The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  I accepted the envelope, feeling slightly fed up already. “By the way, how old would he be if he were still alive?”

  Keiko pulled out a notebook and flipped through the pages. “He was born in the eighth year of the Taisho Era, or 1919, so he’d be eighty-five.”

  “It might be tough to find any war buddies. In just a few years everyone who saw combat will have died out.”

  “Hmm,” Keiko said. “We might be too late.”

  * * *

  —

  Even though I accepted the job, I didn’t lift a finger for over a week.

  It was only after countless pestering calls from my sister that I finally, reluctantly, got off my butt and got to work. Since I’d taken the advance money I couldn’t get away with not working at all.

  I learned of my grandfather’s military service record after placing a call to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

  “Kyuzo Miyabe; born in Tokyo in 1919; enlisted in the Imperial Navy in 1934; killed in action off the southwestern islands in 1945.”

  That was my grandfather’s entire life in a sentence. Of course, if one wanted, there were plenty of details that could be filled in. When he entered the Navy, he first became an ordnanceman, then underwent flight training and became a pilot; in 1937 fought in the Second Sino-Japanese War; in 1941 was assigned to an aircraft carrier squadron and participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor; fought numerous air battles in the southern Pacific; returned to the interior in 1945; and died as a kamikaze pilot just a few days before the war ended.

  He gave the best years of his life, the eleven years from age fifteen to twenty-six, to the military, spending the last eight in continuous battle as a pilot. And at long last he was forced to die a kamikaze. The timing was most unfortunate. Had the war ended just a few days sooner, he would have survived.

  “You were born in a terrible era, Kyuzo-san,” I muttered without thinking.

  Regarding his private life, he married my grandmother in 1941. My mother was born in 1942. They were married for just four years, most of which my grandfather spent on the front. It’s impossible to tell how long he was at home even when he returned to the interior. Perhaps Grandma never told Grandpa much about her first husband not because she was hiding anything in particular, but because there was nothing much to say.

  Laying out his military background didn’t reveal anything of my grandfather’s humanity. In order to learn what kind of person he was, I’d need to get in touch with someone who remembered him. I was sure most of his comrades from the military had already passed away as well.

  Guess we’re a bit too late, I thought, echoing Keiko’s words. But just as truly, now might be the last chance to learn anything.

  * * *

  —

  The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare told me about the Suikou-kai association of former Navy officers. I called the association, and they told me the names of various veterans’ organizations. There were ones for comrades who had joined the marines division in the same year or who had served in the same squadrons or on the same aircraft carrier. However, as all the members were elderly, many of the organizations had disbanded in recent years. People who had experienced the war were exiting history’s stage even as I worked.

  I wondered how many members among the organizations had known my grandfather and how well they’d remember events that had taken place sixty years ago. If I were to be asked about any of my current friends sixty years in the future, what memories would I be able to call up?

  But thinking such thoughts wouldn’t get me started, so I sent letters at random to several veterans’ organizations asking if there was anyone who knew about my grandfather.

  Two weeks later, I received a response from one group saying that they had someone who’d served as a pilot with my grandfather in Rabaul. The reply was from an executive member, and not only was it ornately handwritten, there were kanji characters I didn’t know. Unable to make out the whole letter, I brought it to my sister’s attention.

  She was busy, so it wasn’t until late that night that we met up in a franchise restaurant. Even Keiko, who had majored in literature, had a hard time deciphering the ornate penmanship.

  “Just a sixty-year difference between generations and their writing becomes illegible to us,” I said innocently as I watched her stare down the letter.

  “We only see the postwar simplified forms of these characters and never learned their traditional forms. Some bear no resemblance at all. Like this one,” she said, pointing to a word. “Can you read this?”

  I could not.

  “I just happen to know it. It’s Combined Fleet.”

  “So I guess this character means ‘combined’? It’s totally different. It has the ‘ear’ radical instead of the ‘advance’ radical, and the right half is completely different.”

  Keiko laughed. “Plus it’s written in cursive which makes it that much harder to read.”

  I sighed. “I feel like I’m dealing with a different race of people.”

  “They’re Japanese, like us. Does Grandpa seem like a foreigner to you? Ah, I mean our living grandfather.”

  “I don’t think of Grandpa as a member of a different race. But eighty-something-year-olds who aren’t family feel pretty darn foreign to me.”

  Keiko placed the letter on the table and sipped her ice coffee. “They might think the same thing of us.”

  Just the idea of dealing with such people made my heart sink a little.

  Chapter 2

  The Coward

  Former Ensign Umeo Hasegawa’s house was in the suburbs of Saitama Prefecture. His former surname was Ishioka, so perhaps he was adopted after the war to continue the Hasegawa family line.

  We got off at a station an hour outside Tokyo. The hub area had an urban appearance, but after walking a short while the scenery completely changed into endless rice paddies. The sun was directly overhead. With not a cloud in sight, its light was intense even though it was still early in July, and insects were making themselves heard like you wouldn’t believe. It got hot in the metropolis, but the piercing rays here held their own.

  True summer.

