Fireflies

by Ben Byrne

  The girl in the purple dress gave me a sharp thrill whenever I saw her. She must have been about eighteen, and her hair was cut in a straight line so that it fell just above her eyes. There was something about her thick legs and giant breasts that made my stomach melt; so much so that I had to scramble up the ladder to the top of the railway tracks and helplessly relieve myself. As I watched her through my camera, day after day, a stealthy plan began to form in my mind.

  Mr. Suzuki had told me that I was getting paid at the end of the week, fifty yen. Yotchan cost ten, I’d heard. Finally, I decided. It was time.

  Mr. Suzuki must have noticed that I was distracted, because toward the end of the week, he called me into his office, a wooden hut on the edge of the market. He told me to sit down. A crisp pile of black-and-white photographs lay on the desk in front of him, and he grinned as he flicked through them. At the end of the stack was the blurry shot of Yotchan.

  “Cute,” he said. “Not my type, though.”

  He leaned forward. “You want to see some real pictures of girls?”

  My heart began to thud as he took an envelope from his desk drawer and slid it over to me. I quickly stuffed it under my shirt as he gave me a wink.

  “Don’t worry, kid. I was just the same at your age. Though I’m guessing you’re a man already, right?”

  I swallowed, glancing down at the picture of Yotchan. He grunted. “No? Well. I’m disappointed in you. It’s about time, isn’t it?”

  My pulse started to race.

  “You’ve worked hard all month,” he said. “You could do with a break. I’ll tell you what, next weekend, we’ll go to a place I know in Shinjuku. They’ll show you the hills and the valleys.”

  I started to tremble. This was it. I bowed my head, clutching the envelope beneath my shirt. He called to me as I was leaving the office.

  “They’re all good girls,” he said. “Not like real geisha. More like Daruma dolls.”

  I stared up at him, lost. He started to wheeze with laughter. “You can roll them over as much as you like!”

  ~ ~ ~

  I kept my head down as I shuffled through the market, painfully aware of the envelope hidden beneath my shirt. I didn’t see the girls until I had walked straight into them. Something soft bumped against my head and I was suddenly surrounded by a choking cloud of perfume.

  “Hey, look where you’re going, scorch!”

  Clouds of coloured nylon and cotton swirled around me. The girl’s faces were plastered with makeup and they grinned at me like jackals. Yotchan jerked her hand up in a brutal sexual motion.

  “Gone blind have you?”

  My cheeks pulsed. It was as if she could see right through me.

  A nasty grin came over her face. “Oh well. I don’t suppose you get much with that melted face of yours. How old are you anyway?”

  “Fifteen,” I muttered.

  Her eyes narrowed as she edged closer. “Well. You’re practically a man already, then, aren’t you?”

  My face was nearly touching the pale skin between her throat and her breasts, my nose filled with the sour animal smell of her sweat.

  “Want to take me on, kid? You’ve got money, don’t you?”

  Despite my panic, I felt an almost excruciating excitement. Please, I thought, don’t let me lose control, not right here and now. Yotchan was staring at me slyly, her bright red lips moving round and round as she chewed her gum.

  Suddenly, her hand shot out and she gripped my privates. She squeezed as I gasped and her eyes grew wide.

  “Well!” she said. “You are a man after all.”

  She pulled my head toward her and crushed it against the pillow of her bosom. I heard the other girls shrieking with laughter, and I struggled to free myself, spluttering. The stallholders had all gathered round now and were cackling away, enjoying every moment.

  Yotchan snorted. “Well. He knows where to find me.”

  I stumbled backward. Yotchan fluttered her hand in the air.

  “Come back tonight. Make sure you bring enough money.”

  I slunk away, my cheeks throbbing.

  Yotchan suddenly exploded with a splutter of laughter. “Hey! You’ve forgotten something.”

  I froze, suddenly aware of the lack of weight within my shirt.

