The Emperor's General Read online

  “Yes, we know that. But not to the royal family.”

  His bluntless stunned me. “The royal family?”

  “The emperor. His cousins and uncles. They committed no crimes. To charge them would be nothing but an attack on the throne.”

  Kido’s gaze was now clear and commanding. I did not know what else to say. It was time to go.

  I rose from my chair. “Lord Privy Seal, I would like to thank you for your precious advice.”

  “Oh, you are most welcome.” Kido rose, giving me a small bow, knowing the message was received and switching back to his diplomatic posturing. “You are moving to Tokyo soon?”

  “Four days,” I said.

  “Yes! As soon as you are living in Tokyo, you must be my guest for dinner, Captain Jay Marsh. It is so helpful to be able to discuss issues in my own language. And it is very important that the supreme commander is able to hear of our concerns in other than official meetings. Don’t you agree?”

  I gave him a small bow in return. Without open discussion, our new relationship had been cemented. “I would be most honored. So long as General MacArthur approves.”

  “Yes!” he said, brightening, for to him General MacArthur’s approval would also mean that MacArthur was agreeing to this unofficial channel of communication. “The perfect answer. General MacArthur is lucky to have you as his adviser.”

  “I’m not his adviser, Lord Privy Seal. I’m—”

  “Yes,” said Kido with a smiling impatience, as if we both were sharing the secret of my unspoken role. He led me toward the door as if dismissing me. “I know, I know.”

  The historic impact of this day settled over me on the ride back to Yokohama. As the sun began to disappear behind Tokyo’s vast rubble its rays filtered through the dust, giving the city a beautiful pastel pink aura, like a dawning mist. It made me think of the teachings of Buddha, whose sway mixed among most of East Asia’s cultures, leavening them without replacing their native distinctness. Out of the muck grows the beauty of the lotus. So Buddha had observed. And out of the hazy dust of Tokyo’s ruins would soon come the pink and glowing nimbus of resurgence.

  The prime minister’s angry speech reverberated through my subconscious. How could I not be troubled by its boldness? Indeed, what would the reaction have been in Europe if a German leader had made such recalcitrant claims less than a week after the Third Reich’s surrender?

  And just as important, I had watched with my own eyes the majesty of Emperor Hirohito and the seamless movement of the symbols that propelled Japanese society far more powerfully than law or edict. He and Lord Privy Seal Kido had arranged through his simple speech, and Prince Higashikuni’s diatribe, to lay down strong markers for postwar relations, including their view of the limits of war crimes prosecutions. As we sipped tea, Kido had reinforced the message so smoothly and yet so bluntly that I was still shaking my head in amazement as we reached the New Grand Hotel.

  A fight was brewing. MacArthur was intent on changing Japan’s Constitution, and with it their way of life. The Japanese would resist and at the same time would never agree to what the Allies were viewing as full accountability in the area of war crimes. And it occurred to me that as this battle brewed, I was becoming the only person who fully understood the weapons that both sides were quietly deploying. MacArthur brought with him an innate respect for the throne, but he did not yet comprehend the emperor’s full power. Nor did the emperor and his lord privy seal have a true sense of the wiliness and intellect of Douglas MacArthur.

  And me? Court Whitney had been right to trust me. I had found a new calling. I loved the subtleties and pretense of diplomacy. I was a natural smiler, double-speaker, and half-truther. I was addicted.

  I loved it.

  CHAPTER 10

  Father Garvey sat alone and pensive at a center table in the Grand Hotel’s dining room. It was after nine o’clock, and he was the only patron left in the restaurant. More interestingly, he was still sober.

  I walked in and took a chair just across from him.

  “You’re looking weary, Jay,” he said.

  “Yes, Father. And you are ugly.”

  I waved across the room, summoning a tuxedoed little waiter. When he reached the table I told the old man in Japanese that I wanted a bottle of beer. A very large bottle. He smiled with appreciation at my fluency in his language, then bowed deeply before running off to fetch me my brew.

  “I know women who would dispute that,” Father Garvey said mysteriously. “But anyway, what’s your point?”

