United States of Japan Read Online Free PDF Page A

Like most of the officers in the room, his long hair was slicked back with oil. He wore the brown suit of a military officer, insignia ranking him as a captain in the Imperial Army. Vermilion lapels collided against his chubby cheeks, and, from the bulge in his belly that he refused to acknowledge, it was clear he was fighting both his cravings and gravity. He sucked on an ice cube in his cocktail, relishing the cold that numbed his tongue.
    It was Tiffany who had wanted to see this circus act from China. She’d heard about it from her friends in the press corps and knew only military officers could gain access. “Freak show” was her actual description. A cornucopia of the bizarre, they were deviants who had strayed from the moment they were born. The woman on the center stage had a beard longer than any Ben had ever seen. She used her beard like a lasso, twirling it and doing fancy tricks. Her partner, a skinny male, contorted his body so he’d dance in conjunction with the various geometric compunctions enforced by her hair.
    “What is it about the strange that piques your interest so much?” he whispered to Tiffany.
    “Strange is coincidence, a random act. If all women had facial hair, I’d be the strangest one alive.”
    “Strangest, yes, but still the most beautiful.”
    “Beautiful is so generic. I wouldn’t pay money to see that.”
    “Does elegantly dashing and intriguingly provocative sound better?”
    “A little. If you were the only man in the world without a beard, I’d put you in a circus and sell views without any catchphrases,” she stated.
    “How much would you charge?”
    “A hundred yen.”
    “That’s it?” Ben asked.
    “You sound disappointed.”
    “I was hoping at least a thousand a view.”
    “I’m not that greedy,” she said, playfully pressing her finger against his arm.
    They were in a circular room with tables arranged by rank. Their dinner was a mix of sashimi and steaks. A connoisseur from Kyoto made special rice and the tamago was boiled to dripping perfection. Most of the officers were smoking cigarettes and the lights were dim apart from the gaudily colored beams firing up the show. Pleasure smelled of tobacco, raw fish, whiskey, and perfume. Tiffany held Ben’s hand and said, “Are you excited about tonight?”
    “Very,” Ben whispered back. “I should have been a major a long time ago. Most of the guys I graduated with from BEMAG,” the Berkeley Military Academy for Game Studies, “are already colonels.”
    “Captain in the Office of the Censor isn’t a bad job,” Tiffany said. “It’s cushy and you can spend as much time with me as you want. But I guess it’s good for you to finally get to be Major Ishimura.”
    “Which pretty much means I’ll be doing the exact same thing, just with a little pay raise.”
    “And a better parking spot.”
    He laughed. “I’d probably drive my car to work more that way.” He shook his cup, watching the ice roll around his drink. “Never thought it’d take this long.”
    “Even if it took a while, you’re getting what you wanted.”
    “I’m grateful. Did you know it’s become a point of scandal among my colleagues? ‘Ishimura, why are you still the oldest captain in the USJ at thirty-nine?’”
    “You don’t like being the focus of attention?”
    “Not like that,” Ben said.
    “I guess you wouldn’t last long in a cage.”
    “It’d depend on who was in there with me.”
    He wondered what the bearded woman looked like without hair. From her hazel eyes, inured to the whimsies of emotion, he imagined her playing court for Imperial officers throughout the world from New Delhi to Beiping to Bangkok. Cigarette smoke was their olfactory leitmotif, bewildered officers hypnotized by the flocculence of her face. When she disappeared into the shadows, a sword dancer emerged, claiming he was descended from a famous Chinese warlord named Cao Cao. He juggled five broadswords and threw one up particularly high. It