Ken's War (17 page)

When Sikung told Ken it was time to go, he
felt taller, lighter, stronger, and quiet on the inside. He had no
compelling need to fight enemies.

“Sikung, am I arrogant?”

A grin stretched the master’s face. “Not
every minute.”

Chapter
Thirteen

~ Irregularities ~

The setting orange sun was reflected in the
fishpond next to the giant red gate. Red paint chips that had
flaked off the wooden structure speckled the ground around the
torii’s
two stout legs. A lady led an elderly woman, hunched
like a question mark, along the gravel path. Neither woman looked
at him as they passed through the
torii
. He’d never seen
anyone drink from one of the bamboo ladles resting on the mossy
stone water trough, nor had he witnessed devotees tie prayers onto
the hemlock branch, littered with the paper invocations like
clothespins on a line. Many mysteries occurred when he wasn’t
watching. What are you supposed to talk about on a first date?
Should he kiss or shake hands when they say goodnight?

She approached from the direction of the
village. The sun, ready to plunge behind the mountain, painted her
white dress a luminescent orange. He groaned with a mixture of joy
and misery. Yasuko’s parents flanked her. She introduced them using
her textbook English, and said that they were going to ride the
train to the cinema in the next village and would he accompany
them? Yeah, sure.

Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe sat on the train’s
bench seat facing Ken and Yasuko. Neither Mrs. nor Mr. Watanabe was
particularly attractive. Mrs. Watanabe, with cheeks so full they
suggested a ripe persimmon ready to burst, and Mr. Watanabe, with
deep creases like supplemental eyelids under his crescent eyes, had
produced a daughter whose resemblance to both of them was apparent,
but mystifying in its singular beauty.

He burrowed his hands in his pockets and was
thankful he’d brought enough yen to pay for four movie tickets as a
way to repay
on
to Yasuko’s parents, for the Watanabes had
adamantly refused to let him buy his own train ticket. The
discussion almost got physical there for a moment at the ticket
window, so he’d caved in, and let them pay for his train
ticket.

“Isn’t that unusual?” Mrs. Watanabe
commented, peering out the train window.

“What do you see?” her husband asked.

She pointed to a house near the station,
barely visible in the dusk. The homeowner had added a second story
over half of his house, and covered the new roof not with gray
tiles or thatch, but with asphalt shingles, as incongruous as a
deck of playing cards on a church altar. The train lurched and
pulled away from the station. The Watanabes’ eyes followed the
remodeled house as it slid by. Ken also watched the house, covered
with U.S. Army shingles, as it receded from view.

“Oh, the roof reminds me of Ellay,” Yasuko
said to Ken in a bubbly, scripted manner.

When he’d sold the shingles to Takuya, he’d
figured the Japanese boy with the so-so curveball would put them on
a doghouse or a tree house or something. He never dreamed that the
boy was going to re-sell the shingles to a householder who would
actually use them.

“Is Ellay on Kyushu Island?” Ken asked,
fighting pangs of guilt, and eager to redirect the focus off stolen
shingles.

“I’m sorry we do not pronounce clearly,” Mrs.
Watanabe said.

“Los Angeles, known as L.A., is a major city
in California,” Mr. Watanabe told him. The three Watanabes
exchanged courteous, pained smiles. Ken mimicked their smiles and
felt his stomach wad up.

The cinema was nothing like theaters back
home with sloping aisles parting a sea of chairs that were dimly
illuminated with chandeliers hanging from the center of cavernous
ceilings.

During the daytime, this Japanese theater was
a general store where customers bought thread, tobacco, soap and
other sundries. The audience sat on barrels. Ken and Yasuko were
bookended by their chaperones. Instead of buttery popcorn, they ate
shredded dried fish and sheets of dried seaweed.

A rickety film projector with a metal chimney
emitted smoke and a blue light that illuminated a constellation of
dust motes in its flickering beam. A grainy, streaky gray and white
square of light jittered on a blanket hanging for just this purpose
on the general store’s back wall.

He thought he was understanding the gist of
the melodrama. A poor farm family was starving because of a rice
famine. The village schoolteacher, a young man warranting close-up
shots of his dancing eyes, collected money from the villagers to
prevent something bad—Ken wasn’t sure what—from happening to the
farmer’s daughter. Then the schoolteacher’s mother stole the money
her son had collected. The schoolteacher knew his mother stole the
money. It was at this juncture in the plot that Ken was
“ferhoddled,” as grandma used to say.

