Читать книгу L'Americain - John Launois - Страница 10

The seagulls that followed our ship for a short while from San Francisco were long gone. New seagulls swirled about the ship as we entered Yokohama harbor on our 14th day at sea.

I had mixed feelings about being one of the “lucky few” who watched the Saint Patrick sail on to Korea. My head was full of negative images about Japan, “the imperial power” that had joined the “Axis powers” after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The collaborative French press of my childhood had praised Japan’s alliance with Germany, while the BBC denounced it. My father and I trusted the BBC.

Despite Army briefings about our role as “ambassadors to Japan,” I felt no desire to be friendly as we waited to board buses headed for Camp Drake in Tokyo. I found it annoying when dockworkers responded with “Hi, hi”—”Yes, yes”—to every question I asked.

Japan had not yet recovered from damages of war. Riding through Tokyo among scarred buildings, I saw people rushing in all directions. Mothers carried babies strapped to their bodies, and men and women were so loaded down with heavy bundles, it seemed they were carrying the whole city on their backs.

Many women had hunched backs from years of working rice paddy fields where they planted delicate green shoots of rice. The Japanese carried even heavier loads than the potato sacks I had lifted in childhood. As I watched on from my comfortable bus seat, whatever hostility I had felt toward the Japanese soon vanished.

As the bus continued on, I noticed small, three-wheeled trucks weaving in and out of traffic with huge loads as well as pre-World War II taxis called Datsuns that were too small for Americans to ride with any comfort. At Camp Drake, I was briefed by a sergeant major. “You’re assigned to Southwestern Headquarters at Camp Otsu on Lake Biwa. That’s near Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Your assignments will include coverage of Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. It’s just about the best Army job in all of Japan.”

At Tokyo’s Grand Central station, I boarded a train pulled by a steam-engine locomotive. Lined up on boarding platforms were vendors selling obento, rice wrapped in seaweed and dried fish in wooden boxes.

American GIs and some Japanese commuted in first-class carriages, but most Japanese traveled in second class. After a few hours, carriage floors were covered with empty food boxes and discarded wrappers, and a cleaner would sweep aisles of trash at each stop.

The garbage in the train surprised me, because I had read in one briefing that the Japanese were “the cleanest people in the world.” It took me a long time to understand how, in a highly disciplined society with rules of etiquette and behavior for each move from birth to death, the endless rules did not cover disposal of trash on a crowded train. That was Japan in the 1950s.

On the train, sounds of the Japanese language were so foreign, I couldn’t understand the conductor as he announced stations. During the entire trip, the only two words I understood were Gifu and Nagoya, so I missed Otsu altogether.

Two other American soldiers also missed Otsu, so we all got off in Kyoto. Unable to find a military bus, the three of us shared a Datsun to Camp Otsu. Heading east toward Mount Hiei and Lake Biwa, the little car loaded with three GIs and three duffel bags stalled. So we got out, pushed the taxi over the hill, and jumped back in as the driver clutched into second gear, and “the little box” started again.

Driving through Kyoto, once the ancient capital city of Japan and residence of the imperial family for nearly 11 centuries from 794 to 1868, I saw an enchanted world of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, and simple people living in ways totally foreign to Western experience. I smelled aromas I had never known.

The little taxi made it to camp, and the military police led us in at the gate. After reporting for duty, I was assigned to a 10-man room in barracks identical to California’s—it was like being back in Fort Ord. In military culture, you never got away from regulation barracks. I was foolish to even imagine barracks in Japan shaped like pagodas.

On the bright side, it was good to know the U.S. Army took better care of its soldiers than the French Army. We were actually paid a small but decent wage, and as Camp Otsu’s processing sergeant told me, I could participate in the “caretaker program,” in which a Japanese man would make our beds, shine our brass, and take care of all our cleaning duties. I gladly joined. We also had a PX post exchange where goods were tax-free. In 1954, a pack of cigarettes was 10¢.

I constantly compared the French and American armies. Though drafted into both, I went into the French Army respecting the laws of France, and the American Army respecting my own set of values. With the U.S. forces, I felt a sense of duty and a need to repay an emotional debt.

