 
### THE CYBER DUST STORIES

### Lost Internet Short Stories and Essays

### Centering on Japan

By Alex Shishin

Copyright 2010, 2018 Alex Shishin

"Is There DU in Japan's Future?"

Copyright 2001, 2010, 2018 Alex Shishin and Jens Wilkinson

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All Rights Received

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner and publisher.

INTRODUCTION

Cyber dust? What's that? That is what is left when a website dies or cleans house and the material that disappears from that site is not archived. The three short stories and four essays presented here were published and lost on websites that were closed. While the four essays were all first published in the now defunct small alternative press print journal _The_ _New Observer_ / _The Japan Observer_ (Tokyo) and the now closed online Japan Watch, the three short stories only lived on the Internet.

The dead websites represented here and the probable years of their demise are the following: _News From the Brave New World_ (online literary journal): circa 2001, _Fiction Warehouse_ (online literary journal): circa 2006, Japan Watch (once a part of Zmag.org): circa 2006.

My co-author for "Is there Depleted Uranium in Japan's Future?" is Jens Wilkinson, a professional translator and author based in Tokyo.

All the essays are presented here as they were published online, with only typographical errors and problems of clarity and continuity corrected. The short stories, on the other hand, have all undergone significant revisions since their initial publications. In 2005 "Bulldozer" received a Million Writers Award as one of the "Notable Stories of 2004" from _storySouth_.

The Short Stories are:

Burned

**Bulldoze** r

**Betrayals**.

The Essays are:

**In the Shadow of His Ancestors** [Book Review]

**Is There Depleted Uranium in Japan's Future?** [with Jens Wilkinson]

Slapstick on the Precipice: The Ascent of Koizumi Junichiro

**September 11, 2001: When the World Changed for the Worst**.

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### The Short Stories

BURNED

New of the Brave New World, circa Spring, 1999

I grew up in the mountains of Okayama-ken in this stupid village of less than two thousand, not counting the ghosts. Anyone with half a brain escaped after junior high school.

At sixteen I left for Osaka. As the slow local train started down the mountain I didn't look back at my parents and brother who had come to see me off. I knew they were glad to be rid of me because of my fights with my brother, who, as oldest son, would inherit the stupid family house.

A cigarette between my teeth, a can of beer in hand, I thought: Let my brother stay up here to scrounge for odd jobs and get prematurely old. In Osaka I'd make money, buy a fast car and fuck girls with big tits and long legs.

The deal was I had to live with this uncle and his wife and go to a stupid vocational high school. This uncle permed his hair and wore blue suits. I never found out what he did for a living. The wife, who dyed her hair blonde, ran a bar. They lived in this dirty old house in Nihonbashi without a flush toilet. The wind seeped through the wooden walls. All kinds of bugs lived in the tatami mats. It was exactly like home. I didn't run away only because this uncle and his wife were never there and I could do anything I wanted.

I tossed school and lied about my age to get construction jobs. I joined a bosozoku hot rod gang. I was drag racing on expressways before I was old enough to get a license. I was strong and good-looking. I could pound anyone. Lots of girls let me fuck them. When I could have a license I quit construction and soon I was driving this rig hauling food for a supermarket chain between Nagoya and Kitakyushu. When I'd saved enough, I applied for an apartment in Nagoya.

This uncle and his wife and I never had much to say to each other; but suddenly they got sentimental. They cried. They said I was like their son. They gave me a million yen as a farewell gift. Soon after I moved out of their filthy old house they retired to a condo for Japanese in Australia.

Then my mother and father died. I angered my brother by missing their stupid funerals. I lost contact with him after he sold the house and moved to Shizoaka.

I drove the truck for seven years, running between Nagoya and Kitakyushu three times a week. It wasn't an easy job but better than breaking my back in a stupid factory or rice field. I'd still be a truck driver if it weren't for this stupid accident.

I was behind schedule with a load of fish about to spoil. The company made us pay for food gone bad on account of us being late. Naturally I was pushing the rig over the speed limit. There was this stupid old guy from Tokushima in a little K-car going slow in the fast lane. I tailgated him. Normal people would get out of the way. This old guy slammed on his brakes, I rear-ended him and he died.

The company hired a slick lawyer for me to save its face. He convinced the court that since the old guy wasn't wearing a seat belt his getting killed was half his fault. I still got my license taken away. The company fired me.

One day I'm making good money, have a girlfriend in Nagoya, a girlfriend in Kitakyushu, an apartment and a new car with a stereo system; the next day I'm unemployed, broke and can't even legally drive my own car. All because of a stupid old guy from Tokushima.

Fortunately, I had a friend from my old bosozoku days who had gone up in the world. Wajii lived in a big house in Kitano-cho in Kobe because he'd married the ugly daughter of this company president who put him in charge of a chain of English conversation schools, never mind that Wajii couldn't even write his own name properly in Japanese, much less speak English. Wajii took me to a bar in Osaka, where he had a girlfriend, and listened to my story.

"What a shame! A guy who'd be dead anyway in a few years messing you up. There ought to be a law to protect honest drivers like you," he said. "Someone ought to education these judges that it's the slow drivers who really cause the accidents. It's an outrage!"

Wajii was in with politicians.

"No problem fixing you up with a regular driver's licenses," he said. "Trucking license will take longer. We need to find you a job fast, don't we, good friend?"

"I'd be grateful," I said.

"I'm the grateful one!" Wajii exclaimed. "I'd be dead if it wasn't for you!"

Years ago a friend and I had saved Wajii from some rival bosozoku who attacked him in an alley in Nanba. When Wajii drank he got sentimental about it.

"A guy I know bought a new Benz town car and wants a driver."

"What sort of business is he in, or should I ask?" I said.

"Ordinary business," Wajii said. "Collects debts. Persuades people."

"Should I go looking for a gun?" I said.

"Naw. The Benz is for recreation. You'll get good pay. I helped his brother out of a jam. The man wanted to start a trading company in Los Angeles and move in with his girlfriend. His slutty wife threatened to tell the cops what she knew about him. I shut her up by using my influence in English education to get her a job at a private university."

"Find me a job like that," I said and laughed my first good laugh in months.

Wajii laughed too. "I'll think about it," he said. "You never know." He took out his cell phone. "Meanwhile, let me set you up."

My new boss was a little guy with greasy hair. He wore bright clothes and a fedora. He was from Osaka and had been in the bosozoku life. We got on. He liked drinking and whores and I drove him to a lot of bars and soap lands in Osaka and Kobe. Occasionally he took me drinking and bought me fucks. He also found me a good apartment in Kobe.

The boss had another driver, his serious work driver, who drove his Lincoln Continental. This driver bragged to me how he used to be a professional chauffeur. I sensed he hated truckers and I kept away from him, which was probably a good thing. He and the Lincoln Continental disappeared one day. I didn't hear what happened and didn't ask. A week later the boss said to me: "I've got a job and I need you to drive."

We took off for Okayama Prefecture. The boss, sitting in back, chain-smoked. Out on the expressway he said: "Tell you what's going on. A village is causing trouble. See, they were supposed to get a resort out there but the company went broke. So another company came in and built an incinerator for industrial wastes where their bamboo forest was chopped down. The locals are making noises about it. They got some Communist troublemakers from Tokyo organizing protests. We have to go up there and scare people. We don't bust faces or anything. Someone else will do it if it's necessary. We'll drive by a few houses. Maybe gun the engine. That's all we'll do."

"Where's this village?" I said. "Up in the mountains?"

"Yeah, up in the mountains. A real isolated place." He told me the name.

It was my village. I didn't say anything, just kept driving.

"How come you asked if it's up in the mountains?" the boss said after a couple of minutes.

"I don't know," I said.

"You're not from there, are you?"

I speak good Osaka dialect, but sometimes my old country accent slips in. It wouldn't be smart to lie.

"Yeah, maybe," I said.

"Shit!" said the boss. "If I'd known! Hey, I'm sorry!"

"It's okay," I said.

"We can go back. I have time to find a replacement for you."

"Don't worry about it," I said.

"Hey, don't play the brave soldier with me. I'm your friend. I won't tell people anything. I'll say you got sick. Okay? I can't put you through this."

"Don't worry," I said. "I've got no warm feelings for that stupid place."

"If it was my old neighborhood I wouldn't be doing this," the boss said.

"Maybe when they see me up there it'll scare them more," I said.

"We've got to talk," the boss said. "I'm no coward, you know, but you're scaring me. You can't act on your grudges up there. That's not part of the plan."

"I don't have any grudges," I said.

"Hey, there's a coffee shop I like coming up. Get off at the next exit. I got to talk to you."

The boss told the coffee shop's master he wanted a tatami room where we could be alone.

"Were you bullied up there?" the boss asked. "I was bullied when I was a kid."

"Maybe I did the bullying." I said.

"You ever go back? Like for New Year's?"

"No."

"I'm not trying to pry into your life," the boss said. "I'm asking because we have to work as a team up there. Why do you hate your home town?"

"It was stupid up there." I said.

The boss stared at me. I drank my coffee.

"Go on," he said. "Open your heart to me. Why was it stupid?"

I sighed and glanced at the door. "Okay, here's an example. You know how in a village everyone gossips? My parents wouldn't let me do stuff because the neighbors would say bad things about our family. One night some of us boys went into the bamboo forest to look for this ghost, this yurei, and I caught hell for it. My father pounded me. All I wanted was to see a stupid ghost."

"My grandparents knew lots of folk stories about yurei," the boss said

"I don't know anything about folk stories," I said. "People who saw it say the yurei had a fireball for a face. When it wept its tears were little drops of fire."

The boss suppressed a laugh. "Have you seen it?"

"No. It only appeared in the bamboo forest at night. My stupid parents wouldn't let me go see it. I lost interest. I saw enough ghosts in our cemetery"

"You're telling me you believe in ghosts?" the boss shouted. "I don't believe in ghosts! Nobody believes in ghosts nowadays!"

"I thought everyone knew about ghosts," I said.

"You're my friend and I can take jokes, but there are limits," the boss said. "I'm getting pissed off with you."

I saw he was reaching into his pocket where he kept his switchblade. I reached into the pocket where I kept mine.

"Sorry if I offended you, boss," I said. "I'm telling the truth. I thought everyone knew about ghosts."

The boss took his hand out of his pocket

"Let's drop it," he said. "We've got to get going."

The boss was real quiet in the car, like he was still mad. If he weren't my boss I'd have asked him why he was being so short tempered. But since he was my boss I just kept my eyes on the road.

The boss said, "Hey, look, they've cut down the bamboo forest. Where did your yurei go?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You don't think you've been fooled?"

I felt like pounding him. "My father said he saw it," I said. "He was too stupid to make up stories."

"Hey, I read in this weekly magazine that what people think are ghosts is really natural gas coming out of the ground. Maybe that's what you actually saw."

"I don't know. I don't care one way or the other," I said.

"Let's drop it," the boss said.

A few minutes later his cell phone rang. "Yes, yes. I understand, he said. "Good-by."

"Hey, look," he said to me, "they think we might have to get rough. I want to know it truthfully. Any people up there you're close to? Family, friends."

"Nobody," I said.

"All right. Do you know a guy named Kojima? Given name is Yoji."

"Yeah, sure," I said. "An old guy. Seems to know some English from somewhere. He's nothing to me."

"Okay, this Kojima guy is noisy. He and a leftist lawyer filed some kind of deposition with the prefecture. Do you mind beating him up or burning down his house?"

"It's okay with me."

"This is shit," the boss said.

I didn't know what he meant and I didn't ask. He chain-smoked, drank beer and didn't talk to me. At first I thought he was still mad at me; then I figured something else was wrong.

Like in the old days the narrow winding mountain road leading to the village was full of potholes.

"Hey, take it easy!" the boss shouted after we hit a really bad pothole. "This is a new car!"

I slowed the Benz to a crawl. That's how we entered my village in the late afternoon.

"Where to?" I asked.

"Drive around," he said.

The village hadn't changed much. The houses were the same wooden shacks, except that most of the thatched roofs were gone. The government was pushing tins roofs because thatch is highly flammable. Tin would make torching Kojima's house harder, I thought. Anti-incinerator posters were tacked everywhere. An awful smell hit us when I opened a window to empty the ashtray. I was glad I'd left.

We passed where my old house used to be. My brother had sold it, getting all the money. The guy who bought it tore it down to build a convenience store. I could see it had gone broke because the windows were all boarded up.

The boss's cell phone rang. "Yes," he said once and then just listened for about ten minutes. "Yes," he said again and put the phone away. "Drive to the incinerator," he said.

Instead of the dark and ancient forest there was only a muddy bluff. A storm fence surrounded the incinerator. It was sending white smoke out of a red and white striped metal chimney. Two guards were standing inside the storm fence by the gate. They were smoking cigarettes and blabbing. They looked at us. One of them gave a lazy wave of the hand. Across the street the houses were covered with big anti-incinerator posters. I felt people watching us out of the dirty and narrow windows.

"This is shit," the boss said.

I waited for him to say more.

"We have to stay here overnight and watch the damn incinerator."

"There are no hotels up here," I said.

"Don't think I know it!" the boss shouted. Then he said, "Sorry. I'm on edge."

"When do we burn Kojima's house down?" I asked.

"We don't do anything, damn it! We stay in the car and watch. These monkeys are supposed to have some kind of demonstration. Tomorrow, next day. I don't know. The company is sending a right-wing sound truck. Until further notice we stay here and sleep in the car. Bastards!" the boss said.

I waited for him to say more but he just stared at the guards talking to each other.

"Blow the horn, then pull out," he said.

I blew the horn and the guards jumped. I pulled out, sending rocks and dust in their direction.

"Monkeys," the boss said. "I'm hungry. Take me to eat somewhere."

I sped down the narrow dirt road and hit the brakes in the village center.

"Hey, take it easy! This is a new car," the boss said.

"Sorry," I said. "Here's a place. I hope you like chicken skin and guts. That's all they have up here."

"My favorite food," the boss muttered.

The little shokudo was a wood and tin-walled building that looked like it should collapse. That's how it had looked when I was a kid. Only instead of a sliding wooden door it now had a sliding aluminum door.

When we came into that smoky and dark place the customers, mostly old men, stared at us. No one spoke. My eyes went to the hard-faced old woman running the place. She smiled suddenly when she saw me. She was my aunt. I smiled in spite of myself. Before I had left for Osaka she had given me an envelope with ten thousand yen.

My aunt greeted me by my given name, using the diminutive "kun." Then something seemed to tell her to watch out. Her face hardened again.

"Wonderful, just wonderful," the boss said as we sat down at the counter.

When my aunt was out of earshot, I whispered, "Distant relative. I thought she'd died. Don't worry."

"Who's worried at this point?" the boss said. "I'm going to the toilet and then we're getting out of here. I've got some crackers and salted nuts in the car."

As we left, my aunt gave me a quick, nervous smile.

We drove around the village, checked out Kojima's house, and parked by the incinerator at sunset. Acetylene lights, casting it in an orange glow, lit up the complex. A guard sat on a wooden stool by the gate. He was reading a comic and smoking.

"Let's drink," the boss said. "Nothing's happening tonight."

He opened the backseat mini-bar. We drank whiskey and munched crackers and nuts in silence, me sitting in front, him in back.

Then the boss said, "I'm a little jumpy, aren't I?"