  I hardly dared glance back as I ran toward the railway embankment. Yotchan was bent double as she waved the photographs in the air, and the stallholders were all roaring with laughter, tears streaming down their faces.

  30

  SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

  (HAL LYNCH)

  Ward was subdued as he sat at the kitchen table in his fine new house in Shinjuku, freshly decorated in preparation for the arrival of his wife, Judy, from Chicago. A new set of wicker furniture graced the room and the sliding doors were wide open to disperse the lingering smell of fresh paint and pickled radish. I felt a pang of jealousy as he showed me the neat garden outside — the wisteria in bud over the doorway, a cherry tree ablaze with white blossom and filling the air with scent that mingled with a thread of incense from the temple nearby. His beard was thick now, streaked with silver, and he wore a long silk robe, as if he had just stepped out of some antique Japanese painting.

  “So where are we, Ward?”

  “I’ve talked to more people this week, Hal. Harry Welles from LIFE. Auberon Fox from TIME. They’re intrigued. They want to see your pictures as soon as you arrive home.”

  The whir of a cicada came from the trees. I went over and stood in the doorway. Up above the slanted tiles of the temple roof, a red balloon was adrift, pitching higher and higher in the breeze.

  “Are you ready?” he said.

  The balloon grew smaller in the sky, and finally became a scarlet dot in the heavens.

  “Almost. When’s Judy arriving?”

  “Friday.”

  “Everything fixed up?”

  Ward grunted. “Almost.”

  He stood up to fetch a bottle of Guckenheimer from the sideboard and poured us two glasses. Birdsong trilled from the garden; there was the faint, far off drone of Buddhist prayers being recited.

  “It’s a beautiful home, Ward. I’m sure you’ll be happy here.”

  He nodded steadily and sipped at his drink.

  “You’re going to miss Japan, Lynch. Isn’t that so?”

  I thought of the imprint of Satsuko on my bed that morning, the silent echo of the contours of her body. Stray strands of black hair upon the pillow. The cedarwood cigar box still waiting, hidden under the floorboard in the corner of my room.

  “You won’t look back from this, Lynch,” Ward said. “Believe me. It’ll be the making of you.”

  I nodded.

  He draped a sandalled foot over his big thigh and blinked heavily. He rubbed his eyes and gave a lopsided grin. “You know that I’m proud of you, don’t you, Hal?”

  I nodded. “Thank you. Mark.”

  He poured more whisky into his glass and sighed again, then turned to look at the last cherry blossom in the garden. My throat tightened. In the pale sunlight, sitting in his chair, for a moment, he looked just like my father.

  ~ ~ ~

  The first warmth of summer was hovering outside my window as I gazed over the crooked planks of the tenements below. A horse-drawn cart paused in the alley, and a ragged child stroked the animal’s flank. I rolled out the carbon from the drum of my typewriter. I was in shirtsleeves, rewriting what I hoped would be the final draft of my Hiroshima piece.

  There was a quiet knock at the door and Satsuko came in. She was carrying a glass of beer and some rice crackers. I sat her down upon my knee as I read over what I’d written. I ran my fingers through her hair. I kissed her. The sweeping horns of “Sentimental Journey” were drifting up through the floorboards, and streetcars clanged in the road as the dusky sunlight streamed over us. />
  The USS New Mexico was leaving the following week for San Francisco. I’d booked my passage that morning; the ticket was safe in my jacket pocket. At the Military Affairs office, I’d made inquiries about the legal procedure of Japanese emigration and entry to the United States. The captain had rolled his eyes and told me I was the third person to ask that day. The Alien Exclusion Act was still in place for Orientals, he said, but everyone thought it most likely would soon be rescinded, judging from the number of potential war brides strolling on the arms of American soldiers. Satsuko could join me later, I thought, after the restrictions were lifted. Five months, six at the most. After my photographs had been published. After the whole world had changed.

  We undressed and lay down on my futon and I inhaled the scent of her pale skin, feeling the warmth of her body against mine. She was naked except for a narrow wristwatch that I’d bought for her two days before.