But when I checked into Camp Otsu as a French citizen, the guns of war in Korea had been silenced. Since the fighting was over, I wondered why most of my fellow draftees and I still had to serve 14 more months of active duty. As a 25-year-old unknown photojournalist who didn’t even own his own 35-mm camera, my genuine fear was that after being discharged from the Army, I’d be too old to make it in photojournalism.

My anxiety eased somewhat after a briefing from officers of the photographic section of the Signal Corps and Headquarter’s Public and Press Section. I learned my new assignments would be far more diverse than Fort Ord’s. Beyond covering Army activities, I’d photograph events for military publications, press releases for Japanese press, and with luck, special features for the Stars and Stripes newspaper. I’d also cover two other camps, one in Kobe and the other in the Gifu-Nagoya area.

Most of my work would be unsupervised, meaning: “Do a good job and you will have a great deal of freedom.” Also I’d often be put on TDY or “Traveling Detached Duty,” meaning an extra $15 pay per diem when military facilities were not available. In 1954, Japanese inns and restaurants were inexpensive, and the dollar was almighty, so $15 went a long way. I often saved half of it when traveling outside military areas.

As a rule, I tried to travel with another photographer. I teamed up with Private Timothy Asch, who studied anthropology at Harvard. As a private first class, I was put in charge of our team.

Though neither of us knew we’d be assigned to Japan, Tim prepared himself well for Japan’s complex society. He brought books by nineteenth-century, Greek-born American author, Lafcadio Hearn, who had written at length on Japan. Tim’s most informative book was The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Benedict. A professor of anthropology at Columbia University, she had been given the formidable assignment by the Office of War Information to explain Japanese culture to leaders of American occupying forces in Japan. First published in 1946, her book became recognized as a classic.

Tim had a scholarly anthropological approach to Japan, while mine was instinctive and reactive to sights and sounds of the country, so the two of us made a good team. Covering three camps and diverse subjects outside the military world kept us permanently busy. When not at headquarters, we’d often shoot pictures the entire day, then process film and write captions until two in the morning. On “Detached Duty” in Camp Kobe, we had a private room in one of the barracks and made our own schedule until a platoon sergeant at Kobe insisted we appear for all calls, including the 6:00 a.m. roll call.

As I was on my way to Camp Gifu, Tim was left alone to debate with the sergeant. When I got back, Tim was restricted to camp. I began working on regaining Tim’s freedom, but things moved slowly in the Army’s bureaucracy.

A few days later, the new commander of Camp Kobe, a full colonel and a “West Pointer,” called for a full inspection of camp including our photographic facility. The night before inspection, Tim and I prepared our official production reports, illustrating the variety of our assignments and documenting our long hours of overtime through the week and weekends.

When our unreasonable sergeant and the new colonel arrived for inspection and reviewed our reports, I said, “I’d like to bring up a serious disagreement we have with the sergeant here present, sir!” I continued, “How can we be expected to make the 6:00 a.m. roll call when we often don’t finish our work till 2:00 a.m., notwithstanding the technical work we do for the Criminal Investigation Division, which is highly classified and cannot be given to our Japanese technician, sir?” The colonel paused, turned to the sergeant, and said, “Sergeant, lift Private Asch from camp restriction immediately.” So once again we were in charge of our time.

On one assignment, we went to a Japanese hospital and photographed a pale little boy, barely breathing. His mother was beside him, imploring us to do something to save his life. Neither the parents nor hospital could find in Japan the iron lung the boy needed to survive, nor could they afford to have one flown in from the United States. An English-speaking Japanese doctor told us it was a matter of days before the boy died.

Without permission, Tim and I printed our photographs and released them to the Japanese press along with the plea from the mother. By the time we got back to headquarters, the story was all over the papers.

The major in charge of public relations was angry with us for not checking with him before making the release. Our story had obliged the military public relations machine to react. The U.S. Air Force flew in an iron lung to Japan, saving the boy’s life, at least for a while.

