The Blossom and the Firefly

by Sherri L. Smith

  They discussed wind speed, when and how to drop out of the sky, to skim the waves, to hold steady.

  What they did not discuss was spiritual fortitude. Perhaps the CO was not capable of it. Or perhaps it no longer mattered. They were committed. They would follow through.

  And that was it. One day of training, and then they had little to do but wait for an assignment. Taro imagined rooms full of generals in impressive uniforms, somewhere in Tokyo, moving chess pieces along a great board the size of the Eastern World. When they were ready, they would push their knights into position. And Japan would be preserved.

  * * *

  —

  Nakamura hadn’t been kidding about the love letters. They came in, three a day, then five, then a dozen. Word had spread around his hometown. Entire schools of girls, and even grown women, were writing him by the time the boys got their orders to ship out. Some of the girls even sent extra letters to be given to his friends. Taro read one from a twenty-two-year-old schoolteacher in Kagoshima. When Nakamura saw him blush, he took the letter back “for careful review.”

  He also gave the postmaster clear forwarding instructions: Chiran Imperial Army Air Base, Kagoshima Prefecture. Nakamura had a fan base now. He wasn’t going to miss reading a single line.

  Taro wrote a letter home to tell his mother where he would be, but he did not mail it. The censors would not allow him to say what mattered most, and even if they would, he still could not bring himself to tell her the truth. His actions would have to speak for him.

  CHAPTER 31

  HANA

  “Hana! You are so lucky!” Sachiko says after we return to the barracks. I have cradled the violin all the way back across the airfield, careful to watch my step on the broken ground. Even with her precious box of chocolates, she can’t leave me be. “Open it! I want to see!”

  “No,” I say, but it’s a whisper. Mariko takes over for me.

  “Come on,” I hear her say brightly. “These beds will not change themselves.”

  “So stingy!” Sachiko says loudly to one of the other girls. “I would share my chocolates with her, but we can’t even have a look at her little love gift.”

  Mariko hisses sharply, and Sachiko falls quiet. For a time, there is only the sound of soft sheets tugged from futon and damp pillowcases dropped to the floor, and then the starchier sound of new sheets being tossed, tucked, and folded into place.

  All this time, I stand with the violin in my arms.

  At last, Kaori-sensei comes to me. “Here, Hana-san. I will put it in the commander’s office for safekeeping. You may have it back when you go home.” She gives me a sympathetic smile and a nod of approval. Only then do I realize I am inside the barracks. Even without the music of Inoguchi Taro’s violin.

  Releasing the black case, now warm from my own body, is like giving away a limb. The blood flows back into my cramped arms. I did not intend to hold it so tight. I shake my fingers until they loosen and flex my elbows. My next breath is filled with the rich scent of dirt and the musk of last night’s sleep. A rough green blanket hits me without warning.

  “Good,” Mariko says, smiling. “Take that end and help me. I told the other girls we’d handle the rest.”

  That explains the silence, the expansive space beneath the peaked roof. The girls have gone to the river to coo over their gifts and share their swooning stories. There are no clothes to mend or meals to serve. We will go home early today by design. It’s allotment day for our mura—when the trucks carrying rations arrive. Government-sanctioned foods and staples will be sorted and doled out by Mrs. Higashi and the ladies of the neighborhood association. As the town tailor, my mother will receive her few bolts of cloth, and a line of people waving their clothing ration tickets will form on our street, each hoping to claim a few yards of cloth for a new shirt or a pair of lightweight monpé for the coming summer.

  With only the two of us in the barracks now, my claustrophobia has faded, rising only when I think about it. I focus on the rough scratch of wool and the smooth coolness of the wooden sleeping platforms as our hands glide down the blankets and under the futon.

  “Did you know him?” Mariko asks me on the third bed.

  “No more than the others,” I confess. “But . . . yesterday, I heard him playing. I listened, and he knew I was there.”

  “I didn’t know we had a real musician among us. Though, I suppose Nakamura-san was making fun of him the other day.”

