She looked around at her companions in misery. About half looked as terrified as she felt. They had to be the ones who’d added things up the same way she had. The others just seemed confused. Ignorance, here, was liable to be bliss-but not for long.
One of the Japs in the crowded lobby was a lieutenant she didn’t remember seeing before. “You will listen to me,” he said in very good English. “It is not, ah, convenient for Japanese soldiers in this part of Oahu to travel to Honolulu for comfort and relaxation. So, we set up a comfort house here. You are chosen to man this house.”
His English might be good, but it wasn’t perfect. Manning wasn’t what the Japs had in mind for them. What they did have in mind… Nobody could keep any illusions any more. The women started screaming and cursing and telling the lieutenant no in terms as certain as they could make them.
He let them yell for a minute or two, then spoke in Japanese to the soldiers by him. They raised their rifles. As one man, they chambered a round. Those sharp clicks pierced the din like a steak knife cutting tender, blood-rare prime rib. Even at that dreadful moment, food came to the forefront of Jane’s thoughts.
“Enough,” the officer said. “If you do this, you will be well fed. The term of service will be six months.
You will not be liable again. If you do not…” He shrugged. “If you do not, you will be… persuaded.”
“I’d rather die!” one of the women shouted. She got the words out only a split second before Jane would have.
With another shrug, the lieutenant barked an order in his own language. Two soldiers handed their rifles to other men, then grabbed the woman, threw her down on the floor, and started beating and kicking her. Her screams and those of the other women filled the lobby. The Japanese seemed altogether indifferent.
They knew what they were doing, too. They inflicted the most pain they could with the least real damage. When they finished, the woman lay there crumpled and sobbing, but not too badly hurt. She was an object lesson, and a frighteningly good one.
After yet another order, the soldiers started taking women out of the lobby one by one. Some screamed and had hysterics. The Japs ignored that. Some tried to fight. The soldiers didn’t put up with any nonsense. They grabbed the women’s hands. If that didn’t do the job, or if the women tried to kick, they beat them into submission. They didn’t seem particularly malicious about it; they might have been dealing with restive horses.
When it came to be Jane’s turn, she did her best to boot one of the Japs right in the balls. Her face must have given her away, because he laughed and hopped back and left her looking like a Rockette with her foot way up in the air. A second later, his buddy punched her in the jaw.
Had it been a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it and called it a TKO. She didn’t fall down and she didn’t pass out. But everything went blurry for a while after that. When the Japs hustled her along, her feet walked. Her will, her wits-they were somewhere far away.
She came back to herself sitting at the edge of a bed in a room with bars on the window. I have to get out of here, she thought, and hurried to the door. She was a little wobbly, and the side of her face hurt like hell, but she stayed on her pins. The door opened when she thumbed the latch. She hadn’t been sure it would. But Japanese soldiers in the hallway leered at her when she stuck her head out. No way in hell she could get by them. She ducked back in a hurry.
Down the hall, a woman started to scream, and then another. A black, choking cloud of fear filled Jane. I have to get away, she thought again. What she thought she had to do and what she could do, though, were two horribly different things.
She’d just had the bright idea of using the bed for a barricade when the door opened. Too late again, just as she’d been too late figuring out what Yosh Nakayama was trying to tell her.
In strode the lieutenant who spoke English. “I decided I would start you out myself,” he said, as if she ought to be honored.
“Why?” Jane whispered.
“We need comfort women,” he answered. “And I liked your looks.” He took a step toward her. “Let’s get it over with, neh? Then you will know what you have to do.”
“No,” Jane said.
But it wasn’t no. She screamed, too, adding to the chorus that had to make this building sound like one of the nastier suburbs of hell. She did her best to fight, too. Again, her best was nowhere near good enough. She took another shot to the jaw. This time, things did gray out for a little while. She came back to herself with her jeans on the floor and the Jap pumping away between her legs. That hurt, too-the pain was probably what brought her back. He didn’t care if she screamed, but he slapped her when she tried to punch him.
A minute or a lifetime later, he grunted and shuddered and briskly pulled out of her. “Not bad,” he said, getting to his feet and briskly doing up his trousers. “No, not bad at all.”
Jane lay huddled on the bed. “Why?” she asked again. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You are the enemy,” he answered. “You are the enemy, and you have lost. You do not ask why after that happens. It is part of war.” He reached out and swatted her bare backside. “Maybe I will see you again.” Away he went, as pleased with himself as any man is afterwards.
She lay there, trying to decide whether she wanted to kill every Jap in the world or just kill herself. When the door opened again, she gasped in horror and reached down with futile hands to try to cover herself. But the soldier who came in, although he stared and laughed, only stared and laughed. He carried a tray probably stolen from the elementary-school cafeteria. He set it down on the floor and went out.
Dully, Jane eyed it. It held more food and better food than she’d seen in months. The Jap lieutenant hadn’t lied about that. For a little while, Jane didn’t think she could eat. She wanted to throw up.
No matter what her mind wanted, she saw rice and vegetables in front of her. Almost without conscious thought, she found herself eating. The plate emptied in what seemed the blink of an eye. The wages of sin are… lunch, she thought, which went a long way toward telling her how punchy she was.
Food even came ahead of putting her pants back on. She was just starting to reach for the jeans when a noncom walked into the room. He laughed to find her half dressed, and gestured that she should lie down on the bed again.
“No,” she said, even though he carried a bamboo stick like the ones the Jap guards used when they wanted to hurt POWs but didn’t want to kill them. “I’m not going to just give it to you.”
Maybe he spoke a little English. Maybe the look on her face told him she wouldn’t cooperate. Either way, he did what he wanted to do. He whacked her with the stick again and again. She tried to grab it, but she couldn’t. She screamed, but he ignored her. When she did her best to knee him in the crotch, he twisted to take it on the hip and slapped her in the face.
Before long, no matter how she fought, he was in her, slamming away to please himself without the faintest thought for her as anything but a piece of meat. When she thought he was distracted, she tried to bite him. Without missing a stroke, he jerked his shoulder back. Her teeth clicked on empty air. He smacked her again, and came in the same instant.
Out of the room he went, whistling one of the Japs’ unmusical tunes. Jane lay on her back, his seed dribbling out of her onto the sheet. If she fought every man who came in here, she’d be dead in nothing flat. Part of her said that would be for the best, but she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live till the Americans came back, and then to have her revenge.