Читать книгу Condition Green Tokyo 1970 - Neil Goble - Страница 7

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"JOE. WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE," GINGER Holiday whispered anxiously, tugging at her husband's sleeve as Mrs. Kimiko Sakamoto poured them another round of green tea. "Explain to them, Joe! We'll miss the plane! Look, it's a quarter past twelve already!"

Joe grinned as he stretched out his cramped legs, smoothing the creases in his uniform caused by squatting on the floor cushion. It seemed Ginger was always in a state of agitation. "Worry, worry, worry," he laughed. "Their plane's not due for 20 minutes. Even if we didn't leave till they landed we'd still beat the Pointers to the terminal. Besides," he said, winking at his hostess, "I've got to have another of Kimiko's scrumptious rice cakes."

"Men!" Ginger groaned, holding her head. She turned to Kimiko for support. "I can just see our friends now, stepping off the plane at Koyota all haggard from their trip and a loudspeaker says, 'have your passports, visas, 90 copies of your orders, American currency, baggage claims, marriage license, car insurance, and customs forms ready as you enter the terminal, husbands without families on the left please, families without husbands on the right please, bachelors in the middle please, and concurrent travelers on both sides please. Obtain your new duty phone number from your sponsors please,'" she paused for breath, then raced on, "and Mrs. Pointer will whisper, 'But where are our sponsors, Dick!' and he'll say, 'Now don't worry Alice, they must be here someplace . . .'"

"Ginger . . ."

"And 30 minutes later we show up and there'll be the Pointers, sitting in the middle of the terminal floor on their suitcases, crumpled, their eyes glazed; alone in a strange land, they won't know where to go, they won't know where they are, their first day in Japan, and . . ."

"Your tea's getting cold," Joe pointed out.

"And I'll say, 'Sorry folks, but Joe just had to have another scrumptious rice cake,'" Ginger concluded, reaching for a rice cake.

"Dozo," Mrs. Sakamoto said, smiling and showing off her one gold tooth amid a mouthful of steel.

"I guess we really should go," Joe conceded, looking at his watch. "Honcho comes mo s'koshii," he explained again to the Sakamotos, "and kanai here is getting restless."

"Though we'd really love to sit here all day and eat your rice cakes and drink your tea," Ginger added, with just enough sarcasm to elude the Sakamotos but still prickle Joe.

"I understand," Mrs. Sakamoto said, bobbing her head slightly. "You must give your new friends welcome to Japan. Please, give them our welcome also?"

"Of course," Joe said. It was irresistible, the way Kimiko says "please," so it comes out "pleez-oo."

Haruo, Kimiko's husband, had spent several moments carefully selecting his words, and now he spoke them, clearly and confidently. "Now you live Tokyo, is so long between visits. Please, when you come again, bring your new friends and we greet them. How do you say? A friend of you is a friend of me. And maybe," he winked, "maybe I tell him of our Nichiren?"

"Your tomodachis are my tomodachis too, Sakamoto-san," Joe grinned. "But you'll never convert my new honchosan to Soka Gakkai. He is what we call 'hard shell.'"

Haruo laughed. "But you bring, ne? We like to meet."

"I'll try," Joe agreed. "And we promise not to stay away so long next time."

"But now we simply must go," Ginger said, dragging Joe by the arm. "Sayonara!"

"Sayonara," echoed Kimiko and Haruo.

"Hurry back," added their 17-year-old daughter, Tomiko, who had maintained a polite silence during most of the visit. Japanese firmly believed that children should be seen but not heard, and Joe had to admit—though his interests didn't extend that direction—that Tomiko was a pleasure to see. Talented as well as cute, and definitely pro-American—which was a refreshing attitude, considering the current tide of anti-Americanism that seemed to be sweeping over Japan.

"They sure are nice folks," Joe said in the privacy of the station wagon. "Too bad they have to be in Soka Gakkai, but I guess that's a heck of a lot better than being Commies."

