Hawaii - James Michener [570]
"What you say is fascinating," Shig volunteered slowly. "The man I'm working for, this Dr. Abemethy, says exactly the same thing about the land problems. Only he always adds, 'A nation is lucky when it loses a war at the right time.' The more I look at what we're doing for Japan, the more I believe him."
Goro put down his beer and said solemnly, "When I get back to Honolulu, I'm going to introduce a new motto."
"What do you mean?"
" 'What's good enough for the vanquished, is good enough for the victor.' I'm going to see to it that a man in Hawaii has a right to join a union, too. Just like a man in Tokyo. And when I start, Hoxworth Hale better stand back. He won last time because labor was stupid. Next time I'll win because of what I'm learning in Japan."
"Don't commit yourself to trouble," Shig warned.
"If you don't do the same," Goro countered, "I'll be ashamed of you. You'll have wasted your war."
This was the first time Shig had heard the phrase that was to determine his behavior in the next few years. "Don't waste your war!” On this first enunciation of the basic law he said to his brother, "I've been wondering what I ought to do, Goro. Talking so much with Dr. Abernethy has convinced me of one thing. There isn't a single Japanese on Hawaii that's educated. Oh, there are smart men like Pop and medical doctors like Dr. Takanaga, but they don't really know anything."
"You're so right," Goro agreed sadly, slumping over his beer. "Have you ever talked to a real smart labor leader from New York?"
"So I thought maybe I'd go to Harvard Law School."
"What a marvelous idea!” Goro cried. "But look, kid, I don't want you to go there and just learn law."
"I have no intention of doing that," Shig replied carefully. "Dr. Abernethy suggested that maybe I'd like to live with him. His wife's a lawyer."
Goro became positively excited. "And you'd talk at night, and get a little polish and argue about world history. Shig! Take it. Look, I'd even help you with the money."
"Aren't you going on to graduate school?" Shig asked.
Goro blushed, toyed with his beer, then looked at his watch. "I think I have other plans," he confessed. "I want you to meet her."
The Dai Ichi Hotel in Tokyo stood near the elevated loop that circled the city, and not far from the Shimbashi Station. In 1946 this area was filled each night with pathetic and undernourished Japanese girls, some of the most appealing prostitutes Asia had ever produced, and the tragedy of their near-starvation was that when they began to recover their health, and their cheeks filled out, they were so confirmed in streetwalking that they could not easily convert into any other occupation, and they continued at their old trade, mastering a few English words and sometimes moving into surreptitious army quarters with their G.I. lovers.
Now, as Shig and Goro walked through the bitter cold of a Tokyo January night, the horde of girls called to them in Japanese, "Nice Nisei G.I. Would you like to sleep with a real warm girl tonight?" Shig felt sick and tried not to look at the haunting, starved faces, but they pressed near him, begging, "Please, Nisei, I make you very happy for one night. I am a good girl."
They looked exactly like the prettier Japanese girls he had known in Hawaii, and as they tugged hungrily at his arms, he thought: "Maybe there's something about losing a war that Dr. Abernethy doesn't appreciate. Maybe it isn't so good."
In time the brothers broke away from the Shimbashi girls and turned left toward the Ginza, but they kept away from that broad street which M.P.'s patrolled and headed instead for the Nishi, or west, Ginza, where they entered into an exciting maze of alleys, one of which contained a very tiny bar, not much bigger than a bedroom, called Le Jazz Bleu. Ducking swiftly inside, they found the little room thick with smoke, bar fumes and the sound of an expensive gramophone playing Louis Armstrong. Three customers sat on minute barstools, while from the rear an extremely handsome girl in western clothes approached.