Shakespeare chimed in Charlie’s head, as Shakespeare had a way of doing.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
He didn’t come out with the quotation, though he expected Garner would have known it if he had. Anyone who’d been educated in small-town Texas before the turn of the century would have been steeped in Shakespeare the way a tea bag was steeped in hot water.
Before Charlie could say anything at all, Garner went on, “I never reckoned I’d be in this slot so long, you know? When I said I’d run, I thought I’d have me a term or two, and that’d be it. Joe Steele would lose, or he wouldn’t run for a third term, or whatever the hell. Shows what I knew, don’t it? The things I’ve seen since. .” He shook his big head. “The things I’ve seen my whole life, I should say. I was born three and a half years after the States War ended. Ain’t many left who can say that.”
“No, there aren’t.” Charlie grinned at him. “Most of the ones who can would call it the Civil War.”
“Damnyankees, the lot of ’em,” Garner said without heat. “Weren’t any cars or planes or phones or radios or records or teevees or movies or lightbulbs or any o’ that crap when I was a boy. We had trains an’ the telegram an’ gaslamps, an’ we reckoned we were the most modern folks on the face of the earth. An’ you know what else? We were.”
“I guess so.” Charlie had grown up with most of the things Garner had seen coming in. But he remembered what a prodigy radio seemed like, and how the switch from silents to talkies changed film forever. Now, of course, television was changing the world all over again. That had only started. He could see as much, but he had no idea how it would turn out.
“Tell you somethin’ else, though,” John Nance Garner said after a pull at his latest bourbon. “I got goin’ on eighty-two years on me now, an’ in all my time on earth, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like Joe Steele. And Sullivan?”
“What?” Charlie said.
“You can take that to the fuckin’ bank.”
* * *
Mike walked into Wakamatsu. By now the castle, which had been bombed by the USA in World War II and shelled by both sides during the Japanese War, was looking pretty much like its old self again. The Japs worked hard at putting their shattered homeland back together again. At least they did here in South Japan, where American aid helped them repair what American firepower had smashed. Things on the other side of the demilitarized zone were tougher. Trotsky cared more about what he could get out of North Japan than he did about putting anything into it.
Because of that, Mike heard gunfire along the demilitarized zone every few days. Some North Japanese voted with their feet to show what they thought of their regime. Or they tried to, anyhow. Getting past the fortified border would have been tough even without the trigger-happy guards. With them, you literally risked your life. And, singly and in small groups, those Japs did.
The other interesting thing was that not all refugees from North Japan were welcome on this side of the line. Not everyone who came over the border was fleeing Red tyranny. Some of the people who crossed were spies and agitators doing North Japan’s business in South Japan. And figuring out who was who with so many records burned or blown up or otherwise lost wasn’t easy, either.
A woman walking up the street politely bowed to Mike as he came down it. He returned the bow, saying, “Konichiwa.”
She smiled, covered her mouth with her hand, and burst into a storm of giggles. He hadn’t said or done anything funny. As he’d seen before, that was what Japanese did when you caught them by surprise. After she got over it, she returned the good-day.
“Genki desu-ka?” he asked. He didn’t mind the chance to trot out more of his bits of Japanese with her. He thought she was in her mid- to late thirties, though it was often hard to be sure with Japanese women. However old she was, she wore it well. She had on a white cotton blouse and a black skirt: better in this hot, sticky summer weather than his uniform.
In reply to his how-are-you? (actually, it meant something like Are you bouncy? — genki was a tricky word), she spoke in pretty good English: “I am fine, thank you. And how are you?”
“Just great, thanks.” Mike almost giggled himself; she’d caught him off-guard. He asked, “Where did you learn to speak so well?”
“I am to teach English here in Wakamatsu. I studied it for years before the war. I am glad you think I speak well. For a long time, I did not use it much. You understand why?”
“Hai.” Mike nodded. During the war, anything that had to do with America was suspected because America was the enemy. Even baseball, which the Japanese had enthusiastically taken to, got sidelined for the duration.
Of course, the Japs hadn’t sent tens of thousands of Americans into labor encampments, the way Joe Steele had with Japanese in the States. Then again, the Japs hadn’t had the chance to do anything like that. Had they had it, chances were they would have taken it.
The English teacher smiled at him now as if he was a human being, not just a curiosity. “How much of my language do you know?” she asked.
“Sukoshi.” He held his thumb and forefinger close together. In English, he went on, “I didn’t know any before I, uh, got here.” Before I jumped out of my landing craft and started killing people. That was what it came down to.
“You must have a good ear, then. Is that right? You say, a good ear?”
“Yes, that’s what we say. And thank you. Arigato.”
“You are welcome,” she said gravely.
“I haven’t seen you here before. Are you new in Wakamatsu?” he said. The place was big enough that she might not be, but he thought he would have noticed a nice-looking English teacher who’d lived here for a while.
She nodded, though. “Yes. I am new here. I come from Osaka. With the new law that every city must teach English to the children, I came here. Not so many in the north of the Constitutional Monarchy speak well enough to teach. There is a needage for more.”
She meant need, but he wasn’t about to turn editor. He saw the uses of the law. Hardly anyone outside Japan spoke Japanese, while English went all over the world. Learning English was also one more way to bind South Japan to the USA, of course. On the other side of the demilitarized zone, the North Japanese were probably having to come to terms with Russian.
“Do you mind if I ask what your name is?” Mike asked.
“No. I am Yanai Midori-Midori Yanai, you would say. We put family name first, personal name last. And you are. .?”
“I’m Mike Sullivan.” Mike smiled. This was as much talking as he’d done with a woman since the Jeebies jugged him. Other things, yeah, but not talk.
“I am happy to know you, Sergeant Sullivan.” She’d been around enough Americans to have no trouble reading chevrons. “Now please to excuse me. I am so sorry, but I must go.” She said that last with worry in her voice. If he didn’t feel like letting her leave, what could she do about it? Getting in trouble for abusing the natives wasn’t impossible, but it also wasn’t easy.
But all he said was, “May I ask you one more thing before you go?”
She nodded warily. “What is it?”
“Are you married?” He held up a hasty hand. “I’m not proposing. I’m just asking.”
She smiled at that-not very much, but she did. The smile didn’t last long, though. “No, I am not married. I am a widow, or I am sure I am. My husband was stationed in the Philippines. He did not come home. He was not one of those who laid down their arms in the surrenders after the Emperor died.” She cast down her eyes when she spoke of that.