by Yu Miri
Crossing Panda Bridge, I climbed a set of stairs and there was the park. It had not been taped off, nor were there any announcements being played. Everything in the park continued as always, the same as any other day. The people passing through on their way to work or school at their usual time may not have even noticed that no homeless person sat on the benches, or that the blue tarps and cardboard huts had been removed. It wasn’t their homes that had been cleaned up; they weren’t the ones who had been chased out of the park...
They didn’t even notice the police officers asking a young man questions near the Masaoka Shiki Memorial Field, or the officers, half in plainclothes, half in uniforms, waiting along the main path, the plainclothes officer standing guard under the overhang of the National Museum of Western Art, or the helicopter circling low over the park.
Then, the plainclothes officers gathered in front of the Tokyo Cultural Hall, pulled a black-and-yellow striped tape across the path so that pedestrians could not cross, and began explaining to people walking from the station and the zoo.
“This path is closed for the next ten minutes. Those who are in a hurry should go around the park, please.”
Seeing passersby carrying their umbrellas at their sides, I realized that the rain had stopped.
It was 12:53.
“Is something going on?” a man who must’ve been a student, dressed in jeans and a duffel coat, asked an officer in a suit.
“The Emperor’s vehicle will pass here soon.”
He was a short, stout man with a buzz cut, more suited to frying noodles at a street stall than being a detective.
“Yeah? It’s our lucky day! The Emperor!”
“The Emperor?”
“Wild. The Emperor! Might as well stick around to see him, right? Is he coming soon?”
“Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Damn! Where’s my camera? I gotta take a picture for my mother.”
“Which side of the car is he gonna be on?”
“This side. The Empress will be on the other side.”
“Oh? And why is the Emperor coming past here?”
“Their Majesties attended the ceremony for the International Prize for Biology at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.”
A white police motorcycle appeared from the direction of the National Science Museum. I looked at my wristwatch; it was 1:07.
The motorcycle passed, followed by a black car. The Imperial car was approaching.
It was a Toyota Century Royal with the Imperial Standard, a gold chrysanthemum with sixteen petals, on the bonnet. There was also a gold chrysanthemum in place of the license plate.
There they were in the back. Just as the officer had said, the Emperor was seated behind the driver, and the Empress was on the passenger side.
The nearly thirty people who happened to be there by chance waved at the vehicle or held up their phones, uttering in surprise, “It’s really them!” “They’re so close! Like two meters away!” “Just like on TV!”
The Imperial car, which had been going about ten kilometers an hour, slowed to the speed of a leisurely walk and the rear window rolled down.
The man who waved tremulously, palm toward us, was the Emperor.
The Empress waved to the people on the other side of the road; then, leaning forward in her seat, she turned to greet us with a graceful wave of her pale hand.
The Emperor and Empress were a stone’s throw away from me. The pair gave us a look which could only be described as gentle, and a smile came across their innocent faces, ones which had never known sin or shame. Because they were smiling, one could not see what they were really thinking. But they were not the same kind of smiles given by politicians and celebrities, ones meant to hide their feelings.
A life that had never known struggle, envy or aimlessness—one that had lived the same seventy-three years as I had—we were both born in 1933, I’m certain of that—so soon he would be seventy-three. And his son, the Crown Prince, born on February, the 23rd, 1960, was forty-six—if my son were still alive, he’d be the same age, too. Born the same day as Crown Prince Naruhito, we borrowed one of the characters from his title for the name of our eldest son—Kōichi.
Only tape separated me and Their Majesties. If I ran out toward them, I was sure to be snatched by police, but they would see me, and hear me if I said something
Something—
But what?
My throat was empty.
As the car went on into the distance, I waved after it.
He had heard my voice.
On August 5th, 1947, Emperor Hirohito had appeared, wearing a suit, as he stepped down from the Imperial train which had stopped at Haramachi Station, and the moment that he put his hand to the brim of his hat in greeting, I was one of the 25,000 voices that cried, “Long live the Emperor!”
—
At the age of 30 I decided to come and work in Tokyo, and I worked on the construction sites of the Olympic stadiums. I didn’t see a single event, but on October 10th, 1964, sitting in my small room in the prefab company dormitory, I heard the voice of the Emperor through the radio.
“I declare open the Games of Tokyo celebrating the 18th Olympiad of the modern era.”
And on February 23rd, 1960, when my wife Setsuko was going into labor, the radio announcer had said, exultantly:
“Today at 4:15 this afternoon, at the Hospital of the Imperial Household, a prince was born. Mother and child are both doing well.”
Suddenly, my eyes filled with tears. I strained all the muscles in my face to stop them from falling, but my shoulders began shaking with each breath, and I hid my face in my hands.
Behind me I heard the sound of someone dragging their feet. I turned and saw a homeless man, dressed in a coat which was too long and walking on the backs of his shoes like they were slippers. Another pushed a cart full of luggage covered with a blue tarp, his umbrella dangling from one hand.
