Inheritors

by Asako Serizawa

  “One thing Tomita needs to realize is that it’s not Japan, but us men, who were defeated.”

  “You men have certainly made a mess,” his wife agreed, suppressing a smirk.

  “That’s right,” a woman standing near them piped up. “All men do is make war.”

  “And lose it too,” another chimed in.

  “I heard they’re opening the government to women. Pretty soon women will be running this country,” a man behind Masaharu said.

  “Lucky for you; you’ll never lose another war ’cause we won’t make any,” a third woman cracked to the others’ approval.

  Masaharu wondered what these women would be saying if Japan had won the war; victors could justify anything, and hadn’t they thrown themselves into the war effort just months before? The man behind him clucked but didn’t reply.

  His wife said, “Didn’t we all contribute to this war? I certainly didn’t do enough to prevent it.”

  A silence descended over the car, the train’s rhythmic clatter unpleasantly marking their progress. Of course she was right; unlike most, he and his wife had at least done their part, boycotting send-offs, contesting propaganda news, but in the end these were small individual acts with no collective reach. If his wife and son hadn’t been a factor, Masaharu would’ve also kept writing, handcopying his exposés and distributing them himself; once upon a time, not so long ago, his name had carried weight. Ultimately, though, he’d never been convinced jail was a useful option, and now, knowing Tomita’s ordeal, he had to admit he didn’t regret this concession.

  Surprisingly, it was the panpan prostitute in the Western-style dress who broke the silence. “But we were deceived, weren’t we? We were tricked by the Emperor.”

  The elderly woman shrank at the blasphemy, but the others murmured their assent. Even the Occupation authorities pushed this logic: they, the Japanese, were simply misguided children in need of a little reeducation, this time to obey the American Father. A thoroughly colonial attitude, thought Masaharu.

  “Well, if we were all deceived, we’re one stupid country, aren’t we? No wonder we lost the war.” This time it was the tea peddler with the small child who spoke, once again attuning them to the train’s fitful clatter.

  The doors rattled open. Masaharu gripped his wife’s seat. A few passengers pushed their way out as more squeezed in, among them two GIs who, despite the Occupation’s segregation rules, had apparently decided to experience native life. Unlike those who strutted around like roosters, at least this pair seemed well-meaning, if revved by the thrill of disobedience.

  “Kunichiwa,” they said, their well-fed faces flushed with optimism. “How are you today? My name is Jim,” one said, looking at a group of schoolgirls. “What’s your name?”

  Several women tittered. The men turned away. A ropy silence hung in the air, low grumbles of displeasure rising. “Name?” The soldiers extended their hands. “Nah-meh?”

  The schoolgirls giggled nervously. The man behind Masaharu clucked again. “They occupy our country; do they have to occupy our car too?”

  “Maybe their car’s full,” a woman said.

  “Ever see more than five or six in their car?” the man retorted.

  “They’re just kids,” someone else snapped.

  And that was true, Masaharu thought, turning to his wife. That was the problem with war. “Kids know nothing about consequences—that’s what makes them useful in war. Even Seiji—” He swallowed his words; Seiji wasn’t a topic they mentioned freely. The last time he’d slipped up they’d ended up pointing fingers at each other with a viciousness that had alarmed them. He glanced at his wife, expecting the doleful smile he found especially withering.

  His wife, though, was gazing out the window, the platform beginning to glide; wrapped in sunlight, she didn’t appear to have heard him. Masaharu wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Something about the way she was sitting, inert and strangely vacant, she looked exactly the way she’d looked when she returned from work that October evening four weeks ago, like a marionette on idle strings, and the memory of how close he’d come to shaking her flashed through his brain. He’d been careful to remove himself then, gently sliding the paper doors behind him.

  “Let me see that handkerchief again,” he said.

  She handed it to him. Shortage had brought a new edge to her face, the kind of sharpness he might have mistaken for hardness if he didn’t see her hands, white with nervous pressure. She’d long since mastered her body, but here it was betraying her. Years ago, when the first kenpeitai underlings raided their home, she’d almost undone the family with her hands. Fortunately the soldiers were too green to notice, but it was the first time Masaharu had understood how much his dissidence was wearing on her. He looked at her hands again. What had they been doing that October night? She’d sat at the table, legs folded on the tattered hassock, her face frozen in a stare. But her hands? He wiped his face with the handkerchief.

  At the front of the car, a schoolgirl stepped forward. Fist on her hip, she regarded the soldiers with teacherly impatience. “Nah-mah-eh. Kon-nichi-wa,” she said.

  The soldiers exchanged a glance. “Nahmeh! Kunichiwa!” they said, grinning.

  “Nah. Mah. Eh. Kon. Nichi. Wah,” the girl repeated.

  “Nahmeh! Kunichiwa!” the soldiers cheered.