  “Was he?” We finish the last bed and stretch our backs. This is always the worst part, the awful silence between units. If we give ourselves time to think, then we know our young friends are dying, like moths in a flame. So we don’t think. We move. Except for now, the frozen moment between one task and the next. Like a breath caught in the throat. An awareness of being alive. The sound of a young man playing the violin.

  “Come on,” I say, mimicking Mariko. “These sheets won’t wash themselves.”

  “Let them wait,” Sensei says from the doorway. “The truck is here. These will keep until tomorrow.”

  After the laundry has been stored away, I take up the black case again. It rests on my knees softly as the truck takes us back into town.

  “Oh! Did you hear?” Sachiko pipes up. I can smell the chocolate on her breath. “Miyakawa-san came back last night! Reiko should tell the story, really. Won’t you, Reiko? No? Well, Miyakawa-san was the one who loved to visit Tomiya Shokudo and was always asking Reiko and her mother and sisters to sing for him. He body-crashed yesterday with the morning flight! The night before, he promised Tomihara-san he would return as a hotaru and said, ‘I will come back at sundown. Please sing “Dōki no Sakura” one last time.’ And just like that, last night a giant firefly flew into the garden and entered the dining room, and Tomihara-san took the girls by the hand and they sang to the firefly. Well, what do you think it did? It hovered in the rafters until they were done, then circled overhead and flew back out into the night! Isn’t that sad? Isn’t it beautiful? I’m sure Reiko could tell it better, but she’s grumpy today, so at least now you know.”

  Reiko remains silent, her hands clasped, her eyes distant.

  Mariko and I stare at each other across the truck, unblinking, daring each other not to scream at Sachiko for being a gossip. “She can’t help herself,” Mariko says. Sachiko frowns.

  “It’s her way,” I say back. I sound so much like Kaori-sensei that we both giggle. Sachiko looks at us with flashing eyes.

  “You have no hearts and no respect! I think it’s a wonderful thing!”

  We cover our mouths until the giggling subsides. She’s right. But she’s also wrong. It was not her story to tell.

  Some of the girls start singing “Dōki no Sakura” then, but I do not join them.

  I can only hear the name Inoguchi Taro, and the sound of the silent violin.

  CHAPTER 32

  HANA

  The cloth truck is early. My mother is too distracted to notice the violin case at my side. I slip past the deliverymen and the bolts of rough indigo cloth they carry. In the entryway, I slip off my shoes and place the violin in the next room, beside my father’s koto. The neighbors will have seen the delivery truck. Soon, they will be lining up with their orders.

  I pull a cotton smock on over my clothes and grab the order book from my mother’s worktable.

  “Oh good, you’re here,” Okā-san says. Her hands are full of fabric as she judges what few bolts are available today. Spying the order book in my hands, she rattles off the names and yardages of the fabric we receive. I write them into the inventory and portion out the ration tickets she passes to the driver.

  “Are you open?” a woman calls from the street.

  “One moment, please!” Okā-san calls back. She takes the log from my hands and frowns. I show the men where to place the allotted bolts in the front room, leaning them against the walls like tir
ed trees, cut ends facing out so we can display the drape for customers.

  “Arigatō gozaimasu,” my mother says, thanking the men when we step back into the yard. As the truck rumbles away, she takes my elbow. “A total of twenty pairs of pants, or thirty-five shirts. That’s all we can manage in adult sizes. Don’t let anyone bully you into more. For special requests, send them to me.”

  The rest of the day passes in a flurry of bargaining and bullying as the old women of the mura test the new fabrics between judgmental fingers, insisting my mother make muslin into silk and one yard into one hundred. Shirts are relatively cheap at eight ration points, but coats cost as much as fifty. Even if we had more than a few bolts of fabric, there is only so much each family can buy. With only eighty points per person a year, there is no haggling, only jostling for the sturdiest cloth.

