Black Wind

by F. Paul Wilson

  As soon as it was light enough, she went out to the streets. No cabs were about because of the gas rationing, so she walked down to the Ginza where she found a ricksha and told the driver to take her to the Kakureta Kao temple. He looked at her strangely—Meiko was not sure if that was due to her bruised face or her destination—but he knew the way and trotted her there.

  She saw the smoke from blocks away, but since fires were the rule rather than the exception in Tokyo these days, she attached no special significance to it until the ricksha turned onto the street of the Kakureta Kao.

  The temple was burning.

  Meiko ran up to a fireman playing a weak stream of water over the flames.

  "A bomb?" she said.

  The fireman shook his head. "No. Just a fire. Some of the neighbors say they saw the monks setting fire to it themselves before they left."

  That had to mean that Naka was somewhere else. "Where did they go?"

  "Don't know," the fireman said with a shrug. He was obviously overworked and overtired from fighting American-set fires, and more than a little annoyed to be called out for a fire set by Japanese. "On the way here we passed a big black truck heading south. That might have been them."

  Meiko hurried back to the ricksha driver and convinced him to follow the road indicated by the fireman. She had him stop every few blocks to ask about a black truck. Finally they found someone who had seen it. It was still traveling south. The ricksha man took her to the southern city limits but would go no further despite her pleadings and offers of double and triple fare. Too dangerous, he said.

  With no other option besides walking, she had him run her back to Akasaka where she pleaded for the family car. Her father gave in with less of an argument than she had expected, even going so far as to offer to drive her. Meiko talked him out of that. She didn't want to endanger him and leave Mother alone. But Father did bring out all the tins of gasoline he had buried among the rocks at the rear of the garden as a reserve in time of emergency.

  This, he said, was a true emergency.

  And so, dressed in one of her mother's oldest kimonos, Meiko headed south as fast as the road would allow. Bombed out in many areas and washed out in others, overall in poor repair. With agonizing slowness, she made her way past Sagami Bay where her family's summer home used to be, where she and Matsuo had first made love, past white-capped, imperturbable Mount Fuji, and down toward Nagoya. She never saw the black truck, but it left an indelible trail. Everyone along the road remembered the passing of such a large nonmilitary vehicle in these times when gas was so tightly controlled. They treated her with great respect, assuming, she guessed, that she was a person of great importance to have the fuel to drive a car. They mentioned a number of similar black trucks traveling the road yesterday, but only one this morning.

  For a moment as she approached Nagoya and saw the expanse of razed buildings and charred ruins beyond the city limits, Meiko thought she had come full circle back to Tokyo. She experienced an instant of elation, for something like this could happen only in a nightmare, which meant all this was a horrible dream and she would awaken in the morning to hear Naka talking to himself on the other side of the shoji.

  But it wasn't Tokyo. It truly was Nagoya. She cried a little, but kept on.

  Yes, they had seen the truck not too long ago, still headed south. She rode out with a renewed spirit. She was gaining on them. She could feel it. She only prayed that all this was not for nothing. What if her little Naka was not in the truck? And what was she going to do if and when she caught up to the truck? Meiko didn't know. She only knew she had to do something.

  She worked her way down along the coast, then followed the trail inland, passing south of Kyoto in the afternoon, noting with relief that although the factories around it had been bombed into ruin, the ancient heart of the city, the soul of her country's culture, had been spared. The work of the gods? Or did the Americans have other plans for Kyoto? After their merciless bombing of other civilian centers, she could not imagine they had a humanitarian motive.

  But the why was not important. What mattered was that something of the Old Japan might survive. Certainly little of modern Japan was left standing. But the greatest toll was in the people. The misery she saw in the faces she passed broke her heart. Was there anyone left in the country who had not lost something or someone? Something precious was dying here. Her land was being reduced to a physical, cultural, and spiritual wasteland.

  The car sputtered and died outside Kyoto. Meiko began to cry when she saw the fuel gauge on empty. Her father's gas hoard had carried her 250 miles, but it wasn't far enough.

  She couldn't give up now, not when she was this close to catching them.

  Only one thing to do: She dried her eyes and began walking.

  North of Osaka she was able to catch a ride in a farmer's ox-drawn cart. He took her all the way to what was left of Kobe. The ancient city lay in ruins. She was able to buy a bicycle from an injured man who could no longer ride it. She could make better time along the road than any truck. She could weave in and out of the traffic and skirt the bigger rips and tears in the pavement. Her spirits lifted.

  The trail led back to following the coast again, this time along the Inland Sea. As she rode, Meiko was only dimly aware of the timeless beauty of the mists and countless islands passing to her left, a source of inspiration for artists since the dawn of civilization. Father had brought her here many times as a child, telling her that its vistas soothed his spirit.

  Maybe someday it will soothe mine, too, she thought. But not now. Not today.

  Until she had Naka back, no contemplation of still waters would calm the storm in her soul.

