Author Introduction: The Imperial Hotel has seen many Great Lovers. Some were just curious about Oriental women, some just drank too much and lost control, some just needed a fling, and some were just born that way. Some were smart about it and some were not. Most of them tried to sneak a girl into their room but occasionally one of them made a pass at a hotel employee. One Navy captain made a grab at a room maid who was actually a Japanese female detective secretly installed on the stag to investigate a minor theft. She scratched him horribly.

. . .All hotel managers had been instructed to be cautious to the point of prudery about the relationship between American guests and Japanese women. One breath of scandal or one accusation by a Japanese woman would have caused a terrific eruption, no doubt brought on a congressional investigation, and certainly would have made excellent copy for the Russian propaganda machine. Mr. Inumaru [President, Imperial Hotel Company] once told me that one of the proposals considered by the Japanese government during the preparation for the surrender had been to evacuate all females who had reached the age of puberty from the Tokyo-Yokohama area. The proposal had been discarded but this emphasized the caution we had to adopt. The headquarters published a memorandum prohibiting American personnel from entertaining Japanese females in bachelor officer quarters under any circumstances and this was a great help to hotel managers in the Tokyo area. Of course, it did not change the nature of man, it just hindered it a bit.

There were some wives on the way to Japan by this time but the first shipload had not yet arrived. Some of the men in the hotel seemed content to wait for that second, or third, or fourth honeymoon, but others either could not hold out, or perhaps, felt they should get back into practice. Having no interest in the sexual behavior of any American male other than myself, I was not concerned by the morals of the situation, but I was bound by directive to prevent any American-Japanese scandal from originating in the hotel.

The recreational facilities at the hotel were very limited in the early days. We had opened a small cocktail lounge which served mainly Japanese whisky and gin. Occasionally I could scrounge small quantities of American liquor by playing the old Army game with the Navy, for the Navy always had good whisky; however, these amounts were very small and were always exhausted very quickly. There was a movie theatre in the hotel and an outdoor badminton court. Nobody liked the Japanese liquor, the badminton court could not be used at night, and some guests did not like movies. But a man has to have something to relax him at night after a full day's work.

Fortunately for me, the Japanese, in spite of their complicated language and their tendency to do things in a roundabout way, have a marvelous talent for G-2 [army intelligence] type of work. Anything that smacks of intrigue fascinates them. Consequently, it was seldom that a Japanese female was sneaked into the hotel without my receiving a report on it immediately.

My nights were filled with delicate situations but none came up which could not be handled. Usually when a captain (I had been promoted) faces a senior officer he is at a distinct disadvantage whether he is in the right or not, but in these cases my strength was as the strength of ten because my heart was pure and the other fellow's mind was not. It was loss of sleep and the constant nervous tension the situation caused that finally made me an aspirin man.

There was a transient colonel who seemed so bent on keeping the fires of youth burning within himself that I came to think of him as a pyromaniac in that respect. He called me one night and requested that I have a Japanese call girl report to his room. I told him it was impossible, cited the pertinent directive and explained the rule.

"Look," he said, "these things can be arranged. I know this hotel business as well as you do. I worked as a bellboy in New York hotels all four summers while I was in school. You're not kidding me."

“Colonel," I told him, "the Imperial Hotel does not employ call girls, it has no connection with bawdy houses and I am not about to start pimping for anyone. And I'm certainly glad that you know I am not kidding."

He slammed the receiver.

The next night I received a call from the desk clerk. The colonel had tried to bring a Japanese streetwalker into the hotel through the lobby and the clerk had stopped him. He had tried bribes and threats but when these did not sway the clerk he stated that he was going to take the girl to his room and would like to see anyone stop him. That was when the clerk called me. I told the clerk I would come out immediately but when I arrived at the front desk the colonel had already beaten a hasty retreat dragging his tail behind him.

The following night, shortly before three A.M. I received another call from the front desk. One of the Japanese watchmen had reported seeing a Japanese girl climb the low brick wall bordering the north side of the building and enter the colonel's first-floor room through the French door on the balcony. The watchman had not stopped her because she was being assisted in her climb by the colonel.