  She reached over for her purse. From it, she took a small, velvet jewellery box, which she shyly presented to me. Inside was a small silver crucifix on a chain. She took it out and draped it around my neck, then fastened the clasp. She pulled me over so that we both faced the cracked mirror on the wall. She pointed at the reflection of our entwined bodies.

  “Look,” she said. “Adam — and Eva.”

  31

  THE BRIGHT LIGHT FROM THE WEST

  (SATSUKO TAKARA)

  Not long after breakfast, I felt very sick, very suddenly. I dashed to the latrine outside, where I retched up the miso soup and pickles I had just eaten. Dizzy, I looked down at the filth, swamped by the smell of rot and sewage. As I shuffled back inside, Mrs. Ishino emerged from her parlour room at the back of the bar, wearing a plain kimono. She saw straight away that something was the matter. She ushered me onto a stool at the counter and asked me what was wrong.

  When I explained that I’d been sick, she fell silent. She looked at me closely.

  “How long, Satsuko?” she asked. “Since your last cycle?”

  I puzzled it through, doubtfully. All of our cycles had been highly erratic for some time, just like everything else, so it was very hard to keep track. But I suspected that it had been several months now, at least.

  Mrs. Ishino picked up my hand and squeezed it.

  “Please don’t worry, Satsuko,” she said. “I’m convinced that Lynch-san is a good man.”

  I stared at her for a moment as I grasped what she was saying. Then I burst into tears.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sheets of type-written paper were piled up on Hal’s desk next to his typewriter, and socks and shirts were draped over the back of his chair. The futon was still on the floor, the blanket crumpled where we had left it that morning. There was a faint film of dust on the windowsill, and I drew my finger through it absently. A battered pigskin suitcase stood in the corner of the room. A curious feeling came over me, and I walked over, knelt down and pushed the hasps. The locks flicked open.

  A couple of vests were balled up inside, and there was a smell of mildew. Beside the vests was a stack of newspapers, and as I spelled out the title, I recognized the name of the paper that Hal had once worked for. I picked up the copy on the top, and leafed through it. Photographs of men and soldiers, as usual. I picked up another. Carefully, I began to study the names that were typed beneath the pictures. I felt a tingle of expectant pride. Wouldn’t it be lovely if I found Hal’s name there? I thought. Toward the end of the pile, I turned over the front page, and my finger paused. There it was. “Harold Lynch.”

  I studied the large, blurred photograph above it. A group of street children were playing a game of baseball on a patch of wasteground.

  I screamed.

  A boy with a disfigured face held up a charred plank, as another boy flung a ball of rags toward him. It was Hiroshi. Unmistakably, I thought, as I brought the page close to my face and stared at the blurred dots of the image. Despite the tangled hair, the disfigured face, it was him.

  I started to feel very faint. It was my brother. He had the same earnest look of concentration on his face as when he and my father had thrown baseballs in Ueno Park, the same excited tension in his eyes as when he’d gazed up at the cinema screen of the Paradise Picture House on Sundays, when we’d gone to watch a film together.

  I realized that I was softly moaning. All this time. Hiroshi.

  I stood up and placed the newspaper upon the desk. I held my palm over my belly. I felt the faintest swelling beneath the cotton. Hopeless images flashed through my mind. The boiled bodies being hoisted on a hook from the Yoshiwara canal. Sitting beneath my hand-drawn sign at Tokyo station in the rain. The horrible urchin on the railway platform, exposing himself to me. I closed my eyes. What if he’d seen me, I thought, standing outside the Oasis, my face plastered white as I clutched at the arm of another passing GI? Come in, yankii! Very cheap!

  Then, into my mind’s eye, came the pictures of America in the magazine. The smiling families in their motorcars, the advertisements for soap, for lacework wedding dresses. The photographs of San Francisco; the white city rising between green hills, thousands of miles away, beyond the ocean.