  At last, the orders are finalized: eight shirts, a dozen pairs of pants, and a few smaller items, all in Civil Defense khaki or deep indigo—the safest colors in times of war. The fabric has run out. Turning away the unlucky customers at the end of the line, we close our doors and catch our breaths before dinner.

  The morning farewell comes back to me like a fog, too dense to navigate.

  “Hana, what’s wrong?” Okā-san asks as we lay out a meal of rice, pickled greens, and tea. The rice is sticking to the pot. The tea is pale, the leaves overstewed. I make a note to gather more. This is tea country. It’s the one thing we should not lack. Even the air base was once a tea field. There are still wild things to be found on the edges.

  A snatch of music flashes in my mind, strings playing something green and wild.

  “Nothing, Okā-san. I’m just tired.”

  “Girl,” Okā-san says. She has not called me girl in many years. “You are not fooling me. I see you leave here in the morning in your school blouse and work pants. That is not farm work you are doing. I trust Sensei to watch out for you, but your face grows longer every day. What is it that you will not share?”

  I keep my eyes down, but the heat rises in my cheeks. My vision blurs. “Okā-san, I met a boy, and now he’s dead.” I look up at last, unable to hide the truth any longer. “Our class works at the air base as maids for the pilots.”

  “The tokkō?” My mother’s face grows still. “Those men who come riding through here by the truckload and carouse the night at Tomiya Shokudo?”

  I am suddenly ashamed at how it must seem. I fall to my knees and bow. “Hai, the same. Only, they are not men, Okā-san. They are boys. Seventeen, nineteen—too young. Tomihara-san treats them as her sons.”

  My mother stares at me over the bowls of rice, the crusted pot forgotten in her hands.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Okā-san! Sensei told us not to worry our parents. I did not want you to be upset.”

  The hardness leaves my mother’s eyes and jaw. She lowers the pot and finishes arranging our dinner. “I am not angry, Hana-chan. I’m . . . My daughter is Nadeshiko in more than name. Like the flower, graceful and resilient. You do honor to your father and your country with this service. I am . . .” She does not say what she feels, but suddenly the tears burst from me. I’m choking on this honor, this service. And I am happy to be of use.

  A work-hardened hand rests softly on my head. Okā-san strokes my hair, murmuring gently, until I am through. “Hana, Hana, Hana, Hana,” she says, drawing out the end of my name until it is a song. “We mustn’t grow attached, Hana. Attachment leads to suffering. You must let it all go.” She knows I am listening, and I know she is right.

  Though I have no stomach for it, she makes me eat when I am done crying. And then, together, we go into the other room to marvel at the violin.

  “It’s just an instrument,” she tells me, although her fingers seem to delight in the curves, the proud horse head, the broad back of wood, its finish rippled beneath the surface like waves of sunshine. I nod, caressing the strings as I place it back into its coffin. Only an instrument . . .

  “Hai,” I tell her. She is right.

  And yet that night, I say Inoguchi Taro in my prayers.

  CHAPTER 33

  TARO

  April 1945

  “Nakamura!”

  Taro was blinded by clouds, by smoke. His aeroplane was limping. He’d fallen well behind the others. The oil pressure gauge had dropped, a black trail burned behind him as the oil ignited from the heat of his engine.

  He could not make it to the target. He would not body-crash today.

  Taro signaled, hoping the escort planes would see him, but they had already flown out of sight. He couldn’t blame them. His smoke trail was a beacon to the enemy. But at least they could defend themselves from fighter attack. He had no weapons beyond the plane itself, and that was all but useless against an American Mustang.

  Taro swallowed his regret and let his training take over. He made as tight a turn as he could, shifting direction. Descending below cloud level, he headed toward the approaching shoreline. From the corners of his eyes, he could see he was not alone. Two other aeroplanes had failed in some way. One trailed smoke. The other, he couldn’t tell, but he prayed it was Nakamura. Then he prayed that it wasn’t. He wouldn’t wish the shame of failure on his friend, no matter how much he wanted to see him again. But who else could understand what it was to accept death, only to be rejected by it?

