The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer [116]
Dove squinted along the beach, and watched Hearn swimming for a moment. "Oh, sure, umareru -- to be born. Umashi masu, u umasho. Those are the basic verb forms, aren't they? I remember that." He turned to Conn and said, "I don't know what I'd do without Wakara. It takes a Jap to figure out the damn language." And he clapped Wakara on the back, and added, "Hey, Tom, am I right?"
Wakara nodded slowly. He was a short thin man with a quiet sensitive face, rather dull eyes, and a thin neat mustache. "Good old Wakara," Dove said. Wakara continued to look at his legs. About a week before, he had overheard Dove saying to some officer, "You know our Jap translators are overrated. I do all the work in our unit, of course I'm in charge, but Wakara isn't much help at all. I'm always having to correct his translations."
Now Dove was massaging his bony chest with a towel he had brought along. "Feels wonderful to get a sweat up in the sun," he muttered, and then turned to Wakara again. "I should have known that word, you know it's that diary we picked off that Jap major's corpse, fascinating document, did you have a look at it?"
"Not yet."
"Oh, well, it's wonderful. No military information, but the guy was a crackpot. The Japs are weird, Wakara."
"They're dopes," Wakara said shortly.
Conn lumbered into the conversation. "I have to go along with you there, Wakara. You know I was in Japan, back in 'thirty-three, and the people are illiterate. You can't teach them a damn thing."
"Gee, I didn't know you were there, Colonel," Dove said. "Do you know any of the language?"
"I never bothered to pick it up. I didn't like the people and I wanted no truck with them. I knew we were going to go to war."
"No kidding." Dove formed a little mound in the sand with his palm. "It must have been a valuable experience. Did you know the Japs were going to go to war, Wakara, when you were there?"
"No, I was too young, I was just a kid." Wakara lit a cigarette. "I didn't think so at all."
"Well, that's 'cause they're your people," Conn told him.
Pop! went Dalleson's carbine.
"I suppose so," Wakara said. He exhaled his smoke carefully. At the turn of the beach he could see an enlisted man patrolling, and he turned his head down toward his knees, hoping he would not be seen. It was a mistake to come out here. Those American soldiers wouldn't like the idea of protecting a Jap.
Conn drummed his paunch reflectively. "It's damn hot, I'm going to take a swim."
"Me too," Dove said. He stood up, rubbed some sand off his arms, and then with a perceptible pause, asked, "Want to come along, Wakara?"
"No, no, thanks, I'm not ready to go in yet." He watched them walk off. Dove was a funny man, rather typical, Wakara decided. Dove had seen him walking along the beach, and immediately he had had to call him over, ask that stupid question about umareru, and then he didn't know what to do with him. Wakara was a little tired of being treated as a freak.
He stretched out on the sand, a little relieved that he was alone again. For a long time he stared at the jungle, which thickened, became impenetrable after thirty or forty yards. There was an effect which could be got; the jungle could be built up on a canvas out of a black-green background, but it would be a questionable technique. He certainly couldn't carry it off after not painting for two years. Wakara sighed. Perhaps it would have been better if he had stayed with his family in the relocation camps. At least he would be painting now.
Through the glare of the sun on his back, the glittering brilliance of the sand, Wakara realized that he was very depressed. What was it Dove had said about Ishimara's diary? "Fascinating document." Had Dove actually been touched by it? Wakara shrugged; it was impossible for him to understand Americans like Dove, just as it was impossible for him to understand Japanese. In limbo. Still there had been a time in Berkeley in his senior year when his paintings were getting some notice, and many of the American students were friendly with him. But of course that was all shattered by the war.