The Cost of Sushi Cakes

D

espite the constant behests to forget our past, after two weeks our families were permitted to pay us a brief visit. Only fourteen days since I had said goodbye, and it seemed ages. As the visiting hour approached I began to tremble. So much had happened, home seemed years into the past, a thousand miles away.

At four p. m. I was waiting in the visiting room where a counter separated the trainees as if they were convicts from their families. I watched people enter, observed how each trainee’s eyes lit in recognition. Some of them seemed almost embarrassed, strangely hesitant. The bar hampered them from the intimacies of a normal greeting, and the best they could do was clasp hands.

Twenty minutes passed. . . thirty, and no sign of my own family. I was beginning to fret and fidget. Where were they? What could have possibly happened to them? Didn’t they realize that we had only this one fleeting hour together? Maybe they wouldn’t arrive until too late—if they arrived at all. Soon I was growing angry. If they never got to see me it would serve them right.

On the other hand, maybe they had misunderstood the visiting date. Maybe I had somehow written it down wrong in my letter. Yes, that was probably it. What a hopeless idiot! I cracked my knuckles and

stared bleakly at the floor.

Then, furtively, even superstitiously, I glanced toward the door. There, miraculously, was my father in his gray business suit, its conser­vative shade blending with the two drab, wartime kimono behind him. Mother and Tomika. “Oh, my Yasuo, my Yasuo!” Mother murmured. “We were caught in a terrible traffic jam!” Simultaneously, Tomika was saying something about a bomb crater, but it barely registered. They were here. That was all that mattered.

Now we were clasping hands, looking into each other’s eyes. Mother and Tomika made no effort to disguise their feelings, and their tears glistened conspicuously despite the smiles. For a moment I couldn’t speak because I was struggling to restrain tears of my own, actually biting my lower lip to avoid displaying any weakness, especially before my father.

Father was even wearing one of his rare smiles. In fact, I had never seen it so warm: “How is your new life, my son?” he inquired.

“Oh. . .” I faltered. “it is fine, Father. Very. . . .” I groped for the right words. “Very educational.” But something writhed inside me, and the real words in my mind pounded: “Why do you lie? Tell the truth! Tell of the unbelievable brutality, the awful injustice! Tell him that you can’t stand this place a day longer! Maybe he can do something!”

I knew full well, however, that my father had received similar treatment in the army. Surely he realized what I was going through. The thought spawned feelings of incredulity. How had he managed to survive so well? Survive at all? Father squinted one eye, raising the op­posite brow as though reading each thought. “Do your hancho love you? Are they kind and gentle like your mother and sister?” I groped for an appropriate reply, but he continued. “You look very well. Your face has even filled out a little from all the delicious food—right?”

Truly my face had “filled out”—swollen from being slammed against the barracks and the previous night’s binta. “It’s not from—” I began and caught myself. Father’s eyes held mine, and his head gave an abrupt, little shake of warning. “Are they treating you well, Yasuo?” he demanded.

I forced a pallid smile. “Yes, thank you, Father, quite well.” His

expression remained stern, uncompromising. “I mean very well.”

“Good,” he replied. “There is nothing like military discipline to bring out the best in a man.”

For a few seconds none of us spoke. Then Tomika bent forward, her brow wrinkled, gazing into my face as though it were a mirror. “How did you get all those cuts?” she asked, looking highly distressed.

“Yasuo-chan, your eyes are black!” Mother exclaimed. “You’ve been injured!” It was that appealing tone of concern with which I had be­come so familiar, and again I battled inwardly. The childish part of me took comfort, wanted to be coddled, yet I also felt irritation. “They’ve been cruel to you, absolutely brutal!” She spoke so loudly I flushed and glanced in chagrin at the people nearest us. But they were all absorbed in their own conversations. “And your nose is swollen!”

“Yasuo is all right,” Father said.

“But his eyes” Mother persisted. “His poor, dear—”

“He is perfectly all right!” Father said. This time his tone allowed no opposition.

“It’s nothing, Mother, nothing at all!” My voice cracked embarrass­ingly, partly because it was still changing. “I just. . . I just ran into. . . a tree branch.” I held my hand over my eyes as though shading them from the sun, breathing jerkily in the silence. All the while my mother’s hand pressed mine so warmly I could actually feel her pulse. At that moment I loved her more than at any time in my life, more than any­thing else in the world.