"A little," I said.

"This has nothing to do with you, okay. It's my problem. Bastards!"

I waited for the boss to say more. He splashed whiskey into my glass and his.

"Know what my problem is? I'm too sensitive. I'm too nice a guy. That's my problem."

"You're all heart," I said.

"Yeah, that's me. All heart. It's bad being all heart in this business. There's something I wouldn't do. I had a choice to do it or not to do it. It wasn't like I was backing out."

I said nothing.

"I wasn't afraid. It wasn't a dangerous job. It was a job I didn't want. I draw the line at harassing old ladies. I can't give you details, but I was supposed to harass old ladies." He paused and stared at me. "I had a choice, okay. But the bastards I deal with called me a coward. They've been getting at me. They demanded I come here. There's nothing to do here except choke on filthy air. This is an excuse to humiliate me."

"Let's leave," I said.

"We can't. They'll have another excuse for calling me a coward. You ever been called a coward? It's not fun being called a coward! It hurts! It cuts right here!" He brought his hand to his chest.

"You're not a coward," I said. "You didn't want to harass old ladies. And you had a choice."

"Hey, you got any more relatives around here?" the boss asked suddenly. "I mean I worry about you."

I was about to say I wasn't a coward. Instead I said, "I'm okay."

"You're always okay," the boss said. "That's what I like about you. You're always okay. Hey, how far is the cemetery?"

"A few minutes walk from here."

"Let's test our guts," the boss said. "I dare you to walk through there with me."

"The air stinks," I said.

"You're not a coward, are you?"

I got out of the car and slammed the door.

The boss got out. I heard the automatic locks click.

"Hey, don't you ever act like that!" the boss shouted.

"Sorry." I said.

"Don't pay any attention to me," the boss said. "I'm jumpy."

"You really want to do this?" I said.

"Which way?" the boss said.

The cemetery wasn't as dark as before because of the lights from the incinerator. Its little square stones seemed to glow with this creepy soft orange light. The boss hesitated before walking on.

"This place old?" He asked.

"Goes back hundreds of years. Only a few old stones are left," I said. I told him the damp mountain climate does them in. Eventually the stones fall over in the muddy ground, the winter ice cracks them and weeds grow over them.

We passed by the graves of a few people I knew.

"Tell me about the ghosts you saw," the boss said.

I coughed. The air smelled like spoiled meat. I looked over my shoulder at the incinerator chimney. The white stripes looked orange under the acetylene lights. The smoke pouring into the darkness looked orange too. Occasional sparks flew.

"Usually I saw them as flashes of light," I said.

"Okay, like lighting bugs. Like when someone plays around with a flashlight in the dark."

"Sort of. But different. Once I saw the ghost of this kid who got run over by his father's truck."

"Yeah, what'd he do? Did he moan or something?"

"No, he just hung there. He was a stupid kid and a stupid ghost."

"Is that the only ghost you saw that wasn't a flash or something?"

"No, I saw other ghosts like that," I said. "Listen to me, boss; I've got to tell you something. Most people can't see ghosts. It happens I can. I'll tell you if I see any."

"Let's keep walking. I'm testing my guts."

"The air stinks," I said. "How far do you want to walk?"

"Across and back again. Yeah, this air stinks." He took out a silk handkerchief, wiped his eyes and put it over his mouth.

I really wanted to get out of this polluted cemetery. I should've said I saw a ghost to call it a night. It was stupid I didn't.

I saw a couple of new stones.

"Wait," I said. "These are my mother's and father's."

The boss put his arm around my shoulder like he was feeling something for me.

"Excuse me a minute," I said.

"Sure, I understand," the boss said.

"I've got to piss. I don't like being watched," I said.

"You're not going to piss on your parents graves, are you?" the boss exclaimed.

"No, I'm going to piss into these bushes."

"Yeah, okay. Take your time. I'll look around."

"Stay. Just don't watch," I said.

"I'll look around. You think I'm scared?"

"No boss," I said.

Pissing, I began to worry about the car and whether the villagers would go after us. All we had were knives.

"Yurei! Yurei!" the boss screamed.

The next thing I know he's running through the cemetery with his jacket burning. He is running and tearing off his jacket. He runs past me, nearly knocking me over. He trips and falls, gets up and keeps running. He runs toward the Benz as I follow. He jumps into the Benz and takes off.

Standing where the Benz had been I spit on the ground and said, " Coward!"

The commotion had brought people out. Now about twenty approached the incinerator. The guard placed his comic on the stool and stood.

The people were mostly old men and unarmed as far as I could see. I recognized most of them. I reached into pocket and put my fingers on my knife.

A voice called out my name, and then one old man stepped forward. It was Kojima-san. He was shorter than I had remembered him. He was now completely bald.

"You belong with us," he said. "You don't belong with those bad people. Come to my house. We will drink and talk. Come."

I walked over to the gate and said to the guard in a low voice, "I'll handle this. You don't talk about what you saw tonight or I'll make trouble for you."

The man's frightened face nodded. I vaguely remembered him from my childhood.

I followed Kojima-san and the others to his house. My aunt appeared and said I would spend the night at her place. I took my hand out of my pocket.

At first the people all talked at once trying to convince me that the incinerator was a bad thing and their cause was correct. It wasn't my problem, but I said, "Yeah, yeah, I agree" to shut them up. Next they got to discussing what had happened to my boss in the cemetery. A few were sure that our legendary yurei had attacked him. Others said it had probably been a spark from the incinerator. They said sparks fell in the village all the time. A neighbor's laundry had gotten burned that day. Since they knew I could see ghosts they asked me what I thought.

"I've never seen the yurei but I saw the sparks tonight," I said.

That seemed to settle the argument, though a couple people still insisted it could've been the yurei.

I spent the night at my aunt's. Early in the morning I dressed and went out while she was still sleeping. A strong, cold wind made me shiver in my sports jacket. But the wind was blowing away the smoke from the incinerator and the village didn't smell as bad. The train station was about an hour away on foot. I knew I'd warm up as I walked.

I walked by Kojima-san's house. He probably saw me from his window. A few minutes later he drove past me in his pickup truck, stopped, backed up and invited me to get in.

We said nothing going down the twisting and narrow road. He seemed to know I was heading for the train station, which was only a platform in the middle of some rice fields. We passed a right-wing sound truck whose engine was over heated. Kojima-san slowed down. The two thugs fiddling with the engine turned their faces away from us. Kojima-san sped up.

"Hard on weak engines, this grade," he said after a few minutes.

"Those guys are stupid," I said. "They don't really believe in any of that prewar nationalism. They just drive those stupid sound trucks for the money. They work for anyone who pays them."

Kojima-san didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said: "Why don't you stay? You don't belong with people like that. You belong with us."

"What do I do up here? Advise people about stupid ghosts?" I said.

"Oh, there's always something to do up here. I know the village isn't pleasant right now. But we'll get that incinerator out and the village will be nice again."

"I've got a life in Osaka," I said.

"Do you?" Kojima-san said.

We didn't say any more until we got to our so-called train station.

"You know you're a dead man if you go back," Kojima-san said.

"Thanks for the lift," I said.

Kojima-san sat in the truck and watched me as I walked on to the platform. I wanted him to drive away but he didn't drive away. I looked at him and waved, trying to indicate that the train was coming soon. But he knew the train wasn't coming for another forty-five minutes.

The single wooden bench on the platform had dry rot and rusty nails stuck out. I didn't want to sit on it. I felt that if I looked at Kojima he would call to me to wait in the truck with him. Standing, I fixed my eyes on the rice paddies with their stupid crooked shapes. You could only use a binder you pushed by hand to harvest in those fields. And you had to cut the edges with a scythe. And the rice was lousy because of all the rain we'd get.

Kojima-san was right. The boss was in trouble and naturally he'd blame everything on me.

Nobody would murder me; probably no one would even pound me. But the word would go out on me. I'd seen it happen to other guys. They'd end up in Osaka's Arin district as poor day laborers. And then the word would go out there, so they couldn't even get the most dangerous and degrading jobs. Guys like that hung or drowned themselves. One such guy, so poor he slept under an overpass, died because high school kids set him on fire as a joke.

Even Wajii would put the word out on me. Life's like that.

I kicked the rotting wooden boards of the platform with the toe of my Italian shoe. Then I looked at Kojima's truck. He sat there watching me. I kicked the boards once more and went to him.

We went back, passing the broken down sound truck.

"Some of us could push that truck over the cliff and beat up those guys," I said.

"We're staying within the law," Kojima-san said. "But we've got enough hunters with guns if anyone uses violence on us."

Lucky I hadn't tried to torch Kojima-san's house, I thought.

"I don't remember hunters up here," I said.

"We hunt wild boar these days. Thanks to logging and urbanization they're overpopulating the area. They come into the villages when they're starving and cause trouble. Herds have to be thinned out. I'll teach you to hunt. Would you like that?"

"Yeah, maybe," I said.

I helped run my aunt's stupid little eatery and took over after she died. Hunting was my only joy.

We reached a compromise with the company about the incinerator. They agreed to make the chimney taller so that the winds wouldn't blow smoke into the village. They also installed special filters. But you know what? The company buried toxic wastes and poisoned our ground water. People started getting cancer. My aunt died of cancer and so did Kojima-san. I looked for their ghosts in the cemetery but they never appeared. I guess I lost the knack of seeing ghosts after leaving the village. That's okay. I've got cancer and soon I'll be a ghost. Maybe I'll have fun scaring stupid guys like my ex-boss who walk through the cemetery to test their guts.

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BULLDOZER

_Fiction Warehouse_ , 14 May 2004

When Junko Sumoto, a professor of English at a private university in Kobe, saw her nineteen-year-old daughter come home that evening in her old high school uniform, she was distressed.

She had read about teenage prostitutes donning high school uniforms to entice customers. Enjo-kosai, "assisted dating," a euphemism for teenage girls soliciting middle aged men, had become a recent focus of the media. Even if Yoshiko was not doing enjo-kosai, someone might have seen her and made assumptions. Just a hint of scandal could get her daughter expelled from her exclusive women's college.

Professor Sumoto worried about the malicious gossip her archenemy in the English department could spread. This was Professor Taguchi, an older woman nicknamed "Bulldozer" by colleagues. Today they had had an especially bitter row.

"What will people think, seeing you in that?" Professor Sumoto demanded at the entrance.

"It's just a fad," her daughter said in a flat, irritated voice as she took off her high-heeled shoes.

"You hated wearing that uniform in high school," her mother said.

"I told you it's a fad; so leave me alone. I'm tired."

Yoshiko went into her room, tossed her expensive leather bag on the floor and flopped down on her bed with the "Hello Kitty!" cover. Her mother followed.

Stuffed animals were perched on the shelves by the bed. Posters of rock stars and the local baseball hero graced the white stucco walls. Still a child's room, Professor Sumoto thought.

"It doesn't look good," Professor Sumoto said. "People get the wrong impression of you, if you know what I mean. So don't wear it."

"Don't, don't, don't. Can't you leave me alone?"

Hurt, Professor Sumoto turned and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Her daughter's door slammed.

She poured herself a glass of French white wine and sat at the polished American oak dining table to eat the bento she had bought at a convenience store on her way home. It had been a terrible day and it was Bulldozer's fault. Again, during the curriculum committee meeting, she had attacked Professor Sumoto's credentials.

Years ago Professor Sumoto had sought out Professor Taguchi. She had said that as the only two women in their sexist department they should stick together. Professor Taguchi had agreed, and then, behind Professor Sumoto's back, she had told colleagues Professor Sumoto's MBA from the small business college in Manhattan made her unqualified to teach literature.

Today Professor Sumoto had ended up screaming at her. Did Professor Taguchi realize how many papers on modern dramatists she had published? Did Professor Taguchi understand that she had been a serious amateur actor when she was doing graduate work? She had played important roles. The Village Voice had praised her.

Bulldozer, jealous of Professor Sumoto's success with the university drama club, had hinted around that Professor Sumoto had gotten her theatrical breaks by sleeping with the right people, and that this was also how she had risen in the university hierarchy. One of her tales suggested Professor Sumoto had performed oral sex on the late department chairman, Asano-sensei. The latter story had elicited malicious smiles from university personnel who embellished on it as they passed it on.

At the business college Professor Sumoto had learned negotiating strategies. These she put to use as an amateur actor when she discovered that getting good roles was not simply a matter of talent but also of social politics. Flattery and small gifts worked better, she realized, than going to bed with the right person. Her amateur acting career had prepared her for academia. Just as egotistical amateur directors loved flattery, so did the mediocrities that controlled her present university. Starting as a part-time English conversation teacher, she was now a full professor and teaching in the graduate school. Academia was like theater; she had prospered because she was a good actor. Professor Taguchi had once told someone that Professor Sumoto's coquettish charm was so diabolical that she could disarm even people she had betrayed.

The oral sex rumors had so incensed Professor Sumoto she came out and told people that stupid old Asano had been so susceptible to the least flattery only a few kind words had opened opportunities for her. The packets of dried miso soup she had sent him before his first business trip to Hawaii had led to her first promotion. Perhaps someone had performed oral sex on old Asano but not she.

Bulldozer's round, fat, puffy face with the huge hairy warts peeping out through the folds of her double chin seemed to stare at her from the bento box. Unable to eat, Professor Sumoto put the bento box into the refrigerator and poured herself another glass of white wine.

She and Professor Taguchi had taken their BA's from the same private women's university in Osaka. Both had sent children to universities in the United States. Only Professor Taguchi at sixty-three, fifteen years her senior, lagged behind Professor Sumoto in promotions because she had gone into university teaching late in life. This made her acutely competitive. She had gotten her nickname through the belligerence with which she pursued her ends. If she wanted to head a particularly choice committee she made endless telephone calls and visits to various chairmen and deans, the university president and members of the owner's family. On every visit she brought gifts and pleaded in a syrupy-sweet voice. And no perceived insult was too small for her to mount a blitzkrieg campaign against a perceived enemy. Same phone calls, visits and gifts to people in power; the same sweetish voice, only now pleading she had been wronged, so terribly wronged by a person whom she had helped so much. When confronting an enemy in private she was capable of expressions rarely used even by gangsters.

"Bulldozer" was not Professor Sumoto's invention; nevertheless, Professor Taguchi had invented a retaliatory nickname for her: "Mrs. Fakey," an appellation so crude, so childish, so petty that its sting felt all the more painful.

Professor Sumoto knew one of the Bulldozer's complains against her was that she had gotten into the university thanks to her businessman husband's connections to the founder. Professor Sumoto also knew how deeply Professor Taguchi envied her wealth. The ease with which she traveled abroad galled her. She resented "Mrs. Fakey's" big Western-style house in Kobe's wealthy Kitano-cho, while she, the widow of a junior college economics professor, an enthusiast of the "Chicago School" who had achieved little recognition, lived in an old wooden house in Nishinomiya. Professor Taguchi's jealousy had been inflamed after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of January 17, 1995. Her house had been badly damaged; Professor Sumoto's house had survived with only a few cracks. Immediately after the earthquake Bulldozer had complained anew about "business majors" usurping "true scholars."

Professor Sumoto drank her white wine with bitterness and regret. She had one fault, a fault that had seemed cute to men in her youth. This was her habit of becoming emotional in difficult situations. She knew that what in a beautiful young woman was perceived as "passion" was seen as mere ill temper in an older woman. Her afternoon outburst would hurt her reputation. Bulldozer would make sure.

