A Time to Cry

W

ithin a single week my entire life had been transformed beyond comprehension—my entire concept of man, of good and bad, of right and wrong. Yet ironically, I could no more evaluate my feelings rationally than a wounded man might evaluate pain.

The initial trauma had produced a numbness, a kind of psychologi­cal paralysis, but emerging from it was an ever-increasing dread. It was utterly impossible to obey the Rescript’s injunction not to fear a superior when our superiors failed to observe the related injunction regarding respect and consideration. We had become as furtive as rats frequently subjected to electric shock. We were constantly tensed and waiting for the next one.

Within only one week I had come to believe that life with my family, the days with my friends at school, were nothing but a childish illusion. How far off it all seemed now—how vague and insubstantial. Onomichi was only some fifty miles away, but it might as well have been thousands, at the most remote corner of the world. Time also was a relative thing. My youth was being purged away. A single week had made me old.

“Shinpei, shinpei, kutsu migaki. Mata nete naku nokayo” These words have

long been sung by Japanese recruits at Shoto Rappa after the long, hard day. “Recruit, recruit, polish your shoes. Later you may cry in bed.” The night has always been a time of sorrow for the trainee, a time when he could reminisce, take a deep breath, then under cover of darkness, release his pent-up emotions, the pain and the fear.

Once the shuban kashikan had completed their inspection and the disciplinary action that usually followed, we lay in our cots thinking of home, especially of our mothers. After all, some of us were only fifteen. Possibly we even took a kind of perverse satisfaction in our very sor­row as people sometimes do. Lacking others to sympathize with us, we sympathized with ourselves, and it was then that we shed tears, there in the darkness where no one could see and few could hear.

Some of the recruits, like myself, had barely entered puberty, and our voices were still changing. In our dreams we sometimes called aloud for our mothers, but I never heard a single recruit call the name of his father, Later, in fact, I learned that dying men also asked for their mothers. The father is master of the family, and it is partly his stern and remote love that helps instill a son with the fighting spirit. Yet when comfort is needed, or when a man has little time left, he wants his mother.

To one unfamiliar with the Japanese mind, some of our actions, our weeping and sentimentality, may appear strange. To the outsider we are an inscrutable people who rarely exhibit emotion. And it is true, in fact, that we often maintain a facade. Ours is a philosophy of stoicism and resignation in many ways, and frequently we display no feeling, even when filled with joy or hate.

Often we may even smile or laugh at adversity, but all people share the same passions. They are merely manifest differently according to one’s culture and conditioning.

Westerners, especially Americans in my view, may be compared emo­tionally speaking to boiling pots with loose lids from which steam escapes fairly regularly and with relative ease. Orientals, certainly the Japanese, on the other hand, are more like pressure cookers. The same heat is ap­plied and the same steam exists, but in the latter instance the steam often builds for some time without any outward manifestation. When at last it breaks forth, however, it may do so with remarkable violence.

The analogy has its limitations, of course. In many cases, for ex­ample, Japanese can minimize or eliminate much of the emotional steam because of religious and philosophical conditioning that fosters acceptance and resignation, a proclivity for bending with the wind like resilient bamboo which can withstand great storm without being uprooted.

Nevertheless, it is no exaggeration to say that Japanese people in general can be the epitome of serenity, of politeness to the point of toadishness in their deference to others on many occasions, that in oth­ers they can respond to great emotional duress with hysteria. It is not uncommon, for instance, for Japanese women who have lost a loved one to fling themselves upon the floor in a spirit of inconsolable wailing. Moreover, it certainly common for Japanese military men to assault the enemy with implacable determination, indeed, utter fanaticism.

Such considerations aside, every effort was made by our hancho to stifle all emotionalism, except as it pertained to country and Emperor. Constantly, inexorably, all emotion was funneled into the great crucible of patriotism. Ideally, every fear, anxiety, hope, and joy was to be sub­dued, transformed, and channeled into the fighting spirit—the spirit of the Yamato Race, of the samurai.

Consequently, whimpering because of pain or crying for one’s mother were not only evidence of degrading weakness, they were indications that our lives had not been consecrated. We had yet to comprehend fully the doctrine of individual expendability. To acquire that unwavering testimony called for in the Imperial Rescript—that duty was indeed weightier than the mountains, that death was lighter than a feather.

