One Morning Like a Bird

by Andrew Miller

  It blows all night, and in his dreams the sound of the wind becomes the noise of the firestorms twisting over the surface of the Sumida. It is blowing still when, at first light, he wakes (who was that woman with her hair on fire, her hair burning up like grass?), but the wind’s hard edge has gone and the rain has become a fine mist, a haze of saturated air. Cautiously, stealthily, he kneels on the wood of the platform and peers into the neighbours’ garden. The surface of the pond is thick with leaves but there is no one out there, and the house, what he can see of it through the dripping trees, looks as hushed and empty as a house abandoned.

  He dresses, goes downstairs, drinks tea with Miyo (though tells her nothing), then puts on a beetle-coloured coat of oiled silk, puts on his old student cap, and taking the long way round, not passing the old woman’s house, sets off for Setagaya. Beads of rain drizzle from the peak of his cap. Before he has finished the walk from the station, past the building plots and the tea fields to the gates of Grandfather’s garden, the damp has permeated the silk of the coat and covered his skin with a blood-warm slick of atomised Pacific. The concertina roof of the old rickshaw is a vivid green slime. Between the wheels, a cockerel, its feathers dark with water, shifts its weight from foot to foot, and with a single hostile eye, watches Yuji on the path.

  Grandfather greets him with a shout of laughter. ‘Look what the wind blew in!’

  Fortunately, the bath is still hot from Grandfather’s morning ablutions. Yuji wallows in it, safe here, and almost sung to sleep by the mosquitoes in the coiling steam above him. Afterwards, he dresses in one of Grandfather’s yukatas and drinks tea with him, Sonoko sitting behind them with her sewing.

  ‘The neighbour’s back,’ says Yuji. ‘The old woman’s grandson.’

  Grandfather nods. ‘I always thought he was half-witted.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Later, there is the usual tour of the model (‘That temple bell comes from a child’s rattle. The real one, iron, and high as a man, melted like wax.’), then a lunch of bean curd and baked seaweed.

  In the afternoon the sun appears, and with the help of a neighbour – the genial Mr Fujitomi – they disentangle an old pine tree from where it has fallen across the canes and netting of the fruit garden. Yuji is back in his dried clothes. He offers to start sawing the tree up, and for two hours, until his fingers blister, he cuts clumsily through the pale wood while seeing, from the corner of his eye, Grandfather and Sonoko repairing the beds, bending and straightening like a pair of wading birds on the mudflats.

  He is invited to stay the night. He telephones Father. ‘Saburo’s back,’ says Father.

  ‘Yes,’ says Yuji.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It might,’ says Father, ‘be wise to pay a call when you come home.’

  Grandfather goes to bed at ten. Yuji has a mattress in the eight-mat room. He has hoped that his work with the saw, the good air he has breathed, might bring him an early sleep, but he sits up on his own by the light of a Blanchard lamp, a bowl of tea cooling on the mat beside him, and looks past the part-open screens to where beams of blue moonlight are falling through the darker blue of the trees. For a while he is troubled by visions of the umbrella lurching towards him through the storm, of that stooped figure probing the ground with his crutch. Then – some effect of the moonlight, the stillness, the hour – his mind quietens, his thoughts descend like water into the earth, and when it seems he is quite empty (his body a presence loosely wrapped around his breath), he feels it again – distinctly, though less intensely – the same sweet unhappiness he knew that evening in the taxi beside Alissa. What is it this time? Another memory? Of what? Mother again? No, not Mother. Who, then? He stares at the weave of the matting by his knees, brings before his mental gaze a dozen different faces, Momoyo to Junzo, tests them, then gives it up, sips his tea, and immediately, in its fragrance, the faint bitterness of its savour, finds the answer . . .

