by Ben Byrne
She wiped her eyes and went to the bar and poured out another glass of liquor.
“Did you know one of his friends tracked me down last winter, Satsuko?” she called. “Eiji had written me a letter. Do you know what it said? He implored me to forgive him. He asked me to live purely and honourably after his death.” She laughed bitterly, gesturing around at the wooden tables and chairs. “Honourably! What chance did I have, after what he had done? After he went off to fly his plane into some American ship? After he left me here alone?”
She let out a sudden sob, and I rushed over and put my arm around her as she shook with tears.
“For what, Satsuko? Why did my husband choose to die?”
I drew her close as she spoke.
“I’ll never forgive him for that, Satsuko, never. No one should ever choose to die.”
She turned to me and held my hands tightly in hers, the tears trickling down her cheeks.
“You see, Satsuko?” she said. “We can choose to live, now. Don’t you see? Satsuko, you must choose to live!”
~ ~ ~
My fingers were clumsy as I helped Hal button his shirt. Protests were slated to take place all across the city that day, and he was going along to watch them. In a quiet voice, I asked him to meet me at Asakusa Pond later on that evening.
He stroked my hair and held my scarred palms to his lips. He kissed them, then kissed me goodbye and walked out the door.
I heard his footsteps going down the stairs as I walked over to the window. I saw him emerge from the door down below; I held my hand over my belly as he strode away up the alley.
I spent most of the day preparing. Mrs. Ishino and I walked to the bathhouse, where she soaped me and scrubbed my back. Afterward, she rubbed a special almond-smelling salve onto my hands. Back at the bar, she took me into her cluttered parlour room. A spring mattress lay on a Western-style brass bedstead, with horsehair bursting from its seams. A row of ivory-coloured ballerina shoes was draped on a rail along the wall. She sat me in front of the mirror and spent several hours combing and arranging my hair, painting my neck and face before she carefully helped me on with my clothes. We decided upon the green and gold kimono that my mother had given me, and which I had finally bought back from the pawnbroker after several months of saving.
Mrs. Ishino stood behind me and pulled tight my embroidered brocade sash. As I looked in the mirror at my reflection, I saw that she really had done an expert job. My neck was pale, my cheeks were pink, and my hair was beautifully styled, pinned up with a mother-of-pearl comb.
She would come with me as far as the Asakusa tram stop, she said. Evening was darkening outside and I became suddenly nervous and started to tremble. Mrs. Ishino made me drink a glass of whisky and told me that everything was going to be all right. She stroked my wrist as I drank the fiery liquid down. Then she looked up at the clock on the wall. It was six o’clock. She pinched my cheek and said that it was time to go.
32
TOKYO GIANTS
(HIROSHI TAKARA)
Ueno station was swarming with people arriving on the packed trains from the towns and villages outside the city, all decked out in their best spring suits and kimonos, wearing sashes and aprons and holding up painted banners and placards: Mothers for the Rice Ration! Railway Men for Reform!
I felt suddenly nervous as I watched them. The demonstrations had better not interfere with our big night out, I thought. Beneath my shirt was an envelope of cash as thick as my finger. Mr. Suzuki had given it to me that morning. He’d told me to scrub up at the bathhouse, to get my hair cut, and to buy a collar shirt and a tie.
“Get yourself nice and relaxed, kid,” he said. “Then you won’t be so nervous later on.”
As I boarded a tram for the Ginza, I looked down at my new watch. Five hours to go. At eight o’clock, I was to meet Mr. Suzuki at his office at the market. From there, he was going to drive us both over to Shinjuku himself, in his luxury black Daimler with the brown leather seats.
~ ~ ~
As I sat in the barber’s chair, the old man fussing around me with his comb and scissors, I wondered why Mr. Suzuki liked me. Maybe it was because I was from Asakusa, I thought. Maybe he’d liked my dad’s eels. Every night, after the market closed for business, I sat with him in his office as he went over the accounts in his oilskin ledger and totted up the day’s profits. When he’d finished, he had me check the numbers, while he went over and took a square bottle of whisky from the iron safe in the corner of the hut and poured himself out a glass, full right up to the top. With a sigh, he’d loosen his collar, put his feet up on the desk, and shove the cigarette box toward me.
