Jim watched Matsuo’s progress as he drew nearer to the house. He remained calm. The drill tip scraped behind Matsuo, who struggled with each step. The drill seemed to throw his balance and the blunt end, still protruding from his chest, made the angle of his head unnatural, tilted to the left. A bloodstain bloomed general over Matsuo’s tunic, like an awful flower. The drill was very heavy.
Matsuo raised his pale face to the porch and Jim noticed that Matsuo — unlike him — was still young. Jim held his breath and waited, but the apparition remained. The two men watched each other. After sixty years of searching, Matsuo had found him. Finally, Matsuo pursed his lips and inhaled with great effort.
“Senso,” said Matsuo.
Senso meant war.
“Owari,” said Matsuo.
Owari meant finished.
Jim held Matsuo in his gaze, unable to look away. He asked, “Why are you here?”
Matsuo struggled to find words. He shook his head slowly. The wind sang through the scrubby pine. Still the radio sputtered on the kitchen table. The postgame coverage drifted out through the living room past the sideboard and the brown picture of Peggy’s great-grandparents on the beach — their shaded heads and naked feet. There on the wall by the mirror were Jim’s framed dog tags. By the door, on the loaded coat hooks, Peggy’s barn jacket and slicker still hung. The wallpaper around the east window was peeling from the damp and needed attention. The gutter had filled up with leaves and sprouted icicles. To the north, the garage door of the neighboring house had blown loose and its even banging reminded Jim of his mother’s skilled knifework as she chopped apples. Snow was collecting on the brim of Matsuo’s hat.
“Why are you here?” Jim repeated.
Matsuo lowered his gaze. He looked up the road, then, clenching his teeth in pain, began walking away.
Yamashita’s Gold
TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS had passed since Carlos Salas had seen Pio Balmaceda. Salas was now a success: a citizen of Manila with his own rooms, a bank account, a respectable job of no distinction. The war had left him with the stiff-shouldered stoop of an older man well past his fifties, but in Salas this looked formidable rather than weak. He was popular with the bar girls — who found him quiet and easy to accommodate — since getting married was out of the question. For a man of his means, he was careful with his appearance. His linen suit bagged at the knees. His shoes were well shined, but the toes angled upward.
Salas stood leaning on the back of a bench, looking street end to street end for a taxi. He was unfamiliar with this part of Manila. His head was heavy and his expression subdued, indicative of a general weariness of life. His features were more Chinese than Malay, but in Quiapo — Chinatown — this was not unusual. In fact, the preponderance of Chinese and Chinese mestizos is why he second-guessed himself when he first saw Balmaceda (who was not Chinese, but was easily taken as such) across the street, through the smudgy window of a restaurant.
Balmaceda was eating a siopao. He raised the bun to his mouth with small, ratlike hands. He nibbled at it, looking first to the right, then to the left. Salas leaned in closer (the street was not very wide), growing more convinced that it had to be Balmaceda. Salas abandoned his bench and crossed the street. He hid by a news vendor, shifting from one foot to the other to stop his back from seizing up, which it did when he stood for long periods of time.
This had to be Balmaceda tilting his head nervously from side to side as he ate, eyes ever alert to the possibility of a surprise, attack or otherwise. Salas remembered those awkward movements, remembered being bothered by them years earlier, when he and Balmaceda had spent long hours together. No doubt, Balmaceda’s foot would be tap-tapping away on the linoleum, communicating his anxiety in code. Salas decided to slip away without confronting him. He hadn’t seen Balmaceda in twenty-eight years, but it was more than this length of time that had kept them separate. Why would Salas approach him now? What would he say?
Halfway down the block Salas realized that he could have been wrong. What if it wasn’t Balmaceda? The man he had watched was fat and had a slovenly bearing. What if it was someone else? Chinese were often mistaken for Japanese. Salas continued down the street, but he could not outdistance his desire to know for sure. He remembered Balmaceda looping little circles of despair with his twitching hands. He remembered Balmaceda’s birdlike, sporadic gaze. The man’s weight gain could account for the blunting of features. His stooped frame as he bent over his food could simply be the result of the march of years, or the absence of a military lifestyle that required a certain erectness. Faces and bodies changed, but people kept their mannerisms for life.
Salas paused beneath a flashing sign that outlined the shape of a bucking steer. Poor lettering in the window promised women and steak. He stood there thinking, until the impatient proprietor swung open the door, releasing chilled, smoky air into the street. He smiled at Salas; one tooth was outlined in gold and looked like an empty picture frame. Dance music boomed behind him. Salas shook his head.
Salas decided he needed a second look. By the time he got to the restaurant, the possible Balmaceda was gone. Salas took a chair at the table where the man had been seated; the view of the city was grim — a pharmacy, a few taxis, a tree beneath which street children gathered, all grayed and weighted by the sooty air. The traffic light turned red and children lit into the stopped traffic, tapping the windows with empty cups, their faces somber and dirty. Then the light turned green and they returned to their tree, flitting back like sparrows. Dead flies with their legs neatly folded littered the inside of the window. Salas drummed his fingers on the greasy Formica tabletop. Was it or was it not Balmaceda? A man in a dirty apron came out from the kitchen to take his order. Salas ordered a Coke, just to be polite, then asked the waiter about the man who had occupied his seat. Was he a regular? The man in the dirty apron thought this through.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to eat?” he said.
“I’ll take one siopao,” said Salas.
“What kind?”
“Asado, I guess,” said Salas, although he wasn’t overly fond of it.
“Is that all?”
“Don’t get greedy,” Salas said. “It is, after all, a very small question.”
“Monday through Friday for lunch,” said the man. He returned a short while later with a small bottle of Coke and a steaming siopao.
“We have ice cream.”
“What kind?”
“Queso.”
Salas did not like cheese ice cream, but he figured this man had something to offer in addition to dessert. He stirred his ice cream, watching it pool into itself. The man in the apron looked closely into Salas’s face.
“You were standing across the street.”
“I was.”
The proprietor nodded, satisfied. He handed Salas a folded newspaper. “This newspaper terrified him,” he said.
Salas unfolded the newspaper. He gazed in disbelief at the front-page headline.
“He saw you watching him,” said the proprietor. “He ran out of here the moment you left.”