  “Hot, huh?” I said to my sister walking beside me.

  “Oh, I’m enjoying myself.”

  What kind of an answer is that?

  I was starting to feel irritated. Keiko had said that she would conduct the interview herself, but at the last minute she’d insisted that I join her. “Just at first, please,” she’d practically begged, and without thinking carefully, I’d said yes. Walking down the sweltering countryside road, I was beginning to regret it big time.

  “So, did you read up a bit about the war?”

  “Like I have the time,” Keiko replied. “Besides, I don’t want to bring unncecessary preconceptions to the interview.”

  As self-serving as always, I thought, but held my tongue.

  After walking thirty minutes from the station we were drenched in sweat. Even my sister stopped talking for the most part.

  * * *

  —

  The address we were given brought us to a small farmhouse. The single-story building looked to be about fifty years old. It was surrounded by fields, and a light pickup truck sat in the vacant space in front of the entrance. The house was pretty shabby. From the title “ensign” I had imagined a fine estate, so I was mildly disappointed. I glanced at Keiko, who was gazing fixedly at the house, examining it.

  I pressed the doorbell next to the glass door, but even after waiting a good while there was no response. The doorbell was apparently broken. I called out from across the door. Immediately a sturdy voice replied, “Come in.”

  In the vestibule stood a skinny old man. Seeing him made my heart skip a beat. There was no arm below the left sleeve of his blue open-neck short-sleeved shirt. This was Hasegawa.

  He led
us to a sitting room off of the foyer. The narrow, roughly 8x10-foot room felt somehow unnatural. There was a wooden table in the center, reproductions of paintings on the walls, and a cheap-looking chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The room was horribly hot. It was probably a prefabbed addition to the house. The moment I stepped inside, I burst into a full sweat. But I didn’t ask for the AC to be turned on.

  Hasegawa’s white hair was all combed back and he had a mustache. He looked at us through narrow eyes like he was appraising us.

  Keiko addressed the silent Hasegawa, reiterating the purpose of today’s visit; namely, to learn about our grandfather, Kyuzo Miyabe. As she spoke, Hasegawa looked at both of us in turn. The heat of the room kept forcing the sweat to pour out of me.

  “The letter was signed with a man’s name,” Hasegawa interrogated.

  “That’s because I put my brother in charge of communications,” Keiko explained.

  Hasegawa nodded in comprehension. Then he stared at both our faces again.

  “So…” Keiko uttered, “you knew our grandfather?”

  “That I did,” Hasegawa replied without pause. “He was the biggest damn coward in the whole Naval Air Corps.”

  What? I thought.

  “Kyuzo Miyabe held his own life dear above anything else.”

  Keiko’s face turned crimson. I touched her knee under the table. She pressed my hand to indicate that she was okay.

  Keeping her voice as calm as possible, she asked, “What exactly does that mean, sir?”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Hasegawa parroted. “Just that. He was a man who held his own life dear like it was everything. We pilots had given our lives to our country. Once I became a fighter pilot, I no longer considered my life my own. I absolutely would not die except in my boots. I had but one thought. How.”

  As Hasegawa spoke, he touched his left shoulder with his right hand. His empty left sleeve fluttered.

  “I was prepared to die at any moment. No matter the battlefield, I never held my life dear. But Kyuzo Miyabe was not that sort of man. He was always running away from fights. His greatest desire wasn’t to win but to save his own hide.”

  “I think it’s a natural feeling to value one’s own life.”

  Hasegawa glowered at my sister. “Such are woman’s feelings.”

  “Just what do you mean by that?”

  “Keiko,” I muttered.

  She pretended not to hear me. “I think men and women are the same. Isn’t it normal to value one’s life?”

  “That, young lady, is the thinking in peacetime. We were fighting for the very existence of Japan. I didn’t care if I died so long as my country remained. But Miyabe was different. He was always avoiding combat.”

  “I think that’s wonderful.”

  “Wonderful?” Hasegawa raised his voice. “How can you fight a war if the troops avoid combat?”

  “If everyone thought the same, there wouldn’t be any wars to begin with.”

  Hasegawa’s mouth dropped open. “What are they teaching you kids in school these days? Didn’t you learn world history? Mankind’s history is a history of war. Of course war is evil, the worst possible evil. Everyone knows that. But no one can get rid of war.”

  “Are you saying that war is a necessary evil?”

  “It’s pointless to debate whether or not war is a necessary evil with you. Go back to your workplace and discuss it with your superiors and colleagues to your heart’s content. And if you find out a way to eradicate war, turn it into a book. Send it to the leaders of all the countries and the next day we’ll have world peace. You could even go to war zones and tell them that if they all run away, the disputes will end.”

  Keiko bit her lip.

  “Listen up. Battlefields are for fighting, not for running away. It makes no difference to us troops whether we were the aggressors or the defenders in that war. On the battlefield, we fire at the enemy before us. That’s the duty of a soldier. It’s the politicians’ job to work for a ceasefire or a peace deal. Am I wrong?” Hasegawa touched his armless left shoulder again. “Miyabe was always running away from the fight.”

