“Oh, dear...” the woman said.
“He’s my superior, but he finds fault with every single thing I do,” Takenaka went on. “He treats his subordinates like we’re incompetent. It’s horrible. We don’t get any respect.”
“That certainly does sound hard...” she said cautiously.
“Tell me about it. It’s awful! But he doesn’t understand that.” Takenaka stopped himself and shook his head. “Anyway, enough of that. Let’s enjoy our dinner.”
“Good idea. It seems that contrary to expectations, I’m not going to have anything to do tonight, so I might as well take it easy,” the woman agreed.
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing. Now, do tell me more, Takenaka-san,” the woman said with an enchanting smile.
“The truth is, I face a similar matter in my own workplace,” Tessa admitted, after listening to Sailor’s story.
“Oh?” he questioned.
“As you can see, I’m quite young, and my elders frequently treat me like an incompetent. I believe they consider me unsuited to my position...”
“Huh. The maid business is more complicated than I thought.”
“I’m perpetually unappreciated, no matter how many times I prove myself,” Tessa continued. “I’m treated as a nuisance in all situations. It’s truly frustrating to me...”
Sailor nodded in hearty agreement. “Ah, I hear you,” he said sagely. “I worked my way up from seaman, too. It was a hell of a fight to get where I am today. The Annapolis guys under my command treat me like some know-nothing novice.”
“Er?” Tessa’s jaw dropped as she heard Sailor’s words. “Y-You’re an officer?”
“That’s right. Surprise, I’m a commander. And this might not mean anything to a civvie like you, but... I’m captain of one of those upgraded Los Angeles-class nuclear subs.”
“What?!” Tessa asked. He serves on a submarine... and he’s its captain? But it was Sailor’s next words that really threw Tessa for a loop:
“By the way, the sub’s name is the Pasadena,” he nattered on. “It’s part of SUBPAC...” He stopped, noticing her reaction. “What’s with you? Did your whole face just have a spasm? And you’re looking queasy, too...” Sailor peered at Tessa with a scowl. She was pale and sweating.
How can this man be captain of the Pasadena? Tessa wondered. The United States nuclear submarine that tried to sink us during the Perio incident in August... “Y-You mean, you’re...” she began to ask.
“Am I what?”
“You’re... the captain?” she managed, and Sailor took offense.
“Oh, what, you don’t believe me?” he demanded. “As a matter of fact, I’m one of a damn few submarine captains with live combat experience! Just a few months ago, I wound up in an engagement with this dirty, cheating hulk of an enemy sub. I sent that sucker in a rout and saved one of our boys above! Got me a Silver Star for that one. Really something, eh?” He stopped himself. “Ah, crap. Forget I told you that. It’s supposed to be classified.”
Now it was Tessa’s turn to take offense. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘dirty, cheating’ sub? And you did not rout me! I dodged both of your torpedoes! How dare you trivialize my skills! Besides, there were other factors at play at the time!”
Sailor just looked confused. “What the hell are you talking about?” He seemed baffled by her interruption.
Tessa snapped out of her indignation and stammered, “Oh. Er. Well...”
“Well?” he pushed.
“Er, that’s classified,” Tessa apologized. “Please forget I said it.”
Sailor just shook his head. “Okay, whatever you say.” He didn’t really seem like the detail-oriented type; Tessa wondered how a man like him had ever made it to command.
Well, life was complicated, of course. Despite its overwhelming presence on the world stage, the US military could be surprisingly inefficient and bureaucratic. Not everything it did was necessarily logical, and perhaps certain fates had conspired to allow a short-fused man like him rise up in the ranks. Still, there was one thing that didn’t quite add up.
“But Sailor-san,” Tessa asked. “What is an American like you doing on this cruise? Wouldn’t it have been easier and safer for you to take a trip around the Caribbean than to come all the way to Japan?”
Tessa’s question brought a scowl to Sailor’s face. “Hmm... well, there’s a few reasons for that,” he admitted reluctantly.
“What kind of reasons?”
“Well, back in the day, I was stationed at Yokosuka,” Sailor reminisced.
“Ahh.”
“It was years ago, now, but the first sight I ever officially saw through a periscope as a captain was Hachijojima in the distance,” he continued. “The weather was shit, and there wasn’t much to see... but it really got to me. Made me realize how far all my hard work had brought me. I can still remember that sight; those flickering lights from the civilian houses.”
Tessa could imagine how he felt: looking through a control room periscope wasn’t something just anyone was allowed to do. For someone who had clawed his way up from seaman to command, it must have been an unspeakably moving sight.
“I wanted my wife to see what I’d seen,” Sailor told her. “It’s a common tale for submariners, but I’m on the verge of divorce. It’s been a real deep freeze for a while now, and for lack of any better ideas, I thought I could maybe give her a sense of how important my work was to me. That must sound like something a dumb kid would do, I guess.”
It was indeed a childish thought. But if she were in his place, Tessa thought, she might have done something similar. “Then, your wife is on board with you?” she asked.
“No...” Sailor let out a small sigh. “I got back from work the morning we were supposed to head out, and found her bedroom cleaned out.”
Tessa fell silent.
“Looking back now, I can see that she was never gonna come along at all. I tried to call her earlier, but... all we did was scream at each other. Don’t know why I bothered; I know she’s got another guy.” His words were hollow and desolate. Sailor’s expression, previously so animated, had seemed to age decades in a matter of minutes. “Just
