10 April 2008

FOV

US Army Nisei Translator, 1946
 
I have to take a break today. I am in the middle of talking to Al's widow B., who is on the West Coast. Al was a nisei, a first generation American, who served in Army CID in Tokyo when Tom was down in Yokosuka. He gave me a short Samurai knife of the Edo period when I was a kid, a magical piece of killing steel that had the blood of the swordsmith in it. It would have been highly illegal in the time and place where it was acquired. 

I have to correspond with her via snail mail, like I do with Tom, and there is the piece about Kiko's bosom and the salacious Admiral which I still need to contextualize. 

Plus, the Black Dog grabbed me something fierce after the adrenalin rush that accompanied the weekend. There is the dull ache that accompanies the realization that I have to find a hundred grand to give someone I don't like, and who would like to see me in jail if I don't. 

The validation that my life is worth much outside being a walking ATM machine came from a Friend of Vic, an old shipmate. He has endured things that are much harder than I have, and he writes like a dream.
 
He wrote this: 

“I’ve enjoyed the recent tales of Tom, the plain clothes, uber-cop of Yokosuka.  What caught my eye today was Vic’s aside on Tom’s use of the short-form word for the Japanese.  It brought to mind a memorable meal that I shared long ago.  This story is rooted in a time period, when a fellow spook and I would meet regularly for a multi-hours long, sushi lunches at Tachibana in northern Virginia.
 
When we first started dining at Tachibana in the mid 1980s, the restaurant was located in Arlington, hard by I-66 just north of Spout Run Drive on Glebe Road.  We were drawn to it by word of mouth reviews proclaiming that it housed the best sushi bar in the metro-DC area and served the finest toro (bluefin tuna) on this side of the Pacific.   
 
After its owner Eiji relocated the business to the more fashionable environs of McLean in the 90s, Tachibana became widely renowned for its unparalleled sushi selection and freshness.  One time we ate sea scallop sushi which were de-shelled live in front of us, but I digress.
 
My friend and I preferred to eat at the McLean back bar.  It was a secluded, Japanese style bar that seated six.  The back bar was sublimely personal, and its chef, normally Eiji, was attentive and observant.   The sushi bar server, Armando-san, has been with the restaurant for many years and treated us like long lost uncles.  Japanese tourists hardly ever found their way to the back bar.  It thus housed a self-selected, motley assortment of locals, CIA weenies and nigiri sushi devotees like us.
 
On the day in question, we had arrived later than our standing high noon reservations, so we hurriedly took our seats.  Eiji was absent due to some personal matter.  The substitute chef was well known to us.  He knew our preferences and meal rituals.  Ordering our Kirin birus and inquiring as to what delicacies had been delivered fresh that morning, we quickly set about savoring our first course – two pieces each of hand-formed, fatty tuna sushi.  As we warmed to our task, we became aware of a new face sitting at the end of the small bar.
 
As our meal continued, this gentle wizened soul slowly became fascinated with our strict adherence to a rote order for fish entrees and beer pouring for each other.  Surprised to see two gaijin dining a la japonaise, he decided to breach the sushi bar privet hedge of dining privacy.   He paid us the high compliment regarding our eating rituals when with diffidence he inquired where we had learned our dining habits. 
 
We quickly explained and introduced ourselves -- former Naval Intelligence officers, WESTPAC sailors and frequent visitors to his parent’s former island home since the 1970s. He reciprocated in kind -- Frisco-born Nisei, WWII internee and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur’s Ichi-Ban (number one) translator during Mac’s first 5 years of his Japanese post war Shogunate.   
 
Both of us had hoped to hear tales from the times of west coast Jap hunts, internment camps and his recruitment into the Military Intelligence Service as a Nisei translator.  He was intent on sharing other more personal memories.  For more than two hours, and well past the restaurant’s mid-afternoon closing time, we were glued to our stools, while he spun his short and poignant narratives.  

He refused multiple offers of sushi, Kirin and sake but did take up our offer to join us to facilitate our conversation.  We finally prevailed upon him to share a cup of Tachibana’s home-made green tea with us.  He generously shared snippets about:
 
·      * the early days of post war Japan;
·      * the power that his words had over Japan’s occupiers and natives alike;
·      * how different his children had become -- even preferring to own “Jap cars like Toyotas and Nissans” over American-made cars and trucks. 

He softly stumbled on this point before choking back down his throat what I thought would be the word “unpatriotic;” and how he occupied his days since his wife’s death.
                                                             
We were unable to dine with him again since we could not penetrate the sphere of silence that surrounded his habits and dining schedules.  We did divine that he and Eiji had a long standing feud which dated back decades.  This had led the translator to eating at the restaurant only on days when Eiji was absent.   
 
There were very few dots to connect in the aftermath of that afternoon’s long conversation.  
 
Given the Shogun’s mouthpiece’s use and inflection of the word Jap, we settled on that as the reason for the feud.
 
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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