She had been too rough on Yoshiko. Professor Sumoto went to her daughter's room to apologize. About to knock on her door, she heard a noise like a computer game. Professor Sumoto knocked and went in.

"Okaa-san!"

Her daughter, on the bed in her school uniform, nearly dumped the laptop to the floor.

"That's a new computer!" Professor Sumoto exclaimed.

"I told you I wanted a new computer, Okaa-san! I told you about the hassles I've had with my old PC. Why shouldn't I have a new computer?"

Yoshiko had loosened the top buttons of her blouse and her bra showed. It was a black bra with lots of lace. Professor Sumoto felt like telling her daughter she looked like a whore. Instead, she sucked in her lips before speaking.

"Yoshiko-san, where did you get the money for this expensive computer?"

"Oh, you know, from my part time job."

"I do not believe you. I know how much that model costs. I also know how quickly your money goes for entertainment and your cell phone."

"Otou-san sent me the money."

"Your father never said anything to me."

Professor Sumoto's husband had been transferred to Tokyo shortly after the Western-style house was completed and now lived in a company-owned executive apartment. She had little contact with him and, actually, dreaded his being transferred back to Kobe.

"Otou-san did not give you the money. He would've told me. You know how your father feels about money."

"Okay, I broke my time deposit. So there!"

"That can be checked."

"Leave me alone!" Yoshiko screamed. "Why do you treat me like this? Why?"

Professor Sumoto was used to Yoshiko's theatrical tantrums. (Her husband had no tolerance for her own.) She said: "Yoshiko-san, I hope you're not doing enjo-kosai. You aren't, of course, are you?"

Yoshiko wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

"Answer me!"

"Well, just pretend I am." Yoshiko gave an exaggerated huff. "What if I told you I like it because it feels good and I get money?"

"You'd better be joking! You're not funny!"

"What's the difference between enjo-kosai and you blowing Asano-sensei?"

"I did no such thing! Who told you that?"

"My friend Hiroko Nagashi who is at your university."

Bulldozer! Professor Taguchi was Hiroko Nagashi's homeroom teacher.

"Don't ever go near that Hiroko again!" Professor Sumoto said. "And don't even for a moment consider doing enjo-kosai! You're a privileged girl from a good family!"

"It's no big deal, Okaa-san. All the girls my age are doing it. Hiroko-san does it; she sleeps with anyone. She's totally materialistic. I only do it with select men."

"Get out of this house!" Professor Sumoto shrieked.

Her daughter bolted, vanishing before Professor Sumoto's motherly concern could overcome her rage.

Professor Sumoto sat down on Hello Kitty! and picked up the computer. Her daughter had been playing a card game. She played it to the end and started another game, then another and another. She hoped she would be calm when Yoshiko made her defiant return. What would she say to a cherished daughter who was now a woman of the streets?

The telephone rang in the kitchen.

She put the computer down and hurried to it.

"Yoshiko-san?"

It was Bulldozer.

"I was thinking of today's meeting," Professor Taguchi said.

"Yes, things went overboard," Professor Sumoto said looking at the wall clock. It was ten thirty.

"I'm glad you feel that way. Now if you'll apologize I can sleep peacefully."

"Apologize! It was you who attacked me!"

"I was being helpful. I wanted you to reflect on yourself."

"You've said evil things about me all over the school."

"I never gossip."

"You do! You gossip all the time!"

"You are hurting my feelings. I called to help you reflect on yourself."

"I have no time for you! Good night, Sensei."

"By the way, I saw your daughter in Sannomiya tonight. It was near Tokyu Hands. She was wearing a high school uniform. Is she doing enjo-kosai these days?"

"She is not! When did you see her? When?"

"Now don't confuse me . . . Oh yes, I was going to the subway with Tsuchida-san, our school nurse. You know her, of course."

Another horrid gossip, Professor Sumoto thought.

"About nine. I hope your daughter doesn't catch AIDS, Sensei. Good night."

"Snake!" she shouted into the humming receiver.

It was late but no need to panic, Professor Sumoto told herself. All she had to do was call her daughter's cell phone. She dialed. It was turned off. Panic stricken, she drove down to Sannomiya's entertainment district where Tokyu Hands was located. The area was crowded with bar goers, taxis and private cars. She parked her car with other illegally parked cars on a side street and set out on foot, trying to remember the coffee shops her daughter frequented. After repeatedly calling to Yoshiko's cell phone, it occurred to her to contact Yoshiko's friends. The only one listed in her schedule book was the disgusting Hiroko Nagashi, who had been in her first year seminar. She called her cell phone.

Hiroko Nagashi didn't know where Yoshiko was.

"I'm desperate to find Yoshiko-san," she said. "Her father is very ill."

"That's too bad, Sensei."

There were giggles in the background.

"Are you with your friends? Maybe they know."

"Oh, they don't know her at all, Sensei."

"Please ask them!"

"I'm sorry, Sensei. I think my phone's battery is giving out."

More giggles. Then a click.

She called back and got a recorded message from the answering service.

Around midnight, after a frantic and desultory search, Professor Sumoto came upon a pornographic movie house. The posters showed schoolgirls hiking up the skirts of their uniforms.

"My poor daughter!" she said to herself. "My beautiful, pure daughter!"

She returned to an empty house.

Looking down on the lights of Kobe from her picture window, the romantic view that extracted high mortgage payments every month, Professor Sumoto longed to hear the telephone ring or the sound of her daughter's key in the front door lock. Somewhere amid those lights was Yoshiko. Was she walking the streets alone and frightened? Down there were men who had violated her child, perhaps respectable men with daughters of their own. Men like her husband, who, she was positive, was having affairs in Tokyo.

At 2 a.m. she called the police. A policeman listened and told her to be calm. Afterward, she thought he hadn't taken her seriously.

She called her husband in Tokyo. His answering machine said he was in Hong Kong on business but to leave a message and he would phone back as soon as possible.

By the time her husband called the following evening, Professor Sumoto, who had canceled classes to await her daughter's phone call or return, was holding the picture post card from Yoshiko. She read him Yoshiko's message, written in English: "Dear Mummy and Daddy: Don't worry. I am leaving for America with my fiancée."

"Come home immediately if you care about your daughter, Otou-san," Professor Sumoto said.

"Impossible. I'll be fired. I can do no more for Yoshiko-san there than here."

"Otou-san, she is a minor with a strange man!"

"She is also a minor with a passport, which you got her, Okaa-san, so you two could gallivant around New York together. Did you put Kansai International Airport on alert?

"Yes."

"Don't leave the phone. She may call."

"Otou-san . . ."

"I have to rush. I'll be in touch."

At eleven that night, Professor Taguchi called again. "I heard your daughter didn't come home. I couldn't sleep worrying about her," she said.

"Go back to sleep. Please."

"So she's at home, then? Did you find out if she is doing enjo-kosai?"

"What kind of question is that? Are you crazy?"

"I'm only showing my concern," Professor Taguchi said in a hurt voice.

"What if I asked you if your daughter at the University of Iowa had AIDS? How would you feel?"

"Oh she's too busy with her doctoral work to get AIDS," said Professor Taguchi in a slightly bewildered voice. "And what does this have to do with Yoshiko-san's enjo-kosai?"

"She's not...! Don't you dare spread any rumors!"

"I never gossip. You've hurt my feelings again. Good-by."

In the intervening days of futile inquiries, Professor Sumoto, speculated on the character of the man who had taken Yoshiko away. She had heard and read enough horror stories. The American teacher who had taken a student to Mississippi and made her work in a cannery. The Japanese businessman who had abandoned a junior college girl in Thailand. The newlywed from Nagoya who was murdered by her bank clerk husband in Hawaii. Yoshiko had run away in her high school uniform. Only the worst of men could have taken her.

"Millions of people travel by air," her husband's tired voice said on the phone from the hotel in Hong Kong. His inquiries had also been fruitless.

Yoshiko's post card from New York arrived a week after she had left. "Don't worry. I'm happy. I'll call soon," she wrote without giving a return address.

Nearly a month later, Yoshiko telephoned from New York. She said she was married to an older Japanese man named Kenji Ebino.

"How much older?" her distraught mother asked.

"A little older. Well, more than a little. You should meet him, Okaa-san."

Professor Sumoto said nothing and didn't answer when Yoshiko said, "Okaa-san?"

"Be that way!" Yoshiko snapped "At least get a pen and paper! I'm giving you our address and phone number..."

"Get to New York," her husband said after she called him in Tokyo. "Lure her back. We'll persuade her to get an annulment. I'll hire a detective to investigate that so-called husband of hers. I'll hire a couple of thugs to persuade that lecher to end that phony marriage."

"Don't you dare! Don't you even say it! Think of our social position!"

"I am! Take the next available plane to New York, Okaa-san!"

On the 747 to New York, Professor Sumoto consumed more white wine than usual. She was hung over when the Jamaican taxi driver left her in front of the posh condominium complex on First Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street by the East River where Yoshiko and her husband lived.

Meeting in the complex's lobby, mother and daughter did not embrace. They kept a respectful distance, like two cats in disputed territory. Professor Sumoto had last seen Yoshiko in a disheveled school uniform. She was now wearing blue jeans with the top button unhooked, so that it exposed her belly button, and a T-shirt that outlined her braless breasts. She still looked like a whore, Professor Sumoto thought.

"Where are your things?" Yoshiko asked.

"I've taken our usual hotel. You didn't think I'd stay with you, did you?"

"I didn't think anything. Come up and meet my man," Yoshiko said. "And, Okaa-san, don't insult him."

A petulant silence hung between them in the elevator until the twenty-eighth floor.

"The apartment is a mess," Yoshiko said as they walked down the hall. "We've just bought it. Actually, it's two apartments with the wall between them knocked out. Please, Okaa-san," she said unlocking the door, "be nice."

The apartment smelled of fresh paint. The sparse furnishings were all covered with clear plastic covers. Kenji Ebino was ensconced in a small enclave of desks, shelves and computers in a corner of the wide living room.

Her father's age! Professor Sumoto thought.

Ebino's shoulder length hair had not a strand of gray and she wondered if he, like she, used dye. He was a thin man of medium height. His face was roundish, somehow familiar, and he wore gold wire rim glasses. Like Yoshiko, he had on blue jeans and a T-shirt. Standing and bowing, Ebino did not smile, but his demeanor was neither hostile nor embarrassed. He had that self-contained, confident personality of her husband, she thought. Like her husband, Ebino showed little inclination to be ingratiating.

"How old are you?" Professor Sumoto demanded.

"Okaa-san!" Yoshiko said.

"Forty-six," he answered in an even baritone. "We were about to have a whiskey and soda. Will you join us?"

"Yes . . . No."

"Mother only drinks French white wine," Yoshiko said in English.

"Yes, I'll have a whiskey and soda. I'm forty-eight."

"I'll take care of it," Yoshiko said and went into the kitchen. As she mixed the drinks, she called out, "The drinking age in America is twenty-one. You won't report us, will you, Okaa-san?"

"Contribution to the delinquency of a minor," Ebino boomed in English.

"In more ways than one," Professor Sumoto said. "Just how, may I ask, did you get my daughter out of Japan? And how did you manage to marry her so quickly? And I wonder if you aren't ashamed of yourself, pulling a girl out of her studies and worrying her family."

"Oh, mother, Jesus Christ!" Yoshiko said in English from the kitchen.

"Question one," Ebino said. "She has a passport. We flew business class. No one asked us anything."

"Ebino-san..."

"Question two," he continued. "We flew to Las Vegas and got what the Americans call a quickie wedding. Yes, we even had an Elvis look-alike as one of our stand-in witnesses. She was legally of age."

"And question three, Ebino-san."

"I apologize for the trouble I've caused you by our ad hoc departure. I will, of course, pay you for lost tuition and other expenses. I also intend to see to Yoshiko-san's education. I'm thinking of NYU or Columbia. Given our age differences, there will come a time when Yoshiko-san will need to be self-supporting. I'll see her through to the Ph.D."

Yoshiko came out with the drinks. "Take it, Okaa-san. I have nowhere to put this tray."

Professor Sumoto was tired. She didn't want to argue. Looking out at the Brooklyn shoreline she wished, somehow, she could get her daughter back, though it was too late. A few harsh words had changed everything! What would she tell Yoshiko's Yale-educated older brother and the relatives?

"What do you do anyway, Ebino-san?" Professor Sumoto said turning around.

"I design software."

"He's a genius," Yoshiko said. "Do you know how many patents and copyrights he has?"

"I'm afraid I don't. I know nothing about you, Ebino-san."

"I've divided my time between New York, Tokyo and Kobe, where I met Yoshiko-san last year."

"I see," Professor Sumoto said.

"I've decided to concentrate on New York, which accounts for the urgency with which I married Yoshiko-san."

"I see."

"Actually, I'm an American citizen," he said. "My parents are Japanese, but I was born here. They moved back to Japan when I was in grade school. I decided to live in America permanently when I entered university here and didn't take Japanese citizenship."

"I see. Very interesting."

"I do apologize for the abruptness of all this," Ebino intoned without an apologetic bow. "I very much feared losing Yoshiko-san."

Professor Sumoto drank her whiskey and soda. "Tell me about why my daughter was wearing her high school uniform that night you took her away. Just what were you doing with her?"

"Okaa-san!"

"I know what Yoshiko-san told you. It was only to mask our relationship. "We were acting out a sexual fantasy."

"Shame!" Professor Sumoto cried.

"Don't cover for me!" Yoshiko said to her husband. "I was doing enjo-kosai just as I said, Okaa-san. I had been doing it since senior high school. I didn't always demand money. Sometimes I accepted knowledge as payment."

Professor Sumoto had disciplined herself not to cry in public. Feeling tears, she pursed her lips until they were white.

"I was drunk on sex," Yoshiko said. "When I was going with Kenji-san I was doing enjo-kosai with three other men. And I was still unsatisfied. The day I left Japan I was out in Sannomiya looking for men. I decided to come home and change because none I liked had come along."

Professor Sumoto looked at Ebino. His roundish face said he knew the story.

"Kenji-san is the most understanding man in the world! He understood my sexual needs and accepted them. He loved me that much. When I went to him that evening I wasn't running from you but from myself. I had to change my life. I had to get out of Japan. I made my decision as I was running down the front steps. Kenji-san had come down from Tokyo to plead with me to come to New York but I had refused. That night I went to him at his hotel and asked him to save me. I've had no urges to do enjo-kosai in New York."

Professor Sumoto downed the rest of her whiskey and soda.

"What do you have against your father and me?" she said.

"Nothing."

"I know our careers made us neglect you."

"No, I like your careers! All my friends have dull parents and envy me. I guess I wanted an extraordinary life too. Enjo-kosai was my way. Now that I have a extraordinary life in New York I don't have to do enjo-kosai."

No one spoke for a moment.

"Don't expect me to say I am happy about all this," Professor Sumoto said.

"Let's go shopping," Yoshiko said. "Kenji-san has work."

"Fine. I need something to do," Professor Sumoto said.

"I suppose I have to thank you in a perverse way, Ebino-san."

Ebino bowed.

"You remind me of someone," Professor Sumoto said abruptly. "I feel I've met you before."

