Fireflies

by Ben Byrne

  “Another present, Michiko? Anyone would think you had a rich old man off somewhere!”

  But she just smiled mysteriously, as if she hadn’t heard, and then poured out the tea, still humming away to herself: “How are you? How do you do?”

  ~ ~ ~

  The afternoon was gloomy as I walked through the ruins of Asakusa. I had promised myself that I would visit the site of our old home, to light some incense for my parents, and for Hiroshi, now that I’d decided that he was gone.

  The white-haired American officer had taken Michiko off for the day. The night before, she’d joined the band on the stage, a red plastic rose in her hair. She’d smiled into the piano player’s eyes, then sung into the silver microphone in her birdlike voice, pausing every now and then to throw out little expressions that she’d learned from Uncle English. The officer sat below her, his legs spread wide, laughing and clapping along.

  Empty brick shells were all that were left of the trinket stalls along Nakamise arcade. A cat scuttled along the low, broken walls to escape the streaks of rain. At the end of the arcade, the Senso Temple had more or less vanished. All that was left was a big gravel precinct, charred stumps of the ginkgo trees and craters full of muddy water, crinkling in the drizzle. I shook my head sadly as I turned to walk toward Umamichi Street.

  How dismal it all was now! I thought. Even when I’d been a girl, there’d been kaminari-okoshi sweets and bear paw charms. Fortune tellers, jazz dancers, and troupes of actors; the overhanging stalls painted with bright scenes from the kabuki, selling wood prints and postcards and wind-up toys. Pots billowing with fragrant steam and the mouth-watering smells from the yakitori sellers as they brushed their smoking skewers with delicious sauces, the serving girls running between the tables, the oil lanterns bathing the street with a soft, rosy glow.

  The war had sucked all of the colour away. All that were left now were hovels of rotten planks and sagging tarpaulin, the streets all churned to mud.

  I finally found the square cistern in the middle of our alley. But I couldn’t make out the site of our home anymore. Eventually, I found a burned patch a little way on, which I thought must be about right, and I wedged my sticks of incense into the black mud. It took me a whole box of matches to get them lit and water dripped down my neck as I stood up to say a prayer.

  The sky seemed to turn several shades darker. All of a sudden, the rain began to hurtle against my umbrella, and I had the intense feeling that I wasn’t welcome there. It was if my mother and father were standing behind me, ashamed and angry, hissing at me to go away. The impression grew so vivid that I became quite frightened. I hitched up my skirt and hurried away down the alley, stopping only to glance back at the incense sticks, still smoldering in the rain.

  The tram was packed on the way back home, the windows misted with grimy condensation. An ex-soldier was squashed up against me, a short man of about forty. The brim of his army cap poked into my nose. I could tell by the dirt on his neck and the sour smell that he hadn’t washed for quite some time. I closed my eyes and hoped that Michiko would be there by the time I got back.

  A cold hand grasped me between the legs and I froze. The man in the cap was staring at my shoulder, his lips writhing beneath his dirty moustache. His hand clasped me firmly and squeezed and I shut my eyes, burning with shame. Tears welled up in my throat as his fingers gripped harder.

  I suddenly opened my eyes again. What right did he have to do this? I thought. Did he think he could touch me without paying? Who did he think he was?

  I jerked my shoulder violently into his face.

  “Pervert!” I shrieked, “You filthy pervert! You think you can just grab anyone you want?”

  The passengers jostled around us, happy for the diversion on such a rotten day.

  “Who do you think you are?” I said. “Are you such a hero? You couldn’t even win the war. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  The man stared blankly at the floor. His lips fluttered and, for a moment, I didn’t know whether I felt hatred or pity. The tram shuddered to a halt, and I elbowed my way through the crowd and jumped down into the wet street. As the tram clanked off, the passengers stared at me through little rubbed windows in the condensation.

  I realized I had left my umbrella on the tram in all the confusion, so I was quite soaked by the time I got home. When I arrived, the house was cold. Michiko was nowhere to be seen.