  On and on southward, through Himeji as darkness fell, then on to Okayama, Kurashiki, Onomichi. Her head buzzed with pain. Her legs ached constantly and at times the cramps in her thighs were so agonizing she had to stop the bike and walk them out. The dark forced her to slow her pace. She hit more of the holes in the road and every bounce amplified the pain in her head until she thought it would explode. But she kept on, and it was outside Mihara that Meiko found the truck.

  If not for the predawn pallor of the eastern sky, she would have missed it. She was almost past the truck when she noticed its dark, canted outline at the side of the road. Meiko approached it carefully, like a doe approaching a sleeping tiger. The rear door to the cargo area hung open.

  Empty.

  Meiko wanted to cry then but did not have the strength. All her physical and emotional resources had dried up. She leaned against the open door and stared dully into its dark interior. Where had they gone? She would never find them now.

  Something moved within.

  Meiko leaped back as a voice spoke from the echoey darkness. "Nothing here, so don't waste your time looking."

  A wizened old man, dirty, bearded, clad in baggy factory work clothes, crawled to the edge of the cargo door and eased himself down to the ground.

  "Did you see them?" Meiko asked.

  "I watched them all night as they tried to get it moving again. They thought the problem was with a wheel. I could have told them from the very beginning that it was a broken axle, but they treated me as eta when I first spoke to them, so I said nothing more."

  "They left?"

  "Finally."

  "Where did they go?" She could barely breathe. He had to know.

  "I heard them speak of Hiroshima."

  Thank the gods!

  "Were there children? Did you see children?"

  His head nodded vigorously in the dim light. "Yes. Three or four. Adults too, but they kept their faces turned away from me. I only saw the man who was driving, but I have never seen him before." He looked around. "There was a time, you know—"

  "Yes, yes!" Meiko said. "Please excuse my rudeness, but I must find these people. Did they get on another truck?"

  The old man laughed. "No. An ox cart came and took the people and their possessions away."

  "The children too?"

>   "Of course. Who would leave children behind in the night?"

  "How long ago?"

  "Not long. Shortly before you arrived."

  Meiko leaped on her bicycle. "A thousand thank-yous," she cried as she began to ride off. "Someday I will repay you."

  "Better make it quick," he said with a laugh. "Not much time left. And about that ox cart—it's most unusual. It's yellow—just like the sun."

  Meiko waved and rode off.

  Her front tire went flat an hour later. She did not even pause. She rode on the wobbly rubber until it shredded and fell off. Then she rode on the rim. The racket was terrible and the vibrations from the road even worse. But Naka was ahead. She could sense his nearness, and every minute was precious.

  Hiroshima astounded Meiko. It was whole. Not a bomb had dropped here. The white walls and black-tiled roofs of its suburbs and even the ring of factories along its periphery remained untouched. It was as if there were no war in Hiroshima.

  She'd had no sleep in thirty hours and had traveled four hundred miles—half the length of Honshu—in that time. She moved through a haze of fatigue and anguish as she crossed the Ota River and entered the city on foot. How many miles had she walked? She couldn't say. She had given up her bicycle after the rear tire ripped open and now she trod the streets with bare, bloody feet that felt swollen to twice their normal size. The hope of dawn had been dashed in the light of day when she saw the crowding of the city and realized two or three hundred thousand people lived here. How could she find one small child?

  And yet, in her heart, she knew she would find him. And she knew she must get him away from here. She did not know why, for Hiroshima seemed a blessed place, a place favored by the gods and spared by the B-29s. Yet the very fact that it remained untouched by the war's otherwise unchecked destruction made her uneasy. She sensed a warning there.

  But she kept moving, searching, and as she walked she saw that her first impression was only partially correct. True, Hiroshima was untouched by the American bombers, but not undamaged. The heavy hand of the war was evident everywhere she looked.

  The streets were nearly empty of motorized traffic and, just as she had seen in Tokyo, all available iron and steel that could be safely removed from bridges and lampposts and railings and grilles had been stripped from the city. Rows of houses had been laid waste, dismantled to their foundations, not by bombs or artillery, but by soldiers and adolescents creating firebreaks under orders from the Ministry of the Interior. Perhaps they could halt the wild spread of a fire, but not, Meiko knew, with a wind blowing like the one in Tokyo in March.

  Everywhere she looked she saw vegetables growing, in backyards and front yards, in narrow alleys, in pots and urns. Anything that could hold a handful of dirt became a miniature garden. Even the roofs—the tiles atop many a house were banked with earth and planted with greens. The people of Hiroshima had taken to heart the Ministry of Agriculture's decree that it was the sacred duty of every citizen to help provide food for the war effort. Meiko wished a few patches of unscorched earth remained in Tokyo. Perhaps fewer would be starving there.

  She came to a bridge and stopped at its center. Which river was she crossing? This city was cut this way and that by branches of the Ota River, and those branches were spanned by over a thousand bridges. She was confused. The sun was rising high in the sky but she didn't know what time it was. Somewhere someone was heating suimono and the delicate odor of the clear broth flooded her mouth with saliva. How she would love a bowl now, along with a shady patch of soft earth where she might sip slowly and relish every drop.

