HELEN AND MAY marshaled their forces in the club shortly after dawn Thursday. Chieko was the first to arrive. She’d just ushered out the last drunk karaoke singer and showed up with three of her bargirls drafted for the occasion. They slithered in the door laughing. Skirts too short, hair too wild—their bangles, their bracelets jangled. They crossed the floor and flowed into a booth. Helen smiled. The girls were highly picturesque.
Kiyomi was next. As ordered, she wore her school uniform as did May. Both had complained but Helen had insisted. Four similarly clad kids, two boys and two girls, arrived a few minutes later. All had been bribed. May had won their hearts with the free use of the club’s video games for two weeks.
Helen set everybody to work making signs and banners. Sam served donuts and coffee and tried to stay out of the way. His lawyer, Rie Matsushita, walked in a few minutes after seven. A tall stately woman in her mid-fifties, she wore a dubious expression and a suit by Anne Taylor. Sam offered a donut and a smile. “Thanks for coming. How about some coffee?”
She took a cup and surveyed the club. The kids and the bargirls had poster boards and paint spread all over the stage. “I admire your enthusiasm but I don’t think this is going to work. The police are stubborn and conservative. They’re unlikely to give in even if they know they’ve made a mistake. Nakazono’s superiors will do everything they can to protect him.”
He shrugged. “It’s worth a try. We’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Maybe. At any rate, it’s unlikely the police will get too rough with women and children.”
Nobuyo Kojima was the next to arrive. She held the door open for the neighborhood’s oldest resident, Kimiko Nakamura. Both ladies were wearing their best kimonos, tabi socks and zori. They were the picture of propriety and contrasted serenely with the noisy bargirls and kids.
May rushed up. “Nakamura-san, I didn’t know you were coming. It’s nice to see you.” She covered up her surprise and led the women to a booth. She hadn’t called Nakamura-san because of her age. Walking was difficult, marching in a protest had seemed too much to ask.
“Why didn’t you let me know?” Kimiko asked. “I wouldn’t have heard about this if Kojima-san hadn’t called.” She patted her friend’s hand. “You don’t think I’m too old for neighborhood activities, do you, May-chan?”
“Of course you’re not too old, Nakamura-san, but this isn’t exactly a regular activity. It’s not like we’ll be picking up trash around the neighborhood. It might be dangerous.” Her eyes brightened. “We might even get arrested.” It was a possibility she clearly relished.
“Then you won’t let me go?” Kimiko asked, sinking lower in the booth. Tiny when sitting erect, she nearly disappeared in her disappointment.
“Watch out, she’s going to cry,” Nobuyo warned.
May hesitated and relented. She could have Sam take care of the ladies. Age was still respected and their presence would be a big help.
Sam arrived with green tea and cookies. “Kojima-san and Nakamura-san are going with us,” she announced. “It’s going to be your job to keep them safe. Think you can handle the assignment?”
“It’ll be my pleasure.”
Kimiko pointed at the activity on stage. “What are they doing?”
May explained that everyone would carry a sign demanding Manny be freed. It took a long time for Kimiko to grasp the possibility of wrongful arrest and before May was finished she’d dozed off.
Nobuyo pried a cookie loose from her hand and rearranged her shawl. “She’s tired. It took her great-granddaughter two hours to get her into her kimono this morning.”
“Will you explain the rest when she wakes up?”
“I’ll try, but it really isn’t necessary. I’m sure whatever you’ve got planned is fine with her. She’s too old to be afraid of anything. She just doesn’t want to be left out.”
“I’m not afraid, either,” May boasted.
“Of course, you’re not. I’d be surprised if you were. The very young and the very old have a lot in common, May-chan. Didn’t you know that?”
“I never thought about it.”
“No one ever does. We’re old before we know it. It sneaks up on us.”
“I’ll never be old.”
“How are you going to manage that?”
“I’m going to die young. I bet I don't make it to thirty.”
Nobuyo laughed and put her arm around the girl. “I said the same thing when I was your age but I’m still here.”
“I’m different.”
“Not that different, dear. You’re a Japanese woman.”
“So what?”
“That means you’re going to live a long, long time. You’d better get used to the idea.”
“But—”
“You can’t change the way things are, May-chan.” Nobuyo sipped her tea, remembering when she was a schoolgirl. She’d measured the future in minutes, not decades.
“Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
“Hardly. There are days when I look forward to it. When I was a teenager, I was just like you. I couldn’t even imagine being old and wrinkled and weak. No matter what anybody says, nobody likes being old very much. Unfortunately, we don’t have any choice.”
May was sorry she’d asked so many questions. “But you’re doing OK. Your health is good and you seem happy.”
“Being an old person isn’t half as bad as I’d thought it would be. Luckily, I’ve always been able to find somebody around whose even older. They’re the old ones, I always think, not me. It wasn’t until I was about forty that I realized something you still can’t understand—that life isn’t unlimited and that I was certainly going to die.”
“Sounds pretty scary.”
Nobuyo nodded. “A little bit, I suppose, but the real scary part came just a little later when I realized that I was going to live. The option of dying young wasn’t realistic. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to get old.”
“Was it hard?”
“Yes, but the most difficult part came even later. I had to accept the fact that not only was I was going to get old, but I was going to be old for a very, very long time. I think it’s both a curse and a blessing to be a Japanese woman. We live forever, you know.”
Nobuyo nodded at Kimiko. “Look at her. She’s ninety-seven. She was already old forty years ago. Some people don’t even live that long. She’s seen so much, things you can’t even imagine.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” May whispered.
“It’s not. That’s the good part.”
“So what’s the bad part?”
Nobuyo sighed. “Being alone, I think. The men always leave. Either they just go away or they die. They always take the easy way out. I’m eighty-three and I’ve been a widow for nearly thirty years. My husband was a good man but sometimes I get angry with him for leaving me alone for such a terribly long time.”
“I’m part gaijin,” May said. “Maybe I won’t get so old?”
Nobuyo laughed and hugged her. “Don’t worry, honey. You’re not going to get old today or even tomorrow. Life gives you plenty of time to get accustomed to the idea.”
Helen called everybody to the center of the club for a final briefing.
“Remember our job is to get Manny out of jail. That means we might have to get arrested ourselves. If there’s anybody that doesn’t think they can do that, it might be best if you stayed here. We won’t hold it against you.”
The kids looked at each other and laughed. They were as fearless as Chieko and her troopers. Nobuyo Kojima stood tough and determined. By her side, Kimiko Nakamura looked slightly confused. She raised her doll-like hands into the air. “Banzai, banzai,” she shouted. “Banzai!”
Helen laughed and looked at Nobuyo. “Does she know what we’re doing?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nobuyo shrugged. “She’s having fun.”
Helen continued with her battle plan. “OK, like I said, we want to get arrested. But we don’t want anybody to get hurt. If the cops attack, just lie down and let them drag you away. You got that May?”
“Sure. Why are you looking at me?”
“Because I don’t trust you. I don’t want any kicking, punching or biting. Is that clear?”
May winked at Sam. “Yes, Helen. I promise to control myself.”
Hiroshi was waiting in front of the Asakusa Police Station as promised. He’d been very successful in mustering the Tokyo media. Network camera crews stood in groups drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups while print journalists and photographers formed their own contingent a few yards away.
“Well, what do you think?” Helen asked, pointing at the protesters as they hefted their signs and began to chant.
Her ex-boyfriend smiled. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your friend out of jail but the networks are going to love it. You’re a very photogenic group. Those old women are a great touch.” He pointed across the street. “See anybody you recognize?”
A photographer for the Washington Post was standing next to the bureau chief for the Oregonian. A pretty reporter for the L.A. Times laughed as an older man, NBC Radio’s Tokyo voice, told a joke. The correspondent for London’s Economist sniffed and pretended he didn’t understand the punch line.
Helen knew all of them slightly. She nodded. “No matter what happens, I owe you. You’ve really done a great job getting all these people here.”
He waved away her thanks.
“Is there anything we should do?”
He shook his head. “Not really. You told them not to fight back if the police try to make arrests, didn’t you?”
Helen nodded.
“Then I think you’ve got it just about right. Make sure your people give interviews to anyone that wants one.”
A crowd was already gathering to watch. Tousle-haired housewives stood on balconies, husbands paused on their way to the station. Little boys on bicycles ignored their parents’ commands and peddled furiously toward the scene. Their toddler sisters bounced on the handlebars. They giggled and screeched and rang bicycle bells.
Kimiko Nakamura carried no sign. They were all too heavy. She felt left out and when a patrolmen peeked out of the station door she flung her arms in the air. “Banzai! Banzai!”
The husbands smiled, the wives laughed. The toddlers screeched louder and cameras clicked and rolled. Three Tokyo stations opened live feeds to the scene, interrupting regular programming on morning gossip shows. Hiroshi walked away from Helen and took out his notebook.
