The nightclub had a style Eiji had never seen before, a kind of irreverent edginess in its cultural trappings that seemed to him to hover on the verge of real ideological danger. The décor of the place and the attire of its patrons was a raucous blend of every thinkable culture on the subcontinent with a heavy emphasis on whatever was youthful and trendy from wherever it was trendy. The dance music, loud and synthetic, had a definitely Kolsivite influence insofar as he could tell. Everything about the world within the nightclub’s walls suggested that it was not a time of war but an era of libertine hedonism. Eiji had never even imagined that such a place existed, and he didn’t know whether he was more surprised that it did or that there was enough brazen free-spirit in the masses to make it popular. Even in the smoky air under the colored lights of the dance floor and surrounded by drunkenness, Eiji was moved. His eyes misted briefly as he thought about the resilience of the human spirit, the love of life. But he realized at the same time that he was moved as a spectator and not as a participant. It crossed his mind that this might have been what permitted him to be moved at all.
Eiji would feel foolish about his feelings that night, in retrospect. Both he and Minsuk would find the club almost quaint after their time in Shijima and exposure to the chaotic debauches of the capital. In any case, for the time being they danced and drank and danced, and when the nightclub closed they stumbled giddily to her apartment. This time Eiji would not leave it for two days.
When he did step out finally it was only to get his belongings from the transience quarters at the military base while she went shopping for food, and then they stayed in her apartment together for another two full days, making love, eating indulgently, and drinking beer or plum wine through long and dreamy talks. Minsuk was a skilled chef, and when Eiji tasted her food he no longer had even the slightest doubt in her dream of running a successful restaurant.
When they had consumed all of the groceries, he helped her pack her possessions into traveling bags, which they left in the apartment for one last night to hop the Hansillan clubs again in farewell. The next morning, Eiji and Minsuk boarded a Remnant Line train to Shijima together and rode straight through, alternating silent stares out the large windowpane, naps on the other’s shoulder, and warm whispers and murmuring conversations full of hope. Their talks increasingly came to be about the end of the war and when it might come, and in the end they both agreed that it couldn’t go on for much longer, with no more logical a basis than that now that they had found each other, the thought of prolonged separation and the denial of their perpetual quiet life together was almost unbearable.
In Shijima they spent a little money on a room with a view of the sea and continued their lifestyle of the past several days. They took in the staggering immensity and dizzying intricacy of the imperial capital together when they went out to explore the depths of its streets or the profligacy of its clubs. But more often they stayed inside and basked reverently in what they had found, each so struggling with the simple acceptance that it was real as to find themselves completely unable to rationalize it.
So it came that on the eve of the tumult that would irrevocably change the face of the war and the structure of Meihonese society, Eiji Daitokai would report to the High Command headquarters with a firmly-intended but indefinite promise to be married. That last morning, he and Minsuk went on a long walk along the city’s coastline, staring out at the frothy sea as the sun rose, talking about what lay beyond it – that invisible island, the almost mythical Meihonese homeland, which many had never seen and in whose name the entire Empire existed. Each carried everything they owned.
They set out together to find the restaurant where she would serve her apprenticeship. It was a clean-kept two story building in the heart of the commercial district, with an impressive wooden façade built to mimic the architecture of the homeland. Minsuk cried, holding onto the sleeves of Eiji’s uniform, but she only let herself do it for a minute or two. Eiji said what he could think of to say in honesty to reassure her.
“You’re going to be here for quite some time. Now I’ve seen it, and I know where to find you.”
She nodded, staring at the etched lacquer nameplate on his chest. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes with her wrist, and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she had composed herself, she cleared her throat. “Eiji,” she said, “I told you my parents were killed during the fighting in Hansilla.”
“Yes,” he said.
