Читать книгу This Scorching Earth - Donald Richie - Страница 9

TOKYO LAY DEEP UNDER A BANK OF CLOUDS WHICH moved slowly out to sea as the sun rose higher. Between the moving clouds were sections of the city: the raw gray of whole burned blocks spotted with the yellow surfaces of new-cut wood and the shining, felt-like tile of recently constructed roofs, the reds and browns of sections unburnt, the dusty green of scarcely damaged parks, and the shallow blue of occasional ornamental lakes. In the middle was the Palace, moated and rectangular, gray outlined with green, the city stretching to the horizons all around it.

The smokes of household fires, of newly renovated factories, of the waiting, charcoal-burning taxis rose into the air, and in the nostril-stinging freshness of early autumn the bitter-yellow smell of burning cedar shavings blended with the odor of roasting chestnuts. In the houses bedding was folded into closets, and the mats were swept. Beneath the hanging pillars of the early-rising smoke there was the morning sound of night-shutters thrust back into the houses' narrow walls.

Behind the banging of the shutters was the sound of wooden geta—the faint percussive sound of walking—and the distant bronze booming of a temple bell. Jeeps exploded into motion, and the tinny clang of streetcars sounded above the bleatings of the nearby fishing boats. A phonograph was running down—Josephine Baker went from contralto to baritone—and a radio militantly delivered the Japanese news of the day.

A few MP's in pairs still strode the partly empty streets, and a single geisha, modest in bright red and rustling silk, hurried, knees together, to her waiting morning-tea. Greer Garson luxuriated, her paper face half in the morning sun, and a man dressed like Charlie Chaplin, a placard on his shoulders, began his daily advertising.

In the alleys the pedicabs all stood motionless, and around the dying alley fires the all-night drivers yawned and warmed their hands both in the fires and in the morning sun. The early farmers led their horses through the city.

An empty Occupation bus, with "Dallas" stenciled neatly on both sides, made its customary stops—the PX, the Commissary, the Motor Pool—but no one rode. The driver, in cast-off fatigues, smoked one of the longer butts from the several packets he had. An Occupation lady, very early or else very late, tried unsuccessfully to hail a passing jeep.

The blank windows of the taller buildings now caught the rising morning sun and cast reflections—a silver flash of spectacles, a passing golden tooth, or the dead white of a mouth-mask. The food shops opened, and the spicy bitterness of pickled radish mingled with the soft and delicate putrescence of fish, mingled with the odors of the passing night-soil carrier, his oxen, and his cart.

The rolled metal shutters of the smaller shops were locked, but before the open entrances of larger buildings MP's stood and waited, their white-gloved hands behind their backs, their white helmets above their white faces. They stood before the main Occupation buildings, opposite the Palace, across the street and moat—the gray Dai Ichi Building, the square Meiji Building, the tall and pale Taisho Building, and the squat Yusen. To the south rose the box-like Radio Tokyo and, in all directions, the billets of the Occupation. The American flag floated high above them all.

The clouds had drifted out to sea, and the city lay beneath the sun. The pedicab drivers went home, and the carpenters began their work; the geisha sleepily sipped their tea, and the housewives served the morning soup. The railroads, holding the city in their net, brought more and more people into the stations and then returned to bring yet more. The sun and smoke rose into the air, and the radios shouted into the sky, while the streetcars rattled, and the auto horns honked, and the fishing boats cried, and the railroads filled up the city.

The Saturday-morning train for Tokyo on the Yokosuka line left Yokohama Station precisely at six-thirty. At every station passengers had crowded on, and past Yokohama there was never any room. This did not bother Sonoko. She lived at Zushi, and the train, leaving precisely at six, was always half-empty. She could always sit next to a window, either studying her Basic GI English in 12 Simple Steps or just thinking. Her preference was for the latter, and as a consequence her English was not too advanced. This morning both pleasures were denied her, because Mrs. Odawara, from the house across the street, had taken the seat beside her. For half an hour they had talked of nothing but the party.

"My, how lovely it will be," said Mrs. Odawara for the twelfth time. Sonoko had unwillingly invited both her and her family after the second time. Now Mrs. Odawara felt a proprietary interest and kept adding little touches here and there. "I'll bring some sushi, and we have some saké left—oh, no, it's no imposition at all."

"My parents and I shall remain forever grateful," said Sonoko formally, wishing she had never breathed a word about the party to Mrs. Odawara. The thought of its finally occurring had made her talkative, had made her forget that people like Mrs. Odawara are always waiting to pounce upon extraordinary social occasions and make them their own. Since this was going to be so very extraordinary an occasion, she'd had no choice but to invite her.

"But are there enough guests to do the American proper honor?"

Any more and there wouldn't be room in the house. All of Sonoko's relatives—and now the Odawaras! This party wasn't going to be at all what she'd originally planned. It was to have been something intimate, comfortable, democratic, with only a few speeches by her father and a well-organized schedule of parlor games. Now she would rather not have the party at all. But it was too late. The invitation had been accepted; her father had bought an extra saké ration; her mother was assembling the ingredients for "mother-and-child"—a lovely dish which used both the egg and the chicken, to say nothing of frightening quantities of black-market rice—and her brother was cleaning the entire house.

"Yes, there are enough people, I think," said Sonoko.

"But you must remember your position with the Americans, dear Sonoko. This is an important occasion. This may well further your Career!"

Mrs. Odawara knew all about careers, for she had had several. She had been an Emancipated Woman in the Taisho Era, and during early Showa had been one of the first suffragettes in the country. She wore lipstick and silk stockings right through the great Kanto earthquake, and often said so. Then she'd been married twice. She'd even had a divorce, of which she was intensely proud, even though it turned out later not to be legal. At present she was campaigning for birth control.

Sonoko smiled and nodded politely. It might indeed help her career. Ever since she had begun to work for the Americans she had dreamed of becoming a career girl, American-style. In fact, the dream was already becoming true. Since getting the job with the Occupation she had begun to enjoy privileges at home which had never been hers as a schoolgirl. She was, to be sure, supplementing the family income, but that was not the real reason. It was that she was working for the Americans. There were a few Zushi girls who were employed by the nearby Military Government unit, but it was Sonoko alone who made the daily one-hour train trip to the city, and it was she who came back with stories of American kindness, generosity, and nobility which far surpassed those her high-school friends working for the MG could contribute.

And that wasn't all. She had come back one day, for example, with the blouse and skirt, both brand-new from the PX, that Miss Gramboult had given her. The family had been highly gratified by this typically American bit of prodigality and could not admire the blouse enough nor too often finger the luxurious texture of the skirt. Her mother had clasped her hands in admiration, both of the clothing and of her child, and her father had spent far too much in obtaining a basket of ruddy apples to take to the kind American in return. The lovely Miss Gramboult had been so touched that she had actually kissed Sonoko, who thereafter did not wash that cheek for three days.

"One never knows the results of such things," Sonoko answered politely. "It might well assist my career, or it might not."

"Well, it certainly won't unless you put sufficient thought into it," said Mrs. Odawara. Her tone was not nearly so domineering as usual. She was thinking. Sonoko guessed that she was working at further party details, anxious to extract the last morsel of instruction and enjoyment from the American's visit.

Everyone thoroughly misunderstood Sonoko's real purpose in inviting the American lady to her house. They all took for granted that she herself would derive eventual benefit from the visit. But to Sonoko that aspect made no difference whatever. It might have done so if the invited guest had been Miss Gramboult, who had already proved herself generous to an almost idiotic degree, or any other of the ladies in the hotel. But this guest was very special—it was Miss Wilson.

Miss Wilson was more than her employer—she was her friend. Though Sonoko loved all the American ladies dearly, it was Miss Wilson whom she loved the most, even though, oddly enough, it was Miss Wilson alone who had given her no presents beyond the usual Saturday-morning candy bars. It was something much stronger than gifts that bound them together. It was their Souls.

Like Sonoko, Miss Wilson could not be called pretty. Though she did not wear steel-rimmed glasses and did not have to hide her teeth with her hand when she smiled, as did Sonoko, her mouth was too large, even by American standards, and her eyes stuck out a bit far. She had what was called a good shape, however, and her legs were very long. Sonoko admired both these attributes, which she unfortunately did not possess herself, but not to the extent of feeling any the less affection for their happy owner.

But perhaps the strongest of Miss Wilson's many attractions was that she was worldly. Sonoko knew that she was the secretary of a colonel, that she went to parties at the French Mission, that she went often to the American Club, that she belonged to some very exclusive literary organization called the Book-of-the-Month Club, and that her parents were actually Baptists. Also—and this was Bomantic—many times over she had been seen escorted by handsome and gentlemanly men. All of them were, naturally, officers. Sonoko could not imagine her going out with an enlisted man, and that just proved how superior Miss Wilson was. If General MacArthur went with women—other than Mrs. Mac-Arthur of course—he would probably choose to go with Miss Wilson. Sonoko was sure of that!

Then, Miss Wilson always dressed like the ladies in those fashion magazines of which she owned so many and over which the plump Sonoko pored hopelessly every afternoon when her work was finally done. And she had seven pairs of shoes—Sonoko had counted them—all of them high-heeled, with not a sensible pair in the lot. And that proved how really sophisticated Miss Wilson was. She was, in fact, everything Sonoko ever hoped to be, and that was the reason they were soul-mates, and that was the reason Sonoko loved her so much.

"There are no men," said Mrs. Odawara suddenly.

Sonoko, caught with tears of emotion in her eyes, looked at her lap and said: "Well, there's your husband and my father and brother—"

"No unattached men," Mrs. Odawara explained impatiently.

Mrs. Odawara knew all about the desirability of unattached men, just as she knew all about a career for the emancipated woman. This naturally gave her an enormous amount of prestige and an enviable reputation for being progressive. Of course, during the war her reputation had counted against her, but she had overcome that obstacle by working in a factory and staging anti-American demonstrations. She had aroused the admiration of the countryside by systematically breaking every piece of American manufactured goods which she owned. But that was in 1942. Now, over half a decade later, when just everyone smoked and wore lipstick and was progressive, Mrs. Odawara hoarded American goods and kept her reputation alive by acting as adviser on matters Western, particularly on fine points of American etiquette. Thus it was that she knew that all parties with American ladies should have as many unattached males as possible.

"Well, perhaps my brother's school friends could—"

"No good! No, someone about this lady's age. How old is she? "

Sonoko never could guess the age of Americans. They always looked older than they were, just as, to them, the Japanese always appeared younger. "Perhaps thirty," she suggested.

"Well, that's nice. Now, I have a nephew, my sister's boy—she was killed in the air raids, you know—and he's just twenty-eight—that's American counting—and a very well-mannered young man. Of course, he's married, but we won't invite his wife. After all, I've sort of protected him ever since dear Michiko's death."

This was just like Mrs. Odawara—no false nonsense about not mentioning death. She even made a point of standing her chopsticks up in the rice, though it was the worst kind of luck to do so. She was very advanced.

"Oh, do you really think—" began Sonoko.

"Of course I do. I'm calling on his wife today and I'll ask him. It will be quite wonderful—you'll see. The lady Wilson and my nephew will become the best of friends. Won't that be nice?"

"Very nice," said Sonoko, miserably. "I'm forever indebted for your kindness."

Mrs. Odawara took the acknowledgment with a complacent nod. She was so emancipated that she always purposely neglected making the little negative signs of self-disparagement with which anyone else would have received the thanks.

Sonoko did not want this married twenty-eight-year-old at her party. More than ever she regretted the whole business. The party seemed headed for disaster, but now it was too late to do anything about it.

The party meant nothing to her. Far more important were her delightful and personal relations with Miss Wilson. If she could only speak English well enough, she felt sure that she could tell the American lady anything, everything, and that the lady, like a wiser older sister, would understand, would console. Then Sonoko, too, might have become Miss Wilson's secret confidante, holding the doubtless many secrets of the American lady's life and guarding them with her own.

