Atonement for Iwo Read online

  Hiroko had done her shopping early. By the time Masters arrived at the hotel the following morning, she had already secured half a dozen plasticized cards and a package of razor blades. It took very little time for him to learn that they could not scrape off the plastic from the test cards without causing irreparable damage to the cards themselves, and he therefore realized that he could not change the picture on Durkin’s ID card.

  “Damn,” he grunted. “Well, I’ll just have to take a chance.” He opened Colonel Durkin’s wallet to the first tab, which contained the ID card, and slipped in a small photo of himself to cover the Colonel’s picture. He closed the wallet and snapped it open again. It looked pretty good as the tab held the picture firmly in place.

  “Suppose they ask you to take the card out of the wallet?” asked Hiroko.

  “Then I start running,” said Masters, dryly. He handed her two photos of himself. “Go to Yokohama and use that charm of yours to have the name Charles Durkin printed on my picture. Look closely at the size of the lettering on Durkin’s photo, and make sure they’re the same on mine.”

  “Okay,” she said, and, characteristically, sped out of the room.

  At supper, she waited for a moment to be alone with him and said, “Tomorrow.”

  Saturday afternoon was a cloudy, humid one. Masters walked through the outer doors of the Army Post Exchange, strode up to the young Japanese girl seated behind the identification stand, then pulled out his wallet and flipped it open towards her. “Afternoon,” he said.

  She glanced at the picture, saw the likeness, and nodded. “Good afternoon, sir.” Masters walked into the PX.

  He purchased an officer’s green uniform for $48, a field officer’s cap for $19, poplin shirt, black tie, black shoes, belt, socks, Lieutenant Colonel’s leaves, a number of decoration ribbons, a combat infantryman’s badge with star, and, after a moment’s deliberation, General Staff Officers’ insignia.

  At the hotel, it took half an hour to affix the ribbons and brass to the jacket, then he put on the uniform and looked at himself in the mirror. It was a good fit.

  It made him feel taller and more powerful, but it also made him feel a little ashamed, as if he were disgracing it. He changed back to his street clothes, packed the uniform in his suitcase, and went down to the desk. The clerk glanced at the bag. “Keep my room for me,” said Masters paying him two weeks’ rent in advance. “I’ll be visiting a little, and coming back from time to time.” The clerk smiled and bowed.

  He drove to a larger hotel, registered under his own name, and in the room he put on the uniform. Then, as a Lieutenant Colonel, General Staff, he went downstairs and into the street. He walked around for an hour, ill at ease in his false attire, returning the salutes of officers and soldiers he met from time to time. The lesser ranks called out a cheery “Good afternoon, sir”, and when he met a full Colonel, he saluted and said, “Good afternoon, sir”, and the Colonel saluted, nodding his head in reply.

  Masters returned to his room, mussed up the bed and the bathroom, then donned his civilian clothes and drove to Kimiko’s.

  For the next four days he followed a strict routine. At ten each morning, he met Hiroko at the small hotel to discuss plans, at eleven he was at the new hotel where he changed into uniform and walked the streets. At three in the afternoon he returned to disarrange the bed and bathroom, and at eight in the evening he left in civilian clothes to return home.

  He hoped his movements were sly enough to allay any possible suspicions of the hotel employees. It also gave him the opportunity of breaking in the uniform and feeling more at ease in it.

  Throughout all this, Kimiko was unbelievably patient, not asking a single question or attempting to find out what was happening. It was obvious that Masters was up to something, for his disappearances during the daytime were brought to her attention by the servant, who was promptly rewarded with a sharp rebuke. His nonappearances at the store for lunch were a similar wrench at her heart, and his arrival home after eight-thirty each evening was an added factor to her uncertainty. But she said nothing, suppressed all questions inside her, and fought with them when they reared up to tear at her mind.

