Harry Turtledove - End of the Beginning

“By God, I’ve done that,” he muttered. He slept better than he had in weeks. Too soon, though, his next shift came. It would have been killing work even with all the food he wanted all the time. As things were… As things were, by the time he finished, he wondered whether he’d stretched the game at all-and, if he had, whether he’d done himself any favors.

JANE ARMITAGE WEEDED HER TURNIPS AND POTATOES with painstaking care. Weeds grew as enthusiastically as everything else in Hawaii. She chopped and dug and chopped and dug, and didn’t notice Tsuyoshi Nakayama coming up behind her till he spoke.

“Oh. Hello!” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as startled as she felt. “What can I do for you?” Nakayama might have been a gardener before Hawaii changed hands. He was still a gardener, in fact, and a damn good one. But, because he was Major Hirabayashi’s liaison man, he was also a major power in Wahiawa these days. You had to be careful around him.

“You don’t have husband, do you?” he asked now.

Ice avalanched along Jane’s spine. Had somebody else seen Fletch? Had somebody ratted on her to the Japs? Could you trust anybody at all these days? It sure didn’t seem that way. “I’m not married,” she said firmly, and thanked heaven she’d taken off her wedding ring as soon as she threw Fletch out of the apartment. It would have made a liar of her on the spot.

“You don’t have husband, even in the Army?” Yosh Nakayama persisted.

“I’m not married,” Jane said again. And the divorce would have been final by now-would have been final long since-if everything in Hawaii hadn’t gone to hell the second the Japs came ashore.

“You sure?” Nakayama said.

“I’m sure.” If she had to, she’d show him the papers she did have. They ought to be convincing enough, even if the final interlocutory decree hadn’t been formally granted. (She wondered why they called it that. It was the decree that meant people weren’t interlocked any more.).

The gardener who was also right-hand man to the occupiers’ local commandant grunted. If that wasn’t an inscrutable noise, Jane had never heard one. Nakayama said, “Maybe you should be careful for a while. You have family you can go to?”

Jane shook her head. “I just moved here a few years ago.” She wished she could have the words back. They didn’t quite scream that she’d come to Wahiawa as part of a military family, but that was the way to bet.

Another grunt from Yosh Nakayama. “You go somewhere else for a while? Honolulu? Waimea? Anywhere?”

She had no travel documents. She thought about what was likely to happen if she ran into a column of Jap soldiers when she didn’t-or even when she did. More ice formed under her skin. “I’m staying right here.”

He sighed this time instead of grunting. “If I get you papers, will you go?”

If she left, she would have to walk. The thought she’d had a moment before came back. How much good would papers do her? “No, thanks, Mr. Nakayama,” she said. He’d never been Mr. Nakayama before the war. If she talked to him at all then, she called him Yosh. How could it be otherwise? She was a white woman, after all, and he was just a Jap.

Now she knew how it could be otherwise. She knew, all right, and wished she didn’t.

Yosh Nakayama let out another sigh. She had the feeling he was washing his hands of her. But no, for he said, “You change your mind, you let me know right away. Right away, you hear?”

“Yes, Mr. Nakayama.” Before the war, she would have added chop-chop, pidgin for pronto. Never mind that Nakayama didn’t use pidgin, but real English-slow, sometimes clumsy, but real English. She would have said it just to keep him in his place, in her mind and in his.

He shrugged his broad shoulders now. He must have known she didn’t intend to do anything of the sort. Off he went, shaking his head. She returned to weeding, but the worm of worry wouldn’t leave. He’d been trying to tell her something. Whatever it was, she hadn’t got the message.

The next morning, she was about to go out to the vegetable plot again when someone knocked on the door. She opened it-and found herself facing three Japanese soldiers, two privates and a noncom.

“You-Jane Armitage?” In the noncom’s mouth, her name was barely comprehensible.

She thought about denying it, but decided she couldn’t. “Yes. What is it?”

He spoke in Japanese. The two privates lunged with their bayonets, the points stopping inches from her face. She yelped and hopped back. “You come,” the sergeant said.

Jane yelped again. “I haven’t done anything!” Fletch. God help me, they must know about Fletch.

“You come,” the Jap repeated. Maybe he didn’t understand what she said. Maybe-more likely-he didn’t care.

Since the other choice was getting killed on the spot, Jane came. The Japanese soldiers marched her about four blocks to another apartment building, one that had stood empty since Wahiawa fell. Now it had bars on the windows and guards out in front. A sign in Japanese said something Jane couldn’t read.

Three or four other parties of Japanese soldiers were also coming up to the place. Each of them had a woman with it. All the women were in their twenties or thirties. All but one were white; the other was Chinese. All of them were prettier than average. A horrid suspicion flowered in Jane. “What is this place?” she demanded.

“You come.” The noncom pointed to the front door. He’d used just about all the English he had. The soldiers prodded her with the bayonets. She didn’t think they drew blood, but she didn’t think they would hesitate-at anything-if she balked, either. She took an involuntary step. They prodded her again, and she went inside.

Eight or ten more women already crowded the lobby, along with an equal number of soldiers to make sure they didn’t go anywhere. Jane’s fear grew. Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with Fletch after all, but that wasn’t necessarily good news. Oh, no, not even a little bit.

Yosh was trying to warn me. Sweet Jesus, he told me to get lost, and I didn’t listen to him. And what was she liable to get for being stupid? In the old days, they’d called this a fate worse than death. To her, the phrase had always been one from bad melodrama. Now, suddenly, she understood just what it meant. It wasn’t so far wrong after all.

She looked around at her companions in misery. About half looked as terrified as she felt. They had to be the ones who’d added things up the same way she had. The others just seemed confused. Ignorance, here, was liable to be bliss-but not for long.

One of the Japs in the crowded lobby was a lieutenant she didn’t remember seeing before. “You will listen to me,” he said in very good English. “It is not, ah, convenient for Japanese soldiers in this part of Oahu to travel to Honolulu for comfort and relaxation. So, we set up a comfort house here. You are chosen to man this house.”

His English might be good, but it wasn’t perfect. Manning wasn’t what the Japs had in mind for them. What they did have in mind… Nobody could keep any illusions any more. The women started screaming and cursing and telling the lieutenant no in terms as certain as they could make them.

He let them yell for a minute or two, then spoke in Japanese to the soldiers by him. They raised their rifles. As one man, they chambered a round. Those sharp clicks pierced the din like a steak knife cutting tender, blood-rare prime rib. Even at that dreadful moment, food came to the forefront of Jane’s thoughts.

“Enough,” the officer said. “If you do this, you will be well fed. The term of service will be six months.