  Love. A love of this. The room, the light, the shadows, the singing of the insects, the tea, the rain-scoured air. A love of his country. Or if not that exactly – the phrase is too often in the mouths of the worst people – then love for a place he has always known, always, even in its convulsions, understood perfectly, a place he could never abandon without ceasing, in some way, to be Yuji Takano. Yet tonight it is almost as though he is experiencing it for the last time, gazing back at it from the stern of a boat, the line of the coast melting into the horizon . . .

  Is he, at twenty-six, falling into that cast of mind – regretful, elegiac – better suited to a man twice or three times his age, a man of Grandfather’s years? It is easy to affect such things, to wear them insincerely. But tonight he does feel old, as old as one of those broken pots Father pores over illustrations of in the garden study. Hiroshi in his airman’s uniform, Junzo no longer like himself, Taro bent with anxious labour, Oki, Shozo . . . How many of them will see thirty? How many will be left when it’s over? Next month, by government decree, all the dance halls in Japan will close their doors for the duration of the struggle. The Harlem, The Tokyo Follies, The Big Ben, The Eastern Empire . . . Piece by piece, life is being put away. To make more room for death? So that death can tour Japan in a black Mercedes, waving a gloved hand to the people lining the streets, their necks stretched out in readiness?

  And what if he refuses it? What if he is the nail that cannot be hammered in? How, in this world he has been given but never asked for, does one make plans to survive?

  For a week he manages to avoid paying his visit to the Kitamura house, and might, had he not sat so unguardedly on the verandah for half an hour flicking through his latest find at the Kanda bookstalls (a tattered but serviceable copy of Ciné-Journal, Sarah Bernhardt on the cover), have put off the meeting a few days more. He is reading a review of Pathé’s Le Coupable when he hears a whistle – short, low, and of such shocking familiarity he immediately feels a violent contraction of his heart that for two seconds dims the daylight around him. He closes the magazine, rolls it, and goes to the gap in the fence. Saburo – a face-wide strip of him – is waiting there, one hand holding a young black cat against his chest. The other hand, though not in view, is presumably clenched round the cross-strut of a crutch.

  ‘Welcome home,’ says Yuji. ‘I am sorry you have suffered a misfortune.’

  ‘Misfortune? I’ve lost half my foot, but now I can lie back and watch the others sweat. I’m going to enjoy it.’ He is smiling, an eager, open smile, but the face is no longer the one in the picture the old woman sighed over. Something has happened to Saburo, something that cannot be explained by the mutilation of a foot.

  ‘I was coming to see you,’ says Yuji.

  ‘Everybody else has already been.’

  ‘I was at Grandfather’s, and then . . .’

  ‘Granny says your father’s friends are keeping you out of the army.’

  ‘My chest . . .’

  ‘Ah! The famous chest!’

  ‘It’s probably only a matter of time.’

  ‘Probably? I’d say definitely.’

  ‘You made it to corporal, then?’

  ‘You know, I’ve only been back a week and already I’m sick of the prattling of women. Though sometimes Granny has interesting things to say. Surprising things, in fact.’

  ‘You heard about Ozono?’

  ‘No one to take over the brush business now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I bet the box they got back was empty. They usually are.’

  ‘The box?’

  ‘Of ashes. Most of them are empty.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘What were you reading? Show me.’

  Yuji, unrolling the magazine, holds it up. Saburo frowns at it. ‘You could get into trouble with something like that,’ he says.

  ‘It’s just about films.’

  ‘It’s not Japanese, though, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve got your father’s disease.’


  ‘Father doesn’t have a disease.’

  ‘I don’t mean a real disease.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘How touchy you are!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know I often thought of you over there?’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘We could have had some fun, you and me. I could have shown you things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, I’d have to whisper them to you. You’d have to push your head through the fence.’

  ‘It was kind of you to think of me.’

  ‘I can’t really talk to the women in there. But I can’t escape from them either. Not with this.’ He tilts his head to indicate the crutch, the cut limb. Yuji nods. Despite what he sees in the other’s eyes, he pities him. ‘I’m going to have a special boot made. The front half will be filled with wood. There’s a place in Sendagi. A workshop that makes wooden parts for soldiers.’

