The Eternal Zero

by Naoki Hyakuta

  The formation leader pulled up next to me and signaled with his hands, “What’s wrong?” I indicated that my engine was acting up. He saw that my windshield was coated in black grease and gestured for me to return to base. I responded, “No way!” But then the fuselage began rattling and shuddering again.

  The leader signaled anew for me to go back before pulling away.

  I tried everything I could think of, but the engine refused to come back to life. The rest of the formation flew on, leaving me behind.

  “Miyabe-san!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  Weeping, I turned my aircraft around.

  The plane was on its last leg. There was no way I could make it back to Kanoya. I searched for Kikaijima Island on the map. It was roughly fifty nautical miles to the west. It was up to fate whether or not the engine would hold up. If it failed before I reached Kikaijima, I would die. If I encountered an enemy fighter along the way, I would die. It was all down to my luck.

  In order to lighten the aircraft, I pulled the cord to release the payload. The bomb didn’t drop. No matter how many times I yanked the cord, it wouldn’t budge. The bomb was rigged so as to not release. How cruel are they? I can’t even attempt an emergency landing like this. Command really intended for us to go die to the last man.

  Twenty minutes later, I spotted Kikaijima. There were no enemy aircraft in the skies above the island.

  Just as I saw the island, the engine gave out completely. All I could do was glide. The windshield was coated in black grease, which reduced my forward vision to zero. If I approached the landing at the wrong angle, the bomb strapped to the belly of the aircraft would explode. I couldn’t pull up, so there was no way to retry the landing after the first attempt.

  I prepared for death. Just then, I heard Miyabe-san’s voice.

  “You must not give up, Ensign Oishi. Do whatever it takes to survive!”

  I could hear his voice perfectly clearly. Even after sixty years, it’s still engraved in my memory. It wasn’t my imagination.

  These things do happen.

  Right before I approached the runway, I banked my plane and looked over the whole airfield. I drilled the distance and angle into my mind and then leveled the aircraft. Then I closed my eyes, having decided to rely on my mind’s eye to make the landing.

  The image of the airfield stood out in bold relief in my mind—so clearly that it was as though I was seeing it with my eyes. I could even vividly sense when the plane was getting closer to the landing strip. I nosed up, bringing the aircraft level, the correct posture for a three-point landing. The aircraft continued to descend. Altitude fifty meters, twenty meters, five meters—the moment I thought “one more meter,” the wheels hit the runway. The plane continued to roll for a distance, then came to a stop.

  Even looking back now, I think that it was a miracle. I could never pull off such a landing again if I tried. It was as though I’d been possessed, a rare experience.

  * * *

  —

  I was saved. True, once I returned to the interior, I would be sortieing as a kamikaze again.

  I was told, however, that the aircraft’s engine was totaled and couldn’t be fixed easily.

  In the evening, the base’s communication specialist informed me that all pilots on our special attack mission, apart from me, hadn’t returned.

  Miyabe-san was dead…

  It was there on Kikaijima that I listened to Emperor Hirohito’s broadcast.

  “So that was your fate, Grandpa,” Keiko said softly.

  “It wasn’t fate,” he stated. “Just as I was about to climb down from the plane, I noticed a piece of paper in the cockpit. It was a note, hastily written, by Miyabe-san.”

  “What?” I blurted out without thinking.

  “The note read, ‘Ensign Oishi, if luck is with you and you manage to survive this war, I have a request. If my family is homeless and suffering, please help them.’ I think he jotted it down when he went back to the Model 52 before insisting that we switch planes. Do you still think it’s by chance that I survived?”

  Wordlessly, I shook my head. I’d actually expected as much.

  It was only after a while that I could bring myself to ask, “But why?”

  Grandpa slowly shook his head. “I don’t know, either. However,” he said, almost glaring at me, “I think when he got into the Model 52, he could tell the engine was faulty. He must have realized that he’d drawn a ticket for survival.”

  In my heart, I raised a voiceless cry. What a brutal choice the goddess of fate had given Kyuzo Miyabe at the eleventh hour.

  He went back once to his Model 52. He’d wavered, there at the end. But then he shook off his doubts and handed the winning lottery ticket to Ensign Oishi…

  Next to me, my sister had her head bowed. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

  After a long moment of silence, Grandpa quietly continued his tale.

  * * *

  —

  It took me well over three years to find Miyabe-san’s wife.

  Their house was in Yokohama, but the city had been reduced to ashes in the Great Air Raid in May. None of their neighbors knew where she had gone.

  I returned to college. Whenever I had time to spare, I walked all around their old neighborhood, asking after Miyabe-san’s wife, but her whereabouts were a total mystery. Two years later, I graduated from college and got a job with National Railway.

  By that time, many of those who had lived in Miyabe-san’s former neighborhood had returned, but she wasn’t among them. I persistently contacted my reserve officer friends from the Navy, thinking that if his wife was in distress, she might try to contact one of his comrades.

  Another year passed with no leads.