“You and me, little shit,” he liked to say. “We’re like two badgers from the same hole.”
My real job, I sometimes thought, was to listen. As he worked his way through the bottle of whisky, he’d tell me violent stories from the market: about vendors who hadn’t paid their dues, about the vicious Formosan gang who’d blasted him in the shoulder. About the American officers who double-crossed him worse than the crooks they’d kicked out, the bastards who’d taken all the reconstruction contracts by paying out bribes, the lying politicians in the Diet, General Douglas Fucking MacArthur, and all the other pigs and snakes who were making Mr. Suzuki’s life a misery, keeping him from his only true pleasures in life, which were gambling and women.
Asakusa seemed like his great, lost love. “You should have seen it, little shit!” he’d roar, as the bottle got close to the end. “Nowhere else ever came close.”
He told me about the Casino Folies, the Russian dancers there who’d kicked their legs right up into the air; how when he’d been a kid, there’d been two Bengal tigers in a cage at Hanayashiki Park. But it was the games of flower cards he’d run up in the old abandoned house by Sengen Shrine that seemed to be like the pure land of paradise for him. His eyes sparkled and his hands fluttered when he remembered them, as if he was still rattling ghostly dice cups.
“Shirt off, blue and green flashing, sweat dripping down my back. Howling out the bets as the old ladies doled out the cash from their kimonos, the grocers slapping down their wages on the table. That was the real Japan, little shit, not the crap all those military bastards shoved down your throat in school.”
I remembered how our heads had been shaved right after the attack on Pearl Harbour. How every Friday they’d given us a lunchbox full of rice with a pickled plum in the middle to look like the flag of the rising sun.
Mr. Suzuki would slump forward on the desk, the bottle empty, practically cross-eyed. “And look at me now, little shit,” he’d slur, as he stubbed out his last cigarette. “I’m like a carp on the fucking cutting board.”
After he started snoring, I’d drag him over to the futon in the corner and pull a woollen military blanket over him. He’d be rolling about, muttering and grunting, as I left to greet the crows that flapped about the market in the light of dawn.
~ ~ ~
Rain hammered against the window as my train curved around the overground tracks toward Ueno station. Up in the distance, I could see the bright spotlights of the market sign as they blazed away in the dripping night. My hair was trimmed and brushed neatly now, and I wore a grey worsted wool jacket and trousers and a white cotton shirt I’d bought at a tailor shop off the Ginza. The old man had stared at me over his spectacles when I walked through the door, but sure enough, the pile of notes I slapped down next to his sewing machine was enough to get him on his feet in a second, pulling out his measuring tape and getting on with his cutting and stitching as quickly as he could.
I stared at my reflection in the window glass. I bared my teeth. Monster, Shin had called me. I turned my head this way and that. I looked almost respectable now, I thought. Almost handsome. It was amazing what a collar and a tie and money in your pocket could do.
The train curved around the embankment, the wheels screeching on the rails. D
own below was the wasteground where Tomoko had been attacked, the day Koji and I had caught the eel. I remembered her body pressed against mine, as I’d held her up on the carriage coupling, and the train rattling through the countryside all those months ago. It almost seemed like a dream to me now.
On the other side of the track was nothing but blackness. It stretched across Asakusa all the way to the Sumida River. Buried below it, somewhere, were my mother and my sister, charred into ash, dissolving now in the rain that fell across Tokyo, washing away into the river that flowed out to the sea.
You just had to get on with life, I thought.
~ ~ ~
Outside Mr. Suzuki’s office, the black Daimler was streaked with gleaming rain. The door to the hut was half open. Something was wrong.
I pushed the door gingerly and walked inside. The room was lit by the single black metal lamp on the desk, and Mr. Suzuki sat on his chair, his close-cropped, bullet-shaped head tilted to one side. His mouth was stuffed with dirty, crumpled pages of newspaper.
