This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie
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serious, to say anything that mattered to either of them, she always insisted on English, as though it put what they were talking of farther away from her—and as though that was what she wanted.
"Let's speak Japanese," said Michael. "My Japanese is better than your English."
"All right, we'll speak Japanese. English is so difficult. I've studied since I was a little girl and I'll never be able to speak well. The words are so long and so hard to pronounce and each one has so many meanings. When I was in high school—"
"Haruko! I came to ask you to marry me."
"Oh."
"Will you marry me?"
"Me promised," she said in English.
"All right, we'll talk in English if you want. In English, now: Will—you—marry—me?"
"I understand. I good understand. Me promised."
"I am promised," he corrected. "Is that what you mean—engaged?"
"Yes, I engaged," she repeated. Then she continued: "Young man, same age."
Michael had known this for some time. On his first visit her father, with great delicacy, had hinted until there could be no doubt that he was understood. She was to marry the son of an important man in one of Japan's largest entertainment combines. It was really a merger of the two families and would supposedly benefit both.
"Tomorrow I see," said Haruko. "At opera—at, how you say ...?"
"At the theater," said Michael. For some weeks he had also known that the official meeting would take place at the Imperial Theatre. Both Haruko and the boy had known each other almost all their lives, but tradition must be observed, and everyone would pretend that this formal, ceremonial meeting was the first time they'd ever seen each other. Michael had seen these meetings before, at the Kabuki, in the cherry groves at Ueno during the spring, in fashionable restaurants. Both the boy and the girl would avoid each other so far as possible. She would exclaim constantly upon the beauty of the blossoms, while he would examine his shoes or his hat. Up until this very moment Michael he had always thought such meetings both ludicrous and amusing.
"That's why I came, Haruko. I want you to marry me. I love you." It sounded strange in English, and then he realized that he'd always thought these words in Japanese.
She looked away. There was no light, and the moon shone through the paper, filling the room with an almost luminous glow. She reflectively ran her finger along the pattern cast by the shoji.
"I love you," she said, but it was only the repetition of an unfamiliar phrase. Then she looked up and said: "I love you too—I think."
"You think? Don't you know?
She laughed. "How I know? Japanese girl no know anything. I know Papa-san and Mama-san no want I love you much. They know you love me. But I love you? I no know." She smiled, as though it were a joke between them. .. .
The train jerked to a stop and the doors opened. An old lady, looking straight ahead, tried to board the car while the train boy, pushing her away, kept pointing in the direction of the Japanese cars. Understanding at last, she was still running awkwardly along the train when the doors slammed to and the train pulled past her and out of the station.
The older soldier was still talking: "Yessir, lot's of trouble if you're not smart enough to watch out for it. You got to understand these folks, got to understand their psychology. And, course, they ain't got good sense and that makes things more difficult. Now just look at them, like a bunch of animals."
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