7.(2-3) When in Rome & Take Me Out to The Ballgame, Tokyo 1943

Slim Novel 7 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage


2. When in Rome ...

Sunday strolling Ginza: Warm day brings out hundreds of Sunday strollers. Kimi walks hand in hand between Olga and Harumi, happy. She spots nearby snack tables on sidewalk. Noodles in soup give oodles of delight. Holding it above mouth with the bowl's edge on her lower lip, draining last drops of ultra delicious fish-and-soy brown soup, she is thinking, Why can't days like this last a lifetime?
   Olga lights her Soviet cigarette. “The future is America, darlings!”
   Harumi is less happy “We shall all be killed in the Battle of Tokyo, just like that!” She points to a billboard showing gun-toting soldier with insane look charging out of the rubble of a city and in kanji-character writing, shouting “We won't stop shooting!”

   Olga says, “Darlings! Let us go and see his Heavenly Highness exhibiting Himself to the Natives at Noon.”

   They hurry to Hibiya and stand amid onlookers, mostly holiday types – working women in peasant jacket and monpe, kimono ladies, drunken salarimen, conscripts on furlough, and a political cop with Hitler mustache, Panama hat, ill-fitting western suit and black oxford shoes.
   A ting-a-ling warning chimes: The crowd quietens at the crisp voice of an announcer. His speech is short, followed by the National Anthem and on stage a curtain is raised to show a man on a horse.
 A collective sigh sweeps the crowd and heads lower. After 3 minutes, the curtain drops.

  “When in Rome, ...” Olga mutters.

3. Spoilsport

Kimi sees her first baseball game one Sunday afternoon. Harumi, a fan from childhood, buys 3 box seats by first base. Olga as usual finds it tiresome. "After all, didn't the Rooskies invent it?" she comments. Despite war, the Stadium fills with Tokyo Giants fans come to see the home team battle the Osaka Whales in the 1943 opener. Harumi and Kimi wear red Tokyo Giants forehead bands. In mid-field ceremony a gowned Shinto priest prays for the souls of dead soldiers; then all bow facing the Emperor's Palace, and the Giants run onto the field to cheers. 
   Even Olga is infected by the enthusiasm, and, when the lead-off Osaka batter is called safe at first-base on a close bunt play, she is on her feet screaming at the umpire “Ya blind bum, they oughta send ya t’Guadalcanal!”

   Kimi, who knows enough Russian to understand, gives a gasp and glances for the ever-present political police. But everyone in view appears a Giants' fan of same sentiment. In any case, Russian is Greek here.

    The second batter leans into first pitch and hits sharp bounder to the Giant’s 2nd-base man who touches 2^nd with heel and throws to 1^st base ahead of the batter for a double-play, to the crowd's happy cheers. More cheers erupt after the pitcher whizzes 3 straight strikes past the third batter for the 3rd out, ending the inning.

   While the Giants are preparing for their turn at bat, Harumi buys box lunches and hands them around. Opening hers, Kimi sees it is Red-ball sun lunch so named because, by its pattern of a small pickled red plum set at the center of white rice rectangle with thin black seaweed strip rays, it resembles the national flag. She eats while watching the first Giant batter pop up for an easy first-out catch by the Whales’ 2^nd baseman. The 2nd batter swings and misses 3 times for the 2nd out.
   And then cheers erupt as the Giants’ 3rd batter steps to the plate with his familiar thick black bat over right shoulder and held in the taut upwardly angled position, drawn back like a wound up clock, typical of home run hitters. Cheers rise for Sadamaru Ueyama the Babe Ruth of Japan.

   The Giants' fans chant “Homerun! Homerun! Homerun!” Harumi explains Ueyama's political significance. “He is the darling of baseball fans around the Empire because he is the only one who can hit the home run but his fame makes him politically embarrassing because his well-known Korean origin conflicts with the doctrine of Japanese superiority.”

   Ueyama's bat flashes, slamming the pitched ball in an amazing arc that ends in the center-field seats. First at-bat a home run! The three friends with everyone in the stadium are on feet, clapping and screaming and shouting as Sadamaru rounds the bases and comes home with the first run of the game to make it 1 to 0 in favor of the Giants.
   The Whales enter the scoring column twice in the 5th inning on back to back singles bunted forward and brought home by a 3rd single, making it Whales 2, Giants 1.
    Several run-less innings bring the Giants to bat for their last time in the game, bottom of the 9th inning, trailing by one run. Their 1st two batters ground out, and Kimi sits, head in hands, afraid to watch because she expects the final batter to make the 3rd strike and wend the game. She waits unhappily to hear the crowd's collective groan, signaling the Giants’defeat but instead hears a roar of excitement and lifts her head from hands to see the batter slam a line-drive off the left-field wall, race ‘round 1st base and slide safe into 2nd base ahead of outfielder throw.

With the game-tying runner on 2nd base and the game winning run expected to enter the batter box in the in the form of Japan's superb sultan of swat, Sadamaru Ueyama, an exultant, expectant murmur sweeps the stadium.

   Then follows an absolute, stunned silence. The player striding from the Giants’dugout does not have Sadamaru’s distinctive 00 on the back of his uniform nor is he carrying the famous black bat!
   Kimi turns to Harumi. “What does it mean? Why isn't Ueyama coming to bat?”
   “Pinch hitter! Wait, here comes announcement!”

  “Watanabe, pinch hitting for Ueyama who has just received his summons to immediately report to the Imperial Army training camp in Yokohama.”

   “It figures,” Olga says, making a to hell with the world face. “After all, the Emperor is a Kyoto boy so he must be an Osaka fan! What a spoilsport!”
   So ends Kimi's baseball viewing.
   For next, click 7.(4-5) Embassy Party and End Slim Novel 7

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