Other assignments involved finding rest-and-recreation locations and resorts for GIs arriving from Korea. We thoroughly covered the more exotic and typically Japanese inns that were available. Happily testing everything R&R soldiers would experience, we covered Japanese cuisine, consumed rice wine served warm, and immersed ourselves in hot baths. At 110 degrees Fahrenheit, the baths had to be taken only after thorough scrubbing and washing outside of the tub while seated on a small stool. The point of the Japanese bath was not to get clean but to give your body pleasure.

Because inn owners knew we were doing them a favor by featuring their establishments, sake flowed freely, and often drinks were not charged. If we protested, they patiently explained Japanese culture: Giri meant they must return our favor to keep their reputation intact. Giri was part of a very complex ethical code, difficult for foreigners to understand, so we honored their code and often drank too much sake.

After long trips to resorts in the countryside, we’d sometimes long for American comfort and return to headquarters. There we’d rent a small boat and sail across beautiful Lake Biwa to the Officers’ Club on the opposite shore. Though enlisted men were not allowed in the club, being photographers in civilian clothes gave us certain privileges. We made friends with the bartender, and for 25¢ I had my first dry martini.

Time passed quickly. We explored Kyoto, Nara, and photographed the most famous temples and shrines. By April 1954, I began taking weekend trips to Tokyo, proposing story ideas from our southwestern command to editors at Stars and Stripes and the English editions of Japanese newspapers.

Unfortunately, not many editors were interested in my ideas: their eyes were on the fierce battle in Indochina where Dien Bien Phu had been besieged for weeks. There was talk about the heroic efforts of French Legionnaires and paratroopers holding the fortification, but after 55 days, Dien Bien Phu fell to Vietminh forces on May 8, 1954. All 16,000 men, including 3,000 paratroopers, had been captured or killed.

Discussing the loss with other GIs, I recounted what little I knew of France’s colonial history in Indochina. Thinking of all the dead, we all asked, “Why?” We agreed Eisenhower was right in ending the war in Korea and hoped he would keep us out of Indochina. Although Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French colonialism in Indochina, the war continued to claim casualties, including the legendary photojournalist, Robert Capa. Born in Budapest as Andrei Friedmann, Capa was an American who was one of the founders of the Magnum Agency. He was on assignment for Life when he reportedly stepped on a land mine and died on May 25, 1954, not far from Hanoi, at the age of 40.

Capa was the supreme photographic recorder of the horrors of war. I met him a couple of times and, like all aspiring photojournalists, greatly admired his work on the Spanish Civil War, his coverage of the Normandy landings, and other great engagements of World War II.

With Capa’s untimely death, the world lost its greatest war photographer. Like others at Life magazine, he had mastered the use of 35-mm cameras, particularly Leicas. I had used the Army’s 35-mm camera, but its lens was not much better than the bottom of a Coke bottle. Finally, with great enthusiasm, I ordered my first Leica F-2 with a 50-mm Summicron lens from Camp Otsu’s PX.

While waiting for the camera to arrive, I was notified that I could take my American citizenship examination. Feeling emotionally American since my youth, I felt it was time to make my attachment to the U.S. legal.

Tim Asch gave me encouragement. He genuinely wanted me to become a citizen, so for days, he tested me on American history, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Civil War, and Federalist Papers urging the Constitution’s ratification, with essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.

I felt ready for the exam, though I was worried my knowledge of the Federalist Papers was vague and hoped I wouldn’t be questioned extensively on it. On the day of the exam, I ran into a young Marine crying on his way out of the testing building. He blurted out that he had failed his test and would have to take it again in a few months. I was sure that questions on the Federalist Papers made him fail.

For my exam, the first and only question was, “What is the meaning of democracy?” I said, “Demo means people and cracy means government, so essentially it means government of the people, for the people.” The examiner said, “That’s fine, you are now an American citizen.”

I held up my right hand, and on June 11, 1954, in Camp Otsu, Japan, on the shores of Lake Biwa, I pledged the oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America. The examiner then asked if I wanted to change my family name, which surprised me, and I answered, “No.” We shook hands, and he congratulated me. After all the studying I had done, passing the exam felt anticlimactic.