"Well, no doubt I remind you of my older half-sister, your colleague Taguchi-sensei."

The blood rushed to her face.

"They don't get along," Yoshiko said. "Taguchi-sensei calls mother 'Mrs. Fakey' because she teaches literature and only has an MBA."

"From one of the best business colleges in New York," Professor Sumoto snapped.

"My half-sister is extremely abrasive," Ebino said. "I don't really get on with her that well myself. But I do owe her one thing. I met Yoshiko-san thanks to her. We were having coffee in Sannomiya when my sister's homeroom student, Hiroko-san, and Yoshiko-san happened along. Yoshiko-san and I hit it off immediately."

"I see," Professor Sumoto said and pursed her lips. "I am ready to go shopping if you are."

"We'll have dinner out together," Ebino said. "I'd love to cook, but you see, it's a mess here!"

In the taxi heading up 34th Street Professor Sumoto said, "I suppose Taguchi-sensei knows about you and Ebino-san."

"If she does it's not Kenji-san's fault. He never tells her anything because of her big mouth. It's possible Hiroko-san told Taguchi-sensei. Do you think she knows?"

"I don't know what Bulldozer knows. But she did say terrible things on the telephone when I was distressed over your disappearance."

"What an awful old woman. Kenji-san says she has a mental disorder. But Hiroko-san likes her. It's weird."

"She is my worst enemy," Professor Sumoto said, "Now she is our relative."

"I know."

"Yoshiko-san, have you really given up enjo-kosai?"

"Yes. I love my husband."

"I don't see why you're going downtown with your naval exposed and a T-shirt that leaves little to the imagination."

"Okaa-san, this is New York. My outfit is as New York as that!" she pointed to the Empire State Building looming ahead. "It's no big deal."

"I've heard 'no big deal' before," Professor Sumoto said. "Bulldozer knew everything and she tortured me."

"Forget Bulldozer, Okaa-san. Let's enjoy New York together! Okaa-san, I see tears in yours eyes. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Professor Sumoto dabbled at her eyes with a handkerchief. "I am not going to ask you to return to Japan with me," she said.

"Otou-san sent you to get me back, didn't he?"

"He is very concerned about you."

"I could never leave Kenji-san."

Professor Sumoto sighed. "I know you are happy, but your father and I are so sad. We cannot help it. I've never seen your father so beside himself. You're a married woman now. You should know how we feel."

"I know how to cheer you up!" Yoshiko exclaimed. "Do you really want to go shopping? I don't. Let's meet my friend Tom. He's a totally fantastic actor! I've told him about your acting in New York, Okaa-san. I'll call him on my cell phone right now."

Her friend said he was shopping at Zabar's and would meet them in Barnes and Noble's coffee shop.

Yoshiko's friend, reclining amid bags from Zabar's, was a tall blond man in his early twenties. He wore a green tank top, which showed off his muscular biceps, and tight black jeans. His hair had been styled into graceful shag that covered the top of his ears, decorated with thin gold earrings; it knifed down to the middle of his long neck, around which he wore a bright red bandanna. He and Yoshiko exchange kisses on both cheeks, French style, which made Professor Sumoto uncomfortable. He laughed easily; his sensual lips curled slightly. His tenor carried itself above the general din.

"Wow! You're the thespian mom!" he said. "I'm Tom Shank, actor and model." He shook Professor Sumoto's hand, holding it longer than she thought proper.

"I've worked for Japanese people," he said sitting down and spreading his legs in her direction. "I had a supporting role in a Japanese flick about this monster that squishes New York."

"Tom is just so cool," Yoshiko exclaimed in English. "He and Kenji are making this fantastic animated film together. Tom is going to get me into a super great amateur acting group. Aren't you?"

"Sure as shooting I am!" Tom said. "Hey, Sensei, what do you think of Kenji Ebino? I think he's a brilliant mind. He's a great cook too. The other day I got these live lobsters at Chelsea Market and Yoshiko and Kenji cooked them at my place. He has a way of killing lobsters so they don't suffer."

"We love to cook together," Yoshiko said. "I never realized marriage could be so much fun."

"I see," Professor Sumoto said and covered a yawn with her hand. "Sorry. I'm jetlagged."

"I have an idea," Tom said. "Let's catch a cab to my apartment. It's in Central Park West. You can relax, Sensei. I know you like French wine. Got plenty of that. Also some of my special fudge brownies."

"Oh cool!" Yoshiko said. "I absolutely dig your special fudge brownies. Are they the very special fudge brownies?"

"Oh yeah," Tom laughed. "No other."

"I don't think we should impose on you," Professor Sumoto said. "We are expected for dinner in a few hours."

"Oh come on, Mom!" Yoshiko said in English. "Tom's has this super cool apartment. I'll phone Kenji as soon as we leave. He'll be happy we'll be home late. He's so busy. I'm going! So come on, Mom."

"Well, all right. But we must not stay long."

Tom stood and stretched out his hand to Professor Sumoto. He had the smoothest skin she had ever felt on a man's hand. Did his soft hands know her daughter's body?

Poor Ebino-san, Professor Sumoto thought when they walked into the Tom Shank's townhouse apartment. Looking at the de Kooning painting over the marble fireplace and the restored Early American furniture in this obviously very rich young man's living room, Professor Sumoto felt a tender concern for the half-brother of her enemy that surprised her. How could Ebino compete against the young actor's beauty and wealth? Bulldozer would tease him if Tom Shank took Yoshiko from him. Just as she had teased a divorced colleague. Professor Shirashi from History, who had lost her graying husband to a secretary in her twenties, had called Professor Sumoto one night saying she was on the point of suicide because Bulldozer had told her, "I saw your ex-husband dining in Sannomiya with his wife. She looked so sexy in her mini-skirt and he looked ten years younger."

"I'll get the fudge brownies out of the refrigerator," Yoshiko said.

A woman who knows a man's kitchen. Professor Sumoto sighed.

She sat down in a chair with floral patterned upholstery and walnut trim, drank Tom Shank's French white wine and ate his brownies tasting of bitter dark chocolate and alcohol. She felt dizzy.

"What's in these?" she asked.

"Tons of LSD, Mom," Yoshiko giggled.

"She's kidding," Tom Shank said. "Actually I get this excellent Mexican chocolate from Zabar's and mix it with real fine Russian vodka. You're feeling the vodka now, I'll bet. You can lie down in the bedroom."

"I shouldn't."

"You should, Mom. You look wiped out," Yoshiko said. She was sitting in a love seat whose design matched Professor Sumoto's chair. She herself yawned and stretched. Her nipples jutted out. "I couldn't sleep last night," she said.

"I'll rest for a few minutes," Professor Sumoto said. "I'm afraid we're troubling you, Mr. Shank."

"Oh gosh, no!" he said.

Tom Shank (a stage name, Professor Sumoto realized) led her to the bedroom. She turned around and looked at her daughter. Yoshiko was now resting on the sofa, her bare feet propped up on the armrest.

The bed was huge. On the ceiling, she noticed with alarm, was a mirror.

"Sleep long as you like," Tom Shank said. His soft hand touched her wrist.

She slept for about an hour and woke up staring into the mirror and hearing the shower being run in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. Groggily she thought: My married daughter is being violated.

She hurried to the living room. Yoshiko was sleeping on the sofa. Her feet were still propped up on the armrest. Only her body had shifted slightly to the side. The top button of her jeans was still unhooked she noticed with ironic relief.

She returned to the bedroom to get her shoes.

Tom Shank came out of the bathroom. He was shirtless. His chest, pruned of hair, was whiter than his arms.

Before she knew how it happened they had embraced and separated.

"Oh, excuse me," she said.

"How about fooling around?" Tom said.

"Fooling around?" Professor Sumoto said.

"I'm not trying to sexually harass you or anything. If you don't want to, it's cool."

"I think I see what you mean," Professor Sumoto said. "I'm old enough to be your mother, Mr. Shank."

"Oh that's cool. I really get off on older women. My psychiatrist says it isn't Oedipal or anything weird like that. He says it's this European temperament thing I've got."

"Mr. Shank, I'm flattered," Professor Sumoto said. "But no. It wouldn't be a good idea."

"Okay. Sure. It's cool. I just figured . . . you know."

This time she initiated the embrace. His back was as smooth as his hands. She was amazed how quickly those hands unzipped the back of her dress. She drew away.

"Oh please forgive me. I can't with my daughter in the next room."

"Hey, it's cool. Like I understand. Oh God, Sensei, you're crying. Gee, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Mr. Shank. May I please borrow your shoulder, bare as it is."?

"Golly, sure!" Tom Shank said. "Be my guest."

She placed her face against his shoulder and sobbed and talked in a disjointed way about Bulldozer, her daughter and Ebino, enjo-kosai, her absent husband and, again, about Bulldozer. He passed his soft fingers over her bare back.

"I'd get out of it, the job, the marriage. I'd walk away," he said.

"Easy for you to say."

"Yeah, sorry. I'm just a rich spoiled brat."

"You're a very nice man," she said disengaging from him. "I've imposed on you; I'm so sorry."

"I basically like people."

"Unlike some persons I know."

"Boy, that colleague of yours! She's something else."

"Let me use your phone to call Japan. I'll pay you for it."

"That's okay. I've got a great long distance discount."

There was a telephone by the bed. She sat down and called. Ten rings passed before Bulldozer's drowsy voice said, "Mushi, mushi."

"This is Sumoto. I am in New York, Sensei."

"Hai, hai."

"I just heard something on the radio. I maybe wrong but I think I heard your daughter was killed by a hit and run driver in Iowa."

Silence. Then Professor Taguchi mumbled something.

"I'm not sure, Sensei," Professor Sumoto said.

"Thank you." Her enemy's voice was a hoarse whisper. "Good-by, Sensei."

Professor Sumoto pictured Bulldozer frantically calling Iowa City. Maybe for a few hours she would suffer from uncertainty. Professor Sumoto smiled.

"Wow, what was that about?" Tom Shank asked.

"Nothing important. Thank you. We really need to go."

"Sure. Enjoyed meeting you." He held out his hand.

Professor Sumoto shook it.

Yoshiko wandered into the bedroom. "Oh, sorry if I'm interrupting something," she said.

"You aren't interrupting anything," Professor Sumoto said. "Tom very kindly let me use the phone. It's late and we must catch a taxi."

She hastily zipped up her dress when her daughter's face was turned.

In the taxi Yoshiko said, "Could I ask you a question?"

"Nothing happened! And not a word to your father! I was about to ask you the same thing."

"No way! Tom is like a little brother to Kenji-san and me, Okaa-san. He's so sweet. But sometimes he is confused about who he is and we help him," Yoshiko said. "I like this new frankness between us."

Professor Sumoto did not tell her daughter how much her body craved the soft skin of her friend. In some twisted way Bulldozer had won again.

She told Yoshiko about her phone call.

"Okaa-san! Are you crazy? You could get fired! You could get sued! That's the most stupid thing you've ever done!"

The rest of the way Professor Sumoto sat in glum silence as her daughter scolded her in a plaintive monotone. She presently recognized echoes of her own mother's voice. She had no further worries about Yoshiko being a proper wife.

When they were standing in front of the condominium complex, Yoshiko embraced her mother and wept.

"I'm sorry, Okaa-san! I'm sorry. I drove you to this."

"Bulldozer won't do anything to me," Professor Sumoto said, patting her daughter on the back. "Not to so close a relative."

\------

BETRAYALS

Fiction Warehouse, 9 March 2005

"How's it blowin,' matey?" said the raspy voice over the telephone. "You make it back to Kyoto okay?"

Hung-over and naked, Scyler sat up on the futon, rubbed his face and shivered. It was a cold October morning.

"Who's this?"

Before the caller told him, Scyler could attach a name to the mock British working class accent. Rudi. An older man, about 45, from Austria. Met the previous night in an Osaka "Irish" bar. Reminded him of petty criminals he had dealt with in Boston. Claimed a "von" preceding his surname. With pretty Japanese wife, about 35. "Rudi drink too much, too much," she had said in English, and smiled when Rudi had lifted up her T-shirt to reveal her bare breasts.

"Where did you get my number?" Scyler said.

"Blimy! You gave me your bleeding, fucking meishi. It 'as your bleeding, fucking home telephone number on it."

"I told you that?"

"Ah, more, matey! If you feel like a bit 'o company come 'round. I'll buy you a pint or two."

"I'm not sure . . . " Scyler said.

*

At 6 p.m. Scyler was on the Kintetsu express train bound for Umeda Station in Osaka. This was, he realized, his most eccentric act since coming to Kyoto in April. He lived an umbilical life, teaching Basic English during the day, eating dinner in an amiable working class shokudo in his neighborhood and reading in bed far into the night. The university had provided him with an old wooden two-story traditional Japanese house. Colleagues had helped him register at city hall, get an inkan (the necessary personal seal), a telephone, a bank account and e-mail for home and work. Beyond his duties, there was nothing requiring individual initiative in his daily life.

The train left the tunnel. Beholding the sunset, which he watched every evening from his monkish second story room, Scyler sighed. He loved Japan. He had loved it when he had come to Kyoto for a semester on a university exchange program seven years before. His wife, Molly, had loved it too. They were newly weds then and crazy about each other.

Scyler had loved Boston and Cambridge. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was one of the three percent of his class to choose an academic career. He was on tenure track at a good private liberal arts college, a member of the Bar and doing pro bono legal aid for homeless people in Roxbury when he met Celeste, the sexy paralegal with whom he had had a passionate one year affair.

Molly had wept every day after learning the truth, even after he broke Celeste's heart by abruptly ending their relationship. The divorce settlement gave Molly the colonial house in Newton that he had inherited from his paternal grandmother, their two cars and all of their joint savings accounts. Her attorney had urged her to seek more but Molly could not be that vindictive.

He had not contested the judgment. When his parents had informed him he was forever banned from the family Thanksgiving dinner because they would be inviting Molly, he had told himself he would have done the same if his own son had disgraced the family name. After the president of his conservative college had hinted he would be denied tenure, Scyler resigned. Having loved two women, he had discovered over the past year the pleasures of voluntary celibacy, of loving no one.

*

The noisy and smoke-filled Hog and Barrel was ten minutes on foot from Umeda station. Rudi, a thin man with sharp cheekbones, whitish skin and straight short blond hair, was alone.

"Hey, matey, I've got a pitcher of dark and two glasses coming!" Rudi intoned above the music and general din. "Eight sharp; yer a bright lad."

Scyler sat down and looked about.

"Wife's at home, if yer wonderin.'"

"Whatever."

A young woman, dressed as an English barmaid, brought the pitcher and glasses. Rudi paid her.

"I'll get the next round," Scyler said.

"Never you fret, matey," Rudi said. "I made me a few quid today selling a stereo I found in the trash and fixed up. You shocked, what? Lots of gaijin furnish their apartments with stuff from the gomi. There are trash collector millionaires."

"I've never met a gaijin junkman."

"I've been doing it for the last ten years, matey. My wife's house is full of junk. She complains, her mother complains. Nani, nani, nani! Every day and bloomin' night. The bloody two of them have more money than they've seen in their whole bloomin' lives."

"I see," Scyler said.

