No, my husband never said a word. Then afterward, after he followed me, he stopped trying to…you know. Except once. He’d been drinking. But when he saw my…you know…
Oh, I don’t think they noticed a thing—they might have enjoyed the swelling. Of course, there were always a few who insisted on inspecting…things. One of them even brought gloves. But most were ready before they got in the doors.
But in their eyes they were paying customers, weren’t they? The things they would demand for forty yen.
What do you expect? Letting loose a pack of boys in a country where they could do as they pleased. Most were curious, many afraid of losing face, but they all got used to it, didn’t they? Demanding our “geisha tricks,” as they called it. As though we knew such things. Why did they assume—
Occasionally, there were soldiers like that. One soldier came twice a week, making such a racket, clomping up the stairs, shouting to his friends, but once he was in the room—it was really a partition—he never looked my way. Eventually, everyone did what they paid for, even those who fancied themselves different, you know, talking and caressing, asking us to open more than our legs. But that soldier? He never did a thing. When I finally summoned the courage to ask him whether he might know how to, you know, look for my son, it took him a long time to find the words. His Japanese was only slightly better than my English, which was awful, you understand <laugh>, but he was kind enough to tell me the truth. He chided me for presuming they had all the answers in the world. How many millions of lost people do you think there are? he asked me. One more lost Japanese boy was the least of their problems. And he was right. That soldier was also the one who mentioned Willow Run. To learn that it was a place, a factory, all those years later…Do you know they built those B-24s there?
Yes, the ones that bombed Germany. They were called Liberators, weren’t they? Funny, isn’t it? That’s what they called themselves, too, those soldiers. Years later—I think it was in the eighties—I saw photographs of Willow Run on NHK. I was watching a program about your President Roosevelt. To learn that it was such an important factory…Most photographs were of the assembly line, but one was of a large room with rows and rows of cots. Do you know what the caption said? “A bomber an hour.” A bomber an hour! <laugh> Of course, I don’t know if that’s why that soldier mentioned the place, but it’s how he saw us, isn’t it? A bomber an hour. Some days, watching all those boys huffing away over me, I couldn’t help but wonder if Seiji could have, would have…And then I’d wonder what he would’ve done if he ever found out his own mother…And every time, I was grateful he never got that chance. Awful, isn’t it? To be grateful for such a thing. But, please, the camera. It’s awfully close—
* * *
*
[K]-SAN WAS younger, in her twenties. She had a strong, clear voice and was quite the force, standing up to everybody <laugh>. By the time I arrived, she’d been there a month, and she’d already claimed the respect of our manager—
Our manager was older, in her forties or early fifties.
She was fair enough—we weren’t unlucky. Women like her can be quite cruel to other women; as a manager, she had to answer to not just the Americans but our government too. I certainly didn’t envy her her position.
Yes, she was hard on [K]-san. But I think she rather liked her too. She put herself out quite a bit when…I’m sorry…
No, no, I’m all right. It’s just that…You see, there was one soldier. He was a regular, one of those…brutes. He liked the new ones, you know, and we all did what we could to protect one another. There was a woman who started after me. We never got her full story, but we suspected she was one of those munitions factory girls—you know, the ones taken to our officers’ parties to be “broken in”? [N]-san was young—very young. Of course, in those days, it was hard to tell, everybody was so skinny. Still, she couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. And that man. That murderer. He forced himself into her through the back—
I’m sorry, yes. The anus. Usually, one of us would have heard something, but that poor girl…When she didn’t appear at reception, our manager went looking for her. She was lying on the floor in her own blood. She had soiled herself too. That monster—he had ripped her right up. Nobody even knew her name…
Yes, we had assigned names. Kimiko, Emiko, Maiko—something bright and easy to pronounce. I suppose it also helped us keep things…separate…
[K]-san? She was beside herself. We were all afraid she’d try to hunt him down.
No, [N]-san never came back to work.
Report the soldier? To whom? Our police? <laugh> As for your government…Even now, your soldiers only have to make it back to base to evade—
Oh, yes, all the time. Especially in Okinawa. Your government never cooperates, does it? Instead, you shelter your soldiers. Your criminals.
That monster? He came right back. Acting as though nothing had happened. One day he smuggled in a baton—not to beat anyone, you understand. The poor woman. She made sure she screamed and screamed. How anyone could turn out that way, at that age. I’m sure they came from nice families, like our own boys, who committed such unimaginable…brutalities.
I was luckier. I was older; I had learned not to be reactive. With the “wrong” kind of journalist for a husband, I had plenty of training <laugh>. [K]-san counseled everyone to do the same. But we’re not always under our own control or jurisdiction, are we? Especially when fear—
[K]-san never got over it. One day, about six weeks later, she pulled me aside and asked if I’d do her a favor. She asked if I’d take her baby if something happened to her. I was surprised; I had no idea she had a baby. But [K]-san had been an invaluable friend, and I had no reason to refuse or suspect her. In retrospect, I realize I’d told her all about Seiji; I suppose I’d exposed my susceptibility. It was three weeks after that. She asked me to watch her son for a night.
Yes, she told me she had an errand. Five days later, she turned up in the Sumida River with three beer bottles broken inside her. She had burn marks all over her body and a rope burn around her neck. After that, many of us started carrying cyanide.
Yes, the ones we were given in case we were invaded.
No, we never found out. We assumed it had something to do with that monster, but there was no way for us to know. We were lucky enough that our manager happened to be acquainted with a policeman who happened to recognize her…
Yes, when she didn’t return for her son, I went straight to our manager. None of us had any idea where she lived. Our manager asked her policeman to look into it. It turned out [K]-san lived not five minutes away, in a tenement apartment, with two other Korean women—