The Blossom and the Firefly

by Sherri L. Smith

  What the West forgets is that our Emperor is descended from the sun. The sun shines where it wishes; it shines where it must so that the people may prosper.

  And so, when I was twelve, our Emperor struck a mighty blow against the too-greedy Americans. The silver planes that had practiced over the bay in nearby Kagoshima flew straight and true to Hawaii and surprised the lazy Americans. Pearl Harbor was the site of that battle, and it began a new sort of war. One that has grown to swallow the world.

  When my otō-san went away, he said, “It is an honor to serve the Emperor.” But I knew he did not want to go. At night, I could hear him whisper through the shōji screens to my mother that America was too mighty. That determination could not feed and fuel an army. That Japan might not win this war.

  But history tells us it is not the way of men to be satisfied. It is not the way of empires.

  And so he went. Mother walked two steps behind him, holding my hand. We bowed together as he boarded the train. There was music and a whole crowd of people from the neighborhood. We waved flags and sang bright songs about the Emperor. Father reminded me to be brave.

  “It is for you that we fight, Hana-chan. My little flower.” But he did not say this in front of everyone. He left it in a note where only I would find it, tucked inside the strings of his prized instrument, his koto. A koto has thirteen strings, and they held the note tenderly as a butterfly. I still remember the pressure of his callused hands, strong from pulling and measuring fabric, thick-skinned from being pierced with needles, maneuvering my own soft fingers to learn the shape of the songs. Tailor’s hands, musician’s hands.

  My father’s koto lies silent now, alongside the wall of our second room, just as his shoes stay by the door and his photo rests near the butsudan altar, as if he is already an ancestor instead of a soldier. As if he is dead. His koto’s wooden body lies on the tatami mat like a weeping woman who misses her true love. At least that’s what my mother says. I suspect she is talking about herself. Okā-san should have been a poet. Instead, she is a tailor’s wife, now a tailor herself. And, when I am not in service to the Emperor with my classmates, I am a tailor too. I lie silent as well, my voice stilled. I used to play the koto and sing. “Like a nightingale,” Otō-san would say. He is a poet, too. But my classmates only sing in the service of the Emperor, and the songs they sing are of war.

  Okā-san knows nothing of the waving, of the saying goodbye. What would she think—her little girl surrounded by rough soldiers, her daughter watching men go to die? We lie to keep our mothers happy. To do our duty well. We are good little citizens. Whatever we do, it is good.

  CHAPTER 5

  TARO

  Spring 1933

  “Taro, do you hear that?”

  Little Taro tilted his head and listened. A sound like two boards slapping together, like geta clogs stamping on wood. The click-clack call of the kamishibai man! Taro’s father hustled him into his shoes and a warm cotton jacket, and they were off—running up the street, turning the corner, hoping to beat the crowd. But it was too late, as always. Every child in the neighborhood was already there—and more than a few adults, too. They crowded around old Uncle Kamishibai—this uncle was a new one to Taro, with long hanging earlobes and a shiny golden tooth. He smiled and waved the children closer to his bicycle booth. The wooden kamishibai box on the back was open at the bottom—a drawer full of sweets! Taro’s father elbowed the way forward and hoisted Taro into his arms to look inside the drawer. Taro chose two barley rice treats. His father clucked his tongue and handed over a coin.

  “Thank you, Oji-san,” Father said respectfully.

  “Arigatō gozaimasu, Oji-san,” Taro said.

  His father held out his hand. “Give me one for later, Taro. Mother will say we’ve spoiled your dinner.”

  Taro handed the rice-paper-wrapped treat to his father, sadly watching it disappear into the gray suit pocket. Another hoist, and Taro was on his father’s shoulders. They joined the back of the crowd as the old man set up his theater. The drawer slipped back inside the bottom of the box, and the top lifted up until the dark wood became a picture frame. The sides slid open like curtains in a movie theater, and suddenly it grew as quiet as the cinema when the lights go down.