"He never gives up trying to convert us Amerikajins, does he?" Ginger laughed.

"He's not allowed to give up," Joe said. "He's got to try to convert everyone he sees. It's in the book. Gotta have converts, if you're going to take over the whole world!"

"Whatever happened to separation between state and church? Or temple, I guess it is?"

"Silly pagan concept," Joe said. "Soka Gakkai no believe."

Joe slowed the car at the gate to the sprawling Air Force base which was the gateway to the Orient for all air-transported U.S. servicemen, and returned the Japanese civilian guard's salute. A sandwich sign by the guard shack warned of Condition Green—dangerous Communist demonstrations—in Tachikawa City and Tokyo's Hibiya Park.

"That's probably their plane coming in now," Joe said, pointing off to the left. "How's that for timing?"

"You'd still be sitting on your butt eating rice cakes if I hadn't dragged you out," Ginger reminded him.

Joe squelched her by asking when was the last time they were late to anything on his account.

There was just time for Ginger to pop in and out of the Ladies Powder Room before the passengers—bachelors first—began streaming in.

"Oh, there's a cute one," Ginger squealed. "And so's he! Hi, fellas," she called, waving and winking. "Welcome to the friendliest base in Japan!"

"I believe it baby," answered one, dropping his B-4 bag and bolting from the line. Ginger affected men that way. She'd affected Joe that way four years earlier when he first saw her as a three-page centerspread in Stud Magazine and learned that the raven-haired beauty was a receptionist right at Joe's base! They were married just before Joe shipped out, and honeymooned in Tokyo. Joe hadn't been the first, but he'd known that since their third date.

"Knock off trying to stampede the troops," Joe scolded, taking her hand. "Now if we play this cool, we can whiz through the paperwork in a flash and beat the mob out of here. We'll shake hands and hustle through the necessary salutations and small talk," he chattered like a quarterback in a huddle. "We'll get Major Pointer into the right line for clearance, then a split-second before anyone else gets the same idea I'll dash over to the cashier and swap his greenbacks for funny-money. And right before they call 'passports' over the P.A., you haul Alice over to the passport counter and be first in line . . ."

"Joe . . ."

"Hmm?"

"One little thing: How do I know when it's 'just before' they call for passports?"

Joe sucked air through his teeth and scratched his crew cut. Then he spied his quarry. "Woops! Here they come. Stations, everybody. Be calm now . . ."

"She is bleached," Ginger said. "I told you so, just from the snapshots!"

"Could be worse," Joe said. "She could be bald," as indeed Major Pointer was, except for a little fuzzy fringe all around his egg-shaped head.

The Pointers saw the Holidays, too, and hurried over.

"Well, the Holidays!" Alice Pointer gushed. "How glad we are that you sent us snapshots; it's so nice to see a familiar face in all this madness, mayhem, and confusion!"

"Yes, we spotted you right away, too," Ginger said congenially.

"Welcome to Japan, Major," Joe said, offering his hand. "And you too, Mrs. Pointer, and Peter and Patricia. Let's move along as we talk, and stay in front of the line . . . "

The two teenagers winced at mention of their names. "Pete and Patty," the boy corrected Joe.

"Unless you want a fight on your hands," Major Pointer chuckled. "And just call me Dick, Captain Holiday, and I'll call you Joe. Why, after all those letters you wrote, we practically feel we know you."

"Yes, darling," Mrs. Pointer said to Ginger. "Thanks ever-so-much for all those helpful letters; they were such a relief! When we first got our orders, we could have just cried. Dick tried to get them changed, of course, but couldn't. We were at wit's end, and then we started getting your wonderful letters saying such wonderful things about Japan, and we knew things just couldn't be as bad as everyone said!"

Joe wondered just how bad everyone said things were. He was beginning to get the feeling things had to be pretty good to satisfy the Pointers.

