Eyes of the Emperor Read online

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  Christopher Paul Curtis

  BUCKING THE SARGE

  Christopher Paul Curtis

  THE GIVER

  Lois Lowry

  THE CHOCOLATE WAR

  Robert Cormier

  ACCELERATION

  Graham McNamee

  DR. FRANKLIN'S ISLAND

  Ann Halam

  MILKWEED

  Jerry Spinelli

  THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LARRY

  Janet Tashjian

  COUNTING STARS

  David Almond

  CUBA 15

  Nancy Osa

  THIS WORK IS DEDICATED

  TO THE “BOYS OF COMPANY B”

  WHO SERVED ON CAT ISLAND, MISSISSIPPI,

  DURING WORLD WAR II:

  Robert Goshima, Masao Hatanaka,

  Noboro Hirasuna, Masao Koizumi, Herbert Ishii,

  Fred Kanemura, James Komatsu, Masami Iwashita,

  John Kihara, Katsumi Maeda, Koyei Matsumoto,

  Toshio Mizusawa, Taneyoshi Nakano, Raymond Nosaka,

  Tokuji Ono, Tadao Hodai, Seiji Tanigawa,

  Yasuo Takata, Robert Takashige,

  Billy Takaezu, Seiei Okuma,

  Patrick Tokushima, Takeshi Tanaka,

  Mack Yazawa, and Yukio Yokota.

  And to

  Lieutenant Rocco Marzano, Lieutenant Ernest Tanaka,

  and Major James Lovell, who were also

  part of this mission.

  With a special mahalo nui loa to Raymond Nosaka,

  Tokuji Ono, Diane Ono, Glenna Rhodes, Chika Koida,

  Dennis Lehr, and my most enjoyable Cat Island guides,

  Barry Foster and Ted Riemann.

  I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR

  THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND

  THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED

  STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN

  AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE

  FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME;

  AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS

  APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO

  REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE

  OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD.

  —U.S. ARMY OATH OF ENLISTMENT

  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid.

  “Bad, bad times,” Pop mumbled just yesterday, scowling to himself in the boatyard while reading the Japanese newspaper, Hawaii Hochi. He mashed his lips together and tossed the paper into the trash.

  I pulled it out when he wasn't looking.

  Some haole businessmen were saying all Japanese in Hawaii should be confined to the island of Molokai. Those white guys thought there were too many of us now; we were becoming too powerful. The tension outside Japanese camp in Honolulu was so tight you could almost hear it snapping in the air.

  And to make things worse, Japan, Pop's homeland, was stirring up big trouble.

  In 1931, when I was six, the Japanese invaded Manchuria, and they had been pushing deeper into China ever since. Less than a year ago, they'd signed up with Germany and Italy to form the Axis, all of them looking for more land, more power. Then, just last month, Japan flooded into Cambodia and Thailand.

  And my homeland, the U.S.A., was getting angry.

  President Roosevelt was negotiating with Japan to stop its invasions and get out of China, but nothing seemed to be working.

  And for every American of Japanese ancestry, Pop was right—these were bad, bad times.

  That summer I'd just turned sixteen.

  Me and my younger brother, Herbie, who was thirteen, helped Pop build boats in his boatyard, a business he'd had since he and Ma came to Hawaii from Hiroshima in 1921. Pop had been making sampan-style fishing boats all his life. He had a skilled apprentice named Bunichi, fresh off the boat from Japan by two years. With all of us helping out, Pop's business managed to survive.

  We were finishing up a new forty-footer for a haole from Kaneohe, the first boat Pop had ever made for a white guy. And there would be more, because Pop's reputation had grown beyond Japanese camp. Without question, there was no better boatbuilder in these islands than Koji Okubo, my pop.

  We'd been working on this one for more than seven months now, ten hours a day, six days a week.

  I was painting the hull bright white over primed wood soaked in boiled linseed oil. I had to strain the paint through fine netting so it would go on like silk, leaving no room for the smallest mistake. Pop lived in the Japanese way of dame oshi, which meant everything had to be perfect.

