I  buried my head in my mother’s skirt. I was frightened. This man, this crazy man was waving a stick as he walked down off the plane. His eyes fixed in our direction. His face looked like a skull and his clothes didn’t fit properly… they were too big. He was shouting at us and leaning heavily on a stick as he limped in our direction.  I started to cry.“Hush, child.  Don’t cry.  That’s your father.”     I was one year old when he left to serve his country. Now he is returning, four years later, shouting, crying and waving a stick. He hugged my mother and then tried to pick me up. I wouldn’t let him. I went limp and crumpled to the floor. My eyes were glued to the shiny silver handle on the end of the stick. He started to cry and my mother comforted him.      This was my father, a troubled, tormented man who spent four years in Santo Tomas, a death camp in the Philippines

     Commandant Yoshikawa never came for his cane; he was executed as a war criminal. My father passed away fifteen years later, broken in mind and body. I stayed at home with my mother and when she died ten years later I inherited everything, including the cane which I kept in an umbrella stand by the front door. For fifty two years, whenever I polished the handle of the cane, I thought of my father and how circumstances beyond our control shape our destiny. I remained a bachelor, acquiring my share of physical problems as I grew older. When spinal stenosis affected my balance, I relied on my father’s cane. It served me well, but always evoking sentimental memories.             In the year 2003, I booked a flight to visit a niece on the West Coast.  Possibly because of an Orange alert, airport security seemed unusually diligent and thorough. I was given a chair, asked to remove my shoes which, together with my cane, was fluoroscoped..  I became concerned for whatever showed up on the screen excited much activity and glances in my direction. A young security guard approached, carrying my shoes.       “Please put on your shoes and follow me.”         “I can’t walk without my cane and what about my flight? I don’t want to miss it.”          “We’ll get you a wheel chair, but I am afraid you are going to miss your flight.”     I was wheeled into a small room adjacent to the Fluoroscopic unit. They placed my cane on the table before me.     “What’s in the cane?”          “I don’t understand what you’re saying?”          “The cane is hollow and there is something in the cane. Show us how to remove the handle or we will have to cut the cane in half.”          “Hold on. You can’t do that, that’s my cane. It means a great deal to me. I don’t know anything about it being hollow or what it contains.”   

      The questions that were rapid and confusing: “Where did you get it?  How long have you had it?  Have you ever served time in prison?”      

      After I explained the circumstances, I could see they were sympathetic, but they had a job to do and they let me watch as they cut the cane. To my amazement hundreds of diamonds, wrapped in cotton batting, came pouring out! An aluminum cane was provided to me and I returned home.  I was no longer interested in going to the West Coast. . I now have a lawyer who assures me that we have a good case; the diamonds should be mine. The Government’s position is that the diamonds were taken from the prisoners and that ownership will have to be adjudicated.

     I’m glad my father never realized what a cruel, calculating bastard Akiko Yoshikawa was. It is obvious to me that his execution prevented him from reaping the benefits of a plan that required crippling my father and pretending to be his savior.

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