If a single recruit was overheard moaning in his sleep we were all punished. At night we were constantly rousted from bed, for our audi­ence with The Pig. Sometimes he was the ultimate comedian, sometimes quite the opposite. The smirk would be gone, the flaccid face contorted or, in some cases, extremely glum and weary.

Frequently, he would pace back and forth before us, hands clasped behind his back, head bowed, lips pursed, studiously perusing the earth beneath his feet, or unpredictably casting a glance at the night sky. Then, at length, he would deign to acknowledge our presence. “Can it be. . . can it truly be?” he would mutter with immense solemnity and incredulity. “That such pitiful specimens of humanity, such helpless and hopeless boobs. . . such miserable excuses of manhood, are soon to be honored sons of the great Nippon Empire, privileged to defend the glory of our most esteemed Emperor?” Shaking his head grievously: “The very thought fills our souls with untold trepidation!”

Nakamura was standing next to me at the time. “It fills his fat ass with trepidation.” The faintest whisper. “With a ton of shit.” His lips were barely parted and scarcely moved. I was actually shocked at such sacrilege, but I also struggled to keep from smiling.

“Nevertheless. . .” our mentor continued, “the grand designs of heaven and earth shall never be frustrated—never, never—never, even in the most infinitesimal manner, even within the mind of a wretched flea.”

The Pig paused for at least a full minute, scrutinizing our faces with much severity. “So now, shinpei. . . .” His tone clearly signaled that the oration was over. “I am going to give you some fatherly advice, especially those who bawl their lungs out every night like snot-nosed babies. You are here at Hiro Air Base for only one reason.” Another lengthy pause. “Do you know what that reason is?”

“Hai honorable hancho dono!” We chorused the words loudly.

“Do you?”

“Hai, honorable hancho dono!” This time we all bellowed from the depths of our bellies.

The Pig shook his head, slowly, emphatically, in a spirit of resigna­tion. “No, you do not. But you will learn. Before the end of your train­ing under Sergeant Noguchi there will be no question.” The pacing increased. “At present, however, you must learn one thing.” For a time, he frowned at his feet as if they were melting, waiting so long I decided that he had lost his trend of thought. Maybe there was something wrong with his brain. Then, with a great surge of energy: “There is no past!” His words were so loud, so unexpected, so formidable, that many of us literally quaked. At that point he actually turned his back upon us, surveying the stars. “There is no past.” More subdued now but equally irrefutable. “Only the present and the future.”

Eventually, he turned to face us again, and now almost gently, as though confronted with some cosmic sorrow: “You must forget about everything except those concepts we are authorized to teach you. Forget about civilian life, forget about your mothers, forget about your families. Live instead for the Emperor—for Emperor and country without the slightest equivocation. If you do so, all fear will distill like frost in the morning sun. And you will attain liberation. You will attain joy, and strength, and freedom—like that of the eagles!”

Even more softly: “So now. . . the binta, the ball bats and other things. . . they are nothing, nothing at all in and of themselves. They exist only to the extent that they help us to make men of you.” His glance was fierce and probing, utterly uncompromising. “Do you understand?”

“Hai, honorable hancho dono!” we roared.

For a moment The Pig almost smiled. “That is good, and now comes the proof.” He motioned to the ever-vigilant Sakigawa and Kakuda. “Bring forth the bats!”

That night many of us were beaten unconscious but no one uttered a sound.

Strangely, although the majority of us were very young, there were a few recruits at Hiro anywhere from forty-five to sixty years old. Stranger still, those individuals were treated with no more consideration than anyone else. Basic training was an enormous melting pot, wherein each man was deprived of his identity as fully as possible. Every man’s head was barbarously cropped. Every man wore the same ugly, swamp colored uniform. The elderly, even people of wealth and prestige in a few cases. . . were all treated just like the rest of us. The hancho who would have bowed in obeisance to some of the trainees in civilian life, or who might never have been able to associate with them, was tyrant and ruler over all. He could kick, strike, bully, and humiliate any recruit with impunity. Even murder in some instances.