"Of course, I do other things besides. I teach English to doctors and businessmen and their sexually frustrated wives. I've even landed a part time university job. I'm having a wuuuunderful affair with a student. Rie isn't the giggly sort of girl you get in colleges. She's been abroad and can carry on a very intelligent conversation. And she's just fabulous in bed. I do look forward to Wednesdays! We meet in the evening and head for a love hotel."

"I see," Scyler repeated.

"I see, I see! Is that all you can bloody fucking say?" He gave a quick shrill laugh. "Sorry, matey, if I'm stirring painful past-life memories. If you want to know, my wife knows. Sometimes she starts riding her tampon about Rie, nani, nani, but it doesn't last. We go couple hunting. It keeps us together."

Scyler refrained from saying I see.

"Bad stroke of luck you had in Boston. Been there more times than I'd care to admit, matey. Had to escape Vienna after I impregnated my student at the facht schule. Went to Liverpool to indulge my fancy to be a musician. Fifth Beatle, you know. All I did was work in a bar sub rosa because I had no work permit. Had a little tussle with the law and removed my bones to Australia. Met my first Japanese wife there. Went through four Japanese wives before Michiko. She's a good sport, a real brick, you know."

"You're lucky," Scyler said.

"Ah, she can be bloody fucking stupid! Other gaijin marry wives who find them university posts. This one can't read the job descriptions properly. Wakara-nai, wakara-nai. Nani, nani."

"I see," Scyler said.

"Jesus H. Christ! You don't fucking see!" Rudi shouted.

The buzz of general conversation lulled. Scyler was aware of being stared at.

"Sorry, Matey. I get carried away. Back to the main news. Don't get me wrong, old boy. I love the woman. She's a good stick ninety-nine percent of the time and a fantastic fuck. A non-stop sex machine when she wants to be. She gets on these Victorian kicks sometimes. It's her mother who sets her off. But when she's into it, she is really bloody into it. Once she had three guys at the same time. One in the mouth, one in the cunt and one up the bum."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You want to have a go with her?"

"I see. What's the catch? "

"No catch, matey. You'll be doing us a favor. I'm fucking Rie and occasionally this housewife I teach English to. Michiko isn't fucking anyone else now and she's in a funk. Nani, nani, my gomi, nani, nani my drinking, nani, nani my spending too much money on love hotels. Do I have to draw you a picture? When we aren't both fucking around we fight."

"I'm listening," Scyler said. "Why me?"

"Oh, fucking Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Because we like you! You're a clean sort of chap. Not like some of these gaijin around here."

"You don't know me. I betrayed everyone back in Boston."

"The more power to you, matey," Rudi said and downed his beer. "Look, matey, Michiko's got the hots for ya. I'm her emissary. If I fail, my gomi is in the street."

"I see," Scyler said.

*

Waiting for Michiko by a department store in Umeda Station, Scyler looked at the Halloween display of Jack O' Lanterns, ghosts and witches in the show window. He recalled how he and Molly had decorated their old colonial house for Halloween and stuffed candy into the neighborhood kids' trick or treat bags. Feeling tears, he moved away from the display and took Rudi's letter out of his jacket pocket. It was written in an elegant cursive style with a fountain pen with a flexible nib. (Scyler could keep his antique fountain pen collection after the divorce settlement; Molly hated fountain pens, found them messy.) Rudi had written: "Michiko will take you to our usual hotel. This is on us. (Get the next pitcher at the Hog and Barrel.) Since Michiko does not know English I need to cordially inform you she likes to be licked and she likes it up the bum. Have a good time." He glanced back at the Halloween display and wondered whether to returned to Kyoto. Michiko arrived with shopping bags in each hand.

She was wearing a new, somewhat starchy denim jacket, a short skirt and high heels that made her legs look longer than they were. Her permed hair framed her pretty round face, which was radiant as she hurried over to him. It was like the radiance he remembered on Molly's face after a good day's shopping.

Scyler took the heaviest bag. She touched the cuff of his jacket and said, "We go."

Before undressing, Rudi's wife shut off the lights in the little room of the cheap love hotel. Her skin smelled of scented soap whose odor was familiar to Scyler though its name was not. Making love, his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. He saw the dark bruises on her shoulders and arms. Later Michiko said: "Rudi-san, boom, boom. Very boom, boom." Then she smiled and said something in Japanese he couldn't catch.

*

"Hey, Matey, Michiko had a ripping time," Rudi said on the telephone the next day.

"You beat her, you son-of-a-bitch!" Scyler said. Regretting his language, he tried to speak more calmly. "She's a little frail lady. How could you hit her? In our worst fights Molly and I never used physical violence."

"Ah, you're a better man than myself. But it's a Monday morning world we live in, not a perfect world, you know. She was pushing me, nani, nani, nani. I told 'er slack off, woman. But she kept on. I'm shocked I did it. I feel like shit I did it. But it's a Monday morning world, matey."

"I never hit a woman in my life."

"If it's consolation, matey, that frail little lady packs a punch like a rock. And she scratches; she went for my face, matey. I made her cut her nails."

"Dear heavens, Rudi. What brought that on?"

"Nothin' to do with you, if that's what's worrying you, you poor guilt-ridden bloke. It was about my gomi. I'd hauled in five beautiful slightly damaged, slightly outdated color TVs in our lorry and she flew into a fucking fit. I'm giving it my all to feel guilty, matey."

"There's nothing wrong with honest guilt," Scyler said.

"Matey, me and that old horny woman are in like flint. But it's a Monday morning world. You muck up, you clean yourself off, you go on."

"Wish I'd had that option," Scyler said. "I'll call you back."

Scyler had no chance to give vent to the confused emotions tearing at his throat in his quiet, sunny room. The phone rang.

"You don't know my number, matey," Rudi said.

"I'm glad you called back," Scyler said.

"Sure, Matey. Know how you're feeling. Been there, done that. Be happy. You've made Michiko a happy old horny woman . Matey, we fucked four hours straight before I called. And not a word about my gomi. Even her mother's being halfway decent to me. A thousand million thanks, matey! Up for a drink this evening?"

"I'll see."

*

"I'm getting drunk," Scyler said. He insisted on buying the second pitcher.

"You want another go with the old horny woman?" Rudi asked.

"Yes."

"Tuesday okay? Mind if I join you this time?"

"What?"

"Two on one and Michiko really gets going, matey."

"I've never done anything like that before," Scyler said.

"Aw, don't be shy! Michiko and I are old hands. And don't worry; I never go for the wrong bum."

Scyler guffawed.

"I'll take that to mean you're game. I'm relieved, matey. Michiko mentioned something about the gomi just before going to her part time. I was afraid there'd be another row if I didn't bring home the bacon, if you'll pardon the expression."

Scyler guffawed again. "What the hell."

"That's the spirit, matey! We'll have a ripping good time! I won't hear about the gomi for weeks."

Scyler laughed and could not stop. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and said, "Sorry, Rudi. I'm loaded."

"Good to see you laughing. Better than that 'I see' shit. You know, matey," Rudi said as he waved the empty pitcher in the air at the mock bar maid. "You know, what? I'd throw every last bit of my gomi in the street and never collect another broken-down TV again if I had me a little university post. A little university post with an office all to myself. You don't know what it's like never having a place of your own. Always the bloody wife, the bloody mother-in-law. Nani, nani this, nani, nani that."

Scyler got up. "I've got to go."

An iron hand seized his wrist. "It ain't what yer thinkin,' you bloody bastard! I don't sell my woman for favors!"

"You're hurting me!"

Rudi didn't relax his grip. "I got me plenty of mates who can help me out. Plenty of mates higher up the food chain than you."

"I meant I have to catch the last train, for God's sake!" Scyler said. "You made me think of Kyoto. For God's sake, let go!"

Rudi let go.

"Sorry, matey. Honest injun. Dreadfully sorry, really. When's yer last train?"

Scyler looked at his watch. "Blast!" he said.

"Never you mind; you come home with me. We'll finish this pitcher coming up. Then we'll catch a nice cab home."

"If a university job comes along I'll tell you. I'm new . . ."

"Never you mind, matey. I was just dreamin' out loud."

"I'll see," Scyler said.

*

The taxi stopped by a big house with an imposing stone wall around it.

Michiko's family had been rich, Scyler thought.

"Don't worry about Michiko's mum." Rudi said as they got out. "She sleeps like a log. Got to warn you, matey, it ain't the tidiest of places."

The entire traditional Japanese style living room was packed with junk, including the alter space. Scyler noted, however, that everything was tucked away in boxes and every box was labeled.

As his stocking feet moved along the floor he felt it had been freshly scrubbed. Rudi's and Michiko's room was uncluttered and decorated with posters from Thailand, Nepal and India. The single lamp cast the room in pale orange.

Michiko was in bed, naked.

*

The electric heater was on when he awoke with a dry mouth and a swollen head. He had kicked all the sheets off. Michiko was not there. Rudi was sitting naked on the bed and reading. Scyler pulled the sheets over his own bare body.

"You're up, matey."

Rudi put down his book. Tacitus in Latin.

"I need an aspirin. I feel hideous," Scyler said. "You know Latin?"

"A bit. And a bit of Greek and a bit of Hebrew. You were pretty genki last night. The old horny woman was in a jolly good mood when she went off to her part time."

"Two drunken men all over her," Scyler said. "Poor Michiko!"

"Oh come on, matey! Admit it, now. You loved every minute of it! Michiko will be home at noon; we can have another go."

"What time is it? I've got second period!"

"Will you bloody fucking relax! Michiko already called your school. Said you're sick and we're taking care you of you." Rudi slid back the door and called to his mother-in-law for water and aspirin: "Oi! Okasan! Choto asupilin to mizo onagaishimasu!"

Down stairs came an old woman's voice: "Hai! Choto mate!"

"This is embarrassing," Scyler said.

"The old bag of bones does not have a clue what we do up here."

"I'll be sacked," Scyler groaned.

"Relax, matey. Michiko's got a sweet telephone voice. You need to relax. Michiko said you were crying in your sleep. You miss your loved ones, don't you, matey?"

"I do," Scyler said. "This is bizarre."

"You enjoyed every bloody minute of it! Admit it, matey; admit it! Every bloody minute! You still on for next Tuesday?"

"Yes."

*

Tuesdays, sex and dinner with Rudi and Michiko, meshed into the regularity of his umbilical life. He decorated the house with prints from local galleries. He bought a book on sumi-e painting, then brushes, ink and paper. Then he found a master to study with on Sundays. On Saturdays he studied tea ceremony. At odd moments a memory of Molly or Celeste made him weep. Except for this, his life was tranquil. Winter passed. In April he found a letter from Celeste in his university letterbox.

Scyler waited until his after his final late afternoon class to open the letter in his office. He opened it with a letter knife, making certain that his unsure hands did not damage the contents. Celest had written her e-mail address in big letters at the top. He read the following:

Dearest Scyler,

I got your university address from your colleague at your old college. I've missed you terribly. I wanted to write to you but was afraid to. Now I must write to you with the worst possible news. I've been tested HIV positive. The doctor said, given my sexual history, it might be a false positive. It's uncommon but possible. I'm having another test.

I feel more pain for you than myself. I've spent the last year in therapy trying to overcome the guilt I felt for wrecking your marriage. I was just getting over it when this news hit. You can imagine how I felt. I'd better tell you that I have not been with anyone since you. Do you want me to tell Molly (I think she is still living in your old place) or should I let you do it? Please e-mail me.

I love you still.

Celeste

Scyler had planned to visit a little-known Heian era temple in one of Kyoto's suburbs that evening. Instead, he went home and wrote an e-mail to Celeste:

Beloved Celeste,

Got your letter. Numb right now. I'll tell Molly if necessary.

With all my love,

Scyler

Next he called Osaka. Michiko's mother said she and Rudi were out.

Scyler took a train to Osaka and went to the Hog and Barrel.

*

"Matey!" It hain't Tuesday an' yer here!" said Rudi, who was alone. "Cripes, you look like you saw a fuckin' ghost or your wife's divorce lawyer. Have us a pint!"

"Read this." Scyler took the letter out of his pocket.

Rudi read it, then laughed, "Haw, haw, haw!"

"I fail to see the humor."

"Haw, haw! Yer a lawyer an' lawyers are supposed to know when someone is lying."

"Celeste is not a liar! Why would she lie about being tested positive, damn it?"

"I mean about not fucking anyone since leaving you! Haw, haw, haw! She's probably had everyone from the boss to the dustman. Whatever she's got, it ain't yours."

"Celeste is not a liar, Rudy!"

"Haw, haw! Matey, how are you feelin' now?"

"Like everything's caved in."

"No, I mean your health! Your health!"

"Fine."

"There you go, matey. Absolutely nothin' to worry about."

"Rudi, be serious! You know the AIDS virus may not show symptoms for years. I've had unprotected sex with Michiko. How about you and Rie and the housewife?"

"Rubbers except when I go up their bums."

"Rudi, I'm sorry."

"Haw, haw! You've not been listenin,' matey. She's screwed herself silly up and down Boston. She gets whatever. She panics. She writes you. Or, she needs an excuse to write to you and makes this blimey story up. Not to worry, matey."

"Yeah, fine. And if?"

"Well, that's our lot. You pays yer money an' you takes yer chances."

"Rudi, you and Michiko are my best friends!"

"Then give us a kiss! Haw, haw. Michiko's on her period or I'd say let's have a go with 'er an' forget this friggin' letter."

"The best friends I've ever had..."

"Don't get weepy on me, matey. Okay, get weepy. Go 'ave us a good cry."

*

Hung-over and gloomy, Scyler checked his e-mail the next morning. His heart leaped when he saw the message titled "GOOD NEWS!" from Celeste. It read:

Beloved Scyler!

GOOD NEWS! I'd already sent you a letter when I got your e-mail. My second test was negative! I'm so happy! I feel like running naked through the streets of Boston!

Oh, darling Scyler, I miss you! Come back to me! I've got some other news. You won't believe this. Molly and I, it turns out, are seeing the same psychiatrist!! We've become friends. Not close friends but okay friends. She says it was fate, darling. Our psychiatrist, who is Jungian, takes fate seriously.

Darling, please come home. I know you can do something here. I want a life with you!

I love you!

Celeste

Scyler went to his kitchen, which he kept spotless, and poured himself a little cup of expensive saké a friend had given him. He drank down the cup, then another.

"Whee!" Scyler cried to the dawn's first light.

He went back to his computer and wrote to Celeste.

He wrote how happy he was being alive, how much he loved Japan, how much he loved his friends Rudi and Michiko and how much he loved her. "Come to Japan!" he concluded.

He telephoned Rudi and Michiko.

"Moshi, moshi," Rudi said.

Scyler burst out with his good news.

"No surprise, matey," Rudi yawned. "I mentioned you last night. This morning Michiko said, by the way, she had an AIDS test in December when she was donating blood for her aunt's surgery. Neglected to tell it me back then, of course. Was about to call when you called."

"Rudi, last night meant a lot to me."

"Haw, haw, matey! Michiko wants to say hello."

"Harro, Sukaira!" Michiko said and kissed the receiver.

"Hello, yourself," Scyler said and kissed his receiver.

Celeste's next e-mail said:

Beloved Scyler,

You poor darling! I read with great horror about the life you are leading. It's sick, Scyler! It's truly sick! Please come home. Get away from those two sick people and let me make a home for you. You can start therapy with my psychiatrist.