I gave the colonel every chance to backtrack on his obvious plan for the night. I instructed the desk clerk to call him, inform him that it had been reported that there was a Japanese woman in his room and it would be necessary for her to leave immediately. The colonel denied angrily that he had any guest and told the clerk he had been waked from a sound sleep. I waited half an hour, hoping that the girl would leave the building via the entrance she had used but this did not happen.

I called Colonel Charles A. Mahoney, the Provost Marshal who lived at the hotel and asked him if he would ilke to accompany me on a call to the room. I knew he'd be interested.

I knocked on the door and after a moment a man's voice asked, "Who's there?"

"The manager," I said. "I'd like to come in and speak to you."

"Just a moment."

There was a hushed scampering about, the sound of garments being flicked and a door being closed gently. Then the colonel opened the door. He was clad in trousers and undershirt and wore a pair of Japanese zoris on his feet.

"Colonel, do you have a Japanese female in your quarters?" I asked.

"No. . . . er . . . yes, but I’ll get her right out."

"I'm afraid I’ll have to see her identification card.”

The colonel was shivering and not from the cold, for Colonel Mahoney had stepped into view and was glowering under his beetle brows. He pushed the door completely open and we stepped into the room.

"She's in the closet," the Pyromaniac said.

I pulled the closet door open. The girl was crouched in a corner, dressed in her slip and a sweater and with a man's shirt draped over her head. I lifted the shirt and she looked up.

"You won't tell my custodian, will you?" she asked.

"Do you work for the occupation?"

"Yes, for the custodian of Palace Heights."

Colonel Mahoney fixed her with his piercing eye.

"I'm Colonel Mahoney-san, the Provost Marshal," he boomed. "This is very bad, very bad."

"She's not just ordinary trash," the Pyromaniac offered hopefully. "She's a banker's daughter."

"You won't tell my custodian, will you?" the banker's daughter repeated.

"Colonel," Mahoney-san said, "I guess you realize that you are in grave trouble."

"Yes, sir. I'll do anything to get out of it."

"There's no getting out of it. We have rules here and we enforce them. Now, get that woman out of this building and quick.”

"Yes, sir, right away," said the Pyromaniac, snapping to attention with a click of his heels, not an easy thing to accomplish in a pair of straw zoris.

But it was not necessary for him to take any action. Before he finished speaking the girl had donned her clothes and was sliding over the railing of the balcony. As her face disappeared from view she looked at everyone quite beseechingly and said,

"You won't tell my custodian, will you?"

I don't know that anyone ever did.

The Pyromaniac was very apologetic. He admitted that the whole fault was his, that he had nobody to blame but himself. I had explained the rules and he had ignored them. He did not blame me for being angry.

"After all," he said, "I wasn't fair to you."

"No," I said, "you weren't."

I was tired.

However, the next morning the colonel took a lighter view of his escapade. He came to my office to have a friendly man-to-man laugh about it with me.

"It was just my last little fling," he said. "My family is arriving in Japan tomorrow and once mama gets here I’m going to have to—haha—be a good little boy. After all, we’re both men of the world, aren't we?"

I had no comment on that.

"After all, nothing was really going to happen in your hotel. I had—haha—transacted my business with her earlier in the evening. When I turn on the—haha—charm it doesn't take until three o'clock in the morning to get—haha—results."

I had no comment on that.

"After all, nobody got hurt. I’ll bet even that little girl is home thinking of it as a pleasant memory right now."

I had a comment on that.

"I doubt that she is at home yet," I said. "She was picked up as a suspected streetwalker shortly after she left the hotel."

"Oh! That's too bad. She won't lose her job, will she?"

"I don't know," I said. "I guess it all depends on whether she passed her medical exam."

"Her what?"

"Her medical exam. When they pick up those girls they always send them to the hospital to be checked for VD."

I saw the blood start to drain from his face and a look of horror creep into his eyes. He was remembering something. He tried to speak but his throat had gone dry.

"Did she ... I mean was she. . I mean . . ." his voice trailed off.

I walked over to my small liquor closet, poured a stiff hooker of brandy and handed it to him.

"I have no idea how the exam turned out," I said, "but I guess you'll—haha—know before I do anyway, won't you?

