by Unknown
14th August
Weather fine at first, clouding over by midday. As my training session was cancelled today owing to engine failure, I have a spare hour to write to you about my I-333 brothers. Yutaka Abe is our leader, aged 24, of old Tokyo stock and a graduate of Peers. His father was aboard Shimantogawa at the glorious Battle of Tsushima back in 1905. Abe is a superhuman who excels in every field. Rowing, navigation, composing haiku. He let it slip that he has won every chess match he has played for the last 9 years. The motto on his kaiten is to be ‘Unerring Arrow of the Emperor’. Shigenobu Goto, aged 22, is from a merchant family in Osaka and has a wit that can kill at twenty paces. He gets love letters nearly every day from different girls, and complains about the lack of women on the base. Abe responds with a single word: Purity. Goto can impersonate anybody and anything. He even takes requests: Chinaman attacked by snake in privy; Tohoku fishwife being blown through tuba. He uses his voices to distract Abe when they play chess. Abe wins anyway. The message on Goto’s kaiten is to read: ‘Medicine for Yankees’. Our third member is Issa Kusakabe. Kusakabe is a year older than me, quiet, and reads anything he can get his hands on. Technical manuals, novels, poetry, old magazines from before the war. Anything. Mrs Oshige (our ‘mother’ on Otsushima, who believes we are testing a new type of submarine) arranged for a boy to bring Kusakabe books from the school library every week. He even has a volume of Shakespeare. Abe questioned whether the works of an effete Westerner were appropriate for a Japanese warrior. Kusakabe explained that Shakespeare is English kabuki. Abe said Shakespeare contained corrupting influences. Kusakabe asked which plays Abe was thinking of. Abe let it drop. After all, Kusakabe would not have volunteered to be a kaiten pilot if his ethics were in any way questionable. He is inscribing not a slogan, but a line of verse on his kaiten. ‘The foe may raise ten thousand shouts – we conquer without a single word.’ I must not neglect Slick, our unit chief engineer. His nickname is derived from his hands, which are always oily and black. Slick is one of the oldest men on the base. He is vague about his age, but he is old enough to be our father. Goto jokes that he probably is our father. Slick’s real children are his kaitens. By the way, I have elected to leave my kaiten without a motto. My sacrifice shall be its motto and its meaning.
I put the journal under the counter of Shooting Star to give my eyes a rest – the pages are laminated, but the pencil marks are fading away to ghost lines. Plus, many of the kanji are obscure, so I have to keep referring to a dictionary. I open a can of Diet Pepsi and survey my new empire: video racks, stacks, shelves. Mucus aliens, shiny gladiators, squeaky idols. Soft rock pumps away. In my week away the old shoe repairer next to Fujifilm has been turned into a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. A spooky life-sized statute of Colonel Sanders stands outside, under a limp ‘Opening Fayre’ banner. He is as fat and grinny as a statue of Ebisu in a temple. Does KFC make you that fat?
Buntaro and Machiko will be on their JAL airplane now, somewhere over the Pacific. Buntaro was in a near-frenzy when I got back from my meeting with Mr Raizo, even though he had ninety minutes before the taxi came. What would happen if the computer crashed? If the monitor broke down? If it rains tap-dancing conger-eels? Machiko hauled him into the taxi. I I can watch anything on the monitor, but there are too many films to choose, so I leave the same Tom Hanks movie running all day. Nobody will notice. Between two and five, business is pretty quiet; once offices and schools start winding up I get much busier. The regulars gape when they see me – they immediately assume that Machiko has suffered a miscarriage. When I tell them the Ogisos are on holiday, they act as if I said Buntaro and his wife turned into teapots and flew to Tibet. The question of who I am is a trifle delicate – my scuzzy landlord sublets my capsule without troubling the tax office. Schoolkids cluster around horror, office ladies hire Hollywood movies with blond stars, salarymen hire titles like Pam the Clam from Amsterdam and Hot Dog Academy. Several customers bring videos back late – you always have to check the dates. Mrs Sasaki arrives at 7.30 – I dash upstairs to feed Cat, and then across to KFC to feed myself. Colonel Sanders’ chicken is made of sawdust. Mrs Sasaki tells me about my replacement at Ueno, which makes me sort of nostalgic for my old job. She leaves me the Tokyo Star – Monday has the jobs pages. If I want a career in kitchen portering, telesales, shelf-stacking or mailbox-stuffing then Tokyo is heaven on earth. Cat appears on the stairs – during my week in hiding she learned how to open my capsule door. I tell her to go back but she ignores me, and after replacing a stack of returned videos I find her settled on the counter chair, so I have to make do with a wobbly stool. Fujifilm says 10:26. Business drops off.
