Harry Turtledove - Days of Infamy

The only possible answer to that was no. Japan wanted pliable puppets like the Emperor of Manchukuo. The Japanese told him what to do, and he told his people. That caused less friction than if a Japanese governor gave orders in his own name. A Queen of Hawaii would serve the the same function. Even the whites would be happier about orders from her than from General Yamashita.

A Queen of Hawaii, yes, but plainly not this Queen of Hawaii. Still, Fuchida did his best: “You would serve the interests of your people, your Highness, and the interests of all the people of Hawaii, if you accepted.”

When Abigail Kawananakoa shook her head, her jowls wobbled. Oddly, that made her seem more impressive, not less. She said, “If I accepted, I would serve the interests of the Empire of Japan. I do not doubt that you make the offer in a spirit of good will, but I must decline. Good morning, gentlemen.” She rose from her chair and sailed out of the King’s Library, Izumi Shirakawa again drifting along in her wake.

“She is a widow, neh? ” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said.

“ Hai. For many years,” Fuchida answered.

“I can see why,” the Army man said with a shudder. “I would rather die than live with a woman like that, too.” Fuchida and Genda both laughed; Fuchida wouldn’t have guessed Murakami had a joke in him.

Lieutenant Colonel Minami said, “What do we do now? We’ve got orders to start up the Kingdom of Hawaii again. How can we do that if we have no royal backside to plop down on the throne?”

“We’ll manage.” Genda sounded confident. “This woman isn’t the only person with connections to the old royal family, just the one with the best connections. Sooner or later, one of the others will say yes, and we’ll have the backside we need.”

“This princess would have been a nuisance even if she did say yes,” Fuchida said. “We’re better off without her.” None of the other Japanese officers told him he was wrong.

WHEN JANE ARMITAGE dug her first turnip out of the ground, she was as proud as she had been when she first got her driver’s license. She might have been prouder now, in fact. The driver’s license had given her the freedom of the open road. That first turnip, and the other white-and-purple roots that came out of the ground with it, gave the promise of freedom to keep on living.

If she’d seen her turnips in a grocery-store bin before the war, she wouldn’t have spent a nickel on the lot of them. They weren’t much for looks. Bugs had nibbled them, and they were generally ratty. Jane didn’t care, not these days. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Tsuyoshi Nakayama studied the pile with grave approval. “You have done well,” he said, and wrote a note on a piece of paper in a clipboard he carried.

“Thank you.” Jane had never imagined a Jap gardener’s opinion could matter to her. But Nakayama knew how to grow things, even if he was the occupiers’ go-between in Wahiawa. Jane knew in her belly-quite literally knew in her belly-how important that was.

“Because you have done so well, take a dozen turnips back to your apartment,” Nakayama said. “Take greens, too. The rest will go to the community kitchen.”

“Thank you!” Jane exclaimed. Food of her own! He could have given her no greater reward. Or could he? Doubt set in. “How am I supposed to cook them? I don’t even have hot water, let alone a working stove.”

“You can make a fire. You can boil water.” The local Jap was imperturbable. “Or you can leave them there, and they will all go to the kitchen.”

“Oh, I’ll take them,” Jane said quickly. “Will you watch the pile till I get back?” Yosh Nakayama nodded. Like her, he knew others would make turnips disappear if someone didn’t keep an eye on them.

Jane picked what looked like the biggest and best turnips. Then she discovered that carrying a dozen of them was no easier than carrying a dozen softballs. She thought about making two trips, but doubted whether Nakayama would put up with such inefficiency. Instead, she tucked her blouse into her dungarees and dumped the turnips down her front. She looked ridiculously lumpy, but so what?

When she got to the apartment, she hid the turnips in as many different places as she could find. Even if someone broke in, he might not steal them all. And she locked the door behind her when she went out again. She hadn’t bothered lately, but now she had valuables in there again.

Valuables! Before the invasion, she would have turned up her nose at turnips; she’d thought of turnip greens as nigger food, if she’d thought of them at all. No more. Before the invasion, she’d been worried about the beginnings of a double chin. Where so many fears had grown, that one had shriveled and blown away. Nowadays, her jawline was as sharp as anyone could want. Her cheekbones stood out in sharp relief under her skin. She didn’t know anyone in Wahiawa who wasn’t skinnier than before the war began. From what doctors said, that would add years to people’s lives. Some of the days Jane put in felt like years.

To give Yosh Nakayama his due, he was skinnier than he had been before the war started, too. He wasn’t living off the fat of the land for helping the Japs. In his weathered face, the prominent cheekbones put Jane in mind of the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. Nothing else in Hawaii reminded her of New England.

“Thank you for keeping an eye on things,” she told him.

He nodded gravely. “You’re welcome. I do it for everybody, you understand, not just for you.”

“Of course.” She was glad he wasn’t interested in her in particular. That could have got awkward. If she said no and he didn’t like it, would he make sure she didn’t eat? Would he get her in trouble with the occupiers? The nasty possibilities were endless.

Three men with wheelbarrows came up and started loading her turnips into them. When the wheelbarrows were full, they wheeled them off in the direction of the community kitchen. A few turnips were left. Jane wondered what would become of them. She needn’t have. One of the men, a Filipino, came back and loaded in those last few. Sweat ran down his face as he said, “Hard work!” Away he went, panting a little.

Nakayama looked after him, an odd expression on his face-so odd that Jane asked, “What is it?”

“We say, ‘Hard work!’ in Japanese, too. I wonder if Carlos knows that. With us, it can mean the work really is hard, or it can mean you complain about what you have to do, or it can mean you are sorry about what someone else has to do.”

Jane hadn’t expected a Japanese lesson. She also hadn’t had the faintest idea what the Filipino’s name was. To her, he was only a face in the crowd, and not a handsome face, either. But Nakayama knew. He knew who she was, too. He probably knew who everybody in and around Wahiawa was. That had to make him all the more valuable for Major Horikawa and the rest of the Japs.

“Your potatoes, I think, do well, too,” he said. Touching the broad brim of his straw hat, he went off to talk with another cultivator.

How do I cook those turnips? Jane wondered over and over. Only two answers came to her. She could build a fire in the open-and risk having more company than she wanted. Or she could build one in the oven of her gas stove. It might make a fair imitation of the coal-burner her family had had when she was a little girl.

She tried that. It worked, though the kitchen got smoky and she wouldn’t have wanted to do it every day. Boiled turnips, even with salt, were uninspiring. But they were better than nothing, and a welcome addition to the slop from the community kitchen. When you got right down to it, what counted for more than a belly that didn’t rumble? Not much. No, not much.