20. Jun
Saturdays, Kimi sleeps mornings at Ancient Tanaka's while Tanaka is at Grandma’s. One day near the end of the season, a door-panel sliding open wakes her up. Coming into the front room, she sees a young man in uniform, taller than she and with straight black hair and smooth skin. His uniform marks him as pilot-in-training.
He is bending down taking a gift-wrapped package out of an overstuffed bag. At her sound, he looks up, dark eyes registering surprise.
She bows and introduces self and he does too as “Tanaka, Jun.” They both stand awkwardly then she moves to the table and pours 2 cups of tea. Jun sits opposite and opens his gift box of green-dough manju dumplings.
Over tea and dumplings she explains why she is at his grandfather’s and she learns he is home for his final week before being sent off to combat.
Over tea and dumplings she explains why she is at his grandfather’s and she learns he is home for his final week before being sent off to combat.
She guesses he knew the long-time-ago scandal, vaguely recalling him as village boy but now he, of course, is different as he sits across from her sipping tea, a quiet young man with serious eyes, hesitant speech and grave formality in his talk with no allusion to her past and he addresses her with pronoun of respect.
Jun quickly runs out of words. They continue silence until the door entrance panel is slid aside and Ancient Tanaka comes in with Grandma.
Tanaka shouts, “My boy is back and he’s got your girl!” He pulls a bottle of potato whiskey from a shelf and pours 2 glassfuls, exclaiming, "Leave the tea to women, boy! Drink down!”
While Tanaka plies Jun with questions Kimi and Grandma make a lunch of noodles, bamboo shoots, Chinese cabbage, raw egg and white shrimp in pungent brown soup. Both the young man and the Ancient have appetites and rapidly down the noodles with noisy sucking while the women eat more quietly. Tanaka and Grandma sit on their heels side by side and Kimi and Jun similarly and opposite. The air gets heavy with cigarette smoke and reverberates with Tanaka’s laughter at his own obscene jokes, which he speaks from the right side of his mouth while plying a gold toothpick on the left side. “Madam, were I a few years younger – even 80 – I’d marry your girl myself. Alas, after 90, that mountain I can only rarely reach. My walking pole can barely make it to the top so I must content myself down in the valley with your old bush.”
Grandma nods at Tanaka and comments. “Old fool is biggest fool.”
Kimi smiles slightly for a double reason only she and Tanaka know, and Jun looks into his whiskey glass.
21. Army Discipline
Conversation turns to Jun’s training. Prodded by Tanaka’s question, Jun describes boot camp: Get up before sun up and, naked except loin cloth in icy dawn, run up and down 300-meter hill and, after, sit on hard bench to eat rice and soup by the numbers then four hours strenuous training in judo, karate, stick fight and garrote and then rice bowl lunch, another four hours tough strenuous training and supper of rice, tofu, fish and beans.
Of army discipline Jun relates an incident which in one variation or other he witnesses daily: Lined up at attention almost naked in wind-chilling dawn; Sergeant struts down in front of line of recruits slapping soundly on cheeks any who are shivering. A slapped soldier who loses posture of standing to attention is slapped again, harder. After slapping, Sergeant goes up the line demanding from each slapped recruit an answer to “Why did you get slapped?” Repeated replies evoke a harder slap until at last a recruit answers “I don’t know!” and is rewarded by no slap and a “That is correct!” shout of Sergeant, who adds from the words of an imperial rescript “Uninfluenced by worldly thoughts and unhampered by politics, guard well your single destiny of love of country.” Then Sergeant adds his own “Our sole destiny is to be patriotic to the Emperor. You need only obey.”
Tanaka expresses approval with an explosive “Banzai! Discipline is good especially for the soft city boy. The weak mobo (“modern boy” in vernacular) with long hair, unwashed unshaven face, flapper girlfriend and foreign ways! He and his type are why the war goes badly. Why, in old, good day of Emperor Meiji, the Army and Navy never suffered defeat, because the soldier and sailor were sons of the folk – honest farmers and fishermen. But now, cities are swollen with riff-raff and we countryside people are all in debt because of the foreign moneylender. The solution is to return to discipline and ancient virtues."
Tanaka expresses approval with an explosive “Banzai! Discipline is good especially for the soft city boy. The weak mobo (“modern boy” in vernacular) with long hair, unwashed unshaven face, flapper girlfriend and foreign ways! He and his type are why the war goes badly. Why, in old, good day of Emperor Meiji, the Army and Navy never suffered defeat, because the soldier and sailor were sons of the folk – honest farmers and fishermen. But now, cities are swollen with riff-raff and we countryside people are all in debt because of the foreign moneylender. The solution is to return to discipline and ancient virtues."
Everyone listens respectfully as he rambles on about loving the nation and the warrior’s way, Bushido, that samurai had lived and died by. Kimi, much as she admires Tanaka, can’t help thinking his present mouthing merely recalls government propaganda. Up north here, Foreign Moneylender is not named but in Tokyo
To read on, click 9.22 Culture for the Village, and a Proposition
To read on, click 9.22 Culture for the Village, and a Proposition
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