Fireflies

by Ben Byrne

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice wavering. “I wish it was true as much as you do. Really I do. But it’s just not.”

  From somewhere in the garden came a faint sound, like a bird, or a child, crying far away.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, waving a hopeless hand at the hall around us. “But this is all we’ve got.”

  Aiko burst into tears. Koji looked at me in confusion, as if he could see ghosts fluttering in the air.

  Shin crashed his fist into his palm and clambered to his feet.

  “You’re so clever, aren’t you, you bastard?” he snarled. “You’re always right about everything, aren’t you? Well, this time you’re fucking wrong!”

  His thick lips were trembling.

  I stared back at him, appalled. This was the worst thing of all, I thought. That such a bully as Shin could get caught up in such helpless fantasies . . . It was hideous.

  Shin lurched toward me and I slid backward on the floor as he rotated his shoulders.

  A horrible feeling of guilt and shame came over me. I realized he missed his violent, drunken father as much as I missed my own. I’d never even imagined it was possible.

  As if a boy from Sengen Alley was too stupid to feel pain, as if only a smart kid like me from Senso High School was sensitive enough to feel hurt, to feel loss.

  The children stared at me tearfully as Shin edged closer, his face twisted in anger.

  All those times when they’d cried out in the night, I’d ignored them. Every time they’d started to snivel, I’d told the others to sit on them, as if they were unfeeling sacks of rice. I’d made them work the streets day and night, forcing them to pick up saliva-soaked cigarette butts, to root about in the filth and night soil, grubbing about like animals, acting as if I was their big brother, their father even! What kind of dad would do this to his kids? Force them to work until they were fainting, locking them in at night in this collapsing ruin, which was nothing more than a filthy old whorehouse, and where we’d probably all die together —

  “We’re sick of you, you bastard,” Shin hissed. He clutched his fingers into a fist, and I backed away, suddenly scared.

  They’d have been better off without me, I thought.

  Tears flooded my eyes as Shin raised his elbow into the air.

  Tomoko would still be alive —

  The fist slammed into my face and I toppled backward.

  Shin loomed over me, the other children gathered behind his legs, as if for protection.

  “It’s all over, big brother,” he said, waving a trembling finger at my face. “We’re not going to be your slaves anymore. We’re going away to the holiday camps. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

  My slaves! Tears ran down by cheeks and I spoke through wrenching sobs.

  “Go away then. Do whatever you want. Just see if I care.”

  I raced outside, through the long grass to the bottom of the garden. With a howl, I sank down onto the earth. I clutched my shirt to my face, and pounded the ground with my fist, whimpering with bitter tears.

  ~ ~ ~

  The signs for lost relations in Ueno Plaza were all peeling in soggy strips from the bronze statue of Saigo Takamori. The shoeshine boys were playing catch as I smoked a newspaper cigarette. Last year, there’d been signs everywhere, I remembered. Scrolls unfurling from every wall and notices tacked to every telegraph pole. One night in winter, a bunch of kids had gone around tearing them all down. They’d brought them up here in piles and lit a huge bonfire, dancing around the flames and whooping as the names and addresses and hopeless messages all turned black and went up in smoke.

  I was so lost in thought, that I didn’t notice the policemen until the very last moment. There was a flash of blue, and then they pounced. One clouted my spine with a bamboo stave and I sprawled on the ground in agony. A boot landed on my head, pressing my face into the gravel, and my arms were jerked up behind my back, making tears spring into my eyes.

  A hand pulled my head up by the hair, and I saw an inspector with round glasses and a straggly loach moustache, bawling at me, spraying my face with saliva.

  “You filthy shit!” he hollered, slapping my face. “How do you think you dogs make us look?”

  The shoeshine boys were slinging their boxes over their shoulders now and racing off down the steep banks of the plaza. More policemen were swarming up the steps, holding out their arms and trying to corral them as if they were escaping pigs.

  With a twist, I managed to suddenly break free, but the inspector’s hobnailed boot swung up straight away and caught me right in the balls.