  Uncle lifted a thick yellowed paper card from the back of the box and slid it into place. The wooden frame was suddenly a window onto a forest. And Uncle said in a kindly voice that carried across the crowd, “There once was a very old couple who were not blessed with children of their own. Every day, the old man would go into the forest to gather twigs and sticks to sell as firewood, and the old woman would go down to the river to wash clothes . . .”

  Taro made a low sound in his throat and clutched his father’s shoulder. He knew this story! It was “Momotaro, the Peach Boy.” He was a Taro, too—and a hero!

  The kamishibai man shifted his voice to that of a little old woman. “Grandfather, Grandfather, look what I have found floating in the river!” The window frame showed the little couple inside their house, marveling at a giant momo, a peach.

  “Let us cut it up and eat it together,” said Uncle in the voice of an old man. But before they could cut the peach, it split open, revealing a beautiful little boy with shiny black hair and bright brown eyes.

  “Your prayers have been answered. I have been sent from Heaven to be your loving son!” Uncle said in a strong young voice.

  All of the children cheered, Taro included. His father patted his leg, bouncing him a little.

  In the next illustration, the couple rejoiced and named their new son after the peach in which they had found him. Momotaro grew big and strong on Grandmother’s millet dumplings.

  “But then one day they heard of terrible doings. An island of demons was threatening the villages on the shore!” Uncle continued.

  The children hissed and booed. The slides grew darker. Taro hid his face behind his fingers. Blood-red oni—demons with gnashing yellow teeth and rolling white eyes—filled the window, laughing and screaming as they stole food and money from the poor innocent villagers.

  Then came the part Taro loved. Momotaro announced he would go to punish the demons. His mother made him a sack of dumplings, and his father wished him luck. He struck out across the countryside. Along the way, he met a dog.

  “Momotaro, where are you going?” the kamishibai man howled.

  And all the kids shouted, “I am going to fight the demons!”

  “I am hungry,” Uncle howled. “Give me a dumpling, and I will go with you!”

  In the picture window, Momotaro tossed a delicious millet dumpling into the dog’s open, smiling mouth. Then the two friends set off together, until they met a monkey. The monkey and dog fought terribly until Momotaro called out for them to stop.

  “Momotaro, where are you going?” the kamishibai man yowled in his funny monkey voice.

  And all the children cried, “We are going to fight the demons!”

  “I am hungry. Give me a dumpling, and I will join you!” Uncle revealed a slide of the monkey hanging from a tree above Momotaro, reaching for the offered treat. Then the three friends traveled down the road until they met a pheasant.

  “Momotaro, where are you going?” the kamishibai man asked, this time in a whistling cheeping voice.

  “We are going to fight the demons!” Taro shouted.

  His father laughed. “Good boy, Taro!”

  The pheasant requested a dumpling and joined the little party.

  When they finally reached the ocean, they found a boat and sailed across to the terrifying island of the demons. The pheasant flew up over the demons’ castle and returned with advice on how to get in. Momotaro and his three friends stormed the castle and battled the demons in picture after picture, both frightening and funny.

  The kamishibai man’s demon voice sent shivers up Taro’s back. He clutched his father’s hair and held on,
trying to be brave.

  Finally, Momotaro was triumphant! He tied up the demon king, loaded the boat with all the stolen treasure, and returned it to the people to whom it rightfully belonged. At last he headed home with his friends to where his worried mother and father were waiting. Momotaro had great wealth now, thanks to the ancient treasures of the demons, who were forever forced to do his bidding. He set them to work washing clothes and gathering wood, so his parents never had to work so hard again.

  The children cheered and clapped. Taro clapped so hard he almost fell off his father’s shoulders.

  “Okay, Taro,” Father said. “I am going to watch the news slides, and then we must get home, okay? Can you play quietly?”

  Taro nodded, but on the ground he was just a little person in a sea of big legs as the adults moved in to see the stories they liked most, the ones about problems like money and war. These slides were boring—marching soldiers, gray tanks, and aeroplanes. Father made aeroplanes like the ones in the news. But there was never a single giant demon in sight.

