United States of Japan (2 page)
Read United States of Japan Online
Authors: Peter Tieryas
A dozen prisoners had been carried out, emaciated, bloodied, and bruised.
“What happened here?” Corporal Fukasaku asked.
A man wearing only a loincloth with half his hair ripped out shouted, “They killed my brothers and accused me of collaborating with the Empire. I wish I had!” He tried to spit on the ground, but his mouth was too dry to form anything. His scalp was covered with gashes, and his wide nostrils and bulging eyes made him resemble a chimpanzee. He was pulsing with anger and he yelled, “I’m an American and they treated me worse than their dogs.”
The corporal replied, “The Emperor has come to save all of you. He has taken revenge on the Americans for all of us.”
From the front door, Kimiko emerged, holding a body in her arms.
Ruth gasped. It was Bernard, but his legs were missing, only bandaged stumps in their place. Kimiko’s face was wan and there was a shocked stillness in her eyes as though they’d been frozen. Ruth looked at Bernard to see if he was breathing, but she couldn’t tell.
“Poor Kimiko,” Ruth heard someone say. “Their family was so wealthy and now they’ve taken everything from her.”
“The rich had it the hardest.”
Many agreed with deploring nods.
“Sister…” Corporal Fukasaku began.
But, before he could continue, Kimiko demanded in rage, “Why didn’t the Emperor save him? Why couldn’t he have rescued us just a day earlier?”
“I am very sorry for your loss. Please keep in mind that it wasn’t the Emperor who killed your friend, but the Americans. I assure you, the Emperor has taken revenge a hundredfold for what has happened to all of you here.”
“I don’t care about revenge. He’s dead. HE’S DEAD!” she yelled. “If the Emperor was so almighty, why couldn’t he have sent you a day earlier?”
“Calm yourself. I know you’re upset, but speaking against the Emperor is forbidden.”
“Fuck the Emperor. Fuck you. Fuck all Americans.”
“I will only ask you once, and that’s because I know you’re not in a proper mental state. Do not speak against the Emperor or–”
“Or what? He’ll take his revenge? I shit on him and the whol–”
Corporal Fukasaku raised his Nambu Type 18 semi-automatic pistol, pointed at her head, and fired. Her head exploded, brain and blood spraying the ground. She fell over, arms interlaced with her dead boyfriend.
“No one is allowed to speak against the Emperor,” the corporal stated. He holstered his pistol, stepped around Kimiko’s dead body, and went to reassure the other survivors that everything was going to be OK.
Everyone was too stunned to speak. Ezekiel was shaking. Ruth put her arm around him and asked, “Do you still want to be a soldier?” It was as much for herself as it was for him.
She looked back at Kimiko’s body and did her best to hold back tears.
“You have to be strong,” she said to Ezekiel, as she placed his hands on her belly. “For little Beniko, be strong.”
SOUTH OF SAN JOSE
July 2, 1948
12:13pm
Ruth and Ezekiel were in one of the hundreds of buses driving south towards Los Angeles on the I-99. She looked at Ezekiel and recalled how their courtship had started over arguments about politics and religion. Those arguments turned into long diatribes about the nature of God and existence. Soon, they were fighting in each other’s arms. Not long after that, they became lovers. She wondered if the feeling of imminent doom had fused them more tightly together.
Outside, Ruth saw a mountain of smoke that resembled a sea with its own waves within it. Streams of black were being written in a calligraphy of destruction,
kanji
painting lines of woe into the air that, like most suffering, indifferently blended into the rest. The warbling and the heat distortion made the horizon appear to be melting into the ground.
“The Germans have overrun the entire east coast,” a man up front with a radio shouted, relaying news updates as he heard them. “Rommel is in Manhattan. The Fuhrer is supposed to arrive within the week. They’ve imprisoned Mayor La Guardia because he refuses to surrender, but someone else has accepted surrender terms in his place.”
“What about San Jose?”
“No word.”