The schoolteacher didn’t blow the whistle on
his mother. No. He covered for her and suffered irreparable loss of
face among the villagers. In another plot twist, the
schoolteacher’s wife committed suicide. The schoolteacher was shown
packing a bag as if for travel, and bidding his mother a tearful,
deep-bowing
sayonara
. The camera panned a desolate, muddy
landscape. A celluloid tail-end whipped through the projector, and
the blanket screen reflected bright white light onto the
theatergoers’ faces.

Ken waited for the projectionist to thread
the film from the second reel of the movie, and roll the plot
forward to the point where the schoolteacher turned his mother over
to the police, reclaimed the money she’d stolen, and saved the poor
farm girl from whatever horrible fate he’d been endeavoring to
spare her. Ken looked over at Yasuko. Her eyes were glistening. A
lock of hair was trapped in her quivering smile. The film was
over.

During the train ride back to their village,
Mr. Watanabe said, “Life is full of heavy duties.”

“Yes, Father,” Yasuko said.

“The film explored the conflict of virtues,
but in the end the son did the honorable thing,” Mrs. Watanabe
said, her pace much like a speechmaker’s. “I don’t think our
American friends in L.A. would understand the underlying
concept.”

“The son fulfilled his filial duty,” Mr.
Watanabe said matter-of-factly.

“What did you think of the story?” Yasuko
asked Ken.

“The ending was...” The ending was terrible,
stupid, retarded! The schoolteacher was a chicken shit mama’s boy.
And the mother, she shoulda been arrested and thrown in jail to
rot! He didn’t want to befoul the courteous conversation with his
true opinion, so he said, “The ending was unexpected.”

Mrs. Watanabe apologized for the movie’s
“unexpected” ending and Mr. Watanabe allowed that maybe the
appropriateness of the ending was not comprehendible to individuals
raised within a different value system. He explained that at the
film’s conclusion, the virtuous hero was striking off alone to
Hokkaido where he would build his character in order to strengthen
himself for future trials and tests of filial duty.

“The resolution was greatly satisfying. A
wiser man,” Mr. Watanabe conceded, “could make a happy way to solve
the problem without sacrificing his self-respect, but it was
impossible for him to blame his mother.”

“But he should blame her! She stole the
money!” Ken hadn’t meant to argue with his hosts.

“Filial piety is required, even if one’s
parents are thieves, drunkards or scoundrels,” Mr. Watanabe
said.

“That’s stupid.” He sulked for the remainder
of the train ride.

At the
torii
the Watanabe family shook
hands with him and bowed. Ken made them promise to let him pay for
tickets and snacks the next time. They agreed next time, next time.
Ken and Yasuko watched her parents stroll toward the moonlit
village.

“Personally, my favorite movie is
That
Darn Cat,”
she whispered. “I laughed so hard my sides
ached.”

“Yeah! Me too!” Ken was overjoyed to talk
about a topic he understood. “That Frank Gorshen, you know he’s the
bad guy as soon as you see his big ears and light bulb-shaped
head.”

Yasuko laughed, the sound of chimes tinkling
in a soft breeze. Her parents called to her. She replied in
Japanese and then to Ken she said, “Goodbye.”

His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth. He
held her hand in his and laid the rose quartz Topker had given him
in her small palm. The quartz shone brightly, the facets sharp. She
lifted her eyes and regarded him. Silver moons that were reflected
in her midnight eyes lit the doors to heaven. He’d do anything to
make her look at him like that again.

“Goodnight, Yasuko,” he said huskily.

She skipped away to catch up with her
parents.

A comfortable rhythm set the tempo of his
days, and this new day promised to be like the days before it.
Sitting under the pounding waterfall, he neglected to concentrate
on deep breathing exercises and, instead, imagined himself and
Yasuko going to the movies again, but without her parents, or
hiking in the mountains, or meeting at a teahouse like Wizard and
his Japanese girlfriend did.

After his stint under the waterfall, he
practiced
chi gung.
Sikung Wu refrained from complimenting
Ken, yet he didn’t call him a pipsqueak once during the lesson.
This encouraged Ken.

