Hawaii - James Michener [529]
"I am going to marry him, Father," his daughter repeated forcefully.
"But you're a Japanese," he reiterated. Taking her hand he said, "You have the blood of Japan, the strength of a great nation, everything . . ." He tried to explain how unthinkable her suggestion was, but could come back to only one paramount fact. "You're a Japanese!"
Reiko explained patiently, "Lieutenant Jackson is a respectable man. He has a much better job than any man here that I might possibly marry. He's a college graduate and has a good deal of money in the bank. His family is well known in, Seattle. These things aren't of major importance, but I tell you so that you will realize what an unusual man he is."
Kamejiro listened in disgust at the rigamarole, and when it seemed likely that Reiko was going to add more, he slapped her sharply across the cheek. "It would be humiliating," he cried. "A permanent disgrace. Already even the rumor of your behavior has ruined the barbershop. The Sakai girl has quit. So has the Hasegawa. No self-respecting Japanese family will want to associate with us after what you have done."
Reiko pressed her hand to her burning cheek and said quietly, "Father, hundreds of decent Japanese girls have fallen in love with Americans."
"Whores, all of them!" Kamejiro stormed.
Ignoring him Reiko said, "I know, because that's Lieutenant Jackson's job. To talk with parents like you. And the girls are not . . ."
"Aha!" Kamejiro cried. "So that's what he does! Tomorrow I go see Admiral Nimitz."
"Father, I warn you that if you . . ."
"Admiral Nimitz will hear of this!"
The little dynamiter did not actually get to Nimitz. He was stopped first by an ensign, who was so enthralled by the stalwart, bow-armed Japanese that he passed him along to a full lieutenant who sent him on to a commodore who burst into the office of a rear admiral, with the cry: "Jesus, Jack! There's a little Japanese out here with the goddamnedest story you ever heard. You gotta listen."
So a circle of captains, commodores and admirals interrupted their work to listen to Kamejiro's hilarious pidgin as he protested to the navy that one of their officers had wrecked his barbershop and had ruined his daughter.
"Is she pregnant?" one of the rear admirals asked.
"You watch out!" Kamejiro cried. "Mo bettah you know Reiko a good wahine!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Sakagawa. In our language ruined means, well, ruined."
When the officers heard who it was that ruined, or whatever, the girl Reiko, they almost exploded. "That goddamned Jackson!" one of them sputtered. "His job is to break up this sort of thing."
"I've told you a dozen times," another said. "Putting a civilian into uniform doesn't make him an officer."
"That's beside the point," the senior admiral said. "What I'd like to know, Mr. Sakagawa, is this. If the boy has a good reputation, a good job, a good income, and a good family back in Seattle . . . Well, what I'm driving at is this. Your daughter is a lady barber. It would seem to me that you would jump at the chance for such a marriage."
Little Kamejiro, who was shorter by nine inches than any man in the room, stared at them in amazement. "She's a Japanese!" he said to the interpreter. "It would be disgraceful if she married a haole."
"How's that?" the commodore asked.
"It would bring such shame on our family . . ."
"What the hell do you mean?" the commodore bellowed. "Since when is a Jap marrying a decent American a matter of shame . . . to the Jap?"
"Her brothers in Italy would be humiliated before all their companions," Kamejiro doggedly explained.
"What's that again?" the senior officer asked. "She got brothers in Italy?"
"My four boys are fighting in Italy," Kamejiro said humbly.
One of the rear admirals rose and came over to the little dynamiter. "You have four sons in the Two-Two-Two?"
"Yes."
"They all in Italy?"
"Yes."
There was a long silence, broken by the admiral, who said, "I got one son there.