  Now Uncle’s voice sounded like the ones on the radio, commanding and fast, nowhere near as funny or perfect as his monkey and pheasant. Taro sighed as the kamishibai man rattled off news of a victory in China, securing more land near the Great Wall. A terrible earthquake and tsunami in Honshu in the far north of Japan. Momotaro would have stopped the tsunami, Taro decided. He’d have had the pheasant flap its wings until the waves turned the other way. Or maybe he and his friends could build another wall, like the one in China, to hold back waves from the sea.

  The other kids wandered off to play games at home. Taro stood alone, unable to see past the wall of kimono and suit pants. The candy was still sweet in his mouth, but lonely—he was sure—for the candy in his father’s pocket. He wondered if he could find it without bothering Father, but Momotaro would never do something without asking his parents first. Taro wouldn’t either.

  At long last, the news story ended. Some of the grown-ups cheered, but others grumbled about the war. Father, looking satisfied, said it was time to go home. Taro was so tired, he dragged his feet on the cobblestones, his legs heavy.

  And then he heard something—a voice like a singing woman, like a bird, calling to him. Like the pheasant in Momotaro’s story. With a gasp, he dropped his father’s hand and set off to find it.

  Trip-clop! Trip-clop! He ran up the street as fast as his short legs would carry him.

  “Taro! Taro! Where are you going?” his father cried.

  Taro smiled. He was going to catch the demons! But first he would need new friends!

  Trip-clop! Trip-clop! He ran as fast as his new clogs would allow. The geta were slippery and loud, drowning out the sound he was trying to follow, that high sweet voice singing to him.

  Trip-clop! Trip-clop!

  He could hear his father coming after him, catching up on longer legs. And now, something else. The straining plings of music. The blind man on the corner nodded to Taro’s wake. Father was more appropriate. He stopped and paid the koto player a small coin.

  Trip-clop! Dash!

  Taro skidded to a stop on the corner. He closed his eyes and listened.

  There—above the music of the blind man, a woman was singing. No, a bird! A nightingale, but such a long, sad sound.

  “Taro! What’s gotten into you?” His father was breathless.

  “The bird!” Taro said, pointing.

  In a window above them, in the narrow lane, a man was drawing one arm across the other. Petting the bird, Taro guessed, for that must have been the source of the singing. And when it sang, Taro went flying up into the clouds, like the bird itself. Better than an aeroplane with its rattle and hum. Better even than make-believe, because it was real.

  But then his father was laughing, like falling rocks, bringing Taro back to earth.

  “That’s not a bird,” his father said. “It’s an instrument, like the shamisen, from the West. It’s called a violin.”

  CHAPTER 6

  HANA

  This afternoon, we will not be waving goodbye. It is a resting half day while our elder brothers wait for orders. The radio says we have made another great victory over the British and American forces in the Sea of Japan. Three of our elder brothers wept at the news. Their old commander body-crashed during the battle, taking many enemy sailors with him. They would have crashed with him, but their aeroplanes are in need of repair before they can fly the distance to the American fleet. More than one plane had limped in for a landing when they arrived, some trailing oily black smoke. Not all of them could be fixed in time. No one can blame the pilots for not being able to fly, but still they blame themselves and are eager to complete their mission.

  While the tokkō do exercises in their bunks, we carry their sheets and clothes to the river for washing. They’ve promised to come sit with us while we do our work and sing songs from the places they are from.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Mariko says to me, even though her back is turned and she cannot see that I am falling behind. It’s become a habit of mine, reluctance. I don’t wish to go forward to the river, nor back to the barracks. I am an in-between girl since the day I died beneath the sweet potato field. I am a moment in time, trapped like an ant in sap.

  “Hana! I’m serious! We need to hurry or the best rocks will be taken.”

  She rushes through the trees, and I follow her, hauling my basket on my hip. The best rocks. We are at war with half the world, and the most important thing to Mariko is a good pounding rock.

  “I can see that look,” she says, although she has still not turned around. I quicken my pace.

