The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee Page A

he was young, before he’d entered the factory like everybody else.
    “Precious few of us bother to look at the bigger picture. Did the Japanese intend to conquer us? Do they still? I very much doubt it. Look at our capacity for producing arms, right here in our small town, and then multiply that by thousands. They know they can’t compete with us over the long run. So they attempt a single, stunning blow, to dissuade us from meddling further in their affairs. The scorpion and the lion. Pearl Harbor was about protecting their interests, in
their
part of the world, in
their
sphere of influence, and if we had sent them the appropriate signals beforehand, all those sailors-and now scores of thousands of others-would still be alive today.”
    “I’ve had enough of this,” one of the men said, slamming down the beer Jackie had paid for on the scarred wooden table. “You’re either one of those pacifists or appeasers, and I can’t stand to listen to you another second.”
    “Do what you will,” Jackie answered him, with an almost operatic tone of defiance. “But in fact I’m neither of those, young man. I’m an American, son, with no need for larger aims, which you will someday come to understand.”
    “Out of the way, mister.”
    “You can do me the respect of at least finishing your beer!”
    “Go to hell.”
    “Don’t you curse at me!” It was then, as a rule, that pandemonium broke loose, at least in his father’s mind, a fierce, heroic scuffle that usually found Jackie Brennan tightly hugging a soldier around his torso so the fellow couldn’t freely swing and punch. Hector jumped in and he would be beseeching the man to ignore his father’s foul curses, the proprietor and a few regulars holding the other servicemen back until Hector could tug Jackie outside and hustle him quickly down the street and toward home. Nothing too serious ever happened, though after one night when the barkeep took a stray punch in the face, Jackie was ordered to stay away for a while, which he did, without even a private protest at home. Jackie knew he was liked well enough to be tolerated for such troubles, but not much more than that, and if he couldn’t help but be a nuisance when he drank, he took great pains to make up for it, buying drinks for all the fellows on his return and not forgetting a box of candies for the barkeep to give to his wife.
    One night, Hector left for home by himself, telling his father he was tired. It was a slow night at the pub, foggy and damp, with no newcomers about for Jackie to sermonize or bet with for drinks.
    “I never heard you say you were tired,” his father said to him, suspicion marking his voice. “Not a once in your life.”
    “Well, I am,” Hector answered, lying to his father for the first and only time. “I just want to go home.”
    “Go on, then,” Jackie said, waving Hector off from his customary place at the far end of the bar, clutching the handle of a mug of ale with his withered, child-sized hand. “And tell your mother not to wait up.”
    Hector grumbled in assent, both he and his father knowing of course that his mother would be long asleep, being accustomed to her husband’s Friday-night foolery. Jackie only got sloshed this one night of the week, but never missed it, and his mother was glad that Hector went out with him.
    As planned, though, Hector routed himself toward home by Patricia Cahill’s freshly painted bungalow and picket fence (done by his own hand), and seeing the parlor room light illuminated went directly to the back porch door, which she said she would leave unlocked if the twins were asleep. It was the spring of 1945 and the long war was still going and her husband was listed as MIA. She was a stunning raven-haired Black Irishwoman with sky-colored eyes and freckles on her little nose and a curve to her hips that made him think of a skillfully turned balustrade. He’d been fantasizing about her for days, and after school he’d stopped by to be