Since you were honest with me I'd better be completely honest with you. I've gained considerable weight since you last saw me. My psychiatrist has me on a strict vegetarian diet and I'm taking an aerobics class in Cambridge.

I love you!

Celeste

On Tuesday, when they were in bed with Michiko in the hotel, Rudi said to Scyler, "You know something, matey? I've never seen you this happy."

Michiko whispered into Rudi's ear and giggled.

"Ah, the old horny woman isn't satisfied yet! She wants another go. Ah, what a dirty old horny woman we got here! Sukebe obahan, Michiko-chan."

"Skebe obahan ja nai," Michiko laughed and punched Rudi in the arm.

Rudi tickled her. She giggled and tickled him back.

Scyler smiled.

Rudi said, "You two have a go by yourselves. I'll read what Scyler's girlfriend has to say." He put on his glasses and read the printout of Celeste's e-mail.

Michiko kissed Scyler on the mouth. He pulled her on top of him.

"Haw, haw!" Rudi laughed. "Good to know we're all judged to be depraved and demonic. You like fat women, matey?"

"No," Scyler said.

"They're actually fun; let me tell ya."

Michiko pushed her tongue into Scyler's mouth.

"You know yer a right bastard showing your girlfriend's letter around."

Michiko told Rudi to be quiet.

He slapped her on the behind. She giggled.

This too is love, Scyler thought.

*

On Saturday Rudi telephoned.

"Got a surprise," he said. "We met this hot couple at a coffee shop and arranged a tryst which includes you. "

"I see. Not on our Tuesdays, I hope."

"Naw, we'll have our Tuesdays as usual. Thursday right with you?"

"Are you sure it includes me?" Scyler said.

"Not to worry, matey. They luuuv group sex."

*

Celeste's e-mail on Monday morning said:

Dear Scyler,

I have waited in vain for a word from you. I think I know why you are not writing. I am swallowing my pride and writing this to you.

If my weight is an issue for you, you had better know that thanks to my diet and exercise I have already lost eight pounds and plan to lose ten more by summer.

I am sorry to say this. Your horrid sex life and silence depressed me so much that last night I went to bed with a man for the first time since you dumped me. I still love you very much and want you to come back to me and make a decent life for yourself.

Scyler, please respond.

Celeste

Scyler transferred the letter into "Trash."

*

On Thursday Scyler met Kenzaburo and Nagako, the tallest Japanese he had ever seen. Both, he guessed, were over six feet. They were older than he expected, around forty, but attractive. Ken's square jaw and wavy hair made him look almost Italian. Nagako's smooth long hair came down to her waist and her oval face was without blemish. Both had tennis tans.

"Ken," said Kenzaburo and gave Scyler and Rudi crushing handshakes. Nagako kissed everyone on both checks.

They were not going to the hotel in Umeda, Ken and Nagako insisted; they wanted the posh love hotel they knew in Shimbashi. Once naked, Ken and Nagako strutted about the hotel room, displaying their lean, athletic bodies, as if limbering for a marathon.

When they were leaving the hotel two hours later Rudi said, "We're all in tip top spirits, I see. How 'bout a dinner and a round at the Hog and Barrel?"

"Hog and Barrel!" exclaimed Nagako, as if repeating the name of a disease. She insisted on a French restaurant she and Ken liked.

Ken was not a talker. Nagako was. In the taxi, she and Scyler talked of Paris.

"By the way," she said as they went into the restaurant, "Rudi says you have lover in Boston."

"Past tense. Had."

He could not talk to her again. During dinner, Rudi, drunk on red wine, monopolized the conversation with anecdotes of his sexual adventures while hitchhiking through southern France.

*

A week later Scyler got the following e-mail from Celeste:

Dear Scyler,

This is going to be my last posting unless you choose to respond. I want to be honest with you. I am having a happy, not serious affair but I prefer to be with you. My lover understands and respects my feelings. If you still love me please communicate with me and we can work it out. If you are jealous, I hope you understand you have no right to be given your own sexual behavior.

With love,

Celeste

PS: Molly is remarrying and selling the house.

As Scyler was staring at the computer screen the phone rang upstairs.

It was Rudi.

"Hi there, matey, good news! You literally charmed the pants off Ken and Nagako. I gave them your number and Nagako is going to call you. Ken would love to talk to you but he doesn't speak English. Hold on to your hat, matey! Ken and Nagako want to set you up with this wuuunerful Japanese honeypot. We're in for good times, matey!"

"I see," Scyler said.

"You don't sound all that bloody fucking happy."

"In law school I wanted to be another Clarence Darrow. I was doing good work with the poor before I messed my life up."

"What's eatin' ya matey?"

"My fucking bitch of an ex-wife is selling the house that was in my family since before the Revolution. The house my granny wanted me to have."

"Ah, matey, it's a Monday morning world. Been there and back."

"Not that it's a gorgeous house. It's only a little house with a garden. It's a crummy house that would've been torn down if it wasn't an official state landmark."

"I lost everything, matey, thanks to bad stocks and wicked women. It's a Monday morning world. Hey, matey, yer crying?"

"You and Michiko are my best friends. You don't judge people."

"Sure we are, matey. Michiko wants to say hello."

"Harro, Sukaira-kuhn!" Michiko said and kissed the receiver.

"Love you, Michiko," Scyler said and kissed his receiver.

Moments after he hung up Nagako called from her mobile telephone. Would he meet her at a French-style café near the Golden Pavilion?

*

Scyler took a taxi to Café de la Mon Amee after his last afternoon class. Its decor of fake wooden beams and white plaster walls reminded him of places he and Molly had seen on vacation in Provence. Nagako was waiting for him in a far corner booth. She was dressed in gray tweeds. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders and her long legs flowed out of her miniskirt. She smiled and crossed her legs when she saw him.

"Scyler-san, dear," she said, holding out her hand.

Not sure if the hand was meant to be kissed or shook, Scyler did both and sat down next to her.

Nagako brought her knee against his.

"I know you want to touch my leg, so please," she whispered. "But speak a soft voice, okay?" She passed her hand over his crotch.

"Instead of feeling each other up under the table, why don't we go to a hotel?" Scyler said.

Nagako smiled. "I take you our house. We play with Ken."

"I see." Scyler said.

"I said my neighbor you our new English teacher. We can't be too much careful."

"I'll drink to that. Would you care for a glass of wine?"

"No thank you; I drive. Do you like BMW?"

"I had a classic 1978 BMW convertible back in Boston," Scyler said. He wondered if Molly had sold it.

Nagako said, "I want you to understand me and Ken. Okay?"

"Please."

"Our hobby is making love to other couple," she whispered. "One time we in love with couple from Sweden. Their name Jan and Thelma. Very, very attractive. Very, very smart. They very... How in English? Very social conscious."

"Socially conscious," Scyler said.

"Socially conscious," Nagako repeated. "Like you. Rudi say you fight for poor people's right in Boston."

"That's fought; past tense," Scyler said. "And I didn't fight. I just did paper work."

"Jan and Thelma very, very attractive. Like you."

"Thank you."

"We write many, many letter for the political prisoner. Many foreign country government!"

"Good for you!"

"But sad thing happen. We love Jan and Thelma but cannot be sponsor of them. Because they work in live show. You know?"

"I know of live shows."

"Very fun, very sexy," she said softly and smiled. "We first meet when going to live show in Osaka. Very secret. Shhh." She brought a finger to her red lips.

"I won't tell," Scyler said.

"But only tourist visa. They cannot have work visa. Very dangerous for them. Because many yakuza in live show business. You know yakuza?"

"Gangsters. Yeah, I read up on them as part of my research here many years ago. Dangerous for you and Ken too, I suppose."

Nagako didn't answer and searched for something in her Gucci bag. Scyler noticed that the waiters were steering clear of their table.

"They go away," Nagako said closing her bag, "We cry and cry."

"I see," Scyler said.

Nagako snapped her fingers in the air. A waiter scurried over.

"Do you understand our feeling, Scyler-san?" Nagako said after ordering coffee.

"I never thought about it; I suppose couples can fall in love. I must say I feel close to Rudi and Michiko."

"So!" Nagako said, and then said nothing for a moment.

"Anyway," Nagako continued, "You so much like Jan. It is interesting."

"The word you want is 'uncanny,' I think," Scyler said.

"Uncanny," Nagako repeated. "By the way, did Rudi say we have some nice girlfriend for you? You will love at first sight! We introduce soon!"

"And mate us like a couple of prize cocker spaniels," Scyler said.

"Oh yes!" Nagako said. "You like dog? We like dog but Ken has allergy with him."

"I see."

"She in England now. We have very nice affair with she and her boyfriend. Not one boyfriend now. You see?"

"I see," Scyler said.

"We have good time when she come back. We have good time tonight. Okay."

"If Ken's comfortable with it."

"No problem. But one thing."

"Yes?"

"Not to talk. Very dangerous. People make big scandal for you."

"And you too, I guess."

"So. But you know what? Always find out. Need very strong friend. Very strong!" she crooked her arms like a muscle man and giggled. "By the way, don't tell Rudi, okay?"

"I see."

"Because Rudi want more sex with us but we don't want."

"I see."

"We think Rudi professor. Only junkman!"

"Hey, you know he reads Latin classics? His "von" makes him a European aristocrat, if you care about that sort of thing."

"Oh, you so honest! Like Jan and Thelma! But Scyler-san, you know what? You see his name write down? It not 'von' but 'van.' 'Van' not aristocratic."

"Whatever," Scyler said. "This isn't my business. If you want discretion you've got it. Rudi doesn't tell me everything."

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"Please quit Rudi and Michiko."

"Good God, why?"

"Rudi and Michiko so low."

"This is where I draw the line!" Scyler whispered angrily. "They are my best friends. I won't throw them over! I've betrayed enough people, thank you."

"Oh you so much like Jan!" Nagako put her hand on his. With the other hand she dabbed at her eyes with the Café de la Mon Amee's cloth napkin. "You so like Jan! So very strong, so very, very righteous! Oh Scyler-san, Scyler-san! We have much good time with you!"

"I see," Scyler said.

\-----

The Essays

In the Shadow of his ANCESTORS

Book Review

_The New Observer_ , January 2001

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. By Herbert P. Bix. New York: Harper-Collons Publishers. XI and 800 pages. US $ 35.00.

In the Introduction to _Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan_ the author, Herbert P. Bix, declares: "This book . . . challenges the orthodoxy, established long before the Asia-Pacific War and fostered afterward by leaders of the Allied occupation, that Hirohito was merely a figurehead within a framework of autocratic imperial rule, and a puppet of the military." Bix is not the first to challenge this orthodoxy. Japanese scholars, upon whom Bix places considerable reliance, have questioned it. In the English speaking world the first major revisionist work was David Bergamini's 1971 two volume _Japan's Imperial Conspiracy: How Emperor Hirohito led Japan into War against the West._ A deeply flawed work, despite its exhaustive research, it was "so violently attacked by a cohort of academic experts," writes Edward Behr in _Hirohito: Behind the Myth_ (1989), "that Bergamini became a pariah, reviled, ridiculed and driven to an early death by the weight of negative critical abuse."

Fluent in Japanese, Bix was able to use Japanese materials, like diaries by ministers close to Hirohito, that have only been given public access recently. Bix traces Hirohito's political life from his birth to his death.

Raised apart from his natural mother and father, the Taisho emperor, Hirohito was, from toddlerhood, instructed in the ways of the imperial family. He was taught that he was part of a dynasty which included an unbroken line of emperors descending from the Sun goddess Ameterasu o Mikami, and that the Japanese people were created to be his ever-obedient subjects to whom he owed "benevolence" but little else. Though Hirohito later came to disbelieve in his divinity, he saw it as a necessary myth to preserve the monarchy. Preserving not just the monarchy but his position in it became his most important mission.

The young Hirohito stood in the shadows of his grandfather, the Meiji emperor, and his father, the Taisho emperor. Meiji, revered in life, became a mega-legend after his death. Taisho, on the other hand, was so debilitated that he could not perform his imperial duties. His work had to be carried out by proxies before Hirohito came of age to become acting head of state as the Prince Regent. The imposing and energetic figure of the Meiji emperor gave the newly recreated monarchy prestige at home and abroad. The sickly Taisho emperor diminished it. Bix writes that "Taisho Democracy" occurred because of the emperor's disabilities. The lesson to the Japanese people was obvious: a weak imperial system meant more freedom. This terrified the ruling class. Monarchies were collapsing, especially after World War I, and the Bolshevik revolution was also igniting political imaginations and movements. To save the imperial system Hirohito had to live up to his grandfather's legacy while living down his father's.

Emperor Meiji had what every great actor possesses: stage presence. Thanks to this, great achievements, like Japan's constitution, the country's rapid industrial progress and rising international prestige, could be easily attributed to him. There was another side to Meiji that I believe endeared him to those around him: his sense of fun. Bix, though alluding to Meiji's "appetites" and "unhealthy lifestyle," seems shy about telling us what Behr details in his book: that Meiji loved getting drunk with court cronies and disporting with his royal concubines. (The Teisho emperor was born of a royal "lady in waiting," not the empress.) Meiji's dissipation mirrored the decadence of the Meiji Era.

Hirohito himself was scrawny, his voice was high-pitched, and he was shy, nervous and taciturn. Neither was he particularly imaginative; those close to him credited him with a good memory but only an average intelligence, Bix writes. Yet, Hirohito was a hard worker. He learned the intricacies of statecraft, turning his taciturnity into a strength. He held people's attention by forcing them to guess what he was really thinking. Like Meiji, Hirohito developed his own stage presence. And one subtler.

Greatly inspired by England's King George V as an "activist monarch," Hirohito learned to appear to be above politics while manipulating people from behind the scenes. "From the very onset Hirohito was a dynamic emperor, but paradoxically projecting the defensive image of a passive monarch," writes Bix. This helped save him after Japan's defeat in World War II: he could insist he was a "constitutional monarch" subordinate to the will of the state.

Hirohito played this dual role so well that as far back as the 1930's, when Japanese nationalist fanaticism was at its height and Japan had already invaded China, he was impressing the Tokyo foreign diplomatic community as a good guy. The conservative and obtuse U.S. ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, later a member of the "Japan faction" in the Roosevelt's wartime administration, "[a]t various times before and during the war . . . described the emperor as a 'puppet' of the militarists, a constitutionalist, and a pacifist," writes Bix.

Hirohito hated democracy and identified "peace" with the power of the throne to subordinate others. Even as the postwar "symbolic monarch," Bix writes, "he continued to act as a restraint on democratic trends, and to lobby secretly for Japan's return to a balance of power system operating against the Soviet Union under strong American leadership." As Prince Regent he had already selected a group of court intimates to revitalize imperial power and stop "extremist" (i.e. democratic and leftist) thought.

How responsible was Hirohito for the Japanese war on China, getting Japan into World War II and Japan's war crimes? Importantly, writes Bix, Hirohito was "neither an arch conspirator nor a dictator...." Quite likely, if preserving the monarchy had meant keeping Japan out of imperialist wars he would have followed that course. He was, however, born into atmosphere of military hubris, the Navy being even more fanatical than the Army Bix argues, and went along with it. At first reluctantly and cautiously, then enthusiastically.