Their relations, Sonoko had finally decided at the peak of her enthusiasm, were truly democratic. Sonoko thought democracy was wonderful. Yet as she thought of the coming party, she felt a certain chill. For one thing, despite her almost daily readings in GI English, which she had purchased after a great amount of deliberation, her command of the language was not precisely secure. For another, the responsibilities of the party were so great that she was actually fearful for their friendship. Miss Wilson was still as lovably democratic as ever, but Sonoko felt herself becoming hopelessly feudal.

"Does he speak English.?" she asked, trying to conceal her curiosity under her customary politeness. If he did, this might help the party a bit. At least Miss Wilson would have someone to talk with.

"Oh, I suppose," said Mrs. Odawara, who didn't speak English herself. She smiled patronizingly. "He too works for the Americans."

"May I ask in what capacity?"

"Yes."

"What capacity is it, please?"

"Something to do with transportation, I think."

Sonoko was relieved. If he was with Transportation and also spoke English, he could really be of help. He might be able to do Miss Wilson some favors, and she him, and they would all be friends together.

"Oh, please do invite him, Mrs. Odawara," she said, turning around in her seat.

Her companion looked at her, slightly startled. "I intended to."

Contented, Sonoko looked at the other passengers. A large farm woman with fat red hands sat opposite her, leaning forward, a large bundle of vegetables on her back. Mixed in with the vegetables was a child who, from time to time, peered through the radishes at Sonoko. Beside the seat there stood a disabled soldier, all in white, wearing his field cap and holding a crutch, his other hand on the luggage rack. His long hair was beautifully parted, and from where she sat Sonoko could smell the pomade. Near him stood several businessmen, briefcases in hand. They were noisily discussing some contract or other. They were not arguing, but were only engaged in a typical business conversation, banging their briefcases emphatically on the other passengers. Beyond them Sonoko could see yet more passengers, standing and sitting. There was room for no more. She occasionally glimpsed the car behind, the Allied Forces car, completely empty.

Sonoko did not question this fact any more than did the rest of the passengers or, for that matter, the rest of Japan. It was well and fitting that the Allied car should remain empty if there were no Allied soldiers or civilians to ride in it. The Japanese, after all, should not expect to ride in the Allied car—except the girls with the Allied soldiers, but then they really didn't count. Just as it was perfectly natural that the sidewalk snack-bar of the PX in the Hattori Building at Tokyo's busiest crossing should sell Coca-Cola and popcorn and hot dogs to the soldiers and that the little street children clustering round should get none. This was as it was and as it should be.

It never failed to delight and amuse Sonoko that truly democratic people, like Miss Wilson, should think differently. It was admirable of them, but also very amusing. Quixotic was the word she wanted, but she'd not read far in Western literature. If Sonoko had ever consciously thought about it, she would have freely admitted to herself that, had the war ended differently and were she a colonel's secretary in New York, she would think nothing of the Japanese Army's eating sushi and tempura in front of Macy's while the little children from the Bronx and Brooklyn got none. But Miss Wilson bad been much upset and called the Hat-tori snack-bar an atrocity. When Sonoko had finally understood the word—it was the same word the Occupation-controlled papers used in speaking of the rape of Nanking—it had seemed so irresistably funny, applied as Miss Wilson applied it, that she'd giggled about it all day long. Miss Wilson was just like that proverbial American she'd heard of who possessed a heart of pure gold.

Her reveries were interrupted by Mrs. Odawara, who had also been thinking.

"We must have a Bible reading," Mrs. Odawara said suddenly but resolutely.

Sonoko closed her eyes, stricken. Mrs. Odawara was progressive and therefore Christian.

"Of course we must," continued Mrs. Odawara reasonably. "It's Sunday, isn't it?"

"Yes, but..."

"You're not suggesting that the American lady isn't Christian?" She made it sound rather horrible. "And she is coming out early, isn't she?"

"Well, in the morning."

"Just so. She won't have had time to go to church, and so we can hold a reading. Perhaps even a little prayer meeting too. Oh, she'll like it. It will be just like home—Sunday morning and so forth. I know their ways, these Americans.... Let me see—why, I believe I have a large colored picture of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and we can put it up in the tokonoma."

"But—she's the guest of honor," said Sonoko faintly. As such she would have her back to the tokonoma—the small alcove which had already been most carefully arranged with their finest scroll-picture and the most subtle arrangement of autumnal flowers—and would consequently hold the un-Christian position of having her back to the Lord and Saviour.

Mrs. Odawara gave her a long, hard look. She had her own opinion of outdated and reactionary Japanese customs and superstitions. "But, my dear Sonoko, she is American," she hissed.

There was no denying the logic of her argument and, perhaps, a small prayer wouldn't hurt anything. Her own parents were sort of Shinto, and her brother had just recovered from a passing enthusiasm for Zen Buddhism—brought about by his judo practice and his Chinese-ink drawing lessons—but these feelings would certainly not preclude polite participation in a short, a very short prayer meeting. If only Mrs. Odawara didn't start on birth control. She couldn't stand that. It would be most rude, for after all, where would Miss Wilson have been if her parents had practiced birth control?

"Yes," said her neighbor, for it seemed all settled now. "We will read a part of the Book of Exodus—Israel in Egypt, you know. It will have a contemporary flavor, quite befitting the presence of a member of the Advancing Forces." Unorthodox though she was, Mrs. Odawara had adopted the standard Japanese euphemism for "occupying army."

"It will make her feel her position and will, in a way, be a subtle compliment," continued Mrs. Odawara. "You see—we are Egypt, and she is the visiting Israelite. It is very fitting and will furthermore lend a good moral tone to the party."

"But what about the plague of locusts and the darkness over the land?" asked Sonoko. As part of her education she had attended Mrs. Odawara's Bible school. The objection also occurred to her that the Israelites had been brought to Egypt as slaves. "I doubt that Miss Wilson would too much appreciate the—"

"Obviously," Mrs. Odawara interrupted savagely, "we're not going to read that part. Besides, since I'm reading it will be in Japanese." She fixed a stern eye on Sonoko, just in case there might be a desperate last-moment refusal.

Sonoko turned her head toward the window, determined to be rude if she possibly could. As she well remembered, Mrs. Odawara read slowly—very slowly—and with maddening emphasis. But her neighbor didn't even notice and went on about the virtues of Christianity and birth control, the iniquities of Shinto and Buddhism.

The girl scarcely listened. She looked out on Tokyo and saw how much it had changed since she'd first begun these early-morning rides. It was like maple trees in autumn: one didn't notice the leaves gradually turning red and yellow until, one day, the mountain was afire with them. So with Tokyo, she had not noticed the new buildings, the new streets, the new people, until now when she looked from the window and suddenly realized that the entire bombed-out stretch of Kawasaki, which she remembered as a plain of ruins, had been completely rebuilt.

At Tokyo Station Mrs. Odawara was still fairly budding with suggestions, but Sonoko with a low bow put some distance between them, and even Mrs. Odawara had to respond to a bow. Thus, each bowing to the other, they moved farther and farther apart, and Sonoko, hidden by the morning crowd, left her companion shouting into the recesses of the station.

Once in the billet she punched the time clock, pleased as always that she was five minutes early, and walked up several flights to Miss Wilson's room. It never occurred to Sonoko to resent the fact that Japanese employees were not allowed to use the elevators, and the signs "Off Limits to all Indigenous Personnel" remained for her but delightful examples of military English at its sonorous and incomprehensible best. The great delicacy with which the signs avoided the nasty word "Japanese" was unfortunately completely lost on her.

At Miss Wilson's door she hesitated and finally decided not to go in. The dear American must have her sleep. Sonoko could just picture her there, so innocent and childlike in her little pajamas, like a large and expensive doll, her eyes shut, sweet dreams painting a smile of cherubic peace on her generous mouth. Almost in tears, Sonoko turned away from the door.

Just on the other side of the door an extremely vivid Bengal tiger crept through the bamboo, its eyes shining yellow-ochre, about to pounce on a half-used box of Kleenex and a hastily tossed brassiere. Against the other wall was a large glass case containing an equally large doll holding a spray of paper wisteria. Around its neck had been hung a sign reading "Off Limits to Allied Personnel." Beside it was a plaster miniature of Mount Fuji, the crater of which was hollowed out for an ashtray. On the wall was a Nikko travel poster in full—too full—color. Hanging above it was a paper dragon, and beneath it a silk slip. Against the other wall hung a large Japanese flag, scribbled all over in ink, the brushed characters faded into the silk. Everyone who'd signed the flag was probably now dead.

In the bed was a long, sheeted figure which coughed miserably and hoarsely. Its long brown hair was half covered by the sheet and the pillow. At the other end a foot was sticking from under the Army blanket. The foot had red toenails. Beside the bed the alarm clock clicked once and, in half a minute, rang. The figure, its head muffled in the sheet, put out an arm and turned it off, then sighed.

Gloria sat up painfully, her eyes still closed, and covered her face with both hands. She got unsteadily to her feet, licked her lips, and walked to the mirror. Her roommate was gone for the weekend, so she didn't bother with her robe. She always slept naked. Now she had a hangover.

At the washstand she took a long drink of cold water and opened her eyes. It was after some effort that she remembered today was Saturday. But where was she? She glanced covertly around the room and realized she was in Japan and not in Indiana. For years she had had an early-morning fear of opening her eyes and seeing the tiny doilied bedroom that was hers in Muncie. She had opened her eyes in all sorts of beds and on all kinds of bedrooms, but still the fear remained.

This morning even the bedroom didn't reassure her. Something was the matter. She began to brush her hair, fifty strokes every morning like Charm said, first thing. On the fiftieth stroke she remembered what it was: she couldn't remember what she'd done last night. Dropping the brush, she looked into the mirror and tried hard to remember. Actually she knew, from experience, what it was she'd probably done. She just couldn't remember with whom.

It had been like this every morning for years now. The alarm would drag her safely away from vaguely terrifying dreams about God and Father and Mother and Indiana. Then, washing her face or brushing her teeth or combing her hair, she would suddenly come to realize the extent of her sin. The pattern was dreadfully familiar, having been repeated so many times, but the reality of sin was always naked and new and startling.

Every morning at seven she was at her most vulnerable. Naked and alone, she stood before the mirror, hiding her face in her hands, her guilt lively as a child within her. The bedroom, despite Fuji and the painted tiger, seemed in Indiana, and soon she would force herself downstairs, to her parents, to the poached egg on soggy toast—knowing she was a sinner.

Later, after she had put on her clothes and her face, she would also put on her attitude. Her parents were narrow-minded bigots. If they thought her spawn of the devil, she returned the compliment. After all, she would think, it was just a matter of which Satan you chose.

But now she was still cringing before them as before a whip, and hungry guilt gnawed. It was worse than usual this morning because she couldn't remember her partner in sin of the night before. If she could only identify him, then some of the early-morning shame would rub off on him, but this way... it might be just anyone.

Well, someday it would be too late. There was always the chance that some day precautions would be forgotten and that she would pay, in that humiliating female way, for what she laughingly called, in the bright light of full noon, her very own "American way of life." And perhaps this was the day. Frantically she began gathering up her clothes and, just as frantically, began searching through her memory.

She remembered going to bed, sort of. She also remembered kissing someone—perhaps good-by, she hoped—in a sedan. Before that it had been either the Officers' Club or the American Club, but she couldn't remember which. And whom could it have been with?

Shivering, she put on her robe, then began brushing her hair again, feeling better each time the brush hurt her. She brushed harder and harder, until the hair started coming out. Then she stopped, thinking that one really mustn't carry masochism too far. She looked into the mirror, particularly at her mouth and eyes.

"Well, you'll never be a pretty girl," she said softly, and at once felt better. "But you do have such lovely hair." She always felt better when she could make a joke.

There was a soft knock at the door, but Gloria paid no attention, knowing it would immediately open. It did, and Sonoko, smiling, walked in with clean towels over her arm.

"Good morning, Sonoko," said Gloria brightly, hoping to sound a good deal brighter than she felt.

