Japanese Love Song John Edward Gill

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Farewell to Love

Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday, Feb.19—–Norris didn’t want Charlotte to see him in uniform. He wore his navy blue suit when they walked along the Kamo River in Kyoto again. He wanted her to see bright strands of silk drying along wide river banks and hoped she didn’t think about Saigon on their second trip here.

“We could buy a dress of that material,” he said, pointing to dyed strips of gold, orange, green, blue and red cloth. “They process silk in Osaka and bring it here for coloring and then they make dresses, kimonos, scarves, blouses, even sheets in factories next to the water.” He took her hand as they walked toward Shinmonzen Street and he remembered not to speak of the Red Cross.

“You changed before I got to the hotel,” she said.

“My plane was early. Flight Six. It stopped in Osaka for that briefing.” He looked at her. “They wanted me to stay, but I’m on Leave.”

“A civilian for one weekend,” she said. “Friday night to Sunday.”

“An American tourist with his fiancee. We’ll take lots of pictures.”

“Embassy gets dispatches every day from the Pentagon. Sometimes directly from Saigon, before they reach Washington. I brought articles from The New York Times, Evans. Westmoreland doesn’t give up, does he?”

 “They have those clippings in the ‘O’ Club, Charlotte.”

“I started saving them back as far as November. One’s in my suitcase. Story on the front page, Monday, November twenty-third. I memorized every word. ‘It is absolutely inconceivable to me that the Vietcong could ever militarily defeat the armed forces of Vietnam.’ He asked for more troops.”

“You don’t need jewelry. Jade earrings, pearl necklaces or bracelets. Look at those colors. Silk rainbows.”

“Johnson’s trying to build support for the war. Terrible quotes.”

“You’d look chic in those red dresses with slits up the side. Like they wear in Hong Kong. Pretty legs.”

“Westmoreland wants another half million troops.” Women like antiques, he thought, looking at her.

“Maybe you’d like a statue. They have Buddha in every shape. Small, large.”

“Was your briefing about Da Nang?”

“There are so many stores and we have just a few days, Charlotte. Look, shops with names like Kato, Nakai, Okumura... And I bought a little transistor radio.” He held it up.

“The American language station is playing show tunes all this week. Repeating them at different times of the day. ‘South Pacific’ each morning, ‘Oklahoma,’,‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘West Side Story’ during afternoons, Sigmund Romberg at night. ‘The Student Prince.’”

“The Times didn’t mention planes. But you know Westmoreland’s thinking about them. He mentioned Clark Air Base the other day.”

“That’s in the Philippines.”

“But you’re the closest Wing. Two air groups in Japan.”

He wanted her to look at blue sky overhead, purple now in twilight near the horizon. November’s autumn was crisp, with tall, soft, green grass weaving in gentle breezes beside calm waves. He looked at wooden Japanese inns with glowing, yellow paper lanterns inside and brushed, clean streets outside, silvery from afternoon showers, and long shadows from thick evergreens beside quiet riverbanks.

“Kyoto wasn’t touched in World War Two,” he said. “They’ve added indoor plumbing and electricity, but it’s the same architecture as hundreds of years ago.”

“Even in the Hilton,” Charlotte said.

“Don’t laugh. The Marine Corps is paying for it.” He tried to smile and looked at river grass again. “In Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima...the Hilton’s on their approved list. As long as I wear my uniform.”

“Which is why you checked in early and met me in civvies.”

“Which is why I wanted to get your ring size. Could have surprised you with a diamond.”

“Tell me about the briefing, Evans. You’re the best pilot in MAG-Twelve.”

“And you’re the best foreign service officer in the Embassy.” He wanted her to laugh, but she didn’t. “Vassar to Nippon.” Norris still couldn’t make her smile.

“All right. It was routine. Colonels wanted their wives to see Kyoto. They’ll arrive tomorrow.” He looked back at the stores. “We’d better shop tonight.”

“And the flight from Atsugi?”

“Crowded, of course,” he said. “Two bird colonels, six lieutenant colonels, majors, captains ... Full plane from Iwakuni, too.”

“They start with air strikes,” Charlotte said. “I wasn’t a history major for nothing. Bomber squadrons, ground troops with ‘defensive actions’, fighters for air-to-air patrols....”

“The Vietcong doesn’t have planes.”

“The Phantom, F-4B, your plane, can deliver more pounds than most bombers in World War Two.”

“You’re reading top secrets,” he said, his face drawn, skin pale. He looked away so she wouldn’t see him shaking.

”And we’ve talked about this.”

“Don’t tell me to watch the water.” He took a breath and held her arm with both hands.

“The Golden Pavilion is nearby. Nara has temples, too.”

“So did Indochina.”