  At the time, everyone had their hands full just trying to get by. I was incredibly fortunate to have been allowed to resume my education. My mother was a primary school teacher in Tokyo, so we never went hungry.

  But that doesn’t mean our lives were easy. All I had to wear were my mended and patched clothes from my days in the military. I continued to wear the overcoat that Miyabe-san had given me, too.

  It was a friend of mine who worked for the Ministry of Welfare that was able at long last to tell me where Miyabe-san’s wife and daughter were. Since she was his widow, she had applied for a bereaved family’s pension with the Demobilization Bureau of the Ministry of Welfare. The pension system had yet to be completed, but the Demobilization Bureau had been making preparations for its implementation.

  The address was in Osaka. I immediately headed there. This was in the winter of 1949.

  Back then, it was a ten-hour trek to get to Osaka from Tokyo. Nowadays you could get to America in the same amount of time.

  The day was cold. As I searched for the address, I entered a very poor section of town that could easily have been called a slum. There were rows of barracks-like tenements whose residents were indeed destitute. The entire area gave off an offensive smell.

  I felt like my chest was being squeezed. It was so depressing to learn that the wife and child that Miyabe-san had wanted to protect so badly had ended up living in such a squalid neighborhood. No, it was more than just depressing. My response crossed over into something akin to rage.

  I entered an alleyway and spotted a little girl standing alone. She wore a red woolen scarf and a skirt covered with patches. She had an affable countenance. And looked at me with lovely eyes. As soon as I saw her, I was reminded of Miyabe-san’s face.

  “Miyabe-san?” I asked.

  The girl turned around and dashed away. I followed.

  She went inside one of the row houses. Well, if you could even call it a house. The walls were comprised of random old boards stuck together and the ceiling was a sheet of galvanized metal.

  I stood in front of the house. A small wooden board served in place of a prop
er name plate. On it, written in beautiful script, was the name MIYABE.

  “Excuse me, please,” I called out in greeting.

  “Coming!” a voice replied straightaway, and a woman emerged.

  She wore work pants and had a towel wrapped around her head. Her attire spoke of poverty, but she was very pretty.

  I was temporarily struck dumb, and found myself staring at her.

  Strangely, she, too, stood there looking at me in blank amazement. She looked at me as if she was seeing a ghost or I was some strange, scary phenomenon.

  “My name is Kenichiro Oishi. Your husband was very kind to me during the war.”

  She gave a start, and then bowed deeply. “I’m Miyabe’s wife. I am sure that he is much indebted to you.”

  “No, I’m the one who’s indebted to him.”

  The little girl from before stood beside the woman.

  “Please come inside.”

  I took her up on her offer. Past the entryway there was no foyer; the door opened immediately on a single tiny room. The floor wasn’t tatami matting but boards covered with straw mats. There was a vast number of buttons piled high inside the room.

  “Sorry for the mess. This is for my side job.” She called her daughter and asked her to go out and buy juice. She took a coin purse from within her blouse and handed her some money.

  “Juice! Really?” the girl exclaimed.

  “No, please don’t go to any trouble,” I said, flustered. I took out my wallet and handed the girl some money. “Please use this to buy juice and sweets and anything at all you’d like.”

  “No, that won’t do.”

  “It’s fine. I arrived without announcement and came empty-handed. So please let me pay.”

  After I repeatedly reassured her, she finally relented and said, “Then I’ll take up your kind offer.”

  * * *

  —

  I told her about how he had been such a kind instructor during my days in flight school, and that we had been together at Kanoya Base.

  But I didn’t say anything about the day we had gone on that special attack mission. I couldn’t tell her that he had died in my place. Instead, I told her that he’d saved my life during an air battle. She listened to everything quietly.

  “It’s all thanks to Miyabe-san that I’m still here today.”

  “Oh then, Miyabe…He was of some help to someone,” she said poignantly.

  “He helped a great many people, not just me.”

  “So he didn’t die in vain.”

  As soon as she asked that question, tears sprang to my eyes. “Please forgive me,” I said, going on my knees and placing both hands on the floor. “I should have died instead of him.” Tears spattered the back of my hands.

  “Please, raise your face,” she said. “Miyabe died for all of us. Not only him, but everyone who died in the war. They died for the rest of us.”

  I lifted my head. She was smiling.

  “How did he die?”

  “He went out honorably, like a true soldier.”

  “That’s consoling,” she said and smiled again.

  She is such a brave woman, I noted.

  “But he lied to me,” she said, her tone suddenly cold. “He promised me that he’d come back.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. She shut them, sending large drops streaming down her cheeks.

  My heart ached as if it were in a vise. I was beset with the same regret that I’d felt countless times over the past four years.

  Why did he ask me to switch aircrafts with him then? Why didn’t I staunchly refuse to give in to his request? Had I done so, she could be living happily with him now…

  Just then, the girl returned. She was shocked to see her mother in tears.

  “It’s nothing,” she reassured her daughter. “We were talking about your father, and that made me a little sad.”