Quietly Father was saying, “My son can take care of himself. A few little bruises are inevitable. They are helping to make a man of him. A

samurai!”

I looked up, massaging the lower half of my face with one hand to keep the muscles from twitching. Then I smiled, nodding. “Hai.” That was all I could say.

“Your sister and I have made some sushi cakes,” Mother said. “Will they permit you to have them?” Both Mother and Tomika had concealed food under the cloth obi about their waists. Their sushi cakes had long been a favorite with me.

“Well, we’re not supposed to,” I answered reluctantly, “but they’ll never know anything about it—if you can just hand it to me without anyone seeing.” Mother and Tomika both looked worried. “Did you bring the shirts and towels?” I asked. Mother nodded and placed a bundle tied in a redfuroshiki on the counter. “Just put the cakes inside,” I urged. “No one will ever find out.”

Reluctantly, very surreptitiously, Mother complied, but ironically, only moments later, there was a commotion. We glanced about startled to see a hancho cuffing one of the trainees. “Beat me! Beat me!” his mother wailed. “It wasn’t my son’s fault! He didn’t ask us to bring him anything – —it’s my fault!” The cuffing wasn’t severe, but it was mortifying to all of us, especially the trainee’s family.

Sunday was the one day in the week when we were supposed to receive decent treatment. This was to have been our brief interlude, this visitors’ day in particular. A fleeting, precious moment in time when all could be serene. The hancho himself was only eighteen or nineteen with a long neck and shiny, arrogant face. He could easily have punished the recruit later. How I hated him, literally would have rejoiced to kill him.

Mother and Tomika, of course, were now greatly alarmed, implor­ing me in hushed, urgent tones to return my contraband the instant it appeared safe to do so. For an instant I wavered. Then my fear gave way to rebellion. “No! Those. . . you and Tomika made them for me, and I’m going to keep them.”

Both Mother and Tomika were still murmuring anxiously, their eyes haunted. “Let him have his sushi,” Father muttered. “They cannot hurt a Kuwahara. Let him keep them.”

The matter was settled, and soon the visiting hour was over, our women again becoming tearful. “Stop that!” Father ordered. Reach­ing across the counter, he clasped my arm. “We shall see you in a short while, once your training is over, hai?”

I nodded. “We get two day’s leave.”

“So, you see?” Father said. “He gets two day’s leave. We will all have a splendid celebration and hear of his experiences. Meanwhile, Yasuo will make the most of his opportunity. He will make us all proud of him.” His gaze coalesced with my own. “Make us proud of you, my son.”

I merely nodded, fearing that my voice might betray me. Seconds later they were leaving. Father strode out of the door without a backward glance. Mother followed, covering her mouth with one hand, but Tomika turned briefly, eyes large and limpid like those of a fawn. She waved and tried to smile, but the smile collapsed piteously. Then they were gone.

Later in the barracks, most of us relaxed on our cots, a privilege ac­corded only on Sunday, and stared at the ceiling. The visit hadn’t elevated our spirits greatly. Nakamura was hunched on the edge of his cot, chin in his hands. Strolling over, I stood eyeing him, but he failed to notice. Reluctant to intrude, I paced slowly about the room, then stopped by his cot once more. “Yai, Nakamura!” I whispered. “You like sushi cakes?”

Grinning faintly, he glanced up. “You have some too?”

I nodded. “Yes, I’ve hidden them under my blankets.”

Still grinning, he patted a spot next to him by the foot of his cot. “Me too.”

Soon we discovered that nearly everyone had received food of one kind or another—cake, candy, or cookies. Oka and Yamamoto had secreted items in their shirts and were becoming a bit boisterous. “We’ll all have a party!” Oka exclaimed. “Tonight after Shoto Rappa!” The thought filled us all with glee, and there was much hearty laughter for the first time in two weeks.

Unfortunately, our happy interlude was short lived. Upon returning from our evening meal, one held in the chow hall on Sundays, we found our beds ransacked. Several of us were whispering nervously when The Pig made an abrupt entrance.

“Oh!” Oka exclaimed. The word had escaped his lips of its own ac­cord.

“Oh?” The Pig raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean, ‘Oh’?” Gently, very disarmingly, he laid a hand on Oka’s shoulder. “Is something wrong? Something missing?”