Friends at the photographic section prepared a small party for me. “To our new American,” they toasted. Later, Tim and I went to dinner and talked about our future. He had hopes of getting a grant to study Aborigines in Australia, while I had written and asked Kurt Kornfeld of Black Star to send an introduction for me to their press agency in Tokyo, Pan Asia.

Black Star did not have a permanent correspondent in Japan. I knew Ernest Mayer and Kurt Kornfeld, the Black Star bosses, were European-oriented and not very interested in Japan, so cautiously and gradually, I began constructing arguments why I should be their correspondent in Japan and the Far East. From my own observations and from conversations with journalists, it became obvious that Japan in the summer of 1954 was not only recovering from war but was on its way to becoming an industrial power with America’s approval and assistance.

A reservist major who was recalled for the Korean War told me, “The Korean War was the turning point. Soon Japan will become America’s greatest ally in the Far East.” Unfortunately, my credentials at Black Star were extremely limited. Unless I came up with at least two good essays on Japan, my chances with the agency were slight, so during weekends, I planned two essays.

For one, I’d photograph the interplay of shadows I often observed through paper screens of geisha houses in Ponto-cho and Gion. I had a title: “The Shadows of Kyoto.” The second essay focused on the Kyoto-Tokyo Express, a wonder of railroad history. The first essay would have a sense of mystery while the second would be harshly realistic.

Throughout the early years of trying to break through as a photojournalist, I kept in touch with my family through letters. It had been nearly four years since I had seen them, but I never mentioned how difficult life had been.

Because father thought it was mother’s duty to write, most mail I received came from her. Her letters always began with, “I am glad you are in good health,” even though I never mentioned my health at all.

After writing to my father about becoming an American citizen, he wrote back, asking, “What’s wrong with being French?” His letter seemed sad but not critical. “In my heart,” he wrote, “you will always be French, but as you know, I have nothing against America.”

His letter made me feel lonely, and I would not see him for many years to come. I could not tell him that my plan, after returning to America, was to return to Japan, for I had no thoughts of returning to France.

I began photographing shadows of Kyoto and the Kyoto-Tokyo Express. On the train I again saw the Japanese struggling with their heavy loads. They never complained; they accepted the struggle—I had never seen such stoicism before.

Searching for pictures, I spent long hours on the train. One day, through my Leica viewfinder, I saw a young woman in a sleeveless summer dress making sketches of the countryside from her seat. Discreetly, I watched her; through my camera, she looked like a whisper in the chattering crowd of passengers.

I gazed at her full lips, the hollow above her upper lip, her thin nose, slender bare arms, long elegant fingers, short haircut, narrow waist, gentle breasts. As I photographed her, I focused on her almond-shaped eyes.

I was just a few feet away. She never looked up though I knew she had seen me. After hours on the train, I finally worked up the nerve to talk to her, struggling to speak in Japanese, and she responded in fluent English. Her name was Keiko.

She told me she was a student at Sofia University in Tokyo and would soon graduate. For a woman in 1954 Japan’s patriarchal society, that was extraordinary. I told her that in my camera, she looked like a single white flower in a sea of dark pebbles. She smiled shyly and said, “I’ve been watching you ever since you entered our car.”

I raised my right hand and slowly spread my fingers apart. One by one, starting with my little finger, she matched her fingers with mine. When she touched my thumb, she pressed slightly. Without words, we looked at each other and understood something was beginning.

As the train headed for Tokyo, we spoke about our lives. Since I was based by Lake Biwa, she said we could see each other soon because she had friends near Otsu where she could spend part of her summer vacation. In Tokyo, she changed trains for Fujisawa, but we promised to see each other again. Since long-distance telephone service was primitive in Japan, we’d keep in touch by mail.

Spending a few days in Tokyo, I met with John Taji, director of Pan Asia news, to discuss setting up a Black Star-Pan Asia office once I was out of the Army and able to return to Japan. I needed to know what Pan Asia would expect as a percentage.

I was cautious because no one at Black Star had shown any interest in my returning to Japan. The agency’s president thought I should take advantage of the GI Bill and go to college. My abstract plans for the future seemed difficult but not impossible.