  “Well, tomorrow I will be rested. And you, Father, will still be ugly.”

  “I would dispute that as well,” he said, now breaking out into a smile. “The part about you being rested. They’re wearing you out, Jay!”

  I felt myself come alive. “No! Do you realize what I’ve seen? Where I’ve been in just the last ten days? I was there when MacArthur landed on Japan! I rode in the car with the emperor’s number-one adviser, and now I’m, sort of, his—back-door messenger! I watched Yamashita walk out of the jungle, and I interviewed him when he surrendered! The Tiger of Malaya, personally, face to face! And today I watched the emperor speak to the Japanese parliament! The fucking emperor of Japan! Me! Jay Marsh, strawberry picker and chopper of cotton, from fucking Kensett, Arkansas!”

  “It does not endear you to me to hear you swear like that,” murmured Father Garvey, fully unimpressed. He eyed me almost accusingly. “And how is Divina Clara?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, coming back to earth.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You were in Manila. Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t even see her?”

  “MacArthur wouldn’t let me.”

  Father Garvey spat over his shoulder, an ancient Irish gesture meant to insult royalty. “Was MacArthur there, driving your jeep and watching your every move?”

  The beer came. I took the bottle from the waiter’s hand and drank straight from it as he left the glass on the table. “Father. I had to take a jeep to Atsugi, a C-54 to Okinawa and then to Manila, a C-47 to Bagabag, a truck to the Bessang Pass, wait for Yamashita to come out of the mountains, take the truck back to Bagabag, the C-47 to Baguio to drop off Yamashita and then fly back to Manila, then catch another C-54 back to Okinawa and up to Atsugi, and then another jeep back to Yokohama. Not to mention trying to sleep every now and then. All in three days!”

  “Don’t tell me you couldn’t have gotten a message to her when you first landed at Manila and then managed to see her when you returned from Baguio, even if it was just for an hour?” Father Garvey’s eyes went far away. “It’s what I would have done, you know.”

  “And what does that mean, Father?”

  He stared at me for a moment, seeming almost embarrassed. Then he looked away again. “It means I wonder if you love her. Or if you’ve just decided to end your—fling and ruin her little life.”

  I searched his face, looking for more. These were serious words, and it seemed something deeper was impelling them. But they were not wrong. “OK, Father, I’ll admit I was scared. She was so emotional when I left. Do you know what would have happened if I’d only been able to see her for an hour? What she’d put me through—the guilt and the tears, when I don’t have any answers for her yet, or any promises that I can make? I can’t take that right now. There’s too much else—”

  “Oh, and he can’t take what the lady would put him through,” said Father Garvey. He turned his eyes on me again, rubbing his chin as if making a judicial pronouncement. “And have you thought at all about what you’re putting her through?”

  “I’m not putting her through anything. MacArthur is putting us both through something.”

  “Well, now there’s a loyal statement. Be a brave man and put it all on MacArthur! As if that excuses your decision to ignore her?”

  “What’s gotten into you, Father?”

  “No, what’s gotten into you? You’re going cold, Jay. Too caught up in your—flirtation with greatness a
nd history. You’d better cut that out.”

  I watched him as I took another pull from my beer. Then I shrugged, forcing a smile. “I’m sorry, Father. You’re right. I do miss her.”

  “When you die,” said Father Garvey, pulling wisdom from a place I did not know he knew, “you are not going to be remembering that you saw the emperor give a speech.”

  “MacArthur will.”

  “You’re not MacArthur. And what does that say about him, anyway? You’ll be remembering who loved you. And how you dealt with it.”

  I finally raised my hands in surrender. “I was wrong, OK? But give me a break, Father! I hardly slept for three days. Can we talk about something else?”

  “Of course,” said Father Garvey. He had made his point and now offered me a forgiving smile. “I think it’s time for us to debate whether Ted Williams will bat .400 next year.”

  The waiter reappeared, wanting to take my order. I looked at Father Garvey’s plate. “What’s for dinner?”