"Well, if nothing else at least it's a bargain," Ginger said encouragingly. "Cigarets for a buck-fifty a carton, twenty-cent drinks . . ."

"We don't drink or smoke," Alice interrupted. "Nasty habits."

"You're so right," Ginger said, cringing. "Wish I could stop."

"I'm sure you could if you really wanted to," Alice continued.

Leave it to Ginger to find the wrong thing to say, Joe thought.

"Oh, for gosh sakes, Ma," 18-year-old Pete interrupted. "Don't get started on mind over matter again!"

Joe forced a pleasant smile. "There are other bargains, though," he said. "Gasoline's only fifteen cents a gallon, and kerosene's even less."

"Kerosene?" Dick Pointer asked.

"For the space heater and hot water heater," Joe explained weakly.

"I don't think you mentioned kerosene heaters in your letters," Dick said crossly. "Do we use Coleman lanterns, too?"

Joe made a mental note to forgive Ginger's earlier offense. Before he could assure Dick that Japan was at least electrified, the loudspeaker boomed.

"Passports! Dependents will please pick up their passports. A through M at Window G, N through Z at Window H."

"Oh, dear," Mrs. Pointer muttered, rummaging through her purse. "What on earth did I do with my passport?"

"You gave it to the stewardess, Mom," 16-year-old Patty said patiently. "They want us to pick them up now."

"Yeah, pay attention, Ma!" Pete complained.

"What window was that, Patty? Window Z?"

Ginger herded the rest of the family toward the rapidly growing passport lines while Joe stayed with Dick through the in-clearing process. They reassembled at the baggage room exit.

"Captain Holiday's got us a room in a hotel, Alice," Dick said. "Isn't that nice?"

"I was hoping we'd have someplace to stay tonight. Who pays for it? Not that it matters, of course."

"Uncle Sam," Joe grunted, hoisting the first suitcase into the station wagon. He just bet it didn't matter.

"How long can we stay? I do hope it's not crawling with Japs," Alice sighed.

"Japanese run it," Joe said apprehensively, "but if it's crawling with anything, it's brass. It's sort of a temporary refuge for field grade officers and 'big wigs' until they find a place to settle down—which is usually about two weeks."

"Two weeks is a long time to live out of a suitcase," Dick noted as he climbed into the front seat beside Joe.

"Housing's pretty tight in Tokyo," Joe said as he pulled the car out. "We've picked out two or three fairly nice private rentals for you to look at that will be available in about a week. One's even available now, if you're anxious to get settled. By nice, I mean comparatively," he added cautiously. "I'm afraid housing here isn't up to stateside standards." He didn't mention that he'd had to pay advance rent to hold the one house, which he'd lose if they didn't take it. Not that it really mattered—except to himself.

A tiny Renault taxi-cab, jumping the changing traffic light at the gate, darted past in front of Joe and he had to brake and swerve to avoid hitting it. Dick and Alice stared indignantly after it.

"Eighty-yen cab," Joe explained. "Biggest menace on the streets, next to gravel trucks and motorcycles."

"You mean there's worse yet to come?" Dick asked.

"Eek!" Alice shrieked. "Patty, don't look! Oh! Dick, did you see that man? Right out in broad daylight, and right on the road! Didn't even have the decency to step behind a bush. I never . . ."

"I'm afraid that's one thing we just have to live with over here," Joe said, somehow feeling he was obliged to defend Japanese men's right to piddle in the streets. "They've only started putting rest rooms into gas stations and along the highways during the last few years, and the Japanese have always just stepped to the side of the road. Tradition dies slowly."

"Sort of a case of johnny-come-lately," Ginger dead-panned, and Patty, sitting beside her, burst out laughing.

"Stop it, Patty," Alice said sternly. "It's not funny; it's disgusting!"

Ginger bit her lip. Joe shivered, and then groaned as he saw what was in the road ahead.

They drew abreast of a wagon loaded with wooden buckets, drawn by an ox and led by a bent Japanese. Alice gagged as she caught a whiff of its odorous load.