During the first half of 1946 there were not many American women in Tokyo, a few WAC officers, some civilians working in the headquarters, some personnel on the staff of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and a sprinkling of Red Cross girls. In general, the senior officers had the pick of this crop and there was a great deal of speculation on the interesting situations expected to arise when the wives of these officers arrived in Tokyo. However, Tokyo romances usually followed a sensible pattern. An affair ran at lukewarm to torrid until time for the officer's family to arrive in Japan and then it just ceased, the girl progressing on to newer and often greener pastures. I remember when General Campbell, the Quartermaster General, informed me that his wife was due to arrive, I wondered who was going to inherit the blonde he had recently started bringing to dinner at the hotel. I would not have minded being the General's replacement but I was only a captain then and I did not think she would like such a drastic reduction in rank.

There was one Navy officer who did not choose to change his design for living after the arrival of his wife. He continued dating a Red Cross girl and his wife did not think it seemly. She took to drink.

The wife finally decided that she did not want her husband living with her any longer and demanded that I move him to another room. When I informed her that I could not do this she decided to move him, herself, went up to their quarters and threw all of his clothing and equipment out the window of their third-story room. By the time I could man a crew of bellboys to recover the officer's belongings the word had been passed to all the street urchins and beggars of Tokyo and they had converged on the Imperial Hotel to reap their share of this gift from the skies. My bellboys had to fight to save some of the clothing and though we recovered ninety percent of it, to this day there are some ricksha pullers in Tokyo who scamper about dressed in genuine Navy blue.

I met General Campbell's blonde one evening while I was in the lobby and when I did I committed a cardinal sin for a hotel man—I did not catch her name and I did not check to find it out. I had been talking to Mr. Inumaru about my trip to climb Mt. Fuji, scheduled to start the following day, and he had just informed me that there was some difficulty about the reservation at the Japanese inn where I was to stay. I had that on my mind and besides, General Campbell had approached me from the left which is my deaf side and by the time I could swing my right ear into range he had completed the introduction. Of course, I should have asked for a repeat of the name but I was anxious to get away and continue my conversation with Mr. Inumaru.

Mr. Inumaru got on the telephone and straightened out the reservation problem. It seems that the management of the Japanese inn could not understand my coming there for the weekend without a female companion and was certain there had been a mistake.

Shortly after noon of the following day I started my trip to Hakone by jeep. Inumaru had told me that the mountains were the true beauty of Japan and he was quite right. There is a dignity to them that is not describable, a majesty which does not appal you or make you conscious of your insignificance in the plan of things, but makes you more conscious of the good power of whatever God you may believe in. I stopped often to gaze down the long valleys, checkered with geometrically perfect paddies which gave the perspective an added distance. Outside its cities Japan is not of this modern age. The peasants in conical coolie hats, split-toed canvas shoes and black bandage leggings; the thatch-roof farmhouses, and the green and mud rice paddies are all there, just outside Tokyo. It is a good land to see.

Mt. Fuji, itself, is the most magnificent sight in the Japanese islands. It is almost perfectly conical and rises out of a plain, standing off by itself with no neighboring peaks breaking the lines from base to summit. It is easy to see why the Japanese have attached a sacred significance to this mountain. Some sects even require that members make at least one pilgrimage during their lifetime to worship at the shrine located at the top.

I had a very pleasant room at the Japanese inn and had planned to spend Friday night there, rest all day Saturday, and start the climb Saturday night. But when the light began to fade the insect population of the district invaded my room. There were no screens on the windows and it was too hot to close them. Finally, while I was eating my dinner, the biggest spider I have ever seen ran out on the table and made a snatch at my food, so I decided it would be safer sleeping on Mt. Fuji than in that room.

The owner of the inn procured a guide for me, a local farmer named Kobayashi who was very enthusiastic about this particular trip because it would be his one hundredth ascent of the mountain and he was looking forward to a week of wild celebration at the end of it. We rode my jeep to the third station (there are ten of them spaced up the mountain) and then climbed to the sixth station where we stopped to rest for an hour. Kobayashi rolled up in a futon inside the little station but the size of the lice that lived there discouraged me from joining him so I wrapped my poncho about me and stretched out on one of the wooden benches in front of the hut. I could see nothing below me but a vast expanse of blackness broken by the few distant lights in FujiYoshida, the village we had just left.