  She also sensed the unease of the man in the night. He was as tender and fulfilling as he had been the night of their first union, and although both of them had withdrawn part of themselves into secret alcoves, they brought physical contentment to each other by their eager desire to give instead of receive. But he was restless in his sleep.

  Masters in turn, felt a remorse which weighed heavily upon him. Often he was tempted to tell Kimiko the facts, for he was aware of the battering their relationship was taking. But he held back, for he could not bring himself to involve her in the criminal action being planned, nor subject her to the false hopes which had such little chance of being realized.

  Then one morning, when he met Hiroko in the small hotel room, he eyed her closely. “Friday,” he said simply.

  She sat cross-legged on the bed and looked at him. “Will whatever you are planning to do be dangerous?”

  His laugh was a sharp bark. “Are you kidding?”

  She took a deep breath. “Is there any risk of you being killed?”

  He shrugged. “There could be. If a guy hid from everything which could kill him, he’d have to keep off the streets and out of bath tubs.”

  “I’m calling off the truce, Keith,” she stated quietly.

  “For Christ’s sake, Hiroko, I’ve got enough on my mind without you fooling around again. Leave everything alone until this is over. I may not even get to first base on this try.”

  She shook her head. “Stop arguing for a minute, Keith, and listen to me carefully. We’ve gone over all there is to discuss about you and mother and me. But this is something else. I want you to make love to me before Friday. And I hope I have your child because of it.”

  His face darkened and she could see the rage building up. She held out her hand, imploringly, and he controlled his temper. “I want us to make love for ourselves this time. I’ve come here morning after morning, and every time I’ve climbed the stairs and opened the door and walked into this room, I’ve felt my stomach turn over from wanting you so badly. I want you to be with me once - just one time. Then no matter what happens, whether you’re killed or die or live forever with mother, I can remember that I’ve had the touch of you.

  “Keith, please, it’s not some foolish thing I’m asking of you. It’s truly important to me. You’ve probably had enough women in your life to fill a room. What’s so important about one more girl, especially if it means so much to her?”

  He stared at her and understanding came into his eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her. She clung to him, and slowly they sank down on the bed. She pressed her body against his and he felt the fire building up inside her. He forced himself to draw his lips away, then rested his face upon her cheek. “Can you hear me, Hiroko?” he asked.

  Her body stilled its movements against him. “Yes, Keith.”

  “Then listen to me and try to understand me as I’ve finally understood you. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you, and a couple of dozen times since, and even more so right here and now. If I sound like some goddamn virgin afraid of getting into trouble, it must be because there is a really important reason. When I told you the first time you came to this hotel that your mother was my last chance, I don’t think you understood.

  “A little over a year ago I almost died. I had almost died a number of times before then, but this was the first time I couldn’t fight back. It gave me a chance to take the first frank look at forty-five years of living - or what I called living. In my thoughts were a string of bars and women and wild times. They all added up to zero. Even a son who hated the thought of me. I also thought of your father.”

  He felt her tense. “I took out the picture and the card I brought your mother, and I looked at them over and over again, and somehow I felt even more certain that every year of my life had been wasted - and
that I had wasted a helluva lot of other, innocent people’s lives. If my ex-¬wife hadn’t hated me beyond all hope, or if my son didn’t despise me as much, I am convinced that I would have started working like a son-of-a-bitch right then and there to make things a little more right for them. In all these crummy forty-five years, I hadn’t accumulated one friend I could turn to - to give a little bit of myself. The picture of your father and mother, and you and Ichiro, was my last chance to try to win back something from all those years. Maybe I was seeking atonement, an expiation for all this waste.”

  He drew back his head so he could look at her. She was lying open-eyed, listening closely. “I don’t know why I came to Japan, or what I intended to do when I got here. A Japanese teacher in Chicago told me that your name was that of a peasant, and in the back of my mind I pictured you people as backwoods farmers without enough money to live on. I thought that giving you part of my three hundred dollars each month would ease the loss I felt, would dispel the desperate fear of dying without having once done something good for someone.