I received a letter from Keiko telling me she was going to Kyoto for two weeks and hoped we could see each other. We managed to meet almost every evening.

Day by day, we found ourselves falling in love, but in Japanese culture, expressing your feelings physically in public was forbidden. Instead, we exchanged poems daily. Only once had our fingers touched, when we first met on the train. On the shores of Lake Biwa, we could never hold hands, and walking the streets of ancient Kyoto, we could only express our affection with words.

She explained the taboos of her culture. A public display of emotion was a shameful act. Though it was painful, I accepted Japan’s subtle language of love. To a Western mind, it didn’t make much sense, but poetically, it awakened me. What I could not say with a kiss or a touch, I could try to write in daily poems.

By the end of July, she returned to her family’s summerhouse and soon invited me to come for the weekend. Keiko picked me up at the Fujisawa railroad station, and we walked to her house.

In their perfectly manicured garden, the gardener dropped pine needles on the paths to make it look as though needles had just fallen from the trees. The green of the garden flowed into the architecture of the main house in perfect harmony. It was a classical Japanese design.

I met Keiko’s parents and her brother. They all spoke fluent English except for the mother for whom Keiko translated our conversations. Bowing servants served a delicious Japanese dinner.

Keiko’s father wanted to know about France during the war, so I told him what I knew. Keiko’s older brother Kenji asked what I wanted to do when I returned to America, so I told him I wanted to work with Black Star but didn’t mention my plan to return to Japan after the Army.

Keiko’s father was erudite in matters concerning Europe. Receiving his business card, I discovered he was an executive for a major oil company based in Europe. During my visit, Keiko and I were so reserved, no one in her family suspected we had fallen in love. Late in the evening, I was escorted to the guesthouse, which was actually a teahouse where the Japanese tea ceremony was performed. Again I noticed how designs of the garden flowed in harmony with the architecture.

When I lay back on the guesthouse’s futon, I felt as though I had entered an enchanted world. The lights went off in the main house, and my senses were overwhelmed.

Drifting to sleep, I saw Keiko in a white nightgown running through the garden. She opened my shoji screen and joined me on the bed; with me under the covers and her on top, we finally kissed for the first time.

We held each other’s faces, swore our eternal love, and kissed again. At dawn, she ran back to the main house. Our secret meetings recurred over and over during visits to Fujisawa until the end of summer when her parents understood our bond was more than a friendship.

At that point, I could feel the tension in the family and was no longer welcome. Even so, Keiko’s father told me, “When you go back to America early next year, see how you feel. If you still are in love with my daughter, then you may come back for her and I will give you permission to marry.”

I believed him but I also sensed that he thought I’d never come all the way back to Japan. Regardless, Keiko and I continued to see each other in parks and cafés of Tokyo through the fall and winter. We could not hold hands nor kiss, so we wrote and recited poetry.

In February of ‘55, my Japan assignment in the U.S. Army ended. I saw Keiko once more before my ship sailed from Yokohama; she took off one of her earrings, saying, “You keep this one earring and I’ll keep mine. When you come back, you can return it to me. I know there will be thousands of faces watching your ship sail, but look carefully and I will be there.” I looked and looked but never saw her face.

On the 14-day trip back to San Francisco, I thought of Keiko endlessly. I’d read her poems over and again, looking at the earring she gave me. Meanwhile, since I had been a corporal for several months already, I was able to avoid all unpleasant duties and work instead on the mimeograph machine for the ship’s newspaper.

Approaching California, my thoughts were focused on how I could raise money to go to New York to pitch my ideas to Black Star. I wondered if Kurt Kornfeld would like my two essays.

Thinking of southern California, I knew I had no one to go back to. For me, working again for Joe Pazen was not an option, and from my sister, I discovered my friend Claude had returned to France, homesick.

In the last week of February, we sailed into San Francisco. At Fort Ord, on March 1, 1955, I received a National Defense medal, Good Conduct medal, Honorable Discharge, and $300 in “mustering-out pay.” Unlike the French Army, the U.S. Army let me keep my boots, clothing, and all my uniforms.