"Ohayo gozaimasu," said Sonoko. Then: "Hi, there." She always gave a bilingual morning-greeting, the first to show respect for herself and the next a genuflection to all great Americans. Walking to the opposite bed, still made-up, she pointed questioningly to its undisturbed covers.

"Weekend trip. Far, far away," said Gloria, making vaguely distant gestures with her hands.

"So desu ka?" said Sonoko and put the towels on the chair.

Gloria was examining her eyebrows, which she thought looked as though they'd been trampled on. "Sonoko, be a perfect lamb and run out and see if one of the girls can spare me an aspirin. I've got a little headache." Little, my god! Her head was coming off.

Sonoko looked at her and smiled, as though Miss Wilson had recited a poem, then went back to making up the bed.

"Sonoko—asupirin."

"Ah, so," hissed Sonoko, her eyes blank behind her glasses, "asupirin—I catch quick—I hubba-hubba."

She clattered out of the room, leaving Gloria wincing first at the clatter, second at Sonoko's GI English. It always unnerved her when these people used it—which was often. It was as though the Great Buddha at Kamakura had come out with Brooklynese. She slipped her feet into sandals and went down the hall to the shower.

In the shower she suddenly remembered whom it was she'd been out with. It had been Major Calloway, of course. From her own office. Imagine having forgotten! A gentleman of the old school. No passes, only comfortable, cozy talk of the just-you-and-me variety. Much explanation of power politics behind the command, climaxed by the revelation of who really ran the office—the Major himself. All of this interlarded with compliments to Gloria about her dress, her personality, and her soul—in that order. They talked shop for a while; then he told her how lonely he was and what a nice homebody she was. She'd used her little-girl smile and folded her hands. Receiving homage from the peasants was always fun.

The warm water was reviving her memory more and more. They'd had steak and apple pie at the American Club, and in the sedan coming home she'd gotten kittenish and wanted to wade in the Palace moat until he told her it was eight feet deep. In front of the hotel they had kissed good-night, very decorously, using only the lips, and she'd come in and gone to bed. As simple as that! She hadn't done anything at all. Because no one had asked her. Heavens, the Major probably had honorable intentions!

Gloria put her face under the shower. She was awake and clean. Her early-morning fears were already down the drain. She'd scrubbed her long legs and her flat stomach until they were red, and she felt much better for it. Muncie seemed just as far away as it actually was. She was in the Glamorous Orient and was one of the most glamorous things in it. The hot water gave out and put an end to further reflections for the time being.

As she dried, she said to herself very softly: "No, not really beautiful, you know, but interesting looking, awfully interesting." She had no doubt that this was what they—the men—said about her, and she also had a fairly accurate idea of what the women said. Holding the towel, she thought of the hundreds of days she'd been in Japan. Each had begun with a shower, and almost every one had ended with a man. She couldn't even remember them all.

"This is a rare and sober moment, Gloria," she told herself, and tried to remember all the men she'd ever known in her entire life.

In such moments as this she'd often thought of compiling a little history. Nothing too elaborate—just the man's name, the date, and the place, if she could remember it. Single spaced. About a dozen sheets should do it. Then she could subdivide the total and cross-reference it according to the different nationalities. There was the attache at the French Mission, the nice British sergeant at the Union Jack Club, that lovely Italian correspondent. ... Then, after she had divided them, she could take percentages. Of course the Americans would win, but it would be interesting to find out by how much.

But it was hopeless. She had forgotten too many. As she tied her robe she decided that the only immoral thing was her forgetting. This comforted her. That was her only sin, to have forgotten anyone with whom she had shared what one very earnest second lieutenant had once called "the holy happiness." He was Southern and had religion, she remembered; afterwards he'd tried to baptize her with what was left of the whisky.

Well, she'd start a diary soon. That should help her memory. Each entry burned and the ashes stomped on and eaten as soon as written. No lurid details—just the name and her thoughts for the day. What names would not grace its pages! Who would be next?

This was a favorite game, but the odds were hopelessly against her. It never turned out the way she hoped. That gorgeous Depot sergeant was virtuous; the dark correspondent at the War Crime Trials had gone completely Japanese; and the cute little dancer with the USO hadn't liked girls very much. Alas, one always remembered the failures best.

The next just might be Private Richardson, also from her own office. The only trouble was that they'd built up a kidding relationship which rather well precluded their ever getting within five feet of each other. Besides, she'd heard he had a Japanese girl. Really, it was sinful the way they had become such competition. (Wonder what our brave boys would say if we started running around with Japanese men?) Oh, well, she'd just have to wait and see about Private Richardson.

Back in her room she carefully turned her back to Sonoko and put on her pants, brassiere, and slip. The girl was plumping up the same pillow for the tenth time that morning.

"You have a boy friend, Sonoko?" she asked.

Sonoko giggled, covered her mouth with her hand, and said: "Nebah hoppen."

"Oh, some day it will," said Gloria airily, zipping her dress up the side. "A nice .. . farmer."

Sonoko giggled from across the room.

A farmer! Gloria had never even met a farmer, not the kind with dirt under his fingernails and sweat in his armpits, that is. That was another way she could cross-file her little history: occupations. Except that it wouldn't be quite fair. Her wishes hadn't always been observed in the matter. It was the white-collar boys, the lieutenants and up that she always got tangled with. They were somehow so much easier. They spoke her own language, and they were always available, being as neurotic as she.

How, she wondered, did one go about meeting a farmer, a truck driver, a boxer? The lower classes were always so damned suspicious. Enlisted men the same way. And, at least, you could trust an officer to keep his mouth shut, which was more than you could expect from sergeant on down. Except, perhaps, Private Richardson.

She wondered if part of his attraction didn't come from his being Private Richardson. She tried to think of him as Major Richardson—General Richardson. Sure enough, some of the brightness faded. A part of the attraction? It was apparently the whole thing. Well, she'd just have to see. Now, when could she snare him? Tonight perhaps?

Oh, no! She sat down on the bed, one foot in high-heels. No, not tonight. All morning long she had felt that all was not well with the world, and now she remembered why. Carried away the night before, she had said yes when Major Calloway had suggested dinner and the opera this evening. He had seemed such a dear after their dozen-odd Scotches. Now, in the merciless light of day, she saw him in his true form.

"Not a deer, but a boar," she said to herself. But even this reminder of ready wit didn't cheer her. Here she'd gone and ruined a perfectly good Saturday night, just to be brought home and pecked on the lips. Much too late to do anything about it. After all she was the Colonel's secretary, and he was the Colonel's executive officer.

"Well, we're obviously made for each other," said Gloria, wriggling into the other shoe. "The Fates are against us."

She stood up and put on the last finishing touches before the mirror. Sonoko, looking as though she was about to start fluffing the pillow again, peered shyly over her shoulder. The pancake make-up, the mascara, powder, and lipstick were all understood by Sonoko. It was in the last-minute attentions that mystery lay. She watched while Gloria deftly unclotted two eyelashes, cleaned a tiny speck of lipstick off one of her front teeth, and gave herself a final spray of scent. If she ever wore make-up, Sonoko often thought, she would do just as Miss Wilson did, even if she had to put lipstick on her teeth in order to take it off. It was in these final intuitive touches that all true art lay.

Gloria saw the steel-rimmed spectacles over her shoulder and handed Sonoko the atomizer. "Go on," she said, "only don't waste it. It's Sin Incarnate or some such thing, and I'd never be able to afford it if the PX didn't mark it down ninety percent. Go on. Dozo."

Sonoko giggled, holding her hand in front of her teeth, and carefully put the atomizer back on the table. Gloria waved good-by and started for the door. The giggle suddenly stopped, and the dark eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles grew wider.

Gloria smiled politely, one hand on the doorknob: "What is it, Sonoko?"

Her room girl swallowed, then said: "You no forget—o-pahti tomorrow?" It was midway between a declaration and a question.

Suddenly Gloria understood. Oh, god! She had forgotten—but completely! So, as was usual with her under these circumstances, she shook her head, smiled in a special way that wrinkled her nose, and said: "You bet your life I didn't forget, little old Blue Sonoko. I can hardly wait." And for Sonoko's more immediate comprehension she added a bit of pantomime.

They parted with bobbing on one side and nose-wrinkling smiles on the other.

Waiting for the elevator, Gloria felt like kicking herself. Now she perfectly remembered accepting an invitation which at the time seemed to be for some vague, indefinite future. She'd been half-asleep, still in bed, defenseless. Now she was trapped. Oh, well, so she was trapped—so what? She could always learn something. And if tonight was going to be wasted with the Major anyway, she might as well have something to look forward to when she woke up Sunday morning.

Her own nature never failed to delight her. So philosophic. She always said there was so much to be learned from the little things in life—then laughed herself sick; but, nevertheless, it was true—there was. Now, a lot of other American girls under like circumstances would have pleaded off—sick headache or the like. Not Gloria—true blue, she stuck to her word, and what's more, damn it, she'd enjoy herself even if it killed her.

Not that it was likely to. In fact it might be fun—afterwards. She could tell about the quaint little paper house; how meekly she took off her shoes; the good, good soup—like Mother used to make—and the squealy little dishes that Gloria, good sport that she was, ate right along with Papa Sonoko—octopus, seaweed, fish heads, and the like. And then they'd sit around the family koto, and she'd lead them in "Home on the Range" or something like that. Pure strawberry-festival—Japanese style—but it would make a great story Monday morning at the office. And Private Bichardson—he'd be thinking a little about the strange home-life of his Japanese biddy before her tale was done.

Already flushed with success, she smiled at the elevator boy and was carried down to the basement dining room. Under the mockery, the laughter, and the attitude, she was dimly aware of a real curiosity and a real pleasure at being invited. But, what the hell, if one wore one's heart on one's sleeve and one's feelings on one's shoulder, one could well expect to end up with neither sleeves nor shoulder, and she, for one, needed hers. So, when she walked into the dining room, she felt her usual cynical self.

At the same time she remembered she'd forgotten to put out the candy bars she usually gave Sonoko to take home to the countless brothers and sisters she doubtless had. Oh, well, she gave the girl enough of a treat just being around. She suspected Sonoko had a crush on her, and this made her feel quite good. Tonight she'd put out the candy and, after the sleep of the innocent, lug it out to this god-forsaken place called Zushi or Fushi or Mushi. She was such a good kid, Gloria was. A real heart of gold—just like the proverbial whore.

It was still early. The tables didn't fill up until just before nine. At nine everyone was supposed to be at work. Today was Saturday and most of the tables would remain empty: many of the female members of the Occupation found it convenient to take sick leave on Saturday mornings—it gave them such an early start for their weekend dates by the sea or in the mountains.

Gloria saw Dorothy Ainsley sitting alone, and before she could turn away Dorothy had seen her and was making frantic motions with one hand, the other holding a piece of toast.

"Oh, darling, am I glad to see you!" Dorothy shouted halfway across the room. "I feel just like an interloper or something." She smiled and moved her chair further around the table, patting the other with one hand.

Gloria sat down.

"I was up quite early—shopping, you know, at the Commissary. Us wives! If you don't get there early, all the lettuce is gone, or something. And you know Dave! He loves his lettuce so. Well, I was passing by in our car and I thought: I'm hungry, that's what I am. So I told the girl on duty I'd forgotten my purse because, natch, I don't have any meal chits, and then sat down over here, out of harm's way, and was feeling so guilty. That is, until I saw you."

"I'm so happy for you, dear," said Gloria, while she thought: You lie in your teeth, you slut. You just want one good witness who'll say she saw you here and who'll believe your silly Commissary story. Little me, however—I know what you're doing, though maybe not who with. One of the few good things about our little colonial society is that people know what other people do. So just don't give me any of this marriage crap. I wonder what you told your husband.

"Of course, Dave will be just furious. He doesn't like me to get up early. It's bad for a singer he says. Imagine! Besides—he's so silly—he says he likes to watch me asleep." She giggled self-consciously, one finger extended away from her toast.

