11.(47-48) Blackmarket in Wartime Tokyo

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47. Yami

The Tsukiji black market, or yami, is a vast area of shack and tent where retailers buy rice and other fresh produce from farmers & fishermen and sell at many-times over-price openly. Without yami, the popular discontent with shortages might boil over into the open. Yami is the sole source of meat and where most households can get enough rice to slow hunger. All transactions are gold and silver coin or barter. It bustles with hundreds of people. A line of horse-drawn carts moves through the gate, some loaded with vegetables, with sacks of rice, with fresh-killed poultry; others with fresh-caught tuna still flapping. At other end, empty cart is driven away by much-richer-than-before farmer or fisherman, loaded with valuable barter.
   On the dock, small boats unload huge chunks of dull red fatty whale meat and still living, scurrying-about king crabs.
   Kimi spots 2 Army trucks unloading goods from conquered populations in China, Malaya, the Philippines and now converting them to handy silver or gold coins. Customers crowd everywhere as if it is bargain day in a department store – expensively kimono, stately matron with purse full of silver and gold coins from bureaucrat husband, followed by white-apron maid carrying empty basket soon to be filled with goodies; then, shabbily dressed housewife pushing wheelbarrow full of family possessions soon to be bartered for rice and meat and eggs and soap and other goods that people desperately need and for which they will give all they possess; then, policeman with shopping sacks slung over shoulders come for daily bribe, and those like Kimi and Yo here to exchange one thing for another.

   Yo plunges into a milling crowd heading toward the dock with out-of-breath Kimi, running after, and now disappears through a flap entrance into a yellow canvas tent. Brushing aside flap door, Kimi follows.

48. Baby Ruth

Inside the tent it is candle lit, and fragrant with sweet incense. Kimi sees an old man whose white hair is in ponytail. He sits on the tatami, cross-legged in man's kimono, puffing a cigarette on a long shiny black holder. His shriveled face has hollows about mouth and cheeks from no teeth and the eyes are sunken.
   Recognizing Yo, the Ancient hops to his feet with surprising energy and smiles then starts to speak to Yo rapidly. Yo interrupts him. “Speak in Jap, will yer; my pal here don’t know Okinawan.”

   Kimi bows to the Ancient and Yo starts haggling over how much he will give them for the rice. Slowly, he begins to drop coins into her open left palm each one clinking on the other. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...: the clinks stop but Yo keeps palm open and gives stern look and, the Ancient with grunt that Kimi guesses means “Goddamn, you bitch!” drops another coin. Yo still holds out her open palm and he drops yet another then stops with severe look on face. They stand facing each other for a minute and Kimi worries they may actually start a fight. Suddenly Yo closes hand into fist on the coins, claps the old man on his back and shouts in his left ear “It’s a deal.”
    The old man begs the girls to stay and chat and pours 2 cups of best British tea. Kimi now remembers how Grandma was always saying that Okinawans like to bargain – the fiercer the better – and when you watched them at it you would almost be sure they would soon actually jump at each other with fists but it was only a ritual played to the make believe brink.

   The black tea has a tangy smell, and Kimi grabs Yo's elbow and pulls her back from running out the door. “Hey! Not so fast, kid. Let's at least enjoy the tea.” The Ancient is happy and as an added treat he cuts a slice of green lime and squeezes drops into each cup then adds a French macaroon on each saucer. It is yummy tummy, thinks Kimi, recalling a phrase of her American friend. The old man asks if she likes his Twining tea that had come to him from an officer who captured some British soldiers at the fall of Singapore. When Kimi says, truthfully, it is the best black tea she ever had, he smiles toothlessly and says a few words, and Yo translates his words as an offer of marriage with assurance he will die within the year and all he has will be hers. Yo winks at her. “Big Sis! I fix you up here later but right now we gotta go.” As they are about to leave the old man reaches into a box and comes up with 2 wrapped objects. He hands one to Kimi and one to Yo. On the wrapping Kimi reads Baby Ruth.

The old man explains they are American candy bars got in a swap with a soldier who got them off the body of a Yankee Monkee killed in New Guinea.
  “Candy!” Yo shouts, tearing open the wrapping and stuffing the peanut-crunchy, chocolate-covered bar into her mouth. Kimi, embarrassed, thanks the Ancient for herself & Yo and slips the Baby Ruth into an arm fold of her jacket.

Minutes later they ride, hanging off a side of a crowded old trolley toward Shinjuku a new part of Tokyo. Actually, Kimi would have liked getting on in front, paying, but Yo, who does not believe in paying, convinced her it would be as easy as going the usual way. And since they are not the only ones, Kimi feels no shame. Hanging onto the trolley's outside as it slowly bumps its way westward is exciting and fun. On this sunny, cool November morn, Kimi and Yo delight as the trolley goes by the Ginza and around the awe-full Imperial Palace and past the Mayan pyramid-shaped Parliament building and up onto Shinjuku Road, and at end of line delivers them at Shinjuku into a vast slum of wood shacks, colorful tents and open stalls whose in-between spaces bustle with Saturday & Sunday shoppers.
   To read on now, click 11.(49-50) A Pick Up and a Blow Job