While I was lying there a small light came into view far below in the blackness, zigzagging up the path through the volcanic ash. Then I heard the tinkling of a small bell and I knew a group of pilgrims was climbing the mountain. I watched until the people passed along the level just below my bench, three blurry white figures in the darkness. As they approached the circle of light which escaped from the door of the station the leader, a Buddhist monk, boomed out a hearty "O-hayo gozaimasu" (good morning). Then, as the light struck his face, I jumped up excitedly for the expression on his face had startled me. I had seen it only once before, on the face of a Catholic archbishop. It was a look of goodness, goodness and the happiness which comes from it when it has reached perfection. I would give my life to have inside me for one moment whatever it is that produces such an expression on the face of a man.

The pilgrims did not notice my sudden motion and passed off quickly into the darkness. I had a sudden overpowering urge to speak to that monk. The group had been walking rapidly but I could still hear the bell tinkling and see the blinking of the light. Snatching up my flashlight, I started to run after them in the darkness and almost immediately stumbled over a supine figure lying enveloped in a large futon. This person had been lying at the edge of a three-foot drop and as I went sprawling across the inert mass we both slid over the edge and skidded down the soft volcanic ash for about twenty feet before we came to a stop. We ended in a tangled heap, I as much enveloped in the futon as was its rightful occupant. A head emerged quickly from one of the folds and I heard a feminine voice say,

"Who invited you in here?"

I flashed my light on the speaker's face. It was General Campbell's blonde!

I made awkward apologies as we scrambled back up the slope and, being in a very confused state of mind, I could think of no sensible explanation so I told her exactly what had happened. She asked me if I had been drinking.

But she was a very good-natured person. We made the rest of the climb together and though I had an aversion to yank-happy young women, I found myself enjoying her company. She was employed as a research analyst at the International Military Tribunal, the court which was to try the major Japanese war criminals, and though she did not take herself seriously, it was obvious from the way she discussed her work that she had a keen mind. The only thing I could not take was the casual way she, from time to time, referred to her relationship with General Campbell. She told me it was a great convenience to be able to use his room at the Imperial to change clothes or take a nap or soak in a hot tub. They had showers at the Old Kaijo Hotel, the women's billet where she was living, and she was a tub woman from way back. That sort of thing went against my grain.

Luckily, she told me that her first name was Fran and that I should call her by it. This averted the difficulty I would have had trying to learn her last name so that I could address her as Miss So-and-So. There are many ways of fishing for a person's name when you are supposed to know it but they are all potentially dangerous. You can say, in a very casual manner, "What is the exact spelling of your name?" but that can often prove embarrassing. I tried this once on a colonel whom I was supposed to know.

"J-O-N-E-S," he had replied, giving me a very strange look.

We saw my monk again, on top of Fuji as we were watching the sun come up. He was standing at the edge, very erect and grasping a tall staff in his right hand. The first rays of light caused golden tints to appear on his white robes. That look of goodness was etched on his face in soft lines.

"Is that your man of goodness?" Fran asked, nodding towards him.

"Yes," I said.

"I can understand now what you meant," she told me.

She was gazing at him intently and I could see she had the same reaction which I had experienced. I felt as if I had just shared some secret corner of my mind with her and I had a sensation of being grateful to her for understanding me. That was the first time I looked at her with more than passing interest. She was tall and there was a healthy look about her. In spite of having climbed the mountain all night she still had a brushed and combed appearance. She was very beautiful.

All during the trip down the mountain I kept wondering how such an intelligent girl with so much to offer could choose to waste her time on an old goat just because he had a star on his shoulder. By the time I had dropped her off at the Fuji-View Hotel, the Army rest hotel where she was staying, I felt a mounting resentment towards her.

When I returned to Tokyo I found I could not keep the thought of this girl out of my mind. I would tell myself that she was a typical rank-happy young nincompoop with no more sense than the rest of them. Then I'd remember such things as the way she looked while she was watching that monk, her sincere understanding of my reaction to him, her healthy laughter and the happy expression on her face. I finally decided my interest was just a matter of hating to see her wasted in a ridiculous situation. I developed a yen to turn her over my knee and spank some sense into her.