  ‘A special boot would be good, I suppose.’

  ‘Lucky I got married before, eh? What kind of a wife do you think I’d get like this? Women don’t want a man with a piece missing. Not unless he’s rich.’

  ‘Is that cat one of the litter?’

  ‘The only one to survive. I had to give Kyoko a bit of a dressing-down, army style, when I found that out.’

  ‘It might have been difficult to have helped the others.’

  ‘You’re sticking up for her?’

  ‘The cat could have gone somewhere secret to have the kittens.’

  ‘What do you know about cats?’

  ‘I’m not an expert.’

  ‘That’s right. You’re not an expert.’

  ‘It’s good that one survived.’

  ‘It needs a name though, don’t you think?’

  ‘Doesn’t it have one already?’

  ‘It’s my cat. I’m the only one who can give it a name.’

  ‘Have you chosen one?’

  ‘Mmm, I’m not sure. I thought’ – he furrows his brow in a clumsy mime of consideration – ‘I thought “Foreign Girl” might be good.’

  ‘A strange name for a cat.’

  ‘I told you Granny had been telling me interesting things.’

  ‘Some of them might not be quite accurate.’

  ‘Then why are you blushing?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’re red as a cherry.’

  ‘Let’s forget about it.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want to forget about it?’

  ‘I’m only saying we could talk about something else.’

  ‘Then let’s talk about how grateful you are for my sacrifice. About how you’re going to show your gratitude.’

  ‘We’re all grateful.’

  ‘Look at you with your stupid magazine! You talk like you’re somebody and I’m nobody.’

  ‘No,’ says Yuji, quietly. ‘I’m nobody. You’re a war hero.’

  ‘That’s right. A returning hero.’

  ‘Yes. A returning hero.’

  ‘A veteran.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tried and tested.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Think you can tell me what to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So who gives the orders?’

  ‘You. Of course.’

  ‘I’m just pleased to see you again, Takano.’

  ‘I’m pleased to see you.’

  ‘You were my right-hand man when we were kids. You could be that again if you wanted.’

  ‘I remember it,’ says Yuji.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be kids again? Even for a day?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose.’

  ‘We were free then. Not a care in the world. And now . . .’ He lifts the cat, nuzzling its head with the point of his chin. The animal mews, drowsily. ‘Time for Foreign Girl to have some milk,’ he says. ‘Though not any cream. Cream’s bad for their livers. You can kill a cat with cream.’

  ‘Yes?’

  They look at each other, intimate as criminals, as lovers.

  ‘It’s you and me against the rest,’ says Saburo, starting, with little precarious movements, little grunts of effort, to turn himself round. ‘You and me against the women . . .’

  11

  On Father’s birthday, Yuji presents him with an envelope containing a dozen steel needles for the gramophone.

  ‘If you were concerned about disturbing anyone, you could listen in the garden study.’

  ‘Listen to jazz?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to hear King Oliver again?’

  ‘Hmm. The New Orleans sound. You played it for the child, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. She was quite a good dancer.’

  ‘A child’s spirit is light. Jazz needs a light spirit. Dancing too, of course.’

  ‘You told me once that Mother was a good dancer.’

  ‘It’s true. We used to go to clubs in the Low City, even after Ryuichi was born. Dancing was one thing that did not seem to fatigue her.’ He smiles. ‘And we too had light spirits then.’

  In the evening, Kushida comes for supper. He is wearing a field cap and a civil defence jacket, though the jacket, unlike most of the others Yuji has seen, has a neat and tailored appearance, more staff officer than front-line soldier. He apologises for it, feigns embarrassment, and explains that he had to attend a meeting of his local neighbourhood association – new directives on fire-fighting. As one of the senior people, he was, unfortunately, required to stay until the end. It had gone on so long he had not had time to return home and change.