  I let out a sob. I took the bottle of whisky from the cupboard and poured myself a cup. The fiery liquor soothed my stomach, and I sat on the floor, stock still, listening to the rain as it thrashed against the roof.

  Michiko was probably off at some expensive restaurant or inn with her rich new lover, I thought. I started to feel quite sorry for myself and I poured myself another large cup of whisky. Then, though I tried to resist, my thoughts drifted to Osamu. I remembered the time he’d taken me to a comic show at the Café D’Asakusa, how the students had howled with laughter. I remembered the look of disbelief on his face the day he had received his call-up papers. He’d trembled and stammered — his mother should have applied for exemption, he said; he was an only son after all. I remembered his thin, muscular body in the back room of the Victory Hotel, after he’d come to our house on the night of his leaving ceremony. I wished now that I had let him do what he had wanted much earlier. I’d been with so many others since then, after all. If I had given in to him sooner, I would have those times to remember now as well, not just that solitary night, when he’d shuddered with joy once before falling asleep next to me. The next day, we’d waved them all off at the station. The soldiers wearing their thousand-stitch belts, sewn with good luck tokens, wrapped tight around their bellies. His mother refusing to look at me, and the women from the Defence Association cheering as the train pulled away: Congratulations on being called to the Front!

  I wondered if memories were like precious porcelain that should only be brought out on special occasions; whether they were like fruits that lost their lustre if they spent too long in the sun. If that was the case, I told myself, I would have to be careful how often I thought of Osamu now. Or of my parents; or Hiroshi, for that matter. I didn’t want my memories of them to shrivel away like withered flowers. They were the only thing I had left of them now, after all. Except the charred scrap of my mother’s kimono. And the teakettle, of course . . .

  The door slid open and Michiko came crashing in. She tumbled amongst the pots and pans, making a terrible racket. Then she started to sing so loudly that I was terrified she would wake the neighbours.

  “Michiko,” I hissed, “be quiet!”

  She stumbled toward me.

  “Satsuko,” she wailed. “Satsuko, help me. I’m so drunk!”

  She slumped down onto the floor and clasped me around the neck, giggling.

  “He’s in love with me!” she shouted. “He wants me to be his only one!”

  I clamped my hand over her mouth. I was sure I didn’t want to hear her secrets, least of all in the middle of the night. Viciously, she bit my finger and burst into laughter. Then she slid over, waving her head from side to side.

  Suddenly, she sat bolt upright and made an odd sound. She rushed over to the door and heaved it open. The she fell onto her hands and knees, and retched in the alley outside.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, when I awoke, Michiko was already up. She was wearing a pale green dress, standing over the stove, from which a delicious smell was rising.

  When she saw me, she smiled and knelt down on the floor in front of our futon.

  “Please forgive me, Satsuko, for my juvenile behaviour last night. It must have been very discomforting for you.”

  I admitted that she had seemed rather drunk, but said that she should think no more about it. She smiled, and bowed again.

  “Now Satsuko,” she said. “Please come and have your breakfast.”

 
She opened up the pot on the stove, and I cried out when I saw what was inside. A silver fish, a herring, I thought, was bubbling away in a sauce of miso and saké. The aroma was just wonderful, and I glanced at the door to check that it was closed — the neighbours would have been madly jealous if they had smelled the food.

  “Wherever did it come from, Michiko?”

  She raised her eyebrows and put her hands in the air, performing a little swaying dance. Then she drew an envelope from inside her dress and handed it to me.

  “Look.”

  I gasped. The envelope was full of money, an astonishing amount, more than we could have possibly earned even if we’d worked at the Oasis for months.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I asked. “Save it up?”