  The paint fumes were getting to me, so I climbed down off the ladder to go out back for some fresh air.

  A small, flea-infested mutt got up and followed me into the sun. I'd found him a couple of months ago licking oil off old engine parts in the boatyard, and I'd given him some of my lunch. Now that ratty dog stuck to me like glue. I called him Sharky because he growled and showed teeth to everyone but me. Pop didn't like him, but he let him live at the shop to chase away nighttime prowlers.

  Pop's shop was right on the water, and just as I walked outside, a Japanese destroyer was heading out of Honolulu Harbor, passing by so close I could hit it with a slingshot. A long line of motionless and orderly guys in white uniforms stood on deck gazing back at the island.

  I squinted, studying them as Sharky settled by my feet. Pop suddenly ghosted up next to me, wiping his hands on a paint rag. I could see him in the corner of my eye.

  He was forty-eight years old and starting to get a bouncy stomach. A couple inches shorter than me, about five three. His undershirt was white and clean, tucked into khaki pants that hung on him like drying laundry, bunched at his waist with a piece of rope. He had short gray hair that prickled up on his tan head. As usual, he was scowling.

  Sharky got up and moved away.

  Pop pointed his chin toward the destroyer. “That's something, ah?” he said in Japanese. “Look at all those fine young men.”

  They looked proud, all right.

  “To them,” Pop went on, unusually talkative, “the Emperor is like a god. They would be grateful to die for him.”

  Grateful to die?

  Pop's eyes brightened. “The spirit of Satsuma,” he said. “That's what lives in those boys—the unbeatable fighting spirit of Satsuma.”

  He nodded in admiration, then continued on over to the lumber pile to look for something.

  What Pop said gave me the willies, because he wanted me and Herbie to be just like those navy guys, all full up with the national spirit of Japan, Yamato Damashii. Pop kept a cigar box of cash savings hidden somewhere in the house, money to send us back to Tokyo or Hiroshima to learn about our heritage. “You are Japanese,” he would say. “How can you learn about your culture and tradition if you don't go to Japan?”

  Sure, but what if I got there and war came because the U.S. and Japan couldn't work things out? What if I got trapped and dragged into the Japanese army—or navy, like those guys on that ship? What would I do then? Because I sure didn't feel that kind of spirit. I wasn't a Japan Japanese.

  I was an American.

  Pop's newspaper had said that people around Honolulu were worried they had a “Japanese problem” on their hands—us. What would Japanese Americans do if Japan and the U.S. went to war? Where would our loyalties lie?

  It was ridiculous, because there was nothing to worry about.

  Sure, issei, first-generation immigrants like Ma and Pop, were still Japanese citizens. And they lived like they were in Japan, because Japan was inside them too deep. It was hard for them to change their ways.

  But I was nisei, born and raised here.
Ma and Pop gave me and Herbie American names, and we were U.S. citizens. So were my two best friends, Chik and Cobra, who'd just been drafted into the U.S. Army. We were all as loyal to the

  U.S.A. as anyone else. “I don't want to go to Japan,” Herbie'd whispered to me a couple of months back. “I like it here.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said.

  Like Herbie, I had different dreams from Pop. American dreams. And so did Chik and Cobra.

  I watched the Japanese destroyer slip out of sight.

  Later that day Chik and Cobra showed up at the shop in their snappy new uniforms, home on their first weekend pass.

  They were both older than me, just drafted at eighteen, and that was a problem—because now they were at boot camp up at Schofield Barracks on the west end of the island. I was so lost without them I was thinking about signing up.

  Chik's real name was Nick Matsumaru, and Cobra's was Takeo Uehara. Their pops worked for Tuna Packers, and our fathers were longtime friends. We were all dock dogs, and had been for as far back as I could remember.

  When those two jokers walked into the shop, I was back on the ladder painting the boat. Bunichi was working on the transom lettering, and Pop and Herbie were outside cleaning brushes.

  I almost didn't recognize them. Never had I seen them so cleaned up.

  “Little man,” Cobra called up to me. “You look goofy with your mouth hanging open like that. You never saw army guys this close, or what?”

