Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  ‘Everything is arranged,’ Shingemitsu said. ‘We shall drive straight to the Shrine, if it suits you.’

  Afterwards Yukiko, emotional and confused as she had never expected to be, remembered little of the ceremony. She retained an impression of fractured images: robed priests, stern-faced; cymbals clashing as the discs in their wooden box were offered up; Aunt Sumiko weeping softly at her side.

  When it was over, Shigemitsu took them to a Japanese restaurant where they drank tea in a garden of rocks and moss and silence. Yukiko was grateful to him for trotting out none of the glib phrases that she had dreaded, about glory and honour and memories that would live forever; silence and peace were the better way.

  After they had finished their tea, Shigemitsu escorted them to the station and saw them safely on the train. ‘I thank you for what you have done,’ he told Yukiko. ‘It is appropriate that we should honour the memory of these young men.’

  Yukiko was uncomfortable in the kimono that had seemed appropriate to the occasion. She said, ‘It is right to honour their memory, perhaps. I only wish my grandfather’s death had served some purpose.’

  He looked at her gravely. ‘I was with him before he took off on his final mission. Your grandfather believed very strongly that it was something he had to do.’

  ‘He had only just got married. Why kill himself? It makes no sense.’

  ‘It was necessary.’

  ‘I am sorry, I do not see it was necessary at all. The war was almost over.’ She smiled at the Commander in an attempt to soften her words. ‘Apart from anything else, it deprived me of my grandfather.’

  ‘That was rude,’ Sumiko reproved her as the train slid quickly out of the station. ‘You are saying that he died for nothing …’

  ‘He did. The war was lost.’

  She saw that her plain speaking had offended her aunt. In Sumiko’s day they did not think, let alone speak, like that. Perhaps she had better keep quiet.

  Despite the speed at which they were travelling it was peaceful in the train: highly appropriate for a return from what in effect had been a funeral. Then voices were raised furiously further down the compartment, and everything changed.

  At first Yukiko was conscious only of the voices; then, as shocking as an exploding hand grenade, violence erupted. Startled faces, people surging to their feet, as two men came stumbling and screaming up the corridor between the seats. One, in overalls, was throttling a purple-faced man in a suit who was trying frantically to break his adversary’s grip upon his throat.

  Yukiko moved protectively in front of her aunt as the two men crashed past. Other men surrounded them, trying to drag them apart. They had almost succeeded when the overalled man pulled a knife from nowhere and rammed it to the hilt in the other man’s chest.

  An appalled silence. The victim, face ashen, purple no longer, grappled feebly with the handle of the knife protruding from his body. He was choking, blood flowing from his mouth and over his chest. He was collapsing between the seats, eyes staring. He was gobbling incomprehensibly through the thick flow of blood. He was lying in the corridor at their feet.

  Yukiko nailed motionless, in horror and disbelief.

  A train attendant came rushing, and two railway police with batons in their hands. One of the cops was yelling into a mobile phone: machine-gun talk, words flying like bullets. The man in overalls, who appeared as stunned as everyone else, was hustled away; someone who may have been a doctor was kneeling beside the stabbed man, rising with a grave face and a shake of the head; the body was covered in a piece of carpet that the attendant brought from somewhere. All the time Yukiko stared, body shaking uncontrollably, while Aunt Sumiko cowered in the far corner of the seat, body as fragile as kindling, eyes starting in her ancient face.

  A gush of words, now, as the other passengers sought to drown what had happened.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who?’

  One man, silent until then, said, ‘The guy in overalls lit a cigarette. The other one told him it was a non-smoking compartment. He said, “Go to hell”, the other man said he’d call the attendant, and the next thing they were at each other’s throats.’

  That a man should die for such a thing was incredible, but there were others to confirm the witness’s story.

  Yukiko thought, And I was telling Commander Shigemitsu how my grandfather had died for nothing. Belatedly, she turned to her aunt. ‘How are you?’