Norris turned around and looked at Shinmonzen Street again. “We’d have to sit on the floor to eat in restaurants on

that street,” he said. “I’m too awkward for chopsticks.” He bent to kiss her, but she moved away.

“It’s taking a chance, Evans.” She didn’t turn around.

“I don’t know what the Embassy wants, Charlotte, but the Marine Corps wants me for thirteen months.” He paused.

 “Look, I’m halfway through already.”

“They could extend you. Extend all of you. MAGTwelve in Atsugi, MAG-Eleven in Iwakuni. A third group could fly in from California. Two in Da Nang, one in Clark for reserve.”

Norris straightened his necktie, buttoned his suit jacket. “I wore a white shirt to be more formal.” He looked at darkening skies, listened to the wide Kamo, wondered if it would become chilly. “You didn’t bring a coat. But maybe that’s my fault. Should have warned you.”

“Look at me, Evans Norris, section leader.”

“There are many section leaders.” He looked at warm lanterns from those inns again.

“Number one in night carrier quals,” she said. “And in gunnery practice, no one comes close, Evans. They know you at the Embassy. And not as my fiance, either. You’re qualified for recon, close air support, escorts, dogfights....”

“It isn’t that I don’t love you.”

“How many civilian airlines are there?”

He put his hands behind her head and drew her to him.

“They make silk dresses in white, you know. And we’d have to get new earrings. I shouldn’t have given you jade.”

“Please.” He felt her tremble. “You don’t have anything to wear with them. If you had red hair or green eyes, maybe. But it was foolish.” He kissed her. “Still, almost anything goes with brunettes.” He pointed to the river. “I came down yesterday, Charlotte. Really. And went to five stores. They said you could go to the water and pick whatever you wanted, even if it was damp. They could measure you and overnight make you a gown, suit, dress, blouse. American-style, too. Short sleeves, long sleeves, short hemline, long hemline....”

“I want you to stop.”

“Dark dresses would make your slender face stand out.”

He kissed her again and didn’t let her pull away. “One man at the factory asked what you were like and I said Elizabeth Taylor’s twin. He knew a lot about American movies and we had fun. He’d seen ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.’”

“Hold me.”

“Are you cold? We can take a cab to the hotel.”

“Don’t let go.”

Norris felt bad that she was crying, crying and shaking, yet not making any noise. He wanted to make her happy, but didn’t know what to say. “If you go to CONUS on Emergency Leave with only three months left on your Far Eastern tour, you don’t have to return.” He felt her heart beat against him. “My enlistment’s over with Japan, Charlotte.”

She put her arms around his neck and turned her head and he could see her face was wet.

“How could you take Emergency Leave?”

“I know someone in the Red Cross.”

“Rosalie Ate.” Charlotte turned and walked toward Shinmonzen Street, folding both arms in front of her.

“You are cold, aren’t you?” He took out a handkerchief and tried to dry her face, but she moved away again.

“This is 1965,” she said. “Kennedy sent ‘advisors’ to Saigon years ago. Put Marines in Thailand during May of 1962. Beefed up Air America, C.I.A. pilots flying unmarked helicopters to Cambodia and North Vietnam.”

“I could say my mother got sick after Christmas. She knows doctors who could write letters, fake tests ... It’s between me and the Red Cross.”

“And she still loves you. Rosalie.”

“No. I told you months ago.” He watched her take out her own handkerchief and wipe her eyes. “She’ll do whatever I want, though.”

“Men are stupid.”

“I could become blacklisted. No airline wants a quitter.”

“Rosalie wants you in Japan, Dummy. And near Tokyo, too, where Atsugi is.”

“I never loved her.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

“She was just someone I did things with before I met you.”

“You didn’t listen.”

“She meant nothing, really.”

“Just for the physical part?”

“Well...”

“She can be nasty. Thinks she can get anything she wants.”

Norris wanted to change the subject. “You’ll feel better after you eat. Better and warmer. They have Japanese food at the hotel.”

“I hate raw fish.”

They walked up the street and he found a taxi in front of that Kaneiwaro Beekan Inn. At dinner, Norris took out a map and showed her where Nara was and that Golden Pavilion. He gave her a Nikon camera he’d bought and in their room took out three rolls of film. They took showers and he watched Charlotte dry her hair.

“We’ll think of something,” he whispered, standing behind her and looking in the mirror.

“I already have,” she said, brushing her curls.

“This was supposed to be a honeymoon, of sorts.”

“What sorts?”

“Don’t know when I’ll get Leave again.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Americans getting married. You know the tough rules about Orientals and GIs.”

“I’m tired.” She put down her brush. “Maybe we should go back tomorrow.”

“We haven’t taken pictures.”

“I’m not transferring to Saigon.”

