This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ a crushed Lucky Strike from his jacket pocket, he lighted it. It had been given him by his last passenger. Now he was dependent even for his few pleasures—and he saluted privates and corporals. At the Motor Pool he bowed to the lieutenant in charge.

      He looked again at the trip ticket. His departure from the Pool was penciled in one corner, and when his passenger released him he was supposed to pencil in the hour and the minute. There was not supposed to be too much of an interval between the two.

      Tadashi saw that the time of departure was seven-thirty, half an hour ago. If the lady didn't come soon, he would be in danger of a delinquency report. But if he went away without her and she made a complaint, that too might mean a report. Under the new officer a driver was discharged who accumulated three reports. He'd already gotten one, on the first day, because he'd stopped to watch a baseball game.

      That was very typical of the military of any land. There was no consideration for the individual. He found it ironic that the American Army, enforcing democracy, should be so undemocratic. On the surface, of course, it made a great show of democracy, which had amazed the Japanese—the non-coms didn't slap their men around, and officers were actually seen talking affably with their subordinates—but basically it too was undemocratic. Any army was like this of course, but he had felt somehow that the American Army would be different. But it wasn't. Except that it would say that it would do one thing, for one reason, and would then do something entirely different, for another reason, whereas the Japanese Army had been almost monomaniacal in its adherence to established ways. But, whatever the difference in approach, all armies were alike in being convinced that the way they did things was absolutely the right way.

      Such thoughts no longer disturbed Tadashi, for he was through with armies—forever. He might be forced to work for one, but he would not obey its rules. He would be a person and would triumph over it. His friends called this sentimentality, but that was what he believed.

      He was nodding his head shortly and sagely in complete agreement with himself when he happened to see the fur-coated lady standing in front of the large entrance of Tokyo Station, outlined against the white sign of the Allied entrance. She appeared to be smiling at him—he couldn't be certain. But, just in case, he smiled and, standing up straight, touched his cap, though they were blocks from each other. There was nothing servile in his gesture, it was more a thank-you for the smile she'd given him earlier. She hesitated, then disappeared.

      Perhaps she had been smiling at him, and perhaps she hadn't. At any rate, with the Americans there was always the possibility that they would, and this made him feel good. Americans were actually notoriously friendly when they let themselves be. Perhaps she was simply more friendly than most. It would be so nice being around them were it not for the military.

      It wasn't specifically the American military that Tadashi hated; it was the military of all nations. He even had a theory about it. It was the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps of any nation that was responsible for that nation's difficulties. And they were so lethal that even owning one guaranteed trouble. If a country had an army, it was going to use it and could always find some excuse to do so. Japan was a perfect example.

      Since the war Tadashi had become what his friends called a militant pacifist. This was very important to him, as important even as his job as sedan driver, for, in a way, his new ideas insured his dignity, his individuality—the latter concept was none the less precious to him because it was new—and made it possible for him to give a sort of allegiance to his job, if not to his uniformed bosses.

      How ironically appropriate it had been that Japan should be destroyed by the forces she herself had used. The punishment had been terrible—and just. He was happy that there would never be another Japanese Army. The new Constitution had forbidden it. Maybe it was all General MacArthur's idea as they said, but it was the Japanese Constitution. And he—as valiant a crusader for peace as he had ever been for war—would never comply with the wishes of any army—American or otherwise.

      Of course, this was all after the fact. For Japan had been destroyed—destroyed in that particularly terrifying, physical way that armies always choose. Perhaps it was the memory of the destruction that made his hatred of all armies burn as fiercely as had the fires of Tokyo. He could never forget it, and even now, years later, he relived it nightly.

      He looked at the MP, at his own torn uniform, threw away the Lucky Strike butt, and again remembered what he could never forget—the destruction of Tokyo.

      He remembered the day perfectly. It was in a cool, sunny, and unseasonably windy March. The children who had them still wore their furs. His two sisters, dressed alike in little fur hoods with cat's heads embroidered on them, were sent off to school, and his father went off to work next door at his lumberyard. His younger brother left for his classes at Chuo University, across the city, and he was left alone with his mother.

      It was the third day of a leave from the Army. He had a new lieutenant's uniform. His mother wanted him to stay near home and call on the neighbors. He wanted to walk around the city and show off his new uniform. As she began the housework his mother smiled, told him to do what he wanted, and asked only that he come home early because his uncle was calling on them that evening. He told her he would, gave her a mock salute at the door, and went into the street.

      Their home was in Fukagawa, which was like no place else in Tokyo. It had its own atmosphere, even as Ueno and Asakusa had theirs, but Fukagawa's was nicer, perhaps because it was not purely an amusement district. It hummed with industry; it was as though a carnival were continually in the streets. The carpenters pulled their saws, and the logs floated in the canals. The factories blew smoke to the sky, and the dye from the chemical plants made the canals green as leaves. The Chinese owned prosperous restaurants, and even the poor Koreans happily opened oysters all day long. It was the nicest part of the city.

      He walked briskly, and by noon had been through all the main streets of his district. Now, having eaten three dishes of shaved ice, strawberry syrup on top, during the morning, he was ready for Tokyo's glittering center across the river, Ginza. It was time for lunch when he crossed the bridge to Nihombashi. He ate noodles at a little restaurant in the Shirokiya Department Store. Wanting to bring his mother a present, he selected a bolt of cloth—one of the more expensive cloths from under the counter, for the stock was small and consisted almost entirely of the war-time synthetics—and arranged to have it delivered to their home on the following day.

      Then he went to see a movie. It was a war movie. Afterwards he walked past the Imperial Palace and took off his cap. Inside the outer moat it was cool under the pine trees, and he stood stiffly at the base of one, hoping a girl would sit nearby and think him handsome and soldierly in his cap and boots. But none did. Everyone was so busy. He'd never seen Tokyo so busy, and was pleased with the war which had given everyone his own higher duty.

      After that he ate supper—he forgot where—and drank saké. Eventually he did find a woman, fashionably dressed but none the less available. They drank at a private table, and it was not until he heard the watchman making his rounds near Shimbashi Station that he realized it was ten o'clock and that he should have been home hours before.

      But even then he did not leave. He could be home before eleven, and his uncle would be there at least until midnight. His father would be at one of the joro houses in the Susaki district and probably wouldn't be home until morning. So he decided to stay half an hour more, talking with the woman and enjoying her interest.

      Later he was to think of the woman, whose name he could not remember having heard and whose face he had forgotten. She was dressed Western style, a rare thing during the war years, and was beautiful. And, had it not been for her, he would have been home, where he should have been and where, for many years afterward, he wished he had remained.

      Some of Tokyo had already been bombed, but those СКАЧАТЬ