  Before I knew it, I was clawing at the thin, rough newspaper, tearing the picture from the page. Urgently, I ripped it into shreds. I heaved open the window, and flung the fragments of paper into the air outside. They fluttered for a moment, like falling blossom, then drifted randomly down, scattering into the muddy puddles in the alley below.

  ~ ~ ~

  Election posters were pasted all over the city, painted with doves and slogans. The ration fell, and the Imperial Plaza grew more crowded every day with gaunt men and women waving placards and chanting. A rumour went around that the grain ship from America had sunk, that there was only enough food left for a week. Prices shot up at the market, and gunfights broke out in the streets. Men dangled out of the windows of the office buildings, using magnifying glasses to light their cigarettes with the weak rays of the spring sunshine.

  At the table at the back of the bar, Mrs. Ishino was drinking a glass of clear liquor. She was in a sentimental mood. Masuko had found her the disk of a Puccini opera that morning while we’d been out shopping, and the soprano was warbling now from the gramophone.

  “Madame Butterfly!” she said, pointing at me and laughing. “Do you know we used to dance to that, Satsuko, here in Tokyo?”

  Her arms swayed in the air.

  “So many rules, Satsuko! They shut us down because Lieutenant Pinkerton was an American.”

  I pictured the huge portrait of Okichi, the maid-servant presented to the Americans in the Edo period, framed on the wall of the sooty building on the Ginza, at my interview all those months ago.

  “What happened to your husband, Mrs. Ishino?”

  She glanced at me abruptly. I had always been too shy to ask about her mysterious past. I thought she would tell me now.

  She shuffled over to the phonograph, and lifted the needle-arm from the disk. The music stopped. Then she took a stool around to the other side of the bar, climbed up, and reached for the picture on the top shelf, above the bottles. The framed photograph of a handsome man in a flying jacket. Masuko and I had long ago decided that the man must have once been Mrs. Ishino’s lover. She clambered back down, brought the photograph over, and placed it on the table between us.

  “Lieutenant Ishino,” she said, touching her fingertip to the glass over his face. She swallowed her drink and wiped her mouth. “We were childhood sweethearts, though he was a year younger than me. Can you imagine?”

  I bowed my head.

  “He chose to die.”

  I looked up sharply. She nodded, staring at me.

  “Yes, Satsuko. He did. He was stationed over at the Tsuchiura airfield. My dance school had been closed down by then. Planes used to pass over the city every day, and I’d always jump and wave, imagining that it was him up there, looking down at me
.”

  She stared at the empty glass.

  “What happened to him?” I whispered.

  “He came back home one night, last April, without any warning. It was raining, I remember. I’d been asleep when I heard knocking at the door. There had been an air raid earlier, and it was still pitch black. I could only just see him on the doorstep.”

  “He’d come to visit?”

  “He said he’d been given overnight leave. He’d been selected as group leader for a special mission. He didn’t know when it would happen, only that it would be soon.”

  She swallowed, and I saw tears in her eyes. She looked at me. “I knew there was only one reason men were given overnight leave back then, Satsuko. He knew he was going to die. He had come back to say goodbye.”

  I felt a hard lump in my throat.

  “We held onto each other all through the blackout that night. I begged him to try to get out of it somehow — what was the point of dying, I asked? But he refused. It was his duty, he said. He asked me to forgive him. He left at around five in the morning, without telling me where he was going. ‘Look for me in the spring,’ he said. Those were the last words he spoke to me.”

  I felt myself starting to cry. Mrs. Ishino opened up the frame and removed the glass. She slid another photograph from behind the first. It showed the same man, in his flying jacket, standing beside a Zero fighter. Around his forehead he wore a headband, emblazoned with the rising sun.

  “Eiji flew the lead airplane. He took off just after six a.m. He’s smiling. Look.”

  She pointed at his face and stared at the photograph for a long time.

  “Why, Satsuko?” she said. “Why is he smiling?”