  She gave a short laugh. “No, Satsuko. First we’re going to have some breakfast. Then I’m going to get some sleep. And then, you and I are going shopping.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The Matsuzakaya department store might have been burned out, but the Mitsukoshi had reopened and I felt a thrill as we stepped through its wide doors. The shop had always been famous for its opulence and luxury, and even its wrapping paper had seemed beyond the means of a family like mine. But there wasn’t much opulence or luxury left now, I thought, as we walked amongst the empty shelves and rails. An icy draft was blowing through the place and there was a crunch of rubble beneath the torn carpet underfoot. The staff stood about shivering in their uniforms. They didn’t look quite so haughty anymore.

  They scuttled after Michiko as if she were a noblewoman visiting from her country estate. She picked up a dress here and a shawl there, telling the attendant to wrap them and have them delivered to our house. But when she gave the address, they looked at us suspiciously. After all, Shinagawa wasn’t the kind of place that anyone would have associated with nobility. From then on, I had the distinct feeling they were giving us dirty looks and muttering behind our backs, as if they knew that there was only one way girls like us could afford to shop at the Mitsukoshi.

  “Please can we go now, Michiko?” I whispered. Michiko glanced at the assembled staff, and a mischievous gleam came into her eyes.

  “Yes, Satsuko,” she said in a loud voice. “Perhaps you’re right. Let’s leave all this rubbish behind and go down to the Shimbashi blue-sky market instead. After all, there’s so little to buy here!”

  And she flounced out the door as they bowed down low, their faces frozen. She burst into laughter as soon as we got out into the street.

  “Those stuck-up prigs!” she cried. “No one looks down on me anymore, Satsuko!”

  In fact, there wasn’t a great deal to buy at the Shimbashi blue-sky that day either, and Michiko finally had to be content with some sheer silk stockings and a floral scarf that the old woman claimed was from Paris. Just as we were leaving, we passed another stall, piled high with old, elegant kimonos.

  I froze. Right on top, was something I recognized intimately. A beautiful green kimono, embroidered with golden peonies. The kimono that my mother had bought me on my sixteenth birthday, and which I’d been forced to sell to buy rice.

  I leaned over to touch the hem with my fingertips, remembering at once how fine the stitching was, how delicate the embroidery. All sorts of memories and feelings passed through me then. Michiko must have noticed my expression, because the next thing I knew she was airily asking the stallholder how much it cost.

  “Don’t be silly, Michiko!” I said, but she shushed me and asked the stallholder again. As I suspected, the price was many, many times more than I had been paid, but without even bargaining, Michiko snapped out four hundred-yen notes from her purse and handed them over.

  “Michiko, please! Don’t be ridiculous!” I begged.

  But the woman was already wrapping the kimono in colourful crêpe paper and tying it with a ribbon. When she had finished, Michiko wordlessly took it from her and handed it to me.

  Then, I started to cry, for the first time in many months. As I stood there, shaking with sobs, I remembered how my mother had helped me dress in the kimono with such pride in her eyes; how Osamu had noticed me wearing it at the Spring Festival, and had strolled over to compliment me, blinking with embarrassment.

  I remembered the face of his horrible mother, the day I’d gone to her villa, trembling with nerves, to ask if there’d been any news of him from the South Seas. Her mouth puckered, as if she’d been sucking a sour apricot.

  “Dead,” she had hissed. “Shot in the stomach. Now get away, you slut.”

  I was sobbing so much now that the woman who owned the stall sidled round and took my arm, patting it affectionately until I had recovered.

  Later on that evening, after dinner, Michiko brushed my hair and made me try on the kimono again. It was as beautiful as ever, though quite loose around my shoulders. I hadn’t quite noticed how thin I’d become. Michiko insisted on painting my face and then held up a mirror so that I could see my reflection. She took out a small vial and began to scrape a bright red paste onto my fingernails. To my horror, they began to turn crimson.

  “What on earth are you doing, Michiko?” I said.

  “Don’t be so old fashioned, Satsuko,” she said. “It’s just nail rouge. One of the Americans gave it to me. It’s very modern.”

  I was suspicious at first, but finally I gave in and let her colour them all. Afterward she poured us both some whisky and we giggled together for a while before going to bed.