2nd September
Hot weather, but cooler in the evenings now. I received your letter today, Takara, and the parcel from Mother and Yaeko containing the thousand-stitch belt. Given the special attack nature of my mission, the five-sen coins sewn into the belt will not avert death, but I shall wrap it around my middle every time I climb aboard my kaiten. Abe, Goto, Kusakabe and I read aloud our letters from home, and I was proud as Tengu when I told them my younger brother is already a junior squadron leader at the bullet factory. Your games resemble authentic military training – charging at Roosevelts and Churchills with bamboo bayonets. My thoughts are also with Yaeko at the parachute factory. Her stitches may save the lives of my former classmates at Nara Naval Air Academy. It must pain Mother to trade Tsukiyama family treasures for rice, but I know Father and our ancestors understand. War changes rules. It is wise of you to tape Xs over the windows, to guard against bomb blasts. Nagasaki was ever a most fortunate city, and if raids come the enemy will target the shipyards rather than our side of town. All the same, every precaution should be taken.
I will write a reply to your letter very soon. By now, you will understand why my reply fails to provide answers to all the questions you asked.
9th September
Weather: warm, mild, balmy. I am 20 years old today. To celebrate my birthday in a time of national emergency is inappropriate, so after a warhead study session I sneaked away before supper. I gratefully accepted the sunset as my birthday present. Inland Sea sunsets are special. Tonight’s was the colour of Yaeko’s plum preserve. Do you remember the story of Urashima Taro? About how he saved the giant turtle, and stayed in the undersea palace for three days, but upon his return three generations had come and gone? I wondered about how this place will look in ninety years, when the Greater East Asian War is but a distant memory. Bring your children to Otsushima when the war is won. The local sea bream is delicious, as are the Inland Sea oysters. I was about to return to the refectory, when Abe, Goto and Kusakabe appeared. Somehow Abe had found out about my birthday and told Mrs Oshige, who managed to prepare chicken skewers on a stick. Kusakabe built a fire and we had supper on the seashore and some home-brew sake which Goto appropriated from a canteen assistant. The drink was rough enough to paralyse our faces, but no meal ever tasted better, with the exception of Mother’s.
13th September
A warm morning, a muggy afternoon. An attack of flu has been around the base. I myself have been in the sickbay for 24 hours with a temperature of 39 degrees. I am recovering now. I suffered from strange dreams. In one, I was in my kaiten cruising around the Solomon Islands in search of an enemy aircraft carrier. Everything was so blue. I felt indestructible, like a shark. Suddenly Mrs Shiomi’s son, the boy who threw himself under a Russian tank with a bomb at Nomonhan, was in my kaiten. ‘Did nobody tell you?’ he said. ‘The war is over.’ I asked who won, and I saw than Shiomi’s eyes were missing. ‘The emperor entertains the Americans with duck shoots in the palace grounds. In this fashion he seeks to save his skin.’ I decided I should sail into Tokyo harbour and sink at least one enemy vessel, and pointed my kaiten north. The acceleration forced my body back, and when I woke I felt I was remembering being born, or perhaps dying, the last time or the next time. Kusakabe and Goto visited me later, to share notes they had taken in our navigation class, but I said nothing
about my dream.