I saw the police get into a patrol car and leave the park.
The exile was over.
I could smell the rain now. The smell of rain was stronger just after it had stopped. All of Tokyo is covered in asphalt, but in the park, there are trees, earth, grass and fallen leaves, and the rain brought out their fragrances.
In my thirties, I did overtime every night. As I walked to the station I’d be overcome by the waves of salarymen on their way back from work and I’d wonder if they had families waiting for them at home, and on nights after it rained, I walked in my muddy boots over the wet asphalt, shimmering with reflections of neon signs, and then I could smell the rain—
Some sunlight pierced through the clouds to the west, but to the east, the sky was still so heavy with rain clouds that it looked like it might start again at any moment.
I heard a burbling sound and I looked toward the Tokyo Culture Hall, but I couldn’t tell whether it was water coming out of the gutters or circulating inside the air conditioning system. With my head turned toward the sky, breathing in the smell of rain, and listening to the sound of water, I realized exactly what I was going to do next, like a moment of enlightenment. I’d never used the word ‘enlightenment’ before. I was not getting caught up in something and going along with it, nor was I running away from anything, as if I were a sail allowing itself to be pushed along by the prevailing wind—suddenly, I didn’t care anymore about the cold or my headache.
The yellow of the ginkgo leaves poured into my eyes like paint dissolving into water. Each leaf had a golden glow that was almost too beautiful—the ones that danced in the air, the soggy ones trampled on by people, and the ones that still clung to their branches.
Since I became homeless my only interest in ginkgoes had been the fruit. Wearing plastic gloves, I picked them up one by one and put them in a plastic bag. When it was full, I took them to the water fountain and washed off the part of
the skin that stank. Then, I would spread them out on a newspaper to dry, before taking them to Ameyoko Market, where I could get 700 yen a kilo for them.
My vision was filled with yellow leaves, whirling in the cold winter wind. The turning of the seasons no longer had anything to do with me—but still, I didn’t want to take my eyes away from that yellow, which seemed to me like a messenger of light.
The chirp of the signal for the visually impaired was what made me realize that the light had turned green.
I crossed the road.
I took some change out of my pocket and bought a ticket.
I passed through the gates at the park entrance of Ueno Station.
A sign with the words, “North-Eastern Shinkansen Service—Shin-Aomori bound” came into view, and suddenly I thought, if I took that train I’d be at Kashima station in four and a half hours—but this hesitation lasted only a beat. The feeling of homesickness no longer made my heart pound or my chest tighten.
A number of paths were now behind me.
Only one way was left before me.
Whether it was the way home or not, I wouldn’t know until I tried.
I took the stairs down to Platform 2, the inner loop of the Yamanote Line.
A woman almost ran into me on the stairs. A petite woman in her thirties wearing a red coat with a shiny bob like a little girl… She was coming up the stairs, looking at her phone, and just before we collided she looked up. “Oh, sorry,” she said, her face pale and lifeless.
In the flash of surprise that registered on her face for a moment as she realized I was homeless, I saw a shadow, as if all of her dreams had just been crushed. I stopped and turned around near the bottom of the stairs, just in time to see her red coat disappear. Now she wouldn’t witness anything, I thought, and felt a little better. I wondered if she’d just got some bad news on her phone, but most likely she’d sleep well tonight, and in the morning she’d wash her face, have something to eat, do her makeup, get dressed and leave her house. And her life would continue. The calendar separates today from yesterday and tomorrow, but in life there is no distinguishing past, present and future. We all have an enormity of time, too big for one person to deal with, and we live, and we die—
I watched one train go past, down the inner loop of the Yamanote Line. In the three minutes until the next train arrived, I bought a carbonated drink from a vending machine and took only two gulps before putting it in the bin.
“The train now approaching on Platform 2 is the Ikebukuro and Shinjuku-bound Yamanote Line train. Please stand behind the yellow line.”
I stood on the yellow line and closed my eyes, leaning my whole body into the rumbling sound of the approaching train.
My heart pulsated, as screams tore through my body.
My field of vision turned crimson, green spreading through it in ripples.
Rice fields… watered, freshly planted, this year’s rice paddies… in the summer you have to weed it daily or else… lilies and rice look a lot alike and they’ll suck the nutrients from the rice so you have to look closely… the green of the rice paddies behind me now I’m flying… I’m on a train?... oh, it’s the Joban Line… going from Haramachi to Kashima… the Shindagawa River… I bring my face up close and look at the river… a silver fish I can see ’cause its tail fin’s moving so fast it’s in time with the flow of the river… and in the spring a group of young sweetfish coming back to the river from the sea… the dazzling light falling on the fields by the riverside…
Each moment is brilliant and charged with shadow. Everything that appears in my eyes is too bright and too clear. I felt not that I was watching the landscape but that I was being watched by it. Seen by each of the daffodils, dandelions, the butterbur flowers, the spring starflowers—
As if my body, now walking, was being pushed along by the wind, I soon knew I was walking on the beach. The monotonous sound of the waves along with the scent of the tide filled my nasal cavity. Unlike the wind and the rain and the smell of flowers, the scent of the tide stuck to my skin like a spider’s web.
