"Ma's very emotional," Pete drawled.
Alice looked at him spitefully, but for once didn't scold him. "Then this morning I looked out again," she continued, "hoping it had just been my imagination. The night animals were gone, but in the daylight I could see the true, stark ugliness. The gray concrete, the never-painted buildings—the mass of squinty Japs, all in black and white—the ugly trucks, like salvage from a junk yard, and the midget taxis racing everywhere, skidding and dodging as if they were determined to kill themselves and everyone else as well." She shuddered and stepped away from the window. "I guess I've got to face it sometime, though. I can't hide in this room the whole five years."
When Joe turned the station wagon into the left lane out of the parking lot, he could sense Alice flinching again.
"I'll never get used to driving on the wrong side," she sighed.
"Maybe Ma should get a rick-a-shay to chauffeur her around," Pete suggested.
"Maybe you should get you a Geisha girl to laugh at your jokes," Patty said, snorting. "I'm sure they'd go for a witty boy like you."
"What's a person do for excitement around here," Pete asked of Joe. "Go down to the station and watch the trains come in?"
"I'm afraid Tokyo doesn't cater much to the American juvenile set," Joe answered with just the faintest trace of irritation at Pete's constant impertinence. "Lots of fun when you get on base, though. Ball games, sock hops at the Teen Club, hobby centers, Youth Activities . . ."
"Corn," Pete said.
"How about big folks?" Dick asked. "What do we get—USO shows?"
"Not entirely," Joe smiled. "We get some big names at the Officers Club now and then. Good movies, nice pool . . . help me out, Ginger."
"Lovely golf course, if you're one of those," Ginger said.
"I am," Dick said, and Ginger shrank slightly.
"Stag nite every Wednesday and Beer Call every Tuesday," Joe ticked off on his fingers. "Off base, there's horse racing, pro baseball, Sumo wrestling, fabulous stage shows downtown . . ."
"And for famiry fun," Ginger quoted in her best Japan Travel Agent voice, "visit one of many faburous resorts surrounding Tokyo—Atami, Nikko, Kamakura, Hakone, and Fuji-san."
"Seriously, you should," Joe said, "if you want to see Japan at its best. Gin and I are always taking off and going some place."
"We'd love to show you around some of these places," Ginger offered.
"Would you?" Patty bubbled.
Dick rubbed his chin. "Well, I don't know. I expect Alice and I are going to like American Village best of any place in this country. Asia for the Asians, as the saying goes."
"They can have it," Alice agreed.
Joe turned the car into a narrow alley and stopped in the midst of what would appear, at first glance, to be slums. "This is about as American a village as you'll find," he said. "One of the few purely American private rental areas on this side of Tokyo—all Air Force."
They climbed out, and Alice and Dick looked first left and then right, at the rows of identical stucco houses, each painted the same: the top half white, the bottom half orange, with a foot-high black number painted on the corner of each.
Alice found her voice. "You mean . . . people actually live here?"
"Those lucky enough to find a vacancy," Joe said. "They fight to get in here."
"Climate must affect their senses," Alice said. "Which one do we look at? Not that it really matters . . ."
It didn't. The inspection of Number P-12 lasted only a minute. "How does this compare with the other two places?" Alice asked afterward.
"A little better than the next one I was going to show you, but not as good as the one in Shibuya."
"Let's look at the one in Shibuya," Dick said, turning to leave.
"This next house is really better located than the others," Joe continued when they were on the road again. "Your immediate neighbors are Japanese rather than American, but it's close to the bus line that runs to the base, within a block of subway and train stations that can take you anywhere in Tokyo, and within walking distance of Tokyoka Department Store and a theater."
"I think I'll probably stick to the BX for shopping," Alice said as the car stopped again. "Is this it? Where's the house?"
"Just over the wall," Joe said. "Guaranteed all the privacy you want except from any low-flying aircraft."
Alice stared up at the long, eight-foot-high wall. Joe got out and walked to the small, man-sized door set within a huge double gate. He unlocked it, and Pete bounded through first.
"Oh, how beautiful," Patty exclaimed, peering through the gate.
"Hurrah," Pete yelled. "No lawn to mow!"
"No lawn?" Alice muttered. "In all that space?" She hurried in. "What on earth is all this for," she asked, walking onto the white sand.
"High-class Japanese rock garden," Joe explained, waving his hand toward the expanse of white, at the far left of which were set several large, odd-shaped boulders and lava stone. "Is considered very esthetic; rich Japanese maybe sit all day admiring shapes, meditating." He saw no humor in Alice's eyes, and switched back from pidgin English. "Besides, this kind of garden takes care of itself pretty much if you leave it alone."
"It's different; I'll say that much for it." Alice stepped out of the sand, onto one of a dozen highly-polished, cross-sectional slices of tree trunk which served as stepping stones. "No sidewalk here, either," she noted, and observing the erratic course which the path followed, added, "Why do you suppose they didn't just lay all these things out in a straight line to the house, instead of putting in all these kinks?"
Joe grinned. "The Japanese believe that when you follow those little detours, you will stop and be reminded of the obstacles in life."
"I needn't be reminded," Alice sighed, shaking her head. "I suppose that by the same line of reasoning they put the toilet out back so we'll have to scale the wall to reach it?"
Joe explained that a full colonel had last lived here and installed an indoor western-style toilet. "He also westernized the rest of the place to the point that it's almost inhabitable."
"How very thoughtful," Alice said, arriving at the entrance, which was unlocked. She stepped in ahead of the others. "Now what is this?" she asked, finding herself standing in a three-by-five cobblestoned area, a foot and a half below the level of the living room floor.
"The genkan, where you take off your shoes," Joe said, removing his. "Until the colonel put in hardwood floors, all the floors were tatami—a sort of woven straw—and Japanese never wear shoes on tatami."
"Not a bad idea," Dick said, nodding approval. "Prevents tracking sand all over the house."
"What's this crazy arrangement with the sliding doors and screens all around the house?" Alice asked, unimpressed, as Joe admitted them to the living room.
"That's part Japanese, too," Ginger said. "Originally, these 'doors' were all shoji-screen—opaque paper, like you still have in front of the bedrooms. The living room faces south across the rock garden, so there's always some sun —and it provides light through the shoji-screen."
"The Japanese keep the shoji up in the winter, for warmth," Joe said. "In the summer, they slide the shoji back and have just the screens up, to let air in. The colonel took down the shoji along the living room here and put in glass instead—for a picture window—and put in air conditioning so it's about as modern as you can get."
To Joe's surprise, Alice seemed almost delighted. "It might take some getting used to, but it's clever, isn't it, Dick?"
Dick