The mayor of Los Angeles, Fletcher Bowron, spoke on the radio, assuring Americans, “This is a temporary transitional period. Don’t resist the Japanese soldiers and you won’t be harmed.”
“I hope my uncle’s OK,” Ezekiel said to her. “He owns one of the biggest clothing factories in Los Angeles and he’ll let us work there until we can get something on our own.”
“I’ve only been to LA once and we took streetcars everywhere. Do you know what you’re going to change your name to?”
“Why do I have to change my name?”
“Didn’t you hear the lieutenant last night? All of us will get Japanese names,” Ruth stated.
“I like Ezekiel Song.”
“You can keep your western name as a nickname, but you’ll get to adopt a formal name too.”
“I’ll become Ishimura,” Ezekiel said.
“Really?”
“If that’s OK with you.”
“Of course. Are you being serious?”
“Yeah. Unless you were thinking of changing yours?”
She smiled. “I guess that doesn’t make sense. What about your first name?”
“Any suggestions?”
“What about Naoki?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Docile tree.”
“No, thanks. What are you changing your name to?”
“We’re still on you. The… Why are we stopping?”
Outside, the buses were stuck in a long line of vehicles. Ahead of them was a huge camp with multiple marquee tents, all massive, bustling with soldiers and civilians. Surrounding them were military transports, tanks, and enormous air balloons. Several fighter planes flew past them. As far as they could see, traffic was at a standstill. The driver got a message on his radio and reported to everyone, “There’s some fighting going on south of here, so we’ve been advised to break here for the night. They’re going to set up tents and cots.”
Ruth was happy for the chance to stretch her legs and they quickly made their way off the bus. She gestured at the tents and said, “Race you?”
“Is that OK?” Ezekiel asked, looking down at her belly.
“Exercise is good for the body,” she said, and bolted before he could begin.
Everyone was getting out of their buses so they couldn’t run fast even if they wanted to. They focused on avoiding obstacles like families, impatient adults, and bewildered spectators wondering what was going on, intimidated by the fighter planes zipping by above.
“Look at all those balloons!” Ruth shouted to Ezekiel. There were hundreds of them on the other side of the camp, arrayed in long lines, half of them deflated, others ready to soar. “They’re so pretty. Wonder what they’re for.”
“Don’t try to distract me!” Ezekiel yelled back, as he caught up and then sped past her.
That caused several men who saw Ruth behind Ezekiel to say in jovial ribbing, “He should be chasing you!”
A throng of young boys got in Ezekiel’s way so that Ruth regained the lead.
“You both should be running away from the fighting!” one man jokingly shouted.
Ruth beat him to the tents. Immediately, the fetid smell of the wounded bombarded her. A fat man and a little boy were running around in circles yelling, “Gorilla, gorilla, gorilla, gorilla, gorilla!”
Ezekiel arrived, mystified by the weird serenade of gorillas.
Doctors were busily tending to the injured. The soldiers weren’t the traditional ones she’d seen in the past with conservative haircuts and uniforms. Instead, they dyed their hair in a variety of colors, including purple, orange, and green, some with flat tops and others with spiky hair that looked like it took hours to compose. They weren’t all Japanese and the soldiers came from a variety of ethnicities, caring for the wounded of which there seemed to be thousands. Inside the tent it was much darker, and it took a minute for their pupils to acclimate. As the black pits within their irises expanded, more of the terror seeped in. Subconsciously, both of their hands found each other’s. There were Asians, even more Caucasians, African-Americans, and people of Latino heritage. Many of them had their flesh stripped away, so it was impossible to tell who was of what race. Muscles, burnt skin, and askew limbs were prevalent. They were coated with soot, ash people who looked like they were going to crumble. The odor of shit, vomit, and fire intensified their sense of repulsion. A woman was holding a charred baby in her arms, refusing to let go. Multiple people cried out for missing family members. A young girl had most of her hair burned off and her left eye hanging where her nose should have been. Seared flesh made people look like wax figures that had been disfigured by four thousand degrees of heat. Ruth wondered why there were buckets filled with rusted nails until she realized it wasn’t oxidation but blood that stained them. Three of the men lying down had planks and metal pipes sticking out of them. Bodies were being carted in by soldiers and civilians.