  A loud bang stilled the air as someone punched the side of the car. “Think this is a game? Think you’re welcome here? Go back to where you belong.” The words were in Japanese, but the tone was clear, and for a moment the soldiers’ faces wavered with teenage panic, but their bodies hardened, their hands gripping their rifles. Masaharu felt his wife tense. She was a small woman, her seat sufficiently hidden in the rear of the car, but he moved to shield her anyway. The soldiers trained their eyes on the crowd. “What’d you say?” the one called Jim shouted. The tea peddler bounced her stirring child. The car swelled with apprehension as the soldiers spoke to each other, their rapid back-and-forth reminding everyone of how decisions were made these days: from on high and in a language as inaccessible as their own Emperor’s had been.

  “Hey America!” A man stood up. He had the face of someone who, in his youth, had probably carried a little flesh with charm. “Haro! Monay? Gaaru? Chocoraito? Ingurishu prease!” He cupped his ear in humorous apology.

  The soldiers swiveled to look at him.

  “Ingurishu?” the man tried again.

  The soldiers did not move.

  “Oh-rai, oh-kay.” The man wiped his upper lip. “USA!” He pumped a thumbs-up.

  A few women muffled their laughter; the crowd held its breath, fear slowly loosening into a nervous curiosity. Finally, the soldiers’ hands slid from their rifle barrels. “Okay.” They smiled warily. “Tomodachi.” They returned a thumbs-up.

  Tomodachi. Friend. What a word to use, Masaharu thought. He turned to his wife. An odd expression was crossing her face, the soft light he knew well skewed by it. He glanced at her hands; they were resting on her bundle as still as polished stones. A chill climbed to the base of his head.

  “Will you be late tonight?” she asked, startling him.

  “You know Tomita,” he grumbled, and pulled on his cap.

  * * *

  —

  THEY PARTED at the gate. Masaharu took a few steps, then slid into the milling crowd, looping his way back. Spotting her familiar shape, he wondered at himself. Should he visit Tomita after all? He picked his way after her, picturing Tomita’s room, trapped in the quiet of a house its widowed owner had begrudgingly let him. There was no way he’d be there, cooped up on a clear Sunday. Which meant, given his own luck these days, there was a chance his wife could run into him. Would Tomita know to cover for him? She disappeared into the day. Masaharu quickened his pace.

  Outside, business was in full swing, the sundry peddlers vying to entice the G
Is in search of cheap souvenirs. Melted green glass, uniforms looted from military stockpiles, pipes assembled from antiaircraft shells: these days everything sold as defeat curios—even missing limbs, thought Masaharu, dodging an ex-soldier displaying his stump for alms. Beside him, a brassy woman in a Western-style dress lit a cigarette no doubt supplied by one of her American customers. She languidly appraised him as he passed. The unglamorousness of her life was evident on her skin, rough with makeup that did little to mask her plight, but even for Masaharu, who’d never been one to buy his pleasure, the knowledge that he’d been stripped of that privilege rankled him. He looked away, fixing his gaze on his wife’s head swinging this way and that as she peered at every sooty orphan. Masaharu thrust his hands into his pockets.

  The fact was, no matter how she might feel, they had searched for Seiji, scouring the Tokyo streets strewn with dead wires and glowing cinders, clumps of blackened bodies spoiling in the heat. And at first he’d been hopeful too, angling and digging for information, glad for once to be a journalist, which had brought nothing but trouble for his family. But as the days passed, and the damage became clearer, he found himself wavering. True, Seiji’s missing body was a hopeful sign in the midst of the dead and dying who continued to fill the school grounds where they’d begun volunteering, stoking the pyres and gathering the bones. But unlike his wife, who seemed bolstered by the task, Masaharu couldn’t subsist on hope alone, savoring stories of unlikely reunions, perilously sweetened by the words of Seiji’s teacher, who’d once come running, claiming to have spotted him blistered but alive.

  Spring turned to summer, and the sun, unimpeded by roofs and trees, began hammering down, chipping away at their collective morale already worn by the maddening buzz of the flies, the ripening stench of the corpses, the dips and flares of hope unbearable in the heat. Even his wife sank into a stupor, a prickle of desperation showing in her new, unfocused irritability. And yet, for her, the future continued to hover like an open road; that Seiji could appear on it haunted her. They stayed on, the unadmitted skipping away like a stone.

  Then, one night, as he watched the bonfire cremate the latest B-29 carnage, his wife appeared beside him, her face lit by the heat of the dead. “Do you believe Mori-sensei really saw him?”

  The question startled him; it was the closest she’d come to expressing any doubt. He picked up his rod and poked at a half-charred body still too waterlogged to burn. Like so many others, this corpse too had gorged on a river or pond, disbelieving that it had roasted to death. “I suppose nothing’s impossible,” he said carefully. “But in terms of Mori…” He didn’t rehash the teacher’s recent disappearance, her madly shorn hair scattered like a parting gift in front of their makeshift tent.

