The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  The motor launch left the defense unit wharf, and for a time I could see the long trail of sooty black smoke. They said it was smoke from the burning bodies of war prisoners who had died of illness. Soon I reached the cove for our unit, and already the area was veiled in the soft light of dusk.

  The senior officer, Special Duty Lieutenant K., was standing on the pier where his wife greeted him on his return, even though it was sooner than the time he had set when he left. He wanted to know the state of affairs in the defense unit, and he came at once to my room in the headquarters and demanded to know what had happened at the all-personnel assembly I had attended.

  The quiet evening dusk on the inlet that had been suddenly disturbed by the assembly reverted to its original silence after the usual commands. On the slope from the headquarters in the triangular area down to the open ground near the beach, the road threaded its way between rows of sago palms alongside the fields of sweet potatoes that stretched out before me as I left the meeting place. In the open field of pebbles of bone, limestone, and coral fragments, the 180 unit members had assembled with no room for more. The unit members were lined up cheek by jowl in rectangular formation against the backdrop of a dense growth of pandanus and citrus growing like a hedge between the field and the beach. I had no way of knowing what speculation they might have been driven to by their forebodings and the reports. When I looked down at them from the height of the platform in the rapidly darkening twilight, I could still clearly see their expressions. All the faces were concentrated eagerly on what I was about to say.

  “Now hear this,” I resigned myself to saying tentatively.

  “His Imperial Majesty the Emperor has made the daring determination to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Today the Imperial Edict was proclaimed. Our country has surrendered unconditionally to the enemy. All units must cease war operations at once.”

  There was a faint stirring in the ranks. I stopped speaking, as if waiting for something. In the continuing silence I could see individual personalities in the faces of a number of the men, and an idea came to me. There was a mingling of youth and the elderly, and at the moment I could not help but see a tinge of relief on the faces of the latter. It faded at once but the signs wove the ranks together and enveloped the whole unit like a film of haze. I did not foresee it, but I could sense a seething in some individuals of acute resistance, betrayed in a look of forlornness.

  “We participated in this war in accordance with the Imperial Proclamation of War. Therefore, with the Imperial Proclamation of the End of War, we must follow the order. Rash behavior on the basis of individual feelings is absolutely not permissible.”

  That’s deceitful, I whispered to myself as I spoke. What if I were to announce a decision for a commando attack in violation of the Imperial Proclamation? However, the expression on the faces of the older men showed relief, and with a feeling of escape in not following my logic, I pressed ahead willy-nilly. “We don’t know when formal peace negotiations will begin, but I think we must continue our life in this situation for a rather long time, so for the interim we will maintain our present daily schedule. Now for one word of warning. The condition of instant readiness for commando warfare has not been relaxed, so make no mistake. Leave the fuses in, as they are. An armistice is strictly temporary. If the enemy fleet should, on its own, penetrate the straits without awaiting formal negotiations, we will attack at once. With that in mind, do not ease up.”

  Heavy fatigue settled over me. I lay down on my back on the bed in my room. Although there was no sign of anything to fear in the current situation, and to that extent there was nothing to worry about, a feeling of indescribable desolation overtook me. After this critical time has passed, will a world that was even forbidden to imagine, and where life might continue without the need to face death, wither away into faded banality? Hasn’t the fullness of life that we thought we could freely enjoy spilled out between our fingers? This paradox left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I could not find any sound logic to sustain me in the hard work of continuing my life. If, by my survival, I deny the reasons that made me take up my military duties and adapt to war, is that just to say I am going back to where I was before? These thoughts did not console me at all. In order to go on living, if I were to make a choice suitable for now, I would have to make a new choice every time the times changed, and there would be no end to it, so it would surely have to be done again. The past, which had brought reactions only of disgust, moment by moment, with air raids, imagined collisions, and fear of disobedience, all possibilities that were not the result of my own will, that past was disappearing like a natural phenomenon. It left a void, and I would not have the energy to cope with the new situation.

  The evening meal had been prepared, and saké was being served. At the mess table for warrant and higher-ranking officers, all were looking downcast and feeling one another out with suspicion. Whatever you say, they were in a state of collapse that could not be concealed. Just as the telegraphers brought in reports of their intercepts and these were announced, the senior officer loosened his tongue and poured out his repressed feelings. The news in good part was that after hearing the proclamation broadcast, the commander in chief of the commando unit had himself taken the first plane and, with eight other planes following, had made a suicide crash into Nakagusuku Bay off Okinawa. That shocked me. The senior officer deplored the sloppy discipline of the unconditional surrender and the loss of the Yamato spirit, and he praised the commander as a model military man for his attitude toward dying in also sending many of his subordinates to their death in a suicide attack. When his drunkenness made him keep repeating the same thing, I could not get by without saying something. The commander retorted, eyes blazing, “If anyone has made a serious decision, he should not sit silently by without saying anything.” He became quiet. A strained atmosphere engulfed the officers’ meeting and dining room. I returned to my room and lay down on my bed.

