have you been doing."

  "If I told you, I probably couldn't go there again. You'd edge me out," said Michael. Here was another kidding relationship.

  "You don't trust me! And that's the thanks I get for coming down here of a morning when I could have been sleeping."

  She screamed slightly: "But you're so dirty!" She walked slowly around him and shook her head. "My, is this a neat soldier?"

  "No, Miss Wilson."

  "Oh, call me Gloria. We know each other's faults so well by now. Being named Gloria is one of mine. I hate it. Makes me think of sunrises and other revolting things."

  She continued walking around him. Gloria now had her face—and her personality—on.

  She suddenly stopped and clasped her brow. "Now I've gone and gotten quite dizzy. Look, why don't you go to bed or something? You look as if you didn't go to bed at all, or at least didn't sleep, or at least didn't take your clothes off."

  "We're both supposed to be at our desks now. Why are you marching around here in furs?"

  "Ladies' room, dear. And it's simply icy this morning."

  A major came out of a doorway, stood looking at them for a second, and then disappeared.

  "There he is, spying on us again," said Gloria. 'An investigation is doubtless coming up. For all he knows I have half the Communist Party hidden under here."