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said, “don’t you think we can win? Jimmy has just said that he does not and I’m out to prove him wrong.”
    I took the tea and sat on a zabuton near the central table. “America is one hundred times bigger than Japan,” I told him, “one hundred times as strong.”
    â€œBut we’ve beaten America already. Admiral Yamamoto is not young but he is smart. He went to Harvard College and knows the American mind better than the two of you. Admiral Yamamoto says we can win.”
    The old man began pushing photos of the Russian war into my hands. In one there was a slight young man, standing sober-looking against the side of a captured wagon. “That’s me,” he said. “I fought in that war. We were stationed in Korea. We won against all odds that time too.”
    The old man kept talking, but his gaze returned to the pictures, so I took the opportunity to speak to Jimmy.
    â€œWhat do you think, my man?” I asked. “We’re in for it now, wouldn’t you say?” I tried to grin, tried to stay cheerful, for Kazuko was still near me, her hand still inches from my own.
    Jimmy looked at me and then past me at his wife. The calico cat had come in and was walking figure-eights around the
grandfather’s legs. I spoke again, a little more urgently, this time whispering. “What will we do?” I poked Jimmy hard on the shoulder and he sighed as if deflated.
    â€œWe’re stuck, that’s all,” he said. “Especially me. Most of the official Americans are gone already. There is nothing we can do.”
    Ike was next to us, smiling enigmatically, still cheerful and calm. “Don’t take it so hard,” he said. “They’ll issue us fine clothes and train us in karate. When we get out we’ll be able to defend ourselves. No more worries about yakuza in the park.”
    Kazuko’s grandfather, sensing his loss of control, came over to us and dropped another bundle of photographs in our laps. “Ike’s right,” he said. “War is terrible but it is romantic. When you boys get your uniforms you’ll feel better than you do now. You’ll see. You’ll walk tall, step crisply. There is no greater honor than to die in battle for your country.”
    â€œChrist,” said Jimmy.
    â€œMost of my comrades died in the war,” the grandfather assured us. “Those of us who survived have had to live with that knowledge. It is much better to die than to have to explain why you are still alive.”
    Jimmy and I kept quiet while the old man talked, and, oddly, the others in the room seemed to calm under his words. Ike nodded like a confidant. Kazuko still sat next to me, but the tension in her body was going, a patriotic persuasion taking her. Finally she said, “That’s what you’ll have to do. Enlist. You are Japanese before you are Americans. Enlist and fight!”
    â€œWe’re musicians!” I said, sitting up straight and raising my voice. “We came here to play music. How about it, Ike? You’re our manager. You should be helping us get back home.”
    Ike seemed worried by my tone. “Manager maybe,” he said, “but not magician. What can I do?”
    I guess I had been shouting, for Kazuko looked at me oddly then slid across the tatami toward Jimmy. She took his arm. “You can’t go back,” she told him. “You are my husband. You are Japanese and must do your duty.”

    Even in the heat of the moment I felt the sting of her movement away from me. They had only been married a week. Not enough time for me to mend. Kazuko was breaking my heart but I sighed and said what I had to say. “We may look Japanese but we’re Americans! We speak English! This is too much to ask of anyone. There is a war starting!”
    Everyone in the room, even the grandfather, stopped what they were doing and looked at me. The morning newspaper was face-up on the