“Who took it off? The ambassador? The British leaned on you? Was it Beechum?”
“You should have left Beechum’s wife alone. It’s a small community.”
“Beechum, then? How can you let a hairless limey run American-Japanese affairs?”
“That’s the funny part. It wasn’t the British and it wasn’t us. It was the Japanese. I’m sorry. No negotiations, they want you right here.”
The smoke thickened and lowered. Pages that floated half aflame were doused with water. Harry took a step back, not from the heat of the wastebasket but from the staggering flush of his own error. The Japanese? The Japanese had taken away first the plane and now the boat. There weren’t many other ways off an island.
Hooper asked, “What did you do, Harry? You did something they want to hold you for. How did you know about the attack, really? Because you were absolutely right.” As the baskets turned to bonfires, staff threw precautionary dashes of water. Hooper smiled at the scene. “Remember being kids the first time we were here? The fireworks, the fireflies? Lord, we had fun. I always wondered why the Japanese didn’t kick you out. Now I wonder why they won’t let you go. Got a cigarette?” Harry tapped out a couple and gave one to Hooper, who spit loose tobacco toward the fire and gazed at the flames. “Remember, you once bet me five dollars you could get a fish in and out of a sake bottle without breaking the glass, then you switched the fish with an eel. In and out, slick as butter. The high cost of education, you said.” He pulled Harry close enough to whisper. “I used that trick the whole summer. Made fifty dollars. Thought my old man would have a stroke.”
In and out like an eel in a bottle? Not a bad trick, Harry thought. He wished he could do it now.
“I’ll miss you, Harry,” Hooper said.
“See you, Hoop.”
Which wasn’t likely, both men knew.
Hooper went back to the delicate task of incinerating papers in a closed room, but he got inspired before Harry cleared the door. “The reason they want you is that you screwed them, didn’t you? Somehow you screwed them.”
HARRY GATHERED MICHIKO at the café, and they walked back toward the car, a stylish couple on a sunny day, ignoring the constant bombardment of military music from loudspeakers.
“So, I’m set,” he said. “They figure one month, two at the most, and they’ll ship us home on the President Cleveland. They’ll put me in steerage, but I’ll start a card game and make a fortune. Serve them right. What about you? I’ll get back here as soon as I can, but you’ll want to do something in the meantime.”
“During the war?”
“That’s right.”
“Don’t you think it will be over soon?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
She edged infinitesimally closer, tantamount to touching. “I’ll wait.”
“But what will you do?”
“That is inconsequential. I’ll be here.”
They walked for a while.
“Okay.”
The street was like Park Avenue, with plane trees and canopies and people with little dogs, so Harry was unprepared for a fracas as the American manager of First National City was hustled out of his apartment house and into a car full of military police in plainclothes. He waved and shouted, “Hey, Harry, stand me a drink now?” The attention of the Kempeitai turned to Harry. Of the different arms of the law a person could be seized by, the Kempeitai were the worst. The officer in charge had a face that was creased down the middle with the sides slightly mismatched.
“Identity papers? American? We’re taking in all Americans.”
“You may want to radio in my name.”
“Why would I bother?”
“You may.”
The officer pressed Harry against the marble facing of the building. He riffled through Harry’s papers, then again, and took them to the radio operator in the car. It wasn’t the big punch you saw coming that hurt you, Harry thought, but the little punch you didn’t see. The officer returned and nodded toward the sound of the loudspeaker.
“There’ll be more news soon.”
“I’m sure there will be.”
The officer included Michiko in his study. “You like Japanese women?”
“Yes,” said Harry.
“And you like gaijin?”
“Yes,” Michiko said.
The officer told Harry, “Get on your knees.”
“My knees?”
“That’s right.”
Before Harry could move, the music in the loudspeakers died. Harry felt the street and all of Tokyo go quiet to take in the vigorous, raspy voice of General Tojo speaking from headquarters. Tojo was one of the Kempeitai’s own, and they came to attention for the general’s sharp, explosive Japanese. Well, give them credit, Harry thought. Less than a century before, they didn’t have a steamship, railroad or rifle to their name. They were a quaint little people who shuffled around in silk robes and sipped tea. “Monkey Island,” the Chinese called Japan, because it imitated China. Until the Japanese imitated the Prussian army and Royal Navy, humiliated China and sank the Russian fleet, and, now, with bright Yamato spirit, were taking on both the British and American empires in one go.
“I am resolved,” Tojo said, “to dedicate myself, body and soul, to the country, and to set at ease the august mind of our sovereign. And I believe that every one of you, my fellow countrymen, will not care for your life but gladly share in the honor to make of yourself His Majesty’s humble shield. The key to victory lies in a ‘faith in victory.’ For twenty-six hundred years since it was founded, our empire has never known defeat. This record alone is enough to produce a conviction in our ability to crush any enemy no matter how strong.”
An announcer followed with more news of annihilating blows delivered to the enemy and victories unprecedented in human history, the Battle of Trafalgar and Little Big Horn rolled up in one, but lacking details of how many battleships, cruisers or aircraft carriers were hit, let alone docks or depots.
The officer had not forgotten Harry. In fact, the speech had fired him with more pugnacity. “Get on your knees! Both get on your knees. You have soiled this sacred day.”
Harry said, “Excuse me, the lady-”
“She is not a lady, she is a whore. Your knees!”
“No,” Michiko said.
She was calmly going for the gun in her bag when the officer was interrupted and called to his car. He sat for a radio conversation that he contributed nothing to, and a minute later he returned with Harry’s papers and half his face red.
“You can go. Take the woman and leave.”
Harry said, “Thank you.”
The banker laughed. He had been watching the whole scene through an open car door. “It still works, I don’t believe it. The Niles luck.”
Harry and Michiko did as the Kempeitai officer suggested. Harry’s legs operated stiffly, while Michiko was smooth enough for two.
Harry said, “Connected and protected, even now.” All the same, he slipped on his germ mask. He didn’t feel quite that connected or protected. Shozo and Ishigami had let Harry walk, and now the Kempeitai?
When he was a kid working his way across California, Harry once worked at a slaughterhouse, prodding cattle with a long pole as they went through a chute toward the kill room. He had to keep the steers moving so they wouldn’t kick one another, get tangled on fence boards or otherwise make a fuss. Part of his job was to spot any animal that looked particularly diseased and move it into a side chute so that it could be killed separately. That was how Harry felt now. Not connected or protected but shunted aside.
WAR TRANSFORMED THE CITY. Flags grew like flowers. Shopgirls and office boys, lured by the din of loudspeakers, ran after a fire engine bringing a fireman to the station for military service. His engine mates carried poles with long fringes that they twirled like lion heads on pikes to the beat of clappers, while the draftee rode on top, cheeks red from sake and the honor. And the radios sang,