  Poor Mariko. Her hair is in two spry pigtails that stick out like the ears of a young black rabbit. Her little brothers came home with head lice and, in a panic, her mother cut all their hair. She thinks it’s too short, but I like the way the pigtails bounce as she hurries along. My own hair is twice as long and gathered at my neck, heavy and hot.

  The trees give way to the field, then the riverbank, and sure enough, most of the other girls are already there. Mariko hisses in annoyance. “I told you so. You have legs like sticks, going so slow. Come on.”

  Mariko’s pink face transforms, her cheeks dimpling as she smiles and nods to the other girls, gently bullying her way to a good spot.

  “There! See how good this is? Now we can make our brothers’ clothing spotless, and they can be proud of their uniforms.”

  “Thank you, Mariko-san.” I hang my head. She is right. Whether I am here, there, or nowhere, what matters is that we do our duty to the pilots.

  We step out of our geta, tie the balloon-like legs of our monpé up around our thighs, choose a piece of clothing from the pile, and get to work.

  “This one has holes in it. I will be up half the night darning when we are done,” Mariko says. “And I am happy to do it!” she confirms, lest it sound like she is complaining.

  “Hakata-san has teeth for toes!” Sachiko says, giggling into her hand. Sachiko is the same age as me, but she plays at being younger or older, depending on her audience. A natural airhead, my mother says. But with her heart-shaped face and easy laughter, she can make even a goose feel handsome by batting her lashes. “Look!” she says, brandishing a tattered cloth. “He chews through his socks in his sleep!”

  Even I can’t help but laugh at that one. But, as the girls move on to wondering if he clips his teeth and brushes his toenails, I find the bubble of laughter fading. What must it be like to toss and turn so much that your feet turn to grinders, that your body is eating its way out of your clothing?

  “Daydreamer!” Kazuko cries.

  A moment later, a wet sock hits me in the back. I spin around and catch Kazuko grinning at me. If Sachiko is a heart, Kazuko is a square—broad and solidly built, and as steadfast as the other is flighty.

  “Troublemaker!” Mariko returns, launching her own sock b
ack at Kazuko.

  “Careful, girls, or we’ll get their clothes mixed up!” Kaori-sensei says. Our teacher is not always with us when we do laundry, but today she is keeping an eye on things. In her own drab work clothes, she reminds me of a closed flower waiting for spring to arrive. She’s kind-hearted and doesn’t mind that we sometimes splash each other or do silly things. She knows it’s necessary.

  We are the future of Japan. They are always telling us so. But if we don’t laugh sometimes, we will become brittle and break. So much shattered porcelain already litters the world. It would not do if we were to join it.

  “Oh!” Sachiko exclaims, dropping her sheet into the water. “Did you see that woman this morning who fainted on the runway? I hear that was Second Lieutenant Kawasaki-san’s wife! Do you remember him? The one who turned out to be Korean by birth? Reiko’s mother told me so, right, Reiko? Anyway, he’s older than the other pilots, so it’s no surprise he is newly married! His wife came hoping to get pregnant. Isn’t that romantic? And how sad! If it worked, he will never know his son. Reiko, didn’t he visit her at your restaurant?”

  “I mind my own business, Sachiko,” Reiko says, eyes on her laundry. When Mrs. Kawasaki fainted today, it was Reiko’s mother, Tomihara-san, who caught her. Tomihara-san runs Tomiya Shokudo, a small restaurant next door to my house, but she finds time to come to every farewell ceremony. She loves the boy pilots like her own sons. She also knows that we girls tend to them, but she approves, so she keeps our presence to herself.

  “Oh!” Sachiko gasps. “This is our business! We are Nadeshiko Tai. We should know what is going on with our brave pilots.”

  Nadeshiko Tai is our official unit name. Every youth war group has one. Girl units are often named for flowers. A nadeshiko is a delicate pink blossom that grows even in difficult climates. It also gives its name to the old Japanese feminine ideal, Yamato nadeshiko—humble and pious, cheerful and innocent, loyal and kind, hardworking yet delicate and pure. We are far from being such ideal females, but we try.