  Keiko could not respond.

  “So you despised our grandfather, sir?” I asked.

  Hasegawa turned to me. “The reason I call him a coward is because he was a pilot. If he had been drafted, then he could hold onto dear life all he wanted. But he volunteered. He wanted to join the military, and became an aviator. That’s why I can’t forgive him. Knowing that, do you still want my story?”

  Since Keiko remained silent, I said, “Please tell us, sir.”

  Hasegawa blew his nose loudly. I asked if it was okay that I use a voice recorder. He replied that he didn’t mind.

  When I turned it on, Hasegawa said, “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

  * * *

  —

  I joined the Navy in the spring of 1936. I was born the son of a farmer here in Saitama, the sixth of eight children. Our family were tenant farmers. It took everything we had just to survive. We were what you called peasants.

  Now listen to me. If you don’t know about the military and airmen back then, you’ll never understand my hatred of him.

  Since lower primary school, I was a good student. Not that it’s anything to brag about but I was always top of the class. Still, my folks could barely afford to send me to higher primary school, so I never made it to middle school. Most village kids were in the same boat back then. Pretty much the only ones who went on to middle school were the sons of the village chief. My teacher kindly told my father, “It’s a shame that such a bright kid can’t continue his studies,” but there was nothing to be done about it. My three elder brothers were very smart, too, but none of them went on to middle school, either.

  After I graduated from higher primary school, my family sent me off to work as an apprentice to reduce the number of mouths that needed to be fed. My apprenticeship was with a tofu maker in Osaka. It was grueling work. Early mornings, late nights. Keeping my hands in the ice-cold water continuously made my fingers go numb. I was prone to getting frostbite to begin with, and it troubled me all winter long. My fingers would turn reddish brown, and the chapped skin bled, splitting open in new places before the old wounds could heal. Pain shot through my fingers every time I had to plunge them into the cold water.

  I lost count of how many times I cried. The master was a relentless man. He told me I got frostbite because I was a spoiled brat. “I’ve done this job for decades and I’ve never gotten frostbite even once,” he said.

  He beat me all the time. Now I can look back and see it was a kind of sickness. He was brutal. He loved to beat people. He hit me daily, as if he’d hired me to be his punching bag. He would hit me for merely crying. And he immediately reneged on his promise to send me to middle-school night classes during my apprenticeship.

  I had no choice but to endure, because I had nowhere to run. After two years, I was almost six feet tall and weighed 165 pounds.

  It was as if my master didn’t notice the change. One day, he was in a bad mood and took it out on me as usual, even though I had done nothing wrong. I got angry, and for the first time in my life, I hit my master. He flew into a rage, beating me with a club, yelling, “I’m gonna kill you!” But I caught hold of the club and hit him back with it. Suddenly he burst into tears and apologized. He went prostrate, begging repeatedly for my forgiveness. His wife rushed in and asked me to show mercy to him. A woman who’d never once tried to intervene when I’d been beaten countless times was in tears trying to put an end to it as soon as her husband was the one getting hit. The instant I saw this, I became violently furious. Had I been beaten so many times by people like them? I kicked her to the floor and flogged the master with the club. He screamed through his tears for my forgiveness until he finally passed out.

  I fled the shop and headed towards the station.
The only place I could return to was my country home. But the police caught me before the first train arrived. Since I was a minor I wasn’t sent to prison, but the cops beat me until I fainted.

  I had nowhere to go except the military. I applied to the Navy and was accepted.

  I became a fireman on a cruiser. There too, I was beaten daily. There was no place as physically abusive as the Japanese military. They say the Army was terrible, but the Navy was even worse. This was supposedly due to the fact that Army soldiers had guns. Once they were in combat, bullets didn’t always come from the front. There was talk of men settling grudges with a shot from behind on the battlefield. That’s why Army beatings were said to be comparatively moderate. But most sailors didn’t carry arms, which was why our superiors could beat us without any restraint. I’m not sure if that was the reason. I was always getting beaten, of that you can be sure.

  * * *

  —

  Three years after entering the Navy, I heard they were recruiting aviators. I dreamed of becoming a pilot and studied for the entrance exam like mad, spending what little free time I had after finishing my duties on the ship.

  I’d heard that it was extremely competitive, but I passed the test. I think that was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

  Thus, I became a pilot in training according to Imperial Navy tradition. Come to think of it, Miyabe also did that program. He was several classes ahead of me.

  Training at the Kasumigaura Naval Air Unit was intense, but it was a piece of cake compared to the daily work on the cruiser.

  I felt happy to be alive for the first time since graduating higher primary school. I thought, “This really is the place for me.” At the time, being a pilot required a willingness to sacrifice one’s life. During wartime, pilots constantly flew deep into hostile territory to fight the enemy head-on. Even when they weren’t, they always had death at their side. Aircraft back then weren’t very reliable. Accidents weren’t uncommon and more than a few pilots lost their lives during training. Yet I was never afraid. We weren’t practicing how to fly safely under peaceful conditions. We were training to put our lives on the line.