The air on the deck was deliciously fresh and the midmorning sun made her blink and rub her eyes. All around her crewmen cheered and waved their caps as they pointed to the south. Meiko squinted into the light and saw nothing at first…
...and then she spotted them. Dark specks above the horizon, coming in fast. They straggled in alone and in small groups, many with sputtering engines starving for gas. As she watched, a Zero's engine died in the air as it waited to land and the pilot had to ditch it in the swells near the carrier. She was relieved to see him jump from the cockpit and swim toward the lifelines that were quickly thrown overboard. He wasn't Matsuo.
As each plane hit the deck and rolled to a stop, a cheer rang out from the crewmen as they rushed to push it out of the way of the next arrival. And as the jubilant pilots jumped out of their cockpits and down to the deck, they were surrounded and quizzed on their exploits.
But where was Matsuo? She didn't see him among the returning pilots. Her chest constricted. Had he been hurt? Shot down?
She watched a two-seater land—a bomber, she thought—and then a lone fighter came in, its engine coughing and sputtering. As it rolled to a stop, she waited anxiously to see the pilot's face as he sat motionless in the cockpit. Finally he stepped out on the wing and jumped down to the deck. He brushed off the well-wishers who crowded around and moved hurriedly in her general direction.
She saw now that it was Matsuo, but his face was so pale and strained she barely recognized him. She was sure he didn't see her. As she watched, he went to the railing, leaned over, and vomited. And when he was through, she saw him fold his arms on the railing and press his forehead down against them.
She waited. Eventually, he seemed to sense her presence. He looked up and she saw his tortured eyes.
"Meiko," he said in a rasping voice. "What have we done? "What have I done?"
She held out her arms and he almost fell into them. His grip was so tight she could barely breathe. But she said nothing. The old Matsuo—her Matsuo—was back, and although nothing was ever going to be the same again, everything was going to be all right.
PART FIVE
1942-1943
1942
THE YEAR OF THE HORSE
JANUARY
TOKYO
Meiko huddled with her parents around the kotatsu. Winter was settling in. Thought the house was cold, but the three of them drank tea and laughed as they warmed their feet.
Meiko would not have cared if there had been icicles on her nose. She felt so good being back home. All through the journey, she had feared she might not even be allowed through the door.
She had had no doubt that her mother would welcome her back with open arms. But Father… she had been prepared for a cool, even cold reception, or no reception at all, a blank wall.
The tension and longing within her had risen to an almost unbearable level with every passing league as the victorious Strike Force brought her closer and closer to home. Matsuo had been a great help, reassuring her and building up her self-esteem. She had allowed him into her cabin after the mission, and eventually into her bed where they made love again after four and a half years.
At first, it hadn't been the same. Despite the warmth, there had been desperation, and the awful specter of Frank Slater spiked to that tree, with the infinite hurt in his eyes. But across the days of their journey, they had been able to renew the bond that had joined them since adolescence.
She had spent her first few days back in Tokyo in Matsuo's apartment while she waited for word as to whether her father would accept her back into his home. She met Matsuo's friend Shigeo whose jubilation over the success of the raid was uncontained.
She need never have worried. Her father folded her in his arms and wept with joy. To him, she had returned from the dead.
Of all the many changes, the biggest had been in her father. He was grayer, he walked with less of a limp and less of a droop to the right side of his mouth, but Meiko sensed a real change within. Where he used to talk incessantly of politics, he no longer even mentioned the subject despite the almost hysterical euphoria sweeping the country in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack and the ensuing cluster of victories against British, Dutch, and American forces. Instead, he concentrated on family matters.
With the feeling around the kotatsu so warm and easy, Meiko decided that now was the best time to make her announcement.
"Matsuo and I are going to be married."
She saw her mother lower her eyes and her father avert his.
"I expected this," he said.
"I pray you do not oppose it."
"Matsuo is a fine man and a clansman. But I must confess that I had hoped to have nothing more to do with the Okumo family, I am glad for you."
Meiko understood. As much as Father wanted to see her married, the baron, Hiroki, and especially Matsuo, were all painful reminders of her indiscretion. He wanted all that behind them. But she was also sure that he was painfully aware that his only daughter was all but unmarriable now. She had been the wife of an American—she had revealed that during her first week home. But he could not know how that had changed her. After experiencing the equality and independence of the American woman, how could she ever assume the role of the meek, subservient, three-steps-behind Japanese wife? She was a misfit now, suitable for marriage only to another misfit.
"We will be happy," she said.
"You will have to face Hiroki. It is inevitable—they are brothers."
"I will not see Hiroki unless I wish to," she said with what she hoped was enough bravado to hide her sudden nausea. "Matsuo has promised: If Hiroki must be seen, Matsuo will see him. In fact, they are together now."
* * *
This is too much to bear, Hiroki thought.
He gripped the underside of his desk in his office on Sanno Hill and stared at his brother seated across from him. The rage within was like a living thing, fighting to burst from his skin and launch itself at Matsuo.
But he contained it. He did not shout, he did not raise his voice. He barely frowned.