The Mukden (or Manchurian) Incident set off a chain reaction that led to a protracted war in China, which would later plunge Japan into World War II. On September 18, 1931 Japanese officers of the Kwantung Army detonated a bomb near the Japan-controlled South Manchurian Railway and in a false report blamed the Chinese. Using this as pretext, and without Hirohito's approval, the conspirators instigated a series of attacks on Chinese regiments and took control of towns beyond their leased territories. Initially, Hirohito was furious about not being informed. His advisors, fearful of military anger, reigned him in, and in the end, writes Nara Takeiji in his diary, the emperor said, "that although at the time it couldn't he be helped, [the army] had to be more careful in the future." Thus, writes Bix, Hirohito lost "an excellent opportunity" to control the still politically weak military by backing the Wakatsuki cabinet and stopping "the incident from getting worse." Writes Bix: "If he wanted to rule as a British-style "constitutional monarch" instead of an autocratic monarch ... this was his chance." Bix also notes that Hirohito "was not seriously opposed to seeing his army expand his empire. If that involved a brief usurpation of his authority, so be it-- _so long as the operation was successful"_ (Bix's emphasis). This would be Hirohito's approach throughout the quagmire of the Chinese war and World War II.

Bix writes that Hirohito was in on the planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Hirohito also attempted to act as supreme commander of military operations, most often with disastrous results. For one thing, he demanded to be kept completely informed. Keeping the him informed put a tremendous strain on all the military services and hampered the war effort as a result. Furthermore, Bix writes, "Hirohito was rarely adequate when exceptionally strong personal leadership was needed... Too inhibited and slow in producing ideas, he was never able to surmount rivalries between the military services and thereby maintain their unity of purpose and effort." What Hirohito did hammer into his chiefs of staff heads was "responsibility for the empire, and, ultimately, the interests of he imperial house. He also reinforced their belief in the inherent superiority of offense over defense." This led to major blunders. Even when commanders knew a strategic retreat was better, they were still obligated to follow Hirohito's orders. When all was lost, Hirohito delayed surrender until two atomic bombs and the Soviet declaration of war forced him to see the obvious. But not until he was guaranteed that the imperial system would survive.

Bix argues that Hirohito was guilty of war crimes. He cautions, however, that many questions, like whether he knew of the bio-chemical warfare experiments on living people at Unit 731 and similar units in China or of the Bataan Death March, cannot be answered because potentially dangerous documents were destroyed by Japanese officials before surrender. Bix notes that Hirohito bears direct responsibility for use of poison gas in China against soldiers and civilians. Bix also writes that in 1940 Hirohito sanctioned the use of the first experimental use of bacteriological weapons in China" and that "he was probably aware of the meaning of the orders he approved." Bix also writes that Hirohito could have stopped the bestial abuse of prisoners of war by Japanese troops and the genocidal slaughter of civilian populations _after_ the Rape of Nanjing. Hirohito also had a personal hand in the execution of two American bomber flyers, in violation of international law. Bix notes that the question of Hirohito's war criminality was a hot topic in the immediate postwar period. None other than Nakasone Yasuhiro, then a young rightist dietman, suggested that Hirohito should abdicate.

Throughout his postwar life, Hirohito maintained he was but a figurehead during the war. His denial of responsibility, writes Bix, made Japan a nation of deniers of national guilt. The Americans, Bix points out, had a hand in this whitewash of the truth when they were setting up Japan as a model Cold War Asian democracy. Ironically, they made Hirohito what he always claimed to be but never wanted to be: a constitutional monarch.

The debate over Hirohito's war guilt was choked not only by the U.S.-Japanese collaboration in rewriting history, but also by rightist terrorism, of which Bix gives many examples. The fear of rightist violence has choked debate on this question up to this very minute.

\-----

IS THERE DEPLETED URANIUM IN JAPAN'S FUTURE?

(Alex Shishin and Jens Wikinson)

_The Japan Observe_ r, March 2001

As Japan rocks with yet another series of money scandals, which ought to (but won't) obliterate the corrupt and reactionary Liberal Democratic Party, Europe is in the midst of a scandal with far deadlier consequences. It involves the health risks of depleted uranium. DU is used in making very hard armor-piercing anti-tank munitions. The radiation level of these of munitions is purportedly low. Yet, there is a health danger when the dust of exploded DU payloads is inhaled.

The scandal in Europe stems from ground soldiers who served in NATO's war on Yugoslavia suddenly coming down with leukemia and symptoms similar to "Gulf War Syndrome." There is excellent archived material on the issue at the Internet site Antiwar.com. In particular, the reports from the British _Independent, Guardian_ and BBC are very good. The _Independent_ 's correspondent Robert Fisk has done an excellent job in on-the-scene coverage of DU's effects on civilians, especially children, in Iraq (particularly around Basra), Bosnia and Kosovo. The reports are shocking.

In general, this problem has been seen as one that has little link to Japan. However, as we will see later, this "commonsense" view is deeply flawed.

The Dangers of DU

There is now little reason to doubt a direct link between high rates of leukemia and other cancers where DU was used. Significantly, the _Guardian_ (January 18, 2001) reports: "Depleted uranium shells fired by Britain in the Gulf war and the US in Kosovo contained traces of plutonium and other highly radioactive particles, the Ministry of Defense and the US department of energy admitted yesterday." Even minuscule amounts of plutonium are highly toxic.

Several European nations, notably Italy and Germany, have pressed for investigations of DU / cancer links. In NATO, the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the United States Department of Defense have done their best to cover up or downplay the truth (see the _Irish Times_ editorial, Feb. 2, 2001). The Americans and the British oppose a moratorium on DU munitions.

It is now apparent that NATO knew of the harmful effects of DU before launching its war on Yugoslavia in 1999. It is very likely that it knew of the dangers of DU at the time of the Gulf War. However, neither the United Nations nor The Hague war crimes tribunal is willing to treat the use of DU as a war crime.

Two Japanese English-language papers, one relatively liberal and the other conservative, have commented editorially on DU. Both, however, shy way from declaring that there is a direct link between DU and leukemia, and that the US, UK and NATO have lied about this.

On January 22, 2001, the _Asahi Evening News_ ran an editorial that opened with the following lines: "It is possible to make anti-tank munitions that do not use depleted uranium. Would it not, therefore, be possible for NATO to choose a safer path by totally banning the use of depleted uranium munitions?" The more cautious _Japan Times_ (in an editorial on the same day) calls for "health tests for worried service personnel" and declares: NATO should yield to member governments demanding a full inquiry. Failure to do so shows a lack of concern about NATO soldiers and NATO citizens."

Both, moreover, point out that DU concerns Japan. It is now known that Japan has at least been a victim of DU pollution. In 1997, the US reluctantly admitted that DU shells had been used by Marines on the Torishima firing range, located on an island off the coast of Okinawa.

Writes the _Japan Times_ : "Four years ago, the US belatedly revealed that it had shot about 1,500 rounds of DU munitions on the Torishima firing range off Okinawa. Recognizing the potential firestorm ahead, the US then removed all such weapons from Japan, reportedly to South Korea, to be closer to "the potential battlefield." The _Asahi_ says "...that some the [DU] shells are currently stored at Kadena Air Base" and concludes: "The government should immediately and strongly press for the United States to disclose information on the current situation regarding storage within Japan of depleted uranium munitions."

Officials claimed at the times that the firing, which had been conducted in 1995-96, had been a "mistake," and later said that they had removed all shells from Japan.

The ghost of the incident has yet to be exorcized, though. First, as stated in the _Asahi_ editorial, it became clear in May 2000 that DU shells were still being stored at Kadena, a major air base (and munitions storage area) on Okinawa. And second, it is well known that several Navy ships that dock at Yokosuka, a major naval base near Tokyo, are equipped with guns called "Phalanxes," that fire DU shells.

Also in May 2000, another bit of scandalous information was revealed. Casings from DU shells were found in a private scrap yard in Okinawa; the owner had bought the metal from the US military. US officials claimed at the time that the casings were not from the Torishima firing, but might have come from shells used during the Gulf War. Questions persist, however. The question that should be answered quickly is how widespread DU pollution on Torishima is and whether there is danger it will cause environmental damage around Okinawa at some point, possibly entering the food chain.

Perhaps the US and Japanese governments might convey their thoughts to _the Japan Observer._ Independent environmental groups might enlighten us on this point.

Japanese Complicity

There is another aspect to the DU scandal that both the _Japan Times_ and _Asahi_ chose to ignore, probably out of ignorance than deliberate deception. It turns out that Japan may be more than simply a victim of the problem.

According to _DU Watch_ , a newsletter published by a Japanese organization dedicated to outlawing DU weapons, Japan may be very clearly, albeit indirectly, linked to the production of these weapons.

Clearly, depleted uranium is a problem for Japan, as it is for other countries that use nuclear power. In fact, it is more so. To understand this, it is necessary to explore the economics of DU. The decision to use DU in weapons was taken for than just technical reasons. When uranium is enriched to make it usable for nuclear power plants, it leaves behind a residue of depleted uranium (DU) that has to be stored, at a sizable cost. Using it for weapons kills two birds with one stone: the military gets an inexpensive and hard material, and the nuclear power industry no longer has to take care of its mess.

Japan, as is well known, is a "nuclear power" itself. In fiscal 1999, Japan was operating a total of 45 million kilowatts of electricity from nuclear power plants. However, its only uranium enrichment plant, in Rokkashomura, could handle only the equivalent of 8 million kilowatts. This leaves an obvious gap.

So how did Japan obtain the enriched uranium for the extra 37 million kilowatts of its nuclear plants? It sent the raw materials overseas, principally to the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada. And of the two, the US and France are known to use depleted uranium to make weapons.

When the Japanese uranium is enriched, it leaves a residue of DU. This residue is not shipped back to Japan, but is left in the country where the enrichment is done. The official position of the Japanese government is that this is not waste, but a resource, and that it is being temporarily held.

The economics of DU say otherwise, however. It is said that the US Department of Energy sells DU to the Department of Defense for a dollar a ton. It is a price, certainly, but indicates that the material is seen more as waste than a resource.

Neither the United States nor France stores the DU in separate batches by country. Consequently, they cannot determine which DU comes from Japanese uranium and which originates in other countries. There is thus a very real possibility that at least some portion of the DU used in Iraq and in Yugoslavia originated in Japan, and that the enriched uranium was used in Japanese plants.

Japan is thus both victim and aggressor in the game of DU. Like France, it relies heavily on nuclear power, and this comes at a price in nuclear waste. And unfortunately, children in Iraq and in the former Yugoslavia, who were bombarded by NATO planes with radioactive shells, are paying the price of this policy.

The truth of this complicity might have remained hidden were it not for the efforts of Japanese citizen groups working to eliminate DU weapons. The Japanese government has never commented on this paradox. It may very well be that the Japan Observer is revealing a fact that, through sheer ignorance, lack of effort, or perhaps deliberate avoidance, other English-language sources have not spoken of before.

Is There DU in Japan's future?

This aside, we believe there is DU poisoning in the future of Self Defense Forces personnel. Why? Because within the near future the war renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution will either be abolished or artfully "reinterpreted" to render it the judicial equivalent of road kill. Then Japan will go to war.

It won't be like the old days. No calls for national sacrifice. Probably no conscription either. No fanatical nationalism. Fanfare will be subdued, antiseptic.

Japan will likely start by merely assisting NATO or the UN or the US in anti-Iraq and anti-Yugoslavia-style wars. It may begin by offering "logistical support," and be "forced" to use arms for self-defense or some other reason. But this will not disrupt Japanese civilian life, most importantly the life of most of Japan's youth, who will continue to engage in the vacuous and harmless apolitical hedonism that has become an earmark of LDP-influenced culture. Meanwhile, the anxious mothers of Self-Defense Forces personnel will be officially reassured that the dangers to their children are minimal. At worst they'll only have to toss bombs on a few Muslims, Slavs, Latinos or Asians from 15, 000 feet, or fire their big ships' canons at unseen enemies who have little chances to retaliate. If they are ground troops, they'll only have to come in as "peace keepers" after the next Iraq's or Yugoslavia's infrastructure has been destroyed with, as usual, the minimal "collateral damage."

However, if DU is used, it is likely that a percentage of Japanese military personnel will return with "Gulf War Syndrome," and suddenly start coming down with leukemia. And then, if nothing else, the controversy over DU will no longer be a rarefied topic in Japan.

But let's back up and see why this scenario is likely. At this point Japan is already a military big spender, has viable modern military might and is cementing its military ties with the U.S. In the past the LDP itself has put the brakes on militarization for practical economic and political reasons. Economic: the system had to devote its energy to developing a civilian economy. Political: Showa militarism was still a living memory and there was powerful grassroots and legislative opposition to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Today there is no major opposition party left to oppose Japan's escalating militarization, the old Socialist Party having compromised itself into an minuscule presence. The Democratic Party of Japan, on the other hand, is an LDP spin-off with no real counter philosophy. Japan's wartime past is for all, save the old, dead history (except, notably, for Okinawans). Also, Japan's economy is coming apart, thanks to corruption and cronyism, and the inefficiency and mental intransigence it engenders. As companies collapse or are taken over by foreign multinationals, the military industry will seem more and more as a natural pump primer. The bureaucratic corporate state of Japan is perfect for warfare economics. With President George W. Bush promising to raise military spending and revive that Cold War dinosaur, space-based missile defense, watch how Japan, now mostly an onlooker on to the new dot-com economic order, will seize the opportunity to become a Pentagon-NATO player.

Some may cite Japan's "nuclear allergy," and claim that DU weapons will not go down well, but it is worth remembering that Japan has, probably more than any other country in the world, the problem that led to the use of DU shells in the first place. Japan has 45 nuclear reactors in operation, and the waste piles are mounting. DU weapons will surely be an attractive proposition to get rid of some of this waste, hopefully in somebody else's backyard.

One way or another, there is DU poisoning in Japan's future.

\-----

SLAPSTICK ON THE PRECIPICE:

THE ASSENT OF KOIZUMI JUNICHIRO

The Japan Observer June, 2001

Junichiro Koizumi may be the first prime minister of Japan to be chosen primarily for his ability to entertain. His victory in achieving the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party and rise to primership afterwards was the closest this country has come to having a Prime Minister put in office by popular mandate. At this writing (May 6) his popularity with the Japanese public hovers at around 85 %. The popular adoration shown him (as various commentaries in the vernacular press have said) is generally reserved for movie stars, TV talentos, and sports figures. (Is Koizumi more popular than Ichiro at this point? Maybe.) Previously known as a "weirdo" (hen jin) and an "eccentric" he is now called a "maverick, " a "reformer" and is said to be "outspoken," "daring," and "iconoclastic:" qualities, incidentally, assigned to Tokyo's ultra-right and xenophobic governor Ishihara. He is also seen as a savior of the LDP. (Time magazine recently chortled that the LDP's impending death was "greatly exaggerated," borrowing from the too often used Mark Twain witticism.) Koizumi is the embodiment of a national sigh of relief after the departure of the highly unpopular ex-prime minister Mori and his cabinet.

Koizumi represents the triumph of form over substance. Koizumi is a shallower version of John F. Kennedy and bears a scary resemblance to Ronald Reagan as a media manipulator and crowd pleaser.

There is substantially little difference between Koizumi and Mori, except that Koizumi may well be more aggressively right-wing.