Despite our anxiety, however, after the first few days at Hiro we slept as though drugged. Our bodies had not yet become conditioned to the arduous training and the punishment. During the night we lay in a near coma, and at times The Snake and Kakuda would enter the barracks with some of their cohorts to perform their clever tricks. On one occasion they stealthily tied our hands and feet, then flashed on the lights, awakening us with wild shouts. Aroused from our stupor, we struggled from our beds unaware of what had happened, and tumbled to the floor groping about frantically to untie ourselves. This to the uproarious laughter of our tormentors.

When Nakamura had first declared that many of our hancho were perverted, I was startled and incredulous. By now, however, my outlook had changed radically. The Snake, especially, enjoyed humiliating the younger recruits in various degrading ways, and those of us who had barely entered puberty suffered most. During a formation he would leer at some unfortunate who had made a mistake and say, “Hey, shinpei, you still act like a kid—na!”

There was no helpful answer to such questions, because he would merely persist to the conclusion. “Hey, shinpei—aren’t you a man yet? Didn’t you hear right? I asked if you are a man!”

“Yes, honorable hancho dono!”

To this The Snake would feign great amazement. “Ah so! Then prove it-take down your pants!. Now yourfundoshi—quick!”

Then the hapless trainee would stand shamefaced while The Snake, sometimes Kakuda and The Pig as well, poked fun and made snide comments regarding his meager endowments. Such things I actually dreaded more than the physical punishment.

Late one night three of us were rousted from bed to clean the han – chos’ quarters because our work there during the day had allegedly been unsatisfactory. Afterward we were forced to strip down and leap into icy showers. The Snake then herded us out naked into the cold demanding that we run around the barracks ten times before consigning us to the shower room for the remainder of the night.

There for the first hour we huddled on a wooden bench, cramped and shivering in total darkness. As the time dragged on, we decided to exercise. It was the only way we could keep from growing numb, perhaps freezing. Periodically, however, we succumbed to exhaustion, and once I awoke from a half-sleep to begin doing push-ups. In the midst of these exertions, feeling the cold knife upward through my feet and hands, I thought about the showers. A flash of optimism which died as quickly. So far as I knew, the hot water was turned on for only a short period

each evening following our training.

Eventually, however, having nothing else to do, I groped my way over to the showers and barely twisted one of the handles. A slight whoosh of cold water, and I jerked back. Then, as I reached out to turn it off, the water actually felt tepid, steadily growing warmer.

Seconds later it was coming hot, steaming hot. Quickly I turned it off, glancing about furtively. Had our hancho heard the noise, the sound of water running in the pipes, from their rooms? I waited for some time, and decided that by now they were snoring deeply, the sleep of the unjust. I peered through the dark at my companions. Vague outlines, squatting back to back on the bench, dozing fitfully.

For a moment I battled with myself. Possibly the hot water was a mere residue, a bit remaining from the evening before. If I alone were to shower, though, it might last for some time. If the three of us used the showers. . . .

After a moment I whispered, “Yai—Oka! Yamamoto! Come over to the showers.”

“Hot water?” Oka blurted.

“Quiet!”

Instantly they were next to me, rubbing their arms and bellies, hunching over, treading up and down. “Turn them on quick!” Yama­moto groaned through chattering teeth.

“No, just one,” I insisted. “We won’t turn it on too high, or all the water will be gone before we can even get warm.” Obediently, they stood aside while I regulated the shower. Then we crowded beneath it, back to back, exclaiming our delight in muted tones.

“Ah, this is great,” I murmured tilting my head back, “this is fan­tastic!” Then another idea struck. “I wonder if. . . Where’s something to stop the drain?”

“Sit on it,” Oka replied gleefully. “Your rear is big enough.”

It might be possible, I decided to fill the small shower room three or four inches deep without flooding the rest of the floor. Suddenly I knew what to use—toilet paper! And the plan worked perfectly. I covered the drain with a layer about half an inch thick, and the water expanded across the floor around us, soaking through the paper just

fast enough to prevent the outer room from flooding and to maintain a steady warmth.

“Why don’t you both admit I’m a genius? I said and settled back in the gurgling liquid. Eventually the shower created enough steam to also warm the surrounding atmosphere. I stretched supine in the deepening liquid. There in the midst of all that cold, dark, cruelty, we had found our secret place, and in that warm, beneficent seclusion we fell asleep.