Gloria could just picture this. She didn't know Dave Ainsley very well, but she'd seen that faithful-dog look following his beautiful, talented wife around, his smile half-apologizing for her, his eyes shining with devotion. Jealous too. Tried to thrash a sergeant once who made eyes at her. And the poor soldier was probably only acting on advice given him by a lieutenant who'd gotten it from a major. Dorothy was such a snob. No one below field grade. Poor Dave. Gloria could imagine him tiptoeing around their apartment—complete with artificial Ming vases made into lamps—casting loving glances on his sleeping wife. On the nights she sleeps at home, that is.

What would he say if he saw her now, she wondered. Sitting there fat as a grub and almost purring with contentment. Her face was still pink. Gloria guessed that he had never seen her this satisfied. Dorothy would walk in on him at work about an hour from now, still rosy, having been home, washed, and depilated, with some whopping story about a cousin or an aunt in town and that she just couldn't get away and it was too late to call because she "didn't want to disturb your rest, Davie-boy." Or maybe she'd use that one about furthering her career.

Or else she'd turn up with what Davie-boy always called "one of Dorothy's"—a real stunner involving a sedan breakdown and how she partook of Japanese hospitality and how nice they were to her and sat her in the place of honor and how she could scarcely gag down a breakfast of seaweed, fish, and tea, but how low she bowed afterwards—right there on the tatami—and what really exceptional people they were, too. Not at all usual, you know. Nothing run-of-the-mill ever happens to our Dorothy. And all of this would be told in her low, modest, little-girl voice, the one that doubtless sent her husband into ecstasies....

Dorothy broke into Gloria's thoughts, saying: "You know, dear, we're rather alike. I mean, we really do seem a bit similar. Don't you think?"

Gloria looked at her, noticing with some satisfaction that Dorothy was getting a bit saggy. If she was a singer, her diaphragm looked pretty unprofessional. She always kept her profile high too. That was so the extra chin wouldn't show. But, there was no doubt about it, she was quite beautiful in that brittle, china-doll way that men unaccountably seem to find so attractive.

Gloria decided they weren't at all alike and, as coldly as possible, said: "In what way?"

"Oh, I don't know. We seem to have found ourselves out here—in Japan, I mean."

"What have you found?" asked Gloria, whose head was beginning to ache again. Sonoko hadn't brought the aspirin, and eight-o'clock solemnities with Dottie Ainsley were just too much.

"Well, for one thing, a husband," said Dorothy seriously. "They're necessary, you know. All girls should be married." She suddenly smiled, as though what she was saying could not possibly have any personal reference. Nor did she try to explain the illogical sequence of her thoughts from their being alike to husbands.

Gloria stared at her in mild disbelief. Just what did she think she was doing? Gratuitous insults were a bit coarse, even for Dottie.

"Well, Mrs. Ainsley," she finally said, "we can't all be as fortunate in our choice of husbands as you were."

"Don't misunderstand me, dear. I mean, if a girl has a chance of marrying these days, she ought—no if's, and's, or but's about it. She really should. What she does is her own business, but she ought to have a husband, first."

"Your meaning is awfully subtle," said Gloria, "but I think I'm catching on."

Dorothy began sipping her coffee daintily, and Gloria's oatmeal arrived to fill the gap in their conversation. As she ate it she decided that Dorothy's meaning actually was rather subtle. Either Dorothy guessed that other people knew about her, and hence the girls-will-be-girls kind of talk, or else ... or else she wanted Gloria to get married for reasons best known to herself. At any rate, she had looked uncommonly honest when she spoke, just as now, sipping her cold coffee with a pinkie in the air, she looked uncommonly uncomfortable.

The silence after their orgy of intimacy was getting a bit heavy, Gloria thought. She was about to ask whether the plates' willow pattern was Chinese or Japanese when Dorothy, apparently feeling the same, gave a little scream and bent under the table.

"Oh, my, what pretty shoes! Where did you get them?"

Gloria stretched out her legs so Dorothy could see the shoes without disappearing completely under the table. "The PX," she said.

"Don't tell me you get your clothes there! Why, I haven't been near the place for years. Not since I was what they call a 'vocalist'—whatever that is—with the USO and all that, you know. And that—well, just between us, it's been ages ago. No, after I met Dave (he made me over, you know) I started buying from New York—by mail, natch (and it takes just forever getting here!) and then, of course, there's that wonderful little tailor in Hong Kong. But those shoes you have there—they rather interest me. Any other sizes?"

Now, this is our old Dorothy, thought Gloria. It feels good to be back in a mutual understanding again—the understanding that we loathe each other. "I don't think so," she said. "If they do, they're larger."

"Larger? Oh, not really!" Dorothy sipped her coffee and tried again to pretend, somewhat less succesfully, that she had meant nothing personal. "Why, my little feet couldn't begin to fill those up."

You're asking for it, thought Gloria. She'd known girls like Dottie before. Real bitches. Just couldn't stand not tearing in with their little claws. Anything that would hold still was fair game, no matter what. Her poor husband must be just a mass of tangled ribbons by this time. She was the kind of healthy American girl who would write a four-letter word on the upturned lid of the ladies' john in lipstick—backwards. Then stick around and watch the fun when the next occupant, in a cool white blouse, walked out. She'd heard men's cans were all scribbled up. They should see the ladies'—after a crowd of Dottie's type had gotten through with them.

Gloria looked at her shoes. "Well, they're comfortable."

Dottie had apparently expected to get clawed back. She looked disappointed. "Oh, I can see. They're just lovely—exquisite." She sighed shortly. "I only wish I could get things like that." She smiled, her just-between-us smile, which wrinkled up her nose and never failed to infuriate Gloria.

"Oh, you might be able to," said Gloria smoothly. "Perhaps one of the officers you know is in the Quartermaster Corps, or Procurement, or even the PX for all I know. If you really can't bear to go near the PX's yourself, perhaps you could get one of them to scout for you. Yokohama, Kobe, Nagoya—you know."

"Well... but I really don't know any officers that well," said Dottie after hesitating just a second too long.

She was such a bad liar. Goodness knows it was difficult enough to be a good one. Gloria was a good one, but even she forgot her lies eventually and got into trouble. So she decided to be charitable and say nothing more.

Dottie gave her a hard little glance, disagreeable over her cup. She put it down with a tiny clatter, then softened almost at once and became again feather-brained and flighty:

"Well, I must run. Dave will be furious. You coming?"

"Yes, I'm off to work."

"You're lucky, you know," she said, turning her head whimsically. "I wish I was a career girl again. But I'm not. Just a drudge—a regular Hausfrau type. I bet I couldn't even hit a high C any more. And, you know, my range used to be four octaves. I forget who it was called me the Lily Pons of the Occupation. Silly, but fun." She laughed. "Know what Dave used to say about my range? No? He used to say that I was composed of a bass, a tenor, and a small boy who got pinched. Cute, huh?"

Gloria gave a sick smile, and Dottie rattled on: "Oh, hell, I just remembered—tomorrow's a big Japanese party. They're picking us up. That means I've got to get the servants busy cleaning the house—four of them and not a brain in the lot."

"Real Japanese party—or just Japanese-style American?"

"Oh, the real thing. Ex-zaibatsu or the Imperial family or something. Dave's business. On the paper, you know. Tatami, hashi, the works—all-night deal."

"Well, that might be pleasant."

"Pleasant? You ever had a Jap breakfast?"

"Often," lied Gloria.

"Well, you're a better woman than I am then."

Gloria wisely said nothing to this.

"Oh, by the way, did you hear what happened to Lady Briton last night?" asked Dottie, somehow seeming to want to delay the moment of parting they both wanted so badly.

Gloria groaned. Not Lady Briton again! Gloria bet that at any given moment of Tokyo's social life the antics of Lady Briton would be on a dozen tongues. She was the wife of one of the Australian Mission people, a big horsy woman who was attempting to establish a Society for the Protection of Our Dumb Friends—SPODF she called it, but to the rest of Tokyo it was SPOOF. It was to rival the Tokyo chapter of the SPCA, of which the British ambassadress was patron.

Dottie continued: "Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago she saw some trained dogs in Asakusa or some such place, and she decided they were being cruelly treated—they juggled or sat up or something. Of course, she cares about animals just about as much as I do. But she just can't stand seeing that English woman in the newspapers all the time. And so she confiscated the whole troupe, dismissed the owner out of hand—the Australians are like that, you know—and decided to play Lady Bountiful to all the animals. She thought they'd be good entertainment at her parties, juggling and all. But they wouldn't do a thing—just moped. They were nasty too; got into some of Randolph's—that's Lord Briton—old ambassadorial papers or something and chewed them all up. Well, last night was the payoff. They'd been just darling little nuisances before, but last night one of them bit Mrs. Colonel Butternut on the thigh when she was down on the floor being the the head of John the Baptist during charades." She smiled. "Isn't that a scream!"

"What happened to the dogs?"

"Well, this was one time, believe you me, when our dumb friends got short shrift. She probably had them drowned."

"All of them?"

Dottie shrugged her shoulders—this wasn't the point of the story. "And Mrs. Colonel Butternut is in St. Luke's under watch—she might have rabies. Can't you just imagine her frothing at the mouth? She's done it all her life, but until now no one thought anything of it. Oh, it's a panic!" She stood up.

Together they walked past the girl who took tickets, and the headwaiter at the door bowed to them.

"Why don't their clothes ever fit, I wonder?" asked Dottie, looking vaguely at the small man in the dress suit too large for him.

"Their Japanese clothes do," said Gloria.

"Oh, those!..."

They were silent as they walked through the revolving door into the already dusty sunlight.

"Well, that was a nice breakfast," said Dottie, "but tomorrow's won't be."

"What I like best about spending the night with the Japanese," said Gloria, who had at least spent nights with Americans in Japanese on-limits hotels, "is that no one says good-morning to me until I'm presentable. They have a tacit agreement that you're not even visible until you get your face on and are ready to meet the world." She'd read this in a book somewhere.

"Yes, I know," said Dottie. "They do act that way, don't they?" She was anxious lest it seem she didn't know as much about the Japanese as Gloria, and was at the added disadvantage of not having read a book through since finishing high school.

Directly at the billet entrance was an Army sedan, the young Japanese driver leaning against its shining fender. He stood away from the car as they came out and made a tentative motion toward the handle of the rear door, his black hair shining in the sun.

Gloria wondered whom the sedan was for. You never saw them waiting in front of the billet except very late, when the field-grade officers were saying good-night to their girls. The hotel was for lower-rated civilian girls, who never got to use anything better than a jeep. Only the upper grades rated sedans. She found herself wondering about Dottie, who could get a sedan on the strength of her husband's high civilian rank. So, then, whose transportation could this be but Dottie's? But she'd said she'd come in her own car. Then Gloria remembered that the Ainsleys didn't own a car.

Gloria glanced at Dottie, who was squinting in the early-morning sun. Such a poor liar. This was certainly her transportation, ready and waiting, yet she couldn't take it because she'd already told Gloria about the car. And she needn't have lied either. Lots of wives used sedans to go to the Commissary.

While Dottie hesitated on the hotel steps, Gloria swiftly reconstructed the events of the night before. Dorothy had probably left her husband rather late, pleading relatives or something. Then the adulterous meeting, perhaps at his billet. She'd probably sneaked out in the cold, dark morning when it was too early to go home. Perhaps she'd tried to hail a passing jeep. Then the sudden determination to have breakfast. It was probably a combination of hunger and the perverse desire to expose her own position. Now the finale—home in the sedan which she had probably called just before going in to breakfast. But Gloria's presence had spoiled this last touch.

"Well," said Dottie briskly, "I parked the car around the corner—past the station as a matter of fact. Thought I'd just walk to the Commissary. Exercise, you know," she concluded brightly.

"Yes, it's only halfway across town."

"What? Oh, yes. Well, one can't get too much exercise." Then, anxious not to seem to be avoiding the obvious, she said: "These poor drivers!"

"Why poor?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's in their eyes—that lovely melted-chocolate color, you know. And then, Japanese men are always sad looking anyway, like dogs left in the rain. Breaks your heart." Dottie was not without her sensitive side.