He found trains to Nara the next day and they saw deer in deep forests near low, dark wood temples with thick pillars and orange, tiled roofs. Norris pointed to neatly-raked gravel beside each temple and said how clean they were inside. He found another American couple and asked them to take pictures of him with his arm around Charlotte.

 “Make sure she smiles,” Norris said.

He bought postcards and little ivory statues of Buddha and took pictures of Charlotte feeding some deer and standing before stores and trains with wind blowing in her long hair and wearing a light blue sweater he’d given her that morning. He wanted her to remember Nara when they were tourists, far from uniforms and offices, and he wore a white cotton shirt with a button-down collar so she might think of him as her husband and not as a pilot.

“Can’t wait to get these developed,” he said when they returned to their hotel in Kyoto.

“You haven’t spoken to me all day.”

“Was having too much fun. Look, we can have duplicates made and send them to your family in New York.”

“My feet are tired from all that walking,” she said.

They both slept on the train back, leaving at noon the next day and arriving in Tokyo six hours later. He rode with her in a taxi to the San Bancho Hotel, where Embassys rented rooms for its employees. It was a warm night and she didn’t feel like eating, she told him.

“Can I stay for the roof?” he asked as they unpacked in her room.

“I guess. If you like.”

“My Leave doesn’t officially end until twelve hundred hours tomorrow.”

“We should talk.”

“Bring your cassette player and transistor radio.”

Norris took blankets from her closet and they walked to fire ladders at the end of her hallway and climbed through wooden hatches to the roof, which was three stories above Sakurada Avenue. He felt thick, heavy air and looked at stars above them and Tokyo below—its white streetlamps with red and yellow and green traffic signals, car headlights, blinking neon signs, tall, glass buildings with lighted offices that reflected fading sunlight.

“I’ll never forget our first night up here,” he said, sitting down on blankets next to her. “The way you looked.”

Charlotte took out cassette tapes she’d put in her handbag.

“I hope the batteries don’t fail,” she said.

On their first trip to this roof in August he’d thought she was like white, polished marble, her skin silky under his touch.

“You didn’t even have mosquito bites,” he said.

“Do you want Puccini or the Beatles?” she asked.

“Charlotte. I couldn’t tell last summer and I can’t tell now that you’re wearing makeup.”

“We have instrumentals. You like opera, but not the singing.”

“Do you like watching Tokyo?” he asked. “It’s always warm in Winter.”

“I liked watching everything with you.” Her slender hands pushed buttons on the small Sony cassette player.

“Sometimes I hoped they’d never turn out the lights.”

“I won’t let them.”

“I once thought the only reason I’d leave Tokyo would be if the power went out.”

“Here, let me.” He took the player and pressed fast forward until he heard “One Fine Day” from “Madame Butterfly.”

“I’m the engineer in the family, remember?”

“Liberal Arts in Virginia.”

“Up here I feel like Zeus, or Ozymandias, not Lieutenant Pinkerton.”

“Which is why you flunked out.”

“That was at Woodbury Forest.”

“UVA took you anyway.”

“It’s a state school, Charlotte. Mister Jefferson’s University.”

“I forgot. You’re from Virginia.”

“Woodbury sends more graduates to UVA than any other prep school.”

“Maybe you could teach there.”

He put his arm around her and moved his free hand to the music, like a conductor.

“I asked about teaching,” she said.

“You’re the one with the doctorate.”

“The State Department likes me, Evans. I could work in Washington, D.C. and support us.”

“I have to pay for myself.”

She stood up and walked away, shivering despite the heat. “You haven’t mentioned Osaka.”

“It was a junket. I told you,” he said. “Sightseeing, shopping, R-and-R....”

“My specialty is Intelligence, Evans.”

“I know. History, Political Science, Far Eastern Studies .... Your dissertation was on Indochina.”

“I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to get mad.” She came back to him and turned off Puccini.

“Dispatches from the Pentagon. Only two Marine air groups ready, yours and Iwakuni’s. It’d take more than six months to combat-train a third.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“El Toro, the Pentagon, COMFAIRWESTPAC want the Wing to wait. But Texas is antsy. Johnson feels he needs only a squadron or two. You’re in the best one, 285.”

“So?”

“Guess who’d lead the forward echelon?”

“Osaka didn’t have timetables.”

“But Washington has quick triggers. Johnson, the Cabinet. And McNamara at Defense.”

“I could volunteer for the rear guard. Every outfit leaves staff behind. Administrative work, paper shuffling....”

“You’d never get it.”

“I’m one pilot six months short of release from active duty.”

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy.” She turned away again, speaking over her shoulder. “If only you’d done something, ANYTHING, to keep from being number one. Flathatting, missed targets in gunnery practice, been the slowest to scramble and mount out on drills....”

 “I was never good at anything. Now I am.”