I was walking on Migitahama, a beach I had known since childhood, and yet, as if I had entered somewhere I wasn’t allowed, I looked up at the sky from beneath the brim of my straw hat.
There was the sun.
I turned back and looked.
Footprints in the damp sand.
I squinted and looked at the sea.
Where the sky and sea met it was smooth as steel, but where the sea and sand met the waves broke white and tiny foam bubbled up, the shells and seaweed and sand that had just been engulfed now gasping for breath.
Occasionally a breeze came in from the sea, rustling the branches of the pines, bringing forth the smell of the needles heavy with pods, stroking my cheek like a warm sigh.
I followed the wind with my eyes as it left, watching, then realizing that there was Kitamigita, the village I was born and raised in.
It shouldn’t have been visible from the sea, but I could see the roof of my house clearly.
The sky was blue and taut, but near the horizon I saw a large, spotlessly gray layer of clouds.
A flock of seagulls squawked, springing from the pines all at once, then flying off as if riding on the wind.
A sound like a jumbo jet taking off rumbled, and a moment later, the earth shook.
I saw a telephone pole wobble like the mast of a ship going out to sea.
I watched as people ran out of a plastic greenhouse, crawling on their hands and knees through potato patches, crying out, holding each other, clinging on to their trucks.
I saw pollen fall from the shaken pines, turning the air pale yellow.
I saw concrete block walls crumble, roof tiles fall, manhole covers float, roads crack, water gush.
The emergency sirens blared over and over.
“A tsunami warning has been issued. Expected arrival time of 3:35pm. Waves of up to seven meters are expected. Please seek shelter on higher ground.”
Police cars and public safety patrols came speeding toward the sea, sirens blazing, yelling out over their loudspeakers, “Tsunami coming, get to safety!”
Above the breakwater, people who had been watching the horizon line of white waves get ever closer suddenly, as if repelled, ran away shouting.
The tsunami swept over the pines, raising clouds of dust as it rolled up boats, smashed into trees, washed away fields, tore through houses, crushed gardens, swallowed up cars, felled gravestones, ripped apart roofs and walls of homes, glass from windows, fuel from boats, petrol from cars, tetrapods, vending machines, futons, tatami, stovetops, desks, chairs, horses, cows, chickens, dogs, cats, men, women, elderly, children—
There was a car driving down Highway 6.
My granddaughter Mari was driving, and in the passenger seat was Kotaro, the dachshund.
She parked in front of a house and got out, grabbing the chain of a shiba-inu who had been leashed to a doghouse in the garden. Obviously taking charge of another abandoned dog. She picked up the dog and got in the car, slamming the door shut. The moment she started the engine, a black wave appeared in the rearview.
Mari gripped the wheel and stepped on the accelerator, sliding onto Highway 6 still in reverse, but the black wave chased the car, then swallowed it up.
Carried out by the tide, the car carrying my granddaughter and the two dogs sunk into the sea.
When the breath of the tide calmed, the car was enveloped in the light of the sea. Through the windscreen I could see Mari’s pink uniform from the animal hospital. Seawater in her mouth and nose, her hair flowing with the waves appeared brown in one light, black in another. Her wide-open eyes had lost their sight, but they shone like black slits. Just like Yoko, she had long eyes, taking after Setsuko. Kotaro and the shiba-inu had both died in the car with her.
I could not embrace her, nor touch her hair or
cheek, nor call her name, nor cry out, nor let tears fall.
I looked at the swirl of her fingerprints on her right hand, already starting to swell and turn white, still grasping the dog’s lead.
Little by little, little by little, the light faded and the ocean calmed as if sinking into a coma.
As Mari’s car melted into darkness and I could no longer see it, I heard, from inside that darkness heavy with the weight of water over it, that sound.
People wearing all colors of clothes, men, women seeped out of the darkness and flickeringly a platform emerged.
“The train now approaching platform 2 is bound for Ikebukuro. Please stand behind the yellow line.”
Copyright
© Yu Miri 2019
Translation copyright © Morgan Giles 2019
This edition published in the United Kingdom by Tilted Axis Press in 2019. This translation was funded by Arts Council England.
Translation supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and published with the support of the Japan Foundation.
tiltedaxispress.com
First published 2014 in Japanese by Kawade ShobŌ Shinsha as JR Ueno-eki Koen-guchi.
The rights of Yu Miri to be identified as the author and Morgan Giles as the translator of this work have been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN (paperback)9781911284161
ISBN (ebook)9781911284154
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Edited by Saba Ahmed
Cover design by Soraya Gilanni Viljoen
Typesetting and ebook production by Simon Collinson