“They day they died, it was the day of the largest Meihonese offensive into the city since the Kolsivite annexation. And for weeks before, my mother and father both talked endlessly and full of indignation about how it made no difference which side won the war, since in either case Hansilla would not rule itself. In fact since the Kolsivites had already gotten such a grip on the city, my mother used to tell me to pray for their swift victory in the war so that there would never again be fighting in Hansilla. And I did.” She looked up at him. “When we were both kids, you and I, I was wishing death upon you as a mortal enemy. Of course, I was just a girl. National independence was just another complicated adult idea that I didn’t clearly understand except in simple terms of good and evil, and even now I’m not sure that I believe it really makes a difference who rules a place, including its own people, so much as how they rule. And the truth is, you didn’t exist in my mind. The Meihonese were just a word too. I never imagined little boys or families like mine on the other side of the Front.”
She continued to grip his sleeves firmly, staring at his face as she went on.
“Your armies attacked in full force in the middle of the day. I remember that very clearly. I was in school. All of us kids were taken into the central assembly hall to take shelter when the first shells started to drop, and not allowed to leave until well after it was over. While we were being kept safe in there, my dad was shot in the back of the head as he fled the factory where he worked. I don’t know if it was a stray bullet, or if it was intentional. In any case he was luckier than my mother. Our house had partially collapsed with her in it during the initial shelling of the city, and she burned alive, completely trapped.”
Eiji remained silent. He tried to read in her eyes what exactly it was she was feeling as she said all of this, but there was no change in her expression. It was a simple earnestness he saw, a raw clear-eyed look of opening up. Well, it was a common enough story of childhood on the Front, and how many different ways were there to feel about it, really?
“That’s what they say, anyway,” Minsuk went on. “I think she may have just surrendered to what was happening. That she didn’t make much of an effort to escape the house as it burned down. I don’t have any evidence, but when I think about my mom meeting her end in that hell, that’s always how I picture her.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I never hated the Meihonese, not even on that day. At first I didn’t because I could barely even make sense of what was happening, then because I knew it would do no good. And then I remembered what my mother had said about one occupying force being as good as another, and I figured even on that same day that I had better keep praying for Kolsivite victory, because it had gotten me the exact opposite outcome and from then on the opposite was what I wanted.” She smiled ironically. “When I got a little older, it was because I realized that there was no way of even knowing who’d shot my father, whether the Meihonese or the Kolsivites, and that killing my mother hadn’t been anyone’s strategic objective, but either side would have accepted it just as indifferently as a side-effect. And when I got a little older, I also realized that it didn’t matter who’d shot my father. People are killed by other people – by individuals, not by collective entities. Collective entities are abstract concepts and abstract concepts can’t do anything but what individuals do in their names. And if there was an abstract concept to hate it wasn’t any nationality, it was war itself.”
“Yes,” was all he said. Minsuk’s grip on his sleeves loosened a bit, and she stepped in, resting her forehead against his cheek.
“If you leave today and I never see you again, I think I’ll have too much hate for the war to keep it focused.” She took a breath. “I think I’ll feel wrong for not having hated the Meihonese all along. And then I’ll be stuck in this city, full of hate for all the people in it. I will be completely and utterly alone with that hate, as miserable as I’ve been happy since you showed up in the café the second time.”
“Minsuk,” Eiji said. “I would marry you now if knew where I was going after today.”
“But you don’t.”
“So it will have to hold until the opportunity appears. But it will hold. And the opportunity will appear.”
“It will,” she nodded. She looked up at him, and her brow, strained and rumpled with worry, relaxed. “Yes.”
“Trust me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a little laugh that seemed to surprise her as it came out. “What can you say now, after that sob story? I don’t mean to sound like it’s a threat, or to heap unwanted responsibility on you.”
He shook his head. “It’s not any trouble to carry responsibility when it is in line with your own intentions anyway.” He smiled. “In fact, it’s almost comforting.”
“You found that comforting!” She laughed harder.
“Yeah.” Eiji nodded. “It means you’ve got about as much interest in seeing this through as I do.”
She reached up to put her arms around his neck, and they leaned their faces close together.
“I love you, my husband-to-be,” said Minsuk.
“I love you,” said Eiji, “my wife.”
After Minsuk had gone into the restaurant for her introductions with the masters of her newly-begun apprenticeship, Eiji left, his armor case in one hand and his traveling bag over his shoulder. He avoided the crowded morning trains and walked for two hours, all the way to the High Command office. There he reported for duty.
END OF CHAPTER
On to Chapter Two
