by Anita Heiss
‘In the compound,’ Mary begins bravely and somewhat boldly, ‘what did you do for entertainment? Did you play sport?’ She knows this might be a stupid question, but surely they were outside during the day and she really wants to know what life in the compound was like. She rarely sees Jim, the only Aboriginal guard up there, so there’s no one else to ask.
‘We played a lot of baseball,’ Hiroshi says.
‘Baseball?’ Mary asks. ‘I’ve heard of baseball, but I don’t know the rules.’
‘It’s an American game, with a bat and a ball, and men run around a diamond.’ He draws a diamond in the air with his finger.
Mary sees a connection and is excited. ‘We have a game here called rounders, it sounds a little like your baseball. You hit the ball with a wooden bat, sometimes we use a cricket bat that my dad made out of wood, but some of the boys will just use a broom handle if they have to. You have to hit the ball and then run from base to base and get there before the ball is thrown there. Is that the same as baseball?’
‘Yes, that sounds a lot like baseball. It’s called rounders?’
‘Yes.’ Mary doesn’t understand how or why the Japanese are playing American baseball. ‘How do you know this American game, though, and aren’t you at war with the Americans?’
‘We played baseball when I was at university. We have been playing baseball in Japan for many, many years. It is very popular. We had a baseball team in the 1880s but the year I was born, in 1919 is when Japan first got two professional teams. It’s strange now; Japan and America are at war. We hate each other. I don’t know if we will have baseball again when I go home.’
Mary is taken aback by the comment. Hiroshi talking about going home upsets her; she doesn’t want him to leave. But Hiroshi hasn’t seen the change in her expression and keeps talking.
‘Back home I followed the Yomiuri Giants. We called them the Tokyo Giants.’ Hiroshi laughs for the first time in months. He shakes his head. ‘Tokyo Giants is so American. We are so much like the country we are at war with.’
‘And you played baseball in the camp?’
‘Yes, we made the baseball gloves ourselves from old boots, and masks for the catcher. We would take one grille out of the Kendo masks we used in our own Japanese martial arts and we would turn it into a catcher’s mask.’ Hiroshi puts his hands up to his face.
Mary doesn’t ask about Kendo because she is conscious of time and wants to know more about the Japanese playing American baseball with other soldiers. ‘Did you play sport with the Italians?’ Mary asks, knowing that they were the first prisoners to arrive in Cowra. ‘Everyone says they are very funny.’
‘No!’ Hiroshi says aggressively, a tone that Mary has not heard him use before. He sees her reaction to his voice, and repeats more softly, ‘No. I am sorry, no, we didn’t.’
There’s silence for a few seconds and then he adds, ‘We did not mix with the Italians. We had our separate places of living.’
‘Yes, but surely they would let you play baseball against each other?’
‘We did nothing with them,’ Hiroshi says, conscious that Mary might judge him for hating the Italians as well as the Americans. Hiroshi hasn’t really heard Mary speaking about hating anyone. He thinks Mary is a nice girl who is too young and probably too sheltered to understand anything of life in a prisoner of war camp, regardless of how much she might like to try. ‘They are very different to us. They sing a lot and play instruments.’
‘What instruments did they play, and what did they sing?’
Hiroshi is not eager to respond, he did not and does not care for the Italians. Like most of the Japanese soldiers, he feels an unspoken level of contempt for them, perhaps because they were allowed out into the community while the Japanese weren’t. Or perhaps it is because they were happy to wait the war out in Australia and didn’t wear the pressure of shame for being a prisoner of war. He is sure the Italians don’t have an Emperor or a centuries-old philosophy of dying with honour. He has read that the Italians had signed an armistice with the Allies, which makes him hate them more. In Hiroshi’s eyes they have no shame, which also means that he and the other Japanese soldiers think they are better than the Italians.