She turned to him. “Just resign.”

“I have contracts. We all do. TWA doesn’t like losers. Neither does American, United, Pan Am....”

“Evans Norris, First Lieutenant Norris. I did everything for you. Stocked my bathroom with the right shaving cream, the right toothpaste, the right color towels. Brought the kind of music you like up here. Listened to your stupid jokes. Showed you restaurants that had American beef and skim milk from Kansas.”

“Woman’s intuition.”

“Jerk. Woman’s intelligence. Or espionage.”

“I thought you liked filet mignon and mint-flavored toothpaste?”

“I’m a vegetarian. Or was until I met you. Learned how you hung suit jackets in the closet and were a neatness freak. Even knew which side of the bed you slept on.”

“Who told you that?”

“A woman knows.”

“Yes, one woman.”

“Then figure it out, damnit.”

Norris looked at her for a few seconds, frowning. “I like that, Charlotte.” He tried smiling and wanted to make her laugh, to think of Nara and Tokyo tonight, not Atsugi tomorrow. “Now I’ll give you secrets. You’re better than she was. She never liked....”

She slapped his face. He felt stinging on his cheek and blinked several times, lowering his head and rubbing his face.

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“Mother always told me to lead with my head, not my heart. I should have listened.”

“I think I’m bleeding.”

“Rosalie Ate has plenty of bandaids.”

“You might have broken a nail.”

“I don’t care.” Charlotte sat down on her blanket and picked up the cassette player. “I need Wagner,” she said. “For weeping.”

He knelt beside her and saw her face was wet again, like in Kyoto. But she pushed his hands away. “Planes are me,” he said.

“War is different from peace.”

He took deep breaths and didn’t know what to say. They’d never had a fight, he thought. How could he be angry?

“Look. I’m sorry.”

“If only you weren’t so damned handsome in that stupid uniform when I first saw you.”

“You’ve never seen me in uniform.”

“The day before we met was a Friday night in the end of July. You were at the Gaslight with field grade officers, all in uniform. You were singing and reciting poetry and didn’t even notice me and you were drunk. But not a hair was out of place. Not a wrinkle in your starched summer service uniform. And your voice. I dreamt about it all night. ‘Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair....’ Such a rich baritone.”

 “‘Round the ruins of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretched far away.’ Or something like that.”

“Yes, something like that. I went back to the Gaslight the next night and saw you and I couldn’t eat.”

“I almost stepped on your feet next to that player piano.”

“No, Dummy. I almost slipped my right toe under one of your polished, oxblood shoes.”

“You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.” She paused. “Please stop.”

“Someone told me Liz Taylor was in the restaurant and I had to find you.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

“I wrote a poem for you then. On the back of a paper napkin.”

“I still have it.”

Norris thought for a second. “If it hadn’t been for the Marines, I’d never have met you. They’d told me Atsugi was good duty. My blonde hair and blue eyes so close to the Ginza.”

“Strawberry blonde. I’ve seen you without shaving for three days. Your beard is orange.”

“Our children would have blue eyes.”

“I said,‘stop.’”

“Probably your hair, though. Brunette wins out over blonde, I think. Or strawberry. Or orange.”

“Evans, PLEASE.”

 “This night should never end. I wish that. This night. This weekend. This roof. This music. Those lights out there.”

She looked at Tokyo and wiped her face. “Promise you won’t call again.”

He couldn’t speak. He opened his mouth and breathed warm air and looked at her white skin and hoped those pictures from Nara would come out.

“How would you get those photographs?” he asked.

“PLEASE. Just pack your things. Clean out the medicine cabinet.”

Norris trembled, thinking. “I’ll enter a Personal Action form tomorrow.”

“Don’t speak.”

He tried to think of poetry to recite, but couldn’t. “I think you’re just tired. We’re both tired. You’ll feel differently

when you see those photos.”

“I want to go down now.”

“Yes, we have to get up early. I have a letter to write.”

They picked up their blankets and he looked for Puccini among the tapes, but didn’t find him. It took two trips to clear the roof. He helped Charlotte down and went back up to get the other blanket and when he got to their room she was asleep. Norris showered, thinking about how he’d tell the Group Commander he wanted out. Colonel Joseph Zelus, like most career officers, wanted Vietnam so he could make brigadier general. He woke up to an empty room at nine o’clock the next morning. Charlotte hadn’t left a note and he thought about calling her at the Embassy, but decided not to. His name was too familiar there already. He’d call her at the San Bancho tonight and then take the train from Atsugi. They could have a late dinner at the Gaslight to celebrate his decision. Dressing carefully in his uniform, he packed street clothes and shaving gear, then noticed her clothes were gone— nothing in the closet, empty bureau drawers, no cosmetics in the bathroom, no shoes beneath the vanity. Maybe she’d changed rooms, he thought, getting them a bigger one for after tonight. She hadn’t told him because she’d wanted to surprise him, he said to himself, wanting to believe she hadn’t left him. He tried to remember how angry she’d been last night and told himself he’d convinced her he would resign his commission. Thinking about their conversation on the roof made him nervous, though, so he concentrated only on what he had to do this morning. Quickly, he took a taxi to Shinjuku station and rode the train for Minami-Rinkin, a town near Atsugi. There was fog outside Tokyo and he wondered if he could see Mount Fuji from flight lines on his side of the base. Several Japanese college students got on with him, in their black uniforms and caps. One had a portable radio which played Japanese songs. That student turned his dial back and forth and got the English language radio station. Norris suddenly heard Enzio Pinza’s bass voice singing Broadway show tunes.

