Had U.S. fighters (some of the ones Peterson had seen weren’t Wildcats, but new, plainly hot machines) shot up the rice on the way to the Kalihi Valley? Or had the Japs, with more important things to worry about than a bunch of damned-literally-POWs, just not bothered sending any? Either way, it made starving to death seem almost worthwhile.
Almost.
WHEN JIRO TAKAHASHI WALKED UP NUUANU AVENUE to the Japanese consulate, he was shocked not to see the Rising Sun flying in front of the compound. Then he noticed how many bullet holes pocked the buildings. The staff must have decided not to fly the flag to keep from giving a target to the American planes now constantly overhead.
For most of the occupation, the guards in front of the consulate had been a ceremonial force. No more. They crouched in sandbagged machine-gun nests, the snouts of their weapons pointing up toward the sky. There were fewer of them than there had been. Some, Jiro supposed, would have gone up to the front. Others… With the buildings as battered as they were, some of those bullets would have found flesh, too.
“It’s the Fisherman!” one of the guards called. The men who were left still knew Jiro. That made him feel good. The one who’d spoken went on, “You bring us some nice ahi, Fisherman, or even some mackerel?”
Jiro laughed nervously. He was emptyhanded, as they could see. “Not today, gomen nasai,” he answered. He was sorry, too; in better times, he would have had fish for the consul and the chancellor and often the guards as well. “Is Kita-san in?” he asked.
“I think so,” the talky guard answered. “Go on in any which way. They’ll be glad to see you. They’re glad to see anybody right now.” His laugh had a somber edge.
With such gallows humor ringing in his ears, Jiro did. Even some of the secretaries had put down their pens and picked up Arisakas. One of the remainder, a gray-haired fellow who would have been useless on a battlefield, said, “Oh, yes, Takahashi-san, the consul’s here. I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk to you. Please wait a moment.” He hurried back to Nagao Kita’s office.
Returning a moment later, he beckoned Jiro on. “Welcome, Takahashi-san, welcome,” Kita said after they exchanged bows. “Good to see you haven’t abandoned us.” His words showed spirit, but his round features were thinner and less jaunty than Jiro had ever seen them.
Jiro bowed again. “I wouldn’t do that, your Excellency,” he said, though the thought had crossed his mind. The radio broadcasts full of lies he’d had to read still rankled.
“Plenty of people would,” Kita said. “They want to forget they ever heard of Japan or the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Opportunists.” He laced the word with scorn. “They probably have American flags in their closets, waiting to come out when the time is right.”
“I’m still here,” Jiro said, reflecting that both his sons thought him an idiot for clinging to the land where he was born. His still being here prompted another thought. “Please excuse me, Kita-san, but where is Chancellor Morimura?”
“Somewhere up at the fighting front,” Kita answered. Jiro blinked; the skinny official with the doelike eyes hardly seemed a military man. But the consul went on, “I have learned he is a graduate of Eta Jima, invalided out of the Navy because of stomach trouble. He went into, ah, other work after that. Now, though, with every man needed to hold back the Americans, he has returned to the warrior’s life.”
Tadashi Morimura-was that even his real name? — a graduate of the Japanese naval academy? Jiro had trouble imagining it, let alone believing it. But it was plainly true. And what “other work” had Morimura been doing? By the way Consul Kita said it, the man had been a spy. “I’m-amazed, Kita-san,” Jiro said.
“So was I,” Kita answered. “You think you know someone, and then you find you didn’t know him at all.” He shrugged. “Shigata ga nai.”
“Hai.” Jiro nodded. He’d thought Morimura a friend, not an operative. Things looked clearer than they had. No wonder Chancellor Morimura had introduced him to Osami Murata. He’d wanted the radio man from Tokyo to use Jiro as a propaganda tool. And he’d got what he wanted.
If I saw Morimura now, I’d punch him in the nose, Jiro thought. He laughed at himself, even here. The younger man would probably mop the floor with him. He shrugged. Well, so what? Sometimes you have to do things like that, just to show you’re no man’s puppet. He felt as if he wore strings on his wrists and ankles.
Nagao Kita might have been reading his mind. “I am sorry to have to tell you this, Takahashi-san,” he said. “I fear it will make you less likely to stay loyal to the end.”
He was right to fear that, too. But Jiro said only, “I’ve come this far. I can’t very well jump out of the boat now.” It’s too late. It wouldn’t do me any good. Because he had the consul at a momentary disadvantage, he felt he could ask, “How does the fighting look?”
“They push us back,” Kita answered bleakly. “We fight with great courage, shouting the Emperor’s name and wishing him ten thousand years. For all we do, though, they rule the skies, and they have more tanks and artillery.”
“This is not good,” Jiro said.
“Honto. This is not good,” the consul agreed. “I don’t know what we can do about it, though, except die gloriously, not retreating even a centimeter, dying rather than yielding the ground we have conquered.”
That did sound glorious. It also sounded like a recipe for defeat. Modern Japan had never been defeated in a foreign war. She’d beaten China and Russia. She’d sided with the Allies in World War I, and beaten Germany in China and on the seas. The idea that she could lose was unimaginable-except that Jiro had to imagine it. He asked, “What will you do, Kita-san, if, if-the worst happens?”
“I am a diplomat. The rules for me are different from the ones for soldiers,” Kita replied. “I can be exchanged.”
Jiro had an inspiration. “I am a Japanese national. Can I be exchanged, too?” If Hawaii returned to American hands, he wouldn’t want to stay here. Most people would hate him for siding with Japan. They might do worse than hate him. They might decide he was a traitor and hang him or shoot him.
Consul Kita looked surprised. “Well, I don’t know, Takahashi-san. I would have to do something like put you on my staff, I suppose.”
“Could you?” Jiro asked eagerly. Going back to Japan would mean leaving his sons behind. He knew that. But Hiroshi and Kenzo had their own lives. And they were Americans, as much as he remained Japanese. They might be glad to see him go. They’d probably be relieved if he did.
“Depend on it.” Kita scribbled a note to himself. “We will go on hoping that black day does not come. But if it should, we will see what we can arrange.”
“Domo arigato, Kita-san.” Jiro bowed in his chair. There was one thing he wouldn’t have to worry about. Of course, he still might get killed, but that didn’t bother him the same way. It wasn’t certain, and he couldn’t do anything about it one way or the other. If Japan lost, though, American vengeance was as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise. Now he’d done what he could to escape it.
WHEN MINORU GENDA PEDALED OVER TO IOLANI PALACE, something had changed. He needed a moment to realize what it was: the big, tough-looking Hawaiian soldiers who’d guarded the bottom of the stairway up to the front entrance were gone. He asked one of the Japanese guards at the top of the stairs what had happened to them.