  Sumiko was shaking, shaking, and did not speak. The attendant, bowing, expressing profuse apologies, tried to move them to another seat, another compartment, anywhere to escape the body lying on the floor beneath its carpet pall, but for the moment Aunt Sumiko was incapable of moving.

  The cop who had speaking on the mobile came back. He was young, stocky, pugnacious. He spoke to Yukiko as officiously as though she were somehow involved in what had happened.

  ‘Name? Address?’

  ‘You can go to hell,’ she said.

  Outrage inflated him like a balloon. ‘You are a witness —’

  ‘You have lots of other witnesses. I have to take care of my aunt.’

  The cop would probably have made more of it, but looked at the people standing about and, sensing that public opinion was against him, at once changed his tack. ‘Let’s get the old lady into another seat,’ he ordered no-one in particular. ‘Come on, now —’

  ‘Why don’t you just leave us alone?’ Yukiko said. ‘Or is that too much to ask?’

  Which, miraculously, he did.

  In Osaka the platform was packed with police. The passengers had to wait until the assassin had been taken off the train. Sumiko had recovered sufficiently to inch her way tremulously to the taxi rank; Yukiko bundled her in, climbed in after her.

  ‘We’ll be home in no time …’

  Where Sumiko’s maid was waiting to greet them with popping eyes; there had been a report of the incident on the radio and she was agog to know all about it.

  Yukiko was in no mood to humour her, could have slapped the world’s face over what had happened.

  ‘Madam,’ the maid said, ‘Madam …’

  ‘Be silent.’

  ‘But Madam, look …’ Pointing, mouth twisted in horror. Yukiko looked down and saw that her kimono, bright with golden chrysanthemums, was thick with blood.

  She closed her eyes, swaying; with a great effort gathered herself together. ‘I’ll change in a minute. Now help me with her.’

  She helped her aunt into a hot bath, ordered the maid to bring her a warm drink in bed and, by morning, things were nearly back to normal, with Sumiko once more buoyed by the prospect of their forthcoming outing to see the cherries in Kyoto.

  Only once did her aunt refer to the previous day and then not to the episode on the train. ‘I often wonder what happened to your grandfather,’ she said wistfully. ‘Your grandmother Mariko told me she watched the aircraft carrier sail out for the last time, but after that no-one seems to know anything.’

  ‘I suppose it’s something we shall never find out,’ said Yukiko.

  42

  HIDEO

  1940–1945

  Osaka, 1940. The city was peaceful, utterly quiet. That was the first thing Hideo Fukuda noticed; not the fatal silence after the bombing that he had observed over Chungking, the columns of smoke billowing into air suddenly still after the departure of the bombers, but the inertia of a community locked forever into an unchanging dream.

  Until he had reported to the Omura Naval Air Base for pilot training, Hideo had never noticed how Osaka was a city floating in timelessness, where nothing had or ever would change. Despite the banner headlines of newspapers reporting what everyone called the China Incident, he knew that his parents had no idea what was going on in the world; worse, that they did not wish to know. Domestic problems absorbed all their attention.

  His father had recently refused permission for Sumiko to become engaged to her boyfriend, another pilot, because the eldest child, Ochiba, w
as still single. He had used the excuse that Sumiko was too young, that with the China Incident a pilot’s life might end at any time, but his real reason had nothing to do with that. Custom decreed that the older sister should marry first and that, so far as their father was concerned, was the end of it.

  Sumiko had written tearfully, asking Hideo to put in a word on her behalf. Her letter had been waiting for him on the return of the 12th Kokutai from its China raid. Her appeal had exasperated him. He had better things to do during his leave than get involved in a fight with his father that he could never win. All the same, he knew he had to try; Sumiko was his favourite sister, and he would do what he could to help her, even though he was sure that his father would never budge an inch. Sometimes war seemed easier than life at home.