 “This nearly was mine. I almost had Paradise. Now I am alone.”

Norris wanted to take that radio and change stations, but didn’t. He leaned away and started walking to another part of the car. Lights in the train began blinking several minutes later. Clanking, red signals at intersections, white lanterns hanging before storefronts and homes, neon tubes announcing coffee houses, restaurants and bars, blinked twice, as if twitching in a stranger’s grasp. On one minute, off the next, then on again for flickering, dim seconds, they winked in pale wisps, fickle as flame, leaving dim twilight over shadowy countrysides as if his day was about to end, not begin. His train stopped, coasting on squeaky, powerless wheels to an unnatural stillness. Norris bent over and looked between curious, frowning faces through greasy windows. With electricity gone, brown wooden houses and fence posts, green trees, whites and grays of ricepaper-thin sliding doors and stone walls were hard to see, he thought. Reds, yellows, and blues of

“Coca-Cola” and “Cinema” signs disappeared, he felt, leaving Japan ghostly and foreign.

“Hoppen before,” an elderly man sitting next to those students said to Norris. “Every few months. City too big for

itself.” He pointed outside.

“Never with me on the train,” Norris said.

“Same-same during Bee-twenty-nine bomber planes in war,” the man told him.

“Yes,” Norris said.

The man nodded, grinning. “Hai.” He looked at Norris’s uniform. “You fly Amelican plane? Boom-boom under wing?”

“I used to.”

He felt vibrations under foot. Windows rattled; people swayed; wheels creaked; engines hummed; whistles blew; train cars moved slowly as lights blinked on again. At least the blackout made that student turn off his radio, Norris said to himself. He didn’t sit until leaving the train, getting off and walking to his old white Plymouth, which he’d parked near Minami-Rinkin station days before. Within minutes he was on base, driving across black asphalt flight lines to East Camp, the Marine part of Atsugi air station. Impatient, he wondered why there were so many trucks and jeeps crossing from both sides of the airstrip.

Colonel Zelus was in one of the single-story, gray wooden buildings which housed Group headquarters.

“She said you’d be here this morning,” he told Norris.

“Who?”

“Sit down.” Zelus pointed to windows. “Fog. Maybe storms. Instrument Flight Rules.” He was short and heavy-set, with a round face and straight black hair.

“I asked, ‘Who?’”

“Can’t see Fuji, Lieutenant.” Zelus looked outside. Two Navy F-8U Crusaders roared by. “Christ. Can’t even see Mainside.”

“What the hell?”

“Another flap. You forget about Osaka?”

“I was thinking of CONUS.”

“Continental United States. Understand there were power outages.” Norris shook his head.

“Japanese Self Defense Force practicing auxiliary back up,” the Colonel told him.

“Not my concern.” He paused, controlling his anger.

“You said, ‘She.’”

“Oh, yes.” Zelus looked back from his windows.

“Embassy’s Deputy Assistant for Military Intelligence. First woman to hold the job. But she knows her material.”

“She was here?”

“Zero ten hundred hours. Surprised you didn’t pass each other coming over from Mainside.”

“Just now?” He stood up. “Can I find her?” Zelus shrugged. “Fog may hold up her trip back. Chopper from Tokyo to the helipad Mainside.” He leaned back in his chair and folded both arms behind his head. “She’s a looker, too. You’re lucky.”

“Listen, I don’t have ....” He looked toward Mainside, while two more F-8Us roared off, deafening, and shaking their building.

“You do while I’m in command.”

Norris gritted his teeth, hands squeezed into white fists.

 “I came here for one reason, fog or no fog, mount out or not,

power....”

“Just shut up, Lieutenant. Shut up and sit down.”

“You can’t order civilians.”

Zelus laughed. “But I can stop people from becoming

civilians.” He became serious. “Perhaps I should use the word

‘Prevent.’”

“Perhaps you should go to Hell.”

“Now, Lieutenant. How could you become a civilian if you’re in the Brig for insubordination?”