"What's that?" she gasped.

"Honey wagon," Joe explained, hoping no elaboration would be necessary. Dick and Alice continued to stare blankly at the wagon.

"It doesn't smell like honey," Pete said. "It smells like . . ."

"Peter!" Alice commanded sharply.

Joe cleared his throat. "It's not really honey, of course. He empties cesspools—uses a big dipper and collects it in his honey buckets."

A moment of awful silence. Then Patty asked, "What does he do with the . . . the honey?"

"He sells it for fertilizer," Joe confessed. "They call it 'night soil'."

"The Japanese are very thrifty," Ginger added.

"Maybe you call it thrift," Alice said with a shudder. "I call it filthy pagan ignorance."

Joe decided he'd better not point out any more wonders of the Orient today, and held his tongue the rest of the way into Tokyo while Dick and Alice muttered complaints about the traffic, the filthy benjo ditches alongside the road, and the unpainted houses. The hotel, at least, the Pointers found acceptable—a "Little America" in the heart of Tokyo. Joe and Ginger saw them to their suite, and promised to pick them up in the morning to show them some houses.

"Whew," Joe said, back in the car again. "I feel like I just caught and caged a couple of tigers."

"I'm afraid I didn't make a very big hit with your new boss's wife," Ginger apologized.

"Don't feel like the Lone Ranger," Joe said, squeezing her thigh. "They didn't like anything else they saw or heard either."

"The kids, at least, seem rational. Especially Patty."

"Somehow we're going to have to sell Dick and Alice on Japan, Gin. Show 'em it's not all bad. If we don't, I'm afraid it's going to be pure hell working under Dick."

Ginger wrinkled her nose.

"Don't you think so?" Joe persisted.

"I think it's going to be pure hell trying to sell them on Japan!"

"Well, we've got to try," Joe said. "And we can practice our salesmanship tomorrow, with the house."

"I wish now you hadn't paid in advance. You know they won't like it. It's too Japanese."

"Maybe they will if I show them the other two places first, and let them see how bad western-style private rentals can be," Joe said hopefully.

A night's sleep seemed to have improved the Pointers' dispositions, Joe noted when he met them the next morning. Dick even offered coffee.

"Thanks," Joe said, accepting. "It's pretty chilly out this morning."

"Oh?" Alice said. "The kids didn't say."

"Pete and Patty stuck their noses out awhile ago to sniff around," Dick went on. "We haven't been out yet."

Alice stepped to the window and stared out at the street two floors below. "Frankly," she said, "I haven't been out of this hotel because I'm scared to death. I look out, and I'm petrified. Maybe I saw too many Charlie Chan movies, or think too much about what they did to Dick's dad. Last night I thought I might step out for some air. Then I looked out this window, and saw all the neon signs flashing in alien hieroglyphics. And the horns honking, and brakes squealing, and sirens wailing. Little headlights and big headlights screaming down the streets, like all sorts of stampeding animals. I had nightmares," she said, facing about.

"Ma's very emotional," Pete drawled.

Alice looked at him spitefully, but for once didn't scold him. "Then this morning I looked out again," she continued, "hoping it had just been my imagination. The night animals were gone, but in the daylight I could see the true, stark ugliness. The gray concrete, the never-painted buildings—the mass of squinty Japs, all in black and white—the ugly trucks, like salvage from a junk yard, and the midget taxis racing everywhere, skidding and dodging as if they were determined to kill themselves and everyone else as well." She shuddered and stepped away from the window. "I guess I've got to face it sometime, though. I can't hide in this room the whole five years."

When Joe turned the station wagon into the left lane out of the parking lot, he could sense Alice flinching again.

"I'll never get used to driving on the wrong side," she sighed.

"Maybe Ma should get a rick-a-shay to chauffeur her around," Pete suggested.