  “It didn’t work out that way. After seeing your house and learning that your mother owned those stores, I realized that the few bucks I could give were unnecessary. Then I eyed your mother, and right away the forty-five years of absolute rottenness came back out. I decided to give her a little bedroom joy to carry her over the hump of being without a man for twenty years. And, believe me, I also considered the idea of pushing you down on a bed if the opportunity presented itself. Maybe it was chagrin. I don’t know. But I do know that I had decided to play around and then hit the trail.

  “Your mother took me to your grandparents, and on the way back I became aware of the fact that perhaps I could help. It made me feel like an ex-drunkard who was about to take a shot again, suddenly finding a more important reason not to drink any more. It restored my determination to make amends.

  “Then, when we visited the temple, I got the shock of my life; I found myself in love with your mother. I had been a little bit in love with her before, like the guy who is going to sleep with a strange woman and kids himself into believing it’s going to be a big deal, but at the temple I fell absolutely in love, and I knew that if I could prove how I felt, I could die ten minutes afterwards and that everything would not have been wasted.

  “Ichiro is my second hope. I wouldn’t give two bits for the chance of success, nor for me still being alive after the effort. But I’ve got to go to the wire or I am guilty of waste again.

  “Now you, Hiroko, whom I love as a woman. It would be the easiest thing in the world to take you from here, to run far away and enjoy the wonderful days I could have with you. But then, I would be wasting everything again - your mother, Ichiro, even you. Our few months or years together would reopen the wounds, because I would still be taking, always taking, not giving.

  “Then there’s the most important thing. I want your mother’s love more than I want you, or Ichiro’s life, or even my own.”

  He stopped talking and turned on his back - and he suddenly knew he had finally reached the point which gave meaning to his crummy forty-five years.

  Hiroko lay quietly beside him, then raised her head to rest it on his shoulder, and her arm went around him. Idly she stroked his chest, his throat and cheek. Suddenly she rose to her knees and kissed him. “All right, Keith,” she said. “You and mother, you can both count on me.” Then she was off the bed, had slipped into her shoes and was out of the room.

  Masters watched her leave. She’s made it, he thought. She’s made it all the way. That makes two, Kimiko and her. He got up from the bed, feeling the weariness deep inside him, and his mind turned towards the third one. Today was Wednesday; there wasn’t very much time.

  Masters phoned Colonel Bill Wilson at his office from the second hotel. “Hello, Bill,” he said. “Got a few minutes?”

  “Hi, Keith. Thought you would ring me before now. When are we getting together again?”

  “I’ve been working like a madman on that book. Almost have the title picked out for it.”

  Bill chuckled. “I get the first copy, hear?”

  “Okay. The trouble is that I may have to join the goddamn army to find out what’s going on these days. Bill, this is a nutty question, but what the hell is this FASCOM jazz?”

  “That’s the new Field Army Support Command. They’ve taken most of the combat service support units, supply, transportation, medics, and a gang of others, and lumped them under a new headquarters. It’s supposed to tighten jurisdictional control, leave the combat troops unburdened to do the fighting, and make support more efficient. No more moon-light requisitioning - you get what you should without having to trade underwear for paint.”

  “Do you have the breakdown of the command and staff?”

  “Yeah, it’s around somewhere. I’ll look it up and have it for you in an hour or so.”

  Masters spoke very distinctly. “I have to dash off in a few minutes. My shack-up girl is taking me to the boondocks for a couple of days. I’ll be back Friday afternoon, between one and three.” His voice became more casual. “Will you be at your office?”

  “Sure, I’m a working man.”

  “Bill, I’m working on the chapter which takes in some of that FASCOM jazz, so if you would please have it ready when I call Friday, I’d be much obliged. The trouble is that I’ll be leaving again right afterwards. Are you sure you’ll be there?”

