She reached down for another bite of fish and checked to make sure that Jiro was finishing his meal. He had been complaining about sharp stomach pains and she was worried that they might prevent him from eating even their scant portions.
“Japan has changed dramatically,” said Jiro, who still had fish on his plate. “I will speak frankly with you because Yuka is out of the house and your father told me that he always tells you the truth.” He put down his bowl of rice, his hands unsteady, and said, “Japan is going to lose this war. I’m sure of it, your father is sure, and I think the leaders of the Japanese Navy are, too. It’s just the Imperial Army that keeps the propaganda machine running. They were the ones so desperate to enter the war and now they refuse to end it.”
“Lose the war?” Emi said, shocked that Jiro would dare voice such an opinion.
Her pulse picked up. Her country, the country she was in, was going to lose the war. What would it take for that to occur? How much devastation? And what would happen after? “But why can’t rational men—men like you—use their influence?” asked Emi. She suddenly felt like her nervous system was under attack, her body begging her to escape her dire circumstances. She knew her father had his doubts about the war but it was the first time she had ever heard anyone declare so assuredly that Japan would lose. Emi always thought that despite it being a terrible conflict, and her disagreeing wholeheartedly with her country’s alliance with Nazi Germany, that somehow Japan would prevail. Because that was what Japan taught her to believe.
“Not this time,” said Jiro, asking Emi to put another three briquettes of coal in the fire. “Any government or military man who has spent significant time in America knows that we shouldn’t have entered to begin with. But now that we have both feet in the conflict, both feet are going to be shot off.”
“My father is frank with me,” said Emi, the conversation and her hunger unsettling her greatly. “But never like this.”
“I apologize,” said Jiro. “Perhaps it’s my age, that I have been out of the service for so long, or that I am just very frustrated with Japan. The way they are forcing the citizens to be grateful that we are at war, convincing them that they should give their lives, their sons’ lives—it’s an indoctrination from the highest level. The newspapers only report on battles won, never lost, and we are all expected to believe them.”
“But like you said,” Emi replied, wiping her charcoal-stained hands on her thick pants, “if there are men against it—who know we will lose—men who still hold important government positions, can’t they exercise some influence and end the war now?”
“Men have been trying since the beginning,” said Jiro, his voice laced with frustration. “Admiral Yamamoto, the commander of the navy, whom I admired very much, he tried. He was against it from the start, before Japan entered the conflict, but Yamamoto died last year, shot down by the Americans over Bougainville. They were desperate for his head.”
“Isoroku Yamamoto?” Emi asked, saying his famous name slowly. She’d heard many stories about him from her father. “But wasn’t he integral in the bombing of Pearl Harbor?” she asked. “I remember my father saying so when we were still interned in America. He used to tell me quite a lot then, in the confines of the hotel—though I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to. I think he just liked that I was interested in the diplomacy behind the tragedies.”
“Yes, Yamamoto was,” said Jiro, moving his chair closer to the stove, which was already emitting the last of its heat. “But only because his superiors had already decided on war. He said that a prolonged war would mean defeat for Japan, and he was right. I don’t know when this war will end, but I know that when it does, we will have been defeated. The army has blinders on, and they have ensured that most citizens do, too. I suppose they had to, to keep the country from rebellion and chaos, but it’s unfair. America is too big a country, with unlimited resources, and too powerful a military. We are outmatched.”
“Still,” said Emi, loathing the fear that was taking her over, “I don’t see how you can admire the mastermind behind Pearl Harbor. Especially liking America as you do.”
“Emiko, you’re not understanding,” said Jiro patiently. “He was very much against war, but once he had no choice, then he did his job. In 1940, Yamamoto was adamantly opposed to the Tripartite Pact. That should earn your respect, no?”
“Yes,” said Emi. “I may have some disdain for the Americans after being locked up, but I—as my parents seem to have told you—hate Nazi Germany much more.”
It was then when Emi noticed that Jiro’s usually spare face looked swollen, and by mid-March it was so swollen that Yuka insisted he stay in the living room, never moving far from his thick futon.
“If you don’t mind,” said Emi, stopping Yuka as she came into the hallway after checking on her husband, “I think Jiro-san is suffering from malnutrition.” Yuka, a stoic woman, didn’t change her expression as Emi continued. “I worked as a nurse’s aide when we were interned in America and it was something we treated. A swollen face,” said Emi. “It’s not a good sign. It means the malnutrition is advanced. Rest is good,” she said assuring Yuka, whose body had grown rigid, “but he needs food. Real, nutritious food. Rice is not enough.”
“I will give him mine,” whispered Yuka, her frail body, like her husband’s, wrapped in homespun wool. “Whatever I can give. I’ll be the one to subsist on rice.”
“No,” said Emi, knowing how weak Yuka herself had become. “That’s not the solution.”
The following morning, with Jiro’s health and their need for sustenance on her mind, Emi went into town looking for either Claire Ohkawa or Evgeni and Ayumi. They had, in just two months’ time, become her lifeline in Karuizawa.
Walking to the machi at 9 A.M., Emi wasn’t surprised when she saw Evgeni by the road. He had taken to sitting outside his shop, even in the still dangerously cold weather.
“Outside again?” asked Emi when she’d reached him.
“I have a theory that perhaps if people see me, they might remember that my shop is here,” said Evgeni in his fluent Japanese. “That they might want to buy something.” The town’s housewives milled around the main street, not coming anywhere near the shop as Evgeni tried to make eye contact with them.
“What are you selling today?” asked Emi, who knew that the inventory of Evgeni’s shop changed according to what was available for him to sell.
“I have metal buckets, men’s shoes, hibachi, and monpe, of course,” he said. “Kazuko Takahashi makes the monpe for me. She lives alone in the hills, near Mount Asama, so you wouldn’t have met her yet. Her husband is in the Philippines and her two sons also in the fight. I make the journey up the hills every few weeks to pick up what I can. It’s hard to live here, but it’s harder to live up there alone.”