  “So it’s beef and noodles. Unless you’re MacArthur. Or perhaps you’d like some Spam?” Father Garvey stopped, waiting for me to make a face, but I wasn’t in the mood. “Did you know they found him an egg?” he finally said.

  “I heard the story,” I answered, sending the waiter off to fetch me some dinner. On his first morning in Japan, the supreme commander had asked for eggs for breakfast. After an exhaustive search, he was told that only one egg could be found in all of Yokohama. “But I refuse to believe that in the entire city of Yokohama there was only one egg.”

  “Well, they brought it to him, on a satin pillow.”

  “I grew up raising hens, Father. If there’s one hen, there’s two, and usually a rooster. And if there’s two there’s four. And one scared hen living by itself isn’t likely to lay any eggs at all. Are you getting my point?”

  “All right,” shrugged Father Garvey, “let’s for the sake of argument say there were ten. No, let’s say there were a hundred. And how many million people live in Yokohama? That’s still not very many eggs.”

  “No, let’s just say that the General, for all his intelligence, is known at times to be quite impressionable. He’s a romantic, Father. Like you.”

  “You’re being very hard, all of a sudden. Have you lost your compassion? The war is over, Jay.”

  “Maybe. You didn’t see what I did at the diet today.” We sat quietly for a while. “Did you know that it’s an honorable tradition in Japan for a loser to take the low position, to show himself as humble and helpless? It allows him to play the fool while he’s waiting for revenge.”

  “Oh, it’s revenge now, is it?” Father Garvey shook his head, waving a hand toward the sky as if talking directly to the Lord. “The former enemy is preparing for revenge!” He leaned across the table. “Have you taken a walk through Yokohama? Our bombs have destroyed everything. These people are destitute and impoverished.”

  “I don’t dispute that.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “I never said they weren’t hungry. I just don’t believe the egg story.” I waved him off. “Never mind. Have a drink, Father.”

  Father Garvey grinned almost sheepishly. “Well, it’s an unusual feeling, Jay, but since I’ve been here in Japan I don’t care for one.”

  “Too bad. I like you better when you’re drunk.”

  He laughed lightly, enjoying my irreverence. “My drinking is a long-lamented weakness. It’s not something you should respect me for.”

  “I never said I respected you. I said I liked you.”

  “I suppose I could find a sin in making that kind of remark to one of God’s servants.”

  “Not here,” I joked. “There is no sin in Japan. Remember that, Father. I wouldn’t want you to be confused.”

  “No sin? Then we’ve ended up in heaven.”

  “Hardly. They just don’t believe in it. Get used to it.”

  Father Garvey’s thick eyebrows furrowed, as if I were worrying him greatly. “You’re sounding rather hateful today, Jay. I didn’t hear you saying these things about the Filipinos, and they are Asian as well.”

  “They’re Christians, Father. Christians accept the notion of sin. Sin goes to individual conscience. It’s between you and God, and you will be held accountable when you die. The Japanese are motivated by shame, not conscience. Conscience is inward. Shame is outward. It goes to whether or not you will remain a respected member of the group. You’re accountable here, and again later to the ancestors who are also a part of the group. On the one hand, sin compels a clearer set of actions, doesn’t it? There are rules. But on the other, shame is more permanent. You can be forgiven for your sins, but how do you lose your shame? Shame is eternal! So you tell me—which do you think is a more powerful force?”

  Father Garvey looked at me with a deepened respect. “That was quite profound, Jay. Where did you learn it?”

  “From a girl named Kozuko. In California, five years ago.”

  “Then you’re an old hand at this, aren’t you?” He was only half teasing now. “But what does it have to do with hens and eggs?”

  “Everything,” I said, remembering my recent dealings with Lord Privy Seal Kido. “If there’s no such thing as a sin, there’s no such thing as a lie, is there? Not in absolute terms. What we condemn as a lie can be a noble act to the Japanese, if they’re lying for the good of the group. The only shame comes if you fail in your obligations to the group. And here the group is the nation-family. And it will reject you for disloyalty.”

