Fireflies

by Ben Byrne

  It was at moments like this that revolutions could break, I thought, that great tragedies occurred. That the world could slip its bonds of gravity and calamity could come raining down. There were hands at my back. A man fell in front of me. I tripped over his body and flew through the air. My head collided with the road, hard, and I curled up into a stunned ball as boots thudded around me.

  The asphalt was wet and cold against my cheek. The air was filled with shrieks and pumping rounds of gunshot. A hand grabbed my throat and pulled me up; I felt the scratch and stink of an overcoat against my face. A tall Japanese man was gripping my shoulders. He was dressed in a long, camel hair overcoat, a black bowler pinned to his head. His round glasses were speckled with raindrops.

  “Had enough, Lynch?”

  The voice was purest Brooklyn. With unexpected strength, he took hold of my arm, and, striking out with his elbow, pulled me through the crowd. After a moment, we reached the line of troops. He flashed a badge and they parted to let us through. We paused for a moment on the steps of the building. My jacket was ripped all the way down one seam and my pants were smeared with mud. Fresh blood stained my hand, though whether it was my own or someone else’s I did not know. The man popped a piece of gum into his mouth as he watched the mob surge past.

  “So, Lynch,” he said, scratching the side of his face. “How long have you been a commie?”

  ~ ~ ~

  G2, Intelligence Division, was sequestered on the top floor of the GHQ building. The ceilings grew lower, the atmosphere more muffled, as we ascended the echoing stairwell. By the time we had reached the frosted glass door of the office, the tumult outside had softened almost to a rumbling melody, punctuated by the occasional whistle. The spook led me into a small, windowless room, where a short, trim man with a neat blond moustache stood up behind a desk and twisted his hand in salute.

  “Afternoon Lynch. Colonel Wanderly. The sumo wrestler is Captain Ohara.”

  I saluted back. “Harold Lynch.”

  “We know who you are.”

  The room was lined with metal drawers, and the entirety of one wall was taken up with a large map of China, Siberia, and the Japanese islands. As the door closed, the office became muffled and silent. I was suddenly put in mind of my sealed cabin in our F-13, right before takeoff.

  “Why don’t you park yourself down there, Lynch?” Wanderly said, gesturing at a hard metal chair. “Sorry about the mess. They won’t let me get a woman in.”

  He placed a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose as Ohara perched on the edge of the desk.

  Wanderly licked his fingers as he flipped through a thick manila file, picking out photos and press clippings. I recognized my photo of the railway men in the hospital at Hiroshima, then saw a clipping of my first piece in the Stars and Stripes. I almost smiled. Our rat man report, written way back in September. I felt a strange wave of nostalgia as I saw the old man’s wild face again, gazing forlornly up the river. Wanderly chuckled.

  “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, Hal. You’ve got a good eye. And a fine way with words.”

  “What’s this about, Corporal?”

  “How long have you known Mark Ward, Lynch?” Ohara interrupted. His face was pockmarked. I remembered him now from the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, the night when Ward and I had gone there for drinks. General Willoughby’s hawk eye behind the monocle, scrutinizing Mark, as the man pressed upon his tailored uniform arm.

  “About six months. We met on a train.”

  “Never met him at Columbia — your alma mater?”

  “Must have been before my time.”

  “Tell you much about his career during the war?”

  “He spent time in China.”

  “Ever tell you where?”

  “All over, I guess. I was stationed in Chengtu for a time myself.”

  “We know you were. Ward was based mainly in Shaanxi. That ring a bell?”

  “Well, sure.”

  Shaanxi had been the headquarters of Mao’s forces, his “Golden Land” up in the hills, where the Red Army had ended their long march and the exiled Japanese communists had holed up during the war. I recalled Ward’s distraught face the day after he’d been dragged in by G2, after his return from the Snow Country. Don’t you see, Hal? I’m next on their goddamned list!

  “Where he enjoyed the hospitality of Mao Zedong for several months. As did Wilf Burchett.”

  “Burchett?”

  I frowned, recalling Burchett’s gleaming eye, as he pulled tight the straps of his kitbag. Good luck, mate. You’re going to need it.

