Drexel laughed, his wide pink mouth turned up, amused, and held his hands up. “They all start off like this, but they change quickly,” he whispered. He pointed across the living room to a bathroom and Emi hurried over.
As she took off her layer of wet clothes, pushing them into the bag she’d brought to hide food in, she looked in the mirror and shook her head at her reflection. His hand on her back, the uninvited touch—she couldn’t help but think of the day behind Leo’s house, Kirsten and her Hitlerjugend pin, the boys who had stripped her of her dignity between bouts of untroubled laughter. Emi had spent the years since pushing away any thoughts that might remind her of that day, that would set off the memory. She had succeeded in turning it into a distant nightmare, one that she refused to let occupy her mind or body, but Drexel’s hand on her had allowed the winter of 1938 to march right back in.
Abruptly, she wiped off the red lipstick she had applied with precision at the Moris’. She should not have said yes to an offer like Drexel’s until she or her hosts were on the brink of starvation.
“Fool,” she muttered as she splashed water on her face. “Stupid, ignorant fool.”
When Emi emerged from the bathroom, she was in her figure-hugging wool dress and heeled shoes. Drexel eyed her, but she moved aside before he could touch her again.
His hand hovering near her slender hips, encased in the red fabric, he led her to the Mampei Hotel’s piano and said, “Sit now and play. Keep playing until I tell you to stop.”
He stayed close to her as she sat on the bench, adjusting it, then reached down and placed her hands on the keys, pushing them down forcefully.
“Play,” he said loudly, breathing in her ear. “Play now.”
She nodded yes, and when he finally left her, she let out a deep breath and started Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” She had played just a few bars when Drexel rushed back and slammed his fist on top of the piano, causing heads to turn.
“Nothing French!” he bellowed, his other fist pushing down on her fingers again. “Beethoven! Brahms! Bach! Schumann! I think Germany has produced enough composers to keep you busy. And don’t even consider the jude Mendelssohn.”
Emi apologized and switched to Brahms, her arms shaking.
When Drexel had moved across the room, she dared to look about, noticing that there were still very few guests, but those in her line of sight were grouped about drinking. Alcohol was hard to come by across the country, because of the scarcity of rice, but the Germans had surmounted the problem. The smell of sake being heated in the kitchen—floral but with a distinct dryness—was wafting through the house like a forgotten perfume.
As she inhaled, she noticed that more Japanese guests arrived, and almost missed a note when she realized that many of the men coming in were Kempeitai. They were a branch of the army police who sought out spies and kept Japan under draconian order, but Emi hadn’t glimpsed any in Tokyo when she’d arrived. She’d seen them back in the thirties as they’d been active in the occupation of Manchuria, and knew they were deployed all over the country now, especially where there were large foreign populations, but seeing them uniformed and en masse stopped her breath.
Our very own SS, thought Emi as she watched the Kempeitai in the room, in their olive green uniforms with tight black collars, armbands with Ken and Hei kanji—law and soldier—and polished knee-high boots. Though they were stone-faced, their body language betrayed their expressions, as they seemed happy to be attending a party rather than hunting out those deemed “undesirables.”
“They are staying at the Mikasa Hotel, a pretty structure in the shadow of Mount Asama. But they’re in town, and here in the forest, all the time. They came and questioned us once,” Jiro had said when he was telling Emi about Karuizawa—and who she should avoid—on the day she arrived. “Because I spent so much time in America as a diplomat,” he’d explained before she could ask why. “Mostly they just spy on the foreigners, but they have deemed me, and a few other Japanese, worthy of their time as well. If they knock on the door and you are home alone, slip out the back and hide in the woods. But sometimes,” he said, clearing his throat, “they don’t bother to knock.”
When the room had filled up with warm, hungry bodies, the food was brought out from the kitchen and set on a large, Western-style table. Emi tried not to turn her head as Japanese women brought out serving trays, but she knew she wouldn’t see such a feast for a long time.
After the guests had helped themselves to a first and second serving, Emi was allowed to follow. She filled a plate with ham and potatoes—real potatoes, with salt—cooked vegetables, and thick slices of brown German bread with soft, flour-dusted crusts. She slathered a slice with butter and held it up to her nose—it smelled like warm salt and fat—before taking large bites of it, biting again before she’d swallowed any, the butter melting on the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t suffering from starvation or malnutrition yet, but having well-cooked, fattening food in her mouth made her realize how hungry, how desperate for flavors, she was.
“The ham is exceptional,” she heard the girl who opened the front door say to Drexel as the guests all did the round of the table again, never moving very far away from the food. She was allowing him to have his hands on her back and elsewhere. “I thought it was only tuna fish in tin cans that came on the last boat.”
“It was,” said Drexel. “A disgrace. But you know we have our ways. The German military has been in this town long enough to know how to enjoy life here. We are not going to let our women starve, are we?”
“No,” said the girl, helping herself to even more ham. “But there aren’t many German women here now. We will see how generous you are when hundreds more come this year.”
“We will be as generous as always,” said Drexel, putting his arm around her. Noticing Emi watching them, he motioned for her to go back to the piano, but before she did, she helped herself to one more plate of food—ham, chicken, different kinds of cheeses, fried bread dipped in cream sauce, carrot soup, and mashed potatoes.
When she was finished, she brought her plate to the kitchen, which was staffed with a half-dozen Japanese girls.
She handed her plate to one of them, and then looking to see that Drexel was still occupied, asked about the food. “How do they have this much to eat?” she asked, very curious about Drexel and the girl’s conversation. “I heard about the bread, but this is so much more.”
“I don’t know,” said the girl, not looking at Emi. “But they always seem to have this much. When I work for them, they let me eat some if there’s a lot of fat on a slice of ham or if the bread falls in the oven.”
Emi nodded politely and went back to the piano, where she stayed until well past midnight, when there were only ten guests left at the party, all so drunk that they looked near falling over or falling asleep.