2nd October
Drizzle all day. The Kikusui target sites were announced at a secret meeting this afternoon. I-47 and I-36 will head for Ulithi, a vast lagoon in the Philippines captured by the Americans only 10 days ago. I-37 and I-333 will simultaneously attack Kossol Passage anchorage in the Palau Islands. The purpose of a dual-site attack is to ensure maximum damage to enemy morale. Find the Palau Islands in Father’s atlas, Takara. You can see how vividly blue the seas are. When you wonder where I am, remember: your brother is the blue of the sea.
Disharmony grows between Abe and Kusakabe. Our unit leader challenged Kusakabe to a game of chess, and he declined. Abe teased him: ‘Are you afraid of losing?’ Kusakabe made a strange reply: ‘No, I am afraid of winning.’ Abe retained his smile, but his irritation was plain. Brothers who shall die together should not quarrel in this way.
10th October
Weather clear. Dew on the grass this morning. Slick, his ground crew and I were hauling our kaiten through the tunnel to the launch pier this afternoon when the air-raid siren sounded. No drill had been scheduled. The tunnel filled up with men from the launch pier while the commandant shouted orders over the loudspeakers. TNT was secured in the deep bunker, the submarines manoeuvred out of the bay, and we waited anxiously for the sound of B29s. If a bomb scores a direct hit on the machine-shops, the project could be delayed crucial weeks. Slick wondered aloud if an attack on the mainland means the Americans are attacking Okinawa already. We hear so many rumours but reliable news is scant. After a nervous forty minutes the all-clear siren sounded. Maybe a jumpy lookout post mistook our own Zeros for enemy planes.
13th October
Pleasant afternoon sun. Clouds by evening. Rereading this journal, I notice that I have failed to describe the atmosphere of the base. It is unique, in my experience. Engineers, instructors, pilots and trainees all work together towards the same end. I have never felt so alive as in these weeks. My life has a meaning – to defend the Motherland. Discipline is not lax. We undergo the same drills and inspections as any military bace. But the excesses of ordinary camps, where green recruits are hazed and where soldiers are hung upside down and beaten, are unknown on Otsushima. We receive regular rations of cigarettes and candy, and real white rice. My one regret is that I cannot share my meals with you, Mother and Yaeko. I am stockpiling my candy for you, however, and refuse to gamble with it like Goto and most of my co-trainees.
18th October
Steady rain all day. The Zuikaku is still afloat and Father is therefore almost certainly alive! Abe arranged for me to use military channels to dispatch a telegram to Mother immediately. I received the news from Cpt Tsuyoshi Yokota of I-333, which docked in Otsushima today. Cpt Yokota had himself spoken to Admiral Kurita aboard the Atago only seven days previously while on patrol in the Leyte Gulf. The news that Father is still well and thinking of us heartens me beyond words. One day he may hold this very journal in his hands! Cpt Yokota says that Zuikaku is regarded as a charmed ship since Pearl Harbor. Remember that civilian mail to the South Seas is a very low priority, so do not be discouraged if you hear nothing. This evening, a 4-day leave was announced for the Kikusui Group men, before we depart for the target zone.
20th October
Clear day, refreshing breezes. Good fortune begets good fortune. During dinner, Cmdnt Ujina broadcast the evening news over the camp speakers, and we heard of the extraordinary kamikaze successes in the Philippines yesterday. Five American aircraft carriers and six destroyers sunk! In a single wave! Surely even the American savages will realize the hopelessness of invading the home islands. Lt Kamibeppu stood on his bench and proposed a toast to the souls of the brave aviators who had given their lives to our beloved Emperor Hirohito. Rarely have I heard such a moving speech. ‘Pure spirit, or metal? Which is the stronger? Spirit will buckle metal, and blast it with holes! Metal can no more damage pure spirit than scissors can cut a rope of smoke!’ I confess, I imagined the day when similar toasts shall be drunk to our souls.