“W-what happened here?” Ruth inquired.
“They set off a super weapon,” a patient stated. “Most of San Jose was destroyed.”
“San Jose!” Ruth exclaimed. “H-how?”
“I was on the outskirts of the city when I saw an explosion that looked like a mushroom,” another offered.
“It was more like a bonsai tree made of black clouds that kept on growing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“There was a flash and, after that, I couldn’t see anything.”
“Yeah, that flash.”
“It was quiet right before.”
“Everything was on fire and there was an earthquake that didn’t stop. Then the black rain came.”
“Black rain?” Ezekiel asked.
“I thought it was oil,” a woman with a burnt face stated.
“My dog’s fur fell out and I could see his jaw through his melted skin.”
“There were corpses everywhere and the black rain didn’t stop for an hour.”
“It was some new weapon the Japs built.”
“It wasn’t just a weapon!” a man with a soot mask for a face shouted. His left arm was missing and bandages covered his entire body. “I saw a man taller than a building with red eyes right before the explosion.”
“You’re crazy,” someone said, and a few others chimed in.
“I’m not! I saw it right before the explosion and I knew something bad was going to happen.”
“You’ve lost your mind, fool! There’s no such thing as a man that big.”
“I saw it too,” another voice stated. “It made the whole ground shake and I saw it spit fire into the sky.”
“What was it?”
“Haven’t you heard the Jap Emperor has supernatural powers? That’s what all of this is. He destroyed San Jose with his powers. We have no chance against something like that.”
“The Japs warned us. They told everyone to evacuate San Jose, Sausalito, and Sacramento, or the Emperor would rain down fire from heaven. But we laughed at them, thought they were just blowing smoke up our asses.”
“Why didn’t our God protect us?”
No one could answer that and the silence was even more unnerving than the ubiquitous wailing that had been there a moment before.
Ruth was trembling. Ezekiel put his arm around her and rubbed the side of her shoulder.
“What are you two doing in here?” a doctor snapped. “Get out of here right now!”
They were escorted out by a nurse.
“I’ve heard the Emperor is a god,” Ruth said as they stepped outside, and her hand went to the cross around her neck. “Maybe he can do all these things? I mean, is there any other explanation?”
Eight blond men and women with swastika armbands walked by, speaking with a Japanese officer. They were using their cameras to record the victims, asking questions in German, none of which either could understand. Their excitement was only matched by the inquisitiveness apparent in their vociferous tone.
“I have no idea,” Ezekiel answered her. Both were terrified by the notion of a walking god who could destroy a city. “Let’s get back to the bus,” he weakly suggested.
LOS ANGELES
July 4, 1948
10:23am
Tanks marked with the rising sun of the Japanese flag were rolling down the streets of Los Angeles. Hundreds of bombers soared through the air like a cloud of locusts, led by a fleet of the deadly high-altitude Mansyu Ki-99s. The city reeked of smoke, explosives, and corpses as families wept for their lost ones. Buildings were on fire, houses continued to crumble, and the streets had been decimated into fields of debris. The skyline was a fissured gradient of conflicted red, forlorn gray, and dissipated azure. The temperature was warm with light winds to calm tempers. The only traces of animal life were stray dogs and legions of ants busily scurrying to salvage their homes. There were sporadic bursts of gunfire and the constant hum of fighter plane engines, but it was the silence from the American army that overwhelmingly resounded in the anxious gasps of incredulity.
Had they really lost?
Ezekiel and Ruth raptly watched the battalions of Japanese soldiers marching through the city. They all blended into one another, most in their teens, tenaciously clutching their rifles. Despite their disciplined gait, their pride was unmistakable. Their boots were synchronized into a victorious stomp.
The two, along with thousands of other prisoners, had been given special seating in the military parade celebrating the Japanese victory. Above their section was a sign that read: “Liberating our Fellow Asians and Freeing the World from Western Tyranny.”