  “You dog,” he snarled. He started to kick me in the behind, knocking me all the way across the plaza. At the bottom of the steps, there was a military truck with a wide canvas awning, its engine already rumbling. Policemen were standing at the back, hoisting children in, counting them off on their fingers. I half rolled, half fell down the steps, my head cracking against the stone. My camera was under my shirt and I clutched it against my chest, desperately trying to protect it. I landed at the bottom, stunned senseless. The inspector hoisted me up, grabbing me between the legs, and shoved me inside. I toppled forward, and the tailgate of the truck slammed up behind me.

  There were about a dozen other kids in there already, and they shouted in panic as the truck lurched forward, throwing us all to the floor. Liquid was trickling about, and I realized that some of the little ones had wet themselves. I recognized a few of them, shoeshine boys mostly, but there was an older boy too that I’d never see before, who sat on the floor with his head between his legs. His thin arms were covered in purple and yellow bruises, and the top of his forehead was gashed, crusted with dried blood.

  The truck spun about and I went flying again. As it began to rumble down the road, the children spoke in terrified whispers.

  “Where are we going? Where are they taking us?”

  I saw a strip of sky and the flash of buildings through the gap between the tailgate and the roof.

  “They’re taking us to prison,” someone whimpered.

  Another boy shook his head. “That’s not what I heard.” I recognized him — he’d come back from Manchukuo the winter before, and he’d once told me about a German Shepherd dog he’d had, which the Russians had shot when they’d invaded. “They’re taking us out to the Arakawa River,” he said. “They’re going to shoot us one by one, and shove us in. They don’t want kids like us around anymore.”

  The older boy lifted up his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and behind a harelip his teeth were broken.

  “You’re all wrong,” he said, quietly. Everyone stared at him. “They’re taking us to an orphanage.”

  For some reason, the word sent a shiver down my spine.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I just escaped from one. They’re like hell.”

  Fresh blood glistened as he scratched the wound on his head. “They feed you worse than on the streets, and keep you locked up in cages. Half the time they leave you naked so you don’t run off.”

  My scalp suddenly crawled. The holiday camps.

  I took a running leap at the tailgate of the truck, and somehow, I just managed to get my fingertips over the lip. I scrabbled my feet against the metal, and finally got some purchase. As I hoisted myself up, I saw that we were driving down a dirt road between suburban houses. The truck was moving fast as I clambered out over the lip of the tailgate. Terrified, I looked down at the racing ground. Suddenly I leaped out.

  The sky and earth was spinning, and then my bones were cracking over and over in the dirt, the strap of my camera strangling me, the metal stabbing at my chest. I heard the violent blast of a horn, and I twisted and rolled into the tall grass at the side of the road, a split second before the massive wheels of another truck crunched past my head. Other trucks went by in convoy, one after the other,
dark green, anonymous, their wheel wells coated in dust.

  I tried to stand up, but an agonizing bolt went through my ankle and I collapsed. For a few minutes, I lay there, trying to catch my breath, desperately squeezing the flesh and bone beneath my fingers. Then I suddenly thought of the children and I started to panic. The holiday camps. How had the story got so tangled up? Were we really so desperate now? That we would believe anything at all?

  My ankle throbbed with pain as I tried to stand up again. Slowly, I started to hobble down the road, back in the direction we’d come.

  About an hour later, I crossed a bridge, and finally came to the overground train tracks. My ankle was white and had swelled up to twice its normal size. My forehead was clammy and I felt sick. The sky was darkening to grey, and rain began to fall as I leaned against a shopfront to rest for a moment.

  The children’s faces flashed back into my mind. Hurry! Almost crying with pain, I stood up straight. The rain started to fall violently around me as I grasped the camera beneath my shirt, and started to hobble, with agonizing slowness, up the hill toward the inn.