"Isn't it interesting, brother," he said in a voice of icy calm, "that you should ‘accidentally' find this woman in Hawaii? Even more interesting that you should bend Imperial Navy transportation and personnel to your personal use to bring her back to Japan."
He noted with satisfaction how Matsuo stiffened at the suggestion of malfeasance.
Ah, my brother, I can still read you like my first ideogram.
"She had access to invaluable intelligence. She brought it with her."
"So I have heard. You knew her very presence in Japan would be a source of constant insult to me."
Matsuo's presence had been a source of irritation and embarrassment through the years but knowing Meiko was dead, food for the scavengers of the sea bottom, had made that bearable. Now…
"Yet you did not hesitate to bring her back. And as if that were not enough, you now tell me that you intend to marry her. Is there no end to the loss of face I must endure? Must I suffer not only her presence in Tokyo, but her marriage to my brother as well?"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but it changes nothing."
Hiroki felt his control begin to slip. "How am I to endure this stab in the back from my own brother? Certainly I shall never recognize that queen of whores as my sister-in-law."
Hiroki immediately regretted his words as he saw the change in his brother's features. Matsuo's normally soft brown turned cold and stony; Hiroki could almost feel them flicking over his body, planning where to strike the killing blow. He saw murder in Matsuo's face, and it sent a quake of terror to Hiroki's very core.
"You will never speak of her that way again," he said in a low, flat, menacing tone. "Is that understood? Never!" Before Hiroki could answer, Matsuo went on. "And on the subject of stabs in the back, that is what the Americans are calling our attack on Pearl Harbor."
Hiroki was relieved at the sudden change of subject. He leapt upon it. "The delay in delivering the Four
teen Part Message was purely clerical. There was difficulty in preparing a properly legible transcription and, consequently, the message was delivered late. A mistake. Purely unintentional."
But most fortuitous. Truly the gods work with the Order.
"The world does not know that. The message was delivered while the attack was in progress. Japan is seen as a craven cowardly nation." Matsuo's eyes clouded as he spoke. "We attacked sleeping men who believed they were at peace with the world. We have lost face as a nation. I am ashamed."
"I am not." Hiroki relaxed into the blasé exterior he had cultivated over the years. "It was unfortunate, but it is over and done with. Besides, it allowed us an unprecedented victory: We've dealt a deathblow to their Pacific Fleet at negligible cost to us."
"They're not dead yet. Did you hear that hypocrite, Roosevelt? He called the raid ‘unprovoked' when he knows full well that he did everything in his power to push us toward war. Even the isolationists who used to be against him are on his side now. I had hoped that they would obstruct any war legislation, but even they are shouting for Japanese blood."
"Let them," Hiroki said with a laugh. "Our Navy is invincible. Nothing can stand before it. In less than a month we have taken Guam, Wake, and Hong Kong. We have a hundred thousand men on the Malay Peninsula. Manila is ours and we have squeezed General MacArthur onto the Bataan peninsula where we will crush him. In a few weeks we will move on Burma and Borneo. Nothing stands in our way. We control the sea from Africa to Midway."
"For how long?"
"For as long as we wish."
"I fear not. The Germans are stalled outside Moscow. Fighting has ceased all along the Eastern Front while they are in winter quarters. Britain gets a reprieve while the Germans bolster their forces in Russia; that in turn allows America to concentrate her energies on her hated enemy in the Pacific: Japan."
"Let them come. Pearl Harbor was but a taste of what we can do to them. If they want a full serving, they have but to ask. We will drive the British and the Dutch and the Americans out of the Orient, and we will keep them out. Forever!"
Matsuo stared at him in silence, slowly shaking his head. "You have no idea of what we are up against here, do you?"
I know how the war will end, Hiroki thought.
Japan housed so many fearful types like Matsuo, especially in the diet. If only he could share his knowledge of the Seers' visions. If they all knew what he knew, there would be not a single faint heart in the Empire.
Hiroki saw no point in debating the matter any further. He stood—a signal for Matsuo to leave.
"And now I must get back to my scheduled appointments."
"Of course." Matsuo rose and bowed. "I've already taken up too much of your valuable time." He left without another word.
Hiroki remained standing at his desk after his brother was gone. He did have appointments, but all he could think of was Meiko and how she had looked the last time he had seen her… naked... lying next to his brother on the floor of the garden cottage…
A wave of desire swept over him. He had put her out of his mind almost completely, had nearly forgotten she had ever existed, and then the shock of hearing she had returned. Why had the gods allowed her to come back? Why was she even alive?
Alive… how he would love to change that, to beat her senseless, slowly, methodically, to take her and throttle the life from her as he poured himself into her.
And even then, would that be enough?
He shuddered. He had a new girl in Yoshiwara, one who made Yukiko look tame by comparison. There would be blood tonight, to help wash Meiko from his mind.
For he had too many responsibilities, too many crucial decisions waiting to be made, too many people clamoring for his attention to allow a mere woman to occupy his thoughts.
As Minister of Military and Economic Coordination, he knew he held a position unique in the history of Japan. The pressure of the responsibilities was enormous, but the power… Hiroki doubted that even the greatest of the Tokugawa shoguns had wielded a tenth of the power he now held.