Thousands of American prisoners were paraded through the streets, all chained. Taunts and hisses hurled their way. Ezekiel looked over at Ruth and noticed her cross necklace was missing.
Just the day before, he’d been shocked when they’d arrived at his uncle’s factory. The main building was a bomb crater and all that was left was the ashen remains of a burned frame. An old Chinese man sat next to the ruins, talking to himself. He had wisps of white hair on either side of his head and his frown formed ripples of skin along his neck, flesh crevasses unwinding in mourning.
“What happened here?”
The old man looked up at him. “Japanese bombers destroyed every factory on the block.”
“Do you know where Henry Song is?”
“Why?” he asked, tensing, his eyes going to Ruth. “Who are you?”
“I’m his nephew.”
The old man stared at Ezekiel’s face. “Henry was one of the few survivors. Most everyone died in the fire or were shot.”
“Shot for what?” Ruth asked.
“For resisting.”
“You used to work here?” Ezekiel wanted to know.
He shook his head. “My wife.”
“Do you want to come with us?”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“But–”
“Go away,” he said, then began rambling to himself again.
They left him there and Ezekiel said, “It’s only a few miles to my uncle’s house.”
Almost every house they saw had some type of damage. There were whole streets where houses had burned down, fields of embers that were tattered echoes for the community that had once been there. Stacks of smoke formed colonnades along the major streets. Roads were obliterated, buildings exposed their innards, and the cars that normally flowed through the city had nowhere to go. The Americans they saw were in a daze, faces devoid of emotion, a hollowness that made them appear to be ghosts in costume. They saw Ruth and Ezekiel walking past, but gave no reaction, their spirits crushed by the specter of a carmine Helios above. A blond woman walked up to them with a sketch of a man. She was barefooted and her shirt was torn, blood forming a scarf around her neck and shoulders. “Have you seen my husband?” she inquired.
Ezekiel and Ruth looked at the picture. It was so primitive and bare, it could have been anyone. “I’m sorry,” Ruth said, getting close to try to comfort her.
But the woman shrieked, “Don’t touch me!” Her face became feral and she crouched, hands curved defensively into a claw-like configuration. “Stay away from me!” she demanded, and her eyes were distant, her memory entrenched in some horrible past neither Ezekiel nor Ruth could see.
A mile of wreckage later, they came to a security point. A group of Japanese soldiers had barricaded the entire street. Two tanks were on the other side. There were several dozen dogs that were unusually fat. A lieutenant pointed a sword at Ezekiel and barked at him in Japanese. He had swarthy skin, hadn’t shaved in days, and his uniform had splotches of dried bloodstains on the sleeves. Ezekiel answered, “I don’t speak Japanese well, but we’re–”
The lieutenant placed his sword at Ezekiel’s neck, about to chop it off if he was unsatisfied by the answer. The soldier was restrained by another officer, a captain, who ordered, “Cut it out.”
“I was going to,” the lieutenant answered, in heavily accented English.
The captain ignored the sarcasm and looked at the two. “Can’t you see she’s Japanese? What are you doing here?”
“We’re here for the celebration tomorrow,” Ruth answered, and explained where they’d just come from, showing the stamped clearance papers authorizing their liberation from the prison camp. “We were going to go see his uncle.”
“Where’s your uncle?”
“Just a few blocks from here.”
“Go see your uncle and return here when you’re done. I’ll have you escorted back.”
“Is it safe out there?”
The lieutenant brandished his sword, guffawed, and said, “The Americans are bloodied and beaten. Anything more they do is like a fly attacking a tiger. You have nothing to fear.”
Ezekiel and Ruth bowed to the officers gratefully. But, as they did, Ezekiel noticed more than forty severed heads in a pile, their bodies nowhere in sight. The soldier with the sword watched them with a ruthlessness that unnerved him. Ezekiel realized the lieutenant was greedily eyeing his neck.
They hurriedly went through.