The General brought her to dinner one night later in the week. They were seated at his table when I entered the dining room and as I sat down at my place she waved to me from across the room. I waved back, then pretended to become engrossed in studying the menu but kept watching them out of the corner of my eye. Fran was talking to the General and he glanced over at me from time to time while she was speaking so I knew she was telling him the story of our climb up Mt. Fuji. When she finished the General burst out in loud guffaws and I imagined she had told him about sliding down the mountain with me.

The General was still laughing when he caught my eye and waved me over to their table. I did not want to join them but there was no way I could avoid it gracefully.

"Sit down, Morris, sit down," the General said. "Have dinner with us. I understand you pushed Fran off a cliff the other night."

Well," I said, "it was . . .'

"Good man," he interrupted, "I've wanted to do the same thing for a long time but never had the chance."

I was not at ease during the dinner. I could see why Fran liked the General for he was a good-looking man even though in his late fifties and he had a fine sense of humor. I did not contribute much to the conversation. They did not ask me any personal questions and I certainly did not put any to them.

When the meal was over and we had walked to the lobby I thanked them for their company and started to excuse myself.

"Come up to the cocktail lounge and have a brandy with us," Fran. suggested. "That is, if you have brandy to-day. Do you?"

"Yes," I said. (The Navy had come through that week.)

"Look, if you're going to have company I think I'll beg off and try to get a good night's sleep," the General said. "Mrs. Campbell is arriving early to-morrow," he explained to me.

"Oh, I see," I said. Actually, I did not.

As we were walking towards the cocktail lounge Fran was smiling to herself.

"Dad won't sleep a wink to-night," she said. "He's so excited about Mother finally getting here."

"DAD!"

"Yes. What's the matter?"

She was looking at me quizzically. I tried to recover my poise before I found myself in that familiar position behind the eight ball, but it was too late.

"He introduced me as his daughter, didn't he?"

I explained about my deaf ear.

"Oh, I see. Well," she said jokingly, "who did you think I was, his concubine?" Then, as she saw the red creep into my face, the realization popped into her mind. "You did think I was his girl friend!"

"After all," I started lamely, "everybody sort of took it for granted that ... I mean . . ."

She erupted into a convulsion of laughter.

"Oh, brother," she said when she had recovered. "Wait till the old boy hears about this."

"For God's sake," I said, "don't tell him about it. I’ll be court-martialed."

"Don't be silly," she said. "He'll be flattered to death."

I wanted to forget the matter but she brought it up again while we were having our drink.

"Say," she said, suddenly, "if you thought I was Dad's girl friend . . ."

"Look," I interrupted her. "Haven't I apologized enough?"

"Oh, but I was just wondering," she said, musingly, "if you thought I was that kind of girl, how come you didn't make a pass at me up on Fuji?"

Keigo [Matsumoto Keigo, twenty two years old, part-time student and recently promoted from houseman to roomboy at the hotel] thought Fran Campbell was an ichi-ban (number one) person and became very enthusiastic when I started having dates with her. I was flattered by his sincere interest in my personal life, but I also knew the Japanese mind well enough by this time—to read his plan for the future. The idea was to get me married and moved into a house where he, naturally, would come along as number one boy and start to build his own little empire of servants. Keigo was also very rank-conscious. He could not see why I would go out with a colonel's daughter when there was a general’s daughter available.

Keigo was delighted when I stopped seeing other girls and devoted all my time to Fran. But his impatience finally got the better of him and caused him to step out of line, the only time anything like that occurred in the six years I knew him. One evening just before I was leaving the room he asked me if I was going to marry Miss Campbell.

"Yes," I said automatically. I was more startled by the easy way the answer popped out than I was by Keigo’s impertinence. I told him I might marry her; it would depend on Miss Campbell, but that the matter was none of his business and I did not appreciate such personal questions from my roomboy. He was crestfallen and apologized profusely.