  Father Garvey pondered that, picking at his food. “The single egg indeed had a great impact on the supreme commander.” He sarcastically rolled the General’s new title on his tongue as if he were pronouncing MacArthur to be a Pomeranian prince. “He brought in twenty-one truckloads of food for the Yokohama government yesterday.”

  “So the lonely little egg served its purpose, didn’t it?”

  “And any American soldier caught eating Japanese food will be court-martialed.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Another victory for Yokohama.”

  Father Garvey scrutinized me as if I were ruining his romantic tale. “You should work to control your cynicism.”

  “But did the General eat the egg, Father? Or did he send it back to the starving Yokohamans. That’s what I want to know.”

  “Of course he ate the egg. He’s MacArthur. Why?”

  “He’s an American soldier. He ate Japanese food. When is his court-martial?”

  Father Garvey regarded me with a grin that slowly widened, until he began laughing. “Have a hard day, did you, Jay? Up there in Tokyo with all the bigwigs?”

  “Actually it was fascinating, Father. I loved it, all the intrigue and double-meanings. I feel like this is what I was born to do.”

  “Oh,” he said, with false indulgence. “Lying, cheating, and stealing appeals to you, then?”

  I laughed. “You know I wouldn’t steal.”

  The waiter brought me a plate of beef and noodles. It was my first food since early morning. I ate ravenously. A few minutes later the waiter brought me another beer and I took a long pull, right out of the bottle. Father Garvey watched me drink, somehow pristine and noble in his newfound sobriety. Finally he shrugged.

  “There are some very weird things going on, Jay. Don’t you think?”

  “I will admit to you, Father, that it’s even weirder than you might think. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a play where all the lines have already been written, only I don’t have the script. It’s like no matter what we decide to do, they’ve already thought about it and prepared for it and know where to take it.”

  “Just because they lost doesn’t make them stupid, Jay. And we’re playing on their home court.”

  “We have our first point of full agreement,” I said. “They are definitely not stupid.”

  Father Garvey watched me with a brooding seriousness as I finished the noodles and drank my beer. Then he gestured toward the hotel lobby. “Would
you go with me for a walk?”

  I shook my head, uninterested. “Not tonight, Father, I’m beat. I had the drive to and from Tokyo, the meetings at the diet, then an hour upstairs being interrogated by Generals MacArthur, Willoughby, and Whitney. And now two beers.”

  He persisted. “It would be most helpful to my understanding if you would let me show you something. It might—amaze you.”

  I could tell he was struggling mightily with some deep, intellectual thought. “What is it, Father?”

  “A whorehouse,” he said, without particular emotion. He saw my surprised laugh and waved an arm almost angrily at me, jumping out of his chair. “I have not indulged, Jay Marsh, and I will not tolerate the evil insinuations inherent in your silly laughing!”

  “Well, I’m not interested, Father.”

  “Of course you’re not,” said Father Garvey, pacing next to the table. “You’re in love with a beautiful woman and you’re engaged to be married. But I think you need to see it.”

  “Father, it embarrasses me to admit this, but I’ve been inside a few whorehouses before.”

  “Not like this one, you haven’t.”

  It was late. The dark streets around the port were nearly empty of people or traffic, save for the occasional American jeep or truck that rumbled past. Father Garvey and I strolled along the unlit, broken sidewalks, squinching our noses from the harsh sewage that ran in narrow canals just below the concrete. All around us the crickets were chirping; winter would come early this year. Along the roads and in front of the small houses, paper lanterns glowed like fireflies for as far as we could see. Above us hung a large and lustrous moon.

  The laughing repartee of American soldiers wafted to us from the passing vehicles and from the two-man sentry posts that had been set up on street corners throughout the city. Gentle smoke curled out of nearby open windows. Inside the quiet, darkened homes we could see small charcoal fires glowing, making rice and tea. Somewhere in the shadows of every broken room were silent, watching faces. They were hungry and whispering and waiting. They had yet to know their full fate at the hands of these oafish foreigners who now camped on their previously unconquered streets. And it struck me again, as it had so often in the waning days of wartime Manila, that these odd combinations of American troops and vehicles on dazed and waiting foreign roadways had become one of my life’s most natural rhythms.