28th October
Light rain today. The new I-333 kaitens became operational today. They handle more smoothly than the training kaitens. After a longer-than-expected test session, I ran back through the rain across the exercise ground and nearly collided with Kusakabe, who was leaning against the supply shed, staring intently at the ground. I asked him what had caught his attention so. Kusakabe pointed at a puddle, and spoke softly. ‘Circles are born, while circles born a second ago live. Circles live, while circles living a second ago die. Circles die, while new circles are born.’ A very Kusakabe comment. I told him he should have been born a wandering poet-priest. He said maybe he was, once. We watched the puddles for a while.
2nd November
The dying heat of 1944. I just returned from Nagasaki for the final time. Those memories are yours too, so I have no need to describe them here. I can still taste Mother’s yokan and Yaeko’s pumpkin tempura. The train journey took a long time because the engine constantly broke down. The military carriage was commandeered by a high-ranking party of officers, so I travelled with a carriage full of refugees from Manchukuo. Their stories of the Soviets’ cruelty and their Chinese servants’ treachery were terrible. How grateful I am that Father never joined the colonists over the past two decades. One girl younger than you was travelling alone to find an aunt in Tokyo. This was her first time in Japan. Around her neck was an urn. It contained the ashes of her father, who died in Mukden, her mother, who died in Karafuto, and her sister, who died in Sasebo. She was afraid she would fall asleep and miss Tokyo, which she imagined was a small place like her frontier town. She believed she could find her aunt by asking people. At Tokuyama I gave her half my money, wrapped in a handkerchief, and left before she could refuse. I fear for her. I fear for all of them.
‘Golems,’ I explain, lying showered and naked in after-midnight capsule darkness with Ai on the other end of the phone, ‘are totally different to zombies. Sure, they are both undead, but you mould golems from graveyard mud in the image of the dead man buried below, and then you inscribe his rune on the torso. You can only kill golems by erasing the rune. Zombies you can easily decapitate, or set alight with a flamethrower. You make them from body parts, usually stolen from a morgue, or else you simply reanimate semi-rotten corpses.’
‘Is necrophilia a compulsory subject in Kyushu high schools?’
‘I work in a video shop now. I have to know these things.’
‘Change the subject.’
‘Okay. What to?’
‘I asked you first.’
‘Well, I always wanted to know what the meaning of life is.’
‘Eating macadamia-nut ice cream and listening to Debussy.’
‘Answer seriously.’
Ai hums as she changes position. ‘Your question is seriously wrong.’
I imagine her lying here. ‘What should my question be, then?’
‘It should be “What is your meaning of life?” Take Bach’s Well-Temper’d Clavier. To me, it means molecular harmony. To my father, it means a broken sewing machine. To Bach, it means money to pay the candlestickmaker. Who is right? Individually, we all are. Generally, none of us is. Are you still thinking about your great-uncle and his kaiten?’
‘I guess. His meaning of life seemed rock-solid valid.’
‘To him, yes. Sacrificing your life for the vainglory of a military clique isn’t my idea of “valid”, but to your great-uncle learning how to play the piano as well as my united brain, nerves and muscles will allow wouldn’t have seemed very worthwhile.’ Cat walks in at this point. ‘Maybe the meaning of life lies in the act of looking for it.’ Cat laps water in the thirsty moonlight.
‘So much space!’ Buntaro yells into a telephone on a windy morning. ‘What do you do with all this space? Why did I never come here years ago? The plane took less time than my dentist. Do you know when I last took a holiday outside Tokyo?’
‘Nope.’ I stifle a yawn.
‘Me neither, l
ad. I arrived in Tokyo when I was twenty-two. My company made transformers, and they sent me up for training. I get off the train at Tokyo station, and twenty minutes later I find the exit. Would I ever hate to spend my life living in this hell-hole! I think. Twenty years on, look at what I did. Beware of holidays in paradise, lad. You think too much about what you never did.’
‘Does everyone in paradise get up so early?’
‘The wife was up before me. Strolling on the beach, under the palm trees. Why is the ocean so . . . y’know . . . blue? You can hear the waves crash from our balcony. My wife found a starfish washed up. A real, live starfish.’