  “You punks!”

  “Hey, Bunichi,” Cobra called. “Howzit?”

  Bunichi waved, then went back to work. His English was terrible, so he didn't talk much unless it was in Japanese, and our Japanese wasn't very good, not like Ma and Pop's.

  I covered the paint can and climbed down. Sharky got up and hunched away, showing teeth.

  “How you can keep that rat around this place?” Cobra said. “You should put it out of its misery.”

  “He likes me.”

  Chik said, “If I ever get that ugly, somebody shoot me, ah?”

  “Okay, wait,” Cobra said. “Let me get my gun.”

  “Ete,” Chik said.

  Cobra shoved him.

  “You bazooks,” I said, shaking their grips of steel. All our life we'd been together in Japanese camp. That's what we called our part of Kaka'ako, our neighborhood in Honolulu—a camp. We all stuck together by our races. We had Hawaiian camp, Japanese camp, Portuguese camp down by Waikiki, and some Chinese and Filipino.

  “So tell me about boot camp,” I said.

  Cobra shrugged. “Not so bad—if you don't mind sweat and dirt and somebody screaming in your face.”

  Chik took off his garrison cap and folded it over his belt.

  “Ahh!” I said, pointing to his bolohead. “You no more hair! Hoo, your girlfriends not going like that.”

  “Are you kidding? They love it. They rub my head like it's a bowling ball and kiss my pretty face.”

  “Pfff,” Cobra spat.

  Just then, Herbie came in with clean brushes. “Hey,” he said, trying not to smile. But he liked those uniforms, too.

  Cobra slugged Herbie's shoulder lightly. “How's it going, boss? You like making boats with your pops?”

  “Naah. Too hard.”

  “Rather play baseball, ah?”

  Herbie grinned.

  “Work hard at that, then,” Cobra said. “I know you play good.”

  “Do my best,” Herbie said. “I gotta go. Pop's waiting.”

  Herbie handed me the brushes and went back outside. I set them on the ladder.

  “So really,” I said. “Tell me about the army.”

  Cobra humphed. “We live in tents. Place look like a small city. We call it Boom Town.”

  “I don't mind it,” Chik said. “Of course, I rather be here by the ocean. But when your country calls, gotta go, ah?”

  I imagined that city of tents lined up sharp and perfect, guys marching around in snappy uniforms with rifles on their shoulders, shouting, “Hut! Hut! Hut!”

  “Ho! Must be great.”

  I glanced around to make sure Pop was still outside. “Listen,” I whispered. “I been thinking I going sign up.”

  “What! Are you nuts?” Chik said. “You get drafted, sure, but nobody signs up.”

  Cobra snickered and said, “You too young. They not going take you.”

  “I graduated early, remember? I can show them my high school diploma.”

  “Won't work.”

  “Okay, I had ROTC at McKinley—how about that?”

  Chik and Cobra looked at each other and broke out laughing, staggering around, holding their sides. “Rotsie?” Chik said. “Are you serious? All they do is march around and oil up old rifles with no firing pins.”

  “So?”

  “So boot camp ain't nothing like Rotsie.”

  “Fine, but look.” I checked again for Pop, then pulled my folded-up birth certificate out of my back pocket. I'd brought it along to show them when they stopped by.

  Chik grabbed it and squinted.

  “If somebody comes, hide it,” I whispered.

  “Ho, man,” Chik said. “This might be a crime.”

  He handed it to Cobra, who looked it over with raised eyebrows. “You definitely a crazy man,” he said. “But it looks pretty good.”

  I'd used some drawing skills I learned in drafting class to change 1925, the year I was born, to 1923. It was smudgy, but I'd roughed up the whole certificate so that everything looked smudgy.

  Cobra rapped his knuckles on my head. “Eddy? Hey. Anybody home in there? Whatchoo doing? You enlist, your pops going march you right back and tell them you underage, ah?”

  “No he won't. He's too proud to say anything to anyone but me.”

  Chik grinned. “Can I have first crack at your junks after he shoots you?”

  I shoved him.