  ~ ~ ~

  The wooden gates to the courtyard were wide open and the broken locks were dangling in the scrubby weeds. A heavy juddering came from inside, and I heard the shouts of strange voices. A long Fuso bus was parked right outside the porch, its big, white headlights blazing in the rain. A driver in spectacles sat hunched behind the wheel, staring out through the windshield with a bored look on his face. At the back of the bus was a policeman, facing the doorway of the inn.

  Nobu and Koji came out, carrying little bundles tied with string. Aiko came next, and I saw that she was carrying the little suitcase that I’d found for her one day in the rubble of an old house, made of scratched tin and painted with the smiling face of a kitten.

  The driver gunned the engine, and I heard her squeal with excitement as the officer hoisted her up. Nobu and Koji clambered inside as the officer tapped them on the heads with his pencil. Finally, Shin came out, still wearing the torn shorts I’d first seen him in. He frowned, and paused for a moment, gazing back at the broken-down house, as if he wanted to freeze it in his memory.

  “Get in!” the officer bawled. Shin hopped aboard. The officer slammed the back doors of the bus, then came up and clambered in to the front. As the bus lurched forward, I spun around, pressing my back up against the wall. The bus rumbled through the gateway and I could see the face of the driver as he glanced through the dirty windshield and heaved the wheel around. The heavy wheels crunched into the road and the bus drove right past me. Aiko’s and Koji’s faces appeared at the back window, and they heaved down the panes and leaned out, waving at the inn.

  “Bye-bye!” they cried. “Bye-bye!”

  Aiko suddenly saw me crouching against the wall and her jaw fell open.

  “Hiroshi!” she screamed. “Hiroshi-kun!”

  I started to stumble after them, but my ankle suddenly gave way and I collapsed into the road in agony. “Come back!” I shouted, waving at them desperately.

  Nobu’s head appeared at the window. His eyes lit up when he saw me, just as the truck began to accelerate down the road.

  “Come on, Hiro, come on!”

  “No!” I yelled. I struggled to my feet and somehow made it a few steps forward, a sob clutching in my throat. “No,” I cried, “Please!”

  “Come on Hiro! We’re going away to the holiday camps!”

  My ankle was burning as I hobbled forward. The children’s faces were screwed up with excitement and they pounded against the doors with their fists.

  “Run, Hiro! You can do it!”

  I could hardly speak, I was crying so hard. “It’s an orphanage!” I shouted, “An orphanage!”

  My ankle gave way and I fell, the gravel slicing my knees open. As the bus reached the brow of the hill, I tore open my shirt and held out the camera, waving it desperately in the air.

  “What about your portraits?” I shouted, as the tears streamed down my face. “I wanted to take your portraits!”

  The bus rolled away down the hill and I saw the children waving at me from the back, through the rain. I collapsed into the dust, clutching onto the camera. As the bus disappeared, I could still hear their faint voices, calling out my name.

  24

  PRIMROSE

  (HAL LYNCH)

  My new home was a room on the second floor of the press club that I shared with three other men. I had a lumpy mattress and a coarse woollen blanket that reached either my neck or my toes, depending on my preference. I’d hunted around for Mark Ward after I arrived, anxious to talk to him, to show him my negatives and ask his advice about what to do next. But he was travelling in the north now, up in the Snow Country, working on some piece about unions and sharecroppers, and wouldn’t be back for weeks.

  One afternoon I was walking along the riverbank, near the Nihonbashi Bridge. I realized I wasn’t far from where I’d first encountered my bargeman all those months ago. It was as if some mysterious inner compass had compelled me to return to the place. I paused for a while as I looked out at the grey river. Dusk was falling, and I became seized with a powerful urge to drink a whisky — perhaps several whiskies — in the warmth and comfort of some cozy saloon. I ventured into a warren of low shops and rundown tenement houses. Halfway down the street, I saw a red lantern, glowing like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I hurried toward it, already feeling the drink warm and radiant inside my belly.