“Cut it out.”

“All right.” He stood up and walked to maps on walls behind his desk. “She said the Embassy would intercede for you because of her. Because of her record. Her loyalty. Puts in long hours, they tell me. Takes work home.”

“You shouldn’t fight with ambassadors, then, Colonel.”

“Ha. But I can damn well fight gooks.” He looked at those maps, which were of Western Pacific islands and

countries from Hawaii to Cambodia and Laos. “National security.”

“She said there weren’t timetables.”

“Only half-right, Lieutenant. To combat zones, yes. But what about training? Coordinated maneuvers between Navy and Marine aircraft? Or between U.S. servicemen and the Republic of South Vietnam?”

“What?”

“Give me three months, Lieutenant.” He paused and sat down. “Oh, they’ll approve your P.A. form, if I sign it. Transfer you to Embassy duty. Finish your tour here in Tokyo. Fly one of those helicopters that brought her out. She had it all written down. Paperwork is right here.” He picked up yellow manila folders with United States seals on them. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

“Why wouldn’t you sign?”

“We went over that, she and I.” He leaned back again.

“Take lots of pictures in Nara?”

“You can make rank without me, Colonel.”

“I could, but I won’t. Need each able-bodied pilot, crew chief, loadmaster, mechanic ... Hell, I’m canceling Leave for everyone. Even checking Sick Bay, the Infirmary, Emergency Leave requests ... Like I said, ‘national security’. Pentagon wouldn’t argue with me, much less the Ambassador.”

“You’d still need someone to stay behind.”

“Oh, come on, Lieutenant. Ground officers. NCOs with the Camp Guard, Mess Hall...But no one who flies.”

“What if I say, ‘no?’”

“I offered you a compromise. Atsugi to Ping Tung to Clark to Da Nang. That’s where the F-eights are going. To

carrier groups off Taiwan, to ready battalions in Subic Bay.” He stood up. “I can make it difficult. You’d look a coward. Nobody gives up silver stars for wedding rings.”

“How could I go from Lieutenant to General in three months?”

“Oh, Christ. I meant medals, not ranks. Every pilot in the first group to land on Vietnamese soil would be

recommended. Especially if they were in my group.”

“That sounds like you.”

“Of course, I’d extend my duty tour. Spend another thirteen months in Westpac.”

“So what’s three months, then?”

“I feel like this is grade school, Lieutenant. We move to Ping Tung this week, after the F-8s. Two-eighty-six first, today, because they have the most birds available. Then 285 and 287 tomorrow. Support personnel in C-130s, with help from the Air Force in Tachikawa, after that. Major Cadmus, in S-1, is drawing up flight manifests now. Five days maximum. Touch-and-go exercises, gunnery practice, refueling in Ping Tung.”

“We could do that in Clark.”

“I like your attitude, Lieutenant. ‘We’. Clark isn’t ready. Besides, we don’t want to tip our hand. Public opinion in America, you know. Two weeks in Ping Tung, the southern tip of Taiwan. A month at Clark, tops. More exercises.” He paused, eyes narrow, jaw firm. “Two-eighty-five, my best, would lead our Group into Da Nang.”

“Without me.”

“Lieutenant. I want you as my wing man.”

“Public opinion?”

“Wouldn’t matter, then. Only opinion I’m concerned with is the President’s. He’ll love me.”

Norris looked at his feet. Would Charlotte go for it? He remembered her crying, then thought about their arguing, and her empty room this morning.

“Do you think I can catch her now? Before she leaves?”

“If you can get across flight lines.” He looked out his windows again as more planes flew by. “We’ve posted sentries. Closed all vehicular traffic. Accidents, you know. Try the phone.”

Norris turned to leave.

“Lieutenant, they’re armed. Orders to shoot. We have lots of Japanese Nationals here. Factory workers, electricians, janitors...cheap labor. Half might be communists. And with this fog....”

“What was she wearing? That helipad is right across from us. Near the air terminal.”

“I wouldn’t drive. Planes leaving every sixty seconds by now. The mount out just started. Three Navy fighter

squadrons....”

Norris didn’t listen. He went to his car, started it, and drove toward the main flight line. There were guards with rifles by red crossing lights. They stood in front of his Plymouth.

“No one crosses for an hour, Sir,” one private said, saluting.

Norris watched another Crusader take-off, covering his ears as it roared by. He parked and got out, looking for places to cross the black asphalt on foot. He felt she must be waiting for skies to clear, waiting for him, too. And he wished that film had been developed. Norris thought about photo processing services in the Base Exchange and wondered if they could return his prints in one day. He looked at planes taking off and listened to their roar and saw yellow flames from their exhaust and wondered, also, if aerologists with their weather maps in air terminal laboratories could develop his pictures of Charlotte in Nara. What about S-2, Intelligence? They had aerial photos of the Soviet Union and North Korea and could certainly handle Eastman Kodak, he felt.