  Chiran appeared below. Taro wrestled the joystick, lowering his aeroplane into a landing. The ground crew was already running toward him, fire extinguishers at the ready. Arms helped him out of the cockpit and hurried him away. The second plane was not so lucky. The pilot had managed to jettison his bomb along the way, but the landing gear caught a rut on the runway and snapped. The plane skidded into the ground in a shower of sparks. The pilot—Hiroshi, Taro thought—was dragged away unconscious. His plane would not fly again.

  “Taro!” a voice called to him. The third pilot. The wind whipped past Taro’s ears, carrying the sound away. He turned slowly, knowing.

  Tomomichi, his wide boyish face wet with tears, approached. “My engine choked. I thought I was going to fall into the sea,” he said. “I was a coward. I turned back. We should be out there with them.”

  With Nakamura. Taro closed his eyes. Nakamura.

  “They body-crashed without us,” Tomomichi said.

  “You saw them?” Taro opened his eyes. “Was it glorious? Nakamura deserves glory. He’s the best of us,” he said.

  Tomomichi glanced at the ground uncertainly. “I . . . I’m sure he did. The escort crews will tell us, though. My engine . . . I was not able to fly so far. But I’m sure he did well, and the Americans will know his name.”

  Taro took a deep breath. Together, they went to debrief and discuss their equipment failures with the engineers. Commandant Asama was waiting inside the hangar. He looked them up and down, as if making a decision.

  “Cowards!” he barked. “That other fellow loses a perfectly good bomb, and you two! They blame the aeroplane. I blame the men!” He stepped forward and slapped Tomomichi across the face. A moment later, Taro’s head rang with the second slap. “I should have you arrested. But you’re more use to us as pilots.” He turned his scowl on the engineers. “Get them in the air again, immediately!”

  Asama turned on his heel and stormed off. Taro refused to rub his cheek. The pain was no less than he deserved.

  “Don’t worry,” one of engineers said once the commandant was gone. “It’s better to return for repairs than fall into the sea. We’ll get to work right away. Your friends will be waiting for you on the other side.”

  The other side. What a terrible barrier between a pilot and his mates.

  Taro knew of only one way to voice the turmoil he felt. He turned toward his barracks, but hesitated. His futon most likely belonged to a new pilot by now.

  “Let’s see the staff sergeant about quarters,” he said quietly. Tomomichi followed him outside.r />
  * * *

  —

  “We haven’t filled that one yet. But, if you’d prefer, we can put you up in a different barracks,” the staff sergeant said, reading his thoughts. “It’s bad for morale to rattle around in the space you shared with your brothers, isn’t it? No one likes an empty house.”

  Taro shook his head grimly. “It’s where we belong. I’d prefer it.”

  Tomomichi turned pale, but he agreed. “We will be closer to our unit this way.”

  They followed the sergeant to their old barracks, where the man respectfully left them alone. Tomomichi fell onto his old futon, weeping angrily into his pillow.

  Taro looked for his violin, but of course, it wasn’t there. A gift from the dead, it belonged to the living now. To a girl with a name that meant “flower.”

  Taro walked slowly through the darkened barracks, not living, not dead. Perhaps they should have accepted the offer of a new barracks. Here, he and Tomomichi were little more than shadows on the borderlands of the spirit world. And there was only one place left to go.

  * * *

  —

  By nightfall, no other pilots had returned. The other five were presumed to have body-crashed, although there was no word from headquarters if their strikes had been successful.

  “I didn’t know it would be this way,” Tomomichi said. He had stopped his angry weeping and now sat on the foot of his bed, fists clenched, hair damp with sweat. “Shouldn’t we at least know if our brothers were successful? Don’t they deserve to be recognized?”

  Taro sat on his own bunk, swinging his feet against the wooden platform like padded sticks against a dull drum. Keeping time to the beat of his own heart. “Yes, they do,” he said quietly. He looked up at his unit mate. “But this is the way of the tokkō. We go to our deaths knowing all we will ever know. That’s why it’s better to be dead.”