  He turned in through the gate of his parents’ house. The main door opened as he approached. O-aki, the family’s maid, grinned out at him.

  ‘You took your time getting here, didn’t you? The family’s been waiting over an hour. Your father’s in a temper because you’ve kept him waiting, and your mother’s convinced you had an accident and got killed on the way here.’

  He was a twenty-one-year-old fighter pilot in the Imperial navy, yet this ignorant old woman could still make him feel like a naughty little boy.

  ‘The train was late,’ he said apologetically. ‘I came as quickly as I could.’

  O-aki cackled, tossing her head towards the interior of the house. ‘Don’t tell me. Tell them.’ She took his grip in her gnarled hand. He went ahead of her into the house.

  His mother said, ‘We are having a recital this evening.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re still holding them in times like this,’ Hideo said.

  His father frowned, suspecting criticism. ‘There has been nothing since the China Incident started. But it seemed appropriate. It is only a small group and, in honour of your safe homecoming, I decided it would be perfectly proper.’

  ‘Sumiko will be dancing,’ his mother said.

  ‘That’s a surprise.’ Hideo turned to smile at his sister. ‘Not dressed like that, I hope?’ Because Sumiko, as usual, was wearing western dress.

  ‘I’ll have to get ready soon,’ she said. ‘It takes so long.’

  Ochiba said, ‘The Osaka dance is still very popular, despite the times we live in.’ Hideo’s elder sister always spoke slowly and carefully, attaching more weight to her words than they deserved. She was plain, which was perhaps the reason she was still unmarried at twenty-three, but also had a cold way of speaking that tended to put people off.

  ‘Will you be dancing, too?’ Hideo asked her.

  Ochiba stared haughtily. ‘Certainly not.’ But she had shown great talent once, Hideo remembered, before she became so high and mighty. And, for an instant, wished he were back at the Base, having a beer or two with his friends.

  The smell of fuel, the roar of engines, comradeship … Danger, too: one of the Chinese Polikarpovs might get lucky, one of these days. That was the real world.

  Better to change the subject. ‘Are we eating before or after the recital?’

  At once his mother was a-flutter. ‘We were planning to go out to eat, afterwards. Are you hungry?’

  ‘I couldn’t get anything on the train.’

  ‘I should have thought … O-aki,’ she called, ‘please bring Mr Hideo a plate of something to eat.’

  O-aki brought him something; he was so hungry that he gulped it to the last grain of rice, without noticing what it was.

  ‘Would you like some more?’ His mother fussing, as usual.

  ‘I couldn’t manage another mouthful.’

  He could have eaten the same again, and more, but would not say so. The two sisters were still bickering about the Osaka school of dance; Hideo had a feeling of desperation. Coming home, after months at the Base, was like stepping back fifty years. It was inevitable, perhaps; how could you bother about tradition, when you might be dead tomorrow?

  Entangled in the dreams and customs of the past, his family was out of touch. Reality decreed that Japan must expand or perish, that today the Zero fighter and the man who flew it mattered more than the outmoded rituals of a bygone age. Yet what were they fighting for, if not to preserve the nation’s culture?

  Soon it was necessary for Sumiko to get changed for the dance. ‘I must hurry …’

  Hideo looked at his watch. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it! It’s not so easy, getting dolled up, and arranging my hair takes forever.’

  When she had gone, crying to O-aki to help her, Hideo and his parents discovered how little they had to say to each other.

  ‘Your work,’ his mother ventured, ‘is it dangerous?’

  His father intervened disapprovingly before Hideo could answer. ‘You know he’s not allowed to talk about that.’

  ‘Most of the time we just sit around the Base. Nothing dangerous in that.’

  That was not altogether true. They did a lot of training, taking off and landing on the flight decks of aircraft carriers. When a sea was running, the bows of the ship could rise and fall by as much as thirty feet. It wasn’t easy, landing on such an elusive target, and several pilots had already been lost. The training was far more dangerous than combat, or had been so far.

