Hokkaido Highway Blues

Nothing. I came down with a white flag, alone. They push, like this, not so hard. They are yelling, ‘Don’t move Jap! Don’t move!’ But they never hit me. Nothing. They gave me some little food. Later, shoes. They are kind, not like us, not like what we did, not like—” He reached for the bottle, his hand shaking as I have never seen a human hand shake before. He spilled the saké as he poured it. “I didn’t die in the EO.W camps. I didn’t. I didn’t die. I woke up.”
    “I should be going. It’s very late.“
    “I didn’t die.”
    “I should be going.”
    Mr. Nak spoke again, almost in a whisper. “I woke up.”
    “I should be going.”
    He swallowed the past like hot saké. “In the P.O.W camp is where I first learn English. From Bobby. You know, Bobby?” He had had too much to drink and was slurring his words and time frames. “He is a private, D-Company. He the same age like me. You know Bobby? Sure, Bobby. From Oklahoma.”
    He was waiting for me to answer. I had trouble forming sounds, and when I did, my voice came out like smoke. “No, I don’t know Bobby.”
    “He taught me English: ‘How are you? How are you?’ Bobby always smiling guy. One time they bring candy, our officers make a line, they think to eat first. ‘No,’ Bobby says. ‘No. First child. Then woman. Then private. Officer last.’ Our officers were humiliated. I study that word: humiliated, you know? Like ashamed. The women try to give their candy to the officers, but the officers say no. Very sad, the officers don’t speak, just look away. ‘Our world is over,’ they say. But not me. I woke up in the camps. I didn’t die. I didn’t die. Bobby teach me, ‘Hello, mister. What time now? One o’clock, two o’clock, half past five. Hey, buddy, how are you today? Chow time, lights out, fall in.’ ”
    He stopped in mid-recitation. “I will show you something,” He pulled out the bottom photo album in the pile. He opened it to the last page and carefully took out an envelope from a pouch. He unfolded it in layers: tissue paper wrapped in wax paper, wrapped in soft white cloth. At the center of this was a photograph, small like the palm of a hand, without a crease on any corner. A black-and-white image, turned sepia over time: a teenager in a G.I.’s uniform, dog tags, short hair, and a huckleberry grin. Across the bottom was written, in printing too careful to be anything except that of Mr. Nakamura’s hand: “Robert. Oklahoma, U.S.A. My friend.”
    “He look like you,” said Mr. Nak.
    He didn’t look like me.
    “He have your eyes,” said Mr. Nak.
    He didn’t have my eyes.
    “I don’t know where Bobby is anymore. One day, just gone. Maybe,” said Mr. Nakamura. “Maybe he is old man like me.” He carefully refolded the photograph into its wrappings and put it back.
    “I think,” I said, more to myself than anyone, “I should go,”
    “Ha, ha!“ roared Mr. Nak. “I sing you a song! A very good Japanese folksong, but together with a dance. My dance. I make this dance.” He lurched to his feet and pushed the low table to one side, toppling glasses and rattling plates. His wife moved the cushions out of the way and cleared the dance floor, as though a drunken jig at two in the morning was a perfectly normal occurrence in their household. I think she was happy for the change of mood.
    “You must clap,” he said. “Like this.” I caught the simple rhythm and his wife helped me out. Mr. Nakamura took down the sword hanging over the entranceway. “Very old sword,” he said, pronouncing the w. “My family sword. My father, next father, and so forth. Time and tide. You like this dance, Mr. Will. This dance is a samurai. He is too old to fight. He is not strong so much anymore. He must use his sword like a walking stick, because he is too weak to hold it high.”
    Mr. Nakamura, awakened, turning slow circles in his bathrobe, his sword like a cane, his body bent in dance, a stylized posture representing old age: hand on lower back, shoulders stooped. A samurai too old to fight, he was also too drunk to stand, and he stumbled and bumped into the cabinet, knocking over a few knickknacks, staggering like a sailor. He stumbled back into the cabinet, but this time he held on to it and didn’t move. I could hear him breathing, in effort. The dance was over.
    With great dignity, Mrs. Nakamura rose and helped her husband steady himself.
    “I should be going,” I said. She nodded. I had stayed long