“Harry?” Ishigami offered to wait.

“No, please.” Harry hated to break up the flirtation between Michiko and the colonel. There were moments when he felt as if Ishigami and Michiko were enjoying a picnic on his grave.

Ishigami thought for a moment. “This is a favorite of mine.”

“This will be very good,” Michiko said.

“Can’t wait,” said Harry.

Ishigami stopped oiling the sword.

“They call this flower white peony

Yes, but

A little red.”

Michiko clapped, eyes bright. “The petals are like that. It makes me think of a white kimono edged in red.”

“Harry, you seem to know something about haiku. What does it make you think of?” Ishigami asked.

“Round shoulders and blood.” What else? Like florists said in the States, “Say it with flowers.”

“Yes.” Ishigami picked out a fresh cloth to clean the blade. “You and I, Harry, we seem to be on the same wavelength.”

“Women just don’t understand.”

“England has poetry, Shakespeare and Donne. Is there poetry in America?”

“It’s different.”

“I would think so. It takes history to be distilled into poetry.”

“No, there’s poetry everywhere you go.”

“Such as?”

“Such as:

“His face was smooth

And cool as ice

And oh! Louise!

He smelled

So nice

Burma-Shave.”

Harry even remembered seeing the ad outside Palm Springs. He had been driving an ingenue to have her nose bobbed, hair dyed and teeth aligned. The girl sobbed the whole ride. She’d planned to be a nun, for God’s sake. In Palm Springs, Harry put her on a bus bound for Iowa City, called the producer and said she skipped. One week later, she was back at the studio begging and worse for a second chance, and Harry had to drive her down all over again. That was when he decided to get out of L.A. Now, admittedly, he was reviewing his life choices. Palm Springs was pretty nice in December.

“Or,” Harry said:

“The answer to

A maiden’s prayer

Is not a chin

Of stubby hair

Burma-Shave.”

“Commercial haiku,” Ishigami said. “Now that is American.”

“Whatever makes the cash register ring,” said Harry. Such an amiable conversation, he thought, if only he ignored the blood on Ishigami’s kimono. It was typical of the colonel that he’d spared his uniform. Thinking about the uniform, Harry asked, “You’re in the Third Regiment? The Tokyo regiment, is that what you’re in?”

“A good regiment. Kyushu boys are known for recklessness, and Osaka boys aren’t quite reckless enough. Tokyo boys are just right.”

“To Tokyo boys.” Harry raised his cup.

“Tokyo boys!”

“Tokyo!”

For a party that was essentially an execution, this was pretty good, Harry thought. Except his legs ached. Since he was used to sitting on his heels, he realized that the only thing his legs could have ached from was fear. From the waist down, he was scared to death. Ishigami wore a look of satisfaction. Once, when Harry was sick in bed as a boy, he had watched a cat play with a mouse for hours, holding it by its tail, flipping it in the air, gnawing gently. Harry had feverish dreams about the mouse for days. He added that picture to his memory of the Chinese prisoners in Nanking. It would be nice to be rescued. For once Harry even missed Shozo and Go. The Thought Police had been watching him for days, and now they were-dare he say it?-thoughtlessly gone. Doing what? Didn’t matter. Harry had squirmed out of tight spots all his life, and he would get out of this one. There were ways. For example: when in doubt, flatter.

“What would you have told the emperor if you had been able to see him alone?” he asked.

“I would have told him about parasites like you.”

“Besides me, what else?”

“That his troops were ready to carry out any mission and overcome any enemy, but that our real enemy on the mainland was not China but Russia, who is happy to see us waste our blood against the Chinese. I would have said we are no longer at war with any aim but to assure obscene profits for Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Datsun as we buy their tanks and guns. I would have told him that the army with the purest ideals in the world has become an opium broker. I would have said that I no longer recognize the army I have served in for twenty years. I no longer recognize myself.”

That wasn’t what Harry had expected. Insight and feelings, they always stun us coming from another human being, Harry thought. Especially from a murderer.

“You’re against the war?”

“No, but I am for a war with honor.”

“Against both the Bolsheviks and the capitalists?”

“Yes.”

“Against the workers and the owners? At what point does this touch on reality?”

“Japanese reality is different.”

Harry had heard that the moon was different in Japan, the cherry trees were different, the seasons were different, the mountains were different, the rice was different. Add them all up and he supposed that reality itself was different. Japanese swords were different.

“Okay.”

“Japanese are different because they live for an ideal, for the veneration of the emperor. Without the ideal, we do not deserve an empire. The idea that Izanami and Izanagi came down from heaven is ridiculous, of course. That the emperor is a living god is a myth. But it is a transformative myth that makes every Japanese godlike. It is an ideal, an ambition that lifts us to heaven.”

“Too much ambition. There’s a war memorial at Kyoto of forty thousand Korean ears. Has to look like chopped squid. You have to be really ambitious to collect forty thousand ears.”

“It’s a start.”

“It’s the cult of the sword. Yamato spirit. The need of attack.”

“Always attack, that’s true.”

Harry was aware of being a little drunk, but he also felt he was on to something. “Ten Japanese against one enemy, attack. One Japanese against ten enemies, attack.”

“The element of surprise is decisive.”

“Always close combat.”

“The closer the better,” Ishigami agreed.

“Bayonet work.”

“A man with a sword is worth ten rifles. War is spiritual. What is your ideal, Harry?”

“Decent odds and an honest game, I ask nothing more. What would you say my chances are of cutting cards to an ace ten times in a row? If I do it, you let me go, and I’ll even dispose of the body in the other room. You have a brilliant military record and a great future ahead of you. Don’t throw them both away for vengeance on some lowlife like me. Remember your obligations. The army needs you in China. The emperor needs you in China. Ten cards. That’s fate.”

Ishigami touched his sword. “This is fate.”

“So serious, you two. Like a pair of monks.” Michiko frowned at them. “We should sing silly songs. Anyone serious is too sober.”

Harry wished he could see some drunkenness or inattention on Ishigami’s part, but the colonel seemed to burn off alcohol like a spirit lamp. He also seemed willing to indulge Michiko. Geisha had that talent.

“Well, what shall we sing?” Ishigami asked.

Michiko said, “I have just the song. And to make it interesting, as Harry often says, there will be a little wager. Whoever fails to sing the chorus in one breath must drink his sake in one swallow.”

“What if we don’t know the song?” Harry asked.

“Oh, you will know it,” she said. “But I will go first to make it easy for you.”

She sat up straighter and began,

“This is the song of the frog

I can hear the sound of it…”

With even the first words, memory flooded back. This was one of the first songs learned by all Japanese children. Harry remembered being in kindergarten, seated next to the open window on a rainy day, picking at the elbow of his sweater and looking wistfully out at a canal while the entire classroom sang in a round,

“Croak…croak…croak…croak.

Croakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroak.”