"The women look comparatively dry," said Gloria.

"Oh, them! Isn't it strange—the men look just like dogs, and the women look just like cats. You know—cute little triangle faces, button noses, and those lovely slanting eyes. It's really the animal kingdom."

"Maybe that's why Lady Briton likes it so much over here."

"Yes," giggled Dorothy, "someone should start a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Japanese."

Someone really ought, thought Gloria. It wasn't that the glorious Occupiers were cruel. They were merely thoughtless. There was something about having plenty in the midst of famine that made people thoughtlessly cruel. When she was good and drunk Gloria always felt like apologizing to beggars. So far she had restrained herself. She didn't like Dottie's saying what had so often occurred to her; so she asked if Dottie was going to the opera.

"Well, if you call it an opera, yes. It's good business, you know."

"You don't like Madame Butterfly?" asked Gloria.

"Oh, adore it! Simply adore it! But that soprano! Know the girl. A nice voice, though a shade overly cultivated—that is, when you realize that she had nothing to cultivate in the first place. Can't hear her except in the first three rows. Bad breathing, that's what Mme. Schmidt says. You know her, dear? My old sensei—that means teacher, you know. From Vienna and just the sweetest old lady ever. Poor thing—half-starving now. Whenever I take my lesson I go to the PX and just load up—crackers, cheese, sardines, that sort of thing, you know. I suppose they have a banquet after I go. Awfully odd position she's in—white, natch, and yet can't use the PX or, well, any of the Army things. Can't even ride Army busses, or the Allied cars on the railroad. Doesn't go out much—no shoes! Of course, she was here all during the war, and I suppose that's why. And the CIC is always investigating her—as though she cared about Hitler or Mussolini or anything but music. She'll be at the opera tonight probably—I'll bet she's off borrowing a pair of shoes right now. That soprano is another pupil of hers."

"I guess I'll be going," said Gloria. "Some major or other from the office asked me."

Dorothy looked at her intently for just a second, the look of a person who is trying to decide whether or not to tell a woman that her lipstick is smeared, that an eyelash has fallen to her cheek, that her nose needs blowing. Finally she said: "Oh, really? What's his name?"

"Calloway. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Just thought Davie or I might know him. We know scads of people in Special Services—I used to be USO, you know, and of course Davie is on the paper. Guess we don't."

"Guess not," said Gloria, wishing that Americans had a custom like bowing. It made difficult things like parting between two people who didn't like each other so much easier.

"Well, dear, I must run," said Dorothy, her eyes still intent on Gloria. "Perhaps I'll see you there tonight." She smiled briefly.

"Hope so," said Gloria and turned quickly away. She rather wanted to know just who Dorothy's officer was. In all likelihood someone she herself had known, would know, or was knowing. There were only so many officers. Well, bless the grapevine. She probably would know before the day was over. Really, Tokyo was Muncie all over again—such a small world after all. Muncie all over again, but different.

She drew a deep breath of the cool autumnal morning air and, for no reason, felt better. She breathed and smiled, realizing that, absurdly enough, she felt happy.

It was being in Japan that did it, she guessed. Here she seemed to weigh less, her body had a suppleness and dexterity that surprised her. The sun shone directly into her face, and she felt tall, beautiful, and altogether different from what she knew herself to be.

Often she had seen other Americans here smile for no apparent reason as they walked in the sunlight. Was it because they were conquerors? She doubted it. It was because they were free. Free from their families, their homes, their culture—free even from themselves. They had left one way of living behind them and did not find it necessary to learn another. Nothing they'd ever been taught could be used in understanding the Japanese, and most of them didn't want to anyway. It was too much fun being away from home, in a country famed for exoticism, in a city where every day was an adventure and you never knew what was going to happen tomorrow.

Actually, thought Gloria, there was something paradoxically reassuring about being in this country where the ground might shake at any moment, where the distant, snow-covered mountain might, for all one knew, blow the whole island to pieces. You could almost feel yourself living. At any moment the ground might crack beneath your feet and you'd find yourself face to face with eternity. It was quite different from safe, dull Muncie where habit very soon cut you from life, and Gloria was inclined to prefer Japan.

The gold-spotted leaves fell at her feet, and the cool air brushed her ankles. There was a clarity here—so different from the foggy, rainy island she had expected—a dryness, a precision in the atmosphere which made the most ordinary occurrence—a walk to the station for example—something joyous, as though a carnival were just around the corner.

There was another kind of clarity too. She felt herself a part of something larger, something benevolent, like god, engaged in kind works and noble edifices. And she could see enormous distances. Her own country—the United States, Indiana, Muncie—like an arranged vista, fell perfectly into place. She understood it; she understood her place in it and even that of her parents. It was as adorable as an illuminated Easter egg.

And here, all around her, was freedom, even license. The ruins were one huge playground where everything forbidden was now allowed and clandestine meetings were held under the noonday sun. The destruction, evident everywhere she looked, contributed to or perhaps caused this. She felt like a looter, outside society. Society no longer existed.

Here she was free, here in this destructive country where autos collided as though by clockwork, where sudden death was always a possibility, and where dogs went mad in the sun, casting their long, barking shadows behind them. More than at any other place she had been in her life, Gloria felt alive in Japan.

Two university students, black in their caps and high-collared uniforms, were walking toward her. They stopped talking to stare. When she passed them they both stood respectfully to one side of the sidewalk, their eyes never leaving her. As she walked beyond them she heard their conversation, suddenly animated, bright with words she would never understand. They were talking about her.

She turned to look behind her. Both of the students were walking backwards, gazing after her. Gloria read only appreciation in their faces. They saw her looking, blushed, and turned around.

Japan was like that. You could walk down the street and be admired. A visiting deity, deigning to step upon the common pavements. All the men would look at a white woman as though she were some rare, incalculably expensive and probably breakable object. At least, so Gloria believed.

She turned around again, but the students were gone. If she had smiled at them she might have assured for herself a kind of immortality. The handsome youngsters would reckon time from the day the American lady smiled at them. They would excitedly recall to each other just what she looked like; they would vie with each other in flattering descriptions. At least, so Gloria believed.

The next two men were middle-aged businessmen, and they didn't look at her at all. This did not disturb Gloria's illusion, however, for she considered them quite ugly. A man whom Gloria could not imagine as a bed companion simply didn't exist for her. But, in the next moment, a young carpenter on a bicycle turned to gaze so long that he almost ran into a taxi. Gloria turned around to look. Just to make sure he hadn't hurt himself. He was very handsome.

She realized she was smiling. Just before she passed through the Allied free entrance to the trains, she turned to look at the plaza before her, at the great city spreading beyond it. She saw the sedan and the driver still waiting back at the hotel, small and distant in the morning sun. He seemed to be looking at her. She couldn't remember whether he was good looking or not. Oh, well, it didn't make any difference. He seemed to touch his hat, but she couldn't be sure. It was this typical gesture which reminded her that he was Japanese. Really, Gloria, she giggled to herself, your standards are getting lower—or higher, as the case may be.

Still smiling, she nodded at the boy taking tickets at the wicket for Japanese and, feeling delightfully like Babylon herself, swept through the free Allied entrance to the trains.

When Tadashi first saw the tall American coming toward him in the fur coat he thought she must be his passenger. But then she and the shorter lady with her walked on toward Tokyo Station. Tadashi shifted his weight to the other leg and went on waiting. Straightening his cap, he watched the MP on duty at the billet entrance. The uniform was nice—sharp creases, boots like mirrors, immaculate gloves.

Tadashi remembered his own war-time uniform with something approaching nostalgia, then turned his own cap over one ear, slouched against the fender of the sedan, and deliberately scuffed his already broken and dusty boots on the tire. The military now sickened him as much as it had once attracted him.

He remembered when he had been a lieutenant. It had been the same then. Affection and loathing. He had both loved and despised the Army. Now that Japan had vowed never to fight again this was one responsibility that was no longer his.

But one less among so many didn't make much difference. There was his wife, his child, and the uncle who now lived with them. There was his job, so precious and so coveted by others that he had to fight daily for it. And there was his poverty—so extreme it seemed almost like a joke. He had never been poor before the war and now, after it, could scarcely remember being anything else.

He smiled reflectively. This was far different from the war days, when his sole responsibilities were toward Emperor and country. Those times had been holidays. Even in the face of certain destruction—perhaps because of it—he had felt it was eternally New Year's, a joyous time filled with gifts and pleasures, extraordinary occurrences and freedom.

Pulling 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 few districts were far away, and the people in the rest of the city were not afraid. The radio said that the Americans dropped bombs indiscriminately and that there was no need to fear a mass attack, as the radar would detect the intruders and give ample time for escape. Just a year before, Fukagawa had been bombed, but the damage had been negligible. The bombs fell mostly into the country, and most people decided that the Americans were not very skilled in this important matter of bomb dropping. Fukagawa, near the country, had seemed as safe as Shimbashi, in the center of town.

Tadashi heard the watchman at eleven and was regretfully taking leave of the woman when the call of the watch was interrupted by the air-raid sirens. Earlier in the afternoon, while he had been in the movie, there had been an alert, but the all-clear had sounded immediately after.

Now Tadashi walked swiftly through the exit stiles of Shimbashi Station—secretly rejoicing that his uniform allowed it—and ran through the standing passengers, past the halted trains, to the top level of the building. He didn't really expect to see anything; he only wanted to be soldierly. This would impress the lovely lady.

He arrived at the top level just in time to see the sudden flair of massed incendiary bombs. It was Fukagawa. The planes were apparently traveling in a great circle. It was impossible to say how many there were, but it seemed hundreds. A great ring of fire was spreading. The planes were so low he couldn't see them and could tell where they had been only by the fires that sprang from the earth behind them. There was an enormous explosion, like August fireworks on the Sumida River, and a great ball of fire fell back on the district. A chemical plant had been hit. Minutes later, Tadashi felt the warm gust of air from the blast, miles away.

Later he heard that the planes had come in so low that they escaped the radar. The anti-aircraft could do nothing against planes that near and that swift. The stiff March wind helped spread the flames. Tadashi remembered thinking, at the time, of the canals that cut through the section, and he realized that the people could at least find safety in the water. There would be water enough for all.

He didn't know how long he stood on the top platform of Shimbashi Station watching the destruction of Fukagawa, Honjo, Asakusa, Ueno. It must have been for a very long time, and he wondered why they were so selective—why not the Ginza, why not Shimbashi Station, why not him, Tadashi? He remembered walking up the deserted streets past the closed motion-picture house where he had been that afternoon. It was near dawn when he reached Shirokiya Department Store again. The last pink of the fires had been replaced by the first pink of dawn.

At that corner he first saw those coming over from Fukagawa. Most of them were burned. They carried scorched bedding on their backs, or trundled bicycles with a few possessions strapped to them. They walked slowly and didn't look at him as they passed. He wondered where they were all going. Finally he stopped one old man, who told him that everything had been burned and that everyone had been killed, and his tone of voice seemed to include himself in the death list.

It was at the bridge across the Sumida that he first saw Fukagawa. He couldn't believe it. There was nothing. Nothing but black and smoking ruins, as far as he could see in all directions. He had never known that so much could be destroyed in one night.

On the bridge he found a bicycle that belonged to no one, and on it he started toward his home. Nothing looked the same. There were scarcely streets any more. In cleared places were piles of burned bodies, as though a family had huddled beneath a roof that had now disappeared. They seemed very small and looked like charcoal.

He peddled slowly along the street. Long lines of quiet, burned people, all looking the same, came toward him. He didn't know where to turn north to go to his father's lumberyard. Nothing was familiar. He leaned the bicycle against a smoking factory wall and looked toward where his home should have been but wasn't. The lines of the burned moved slowly by, and suddenly, for the first time in years, he began to cry.

After he had cried he looked at the people again and saw his younger brother coming toward him. They were both amazed. It was fantastic that such a thing had happened. The slowly moving lines parted around them in the middle of what had been a street.