  “Kiyoko’s daddy?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Mom, what was daddy like?”

  “He was a wonderful man. He was braver and kinder than anyone else,” I answered in his wife’s stead.

  “But he died.”

  Once again, my chest clenched painfully.

  As I got up to leave, I handed Miyabe-san’s wife an envelope I had brought.

  “It’s not much, but please accept.”

  “What is this now?”

  “It’s meager recompense for the debt I owe Miyabe-san.”

  “I can’t take it.”

  I refused to yield, imploring, “You must. If I couldn’t somehow pay back the person who saved my life, I would be something less than human.”

  After we argued back and forth for a while longer, she finally gave in.

  * * *

  —

  That was how I first met Matsuno.

  Every few months, I lied to my mother that I had to go on a business trip and went to visit Matsuno in Osaka. With money each time.

  Matsuno would refuse, but I always insisted on leaving it with her. I don’t remember the amount anymore, but I think it was close to half my salary. I lied to Matsuno about how much I made, saying that college graduates working for the National Railway received handsome salaries.

  Thanks to this, my mother had a very hard time with the family budget. Just as I had graduated and started working, her health had taken a turn for the worse, and she’d had to quit her job as a schoolteacher.

  My mother was under the impression that I’d taken up some bad habits, but she never said anything. She knew I’d been part of a special attack unit and assumed that I was trying to forget by being a spendthrift. Meanwhile, my colleagues at the National Railway thought I was being thrifty. I never went out with them, and I still wore my patched-up military clothes. I caught wind of rumors that I was hoarding loads of cash, but I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. Some whispered that I was spending all the money on a woman.

  That rumor wasn’t wholly inaccurate, as I was, in fact, very attracted to Matsuno.

  * * *

  —

  I always took the night train to Osaka. I would head to her house the next morning, and most days we would head into town—Matsuno, Kiyoko, and I.

  We went all over Osaka. Shinsekai, Osaka Castle, Dotonbori, Ten-roku, Sennichi-mae. On each trip to Osaka, I could see the progress of recovery there. People’s faces grew brighter and the streets bustled. But the scars of the war were still visible all over the place. There were still the ruins of buildings bombed out during the air raids, and black-market stalls stood in some fire-ravaged areas.

  There were many disabled veterans loitering in front of Osaka Station. Men missing eyes, hands, legs, or several limbs sat on the streets garbed in white hospital-issued clothes. This was a common sight in Tokyo, too.

  Seeing those men made my chest ache. Having fought for their country and lost a part of their bodies, they were being forced to live out painful lives, while the streets around them focused on recovery as though to forget the war. The contrast scared me.

  Every time Matsuno passed by the war wounded, she gave Kiyoko some money and had her place it in the donation box.

  We would eat lunch at a cheap restaurant. I would talk about my days as a reserve pilot and about how kind Instructor Miyabe had been. Matsuno sometimes looked happy and sometimes sad when she heard stories about her husband.

  She rarely spoke of him, but she did discuss their marriage just once. She told me that it had been an arranged marriage. In 1941, after serving in China, Miyabe-san had been stationed temporarily with the air unit in Yokohama. Matsuno’s father had worked in the mess hall there and had taken a liking to Miyabe-san, eventually asking him to marry his only daughter. He had probably known at first glance that Miyabe-san would be a perfect match for her. For that alone, I think her father must have been quite a character. He died in 1
945, during the air raids on Yokohama. She said that she and Miyabe-san never spoke a word before the wedding.

  No matter where we went, everyone mistook us for a married couple and their child. Kiyoko had grown attached to me, and I often walked about with her on my shoulders. After spending a day like that together, I would take the night train back to Tokyo.

  This routine continued, once every few months.

  * * *

  —

  On one occasion after several of my visits, Matsuno appeared wearing a skirt. I had only seen her in work pants up to that point, so it was a welcome surprise.

  “A friend of mine sold me some material cheaply, so I was able to tailor this,” she explained a bit bashfully.

  “It looks great on you. You’re…”

  I wanted to say “very pretty,” but the words stuck in my throat.

  That day Kiyoko was absent. Apparently, she had gone off to play with some friends from school.

  We walked along Shinsaibashi. This was our first meeting where it was just the two of us. My heart pounded in my chest. At the same time, I was beset by guilt.

  That evening, while we dined at a restaurant inside Takashimaya Department Store, she asked earnestly, “Oishi-san, why exactly are you so kind to me?”

  “Because Miyabe-san saved my life.”

  “Isn’t that just what men do on battlefields?”

  “No, I mean he actually risked his life to protect mine.”

  “When and where?” she practically demanded. “I asked you this before, but you wouldn’t tell me.”

  I was lost for words.

  “Please, tell me the truth.”

  I made up my mind. “All right, I will.”

  I shared with her what had happened that fateful day when Miyabe-san and I had gone out on a kamikaze mission. All of it.

  Partway through the tale, Matsuno lowered her head. Even after I had finished speaking, she kept her face down and didn’t say a word.