When the lesson was over, he bowed, thanked
his teacher and tore off to go cook his dad’s breakfast.

Ken flipped the fried eggs over lightly,
poured a cup of coffee, and slid the eggs onto a plate for his dad.
Aromas of brewed coffee, eggs fried in lard, and the smell of two
males sleeping, living, changing, had impregnated the pores of the
small house. The tang, so familiar as to go unnoticed, assured Ken
at a primal level: This is home.

He sat down at the table and ate cold
rice.

“That package is for you.” Paderson jabbed
his toast in the direction of a bundle slumped in the corner by the
door.

Less than two months ago Ken had mailed his
measurements to his mother so she could send him shoes and clothes
that fit. Japanese store-bought clothes were the right length but
too tight, or if they fit his girth, the sleeves and pant legs were
too long. He stripped off his pajama bottoms, tore open the
package, and hauled on slacks, a plaid shirt, and loafers.

“She must think I’m five years old.” The
slacks pinched his crotch. The shirt cuffs flapped above his
wrists. The loafers, besides being doofuss shoes, pinched his
feet.

“You’ve been growing like a weed.”

“I guess I’m having a growth spurt.” Earlier
that morning, in the dappled light of the bamboo forest, while
straining at hard-style chi gung, muscles had gathered where before
his flesh had been soft and undefined. He secretly wondered if his
dad’s improved mood was tied to a physical change in Ken.
Paderson’s “growing like a weed” comment told Ken what he’d
hungered to know: He was looking more like a man, less like a boy.
Before his dad had to ask for another cuppa, Ken poured a second
mug of coffee.

“Not enough time today, soldier. Topker is
coming at oh-eight-hundred hours for a briefing.”

“About Operation Valiant?” The U.S. Army
intelligence team’s code name for the investigation into stolen
medical supplies conjured images of medieval knights jousting, and
damsels wearing low-cut gowns.

“Right. Run ahead and tell Abernathy to set
up chairs and the flipchart.”

“And green tea?”

“And sodas.”

Ken sat outside the Quonset hut door, and
heard his dad explain in tones of apology mixed with pride that
inventory exceeded the tiny warehouse’s capacity. The shelves
sagged under their burdens. Boxes and crates were “double parked”
in the aisles. This was all good news for Ken. Those boxes and
crates contained treasures the Japanese boys would buy from
Ken.

Kohanski, a major from intelligence who
prefaced comments with a hum, introduced himself to Captain
Paderson and PFC Abernathy. Wizard poured cokes for Kohanski,
Paderson and Bellamy, and tea for Topker and himself. Topker
lowered himself into the padded chair behind the desk. The rest of
the men sat in the metal chairs around the desk. Every now and then
the metal desk boomed like a drum when someone’s knee hit it.

“That’ll be all, Abernathy,” Paderson said,
dismissing the private before the Operation Valiant briefing had
been started.

Wizard jackknifed out of the chair he’d just
sat in. He didn’t acknowledge Ken as he sailed out of the
warehouse. Ken scooted closer to the doorway to hear better.

“Captain Paderson,” Lieutenant Colonel Topker
said in his warm voice, “I’m pleased with your regular, detailed
reports of your investigations, however, we don’t have the luxury
of time, as if I have to remind you of that.”

“The colonel is a gentleman,” Bellamy horned
in, “but I’m not, so I’ll cut to the chase. We gotta make arrests
and soon. Why you draggin’ this out so long?”

“Kick ass and take names later. Is that what
you want?” Paderson directed the question not to Bellamy, for whom
his contempt was intended, but to Major Kohanski.

Kohanski said, “Hmm, you said you’d brief us
this morning. What say we let you tell us what you’ve found?”

Paderson stood beside the easel with a
diagram that looked like a spider’s web with red Xs and black
rectangles trapped in its strands. Pointing to this red and black
flowchart, he explained how thieves had used various
techniques—backdating documents, duplicating invoice numbers,
forging authorization signatures, creating false requests for
supplies—to cover their trial.

Ken’s methods weren’t quite as sophisticated
as all that. When he needed to pilfer warehouse supplies to sell to
the Japanese boys, he erased the numbers in the total column and
wrote in new ones.