His brother had spent the night at school because he had to finish a war-work project of some kind, and he hadn't heard about the raid until he awoke. He had just arrived and didn't know where their house was either. So they began walking.

Troops had already been brought in and were clearing the streets, or where they supposed the streets had been. They shifted the bodies with large hooks and loaded them, one after the other, onto trucks. Often the burned flesh pulled apart, making their work difficult.

They walked on, past mothers holding burned infants to their breasts, past little children, boys and girls, all dead, crouched together as for warmth. Once they passed an air-raid shelter and looked in. It was full of bodies, most of them still smouldering.

The next bridge was destroyed, so they decided to separate. His brother would go north, and he south. It was the first time they had used the words north and south to each other. They usually spoke of "up by the elementary school" or "down by the chemical plant" or "where we saw the big dog fight that day." His brother started crying and walked away rubbing his eyes. They were to meet at their uncle's house in Shinagawa.

Tadashi walked south to the factory section. The chemical works had exploded and what little remained was too hot to get near. Some of the walls were standing, burned a bright green from the dye, the color of leaves. In a locomotive yard the engines were smoking as though ready for a journey, the cars jammed together as in a railway accident. There were some in the ruins still alive, burned or wounded. Those who couldn't walk were patiently waiting for help by the side of the road. There was no sound but the moaning of an old woman. It sounded like a lullaby.

He saw only two ambulances. They were full of wounded, lying there as though dead. Farther on, prisoners-of-war were clearing the smoking ruins. They wore red uniforms and carried blankets for the removal of the dead.

Eventually he recognized the Susaki district. Yesterday it had been a pleasure center, with gayly-colored decorations, sidewalk stalls, girls peeping from behind lattice-work screens, and music. Now there was nothing. The houses, like the decorations, had been made only of wood and paper and had burned almost at once. Now in the early morning the district was very quiet, and no one moved.

He turned back. The small bridges across the canals had been burned. He had to stay on the large island connected to Nihombashi by the bridge across the Sumida. He looked across the canals and saw people still alive on the little, smoking islands. They shouted and waved, but there was nothing he could do, so he went on. Some were swimming across to the large island. They had to push aside others who floated there face down.

In a burned primary school he saw the bodies of children who had run there, to their teachers, for protection. Later he learned there had been two thousand dead children in that school alone. They lay face down on the scorched concrete floor, as though asleep. The kimonos of some still smoked. The teachers to whom they had fled lay among them.

It Was past noon when, suddenly very tired, he walked back across the bridge, back past Shirokiya where only twenty-four hours before he had been eating noodles, buying his mother a present, stealing a look at his uniform in a mirror. He took a trolley to Shinagawa. It was almost night before he reached his uncle's house. The trolley stopped continually. It was filled with wounded, and others, less wounded, hung from the roof and the sides. He could have arrived sooner by walking, but there was a fascination in the macabre ride from which he could not tear himself away.

At his uncle's house he found his brother and, surprisingly, his uncle. The latter's arm was badly burned, and he was wounded about the face and head. He had come home that afternoon, walking the entire distance. He told them about their family.

They had been sitting around the table drinking beer, his sister and himself. The younger girls had already gone to bed, and his brother-in-law was at Susaki. He said that first the planes bombed the outskirts of Fukagawa and Honjo, then closed the circle, making it smaller and smaller. It was difficult to escape because it happened so swiftly. Almost instantly there was fire on all sides.

By the time the air-raid sirens had begun they heard the explosions, and flames were leaping up in the distance. The airplanes wheeled over them, and the circle of fire was much nearer. They got the little girls up, but by the time they were dressed the fire was only a block away. They tried to escape from the lumberyard, but the little bridge which led to the Tokyo road was burning. So they climbed into the canal in back of the house.

Sticks of bombs were dropping constantly, and finally one of them hit the house. The heat was terrible. Even the logs in the canal began to smoke. They watched the fire spread, in just a few seconds, to the storehouses and then to the entire island. Tadashi's mother and sisters held on to a log and began crying.

Their uncle found a pan and dipped water over their heads and shoulders. The little fur hoods with cats embroidered on them helped protect the children for a while, but when the fur began smoking he tore off the hoods and poured water directly on their hair. The portion of the log above water cracked in the heat, but he kept on pouring water.

There he remained until early morning. About one, the fires burning around them just as fiercely as before, he became very tired. He tried to get a better grip on the log but found his arm so burned that it stuck to the wood. He was unable both to hold up his sister and nieces and at the same time continue to pour water over them. They were very quiet and, he was sure, unconscious. His arm was so tired that he too must have lost consciousness. The pain of his arm's slipping across the the burning log woke him. The mother and two little girls were gone.

The next day Tadashi and his brother went again to Fukagawa. It was now filled with rescue workers. They found their canal and the ruins of their home. Everything was gone. Only the earth and a few stones remained. They identified the house from its unburned foundation stones. Near where the house had been they were removing bodies. He tried to find some of his neighbors but couldn't. Everyone there was a stranger. No one knew where his father's workers were either. They had lived above the warehouse where the finished lumber had been stored.

Later he learned that thirty thousand people had been killed that evening. Some said it was the unseasonable wind that had done the most damage. It spread the fire and the heat. The explosions caused more wind until, about one in the morning, it flew through the flames at a mile a minute.

It was almost a week before the Emperor inspected the ruins. By this time the bodies had all been removed. Already the streets were being re-mapped, and bright wooden bridges connected the islands. The people Tadashi talked to all felt that the Army had delayed the Emperor's arrival. They didn't want him to see how terrible the fire had been. If he had, he would have stopped the war at once. But now, with a new week's fighting begun, he naturally could do nothing about it. It was the fault of the Army.

For the rest of the summer Tadashi's brother went to live with his uncle. Lieutenant Tadashi was sent to Tachikawa Air Base. Then soon it was August, and the war was over. About the same time, Shirokiya sent the bolt of cloth he'd ordered for his mother. There was no house at the address, and they sent him a card about it.

When he saw Fukagawa again he was surprised. People were living there once more. The main business was still lumber. Before the fire there had been over two thousand lumber dealers, but now there were only slightly over a hundred. There were no chemical industries, but the dye-works were open and the canals were green again. The Chinese restaurants were thriving as usual, and even small Korean centers had sprung up. But now their old occupation—opening oysters—had been taken over by Japanese. It was about the only way of making a living.

He no longer liked Fukagawa. Its atmosphere was gone, as was Asakusa's. It was now only the poorest section of the city. Whole families lived in four-and-a-half mat rooms; some lived in U. S. Army packing cases or former air-raid shelters. It was no longer a unique district. It was being rebuilt, like every place else, only it was uglier than most. He hated going there and very rarely had occasion to do so since few Americans ever went there. He never went back to where his house had been, nor to the green canal behind it.

But sometimes, after work, he would take the slow and noisy trolley past Fukagawa to the old Susaki district. It alone remained black and empty, a barren field, with no ruins, no trace of life. Sometimes he stood there for fifteen minutes or so, his head bowed.

The MP walked over.

"Looky, Joe," he said, "you been standing here staring for the last fifteen minutes. Gimme your stub. Trip ticket. That's right."

The soldier took the ticket. "O. K., Joe, she no come. You go." He made waving motions with his hands. "Go on now—hayaku. Your lady-friend's not gonna turn up."

As Tadashi was climbing into the sedan the MP felt in his breast pocket and brought out some cigarettes. He handed half a dozen to Tadashi.

"Here, Jackson, for your trouble," he said and smiled.

That was the second smile he'd received. Tadashi touched his hat gratefully, took the cigarettes and the trip ticket, and smiled back. The MP winked, went back to the entrance, took a parade-rest stance, and held both it and the wink. Tadashi laughed and started his motor.

Just as he was backing out a soldier ran up to him and, in Japanese, said: "Can you please take me to Shinjuku?"

Tadashi was both surprised and embarrassed. If it had been English, he "wouldn't have understood or, at least, could have pretended not to. But the soldier's Japanese was remarkably good. So Tadashi could only shake his head.

"Please," said the soldier. "I'm late for work."

Tadashi put his foot on the accelerator and released the brake. It was against the rules. One must have a trip ticket. An Occupation driver could not drive just anyone who asked him. Those were the rules.

"I sorry," Tadashi said, in English.

The soldier reluctantly pulled out a full pack of Chesterfields. "Please," he said.

Tadashi became frightened. Any infraction of the rules still frightened him. "No," he said shortly, "I sorry." And the car rolled backward.

The soldier took the cigarettes from the window and put them into his pocket.

The MP stepped forward and said: "Hey, what's going on here?"

The soldier turned, looked at him, said: "None of your god-damned business," and began running as fast as he could toward Tokyo Station.

The MP was about to run after him, but then decided he couldn't leave his post to go chase the soldier.

Tadashi by this time had backed the car out and was starting down the street. He passed the soldier in the next block, but he was not thinking of him, nor of the American lady, nor of his own ideals. He was thinking that he was forty-five minutes late and would receive another delinquency report.

The sedan passed the running soldier and was far away by the time he reached the Allied entrance to the trains. He glanced behind him, but the MP was not pursuing. Overhead a train rolled in, and he ran up the steps two at a time, down the length of the waiting train to the last car, which had a broad white line painted along its side.

"Chuo?" he shouted at the train boy, who nodded. As he stepped into the train, the doors slammed shut.

A dozen soldiers were in the car and a couple of civilians. In one corner three Nisei soldiers were pointing out the sights to each other, and in another two very young buck privates were lost in dozens of comic books. He shoved his bag into an overhead rack and sat down beside an older soldier who was looking out the window. The train curved out of the station, above the buildings, toward Kanda.

The older soldier looked at him. He had a large bulbous nose, pitted like a raspberry. "Boy, you just made it, didn't you? One more minute and you'd have been real left out."

"I ran all the way." He looked out the window at the receding platform, still thinking of the MP.

The older soldier laughed indulgently. "Do it all the time myself, out after a shack-up job and run like hell to get in. You got to be in by noon?"

"I'm supposed to be now. I work this morning." He looked at his wrinkled uniform and felt his day-old beard.

The soldier with the big nose nodded sympathetically, then asked: "You going to Shinjuku?"

He was answered with a nod.

"You with the Engineers out there?"

The younger soldier shook his head no. He turned away and looked out of the window. He wanted to think, not talk with some old Regular Army gasser. You could tell them a mile away. It seemed he hadn't thought for weeks, and he had lots to think about. One never seemed to have time to think in the Army, or in any event it certainly wasn't encouraged. And he must think now. In a week he might be married. Or well on his way toward it. But there was no reason to feel so continually surprised. He might have seen it coming a year ago.

Even his first letters home had shown some indication of what might happen. Those letters must have sounded pretty enthusiastic, all filled with discoveries he took for granted now. That the people weren't yellow after all, that their eyes didn't slant, that it wasn't a small country, and that the Japanese weren't midgets.

The letters from his parents said they were glad that he liked it over there and that he was enjoying himself. He must remember to dress warmly enough because his mother had heard on the radio that it was a cold winter. And his father hoped he was enjoying himself and wasn't letting his enjoying himself interfere with being a good soldier which was, after all, the reason he was there. They'd apparently thought Japan was like a new bicycle or an electric train.

Half a year later he'd tried to tell them how he felt. He'd used phrases such as "I feel I really belong here ..." This had inspired letters, by return mail, in which his mother asked about his health and was he sure he was dressing warmly enough, and his father seriously asked if he were learning Japanese and, jokingly, if he had a Japanese girl.

As a matter of fact, he was learning Japanese, in the Army school, but he hadn't met the girl yet. It wasn't until three months later that he met her. He'd gotten tired of wandering around Tokyo on a rainy Saturday afternoon and had gone to the Servicemen's Center for a free cup of coffee. In the next room a flower-arrangement lesson was going on. He stood in back of the officers' wives and WAC's and saw her for the first time. She was bending an iris so deftly that it seemed to have grown around the pine branch.