  “Well,” I said, “they were both war correspondents, after all.”

  Wanderly’s eyes softened and his voice took on the tone of a sympathetic teacher. “Look, Hal. I think you’re tangled up in something you don’t understand. I think people may have taken advantage of you. They sense you’re vulnerable. You reek of self-pity. They’ve used your misplaced guilt to their own advantage.”

  “We’ve seen your medical, Lynch,” Ohara butted in. “Reads like a horror movie. Still can’t sleep?”

  Wanderly glanced up at him in apparent distaste. I folded my arms. The room had darkened, but he didn’t switch on the lamp. He spread his hands out on the desk, like a priest about to begin a sermon.

  “You tell me, Hal. What are we to make of it? You ask for a transfer almost the day the war ends. You turn up in Tokyo and start knocking on the door of every red agent in town. You travel to a prescribed area with what looks like the express intention of embarrassing the Occupation. What are we to make of it, Hal? What are you doing here, anyway?”

  I pictured Tokyo from the sky, looking down at the neighbourhoods and parks, the schools and the temples.

  “I guess I wanted to see what was left.”

  I glanced furtively at my watch. Satsuko would be on the tram by now, heading toward Asakusa Pond.

  “This Hiroshima piece,” Wanderly said, as if embarrassed to mention it. He flipped through the folder and I made out the original carbon of my story.

  “‘Aftermath of the Atom.’ Very portentous, Hal,” Wanderly said.

  “Did Ward tell you what to write?” asked Ohara.

  As Wanderly held up the ink-stained article, I pictured Frayne Baker in his office, flinging the pages into the air. Radiation disease. Horse — shit!

  “I’ve already been fired for that, Colonel.”

  “And a decision regarding your tenure in Japan has been made, Hal.”

  There was a pulse in my stomach.

  “You know I met a Jap last week, Lynch?” Ohara had come around and now stood behind me, resting his hands on the back of my chair. He bent over, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck. “Worked as a doctor at a medical institute up north during the war. A planeload of our boys crash-landed not far away one day. The Japs took them along for treatment. Hell, you might even have known them. Smiling boys, about your own age. Well, I asked the man what they’d done to them, how they’d died. He was as cool as you like. Do you know what he told me?”

  Ohara’s hands moved to my shoulder blades, his fingers squeezing.

  “He said they’d performed live experiments on them, Lynch. Cut out their lungs. Injected them with chemicals. Just to see what would happen. As if they were rats. How do you like that?”

  It was grotesque, macabre. I tried to resist the bait. “And what was Hiroshima, gentlemen? Wasn’t that an experiment? The live vivisection of an entire city?”

  “It was just a bomb, Hal,” said Wanderly. “A bomb that saved the lives of thousands of young American men.”

  “But they’re still dying in Hiroshima, Colonel.”

  “Here’s something that might interest you, Hal.” Wanderly slid another sheet from the dossier. He held up a glossy photograph of Ward. He raised his eyebrows. “Your friend. Maxim Alexandrovich Warszaws
ki. Born in Minsk, Russia, 1905. Studied at the Soviet Institute for Teachers, Librarians, and Propagandists, 1920 to 23. Moved to New York to study at Columbia University, 1925. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  My stomach knotted as his words sank in. I saw Ward coming aboard the train at Kyoto, wheezing as he slung his kitbag onto the luggage rack. At the press club, that first night, exchanging fluent jovialities with the Soviet correspondents. Don’t get them mixed up, Lynch — they’ll break your arm!

  “Two summers ago, Hal, the FBI raided Ward’s office in Chicago. They discovered documents recently stolen from the Office of Strategic Services, concerning the battle plans of Chiang Kai-shek. Six months later, Ward was in Shaanxi along with Mao, Burchett, and all the other Reds. Six months later, he arrived in Tokyo. What’s he doing here, Hal?”

  A vein in my temple began to pulse. I remembered the glow of Ward’s cigar in the train carriage, his crinkling face as I unburdened myself to him. My fierce, wounded sense of self-pity, my intense desire for forgiveness.

