And hope was all he could do. He’d fought as long and as hard as he could, but now, for him, the war was over.
KENZO TAKAHASHI WONDERED IF HE’D BEEN SMART TO MAKE SURE HIS GIRLFRIEND was all right. For the first few days in the shelter under the Sundbergs’ house, things had been pretty quiet. He and Elsie and her folks could go up and use the bathroom. They could come out at night during lulls and get avocados out of the trees in the back yard. They could even sleep in beds if they wanted to, though that was risky. You could get caught when the shooting picked up again.
Now, though, the fighting had moved east. Too much of it was right in this neighborhood. The Japanese special naval landing forces didn’t yield ground till they had to. By the pounding U.S. forces were giving them, they would have to before long. In the meanwhile, though…
In the meanwhile, what had been a quiet, prosperous residential street turned into a good approximation of hell. Shells burst all the time. Machine guns stuttered and chattered. Rifles barked. Planes flew low overhead, strafing anything Japanese that moved-and anything that moved that might be Japanese. Coming out would have been suicidal. Kenzo had long since lost track of how many bullets tore through the house above them.
Mrs. Sundberg cried softly. “Everything we worked so long and hard to build and get…” she choked out.
“Not everything,” her husband said. “We’re still here. Things are just-things.” He’d always struck Kenzo as a sensible man.
“What do we do if the house catches fire?” Elsie asked.
“Get out as best we can and pray,” Mr. Sundberg answered bleakly. “That’s the one big worry I’ve got.”
There were smaller ones. Mr. Sundberg had dug that narrow trench to a latrine pit. People used it when they couldn’t go up above. It wasn’t pleasant, or anything close to pleasant. He’d stowed bottles of water down below, but not a whole lot of food. Everybody got hungry and cranky. Kenzo also felt very much the odd man out. Elsie’s folks were polite about it-he didn’t think he’d ever seen them less than polite. But they and Elsie made a group he wasn’t fully part of.
Her father joked about it: “If you can put up with her here, Ken, you’ll never have to worry about it again.”
“I think you’re right,” Kenzo answered. He and Elsie slept huddled together. So did her parents. They had no room for anything less intimate. Mr. and Mrs. Sundberg didn’t say boo. They had to know he’d really slept with Elsie, but they didn’t let on.
And then the firing got worse. Kenzo hadn’t thought it could. Japanese soldiers were right outside. They shouted back and forth to one another, trying to set up a defensive line. They sounded excited and frightened, but still full of fight.
Maybe one of them smelled the stink from the latrine pit. He came over and shouted, “Who’s in there?” Elsie and her folks couldn’t understand the words, but the tone made them gasp with fright. Kenzo was scared almost out of his wits, too-almost, but not quite. Trying to sound as gruff as he could, he barked, “This is a holdout position. Get lost, you baka yaro, or you’ll give it away.”
“Oh. So sorry.” The soldier clumped off.
Elsie started to ask something. Kenzo held a finger to his lips. Even in the gloom under the house, she saw it and nodded. When Kenzo didn’t hear any Japanese soldiers close by, he explained in a low voice.
“I think you saved all of us this time, Ken,” she whispered, and put her arms around him and kissed him right there in front of her parents. He was grinning like a fool when he came up for air. Maybe he wasn’t such an outsider after all.
“Thanks, Ken,” Ralph Sundberg said. “I don’t suppose you want a kiss from me, but I’m glad you and Elsie like each other. I’ll go on being glad when we get out of here, too.”
“Okay, Mr. Sundberg,” Kenzo answered. He couldn’t have asked to hear anything better than that. If the older man really meant it… He hoped he got the chance to find out.
A couple of hours later, something a lot bigger and heavier than a machine-gun round smashed into the house above them. The shooting rose to a peak, then slowly ebbed. Kenzo heard fresh shouts. Some of them were the cries of the wounded, which could have come from any throat. Others, though, were unmistakably English.
“My God!” Mrs. Sundberg whispered. “We’re saved!”
“Not yet,” Kenzo said. And he was right. The fighting went on for the rest of the day.
As evening turned gloom into blackness, he heard a Marine outside say, “Lieutenant, I think there’s Japs under this house. I’m gonna feed the fuckers a grenade.”
“No! We’re Americans!” Kenzo and the Sundbergs yelled the same thing at the same time. Getting killed by their own side would have been the crowning indignity.
Startled silence outside. Then: “Okay. Come out under the front steps. Come slow and easy and stick your hands in the air when you’re out.”
One by one, they obeyed. Scrambling out of the hole was awkward. Kenzo helped haul Elsie out. It wasn’t quite so dark as he’d expected when he returned to the world outside the little shelter. Four Marines immediately pointed rifles and tommy guns at him. “You guys are Americans,” one of them said to the Sundbergs. “What about this-Jap-lookin’ fellow?” In the presence of two women, he left it at that.
“He’s as American as we are,” Mrs. Sundberg said.
“He saved all our lives when you were pushing the Japanese back through here,” Mr. Sundberg added, looking back at the wreckage of his house. That must have been a tank round through it: the hole in the front wall was big enough to throw a dog through. Shaking his head, he went on, “We’ve known him for years. I vouch for him, one hundred percent.”
Elsie squeezed Kenzo’s hand. “I love him,” she said simply, which made his jaw drop.
It made all the Marines’ jaws drop, too. The one who’d spoken before frowned at Kenzo. “What have you got to say for yourself, buddy?”
“I’m glad to be alive. I’m twice as glad to see you guys,” he answered in his most ordinary English. “I hope I can find my brother and”-he hesitated- “my father.” Sooner or later, they would find out who his father was. That might not be so good.
“Can you men spare any food?” Mr. Sundberg asked. “We got mighty hungry under there.” Ration cans of hash and peaches made Kenzo forget all about what might happen later on-except when he looked at Elsie. Then he saw the bright side of the future. The other? He’d worry about it when and if it came.
BY THE SOUND OF THINGS, the end of the world wasn’t half a mile away from Oscar van der Kirk’s apartment, and getting closer all the time. The mad, anguished fury of war seemed all the more incongruous played out in Waikiki, which would do for the earthly paradise till a better one came along.
“Japs can’t last much longer,” Charlie Kaapu said, looking on the bright side of things. “All over but the shouting.”
“Some shouting,” Oscar said.
“He pronounced it wrong,” Susie Higgins said. “He meant shooting.”
“Maybe I did,” Charlie said. “Never can tell.”
Plenty of shouting and shooting was going on. To any reasonable man, Charlie was right and more than right when he said things were almost over. The Japs were-had to be-on their last legs. They’d been driven out of Honolulu. Waikiki was about the last bit of Oahu they still held. Logic said that, surrounded and outgunned, they couldn’t hold it long. Logic also said they should give up.
Whatever logic said, the Japs weren’t listening to it. They fought from machine-gun nests and rooftops and doorways and holes in the ground. They fought with a singleminded determination that said they believed holding on to one more block for one more hour was as good as throwing the Americans into the Pacific. It seemed crazy to Oscar, but nobody on either side gave a damn about his opinion.