  From the direction of the barracks and the open square there came sounds of commotion. Off and on, voices could be heard shouting. That commander in chief’s fateful attack, even though I knew it had no effect, was covered with glory in my mind, too. If I were to say so, though, it would play up even more our misery in having slipped out of the crisis, because now there was no reason for that act. Along with what the commander had repeatedly been saying, his dislike of me had grown and had come to include criticism of my behavior. I was deceived by his impeccable attitude, and I reacted most strongly against the fakery. However, since he had not started a quarrel with me, I was relieved, but I could not understand my own appraisal of the man. I did think, however, that he might possibly be forcing me toward an attack in order to achieve our original commando aims on the plea of our military duty. Instead, he had dispelled his rancor by drowning it in drink. Soon I had to notice that an indescribable grief had assailed the unit.

  As I was getting drowsy, the senior petty officer came in, stooped over.

  “Are your sleeping quarters satisfactory?” he said. He looked a little different from his usual gentle self. Unsteady from drinking, he crouched by the side of the bed and began to speak as if he were revealing his hidden thoughts.

  “I’m a little drunk. Excuse me, please. I thought I wanted to talk a little to my commander. Is that all right?”

  He spoke emphatically. Go ahead, I said.

  “You don’t know how hard it has been for us. I’ve managed so far to make senior warrant officer, but how many years do you think it took? Ten years. Ten years in the military, my youth worn away. Finally, senior warrant officer. But then, senior warrant officer is nothing special to you. You may not have noticed, but from my point of view, I’d say it’s a happy lot. It’s like being comfortably turned out by the highest educational institution. Yes, it is. I know that. May I try to explain? Your father ran a silk goods export trading company, didn’t he? I know everything about my commanding officer. Are you surprised?”

  “It wasn’t a silk goods e
xport trading company. He was a silk export merchant.”

  “Anyway, yours can’t be compared with my family. We didn’t have the means for me to attend the upper grades of elementary school. Although you’ve been in the navy for less than two years, your time for promotion to captain came up in short order. Please don’t get angry. If you get angry, I’ll be upset. Are you offended? But it’s a trivial matter. Japan has been defeated. The Imperial Navy was completely finished off. There’s no use now for a navy senior warrant officer.”

  When he came in and started talking, I thought he was going to talk about Toshie. He may have hinted at the subject, but it did not come out explicitly.

  “I say this because it’s you I’m talking to. Actually, I expected this to happen. The navy of late is entirely different from the old-time Imperial Navy. That’s why we didn’t win the war.”

  “I don’t know the navy of old times.”

  “No. That’s why I intended to follow the commander in a splendid attack. Somehow I thought it would come out this way. I’m really not suited for the military. I’m going back home and work as a farmer. I want to devote myself to the study of inventions of things that I like.”

  “Inventions?” I asked back at him.

  “Inventions of . . .”

  He said it, his eyes sparkling, but I did not catch what he was inventing.

  “Even now in my free time, I have been doing research. By doing that, I need no other amusement. Didn’t my commander know that? I thought you knew all about it. I’d like to have you know more about your subordinate’s personal life. I have a patent for this research. It’s a duly registered patent right. Now when I go home, I will think about how to put it to practical use. I’ll get my wife’s help and devote myself to it.”

  “That’s great. I don’t know what I should do,” I told him.

  “Commander, aren’t you intending to return home?” He spoke rapidly in a suppressed tone of voice.

  “. . .”

  “The responsibility for this war must be assumed by the officers. Noncommissioned officers and enlisted men have no responsibility. Officers are like that. Because up to now the privileges have gone only to officers. No matter how short your term, no matter that you’re only a reserve officer, unfortunately as an officer you must assume the responsibility. The Americans will certainly demand that. Since I have been in the military for a long time, I understand that well. You must resign yourself to it. Officers may be dealt with in full for that. If not, there can hardly be a postwar settlement to this huge war.”

  There was a strange truth to his whispered words.

  “I’ve talked longer than I intended. I purposely intruded on you just as you were going to sleep.”

  He resumed his normal voice and rose to his feet.

  “It was outlandish to talk like that. Please don’t take it badly. From now on I’ll run around like a bum watching the troops act like crazy. Don’t worry about that. Just leave it to me. Oh, please forgive me for bothering you.”

  He bent over and bowed two or three times, then went shakily to the door and bowed again deeply.

  “Please sleep well.” He spoke as he left.