  “He help you write that piece, Hal? Or was it just spiritual encouragement?”

  Are you still bothered by what you did up there, Lynch? I remembered the look of sympathy in his eyes behind the wide spectacles as I’d bowed my head, like a boy in a confessional box.

  The big hand on my shoulder, as I told him about my trip to Hiroshima. You know I’m proud of you, don’t you Hal? That profound feeling of solace. As if he was a priest, granting me absolution from my sins.

  “You’ve been a sap, Lynch, a first-class fucking sap,” Ohara spat. “Radiation disease. They’ll give you the Order of fucking Lenin. Thought you were a hotshot, Lynch? Or did you know you were taking pictures for Joe Stalin?”

  Wanderly paused, looked at me, then continued.

  “I’m going to be frank with you, Hal. You’re an intelligent man. Mark Ward is a Stalinist agent. That’s a simple statement of fact. Now. There’s another war coming soon, Hal. Did you know that? Sad, but true. In fact, it’s already begun. There will soon be a time when we will need a strong Japan, Hal, when we will need this country on America’s side. This kind of thing could tip the balance. That’s why Ward is here. He’s no teacher, and he’s certainly no librarian. You’ve been made a fool of, Hal. You can see that now. Bad people have taken advantage of your weaknesses to damage our position. We’d like to give you a chance to show us whose side you’re really on.”

  Ohara moved from my chair and went to the other side of the table. The room was almost entirely dark now, the map on the wall obscured. Wanderly leaned forward.

  “Tell us about Ward, Hal. He’s your friend isn’t he? He trusts you. He confides in you.”

  “What are you asking me, gentlemen?”

  “Hal, he’s been using you. Don’t you see that? You don’t owe him a thing.”

  “Where are the fucking negatives, Hal?”

  Ohara’s words reverberated in the darkness. Wanderly smiled thinly, his fingers drumming the manila envelope. I felt a sudden flash of unexpected advantage, like a poker player whose opponents inadvertently reveal the weakness of their hand. I pictured Dutch handing me the envelope. My trumps. Hidden in a cigar box, under the floorboard of the room in a downtown saloon.

  “Negatives?”

  “Fuck off, Hal!” bellowed Ohara. “You know what we’re talking about!”

  I leaned slowly back in the chair, holding his gaze.

  “What are you asking me, gentlemen?” I repeated.

  Wanderly tapped the envelope, the smile lingering on his face. “We’re asking you to consider your position, Hal. Your future.”

  A thrill of incipient victory flashed through me. I slowly shook my head.

  After a long pause, Wanderly sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well.”

  He replaced the outlying documents in the dossier and closed it carefully.

  “The New Mexico is leaving for San Francisco in two days, Lieutenant. You’ll be on it.”

  I tried not to smile as I pictured the ticket in my jacket pocket. I imagined the moment, six months from now. Standing on the dock at Oakland. Watching the ship steam beneath the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The passengers coming down the gangplank. Satsuko pausing, her dark eyes searching the crowd.

  “You can’t take the girl, Lynch.”

  My heart jolted.

  Ohara’s face was hidden in the shadows. “Sure,” he said. “We know all about her.”

  Another photograph was placed on the desk. Satsuko and I, squinting in the spring sunshine outside the Senso Temple. Smile!

  Eugene. Just the kind of bright, callow boy that Intelligence loved to employ. Ambitious. Venal. Naive. They started it, didn’t they, Hal?

  I remembered his sudden stated desire to see something of the world; his unexpected passion for journalism. His nocturnal visit to the newsroom, the night of my return from Hiroshima. The look on his face, as he saw me come into the office the next day, like that of a whipped dog.

  “Pretty girl,” Ohara said.

  I swallowed. “The Exclusion Act won’t last six months.”

  Wanderly placed a square sheet on the table. I glanced down. The paper was covered with Japanese writing, unintelligible stamps.

  “Going to tell what that is?”

  Wanderly picked up the sheet, and drew his finger across the ideograms at the top.

  “‘Recreation and Amusement Association,’” he read. “How do you like that?”

  “You know they register their whores here in Japan, Lynch?” Ohara said. “They’re a bureaucratic bunch.”