The grey suit jacket was hanging on the chair behind him. His stubby fingers, bitten to the quick, were clutching at a dark, gaping crimson and black wound in the middle of his chest and blood was seeping like ink into the white cotton of his shirt. A haze of blue smoke hovered by the ceiling. There was a smell in the air like matches.
I sat down on the chair on the other side of the desk. The skin on his face was stiff and waxy. I felt awkward looking at him; as if I’d disturbed him while he was doing something private.
I recalled the wisteria box, painted with my father’s name, that the military affairs clerk had brought to our house the week after his ship had gone down. “The Great Sea Battle of Leyte Gulf,” the newspapers had called it. My teacher had given me the honour of sticking the little Japanese flag to the map on the wall. We’d spent the rest of the afternoon drawing lavish pictures of the battle, sketching the smoking funnels of aircraft carriers and whizzing Zero fighters.
My mother and Satsuko and I had sat together in my father’s bedroom. The box lay on the floor in front of us. I stared at the whirls and knots in the wood; they looked just like the shapes of the Philippine islands on the map.
The next day, I’d hammered the cedar sign to our front door. A House of Honour. “You’re the man of the house, now,” Mrs. Ota had told me, as she watched. I remembered the sound of the nail, splitting the wood.
I stared at the blood soaking slowly outward in Mr Suzuki’s shirt. The man of the house.
I closed my eyes.
Finally, I stood up and walked to the door. As I pulled it shut, I caught a final glimpse of Mr. Suzuki in the lamplight. His fedora lay upside down beside him on the floor.
I walked over to Mr. Isamushi’s noodle stall and sat down at the counter. He wiped it down, then poured out a big bottle of beer in front of me. “Where’s the boss tonight?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Well you’re very welcome anyway, sir,” he said. “You’ve got a new suit.”
I nodded and swallowed. “What soup are you using today, then, granddad?”
He ladled steaming broth into a bowl. “Rat and snake today, sir. Delicious.” He spooned a pile of noodles on the top.
As I sat there, I held up the noodles on my chopsticks and blew away the steam just like Mr. Suzuki had always done. When I’d finished, I carefully slurped away the soup and lit a cigarette. The smoke twisted in the air in front of me.
I put my hand in my jacket pocket, rubbing the bank notes between my fingers. I glanced around at the covered stalls, wondering if Yotchan was around tonight. I pictured her, lying beneath me, her breasts heaving away.
I left three copper coins on the counter and sauntered away along the market passageways. The food stalls were packed with ex-soldiers now, their faces lit by orange lanterns. At the liquor stand on the corner, I drank a glass of “special” that made my eyes water. One of the ex-students slapped me on the back and poured me out another.
My head was swimming as I crossed the road to the station. The place was swarming with men and women coming back from the demonstrations, their signs all tattered as they crammed through the doors into the ticket hall where the other children and I had once slept beneath the stairs.
Around the back of the station, in the wasteground beneath the railway arches, I saw whores at last. They stood around the big puddles, and my stomach coiled into knots as they called out to me. I glanced at them quickly as I stumbled on through the darkness.
The red brickwork of the wide railway tunnel was brightly lit, and the struts of the ironwork began to tremble and squeak as a train rolled overhead. My heart started to pound. A solitary girl was sitting on a railing in a pool of light in the middle of the tunnel, wreathed in a white cloud of cigarette smoke. I fingered the notes in my pocket and swallowed, my flesh hopelessly tightening as I made my way toward her.
33
MAY DAY
(HAL LYNCH)
For a moment, as I awoke, I couldn’t remember where I was. The room seemed naggingly familiar, and the light coming through the window had the distant, luminescent effect of sky seen from beneath the ocean. Slowly, I recognized my desk, the whitewashed wall, the flower print dress draped over the schoolroom chair. A pale ivory body lay beside me, the silken black hair splayed upon the pillow. A ridge of spine beneath the skin rose and fell minutely as Satsuko slept on.