Afterwards he'd elbowed his way through the WAC's and used his best Japanese to ask questions about flower arranging. She'd answered, her eyes lowered, one hand holding a spray of wisteria, for all the world like one of the girls in the old prints he'd seen and liked. After the others had left he asked if she would give him lessons, and she, pleased and flattered, said she would. She was very pretty.

In Haruko he had found personified what he liked about Japan. He watched her cut a camellia and put it near a rock, and the rock became beautiful. It was like those farm houses he had seen which were built around a tree or a boulder. The farmers, unwilling to sacrifice the natural surroundings, had fitted the houses to the landscape.

When he tried to learn to do the same thing and, disillusioned, stood back regarding the sprays of iris all going one way, the magnolias the other, she complimented him on supposed beauties of construction which he knew did not exist in his arrangement but which she created with deft touches, apparently mere caresses of admiration, until, after the last admiring pat, the arrangement was just right. It was never necessary to admit he was clumsy and unskilful, just as it was never made apparent that he could be wrong. One week they had changed the time of the lessons, and he had forgotten. She came an hour later and, when she saw him, understood at once and could not often enough remind him of her tardiness.

And just as she was sensitive to flowers, so was she sensitive to all beautiful things. Occasionally she recited Japanese poetry to him and taught him how the haiku and the tanka were constructed. One day she looked at him for a long time, then wrote a haiku. She lived naturally with beauty, he liked to think, and used it daily as other women use the mirror....

"Pretty hot place, Shinjuku?" It was the old soldier with the nose. He moved closer and said: "Wouldn't know myself. I'm out Tachikawa way."

"Then you're on the wrong train."

"Aw, hell, I got the whole day. I'm not on my way back. Ginza's dead. I'm gonna go over Shinjuku way and try it out. Hell, I'm gonna have myself a real time today."

"Oh, you'll probably find Shinjuku pretty dead too then. It all depends on what you want to do."

The old soldier shrugged his shoulders. "You know—usual stuff—get a few souvenirs, get laid. Can't get drunk around here—that saké rots your guts right out of you. Go to the EM Club and you blow your dough in five minutes. Jesus, prices are high here, you know."

The younger soldier turned back toward the window and said shortly: "I don't know about Shinjuku. I don't spend much time there."

"Well, guess I'll just have to find out for myself then. I hear tell the gook girls'll lay faster there than any place else though." He paused and the asked: "What do you think?"

The younger soldier didn't answer. He was allergic to the word "gook."

"Course," the old soldier continued, "I always say that any gook girl'll spread her legs if you ask her the right way—and get her away from mama." He laughed heartily and blew his raspberry nose before continuing: "Hell, man, why I don't know when I had so much fun as with some of these little gook girls. Why, I know one ..."

He continued on and on, talking into the younger soldier's ear while train boy carefully swept the cigarette butts from between the passenger's feet and entered the small compartment at the end of the car with his dust pan.

Past the door at the opposite end of the car was the next coach. There was no glass in the door, and the people were pressed tightly against each other. A student, in his high-collared uniform and cap, was pressed against one corner of the door-frame. Beside him was a short little man with a bow tie and a derby hat. The student seemed to be staring at the younger soldier, who looked back once and then turned toward the window again. Since he'd met her he didn't much like institutions like the Allied car.

Beside him the old soldier talked on. The Army was full of men like him. That was what armies were for apparently, to provide homes for otherwise homeless men like this one. The younger soldier wondered what would happen if he were to turn around and hit him. Nothing probably. Yet it was strange that while he himself wouldn't hesitate to talk back to an MP just doing his duty, still he wouldn't—couldn't—push around men like this one.

His barracks were full of them. He had to live with them. His flower-arranging lessons had been their delight once they had discovered them. But, come to think of it, they had been more approving than otherwise. They sanctioned any method which worked toward the given, the approved end, no matter how devious. But when they discovered that this wasn't what he was after, their attitude changed.

They no longer kidded him, and if he mentioned her, there was a depressing silence. They could somehow detect the difference between lust and love, and they behaved accordingly. And when they saw him being friendly to their Japanese janitor, they found a name for him.

Eventually the lessons were held at her house. He was surprised to find that hers was a wealthy family and that she had been sent to the Servicemen's Center, not to earn money, but to overcome a natural shyness which her parents thought excessive. They were quite delighted when she brought home an American. He usually bought presents at the PX for them, and they insisted he spend Saturdays and Sundays with them. She acted as an occasional interpreter or helped him with his Japanese lessons or just sat beside him while he, his shoes off, lying on his stomach on the tatami, looked through her photograph albums and decided he had never been happier. It seemed inevitable that he fall love with her.

When he wrote his parents about his feelings, his mother hadn't even answered, and his father, refusing to believe his son was serious, attempted a joke, asking if it really went sidewise. He'd written back angrily, and there had been no more letters for a time. In the barracks for several months now he'd been known as a gook-lover.

This disapproval of his parents and the soldiers he lived with had only made him the more determined in his belief in her and his love. Last night her parents had gone to Atami, and after the servants had gone to bed, he had scratched at the shoji, and she had let him in.

"... and so I went to the PX and I got the prettiest little dress you ever saw." The older soldier was still talking, leaning confidentially toward the other. "And, boy, you ought to seen those eyes light up like Christmas trees when I give it to her. I said, 'Baby, you done earned this,' and laughed my fool head off. And then, you know, first day she wore it outside, one of these god-damn snoopy Jap policemen stopped her and took her to the station. Thought she stole it, you know. Made her give up the dress and sent her home with just her coat over her underwear. Told her she wouldn't get it back until whoever gave her the dress showed up and said he had. So she came to me, all tears, you know." He stopped and blew his nose.

"What did you do? asked the younger soldier, interested.

"Me? Why, I never went near the little bitch again, of course. She knew where I was though and used to ride those damn crowded gook trains out Tachikawa way every day. I never let her see me after the first time, though. Jesus, you'll get into trouble, you know. You're not supposed to let PX stuff get to the Japs—black market. I don't mind the black market, of course, but you got to watch it and make clean business—this messing around with the Jap police could put me right in the stockade. So, if I hadn't been smart and tossed her on her big fat can, I'd of wound up with all sorts of trouble on the deal. See what I mean?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean."

This poor girl probably loved that raspberry-nosed bastard too. Japanese girls all seemed anxious to love and to trust. He closed his eyes and turned his back on the older soldier. The very thought of something like this happening to Haruko made him cold all over.

He remembered how she'd looked last night when he'd scratched on the shoji and she'd opened it. She'd been sleeping in a light-blue summer yukata dyed with a pattern of cranes. Her face was pink, and she rubbed her eyes as though she could not believe it possible that he was there.

"Why?" she asked softly, in English, looking over her shoulder, afraid the old servant might hear. "Go back. Do not do this," she continued in Japanese. She didn't seem afraid, merely concerned for his sake. "When they discover you, you'll be punished."

She was so sincere, and looked so much like a little girl as she knelt by the shoji with one hand delicately on its frame, that he could not help smiling as he said:

"I came to ask you to marry me."

"Marry you?" she asked, and her hand dropped into her lap as she knelt by the shoji. She had apparently never thought of this. "Do you want to be married. To me?"

He nodded.

The moon came from behind a willow, and her face was white.

He stood in the shadow, black, unable to speak.

Somewhere behind her a clock struck one. "Come in," she said softly.

He sat on the edge of the sill and took off his shoes, then swung his feet around and sat inside. She pulled the shoji closed behind him. He looked around him. It was the first time he had ever been in her room.

It was perfectly plain and rather small—six tatami in size. During the day the doors were opened and it became a part of the house. He had often seen it from the main room. This was where her mother knelt, sewing, during his visits—near enough to be seen, far enough away not to appear to be chaperoning them. At night, however, the doors were slid to and it became Haruko's room.

In the tokonoma, below the scroll picture, were some chrysanthemums, arranged in a flat, square bowl, their stems cut very short. There were chrysanthemums in the garden too. House and garden flowed one into the other, separated only by the paper doors, doors so insubstantial that they seemed to Michael more symbolic than actual, symbolizing a barrier that he had just crossed.

She knelt before him. "I could bring you tea. But it might wake the servant. Her room is very near."

He shook his head and looked at the futon where she had been sleeping. Her pallet was very narrow and looked small lying there on the tatami, reminding him of a child's bed. The pillow was small, round, and probably hard. It was still slightly dented from where her neck had laid against it. He put his hand under the padded coverings on the bed. It was warm inside.

"Are you cold? I could bring in the hibachi, but it might wake her. And in the morning too she would wonder. It is too early in the year for me to want a hibachi. Shall I bring it?"

He shook his head again. There was nothing in the room that showed it was hers except the high chest that held her clothes, and her few possessions on top of it. There was a tiny wristwatch and a small statue of Beethoven. Next to them was a small plastic wallet containing her identification card, some pictures taken on a school picnic almost five years before, and her monthly train pass. There was also a rather large French doll in the shape of a brown-satin negress with golden hair. Beside it there was a child's bank, which was made to resemble a Swiss chalet with painted snow on the roof. These, and the clothes in the closet, and a few books—mostly translated German and French novels—were her only belongings. They looked so fragile, these few possessions—one swing of the arm could break them all. Michael, thinking he had never seen anything so lovable, so unbearably sad as the top of that chest, turned quickly away.

"Are you hungry?" she began again. "I could—"

"No, I'm not hungry. Nor thirsty. Nor cold. I came to ask you to marry me."

She was silent for a moment. Then, suddenly, in English: "No, me promised."

He had noticed before that whenever he wanted to say anything serious, to say anything that mattered to either of them, she always insisted on English, as though it put what they were talking of farther away from her—and as though that was what she wanted.

"Let's speak Japanese," said Michael. "My Japanese is better than your English."

"All right, we'll speak Japanese. English is so difficult. I've studied since I was a little girl and I'll never be able to speak well. The words are so long and so hard to pronounce and each one has so many meanings. When I was in high school—"

"Haruko! I came to ask you to marry me."

"Oh."

"Will you marry me?"

"Me promised," she said in English.

"All right, we'll talk in English if you want. In English, now: Will—you—marry—me?"

"I understand. I good understand. Me promised."

"I am promised," he corrected. "Is that what you mean—engaged?"

"Yes, I engaged," she repeated. Then she continued: "Young man, same age."

Michael had known this for some time. On his first visit her father, with great delicacy, had hinted until there could be no doubt that he was understood. She was to marry the son of an important man in one of Japan's largest entertainment combines. It was really a merger of the two families and would supposedly benefit both.

"Tomorrow I see," said Haruko. "At opera—at, how you say ...?"

"At the theater," said Michael. For some weeks he had also known that the official meeting would take place at the Imperial Theatre. Both Haruko and the boy had known each other almost all their lives, but tradition must be observed, and everyone would pretend that this formal, ceremonial meeting was the first time they'd ever seen each other. Michael had seen these meetings before, at the Kabuki, in the cherry groves at Ueno during the spring, in fashionable restaurants. Both the boy and the girl would avoid each other so far as possible. She would exclaim constantly upon the beauty of the blossoms, while he would examine his shoes or his hat. Up until this very moment Michael he had always thought such meetings both ludicrous and amusing.

"That's why I came, Haruko. I want you to marry me. I love you." It sounded strange in English, and then he realized that he'd always thought these words in Japanese.

She looked away. There was no light, and the moon shone through the paper, filling the room with an almost luminous glow. She reflectively ran her finger along the pattern cast by the shoji.

"I love you," she said, but it was only the repetition of an unfamiliar phrase. Then she looked up and said: "I love you too—I think."

"You think? Don't you know?

She laughed. "How I know? Japanese girl no know anything. I know Papa-san and Mama-san no want I love you much. They know you love me. But I love you? I no know." She smiled, as though it were a joke between them. .. .

The train jerked to a stop and the doors opened. An old lady, looking straight ahead, tried to board the car while the train boy, pushing her away, kept pointing in the direction of the Japanese cars. Understanding at last, she was still running awkwardly along the train when the doors slammed to and the train pulled past her and out of the station.