  My stomach quivered, my senses suddenly alert. Wanderly stared at me over his spectacles.

  “Not the kind of girl we want in America, Hal. Sorry.”

  “Undesirable is what they call it, Lynch.”

  “Tend to be crawling with all manner of disease and such. The rules are very clear. She won’t make it past immigration. Not now. Not ever.”

  A hollow pit opened up in my stomach. Just as I had felt every night, as our plane had lurched from the end of the airstrip, pitching just yards above the churning indigo waves. As I stared at the words and stamps, the green ink blotting into the cheap fabric of the paper, I pictured Satsuko, sitting on the bench by Asakusa Pond, pulling her shawl around her. An undesirable.

  Ohara was gazing steadily at me. “They’ll never let her in, Lynch. I will personally make damned sure of that. And you will never come back to Japan, as long as I am here.”

  “Let’s make this easy, Hal,” sighed Wanderly. “Give us the negatives. Forget about Hiroshima. Forget about the war. Go back to your nice saloon. Make an honest woman of her. You can take that sheet away with you if you like. Start again from scratch.”

  I pictured her, helpless in my arms, as we’d stood in the ruins of her house. Clinging onto me, burying her face in my chest. The intensity of that feeling — as if we were the only two people left on earth.

  I picked up the sheet and rubbed the rough paper between my fingertips.

  “Why don’t you start again, Hal. Make a new life from all this ruin.”

  A soft explosion came from somewhere far away. The men’s voices seemed to spiral around me in the darkness.

  “What’s it going to be, Lynch?”

  “There’s another war soon coming, Hal. Sad but true. Whose side are you on?”

  “You need to make a decision, Lynch. Them or us. What’s it going to be?”

  34

  THE FLOWERS OF EDO

  (SATSUKO)

  I waited at Asakusa Pond for what seemed like hours as the rain drummed upon my umbrella and dripped into puddles by my feet. The water soaked through my sandals and into my socks until they were quite saturated. Men walked past my bench, their sly faces lit by glowing cigarette ends as they leered at me from the darkness.

 
The night was cindery and bleak and I remembered a neighbourhood fairy tale my mother had once told me, about the tap-dancing girls from the Casino Folies, whose ghosts still danced upon the roof of the building, long after it had been closed down. It was just the kind of story she had loved.

  Time passed, and I looked at the little wristwatch that Hal had bought me. It was getting late. I began to wonder whether I had made our arrangement quite clear, whether I’d told Hal the correct time and place. I remembered the scent of his cedary cologne, the starched cotton and the swell of his back as I’d clumsily buttoned his shirt that morning. I saw his room in my mind’s eye; the pigskin suitcase and the locked typewriter case. A stab of panic went through me. Was he planning to leave? What if he’d already gone? Sailed away for America, without so much as a goodbye?

  I tried to recall the times that we’d spoken those past weeks. There had been the joke about taking me to America, of course, but nothing had really been said after that; certainly nothing had been decided one way or another. As far as I knew, I could still just be his Japanese plaything, a temporary mistress. I felt a pang of ridiculous jealousy as I imagined a wife back home. She would be beautiful, I thought, charming, like Ingrid Bergman. With a deep sense of humiliation, I remembered the rash letter I had posted to Michiko, blithely declaring that I’d soon be off to California to take up my new life in the sun. My stomach knotted.

  What an idiot I’d been.

  I hoped fervently that the letter hadn’t arrived, that it had been lost in the post before reaching her studio.

  What a stupid, ignorant girl.

  Why had I thought he was any different to the other Americans? What vanity had let me flatter myself that I was any different myself? I was just one more girl amongst thousands. I clutched my swollen stomach, picturing myself from above, a pregnant, unmarried woman, sitting in the rain in a soaking kimono, waiting . . .

  A thud of footsteps came from the arched wooden bridge. Hal was stumbling toward me in the rain. As he came closer, I almost screamed. His trousers were ripped along the seam, dark and wet, and buttons were torn from his shirt. He looked at me desperately as I reached up to embrace him, pushing my fingers through his soaking hair, pulling his wet body against me.