As I dressed, she woke up and slid her arms around my chest. Her head rested on my shoulder as she buttoned my shirt with careful fingers. I kissed her hands, pressing her palms to my lips. In a low voice, she whispered that she would like me to meet her later on that evening by Asakusa Pond. The bench where we’d sat and watched the cherry blossoms on our first date.
I’d tell her everything tonight, I thought. Explain my plan. Ask her to come away with me, to wait for me. To trust me. Our reflections gazed back at us from the mirror against the wall, and I felt suddenly romantic and chivalrous and sure of myself.
I’d promised to meet Ward at the press club before going over to watch the May Day protests. Judy was due to arrive at Yokohama on the USS New Mexico tomorrow. Perhaps we could all go out and celebrate together, I thought, somewhere expensive and exquisite, before I embarked upon its long return voyage two days later.
As I walked out into the road, men and women were emerging from the muddy side streets carrying placards and banners. Protesters were packed like sardines into the tram as it curved on its rails toward the Imperial Plaza. I alighted at Yurakucho and walked over to Shimbun Alley. The lobby of the press club was deserted. Everyone was already gone, covering the action.
Upstairs, the ballroom was empty and a dusty haze floated over the tables. There was a stink of old cigarettes and spilled liquor. I glanced at my watch. It was late already.
~ ~ ~
Thick crowds surged beneath the bridge by the Imperial Hotel. A great swathe of the population was represented on the street: students, young women in kimono, men in suits, elderly folk in yukata. When I reached the edge of the park, I was astounded. It was a forest of red flags and hand-painted banners. Some were written in Japanese, but most were in crude English for the benefit of the Occupiers. The bandstand was festooned with flags, and applause came from the crowd as a trio of men emerged onto the stage, holding up their hands. The bull-like man in the jersey whom I’d seen before bellowed into a microphone, his voice overwhelmed by shrieks of static. The crowd erupted, drowning him out with their applause. Wind gusted over the crowd, setting the banners fluttering. The park darkened perceptibly, as apocalyptic storm clouds began to swallow the sky.
As the man on the podium began his oration, rain began to fall. The gaunt faces of the people remained determined as the drops soaked the banners and dripped down their cheeks. They began to chant, their voices rising up in chorus, their forearms beating the air, and as the rain swept over their
heads, the noise swelled and strengthened. Another man stepped onto the rostrum, and his shrill voice was welcomed with a huge surge of applause as he waved an accusing finger toward the high stone wall of the palace beyond.
“The emperor sits behind that moat,” he cried, “gorging himself with delicate dishes while outside, the people starve!”
There was a sharp tremor in the air. A bright flash of lightning pierced the grey sky and the crowd jostled forward. Suddenly, a strange, warrior-like cry rose from their throats: “Washo . . . washo!” A low rumble of thunder rolled over the park, like some ethereal call to arms, and then I was caught up in the crowd as they began to run, the figures on the rostrum waving them forward. We surged over the soggy grass, the horde clapping and howling as they swarmed over the bridge into the Imperial Plaza, fanning out along the stone banks of the moat. Just for a moment it seemed as though they were going to try to storm the palace, that the emperor would finally come face to face with the wrath of his people, but a solid line of white military jeeps and uniformed American troops stood beside the bridge house with its medieval gates and the turret of a tank swivelled casually to face us. The crowd jittered, the muscles tightening in their faces. From a bullhorn came a bark of an order to retreat as rifles were raised in unison.
Tiny clouds of smoke drifted from the barrels of the guns a split second before the thundering shots cracked open the sky. The crowd writhed backward like a shoal of fish, falling and stumbling onto the sodden yellow gravel. Rifles reported again and panic gripped the crowd, people slipping and screaming as they were trampled underfoot. The rain lashed down and the banners toppled to the ground, the letters smeared and the paper disintegrating. I was carried along by the mob toward the fortress of the Dai-ichi building — General Headquarters. A phalanx of military police and soldiers surrounded the granite columns, their rifles directly levelled at us. A shot erupted above our heads. The crowd swerved away and pounded onward through the driving rain, in the direction of the prime minister’s Lloyd-Wright residence further on up the avenue.
