Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

“Yes, sir!” It was a ragged chorus, but it plainly said what the Jap wanted to hear. Peterson joined in. He understood, all right. He understood this was nastier trouble than he’d imagined in his worst nightmares.

You should have run away, he jeered at himself. But where could he have run? Oahu had nowhere to hide, except maybe among the civilians in Honolulu. He hadn’t been able to stomach the notion… and now it was too late.

A Japanese soldier came up to him and waited expectantly. You are to bow and you are to obey. Tasting the gall of the defeated, Peterson bowed. It’s only politeness, he told himself. It’s what they do, too. It would have been only politeness had the Jap returned the bow. He didn’t. He accepted it as nothing less than his due. He deserved it for being on the winning side, and he didn’t have to give it back.

He reached into Peterson’s pockets. Peterson stood there, stiff as a statue. You lost. This is what happens when you lose. The Jap found his Navy rank badges. He kept them. All he cared about was that they were silver. I really am nothing but a corporal now. Then the Jap found his billfold. He had fourteen dollars, just about what he’d had when he took off from the Enterprise ’s flight deck. It wasn’t a whole lot of money, and he sure hadn’t had any place to spend it since he’d parachuted down onto that golf course.

By the way the Jap clutched the greenbacks in his fist and hopped up and down and jabbered in his own language, he might have broken into Fort Knox. People talked about inscrutable Orientals, but this guy wasn’t inscrutable. He was damn near out of his mind with glee.

He was so overjoyed, he even gave the wallet back to Peterson once he’d pocketed the money. “Thanks a lot,” Peterson said, sarcastic before he remembered sarcasm might be deadly dangerous. Then he had a rush of brains to the head. He bowed again.

This time, the Jap bowed back. You’re nothing but a lousy prisoner, but I can be polite about robbing you. That was what it boiled down to. It couldn’t mean anything else. You son of a bitch, Peterson thought. You rotten, stinking son of a bitch.

The other Japs were plundering the rest of the Americans. The prisoners took it quietly. Flies landed on the ruined face of the soldier who’d resented it. The Japanese officer barked a command. The interpreter said, “This way,” and pointed. The Americans trudged off into the new world of captivity.

SUSIE HIGGINS LAY on the narrow bed and sobbed. “I wish to God I’d never come here!” she wailed.

Even though Oscar van der Kirk had come to Hawaii years before Susie had, that same thought had occurred to him. He said, “A little too late to worry about it now.”

She glared at him. Even with her makeup smeared and tear streaks down her face, she looked good. Not a hell of a lot of women could say that. “What are we going to do? The Japs are taking over the island.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Oscar said. “I don’t know what we can do except keep our heads down, try to stay out of trouble, and hope there’ll be enough to eat. Have you seen the prices? Food’s going up like a Fourth of July skyrocket.”

“ We lost! ” Susie exclaimed. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You knew it was going to, same as I did,” Oscar answered. “You said so.”

This time, Susie glared at him in a different way. She didn’t like getting reminded of what she’d already said. “They’re Japs,” she said. “They’re not Americans. They’re not even white men. They shouldn’t be able to do this.”

Oscar shrugged. “The guy who owns this building is a Jap. A lot of the people who’ve made it big for themselves here are Japs-and that’s in spite of everything the haoles do to hold ’em down. When I first moved here, I thought the same way you do. The longer I’ve stayed, the more I don’t. The Japs can do anything we can do, and I don’t give a damn if they’re green.”

“Are you going to teach them to surf-ride?” she spat.

He grunted. That question had occurred to him, too, and he wished it hadn’t. “I guess so. If they want to learn. If they want to pay me,” he said slowly. “Their money’d spend just like anybody else’s. Lord knows we’re going to need it.”

“I wouldn’t have anything to do with them,” Susie said.

“Yeah, well, surf-riding lessons aren’t what they’d want from you,” Oscar said.

Susie’s hand reached out for something to throw. Fortunately, nothing was in reach of where she lay. “And if I gave ’em that, how would it be any different than you giving ’em lessons?”

“It would, that’s all.” Oscar had to stop and figure out how. He did his best: “Giving lessons is what I do for a living. It’d be like a cabby giving a Jap a ride. The other-if you did that, you’d be doing it ’cause you wanted to, not because it was your job.” If he said it was, she’d get up to find something to throw at him. He’d deserve it, too.

Instead of getting up, she changed the subject. She hardly ever came out and admitted she was wrong. This sort of thing was her nearest approach. She asked, “Are you going to watch the victory parade tomorrow?”

“Heck, I don’t know. I was thinking about it,” he answered. “Why not? It’s something to do. I’m not going to cheer or anything.”

“Jesus, I hope not,” she said. “I bet everybody who’s there’ll be a Jap, though.”

Oscar grunted again. He hadn’t thought of that. “I bet you’re right. Okay, I’ll stay away. Wouldn’t that be just what I need, showing up on some lousy Jap propaganda newsreel? If it got back to my folks, they’d never live it down.”

“That’s more like it,” she said. “What’ll we do instead?”

“We can go out on the ocean, or else we can stay here. Your call,” he said.

She shrugged. “Worry about it in the morning.” She got up from the bed and looked at herself in the little mirror over the sink. “Lord! I’m a fright! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Then we’d fight over something else, he thought. Aloud, he said, “You always look good to me, babe.” That was true enough. He knew exactly what hold Susie had on him. Knowing it didn’t make it any less real.

In the morning, he wanted to go out to the Pacific. Susie said, “Go ahead. I just don’t feel like it.” She looked at him in a way that would have been sidelong except, in a fashion he couldn’t quite define, it wasn’t. “I don’t much feel like anything else today, either,” she added, just in case he hadn’t got the point.

But he had. He was no dummy, not where people were concerned. “See you later,” he said, and hurried out the door. He trotted down toward Waikiki Beach like a man going toward his beloved. He got his surfboard from the Outrigger Club and was heading across the soft sand of the beach to the sea when somebody behind him let out a yell.

He stopped. There was Charlie Kaapu, also with his surfboard under his arm. “You can’t stand the Japs, either, hey?” Charlie said.

“That’s… part of it,” Oscar answered. “Come on-let’s go.”

They entered the water side by side. Setting his skill against the surf, Oscar didn’t have to think about the Japs or anything else. If he had done any thinking, he surely would have taken a tumble. If you were anything but a creature of reflex and reaction on the waves, you were in trouble.

When he and Charlie came up onto the beach after one long, smooth ride, he saw a pair of Japanese officers watching. Well, would I teach a Jap to surf-ride? he wondered. He didn’t want to think about that, either, and plunged into the Pacific again. But the Japanese officers were still there when he got back. So were the rest of his troubles, of course. He knew they wouldn’t disappear no matter how he ran. Knowing didn’t stop him from running.