The zaibatsu, great and small, were after him daily for permission to set up branches and businesses in the captured territories, and for first crack at Borneo, Burma, Rangoon, and the Philippines when they fell. In consultation with Shimazu, he coordinated their industrial efforts with troop advances and with available labor supplies. They were relentless in their greedy attempts to be first in line to scoop up and exploit the newly conquered resources. They never left him alone. The calls, the messages, the gifts, the invitations to dinner, to geisha houses… the pressure was enormous. So was the responsibility. Securing Japan's prominence in the world was, after all, what the war was all about, and he was at the heart of it. He could not let some pathetic female interfere.
And yet even as he pressed the buzzer to signal his secretary to send in his next scheduled appointment, he saw Meiko again… naked... lying next to Matsuo…
FEBRUARY
Meiko took a token sip of the third cup of sake and put it down. The baishakunin, maiden of the shrine, removed the cups. Meiko raised her head and saw Matsuo gazing at her with glowing eyes. She knew she was beautiful in her ornate headdress and bright red silk wedding kimono.
They turned and faced their families. Her mother and father were there, pleasant-faced but not smiling. She sensed how they were inhibited by the presence of the grim-faced Baron Okumo. At least Hiroki was not here. But then, he had not been asked. Shigeo and other friends from Naval Intelligence were all around, beaming at them.
With the traditional Shinto ceremony now over, the baron extended them perfunctory good wishes, then departed. As she and Matsuo walked out under the shrine's vermilion torii and slipped into their chauffeur-driven car, she wondered at how differently things were progressing. Had this been five years ago and she was marrying Hiroki, she would be heading toward a large, elaborate marital banquet with hundreds of friends and relatives, during which she would change her clothes numerous times to show herself off. Today the traditional banquet would be limited to family and their few friends in a small private room in a restaurant in Chiyoda-ku.
Meiko leaned against Matsuo and didn't care. A tribunal had ruled that her marriage to Frank in Hawaii had no legal standing in Japan and that she was free to marry whoever would have her. And now they were man and wife, just as they had always hoped. She closed her eyes for a moment and floated on the bliss of a cherished dream come true.
"Matsuo," she said after a moment. She had something to tell him. Now, alone in the back of a chauffeured car, seemed as good a time as any. "We've never really discussed it, but do you want children soon, or should we try to wait?"
"I want them as soon as you want to have them," he said with a smile. "How about you?"
"I don't think I have much choice anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that sometime this summer you will become a father."
She watched his eyes widen and his jaw drop.
"You mean you… us … we …?"
She nodded, praying he would smile or laugh or take her in his arms. He did all three.
"Are you sure?" he said as he held her.
"Of course. A mother knows these things."
Mother… she was going to be a mother. Such a strange way to think of herself. She had always pictured herself with children, and now it was coming to pass. She had never been pregnant before but she felt different. And she had all the signs—the tender breasts, the morning nausea. No doubt about it: she was pregnant.
"This is wonderful. But when did it happen?"
"Aboard the Agaki."
Matsuo beamed. "My son was conceived at sea."
"What makes you so sure it's a boy?"
"A father knows these things. When does he arrive?"
"Sometime in September."
He hugged her close. "What a sailor he'll be."
Meiko reveled in his joy but thought, what matter whether the child was conceived on land or on sea
or in the air, he would be a symbol of their love, someone to cherish all their lives.
They kissed.
APRIL
Matsuo stared out the window at the blossoming cherry trees dotting the streets and clustering in the parks around Sanno Hill. Like the blue-smocked clerks and government office workers wandering the walkways on their lunch hour, he tried to draw tranquillity from nature's beauty. But try as he might, he failed. With the reports he had been hearing from the field, he wondered if he would ever find true tranquillity again.
He turned from the window and lit another cigarette. He had been waiting here in Hiroki's office for nearly two hours now and his patience was gone. Hiroki had made himself almost inaccessible in the past few months—the only one in all Japan less accessible was the Emperor himself. The meeting with his brother had been scheduled for eleven o'clock and here it was almost one.
He had work to do. Radio traffic had risen among the ships of the US Pacific Fleet lately. They were planning something. If he had the key to their codes he would know exactly what, but as it was, he could only monitor the level of activity, be watchful, and wait for a break.
Something was going to happen soon, he was sure of it. Yet no matter what it might be, the matter he had to take up with Hiroki had greater long-term importance.
He would wait.
Just then the door opened and Hiroki walked in, dressed as usual in a long black kimono. He barely nodded to Matsuo as he walked to his desk and sat. He looked older; flecks of gray were appearing in the sleek black of his hair. Matsuo waited for an apology or explanation of his lateness, but Hiroki merely removed his hanko from his pocket and began stamping documents.
Matsuo swallowed his anger. "Our meeting was at eleven."
"My conference with the premier dragged on longer than I had anticipated. What did you want?"
Matsuo stepped over to the desk and leaned on it, placing his hands over the papers on his brother's desk. "I want your attention."