Hawaii - James Michener [524]
"Where did you learn Reiko-chan?"
"In Japan," he replied casually.
"Did you ever know a Reiko-chan?"
"I knew a Kioko-chan."
There was a long silence as they ate sushi, and Reiko wanted to ask many questions and Lieutenant Jackson wanted to make many comments, but neither spoke, until at the same moment Reiko pushed her fork toward the sashimi and the officer shoved his chopsticks at the raw fish. There was a clatter and laughter and Jackson said, "I was deeply in love with Kioko-chan, and she taught me some Japanese, and that's why I have my present job."
"What is it?" Reiko asked solemnly, her face flushed.
"Because I speak a little of your language . . . Well, you understand, I'm not really a navy officer. I'm a Seattle lawyer. I'm with the Adjutant General and my job is to visit Japanese families and tell them that their daughters should not marry American G.I.'s. I see about twenty families a week . . . You know how American men are, they see pretty girls and they want to marry 'em. My job is to see that they don't."
Suddenly he broke his chopsticks in half and his knuckles grew white with bitterness. "Each week, Reiko-chan, I see about twenty Japanese girls' and argue with them, and every goddamned one of them reminds me of Kioko-chan, and pretty soon I'm going to go nuts."
He looked straight ahead, a man squeezed in a great vise, and he had no more appetite. Reiko, being a practical girl, finished the sashimi and said, "I must go back to work."
"Will you have lunch with me tomorrow?" the officer said.
"Yes," she said, but when he started to accompany her to the street, she gasped and said, "My father would die."
"Does he believe the Japanese fleet is coming soon?"
"Not he," she lied, "but his friend. What is the truth?"
"In one year or two we will destroy Japan."
That night Reiko-chan advised her father that there must be something wrong with the Wyoming newspaper, because Japan was not winning the war, but this infuriated Sakagawa-san, who had brought home a second copy of the Prairie Shinbun, more inflammatory than the first, and as Reiko patiently read it to him she herself began to wonder: "Who is telling the truth?"
Then proof came. President Roosevelt arrived in Honolulu aboard a naval ship, and the Sakagawas saw him with their own eyes and marked the way in which he rode through Honolulu, protected by dozens of secret-service men. To Sakagawa-san, this proved that America was strong, but he had not reckoned with Mr. Ishii's superior intellect, for scarcely had the long black automobiles sped by when the excited little man rushed into the barbershop with staggering news.
"Didn't I tell you?" he whispered. "Oh, tremendous! Come to Sakai's immediately."
Sakagawa turned the barbershop over to his daughter and slipped down a side street to Sakai's store, entering by a back door so as not to attract attention, for groups of Japanese were still prevented from assembling. In the back room Sakai, Mr. Ishii and several agitated older men stood discussing the exciting news. For a moment Sakagawa could not comprehend what it was all about, but soon Mr. Ishii explained everything.
"President Roosevelt has come to Hawaii on his way to Tokyo. He's going to surrender peacefully, be executed at the Yasukuni Shrine as a common war criminal, and the Japanese navy will be here in three days."
Mr. Ishii's stories always featured specific details and dates, and one would have thought that after a while his listeners would recall that for three years not one of his predictions had come to pass; but the hope of victory was so strong in the hearts of some of his audience that he was never called to task for his errors. "In three days!" he said. "Ships of the Imperial navy steaming into Pearl Harbor. But I will protect you, Sakagawa-san, and I will ask the emperor to forgive you for sending your sons to war."
When President Roosevelt left Honolulu for his execution in Tokyo, Mr. Ishii waited in a state of near-collapse for the battleships of his homeland to come steaming in from the west. For three nights he