I guess it was this incident which made me decide to ask the important question that evening but before I could get around to it I was handed a setback. It seemed as if every time I made up my mind about this girl something happened which knocked me flat on my back. She informed me that she would not be able to see me the following Saturday evening as she had a date with a New Zealand Air Force colonel whom she had known in Europe. The date had been made a month before by letter, before I had come to know her so well. The colonel was flying up from Kobe where he was stationed, to attend the ball the New Zealanders were giving in Tokyo to celebrate their national holiday. It was an understandable situation and I had no right to be resentful but, of course, at that stage of the game I was guided by emotion, not logic. It seemed as if fate were adding insult to injury when I learned that the colonel was to be billeted at the Imperial Hotel during his stay in Tokyo.

I met the colonel that Saturday evening and he was in an embarrassing predicament at the time. He had called me on the phone and asked me to come to his room. I thought his voice had sounded a bit muffled and when I saw him I found out why—his false teeth had disappeared.

"It's my own fault," he told me. "I'm such a damned absent-minded person. I'm always leaving the bloody things about because they're so damned uncomfortable. I thought I had put them there on the nightstand as I went in to bathe but when I came out I just dropped on the bed for a nap without noticing them. I should have put them in a glass of water, you know."

I called a couple of roomboys and we made a thorough search of the room but could not locate the missing teeth.

"I might have left them at the Marunouchi, to tell the truth," the colonel said. (The Marunouchi was the British hotel in Tokyo.) "I had a sort of reunion with some of my old mates, you know, and we tipped a few. To tell you the truth, I was a bit woozy when I left to come over here. I called over there but the blighters seemed to have left for the evening. It's frightfully embarrassing, you know. I have a date with a most charming young thing. Can't very well show up without the teeth, though. Think the Marunouchi people might let me have a look in the room if I dashed over there?"

"I'm quite certain they would," I said. "I know the manager there and I'd be, glad to call him about it if you'd like."

"Damned decent of you, old man," he said. "Would you mind awfully?"

His quest must have been unsuccessful because I received a phone call from Fran a little while after. She told me that her date had been taken ill and had suggested that she go on to the dance if she could find a friend to accompany her.

"Fine," I said. "Just think of me as an old buddy."

When I returned to the hotel that night, Keigo was waiting up for me, which was quite unusual. He said he wanted to know what time I wanted breakfast in the morning. This was ridiculous. I never ate breakfast on Sunday mornings. I knew what he was anxious to learn and I decided not to keep him in suspense.

"I'm going to marry Miss Campbell next June," I told him. "I proposed this evening and she accepted me."

"Oh, very happy," he cried, breaking into his full-faced smile, "very happy, Mori-san. Miss Campbell ichiban person. Very beautiful."

"Thank you, Keigo," I said. "I'm glad you approve."

He bowed a majestic goodnight and as he did I noticed something causing a bulge in the right chest pocket of his white jacket, giving him an unbalanced appearance. I asked him what it was.

"Oh, pencil," he said, pulling one out of the left pocket. I could see he was frightened.

"No, in the other pocket," I said.

He was the most miserable-looking person in the world as he removed the object and held it out for my inspection. It was a handsome set of false teeth!

So many wives had arrived in Tokyo that the romantic movement at the hotel had been curtailed to the point of nonexistence. The ladies had set up a Women’s Lobby Intelligence Group, a sort of unofficial G-2 organization which quickly achieved a reputation for seeing all, hearing all, learning all and telling all. This accomplished, indirectly, what all the directives and the vigilance of the hotel staff could not as far as the activities of the boys who ate raw meat were concerned. Those whose wives had already arrived were, of course, out of the running and those whose wives were to arrive in the future found it wise to tread cautiously. I no longer had to spend the hours between midnight and dawn as a guardian of morals and as soon as I became used to sleeping at night again, I found I liked it.

But if the arrival of American women in large numbers cured one problem, it supplied another to replace it. It started a mad social whirl which moved at such a frantic pace that we had to revamp the banquet section to cope with it. The number of parties given was phenomenal and sometimes a vicious competition resulted when the various hostesses started trying to outshine each other. Each lady wanted a brand-new idea for her affairs and insisted that it be more elaborate than the last one she had attended. When some conflict on ideas or reservations dates occurred, I usually ended up in the middle [and so the adventures of Morris continue].

Morris, J. Malcolm. “Land of Romance.” The Wise Bamboo. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1953; 38-56; also chap. 4, “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party,” 57-58.