  “Listen,” Cobra said. “For real—the army ain't that much fun. You think it is when you first see it, but it ain't. Promise.”

  I shrugged. “I can take it.”

  Just then Pop came back in with more paint. Cobra quickly folded the certificate and stuck it in his pocket.

  Pop set the bucket down by the ladder and squinted at their uniforms. “Humph.”

  Jeese.

  Chik winked at me.

  My friends didn't mind Pop's grumpy ways. But me and him were always knocking heads over something. Herbie was smarter. Kept to himself, just did whatever Pop said and didn't complain. No way I could do that.

  “Good to see you again, Mr. Okubo,” Cobra said. “How's business holding up?”

  Pop frowned, probably considering if that was a respectful question from someone who'd always been a kid to him. But Cobra was eighteen now, a man. So Pop tossed him a crumb. “ 'S okay.”

  Cobra nodded. “Nobody giving you hard time?”

  “Why you say that?”

  “Fishing. Up at Schofield some guys saying the Hawaiians no like Japanese now, because we got too many sampans. Taking all the fish.”

  “Unnh,” Pop said. “Maybe so, but who you t'ink they come to when they got a bus'up boat?”

  Cobra laughed. “Yeah, I guess that would be you.”

  Pop mumbled something and headed around to the transom, where Bunichi was lettering Red Hibiscus, Kaneohe.

  Cobra stuck my birth certificate in my shirt pocket. “Forget this, Eddy. Only get you in trouble.”

  When he and Chik left, I felt all those good times we used to have follow them out. I saluted them silently and picked up my paintbrush.

  Three weeks later the Red Hibiscus was finished—a sleek, sharp-nosed sampan, bright white in the sun. It took ten men and eight mules to hoist and cart her down to the rails and launch her sideways into the harbor, where she sat like a queen on the still water.

  Another Okubo masterpiece.

  Even Chik and Cobra came down from Schofield to see the launch, because when Pop got paid he'd invite everyone over for Japanese wine, good food, and che
ckers, like always. A celebration, because by payday we were usually so broke Ma was frying up weeds.

  Early the next day, me, Herbie, and Pop took the boat for a test run out past Diamond Head. She rode smooth and easy, her knifelike bow slicing the water clean as a shark's fin.

  We listened to her sounds, felt her move, saw how she handled in the swells and chop of Kaiwi Channel—and by the time we returned to Kewalo, Pop's usual scowl was long gone.

  Herbie dropped the new iron anchor off the bow. We would let the sampan sleep in the harbor overnight. In the morning the new owner would take charge.

  I glanced back as we headed home.

  Red Hibiscus.

  It even had a nice name.

  That night Cobra woke me at midnight, banging on the screen door. I stumbled out. “Quiet down,” I said. “You going wake everybody up.”

  He was breathing hard. “You gotta come… now … your boat is burning!”

  “What!”

  Ma appeared behind me. “What is it, Eddy? Trouble?”

  “Pop's boat is on fire.”

  Ma's hand flew to her mouth.

  I ran to wake Pop, then Herbie.

  Ma held the screen door open, standing out of the way as the three of us burst past and raced with Cobra down to the harbor, where the Red Hibiscus buckled in flames.

  We broke through the small crowd gathered on the pier. The orange fireglow flickered on the black water and glowed on grim faces. Chik was there, with his dad and Mr. Uehara, Cobra's dad.

  Pop pressed his lips tight.

  Mr. Matsumaru was the first to speak. “Somebody said they heard an explosion. Before we got here the fire was already big.”

  Pop nodded but said nothing.

  The blaze shot sharp shadows into the deep sunburned creases around his eyes. He stood watching in his undershirt and wrinkled khaki pants, wearing his grass slippers, too hurried to step into his work boots. The muscles in his jaw rippled under the skin.

  I turned away from the fire, sick—all Pop's efforts, all our long days and nights at the shop. The beautiful Red Hibiscus—in flames.

  How could this be happening?

  “I'm sorry, Pop,” I said softly.

  He didn't respond.

  Cobra sat on his heels, looking at a salty stain on the pier. Chik watched the fire, shaking his head.