But Colonel Minos, Group Twelve’s Intelligence Officer, was close to Zelus, he told himself, still watching and listening to those F-8s. Cinders, gravel, smoke blew in his face as he stood on the asphalt, watching for sentries, feeling damp air from the fog and smelling hot, kerosene-scented fumes from those planes. Only fifty yards or so across the flight line, he said to himself. There were sentries before hangars and maintenance buildings. Rifles hung in green cloth slings from their shoulders. They walked in pairs and looked into each building, standing close to walls and with their backs to those Crusaders. He felt he could make it across without being seen, and noticed there were no sentries on the other side—–just air terminal and freight buildings, all painted gray, low apartment buildings for officers, recreation fields for soccer, softball, volleyball. Plus an empty helipad.

Norris wished he had binoculars. He leaned his head down as more planes went by; heat waves from their afterburners blurred his view; low fog banks made it hard to see. There were no C-130s or other transports near passenger terminals, no helicopters or single engine spotter planes, either. Could she have left already, he asked himself? Norris looked at both ends of the airstrip. Planes taxied from his left and started taking off from that end of the runway. They flew past him and lifted-off to his right, where that sentry had stopped his car. Noise was his only fear, he thought. If he ran too close, he might damage his hearing, he told himself, wishing he had ear phones. But he had to get across.

Norris looked once more at sentries and figured, if he was fast enough, they wouldn’t see him. He waited for one more Crusader to pass, loosened his tie, then ran across the runway, his face and throat dry and hot from jet exhaust. But he stumbled and fell on cracks which he’d never seen from his cockpit and looked to his left. Another Crusader came toward him. His knees hurt and he wondered if he’d ripped his trousers. Getting up, he started to run again, looking over his shoulder and hearing that engine roar, closer now. He hoped the pilot didn’t recognize him as he reached grass on the other side, holding hands over his ears as the plane went by, spraying cinders and dust and heat.

He tried not to breathe as he ran toward the air terminal. Holding a handkerchief over his mouth then, he slowed to a walk. I should find a washroom and mirror and clean up, he thought. But there was no time. In a minute he was in that terminal, running up two flights of stairs to the observation tower. Out of breath, disheveled, he tried to straighten his uniform before speaking with air tower controllers, who were enlisted Marines.

“I’m Lieutenant Norris from MAG-Twelve,” he said to a thin sergeant with brown, crew-cut hair. “Flight plans to Tokyo?”

“What?” the Sergeant said.

“Helicopter to and from the Embassy.” The man looked at him, frowning. “Lieutenant, did you just run across the flight line?”

Norris took several breaths, trying to cool his throat and act with authority. “I asked about clearance reports in foggy weather.”

That Sergeant stared at him, still curious.

“Did you understand?” Norris asked.

“Sure, we have weather reports, Lieutenant.”

“And flight plans, Sergeant?”

“Sir, this is a mount out, an emergency.” He paused.

“You could have been killed.”

“This is vital,” Norris told him, bluffing. “What is your name?”

“Staff Sergeant Argus.”

 “I want to know if a chopper came and went from Tokyo.”

“Well...” Argus looked at him, at his dirty uniform, his dusty shoes. “We just have the Navy squadrons. Red Alert.”

“This would have had priority. Courier flight from the American Embassy.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sergeant Argus. An intelligence officer from Tokyo was....”

“Begging your pardon, Sir. We’re supposed to report unusual activities.” He stiffened. “Someone just ran in front of a Crusader.”

“I gave you an order.”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant.”

“Just yes or no.”

“Well...” He looked at his desk. Norris saw weather maps and operation orders. “Well, Mister Norris ... No. No plane from Tokyo. Nothing inbound at all.”

Norris took a breath. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. Came on board at zero-eight-hundred hours, right after breakfast. The flap began then. Orders from Colonel Zelus and the Base Commander. Admiral Keres himself.”

“I want to make sure, Sergeant. I know this sounds odd. A woman didn’t land at the helipad?”

“A what?”

Norris went downstairs without speaking further. He walked into the Air Flight office, which had gray walls, bulletin boards, file cabinets, round, filled ashtrays, worn styrofoam coffee cups, and several clerks. Picking up a telephone, he dialed the Embassy. A woman receptionist answered.

“Charlotte Demeter, please,” Norris said.

“Who?” Oh, my God, he thought. First the Tower, now the Embassy. Would anyone believe him, he thought? “Office of Intelligence,” he asked, trying not to shake.

“Wait one.” Norris tapped dirty fingers on the desk. He saw black cinders on his hands and rubbed his stinging knees. A male voice came on. “Who are you and where are you calling from?”

