25 April 2008
Tomb of Memory
The investigation into the days of the Occupation hit a rough patch in Tunnel 8, midway up the western front of Big Pink’s flanks. I was hot on the trail of the financial engine controlled by GHQ in Tokyo, and thence to the saga of Yamashita’s gold, and the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
Or at least tepid. I was as interested in Peter's leonine figure, already tanned, as he worked to prepare the pool for the coming season.
Peter manages seventeen separate pools, and I called down from the balcony to enquire as to composition of this year's pool guards.
"More Slavs," he said. "You will like them!"
That was good news, and Opening is only three weeks away. But my problem stunk. I’ll get to that in a minute. William Manchester wrote a marvelous book about the great decades-long adventure, focusing on the leader who marched through it like a Titan.
His shadow is so long that I alarmed my friend Mac last year when I criticized the General for the flaccid response to the impending Japanese attack on his command. I had violated one of the key principles of Fleet Admiral Chest Nimitz: Do not fight with MacArthur or his staff, regardless of how egregious the provocation.
More than four decades after his death, the General still provoked visceral reaction.
I was at his grave last year. It is inside what used to be the Norfolk City Hall, a pleasant colonial-style quotation in the middle of a thoroughly Navy town. The memorial is respectful, and outlines the great epochs of his career.
West Point, France, Manila, Manila, Tokyo and Seoul all have their alcoves and his sleek black limousine, the one in which he was driven as the most powerful man in all of Asia, is parked in the gift shop.
A supremely self-confident man, an egoist of the first order, and indisputably brilliant. He was a Caesar, in his way. Manchester was unambiguous in his fondness for the man, though he acknowledges his peculiar frailties of character.
He felt that MacArthur’s strategy had kept him alive as a rifleman in the Pacific, and that counted for a lot.
I don’t blame him for that, and his book, American Caesar, was published in 1978. I carried the hard-cover tome with the stern black cover across the Pacific. It was a nice solid tome, hundreds of pages in length, to suit the extravagant canvas of the Caesar’s life.
It was the only real book I had. Dozens of dog-eared paperbacks lined the side of my rack on the USS Midway, but only the General merited the space required to retain it in World Famous Bunkroom Four, located conveniently under the port catapult.
I used the book as a sort of academic travel guide, reading it out of chronologic order. I read by geographic precedence, the Philippine parts in the Philippines, the Japanese years while in Japan. I followed Manchester’s advice to the Dai Ichi Building, and to the Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
I took the book along with me to Seoul, when the Navy in its infinite wisdom dispatched me to augment the staff of the Commander of US Forces, who appropriately was an imperious Army General named Wickham, who was MacArthur-like in his serene in his sense of self.
I wrote in the margins to document discovery or sudden insights. If there was a treasured volume in my library, Manchester’s book was the one. Upon opening there was the aircraft carrier smell you cannot ever fully expunge- jet fuel and DFM and disintegrating wiring.
Sadly, while attempting to divine the character of his personal staff, I discovered that the book had gone missing.
Aside from the brief sense of loss- a not unique phenomenon of late- I decided to replace it. There are dozens of vendors on the web, since Amazon gives you the opportunity to pick and choose among them for best price and reliability. I found a copy identical to the one I had lost, mashed the button and a small oblong cardboard box arrived in the mail three days later.
I carried it up to Tunnel 8, threw it on the counter and changed out of my clown suit, eager to dive back into the lives of those who may- or may not- have had control of the plunder of Asia as a private piggy-bank.
I slit the plastic tape and slid the bubble-wrap out of the box to break it down. There is not enough space in the Tunnel to allow the trash to pile up. I put the flattened box in the recycling basket as my nostrils flared. It was something of the jungle, of rich dark soil pungent with life.
I pulled open the tape on the bubble-wrap, and the book was revealed. Good condition. I glanced at the receipt. “Little Brown & Co. 1978. Clean pages in sound binding, Cover boards are slightly soiled. Dust jacket has some edge wear and a little tearing, as well as some scuffing. Book overall has a slight musty smell.”
I put the receipt aside, and opened the book to look for the index, and begin the hunt for Major General Bill Marquat, MacArthur’s money man. As I opened the cover to flip through the pages, the odor of the jungle changed into something else. Something way beyond ripe, warm refrigerator-liquid black and methane-tinged, the smell of rot and death. The odor of the tomb.
I dropped the book on the counter and went to the closet for the spray can of Frabreeze, the all-purpose stink disposer. I sprayed down the book jacket and wiped it with a paper towel. The smell in the kitchen continued to grow. Alarmed, I opened the book and began to spray the pages. With exposure the aroma intensified, now tinged with a cheerful linen scent, which is what an old corpse must smell like, wrapped in a freshly laundered shroud.
The book wound up on the balcony, where I sprayed it again. With the windows open, the smell still assaulted me.
In the kitchen, the molecules seemed to have bonded with the surface of the counter.
The owner of the book must have passed away in his library, and been with his books in a sealed warm house for a very long time.
The book, soon enough, was bagged along with the packing materials and marched at arm’s length to the stairs and down five floors to the dumpster.
I have scrubbed the kitchen counter with antiseptics and been burning scented candles for two days. I can still the sweet smell of the grave if I stop near where the book had lain. I ordered another copy, this one new, fresh from the bindery.
I don’t know if that is the real scent of history- the one that lingers until all the flesh is gone and there is nothing but bleached bone and dust. But it is certainly close enough.
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com