A flock of reporters descended on the police station as the protesters yelled and shook their fists. The cop ducked back inside and slammed the door in their faces. They stared through the glass and shouted, demanding information on the prisoner, Manuel Ramos of Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines. The policeman managed to look surprised, besieged and offended all at the same time. He fell away from the window as a battery of strobes flashed and captured his anger for twenty-five million afternoon readers.
Word spread through the neighborhood as the police hunkered down in their fortress. New recruits swelled the ranks of the protesters. Noriko Maejima, owner of the store that had been robbed, grabbed an extra sign and waved it angrily. She liked Manny and wanted him freed, but more importantly, the police had been rude to her. A camera crew quickly homed in on her round honest face and nodded sympathetically as she recounted her ordeal.
Across the country, ten million equally sympathetic housewives nodded and exclaimed, “What a pity.” Less than a million actually picked up the phone. It was more than enough. Fiber-optic cables swelled and relays inside the National Police Agency chittered in fear. On a dozen floors, in a hundred private offices, senior police officials tried to soothe their angry wives. Threats of cold dinners, cold baths and warm beers rang in their ears. They replaced telephone receivers as if they were cobras and buried their heads in their hands.
On the tippy-top of the building, in an expansive corner office, the NPA chief sighed and pressed a buzzer on his desk. His adjutant was instantly through the double oak doors, striding across yards of deep blue carpet. His captain’s uniform was custom tailored, his hair a work of art. The shine on his shoes was rumored to have permanently blinded three coworkers.
In contrast, Japan’s top cop was a rumpled old man. He’d served as a junior lieutenant with the secret police in Manchuko during the Pacific War and only MacArthur’s intervention had saved him from a war-crimes tribunal. The general had used him and hundreds of others in a crackdown on suspected communists and union radicals in the early 1950s.
“Have you been following this?” He waved at a bank of TVs, all broadcasting live from Asakusa.
The adjutant settled into a chair and nodded. He checked to ensure he hadn’t creased his trousers. “I’ve already taken action to diffuse the situation, sir.”
The chief shook his head. “The only action we’re going to take is ignore it until it goes away. I want you to order the officers in Asakusa to stay inside the station until that mob gets tired and goes home. There will be no press releases or briefings of any kind. I’ll have the ass of anybody that speaks to the media. Is that clear?”
“But, sir—”
The chief stared his adjutant into silence. “I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care if it’s a whole new ball game out there and I don’t give a shit about bad publicity. Somebody has to draw the line somewhere. Those human rights assholes can take over the rest of the world but they’re not going to get away with it here. That Filipino is going to be treated just like a Japanese.”
“But, sir—”
The chief rose from his seat and leaned over the desk. “Are you having trouble hearing me, Naganuma? My orders are very clear. We release no one. We admit to nothing.”
“I’m afraid...” The adjutant shifted in his seat and nodded helplessly at the TVs.
The announcers’ voices were different but the picture was the same. Cameras panned the crowd, offering glimpses of happy, expectant faces. They cut to the front of the station. The door opened and a thin, middle-aged man with brown skin walked out. He was limping and his face was bruised. The announcers fell silent, allowing the cheers of the crowd to the tell the story. He fell into the arms of a little girl in a sailor suit. Tears were clearly visible on her cheeks.
“They let him go,” the chief roared.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I ordered his release twenty minutes ago. I thought it would be best to accept our losses and—”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
The adjutant stood up and defended himself. He was tired of the old days and the old ways. He’d tried to do the right thing and wasn’t going to be bullied any longer. His courage was a surprise and once unleashed it grew and grew. “Sir, I believe I’ve saved the agency a great deal of negative publicity both here and abroad.”
The chief fell onto a sofa and sighed. He was too old to fight much longer. Things were changing too fast. He couldn’t believe he was hearing such words from the mouth of a Japanese police officer. The probability that there were more just like him was appalling. “Who are we going to blame?” he asked softly.
Naganuma smiled. He’d won. “Everything has been taken care of, sir. I’ve scheduled a press conference for you at thirteen-hundred hours. You will announce that the officer in charge of the Asakusa station has been relieved of duty pending investigation and possible criminal proceedings.”
The chief’s eyes fell shut as he retreated into the years. “What’s for lunch?” he whispered, as Naganuma left the room. “Do you think I could have Chinese?”
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