  Miyo brings in the sake flasks from the brass heater in the kitchen. They are sitting at the table in the Western room. The doors are part open to the muggy air. On a corner of the dresser, a coil of acrid-smelling mosquito repellent burns in a saucer. The birthday menu has been chosen by Mother (another of those household traditions that feel, somehow, spectral). This year it is a dish of chicken and garlic that she must, in the remote past, have instructed Haruyo how to make to an acceptable standard.

  ‘I suppose we should be drinking wine with it,’ says Father, ‘but I thought you’d prefer sake.’

  ‘You are quite right,’ says Kushida. ‘I imagine Yuji has more experience in drinking wine than either of us old men.’

  ‘Not really,’ says Yuji.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Though it is Haruyo who has prepared the food, Yuji manages to persuade himself that what is on his plate comes directly from Mother’s hands, and he eats it, the slightly stringy chicken, with good appetite. He wishes he was alone with Father, or that Grandfather was there, Grandfather and Uncle Kensuke. He wishes they were talking about jazz, that they were drinking wine. (Red or white with chicken? Sweet? Dry?) When he remembers the wine he drank at the Snow Goose, the bottle divided between two languages, he is surprised – startled, even – to discover that the memory now provokes only pleasure, and has, through some unobserved activity of time, completely lost its residue of high anxiety.

  At the end of the table, Kushida and Father are at their usual game, sifting names out of the ashes of the past, out of the class of 1911, and holding them up to desultory inspection. Nakiyama has published his study of Clausewitz. Tamura is on Prince Konoe’s new political order committee. Kuroda’s son is making his fortune in Tientsin, the construction business, army contracts mostly. Ayukawa, for reasons that remain obscure, is divorcing his wife.

  Listening to them, watching them as he finishes his food, Yuji tries (again) to guess at Father’s true feelings for the doctor. If they did not have Imperial, what would they talk about? There is nothing in their manner together to suggest any deep regard, any affinity beyond the historical coincidence of going up to the university together thirty years ago. Are they really such good friends? Or is possible that Father has kept up the alliance for the sake of Mother, for the foreign medicines in the clinic dispensary and, later, for those headed letters to th
e War Ministry, one of which found its way into Captain Mori’s folder? If there was no need for Dr Kushida, would he be here at all?

  A rumble of thunder. A gust of wind blows the doors wide. Yuji gets up and pushes them shut. A minute later it starts to rain, heavily.

  ‘There was a mudslide at a village in Shikoku,’ says Kushida. ‘A whole family buried alive. Did you read about it?’

  ‘You’ll need a car to get home,’ says Father. He sends Miyo to call the garage. She hurries off. The phone excites her. (She would, she has confided to Yuji, like to work at the Central Telephone Exchange – she is already old enough – and demonstrated for him, in a voice she had found who knows where, how she would ask the caller, ‘What number do you wish to be connected to?’)

  ‘Is it true your neighbour is back?’ asks Kushida.

  ‘Yes,’ says Father. ‘He was unfortunate enough to suffer an injury. A blister that became infected. They had to remove part of his foot.’

  ‘An amputation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One can never really be safe as a soldier. Not out there, certainly.’

  When the taxi sounds its horn, Kushida extinguishes his cigarette and pulls on the khaki jacket. ‘Could Yuji take an umbrella out for me? If I use my own, it will drip in the car and the driver will grumble. They don’t need much encouragement.’

  Yuji selects an umbrella from among the dozen in the square pot in the vestibule, then waits under the porch roof for the doctor to finish his goodbyes to Father. When he comes out, they hurry across the garden, through the gate. The taxi’s headlights are two converging cones of rain. At the door of the car, Kushida turns and says, ‘A pity about your Frenchman.’

  ‘My Frenchman?’

  ‘Yes. What’s his name? Fabien?’

  ‘Feneon?’

  ‘Feneon, of course.’