  I ducked under the blue half-curtain. A hefty woman was polishing glasses behind the bar and called out in welcome, waving to a line of stools set up at the empty counter. The place was neat and snug — exactly what I’d had in mind — and I took my seat with a pleasurable sense of anticipation. The woman was taller than any of the others I’d seen in Japan, and deep dimples appeared in her cheeks as I requested whisky. She poured me a glass of Suntory, which I sipped with intense satisfaction.

  “American?” she asked.

  I tipped my glass toward her in a rueful gesture of acknowledgement.

  She placed her elbows on the counter, supporting her chin with her hands. She gazed at me with a frankness that I found somewhat disconcerting.

  “GI-san?” she asked. I braced myself for the inevitable offer of a girl. But then she frowned, shaking her head.

  “No, you not GI type I think.”

  I was amused. “Oh no? What type am I then?”

  She squinted. “You artist type, I think.”

  I grinned. “Is that so?”

  She nodded, apparently sure of herself. “Yes. I think.”

  I liked the woman already. She was burly and maternal all at once, with a dash of sultry sexuality lurking somewhere beneath it all.

  “I wish I was,” I said. “But I’m just a reporter. Shimbun kisha desu.”

  “Oh.” She raised her eyebrows. “Repootaa. Very good Japanese.”

  She topped up my drink and poured one for herself also.

  “Chis-u.” She held her glass in the air. I clinked it against my own. She knocked hers back. I did the same and an agreeable warmth hit my guts. Why hadn’t I visited pleasant places like this more often, I thought?

  “Where you stay now?” she demanded.

  I laughed again. “Well, that’s a funny thing . . . ”

  Leaning over the counter, as if I were a regular soak in a downtown speakeasy, I found myself explaining that I’d recently been obliged to leave my quarters. She looked me up and down for a second, then her eyes brightened and she hurried around the bar and took my arm.

  “Come — look!” she said, pulling at me.

  I was feeling pleasantly tight by now, and let her lead me away through a back door to a flight of narrow steps. At the top of the stairs, a door opened to a small room with a stained ceiling. There was a futon in the corner and a battered-looking desk pushed up beneath the window.
Big raindrops were trickling down the cracked panes.

  “You stay here,” she said, excitedly. “Very cheap!”

  Stay there? I thought. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Exclusive rights to my own reading lamp, unlike at the press club. A good enough place to lie low, plot out the next steps of my life. I could rewrite my Hiroshima piece, read books, drink whisky. And what a change from the Continental, with its white-haired officers in dressing gowns, scratching at their bristles in the mouldering bathrooms.

  I turned to face the lady and negotiate terms.

  A mischievous gleam appeared in her eye: “One more whisky?”

  ~ ~ ~

  The next day I heaved a knapsack and suitcase up the steep wooden staircase to my new home. I lined up my tattered collection of Japanese books along the window ledge and lay a typewriter case I’d requisitioned from the Stars and Stripes on the desk. The room was quiet, private. At one corner of the room, I prized up the floorboard with my jackknife. I placed my Hiroshima negatives beneath it, the envelope hidden inside a cigar box and wrapped up in a cotton sweater for good measure.

  I lay back on the futon and lit a cigarette. The room was filled with a pale grey light, and I listened to the rain patter against the roof and the windows. The place reminded me of an old forestry hut in the woods near our home, which I’d found when I was a teenager, just after my father had died. I’d hidden out there for a week, until my uncle had finally tracked me down. He’d put his arm around my shoulder. “Come on home, Hal. He’s gone. Your mother needs you now . . . ”

  Glancing, butterfly dreams. When I awoke, I was disoriented to find that it was dark outside. Night had fallen, and the crackling voice of Josephine Baker was drifting up from the bar below. As I came downstairs, I saw my new landlady, Mrs. Ishino, arranging bottles of liquor on the shelves. A portrait of a Japanese man in a flying jacket hung above them. Officers sat at the tables; a couple of girls in plain dresses were laughing away with them, their hands over their mouths. They weren’t exactly beautiful, I thought, but seemed warm and friendly and were somehow the more appealing for that. As I took a stool at the bar, Mrs. Ishino smiled indulgently and poured me a drink.