Oka stiffened. “No, honorable hancho dono.”

“Hmmm. . . well then, I’m afraid I don’t understand.” As usual, he was relishing the situation. “Why, did you say, ‘Oh’?”

Oka stammered incoherently. “Hmmm, very strange—most mysterious.” The Pig stroked hisjowl, and began his usual pacing back and forth. “I simply don’t understand this at all. Could it be that I’m not welcome here? Come now, gentlemen—I sense a strange restraint. What, oh what, is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, honorable hancho dono,” Nakamura bravely volunteered.

“Ah so!” Suddenly The Pig whirled, jabbing his finger at the tip of Yamamoto’s nose. “Why, then, is your bed all torn up?” Yamamoto gagged. “Very curious indeed,” The Pig muttered and struck a melo­dramatic stance, one hand on his hip, the other massaging his brow. “I come here. . .” he said slowly, “hoping for a little courtesy and friendship, but instead, what do I get? Not one kind word, only coldness. I merely ask a simple, decent question, yet people barely speak to me.”

He flounced down on my cot, nearly collapsing it, gazing at me with a stricken expression. Then he buried his face in his hands, faking ridiculous sobs. “Kuwahara, what can this all mean?”

I. . . I don’t know, honorable—”

“I’m a stranger in my own family! Children! My children, don’t you even recognize your mother?” Then he reverted to his weeping. An incredible performance, and several of us laughed nervously but knew that it presaged something unpleasant.

And indeed it did. Eventually, tiring of such antics, The Pig in­formed us in a rather bored manner that we would have to be chastised for attempting to fool him. We were herded outside, and our faces were slammed against the barracks. By now most of us had learned to take much of the force with upper rounded area of our foreheads acquiring some fine bumps and bruises in the process, but it helped minimize the number of broken noses and split lips. That particular treatment, however, was only a preliminary.

Afterward, we were forced to crawl around the barracks with our combat boots tied together by the laces and dangling from our necks. In this manner we traveled down the halls to visit the hancho in their various rooms. It was much like certain college initiation ceremonies, I suppose, though a bit more harsh than most. Each man was required to knock on one of the closed doors, entering—still upon his hands and knees, to apologize.

I was one of those to have an audience with The Pig himself. As I entered he was seated under a bright light, no doubt for theatrical ef­fect, legs crossed and an arm hooked over the back of his chair. He was also smoking a large cigar. Sighing and blowing a jet of smoke toward the light bulb above, he inquired, “Aren’t you well enough fed here, Kuwahara?”

“Yes, honorable—”

“Then why did you bring food into your quarters, unhealthy food, in fact, when you knew perfectly well that it was forbidden?”

I had never considered sushi cakes unhealthy, but perhaps he was referring to our group in general. It was scarcely a point for argument under the circumstances, however. “I am sorry, honorable hancho donor Rarely had I felt more contrite. It was abundantly clear now that I had committed a grievous sin.

“Well, Kuwahara—look at me, not at the floor. I am afraid that ‘sorry’ is not adequate.” Meanwhile he kept blowing billows of rancid cigar smoke into my face. When I began to gag from the effects, he asked, “What in the world’s the matter with you? Are you ill? Do I disgust you?”

I fumbled hopelessly for a reply, but he continued. “As I was saying, Kuwahara, we wouldn’t accomplish much at this base—as a matter of fact, we’d actually lose the entire war if every man in the military could break the rules then simply say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Do you understand what I’m getting at? Or have you already forgotten my inspirational lecture last week on the virtues of obedience?”

“Yes, honorable. . . I mean no, honorable hancho dono—I have not forgotten.”

“I devoutly hope so,” he replied, rolling his eyes melodramatically. Under less threatening circumstances, in fact, his response would have seemed ludicrous. “But in view of your temporary lapse of memory, I trust that you will appreciate my need to underscore the problem in this manner.” He studied me thoughtfully, exhaling more cigar smoke. “Be­sides,” he added wearily, “I resent not being invited to the party you were planning after Shoto Rappa. I was a recruit once myself, you know.”

He then kicked me in the face nearly breaking my cheekbone and called out pleasantly, “Next, please!”

“Thank you very much, honorable hancho dono” I mumbled and crawled blindly for the door, face numb, boots swinging.