  ~ ~ ~

  Michiko left me not long after that. Her white-haired officer — a General, or Admiral, it seemed — wanted to set her up in an apartment of her own in Akasaka, where he could visit her whenever he chose.

  “Michiko,” I murmured, after she told me. “Perhaps I could come and visit you sometimes. I could even come and stay, to help you get settled in —”

  “No, Satsuko,” she said quickly, shaking her head, “You can’t, he’s very jealous, you see. He’ll expect me to be there at all hours.”

  A hard lump grew in my throat.

  “Well then,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Michiko clung onto my arm, and rubbed her face against my shoulder.

  “What do you think you will do now, Satsuko?” she finally asked.

  “Well,” I said with a forced smile. “I imagine I will just carry on working at the Oasis. With all the other less beautiful girls.”

  Michiko’s face crumpled and she burst into tears. She hugged me, burying her face in my hair.

  “But you are beautiful, Satsuko,” she cried, “You are!”

  But whether I was or not, at the end of that week, a swish black sedan rolled up outside, and a driver came in to help Michiko move her things. He loaded up her trunks of dresses and gowns, her boxes of creams and vials. She strapped on her new high-heeled shoes and took one last look at our leaky room, then embraced me and tottered outside. With a wave, she clambered into the back seat. The chauffeur closed the door and, with a whining engine, the car reversed back down the alley.

  13

  NO.1 SHIMBUN ALLEY

  (HAL LYNCH)

  A grizzled mongrel nosed about in the dark fluid that welled from a broken standpipe on a street of ruined buildings near Yurakucho Station. On the front of the dilapidated hotel was a hand-painted sign: Tokyo Foreign Correspondent’s Club. A staff car ground to a halt in the dirt road outside and I followed two Allied colonels up the worn steps, through a set of glass doors to a lobby, where correspondents stood in telephone booths, dictating stories. After a creaking ascent in the iron elevator, the old operator wrenched open the guardrail to reveal a hallway, redolent with the smoke of pipes and cigarettes and cigars. Two Japanese busboys bowed, and swung open a further set of doors. A polyglot clamour emerged from within.

  The ballroom was crowded. A gleaming baby grand stood in the centre, a white-haired diplomat in dinner dress at its
stool, holding uproarious court to his obsequious coterie. A clump of reporters harangued a U.S. Army major who spread out his hands in defence as their pencils jabbed the air around him. A pair of British naval captains, white caps under their arms, stood with woollen socks pulled high, being cheerfully molested by two old ladies in grey chiffon and horn-rimmed glasses. To the side of the room, crumpled correspondents interviewed nervous-looking Japanese; Chinese generals slumped on sofas and Allied officers sat drinking with women too pretty to be their wives. Between the encampments went Japanese boys in red and gold uniforms carrying trays laden with square bottles of whisky, delivering glasses, squirting soda siphons, slipping their tips into their side pockets and tapping them for good luck.

  “Glad you could make it,” growled Mark Ward as he materialized by my side. He gave a lopsided grin when he noticed my expression.

  “Where are we, Ward? Casablanca?”

  An exquisite Japanese lady came down the steps, her black hair piled high to show a snow white neck, a string of silvery pearls tracing the prow of her ruffled silk dress. I knew her, I thought — the pin-up from the Oasis club, who had sat on McHardy’s lap that night. She was moving up in the world. A grizzled, white-haired Third Fleet admiral barged forward to greet her, and she let out an almost genuine cry of delight as she took hold of his outstretched hands.

  Ward led me into the crowd, signalling to a boy for drinks.

  “This is the nerve centre, Lynch — the reliquary!”

  The boy handed me a glass of raw Japanese whisky and I took a large gulp.

  “Who runs the show here?” I said.

  “We do.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Wherever newsmen gather in the world, Lynch, needs must that they have a bar. Without such a place, stories go untold, confidences unshared. Last September, MacArthur decided that Japan didn’t need any special correspondents, with their irritating habit of independent thought and inquiry. He stopped giving them billets. So we took over this place instead.”