The Italians were held in A and C Compounds and the hardline fascists were held in D Compound. He doesn’t want to tell Mary that even though the Japanese enjoyed operas and dramatic performances in B Compound every month, the Italians were thought to do it better and had their own opera society and band. It irks Hiroshi that the Italians also played soccer and created their own field to play on.
Hiroshi also partly resents the fact that the guards always considered the Italians cheerful. ‘Why aren’t you more like the Italians?’ he’d heard more than once. He’s never seen it, but knows the Italians had building skills and many were artisans back home. Unlike the Japanese, the Italians had turned their camp into a place like their home country: there were garden beds between the mess halls, and the men used their skills as cobblers to turn old car tyres into sandals to sell in the community.
Either way, it is not easy to explain the reality of life in the POW camp with Mary here in front of him with eyes wide and a warm smile that could make any man soft in the heart. He just wants to see her smile more. ‘I think they are called saxophones.’ He gestures to blow into a pretend pipe-like instrument and fingers imaginary keys.
Mary loves her father’s banjo playing, and Uncle Muddy on the piano accordion is fantastic and when the Williams boys play their guitars, it’s like a party, but something new, something from another country, that is special, and her face lights up.
‘The guards told us the Italians, they play something called a mandolin . . . it is like a small guitar,’ he says, gesturing to indicate the size of the instrument.
‘My Uncles play the mandolin too, but gee, it would be wonderful to see the Italians play it. I guess they have different songs,’ Mary says cheerfully.
Hiroshi knows that she simply does not understand that nothing about the Italians is wonderful.
There has been silence between them now for the longest time, both lost in their own thoughts of Italian prisoners of war.
‘It’s time to leave,’ Mary suddenly declares. ‘But before I do, I have a surprise for you.’ She watches Hiroshi’s face as she hands him the writing materials. Mary has shown initiative and told Mrs Smith she wants to practise writing. This has landed her a notebook and two pencils, which Hiroshi gently takes with both hands.
His heart wells with happiness and gratitude but also the fear of penning the truth of his existence to his parents, even though he doesn’t expect they will get to read it.
As she walks through a gentle mist that will later turn into a heavy downpour, Mary is proud of the charity she is offering Hiroshi and hopes the notebook gives him something to pass the time in the long hours he is alone in the shelter. She also hopes that Mrs Smith doesn’t ever ask to see the notebook again, because that will require another lie and she has already lost track of how many lies she has told in the last month. She’s glad that even though she has been baptised, she has never been expected to go to confession at St Raphael’s, because she would need to be in the confessional for a very long time. While her mother would like to go to church more often, Mary is glad that Aboriginal people from Erambie only go to church on special occasions like weddings and funerals.
By the dim light of the kerosene lamp, Hiroshi begins to write, but it is far harder than he thought it would be. He is already feeling the heartache and pain of the words he must pen to his parents. It takes him almost an hour before he can write something other than the opening greeting. But then the words flow and so do his tears.
Dear Mother and Father,
I know this letter will come as a shock. I know that you have been told I am dead, killed in action. I know reading this will be even harder for you to accept than losing your son at war. But here I am, writing to you, which means I am alive. I am in a place called Cowra. In Austr
alia. I am living with a family here, until I can see you again. I beg you for forgiveness. I have become a prisoner of war. I am sorry I am not the brave warrior you wanted in a son. I do not want to bring shame on the family, on you, my loving parents. I honour my family, my nation, and you have my loyalty, but I am a better man in life than in death. Mother, please do not cut your hair in mourning, for I am alive.
I will not tell you who the other men were in the POW camp in Australia, for it is for them to let their families know. We all understand the shame our presence as prisoners of war will bring you, but I hope, as I know many others will, that you will be happy to see your son alive regardless of circumstances.
I once vowed to complete my mission and destroy the enemy, but I have met some of the enemy. They are called Australians. They have fed me better than my own government when they sent me to war. I have been treated well by the Australian guards, who I have grown to respect. And now I am being cared for by an Australian family. If I ever have a son, I will send him here to visit these kind people. He could live his dreams here. He would not be beaten in training to be a better soldier like I was. He could be a poet if he wished. He could be free.