"Maybe you should get you a Geisha girl to laugh at your jokes," Patty said, snorting. "I'm sure they'd go for a witty boy like you."

"What's a person do for excitement around here," Pete asked of Joe. "Go down to the station and watch the trains come in?"

"I'm afraid Tokyo doesn't cater much to the American juvenile set," Joe answered with just the faintest trace of irritation at Pete's constant impertinence. "Lots of fun when you get on base, though. Ball games, sock hops at the Teen Club, hobby centers, Youth Activities . . ."

"Corn," Pete said.

"How about big folks?" Dick asked. "What do we get—USO shows?"

"Not entirely," Joe smiled. "We get some big names at the Officers Club now and then. Good movies, nice pool . . . help me out, Ginger."

"Lovely golf course, if you're one of those," Ginger said.

"I am," Dick said, and Ginger shrank slightly.

"Stag nite every Wednesday and Beer Call every Tuesday," Joe ticked off on his fingers. "Off base, there's horse racing, pro baseball, Sumo wrestling, fabulous stage shows downtown . . ."

"And for famiry fun," Ginger quoted in her best Japan Travel Agent voice, "visit one of many faburous resorts surrounding Tokyo—Atami, Nikko, Kamakura, Hakone, and Fuji-san."

"Seriously, you should," Joe said, "if you want to see Japan at its best. Gin and I are always taking off and going some place."

"We'd love to show you around some of these places," Ginger offered.

"Would you?" Patty bubbled.

Dick rubbed his chin. "Well, I don't know. I expect Alice and I are going to like American Village best of any place in this country. Asia for the Asians, as the saying goes."

"They can have it," Alice agreed.

Joe turned the car into a narrow alley and stopped in the midst of what would appear, at first glance, to be slums. "This is about as American a village as you'll find," he said. "One of the few purely American private rental areas on this side of Tokyo—all Air Force."

They climbed out, and Alice and Dick looked first left and then right, at the rows of identical stucco houses, each painted the same: the top half white, the bottom half orange, with a foot-high black number painted on the corner of each.

Alice found her voice. "You mean . . . people actually live here?"

"Those lucky enough to find a vacancy," Joe said. "They fight to get in here."

"Climate must affect their senses," Alice said. "Which one do we look at? Not that it really matters . . ."

It didn't. The inspection of Number P-12 lasted only a minute. "How does this compare with the other two places?" Alice asked afterward.

"A little better than the next one I was going to show you, but not as good as the one in Shibuya."

"Let's look at the one in Shibuya," Dick said, turning to leave.

"This next house is really better located than the others," Joe continued when they were on the road again. "Your immediate neighbors are Japanese rather than American, but it's close to the bus line that runs to the base, within a block of subway and train stations that can take you anywhere in Tokyo, and within walking distance of Tokyoka Department Store and a theater."

"I think I'll probably stick to the BX for shopping," Alice said as the car stopped again. "Is this it? Where's the house?"

"Just over the wall," Joe said. "Guaranteed all the privacy you want except from any low-flying aircraft."

Alice stared up at the long, eight-foot-high wall. Joe got out and walked to the small, man-sized door set within a huge double gate. He unlocked it, and Pete bounded through first.

"Oh, how beautiful," Patty exclaimed, peering through the gate.

"Hurrah," Pete yelled. "No lawn to mow!"

"No lawn?" Alice muttered. "In all that space?" She hurried in. "What on earth is all this for," she asked, walking onto the white sand.

"High-class Japanese rock garden," Joe explained, waving his hand toward the expanse of white, at the far left of which were set several large, odd-shaped boulders and lava stone. "Is considered very esthetic; rich Japanese maybe sit all day admiring shapes, meditating." He saw no humor in Alice's eyes, and switched back from pidgin English. "Besides, this kind of garden takes care of itself pretty much if you leave it alone."