  “Boy, you writers. All you do is dash off for pussy, get a couple of facts, then off again for pussy. Yeah, I’ll make a point of being here, no matter what.”

  “Thanks, Bill. I’ll arrange that we get together next week.”

  “Okay. Hey, she got a friend?”

  “What size and color?”

  “Anything who doesn’t resemble my wife.”

  “You mean anyone. Didn’t they teach you English in the army?”

  “I mean anything, you wild bastard. Let me know what you can dig up.”

  “Okay. So long.”

  There was still one more thing to be done, and it turned out to be the most difficult so far. In his Colonel’s uniform he visited three sporting goods shops and attempted to purchase two handguns. It was a shock to learn he would require a police permit. In desperation he turned to pawnshops, with even less success, for none of them dealt with handguns. One pawnshop owner suggested that he check out gunsmiths, and after an afternoon of rushing frantically from place to place by taxi, he found exactly what he wanted - two slender pistols at three times their value, but with no strings attached. He bought a box of cartridges, and back in his hotel room he familiarized himself with the guns, then locked them away in his suitcase.

  At supper, Hiroko brought up the last part of the plan. “Mother,” she said. “I’m taking off work for a few days. A couple of the girls in the office want to go to the mountains, and asked if I could drive them. May I use the car?”

  “Of course,” Kimiko replied, glad that the girl could divert her mind from the relentlessly approaching date that faced Ichiro. “When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow, right after breakfast.”

  Kimiko nodded in agreement, then turned to Masters. “There is an old Japanese show on television Saturday night,” she said shyly. “Would you like to see it with me?”

  “Sure,” he replied quickly.

  Kimiko paused. “It begins early though, at seven-thirty.”

  He understood her hesitation, for he always arrived home later. “Okay,” he said. He brought the bowl of rice to his lips and levered some in with the sticks to hide the wistful expression which he feared might show on his face.

  CHAPTER 11

  Hiroko was a few minutes late the following morning. He could hear her trotting up the staircase to his room in the hotel. “Sorry,” she said, as he held the door open for her to enter. “I had trouble finding a parking place.”

  “Do you have the pictures?” asked Masters.

  “Yes, and they’re very good.” She handed him an
envelope. Masters opened it and spread a number of photos upon the bed. He leaned over to study them. Hiroko, as usual, slipped out of her shoes and stepped on the bed to look from the opposite side.

  “These are the best,” she said, pointing at two of them.

  “Yes, they’re excellent. You’ve gotten some good shots.”

  “I was there all afternoon before I got exactly what you wanted.”

  Masters picked up the two photos she had indicated. The first was of a slim American soldier coming out of the Post Exchange. By his side was a Japanese girl carrying a paper bag. The second photo was a blow-up of the soldier’s face. Both pictures were slightly fuzzy, as if the range setting had not been properly adjusted, but they would be clear enough to someone who knew the people well. Masters studied several photos of other soldiers with Japanese girls coming out of the PX, and concluded that the ones chosen by Hiroko were the best.

  “I’ll use these,” he said, placing the two pictures in his pocket. He handed the remainder to her. “Destroy them as soon as you can.” He looked at her trim figure dressed in a light, wool dress. “Where are your gloves?”

  “In my purse. Want to see them?”

  “No, I’ll take your word for it. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes.”

  They walked out of the hotel and got into Kimiko’s Datsun, then she drove him to a nearby car rental agency. In half-an-hour he came out in a small Nissan. Hiroko was waiting a block away, and led him through the city to the highway traversing the island to the west coast. They drove steadily in separate cars for a couple of hours, then slowed down and turned off the road into a woods. Hiroko took out a hamper of food and prepared a picnic among the trees.

  “Are you going to stay in Japan afterwards?” she asked him.

  Masters stopped chewing the chicken sandwich. “If I’m still alive, and can get a job.” He knew that he was just making conversation.

  “What do you want to work for? Mother has plenty of money.”