Harry studied the ceiling’s Gothic gloom, the crosspieces of concrete and lava rock. All they lacked were bats.

Willie went on, “Sometimes Harry and I would patrol in the car and load it with girls. Harry altered documents from the Japanese command so they seemed to give him the authority to prevent the spread of infection among the troops, which meant removing the women from their rapists. For added authority, he wore one of my armbands to pretend he was German, too.

“It wasn’t only women. We had a truck. Harry and I would load it with men taken from hiding and put on a top layer of the dead bodies in case we were stopped, which we often were. Harry would produce papers ordering us to remove bodies around the zone to prevent cholera or typhoid. He was excellent at creating official papers. The killing went on for weeks. When new Japanese recruits arrived, they were drilled in the use of the bayonet with live Chinese, to accustom them to blood. One officer, a Lieutenant Ishigami, became a kind of legend for beheading a hundred Chinese.”

“End of the story,” Harry said. “Willie, you’ve said enough.”

“Except that Ishigami came to the Happy Paris last night after you left.”

“Enough.”

Willie slid back in his chair. “Very well. Anyway, that’s part of what happened in Nanking and why I am perhaps not such a fool to think that Harry, the Harry Niles I knew in China, might possibly help us here.”

The table was quiet. Finally DeGeorge said, “Harry with a swastika on his arm? I can picture that.”

“No. Harry was heroic.”

“Maybe. You don’t speak any Japanese, you don’t really know what actually transpired, you know only what Harry told you. But Harry in a Nazi armband, that I can believe.”

“I’ll call some people about Iris,” Harry said.

“I would be forever grateful.” Willie jumped up to shake Harry’s hand. “At the War Ministry? Someone from the military police would be best. High up?”

“Well, people with influence.”

“Thank you,” Iris said. “You are just as Willie described.”

“Willie has a hell of an imagination.” Harry stood to leave. “Nice to meet you. Only, no more fairy tales.”

“You can’t stay?” Willie said.

“I’m off, too, to Matsuya’s for the necessities, soap, Scotch, cigarettes,” Alice said.

“Lady Beechum thinks there may be a war in a day or two,” said DeGeorge.

Harry said, “Your husband says, ‘The little yellow Johnnies don’t have the nerve.’”

“There you are.” She lifted a smile to Harry. “It’s men like Arnold who have put the British Empire where it is today.”

AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT Hajime was at Tokyo Station. Gone was last night’s maudlin drunk and in his place was a sober Hajime in khaki, field cap and cape. The railroad platform was crowded with recruits, parents, friends, little brothers waving flags, sisters delivering thousand-stitch belts with all their protective powers. Some men were shipping out for the second time, but most were boys clumsy in their helmets and field packs with bedrolls and entrenching tools. Banners hung vertically from lamp poles announced, ONE HUNDRED MILLION ADVANCING LIKE A WALL OF FLAME!, the sort of wish some travelers could do without, Harry thought. A brass band produced a rendition of “My Old Kentucky Home” that shook dust from the station’s spidery skylights.

Hajime regarded the confusion with a veteran’s detachment. “Thanks for coming, Harry,” he said. “All you need is one friend to see you off, right?”

“I guess so.” Harry probably would not have come at all if it hadn’t been for Hajime’s gun. Harry gave it to him still boxed and wrapped as if handing over a farewell gift. Since its loss was punishable by death, Harry expected a little gratitude. Instead, Hajime demanded a smoke. Harry gave him a pack, and Hajime lit up with ostentatious ease.

“Thanks. Remember the days when we used to run around Asakusa? We ruled the roost, Harry. You and me and Gen, we ruled the roost.”

Hajime had done well by the army, however. Here he was in a crisply ironed uniform with a sergeant major’s tabs, a waxed and bristling mustache and thick spectacles that magnified his self-importance, no sign of the falling down drunk who had pissed on the street outside the Happy Paris the night before. He was still loathsome, but he had no family or friends, and Harry supposed that, after all, someone ought to see the son of a bitch off. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone on the platform that Harry wasn’t Japanese. In this crowd, with its blur of emotion, he seemed to blend in well enough.

“These kids think they’ve been through boot camp,” Hajime said. “Wait until I get my hands on them. Do you know why a soldier will charge a machine gun across an open field?”

“Why?”

“Because he’s more afraid of me.”

Which was true enough. Harry had heard plenty of stories about recruits considered too short or tall or slow or quick who had been beaten until their noses were split, teeth lost, eardrums burst. Supposedly it was a psychological approach, to create a rage that could be turned on the enemy. Rage and fear plus devotion to the emperor. Harry was always amazed how the army could take so many young scholars, gentle poets, honest farm boys and fishermen’s sons and turn them into killers. It took the hard work of men like Hajime.

“Well, I can see why you’re so eager to get back to China. Ever afraid of a bullet from your own men?”

“I never turn my back on them.”

The train was late. The crowd shifted to fill the platform without falling onto the tracks. Fathers sucked in their chins with pride while women seemed more ambivalent about sending off sons who looked young enough to be trading baseball cards. A man in a bowler asked Harry, “Would you be so kind?” and handed him a camera, a little spring-bellows Pearlette. Harry took a picture of the man with a young recruit who had a bright red face from ceremonial farewell cups of sake and a thousand-stitch belt tied like a scarf around his neck, a son who was obviously the measure of his father’s love.

“Remember ‘Forty-seven Ronin’?” Hajime said. “Remember how we let you in even though you weren’t Japanese?”

“I think you needed someone to chase.”

“We had a great gang. Then you and Gen started hanging around the theater and dumped the rest of us.”

“We grew up.”

“What was the name of that dancer you were so crazy about? Oharu? That was terrible about her.”

“What’s the point, Hajime?”

“The point is, I know how much you wanted to be Japanese, and now you see you’re not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This. This army is only for real Japanese, that is why it is unstoppable. This is a pure army. No pretend Japanese here. You think you know everything, you always thought you were so clever. Soon enough there won’t be a white man left in Asia, and that includes you.”

Hajime’s voice rose with the approach of a locomotive drawing a train decked in red and white bunting. Flags flew on the engine’s steam domes and boiler front. Recruits who had already been gathered from other stations leaned out coach windows to shout over the explosion of air brakes, squeal of rails and renewed fervor of the band, which welcomed them with a popular song.

Bullets, tanks and bayonets

Bivouac with grass for a pillow.

My father, appearing in a dream,

Encourages me to die and come home.

“Hold this.” Hajime handed back the gun while he cleaned the lenses of his glasses. There was a rush to board because the train was running late. This was a city where people were physically packed into subways and onto buses. Harry let families shoulder by to the steps for leave-taking, mothers and fathers bowing to their soldier-sons with much trembling but no crying. Hajime set the glasses on his face and took a step backward up to the railroad car.

“Don’t forget this.” Harry stretched out an arm with the package.