  He could tell them none of this, or of his other adventures: boozy nights in the ryokans, chatting up the girls that, with luck, they met there. Even there they faced danger, of a sort; one of his friends had fallen for a kitchen maid, was talking of marrying her, a thought that would not have charmed the pilot’s parents, had they known. Hideo had experienced one or two adventures himself, so far without falling in love with anyone.

  Not something to discuss with your parents.

  His father did his best; talked about business, how the China Incident was damaging confidence. ‘I don’t know how things will work out,’ he said. ‘By the time you get home again, there may be nothing left.’

  Either way, Hideo did not care. The idea of business was as alien to his present life as the merits of the Osaka dance.

  So they sat, and smiled, and tried to talk, guarding their lives from each other and waiting for the recital to bring an end to their awkwardness.

  At length O-aki came and told them that Sumiko was ready.

  At the end of his leave, Hideo returned to the Base. As he had feared, his appeals on Sumiko’s account had done no good, but at least she hadn’t blamed him. The night before he left, he found a note on his pillow.

  The autumn trees reach out to the moon

  We await your coming in the spring.

  He recognised Sumiko’s hand. He fetched a tablet and a brush, thought for a few moments, then wrote:

  How beautiful they are,

  The leaves of autumn,

  And the western wind

  That drives them on its breath.

  He left it in his sister’s room. The next morning, before she awoke, he was gone.

  They fell into the cauldron of war. Victory, then defeat. Triumph, then despair. Years passed. By 1945, war had become the only reality. Even that had little meaning. War? What was war? This was life; all there was. And death, naturally — death so much a part of life that it was impossible to tell which was which.

  So many dead.

  Of the men I knew when all this started, only a handful are left: Nishio, Ogata, Shimamura, Kameda. And myself, of course. Five. Out of the sixty-six who had joined up together.

  It is summer, 16 July 1945. Yesterday, and the day before, the Americans sank nearly all the ferry boats connecting Honshu with Hokkaido. Only a week ago there was a series of raids on Tokyo itself. The steel plants at Kamaishi have been bombarded from the sea.

  The enemy is getting very close, now.

  There is talk of peace. We pilots stare at each other, uncomprehending. Peace? What is that? Even to talk of it makes us angry. If they had settled the business two years ago, or if it had never started at all, then they could have talked p
eace, and we would have listened. Now it is too late.

  What would we do, in a world at peace? And what of our comrades? The boys of the 12th Kokutai? Of the 19th? The 22nd? What of the thousands who went down in the Musashi, sunk last autumn on its way to the Philippines? They told us the battleship was invincible; it sank without ever firing its guns.

  If we stop fighting we betray the dead and ourselves. As far as we are concerned surrender is out of the question.

  There have been other rumours, too. Rumours of another weapon. Now it is official. Back in May the Navy Ministry announced that since March we have been using suicide bombers against the Americans. We are still using them. Kids so young they hardly know one end of an aircraft from the other are being put into planes stuffed with explosives and sent off to hurl themselves against the warships of the enemy. Everyone in the Naval Flying Corps has known about it since the battle for Okinawa, but no-one says anything. What is there to say?

  It seems hard to use these babies to blow themselves up against American ships, but all are volunteers. No-one forces them. I would join them but, as an only son, I am ineligible. I don’t see why they are so particular. The fact is we are all doomed, anyway.

  A month ago I tangled with an American Hellcat and took a couple of bullets in my shoulder. It could have been worse; they weren’t much more than scratches, although I had to ditch in the sea when I found that my carrier had been sunk while I was away. Luckily there was a destroyer to pick me up. When I got out of hospital, they sent me home for a couple of weeks to recuperate.

  While I was there I got married. That’s right. It seems madness, doesn’t it? When I’m a dead man? But it was what I wanted. Even if life and death are the same thing, I had missed out on most things people do in their lifetime and wanted to put it right, or as much of it as I could.