I hope I will see you again soon, and then I will spend the rest of my days making you proud.
Your son,
Hiroshi
7
Mary and Hiroshi sit side by side on a dirty blanket that Joan managed to get from the church. It’s been six weeks since Hiroshi found himself at Erambie. Aside from Mary’s almost daily visits, the newspapers and brief visits to the lavatory where he steals a few seconds of moonlight and fresh air, it has been his Shinto faith that has sustained him and helped him believe that he will see his family again. But it is his Shinto faith that has also caused him grief.
His family’s faith means they will be practising the culture and tradition of respecting and worshipping his death. Understanding this practice upsets Hiroshi even more. He knows his father will be hurt but proud that his son has died at war, died with honour in the name of the Emperor. His mother will be heartbroken and distraught that her only son died at all.
Hiroshi jumps up suddenly, startling Mary. ‘We Japanese,’ he puts his hand on his chest, ‘believe that the spirits of the dead live forever on earth and guard their descendants. My family will think I am their guardian deity. They will be worshipping me for my effort in the war and the honour I have brought myself and them.’ Hiroshi shakes his head, knowing that such worshipping is misplaced, given he is alive, but there is nothing he can do. The letter he wrote to his parents sits on the ground near where he sleeps. He has not asked Mary to post it – he knows that a Japanese address on an envelope will make someone suspicious. And what if she drops it, or worse still, gets caught carrying it? It is too risky for both of them. Writing the letter helped soothe his mind and his heart, but the words are still there, near him, and not where he wants them to be.
‘What religion are the Aboriginal people, Mary?’ Hiroshi asks, knowing that there would be no Shinto followers in Australia outside of his army peers.
‘I am Catholic, my family are Catholic. There are only Catholics and Protestants in town. And people who don’t believe in God at all. Uncle Kevin calls them atheists. My mother calls them heathens. Do you have a god, Hiroshi?’
‘We don’t have one god,’ he says, ‘we have many gods, called kami. They are sacred spirits that represent important elements like the trees and mountains, rivers and the rain.’ He stops, wondering if what he is saying makes sense to the young woman in front of him. ‘Our faith is Shinto, it means the way of the gods. We say prayers and make offerings to kami for health, our families, children and safety. We have a lot of respect for nature, land and the crops we harvest. We have ceremonies but we don’t go to church. We go to a shrine.’
‘Your Shinto faith is like our Aboriginal spirituality then, and connection to land and Mother Earth,’ Mary says. ‘We respect all living things. I have a totem, the goanna.’ She pauses. ‘Where will your family go to pray for you if they think you are –’ she suddenly stops short of saying ‘dead’.
‘They will go to our local temple, but there is a special shrine in Tokyo they will go to also. It is called the Yasukuni Shrine.’ Hiroshi can feel tears welling as he thinks of his family grieving for their lost son and brother. It is almost more than he can bear and he shakes his head as he adds, ‘They will go there to worship my spirit because they do not have a body to cremate. There are no bodies buried there. And the temple is just for people who have died at war, or protecting Japan. We believe the spirits of fallen soldiers are entombed there. My family will believe my spirit is there already too.’
He takes a deep breath, looking at Mary for some understanding, some comfort, but what can this naïve young girl in front of him who understands nothing about his world possibly do? He is too emotional to explain what his supposed death means to his family. But he wants to talk – he needs to talk about what is happening back home. This friendship with Mary is not a normal experience for a Japanese man, at war or at home.
‘They believe I have died for my country. I should have died.’ He almost chokes on his own guilt as he says it out loud.
‘No, you shouldn’t have died!’ Mary steps towards him. It is the closest they have ever been and it feels like there is a magnet drawing them together. It troubles them both but the desire is undeniable. Hiroshi wants to fall into her arms and cry like a child. Mary wants to hug him and let him know that no one wants him dead.