"It's different; I'll say that much for it." Alice stepped out of the sand, onto one of a dozen highly-polished, cross-sectional slices of tree trunk which served as stepping stones. "No sidewalk here, either," she noted, and observing the erratic course which the path followed, added, "Why do you suppose they didn't just lay all these things out in a straight line to the house, instead of putting in all these kinks?"

Joe grinned. "The Japanese believe that when you follow those little detours, you will stop and be reminded of the obstacles in life."

"I needn't be reminded," Alice sighed, shaking her head. "I suppose that by the same line of reasoning they put the toilet out back so we'll have to scale the wall to reach it?"

Joe explained that a full colonel had last lived here and installed an indoor western-style toilet. "He also westernized the rest of the place to the point that it's almost inhabitable."

"How very thoughtful," Alice said, arriving at the entrance, which was unlocked. She stepped in ahead of the others. "Now what is this?" she asked, finding herself standing in a three-by-five cobblestoned area, a foot and a half below the level of the living room floor.

"The genkan, where you take off your shoes," Joe said, removing his. "Until the colonel put in hardwood floors, all the floors were tatami—a sort of woven straw—and Japanese never wear shoes on tatami."

"Not a bad idea," Dick said, nodding approval. "Prevents tracking sand all over the house."

"What's this crazy arrangement with the sliding doors and screens all around the house?" Alice asked, unimpressed, as Joe admitted them to the living room.

"That's part Japanese, too," Ginger said. "Originally, these 'doors' were all shoji-screen—opaque paper, like you still have in front of the bedrooms. The living room faces south across the rock garden, so there's always some sun —and it provides light through the shoji-screen."

"The Japanese keep the shoji up in the winter, for warmth," Joe said. "In the summer, they slide the shoji back and have just the screens up, to let air in. The colonel took down the shoji along the living room here and put in glass instead—for a picture window—and put in air conditioning so it's about as modern as you can get."

To Joe's surprise, Alice seemed almost delighted. "It might take some getting used to, but it's clever, isn't it, Dick?"

Dick nodded. Joe resumed his sales pitch until Pete came running in from outside, his shoes sprinkling white sand generously across the living room floor. "Hey, Dad! Did you notice the keen wall?"

"What about it?"

"Like the Great Wall of China, I'll bet!" Pete panted. "A whole bunch of spikes and broken glass cemented in, all along the top of it!"

Alice peered out the door. "Why, it is, Dick! Just look! Why is that? Is this a bad neighborhood?" She turned to Joe for an answer.

"Might have been, 30 or 40 years ago," Joe said. "Rich Japanese built walls like that to protect their valuables back when there wasn't much police protection. Not so discouraging as a moat filled with alligators, of course, but it does make a person think twice about climbing over."

"I see," said Alice. "And how's the police protection these days?"

Joe shrugged. This was a poor time to give his personal opinion of the Japanese police. "Better, I guess. The Prime Minister's house is quite a bit newer, and it doesn't have spikes on the wall."

"What Prime Minister?" Dick asked.

"The Prime Minister of Japan," Ginger spoke up. "His 'town house' is located just across the intersection."

Patty came running back to the living room from her indoor explorations, squealing happily. "Mother! You've just got to see this darling bathroom! It has the cutest little bath tub." And she went off again, dragging Alice by the hand.

Joe winked at Ginger. In a moment, both Patty and Alice returned, and Alice was all but doubled over with laughter.

"Oh, Dick," she gasped, "it's just horrid! The bath tub's about five feet deep and two feet across; you can't even sit in it, much less lie down! Like a shower that fills up around you!"

"Hey, that sounds like fun!"

"You'd need a ladder to get in and out," Alice continued, holding her jaw to keep from laughing. "But Patty thinks it's wonderful, so I guess I do, too!"

"I like it here," Patty bubbled enthusiastically. "Can we live here, Dad? Please?"

Joe was $150 happier than Patty when Dick, after a final exchange of glances with Alice, agreed. But he knew better than to expect they'd all live happily ever after, anywhere in Japan. Not this crew.