“Oh, my God,” Norris said.

“Say again?”

“Is Charlotte Demeter there?”

“Who is this?”

Norris couldn’t hold back. Charlotte’s empty room, that blackout, Colonel Zelus, crossing the flight line, Sergeant Argus, now Tokyo. “I’m calling from Atsugi Naval Air Station.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“I just told you. MAG Twelve.”

“Which office?”

“Jesus, I don’t know.” He tried to calm down. “The Base Air Terminal.”

“Which office?” I asked.

“Air Freight. I mean, Air Flight. Downstairs, ground level. Main terminal.”

“Our lines there are not secure.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Why did you need to know which office...?”

“It’s not in restricted areas.”

“I just have simple questions.”

“What is your name and rank?”

“Do you want my serial number and date of birth, too?”

“Who are you?”

“General Zeus, Goddamnit. From Mount Olympus.”

“This call is being recorded. And traced.”

“Okay, if you want code, I’ll speak code. Tell Charlotte the Eagle is bluffing.”

Full colonels wore silver eagles as their insignia. They were called bird colonels. He hoped this clown in Tokyo knew that.

“Who is what?” that man asked.

“Do you copy?” Norris said, trying to laugh.

“Which eagle?”

“Stop it.”

“We don’t have any Charlotte working here. Never have.”

Norris tried to think, to forget about Zelus and running across that flight line. “Listen, I know you’re nervous. Emergencies don’t happen every day.”

“You are reminded this is an open line.”

How can I gain his confidence, Norris thought? “Look,

just tell Charlotte that Daedalus will call tonight. And that his

wings are clipped.”

“I told you, we have no one here by that name.”

“Of course you have to say that.” Norris heard the man take a breath.

“Why don’t you call next week?”

“I must speak to her now.”

“We may have information then.”

“Has she moved?”

“We can’t discuss....”

“Look, the hotel. Her room. Did she check out?”

“We’re not at liberty to....”

Norris hung up and walked into the waiting area and saw flights scheduled for Honolulu, Iwakuni, Clark, Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. Maybe that clown just did his job, Norris thought, going back into that office. This was an alert, after all. He picked up the phone again and dialed the Base Exchange film department. Two pale Marine corporals with soda bottles on their desks looked at him. They had metal baskets with “In,” “Out,” “File,” and “Return” on them. One played with radio dials on a large, gray Sony behind him on wooden shelves.

“How soon can you develop pictures?” Norris asked the Base Exchange.

“What kind of pictures?”

“This is an officer speaking.”

“So what? We’re closed.”

 “I need photos by tonight.”

“Haven’t you gotten the word?”

Norris wanted to scream, and throw the phone at someone. He hung up, fists tight, face red, and looked at that Corporal with his radio.

“Some enchanted evening

You will see a stranger.

You will see a stranger

Across a crowded room.”

 

“Corporal,” Norris said through clenched teeth, “Turn off that radio, please.”

“Huh?”

“Or change stations.” He felt the man was drunk, or high. “That’s an order.”

“Once you have found her, never let her go.

Once you have found her....”

 

Norris reached over and pulled electrical cords from the wall, banishing Pinza. Then he picked up the radio. “I told you to stop this,” he said to the Corporal. “But you didn’t listen. You just sat there. We have a flap going on. All of Westpac. And all you cared about was this stupid box and those dumb songs.”

That Corporal’s face was blank. “Well, Sir. I didn’t think it was loud.”

 “Oh, it was. Very loud. But you didn’t hear my order, did you?”

That Corporal looked at Norris’s silver bars on his shoulder epaulets and blinked. “Didn’t mean disrespect, Sir.”

“Of course, of course, you didn’t. You just wanted to think Atsugi was Bali Hai.” He still held that radio. It was about a foot long and ten inches high, he thought, with both AM and FM bands.

“Yes. Ah, no. No, Sir. Well ... did the Lieutenant want to make reservations? Flight Six leaves for....”

“I know about Flight Six, Corporal,” Norris said, his face tight, his heart pounding. He couldn’t control himself any longer. “And I know you’re going to need a new radio, too.”

He picked it up and raised it over his head with both hands and smashed it on the concrete floor, watching plastic, metal, glass, wires, bulbs spray in all directions. Then he began stomping his feet on individual pieces. Carefully, not looking at the Corporal, who’d stood up, he found knobs and numbers and tubes and he ground everything he could into little pieces. Norris stomped so hard he felt sweat on his forehead, but he wanted to make sure no one could repair that radio. He kicked parts of it into the wall, knocked over chairs, pounded his fists on those shelves. After a few minutes the Officer of the Day, Captain Orcus, came in and told him to stop. “You’re shaking the whole room,” he said.