The older soldier was still talking: "Yessir, lot's of trouble if you're not smart enough to watch out for it. You got to understand these folks, got to understand their psychology. And, course, they ain't got good sense and that makes things more difficult. Now just look at them, like a bunch of animals."

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the next coach, and the student stared at the younger soldier, whose eyes had inadvertently followed the other soldier's thumb. The old soldier stuck out his underlip, then suddenly smiled expansively and dug the other in the ribs with his elbow.

"But—we should worry, huh? We never had it so good." He laughed good-naturedly and blew his nose.

Michael did not turn away this time. He looked steadily at the nose and the good-natured eyes for a second. For some time he had known that just as he had come to love Haruko as a personification of Japan, so had he come to despise representatives of America like this soldier. What happened to Americans abroad? They changed somehow. This fellow in the fields of Arkansas or the hills of Tennessee would have been a nice guy. But here he became a kind of monster. Was this what came from being a native of the richest, most powerful country in the world? Or was this what came from being a conqueror? Or was it both?

He didn't know, but he did know that one either went the way of this bastard or else went the way he himself had gone. No one ever felt lukewarm about Japan—you either loved it or hated it. It brought out a strong emotion in any case. The only difficulty was that either way it also changed your opinion of your own country. It made men like this think America was best because it was richest. And it made men like himself critical of America, just because it was the richest, most powerful, and because it could create sons of bitches like this one. He shook his head and turned away.

The soldier leaned forward and touched Michael's shoulder.

Michael moved his shoulder quickly. She had touched his shoulder last night. She had bent forward and said: "If I love, I love Michael." He shook his head, wondering how it was possible not to be certain whether one loved or not. You either did or you didn't.

He had looked so unhappy that she had laughed again, the way Japanese always laugh when they are about to tell you something particularly sad.

"Michael," she said, "come sit. More close." She pointed to her narrow futon. "We talk."

They talked until the moon had long faded and the first sunshine turned the panes of the paper shoji a faint pink. She argued that marriage was impossible. She could not leave home. She could not disappoint her parents. He said that if she loved him as much as he loved her she wouldn't even think of reasons like those. Surprisingly, she agreed with him and seemed to feel sad that it was so. Frightened, he explained to her that she did indeed love him very much. She appeared to believe it and was happy again. He told her how he would take her home and how his parents would love her as though she were their own daughter and how happy they would all be. She said nothing, merely sighed.

Later on, he kissed her, and she turned her head shyly and laughed.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, still laughing. "This is my first time to be kissed. It is strange."

He leaned over her, holding her by the shoulders. "Does it seem nice?"

She wrinkled her forehead, thinking, then said: "If we do it again, we will know, won't we?"

He kissed her several more times.

"Yes," she said finally, "it very nice. Now it is morning. I'll get tea for you—at last."

She made him sit in the corner so that anyone opening the doors would not at once see him. The Japanese house had absolutely no privacy. There were no locks on the doors, no doorknobs—actually no doors in the usual meaning of the word. He had always vaguely approved of this until now.

So he had sat and watched the new sunlight creep slowly across the tatami.. ..

He opened his eyes. The train was going through a large park. In the distance was a dome. Near the track were a number of small new houses and beside them a stretch of burned ground with a single tall chimney in the middle. Children were playing in roads, and beyond them a fleet of kites rose from behind a clump of dusty trees.

The Nisei soldiers pointed the kites out to each other. The very young soldiers were still deep in their comic books.

"Where are we?" asked the older soldier.

Michael looked out of the window. "Shinano-machi."

"Boy, that's a mouthful," said the other.

Michael didn't answer.

"Boy, I bet you get tired of the same old route. I know just what you mean. There's a little old streetcar out of Tachikawa and, Jesus, do I get tired of that thing—take it to see my girl. The new one, that is."

"I usually take the subway," said Michael. It made him feel a bit noble, being polite to someone he hated so.

"Do you now?" He had at last sensed the formality of Michael's manner and, in turn, spoke a bit stiffly and politely himself. "I always wanted to do that, but it's kind of unsafe, isn't it? Hell, I wouldn't want no DR." He laughed self-indulgently. "I got enough of them as is."

Michael rubbed his eyes and felt the beard on his chin. "Never saw any MP's on it. It used to be on-limits, you know."

"Don't I know!" said the older soldier, drawing himself up. He had been offended. "Hell, man, I was one of the first GI's on Jap soil. I came in with the Bataan boys. Why, we used to have the run of this place. Nothing chicken like now." He smiled in reminiscence. "Sure, subway and all. Boy, used to get right in among 'em. And the smell! Damned if I see how the gooks stand it. I never could. Hell, how you stand it, man?" This was a joke but, now unsure of Michael, he laughed to show it was.

Michael didn't see the laugh though. He was looking out the window, and the train had started again.

The older soldier scratched his head, then turned around and looked covetously at the comic books.

The park flashed past, and Michael realized he was hungry. The tea, soup, and pickled vegetables that Haruko had finally brought him wasn't very much for breakfast.

"I thought you could eat some miso-shiru," she said, uncovering the soup.

"You've been gone an hour," he said accusingly.

"Yes," she said. "But no one hear—talk quiet." She was speaking English again.

The tray she put before him was a work of art. She'd had to clean a whole daikon in order to make a single slice, like a full moon on one side of the plate; she'd gathered and cut scallions so that a touch of green balanced it; she'd made a fish-cake flower, all pink and white in the middle, and had balanced this with a carefully grated mound of red radish. This alone must have taken the hour.

He drank the soup, wondering if she would ever realize other things were sometimes more important than etiquette, than the art of graceful serving, than the conferring of favors like the exquisite plate before him.

"I'd rather have had you with me during that hour," he said softly.

"If we be married, you have me many, many hours. Too many, I think maybe."

"No, not too many. You mean a great many."

"Yes," she laughed, "I always mistake. Many, many."

She had already started to ask him about a fine point of English grammar when he suddenly realized what she'd said. "You said—if we are to be married!"

"Yes. If."

"But then, you will marry me?"

"Oh, yes. I would. Happy, many happy."

"Then you will?"

"Will? Oh, no. I don't know about that. I must think much."

They talked until almost seven. Their voices grew more and more soft, and they held their breath when the old servant passed along the corridor outside the door, separated from them only by paper. Fortunately she was hard of hearing.

Haruko had wedged a small table against the fusuma opening into the corridor, but it wouldn't hold if anyone used a bit of force. Like most Japanese things, it too was intensely fragile. If you moved too swiftly in a Japanese house, you broke something.

It was full morning and he was sleepy. "Please," he said.

She smiled and then said he must go. They would be discovered if he remained. And he must not allow the neighbors, who almost always saw everything anyway, to view his departure. He must be very swift and very silent.

He said he wouldn't go until she said either that she would marry him or that she wouldn't.

Quite suddenly she kissed him and said: "Yes, yes, I will marry. Now go."

She pushed him from the shoji into the garden and then, kneeling, waved good-by, though they were only a few feet apart.

He let himself out the gate and took the crowded subway downtown. So now he was going to get married. And the sooner the better....

"Shinjuku," said the older soldier, looking out of the window. Ahead, a group of higher buildings rose above the small houses, above the maze of small streets—four or five high buildings, all white in the sun.

"I know; I live there," said Michael.

"You live there? What d'ya know." He was starting another conversation, but the train was slowing down, so he stood up. He laughed and carefully laid his half-smoked cigarette on the floor. "Boy, you can't say I'm not good to these gooks. Hell, I never step on my butts." With exaggerated care he stepped over it. "When Junior comes by and takes his dust pan into that closet again to count over the butts, he's gonna have a real nice surprise."

He swayed slightly. The car came to a sudden stop and threw him off balance. He had stepped on the cigarette and swore, then laughed and turned to Michael: "Well, here we are!"

"I know," said Michael shortly.

The other looked at Michael over his large, pitted nose. "Hey, how's about showing me around a little? I don't know this place, you know. You could just steer me a bit. Hell, I got money. I'm gonna have me one hell of a good time."

"I told you I had to be in. I'm supposed to be at work now."

"That's right," said the other. He seemed dimly aware that he had antagonized Michael, and it disturbed him. "Just a drink maybe—some good ole Shinjuku saké."

They were all alike. Show them you didn't like them and they came fawning like puppies. Any number of Americans he knew just couldn't stand not being liked. They liked being conquerors, but they wanted the conquered to like it too. He remembered overhearing an American woman's dismissing the entire population of Japan by saying: "They really don't act like they're glad we won the war." This craving for being liked—it was the American's soft spot, and it was a yard wide. And they could never understand why sometimes people didn't like them—they all got childish hurt eyebrows such as this one had now.

The coach door was thrown open and the train boy called the station in the typical high chanting voice that all train boys in Japan have used, apparently, ever since there have been trains. The two soldiers were thrown together, surrounded by those pouring from the other coaches. Women with children on their backs, old men, girls going to school, young businessmen, all pushing each other unmercifully, safe in their anonymity.

"Jesus!" said the older soldier.

Down the stairway, on the street level, the crowd was less dense. Both soldiers passed through the Allied entrance, and Michael started down the street.

"Hey, Mac," called the older one, "come on. Let's have ourselves a real time. Come on!"

Michael did not not turn around until he reached the street corner. By then the old soldier with the red nose was standing there, stupidly looking around him.

Shinjuku was where the farmers came, and Michael was glad he was stationed there. Around the station, street stalls lined the gutters, and opposite them stood small open shops. Sides of red beef hung from the ceilings on hooks; whole fish, brittle and dusty, fastened through the gills, lay against the walls; and the floors were covered with barrels and boxes. In the stores were country people carrying large bundles carefully wrapped in pieces of cloth. The bright colors of other parts of town were missing. Instead there were the somber blues and browns and grays, the slight checks and stripes of country people's clothing.

Whole families loaded with bundles struggled through the crowds, calling to each other at times. Cocks in wicker cages crowed, and pigs in baskets squealed. Some little children, playing a game like hide-and-seek, ran skilfully between the passing legs.

Further along the street the stalls disappeared. There was no more room for them on the sidewalks. The buildings were taller now and the busy intersection was the center of Shinjuku. There were small hardware-shops, teashops, small theatres, and geta-shops where rows of wooden clogs and sandals stretched in lines of yellow unfinished wood, white in the sunlight.

Michael smelled the clean rice smell of the Japanese. In close quarters it tended to grow musty, but in the open air the smell was exhilarating. He smelled something else, and it reminded him of Haruko—as did everything Japanese. He finally located it. A Japanese war veteran, with one leg and one arm gone, was standing on the corner in his clean white robe and field cap. His long hair was beautifully parted, and Michael could smell the same rich odor of pomade that he had associated up until now only with Haruko.

Further on was an antique store. There were English signs in the window as well as a suit of ancient Japanese armour, a hand-wound phonograph, and a Petty-girl calendar. An elderly American couple, man and wife apparently, and a young lieutenant were looking in the window.

"Oh, but it can't be. It just can't. Not here, not right out in the open," said the woman in little screams, her white hair upswept and held in place by several lacquered geisha combs. She was uncommonly white.

"Well, my dear, as they say in New York, step in and try it on," said the elderly gentleman, also quite white.

"But not here, not here where we've combed every alley for years. Not a real piece of celadon. I simply can't believe it."

"That's what it looks like, ma'am," said the lieutenant. "Let's go in and see."

"But you know it couldn't be. You just don't find, things like that—except in Korea, of course."

The lieutenant took off his cap and ran his fingers boyishly through his brown, curly hair. "Well, I don't know much about stuff like pottery, ma'am. But you never can tell." He put one hand rakishly on his hip and with a bow, like an Oriental shopkeeper—or his idea of one—indicated the door.

Michael purposely chose this moment to salute. The lieutenant, with a glance of alarm, put on his hat and saluted in return. By that time, however, Michael was past.

The lady laughed merrily. "Oh, Lieutenant, your hat's on sidewise. You look just like Napoleon."