  Meiko closed her eyes and swayed. She was hot, hungry, thirsty, weak, and exhausted. She could no longer feel her feet and she dared not look at them. What was worse, she was lost. She seemed to be in a factory-warehouse district but instead of bustling with workers and activity, only a few people and carts passed to and fro.

  She wanted to crumble where she stood and weep, but was afraid she would never regain her feet again. Where was Naka? How would she ever find him in a city this size whose streets she didn't know, whose people were all strangers?

  How?

  She wanted to scream.

  And then a spot of yellow moved in a corner of her vision. She snapped her eyes left and saw what appeared to be a bright yellow cart set against the wall of a two-story building three blocks away.

  She ran toward it—or tried to run. The best she could do was lift her feet just far enough off the street to keep them from dragging. The fading sign on the wall of the building identified it as a tin factory. Surely no one from the Kakureta Kao would be in such a place, so she dared not hope that this might be the same cart that had taken the passengers from the black truck back on the road. But perhaps the owner knew of other yellow carts and where she might find them. And through them she might find Naka. But first she had to find the owner of this cart.

  She stepped up to the door and knocked. When no one answered, she began pounding on it.

  * * *

  Hiroki peered through the grimy window to see who was banging so persistently on the side door. At this tight angle, he could tell it was a woman and little else. He looked around for one of the acolytes to answer but saw no one. He could not use one of the guards because they were masked and that would give away the secret Shimazu insisted they protect: that the Kakureta Kao order was now centered here in Hiroshima. The Supreme Command knew, as did the city police and the army garrison at Hiroshima Castle. But the public knew nothing and all agreed that a lot of annoying and possibly dangerous curiosity could be avoided if matters were left that way.

  Hiroki ground his teeth and went to the door. Since the woman obviously was not going away on her own—ignoring her only seemed to make her pound harder—he would have to chase her off. He yanked open the door and looked at the miserable, bedraggled creature that stood there. A beggar? Most certainly a persistent one.

  She looked at him and cried, "Hiroki!"

  That voice! Beneath the shock and awe in its tones—

  No! It can't be!

  He stared at the woman, trying to see past her disordered hair and grime. It looked like Meiko but her face was disfigured, discolored by more than dirt. He detected fresh swellings and bruises around the eyes—

  He leaned against the doorjamb, suddenly weak with the memory of how he had taken out his fury upon her last night.

  Did I do this? Oh, by the Face, is this my doing?

  "Where's Naka?" she said, her voice rising to a scream. "Where's my son?"

  The words brought back his composure in a rush.

  How can she know? It isn't possible.

  He pulled her inside. She struggled out of his grip but he managed to shut the door behind her.

  "I don't know what you could possibly mean," he said in as calm a voice as he could muster.

  Meiko's face was livid as she stared at him. Her teeth were bared as if she were about to leap at him. She was a different person. He had never seen her like this, never imagined she could react this way.

  It excited him.

  "Yes, you do! Two people from your temple stole him from his bed last night!"

  "How can you say—?"

  She bared her right forearm and pointed to a spot a few inches above her wrist. "I saw the mark!"

  Hiroki swallowed. Curse that tattoo.

  "Anyone can copy a tattoo. I want to know how you found me here."

  "I followed you and your black truck all the way from Tokyo."

  He was astounded. "But how?"

  "In a car, on a bicycle, on foot, what does it matter? I found you, now give me my son."

  He looked at her feet and gasped at the dried blood and dirt caked there. Yes, he could truly believe she had followed him from Tokyo under her own power. He marveled at her strength of spirit, her tenacity. All for a wretched little zasshu. What a wife she would have made him.

  "Answer me!" she cried. "Where is Naka?"

  "I cannot tell you."


  Meiko pounded her fists against his chest. "You can! A man saw children taken off your truck! You can! You—"

  Suddenly her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed on the floor. Hiroki quickly knelt beside her. She was still breathing but unconscious. From the look of her dry, cracked lips and sunken eyes, he guessed she had collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to his quarters.

  * * *

  Meiko awoke with a pounding headache. She was lying on a futon. She sat up and saw she was in a small, candle-lit cubicle.

  "Ah! You're awake. I saw you stirring and knew it wouldn't be long."

  Hiroki knelt before her holding a bowl of soup piled high with soba noodles; a pair of chopsticks lay across the rim. Of their own volition her hands reached out and took it from him. She ate quickly, efficiently, her hands shaking with hunger. She finished the noodles, then tipped the bowl to her lips and drained the broth. While she was eating, she noticed that her feet were wrapped in bandages. She inspected them now.

  "I cleaned them for you," Hiroki said with a faint, almost timid smile.

  Meiko found that hard to believe. "You? Personally?"

  "Yes. I applied an herb ointment under the bandages."

  She could not help but be touched. Yet she was still suspicious.

  "Why would you do such a thing for me?"

  "Oh, Meiko," he sighed and she sensed genuine sorrow in him. "If only our lives had worked out differently. We could have had such a good life together. But that one summer day ruined everything."

  She said, "I never had a chance to apologize to you for violating your trust." She did not say that she had violated his trust in her heart for years before that August day. "That was inexcusable."