  Left behind, I felt depressed. Suddenly the expression “take poison” came to my mind. Not only could I do that; the words seemed to have special meaning for me. When I thought of how the established order of the unit had crumbled, the process became clear to me. I saw the scene vividly—how I drew my sword, how in turn we sliced into the flesh and let the blood flow out. I got up, picked up my “Japan sword,” and laid it on the bed. Although in the midst of unthinkable changes a means to survive had emerged, I was discouraged that so many difficulties lay in the way before I could grasp it for myself. If I were to draw my sword, my heart had to persuade me. I had no pistol, but anyway I thought some other way without a pistol would be more suited to the purpose. I thought quickly of Toshie, but then I thought that my passion for her every evening was no more than a lie. I wondered whether I wasn’t being absorbed into a kind of serenity. Embracing the “Japan sword” in my arms and running my hands along the scabbard, I had a surge of warlike feelings. Earlier I had wanted those feelings, I remembered. In any case, when tomorrow comes, before all else I would have to have the fuses removed from the weapons on the commando boats, I thought as I fell asleep.

  UNO CHIYO

  Uno Chiyo (1897–1996) began her career in the 1920s with a reputation as a scandalous “new woman” who wrote of free love and tangled love affairs. The best known of her novels in this vein is Confessions of Love (Irozange, 1935). Uno also founded Japan’s first fashion magazine and became a kimono designer. Her wartime story, “A Wife’s Letters” (Tsuma no tegami, 1942), poignantly conveys the emotional destabilization of a woman who has just sent her husband off to war.

  A WIFE’S LETTERS (TSUMA NO TEGAMI)

  Translated by Rebecca Copeland

  I have just returned from Shinagawa. I reached the station after you had already left, and when it finally dawned on me that I would not be able to see you one last time, I was so overwhelmed that I came to a stop right there in the middle of the road. What had come over me? And here I had only minutes earlier been feeling such elation for this husband of mine whom I was sending off with magnificent resolve to a distant battlefield on behalf of our great country.

  Now I cannot understand how I could have left you the way I did this morning. I was certain that I’d see you again, immediately, at Shinagawa, and so I said good-bye to you in front of the barracks without so much as a second thought. Surely I said something to you then? Some word of farewell? But now for the life of me, I cannot remember. My mind is so numb. We stopped the car at the corner and then walked from there to the barracks together—you and I. If I had wanted to say something to you, I could have said any number of things then. But I was distracted by all the other men who were dressed in military uniforms just like yours. I watched them pass by one after another and my attention was caught by their boots and their gear, and I was not even concerned with you. Instead, I was absorbed with thoughts of your gear and your boots, and all I could think was why hadn’t I tied your pack more tightly?

  What had come over me? Here you, my husband, were leaving home and joining a host of other soldiers to board a train and then a ship that would carry you thousands and thousands of miles away to a distant battlefield. Was it that I simply did not comprehend the enormity of this event? No, to tell the truth, I always behave like this in such situations. When we ran into Mr. Yamauchi and his wife, you were kind enough to introduce us. Still, it never once occurred to me that you were soon to leave me and your family and disappear into the barracks. That moment would stand between us like a great barrier, marking the point when you became the inhabitant of an entirely different world. Even when I saw Mr. Yamauchi’s wife with her downcast eyes, all I could think was “My, the poor dear is so worried!” as if hers was a situation completely separate from my own! What on earth was I thinking?

  And so you disappeared into the barracks with Mr. Yamauchi and the others. There was still a considerable amount of time before you had to leave, but you said, “I have to change my shoes,” and so off you went, like a man taking an important detour on his way to work.

  I stood outside and waited. The broad ground in front of the barracks was filled with sunlight. Indeed, it was an extremely pleasant morning, wasn’t it? Sunny and warm. I watched you walk off with Mr. Yamauchi in that bright, airy morning light—your form so familiar. You and he were talking to each other as you ambled leisurely toward the large, yellow-colored building and slipped from my sight. You were wearing your military uniform for the first time, with your shiny boots and your sword at your side. I had not seen you dressed like this before, and yet I watched you as if you were the same husband I was accustomed to seeing day after day. And then you were gone without so much as a “good-bye.” I stood by the gate gazing after you. You never once turned back to glance in my direction as I waited, wa
tching until you faded completely from view. Far from feeling the regret of parting, I felt—how can I best explain it?—I felt my heart swell with such a rush of joy that I thought it would burst.

  Really, how can I explain myself ? On a morning like this, with the sun pouring down radiant and warm . . . but, no, it wasn’t just the glitter of the sun that so beguiled me. Now I feel quite as though I dreamed it all—to have been the kind of woman who could have parted from you so serenely. After I saw you into the barracks, I turned around and came home. Just like that. There was still time before you were to depart, and there were scores of other people—family members like me—milling around outside the gate. Now I know. I know that if only I had waited with the others, I would have been able to see you march out of the parade grounds with the other men—dressed in your uniforms and lined into rows. But there was so much time, and I did not stay. I went home.

  “Go home,” you told me. “It’d be better if you didn’t see me setting off with my pack and equipment.” You repeated this several times. Wanting to abide by your wishes, I left the barracks and came home. But what if I hadn’t done as you’d asked? Why didn’t I wait outside the barracks gate? If only I had waited for your company to set out, I could have walked alongside you from there to Shinagawa, couldn’t I?