Look at what Koizumi has said and done so far. He has given his approval to the recently revised junior high school textbooks that basically whitewash Japan's Asian Holocaust. He has declared that official worship at Yasukuni Shrine, the resting place of many Japanese war criminals, is a cool thing to do. He had put revising the anti-war Article 9 of the Constitution on his agenda so that Japan could engage in "collective self-defense" (which in fact means letting Japan get involved in US-NATO style wars of aggression like the recent rape of Yugoslavia), but has had to back off because of popular pressure that is ironically similar to that which has made him a political pop star. A recent Asahi Shimbun poll shows the around three-quarters of the Japanese people oppose revision of Article 9. But what would be seen as "gaffs" by ex-prime minister Mori are generally forgiven Koizumi, though the more intelligent vernacular journals, like the Asahi Shimbun, are raising voices of concern over Koizumi's nationalism. The Asahi (May 4) quoted unnamed politicians as saying that "there is no guarantee that Koizumi will not become a dictator." In a crisis the most dangerous people are charismatic nationalistic leaders.

At this point, Koizumi reminds me not so much of Hitler or Mussolini, or even Ronald Reagan, but of another political figure.

During the height of AUM Shinrukyu arrests, in the wake of the sarin gas attack in Tokyo in March, 1995, Japan's teenaged girls found a icon: Joyu Fumihiro, the cult's "Information Minister." They had not the slightest interest in AUM, religious experience or Buddha but were crazy about Joyu because he was a "heart throb" as the press cynically wrote. But soon Joyu's fans became bored with him and today he is largely forgotten. So it will be with Koizumi, unless he can offer something more substantial than his permed hair.

However quickly or slowly the Koizumi craze goes away, Koizumi is a dangerous man because of what he represents. But that said, though he looks different and acts like a "maverick" and an "iconoclastic" he is in the end an interchangeable right-wing Japanese politician. In substance he is not only little different from every other LDP politician but also little different from the politicians within the major opposition camp, the Democratic Party of Japan. The Democrats' leader, Hatoyama, showed that he too could play the nationalist card when he worshipped at Yaskuni Shrine. Though, while visiting South Korea he declared that school boards should reject the new false-history junior high history textbooks, Hatoyama's Yasukuni visit indicates that he is an opportunist who can easily compromise principles for political advantage.

As Japan's economy goes to pieces, the Koizumi phenomena is a warning that ultranationalism and militarism will very likely be on the agenda of whoever takes power after him.

The Asahi (May 3) editorially wrote: "It is unusual for a prime minister to make a direct reference to amending the Constitution. In addition to the relevance of Koizumi's statement, however, the fact that there was no fuss over Koizumi having made such a remark is a clear indication that the political climate has changed considerably in recent decades." The same can be said for the Yasukuni visits. Elsewhere in the editorial its Asahi says that voters are much more concerned about the economy than constitutional revision and notes that, "One surprising outcome from [a recent] survey was that as many as 70 percent of respondents said they did not know that there are Constitution Research Councils in the Diet."

The machinery for revision has been in operation for a long time. Koizumi's seemingly "eccentric" remarks about constitutional revision in fact reflect a dominant stream within the LDP. An April 20 Asahi editorial notes that "all four of the LDP presidential hopefuls seem to belong to the same school of hawks," and, attacking their chauvinism, reports: "[Shizuka] Kamei and Junichiro Koizumi, a former minister of health and welfare, were members of the LDP faction once led by Shintaro Abe, a reputedly hawkish group of Diet members. On the question of revising the Constitution and worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine, Koizumi's position is not far removed from Kamei's."

Article 9 has long been a target of the LDP and the right-wing. Much of the right-wing hopes to regain Japan's lost military glory by achieving a military power independent from the United States. (This is essentially the Ishihara Shintaro position.) Most, no doubt, have more pragmatic goals, namely profiting through military hardware sales and technological exchange with the American warfare state. They are, in short, seeking accommodation with the United States military machine. Koizumi seems bent in that direction. One, however, cannot say this with absolute certainty.

The greatest danger that Koizumi represents is that of an ultraright alternative to the corrupt but staid LDP. Koizumi may represent the last gasp of the LDP, but the leaders waiting to fill the void may well represent the worst alternative. In his style, Ishihara Shintaro is all that Koizumi is. He is a "maverick," an "iconoclastic" and is "outspoken." He lacks Koizumi's finesse. He was, nevertheless, a groundbreaker for Koizumi, a relief for disgruntled voters: someone whose bluster suggested solutions to Japan's problems that other more moderate (or circumspect) politicians did not have. Ishihara proved that the voting public was ready for "mavericks" even if they were reactionaries.

As Japan's economy continuous its decline we must expect more right-wing nationalistic "mavericks" to rabble rouse themselves into popularity. Some indeed might have the half-life of the average TV talento (as Koizumi may) but the precedents they establish could be the beginning of a genuine fascist movement. (And remember fascist movements begin as populist movements.)

I cannot overemphasize the gravity of Japan's relentless economic decline. The burst "bubble economy" is only a part of it. And the decline is not simply a matter of bad loans and such. The problem is endemic to how the system operates. It is structural. It has to do with the inefficient methods of distribution and the corruption attending it; but it has ultimately to do with the utter inefficiency of a system based on traditional hierarchy, rigid top down management, which crushes individual creativity for all but a few elite workers, and Japan's suffocating insularity.

Consider a few things.

Japan does not have a viable agricultural economy. Agriculture is kept alive by subsidies and trade barriers. The provinces outside the golden crescent roughly between Tokyo and Osaka have been in a semi-depressed state for years and have been steadily losing populations though some (like Okinawa) may have the highest birth rates in Japan. Much "public works" money has been poured into these rural and semi-rural economic disaster areas (Miyazaki's Seagaia been a particularly unfortunate example.) It is no coincidence that the LDP derives most of its power from rural areas to which the corrupt electoral system has given a disproportional amount of power.

At one time Japan was on the cutting edge in textiles, ship building and steal production, while coal mining was at least viable. Today those industries are either dead or dying. Handed a civilian economy by the American Occupation, Japan profited from the Korean and Vietnam wars and the Cold War (when its potentially biggest industrial competitor, the U.S, was focusing on warfare production). A product of a bygone era, the system has become moribund.

Significantly, one of Japan's few world-class industries, automobile production, has been tottering and has been largely saved by foreign investment. Renault now controls Nissan. Mazda has been taken over by Ford. Chrysler Daimler AG has acquired virtual control of Mitsubishi, a quintessentially Japanese company that once produced the fabled Zero fighter plane.

Once a leader in microchips, Japan has taken a back seat in the personal computer and Internet revolution. There is no Silicon Valley in Japan, and very likely it will never see one. Northern California's Silicon Valley is not simply a collection of brilliant minds and state of the art technology, all of which exist in Japan. It is also an incredibly open place where it does not matter who you are: what race, gender, nationality, or even class. What matters is what you can create. Among the best and the brightest creative geniuses in Silicon Valley are people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are welcomed and accepted. Here in Japan, like all people of color, they are subject to prejudice, plus the suffocating hierarchies that put foreigners and non-Yamato Japanese at the bottom no matter how talented they may be.

Something else. Silicon Valley's lingua franca is English, as it is for the rest of the industrialized world. Japan as a nation does not know English. This is now tantamount to being illiterate as far as being on the cutting edge of technology goes. One intelligent thing the late Obuchi Keizo did was to suggest that English be made an official language. But Japanese linguistic chauvinism quickly killed that.

Just how inefficient, moribund and corrupt the whole Japanese system is was brought out in the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake. While bureaucrats squabbled and the Japanese government denied foreign aid, people died under the rubble. As opportunistic politicians and moronic bureaucrats helicoptored in and out of the Kobe area, the real relief work came from spontaneously formed volunteer groups.

The seeds of Japan's industrial decline have been planted in its insularity and hubris.

There is nothing unusual about the decline and fall of great industrial powers. British capitalism declined because of internal contractions. The Soviet Union not only declined but also crashed. If Japan continues as the world's second largest economy it will be most likely under the control of foreign multinationals.

The Japan Koizumi and his ilk have inherited is a nation that cannot guarantee its people the securities of old. In the face of this, it is not surprising that ideological Novocain in the form of Japanese nationalism should arise: Hinamaru, Kimigaiyo and a bogus national history are all a part of this. "Reformers" like Koizumi may well try to save the system but will stop short of doing anything that will negate their power or that of the bureaucracy and the system of cartels.

Japan may well take the American solution to economic collapse: turn itself into an economic warfare state. The Japanese equivalent of Pentagon Capitalism will require an ideology. We see it taking shape and testing the waters in Koizumi's and others' ultranationalism.

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SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:

WHEN THE WORLD CHANGED FOR THE WORSE

Genocidal Volunteerism, the Sins of Empire, and Japan

_The Japan Observer,_ October 2001

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

\--Macbeth

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were architectural Titanics offering little chance of escape in a major disaster. Built three decades ago, they represented a utopian monument to what appeared to be the best of all possible worlds: an omnipresent, omnimagnificent and invulnerable American capitalism. That myth was shattered on September 11.

The suicide bombers who committed the crimes against humanity in New York and Washington no doubt believed they were dying for a greater good. In the best of all possible worlds a greater good would emerge from so ghastly an evil. But no good has come of this, nor is likely to come. With the collapse of the Twin Towers fell the hope for every progressive cause you can imagine and the emergence of a reactionary political pestilence the world has not seen since the worst days of Cold War hysteria.

The fight to save the Kyoto Pact is on hold, as are movements to save the global environment. George W. Bush now has a chance to quietly kill the ABM treaty. With the nationalist reaction and public cries of revenge against a still unknown enemy, the military's popularity has skyrocketed, and Bush, now suddenly popular, has raised the military budget beyond his and the war industry's most extravagant expectations (to $344 billion). New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who would otherwise have been remembered as the enemy of the homeless and friend to cops who kill and maim Blacks, is now a hero. Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism, always festering in the United States, is on the rise. Ultranationalism is in. Amidst the flag waving, the corny patriotic songs and the cries of "USA! " Americans have largely neglected that a significant proportion of the victims at the World Trade Center were not Americans. A number were Japanese.

As I write (September 28) Bush is preparing for war against a poor, bombed-out country, Afghanistan, the probable hideout of Osama bin Laden (who may or may not have been involved the September 11 attacks). Faced with drought and the threat of mass starvation before September 11, the mere threat of war has further torn the frail infrastructure of Afghan society. Whatever else happens, the damage has already been done. Expect famine.

Here in Japan the ultranationalists have gotten a break. Official Yasukuni visits and nationalistic textbooks whitewashing Japanese war crimes are now tertiary issues. Any movement to have instant Japanese citizen Alberto Fujimori, wanted for mass murder and corruption in Peru, sent back for trial is dead. Most importantly, the ongoing LDP-US initiative to remilitarize Japan has scored a major victory and Japan's battered peace Constitution has taken a serious body blow. Japan Today reports: "The [Japanese] government is considering allowing the troops [of the Self-Defense Forces] to use weapons when deemed 'necessary to carry out duties' under a soon-to-be-submitted bill authorizing the SDF's logistical support for US military action against those connected with the September 11 attacks in the United States ... "(9/23/01). And: "The Japanese government will aim to enact a law that would allow its military to give logistical support to U.S. forces without prior approval from the Diet..." (9/22/01). And: "The Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) plans to dispatch a state-of-the-art Aegis destroyer and three other ships as early as Thursday to the Indian Ocean to collect intelligence and conduct surveillance in the area, Defense Agency sources said Sunday" (9/25/01). The Mainichi Daily News (9/25/01) reports: "Regardless of whether the UN approves of military action, the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) will be ordered to assist any US retaliation for the terror attacks on America, the government has decided."

The Japanese military is amassing powers it hasn't enjoyed since the end of Showa imperialism.

The push to militarize Japan during the Gulf War was bad enough; this is worse. Unlike ten years ago, there is no real major opposition party in Japan, the old Socialist (or Social Democratic) Party having collapsed into a political nonentity.

As civil liberties are bound to suffer in the US they will no doubt suffer here. Already there is a building hysterical reaction against crimes by foreigners; this can only get worse with the added fears of terrorism.

At this writing there has been little serious reflection either in the US or Japan about why intelligent and otherwise rational people would hate America so much that they would be willing to kill thousands of innocent working people and themselves. George W. Bush claimed it was because the US was "the greatest beacon of freedom in the world." Politicians, government officials and TV talking heads have recycled this rubbish: terrorists hate "our way of life, " are jealous of America's wealth and freedoms, etc. Only rarely has the mainstream American media even touched on how the sins of the American empire might have contributed to the events of September 11. I've seen two NBC presentations that gingerly touched on Middle Eastern anger against the US. US military aid to Israel's military war on Palestinians and the decade long genocidal sanctions against Iraq were cited, but understated. (Let September 11 also be a lesson to Palestinian liberationists: Violence is a dead-end. The nonviolent resistance that freed India is their best option for an independent homeland.)

John Pilger (ZNet) writes: "At least a million civilians, half of them children, have since died in Iraq as a result of a medieval embargo imposed by the United States and Britain." In the US and the UK you face arrest, imprisonment and heavy fines for bringing medical supplies to Iraq.

Japanese war crimes amnesia is rivaled by the denials of Americans and their allies of American crimes against humanity: that the US has been a terrorist state with a long and bloody history of overthrowing democratic nations and installing or supporting tyrannies in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The victims number in the millions.

Coincidentally or not, September 11 coincided with the day in 1973 that Chile's democracy was overthrown by the American-backed Augusto Pinochet.

Strategic considerations, not domestic pressures, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out in The Fateful Triangle, have been behind American pampering of the most reactionary and violent elements of Israeli leadership (like Ariel Sharon), leading to outrages against Palestinians and provocations like the building of settlements on Arab land.

If the world is to be made free of genocidal volunteerism (and September 11 was genocide) it is of foremost importance that people inclined to be terrorists must be persuaded not to be. A sober look at American sins of empire are, therefore, a necessity for Americans and their friends. (Remember that bin Laden and the Taliban were once US operatives.)

The Bush administration has turned what first should have been limited to a calm and thorough police investigation and judicial process into a hysterical and confused military mobilization against a dubious enemy. As Bush's modern crusade, Operation Enduring Freedom, prepares for war with Afghanistan there is at least the creeping realization in Washington that the usual missile and bomb attacks (so-called precision strikes with acceptable "collateral damage ") will not work against bin Laden and the Taliban and will do considerable diplomatic harm. But Bush may well turn Afghanistan into a killing field for innocent Afghan civilians and US troops anyway. The outcome could surpass the disaster of Vietnam.

Maybe this is what the mass murderers of September 11 were hoping for. We don't yet know. Whatever the case, they died fools' deaths. They killed and alienated potential and actual friends of the oppressed of the Middle East and of Palestinian liberation, now indefinitely on hold. Their primary victims were working people, many of them Black people with a history of oppression in the US matching that suffered by the poor in the Middle East.

It is quite likely that the attacks were financed by mega-capitalists who may well have turned a profit with inside information on what would occur on September 11, thus making the suicide bombers the ultimate corporate warriors.

As the world totters on the brink of mass slaughter, Japan, the only country with a pacifist constitution, could act as a moral force of global nonviolence. But because Japan doesn't have a peace government it has put itself in the degrading position of being a mere sycophantic client state.

