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She laughed. "Is it successful?"
"It has never got me a single smooch."
She raised her bottle in a toast. "Well, keep trying."
He thought that was encouraging, so he said: "When we get back to the city, do you want to get a hamburger, or something, and maybe see a movie?"
This was the moment for her to say No, thanks, I'm meeting my boyfriend.
Diana said quickly: "I'd like that. How about you, Joanne?"
Joanne said: "Sure."
No boyfriend--and a date! Woody tried to hide his elation. "We could see The Bride Came C.O.D.," he said. "I hear it's pretty funny."
Joanne said: "Who's in it?"
"James Cagney and Bette Davis."
"I'd like to see that."
Diana said: "Me, too."
"That's settled, then," said Woody.
Chuck said: "How about you, Chuck? Would you like that? Oh, sure, I'd like it swell, but nice of you to ask, big brother."
It was not all that funny, but Diana giggled appreciatively.
Soon afterward, Joanne fell asleep with her head on Woody's shoulder.
Her dark hair tickled his neck, and he could feel her warm breath on his skin below the cuff of his short-sleeved shirt. He felt blissfully contented.
They parted company at Union Station, went home to change, and met up again at a Chinese restaurant downtown.
Over chow mein and beer they talked about Japan. Everyone was talking about Japan. "Those people have to be stopped," said Chuck. "They're Fascists."
"Maybe," said Woody.
"They're militaristic and aggressive, and the way they treat the Chinese is racialist. What else do they have to do to be Fascists?"
"I can answer that," said Joanne. "The difference is in their vision of the future. Real Fascists want to kill off all their enemies, then create a radically new type of society. The Japanese are doing all the same things in defense of traditional power groups, the military caste and the emperor. For the same reason, Spain is not really Fascist: Franco is murdering people for the sake of the Catholic Church and the old aristocracy, not to create a new world."
"Either way, the Japs must be stopped," said Diana.
"I see it differently," said Woody.
Joanne said: "Okay, Woody, how do you see it?"
She was seriously political, and would appreciate a thoughtful answer, he knew. "Japan is a trading nation, with no natural resources: no oil, no iron, just some forests. The only way they can make a living is by doing business. For example, they import raw cotton, weave it, and sell it to India and the Philippines. But in the Depression the two great economic empires--Britain and the USA--put up tariff walls to protect our own industries. That was the end of Japanese trade with the British Empire, including India, and the American zone, including the Philippines. It hit them pretty hard."
Diana said: "Does that give them the right to conquer the world?"
"No, but it makes them think that the only way to economic security is to have your own empire, as the British do, or at least to dominate your hemisphere, as the U.S. does. Then nobody else can close down your business. So they want the Far East to be their backyard."
Joanne agreed. "And the weakness of our policy is that every time we impose economic sanctions, to punish the Japanese for their aggression, it only reinforces their feeling that they've got to be self-sufficient."
"Maybe," said Chuck. "But they still have to be stopped."