“I can’t believe this is Los Angeles,” Ezekiel said, staring at all the debris.
“At least Beniko won’t have to grow up feeling inferior because she’s Oriental.”
“You think so?”
“Think about the way the Americans treated us. Even when we weren’t in camps, they’d always call us nips or chinks, vandalize our stores, and harass us. They think we all look the same – Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean.”
“But America stood for something, a dream that goes beyond race or background,” Ezekiel said.
“Something even they didn’t believe when it came time for action.”
“It’s what they were striving for.”
“You wish the Americans had won? You wish we were back in prison?”
Ezekiel hesitated to give a definite reply. “As long as Beniko has a better life.”
“She will,” Ruth assured him.
“You’re still so sure it’s a girl?”
“I have a feeling.”
“If it’s a boy, can we name him something else?”
“What’s wrong with Beniko?”
“I was hoping to give him a Western name. Like Emmanuel.”
“What about Ben?”
Ezekiel laughed.
It was a twenty minute trek before they arrived at his uncle’s house. The lawn hadn’t been mowed in months and was littered with bullet shells.
Henry Song frowned at his nephew’s arrival.
“Why are you here?” he grunted.
Ezekiel, who had been elated to see his uncle alive, was surprised by the cool reception. “We were hoping you could help us.”
“Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do. The Japanese destroyed my factory and they’ll be here any day to take away my house too.”
“We were there,” Ezekiel said. “I’m very sorry.”
“How did you get past the barricade?”
“Ruth helped us through.”
Henry grimaced. “You went to a Japanese prison camp and married one of them?”
“We haven’t had the chance to get married, but we will soon.”
“You’re smart. You won’t have anything to worry about anymore.” Hatred and disgust dripped from his words as he glowered in Ruth’s direction.
“I was an American,” Ruth said.
“You’re a Jap.”
“My family fought for America in the Great War,” Ruth stated angrily. “Two of my uncles died in Germany fighting for our country. I was born here and have never even been to Japan, but it didn’t matter when it came time to sending us to those prisons.”
“You know what the Japs are doing to their prisoners? Butchering them and feeding them to their dogs because it’s cheaper than getting them dog food.”
On the radio, an admiral of the Imperial Forces broadcast a speech to the Americans, assuring them their mission was principally that of peace, to free their Japanese brothers and sisters who had been taken captive and executed at death camps like Manzanar. “Once we are assured of their freedom and security, we will take measures to leave,” a translator said in very good English, with only the hint of a Japanese accent.
His uncle snorted. “I’m sure they’ll be eager to leave.”
“Uncle…” Ezekiel started.
“Seven of my closest friends were caught east of here. They were ordered to dig their own graves and, when they finished, they were shot. One survived because he pretended to be dead and waited with the corpses for two nights. A total of a thousand men were shot at point blank range.”
“I know you’re angry, but–” Ezekiel started again, in an effort to calm his uncle.
“You don’t know angry! They murdered everyone who is dear to me.”
“We’ve all lost someone,” Ezekiel reminded him. “But it doesn’t change the fact that the war’s over and the Americans lost.”
“The war’s just begun. Unless you want to accept your death so calmly.” His uncle glared at Ruth. “Go live your life with the butchers. We are no family.”
His uncle went back inside.
The memory of the encounter caused Ezekiel to shrivel at the sight of the last American prisoners, a mix of races united by shame. There was no resistance in their eyes, no grit. Only resignation.
He held Ruth’s hand firmly, the celebration parade only a quarter finished.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“How will we survive? I thought for sure my uncle could help us.”
“We’ll find a way to start a life here.”
“What about what my uncle said about the Empire?”
More bombers flew by. The line of soldiers appeared interminable. They looked so arrogant and smug. It was understandable as they had defeated the seemingly invincible Americans, who had been preoccupied in Europe, not anticipating the fatal seizures of Hawaii, Alaska, and California.
“Times will change. Peace changes even the worst of killers,” Ruth said.
“Into what?” Ezekiel asked.