‘It is important to protect your country, Mary,’ he says, then adds, ‘You are supposed to be prepared to die for your country. I am expected to die for my country.’ Hiroshi believes he is a pacifist and is trying to convey that to Mary.
‘Australia is made up of lots of countries,’ Mary says. ‘Every tribe has their own area of land, like a country. Australia is like the map of Europe – do you know the map of Europe?’ Mary knows Europe and Asia and the Americas because the Smiths have a globe on Mr Smith’s desk as well as an atlas where she tried to find Hiroshi’s island but it was too hard. Mr Smith likes to think he is worldly, Mrs Smith has said more than once.
‘Yes, I went to university and I spent a lot of time in the library, learning about much more than English. I was always very interested in geography.’ Hiroshi motions for Mary to continue – he likes to hear her voice and see her face light up when she talks about things that are important to her.
‘There are lots of Aboriginal tribes in Australia. We have different languages and foods and spiritual beliefs, so we have lots of countries in one country.’ Mary hopes that makes sense to Hiroshi, because she doesn’t know how else to explain it. He nods as though he understands.
‘If you think about the map of Europe with Italy and Germany and Spain and all the different people and cultures, well, Australia is like that. And the white people from England, they are like a lot of noisy, angry visitors on a holiday that never really ends.’ Mary giggles to herself, repeating what her Uncle Kevin has said many times. She is very fond of her Uncle Kevin. ‘And this land here, it belongs to my tribe, even though the white people and the government act like it belongs to them.’ Mary is now repeating what her father often says.
‘But if the Aboriginal people fight for their land, then the white people won’t be able to own it. Don’t they fight for it, Mary?’
‘My dad says there have been many wars on our land, but we always lose.’
‘Why?’
Mary thinks back to a late night in a smoke-filled kitchen a while ago, when she sat at the table with her parents and her dad talked about all the massacres on Wiradjuri land. ‘White people have been shooting Aboriginal people since they arrived. It’s why so many Wiradjuri are gone,’ she says. ‘There’s over a dozen massacre sites around Bathurst. That’s about sixty-five miles from here. And further up north, there’s a town called Mudgee, where some white man led a shooting party and killed so many people no one even knows how ma
ny there were.’ Mary remembers her father saying that no one probably cared either, but she doesn’t say that to Hiroshi. ‘It was about a hundred years ago, I think, but back then it happened all the time. This one man called Chamberlain, well, they reckon he killed about twenty Wiradjuri people just for stealing some cattle – after the white men had come and stolen their land. That’s straight out murder!’
‘Did your people fight for your land, Mary?’
‘Not with planes and bombs, no, but we did fight. War takes many forms, so my dad says. And there are more white people than us and we cannot fight guns with spears or fists.’ Mary is repeating everything she has heard her father say over the years but they have become her feelings, her words, and her beliefs too. ‘And now we are in a moral war against the government because they do not recognise us as human beings. And if they do not support us, why should we support them?’
She doesn’t give Hiroshi a chance to respond to the question. ‘We are not citizens, Hiroshi, we cannot vote and we can’t go to war overseas either, because you have to be Australian to fight for Australia.’
‘So your people do not go to the war in New Guinea or Europe either?’
‘Some of our men have enlisted in the war, yes, but some also had to lie about their race, because you can’t be Aboriginal and go to war. It’s very confusing for us. One of our local men from here, Jim Murray, he was in World War One,’ she says. ‘When people talk about our soldiers, they always talk about Jim. He is a guard up the camp, but I don’t see him much. Maybe you saw him?’
‘I saw one guard who was the same colour as you, I think that must have been the Jim you are talking about.’
‘Some Aboriginal men tried to enlist because they wanted to travel, to leave Cowra. Some also wanted to defend their land, even if the government wouldn’t let them keep it. But they were rejected on the grounds of race, of being Aboriginal, but Jim reckons when Australia needed more soldiers and they couldn’t use conscription, then there was some kind of order that said that half-castes could enlist in the Australian Imperial Force.’