  “And you?” his wife asked. “What about you? Do you think Seiji…”

  Masaharu gazed at the crackling pyres glowing like mystical landing lights. “All I can say for myself is that I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

  Instead of shunning him, she had touched his arm and left to pack their things.

  * * *

  —

  DRAWN BACK by the noisy street, Masaharu noted with a start that the distance between them had shrunk. He slowed and wiped his face with the handkerchief he realized he’d taken from his wife. Should he or should he not seek out Tomita? He felt sheepish slinking after her like a mole.

  At an intersection, his wife paused. Looking left and right, she turned onto a narrower street flanked by shuttered businesses, where only one store flushed with prewar colors. His wife stopped and joined the gathered crowd. Masaharu eased into the throng.

  Lacquered mirrors and combs, elaborate entertainment kimonos—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such luxuries openly displayed. No doubt they were props consigned for resale by high-class geishas and actors, but even with the discount, which was probably considerable, he couldn’t imagine who could afford them. Perhaps a popular yōpan prostitute catering to foreign servicemen. Why his wife, of all people, had to gawk like every other woman was another matter. Behind him a camera clicked, and a foreign reporter scribbled in a notepad. Masaharu could already picture the headline—WAR-TORN WOMEN SEDUCED BY COSMETICS—his wife’s face splashed beside it. He pushed into the crowd, craning to see what she was so captivated by. To his shock, his eyes locked with hers in the window’s reflection. He jumped back, lunging into an open doorway behind him.

  Had she seen him? The bell above the missing door tinkled as he flattened himself against the inside wall of what had obviously been a confectioner’s, its broken counter once full of delicate sweets. He peered around the empty window frame. The crowd was shifting, newcomers replacing the old; his wife was gone. He rushed into the blinding street.

  * * *

  —

  HAD HE known the consequences, would he have pursued her? This was a question Masaharu would find himself asking from time to time until the end of his life. Looking back, he’d retrace these steps, searching for those moments when he might have turned back, behaved differently.

  But here was the end of the intact street; beyond it, a vast wasteland, rusty girders grazing in the ruin. Masaharu shook out his wife’s handkerchief and wiped the grit that had accumulated around his mouth. Ahead, his wife was negotiating a path someone had cleared in the rubble. She disappeared behind a block of crumbled buildings. He hurried after her.

  To his surprise, he found himself emerging onto one of the main thoroughfares bisecting the city’s amusement district. Once closed by the government, the district was bustling again, its shuttered storefronts gaudily made over in Western style, the now segregated bars and dancehalls thriving despite postwar shortages. Tawdry gangsters, inebriated GIs, rich businessmen profiteering from the war: the streets were lively, petty spats constantly in the making. Masaharu picked his way through the crowd, avoiding groups of hollering soldiers snatching at passing women. Ahead, his wife picked up her pace. Waving to a pack of street kids clearly familiar to her, she crossed the street and disappeared in front of a rickshaw bearer, deftly avoiding a pair of swaggering soldiers whose height and girth reduced Masaharu, not a small man, to the size of an adolescent. He widened his stride, resisting the urge to run.

  At a roadblock—a construction zone?—he thought he’d lost her. Then he spotted her, stopped by two MPs, their skin so dark that for a moment Masaharu froze. He’d never seen a black person before, and in a district he’d assumed off-limits to them, based on what he’d learned of his Occupiers, their presence was startling, drawing the attention of the other soldiers, whose pale skin suddenly looked delicate, pink and peeled, like boiled shrimp. The crowd around him bunched and murmured. The MPs seized her.

  What had she done? Even in his panic, he knew the question was unimportant. Whatever she had or hadn’t done, there would be no recourse. He squinted at the soldiers. They didn’t seem angry, but what did he know about foreigners? He peered at his wife, her small face minuscule now, her tiny expression creased by what he could only guess was fear. The MPs panned the crowd. Taking her arms, they began escorting her down the street. Masaharu plunged into the crowd.

  When he saw them again, two white servicemen had staggered into the street. They were shouting at the MPs, their drunken taunts clearing a ring around them. The crowd stiffened. Several weeks ago, a spat like this had escalated into a riot, killing and injuring hundreds of people caught in the melee. The Occupation had since increased patrols, but nobody was reassured. The MPs kept walking. The white servicemen closed in. Masaharu felt his back bloom.

  At the first sound of scuffling boots, he began running. The distance was at most fifteen meters, yet he struggled to traverse it; from every doorway, it seemed soldiers were pouring out. He was less than ten meters away when he heard the first exchange of fists, the heavy thwack ricocheting in his chest; the crowd erupted, hooting and jeering. He clawed on, one human wall after another, until he brok
e into a band of space several meters wide. The MPs were still fighting, their boots corkscrewing the earth, but he couldn’t see his wife. He bobbed and wove, searching the spaces that winked between the men, but there was no sign of her. As he expanded his sightline, he caught a movement, her familiar shape listing as she slipped down an alley. He started after her, only to be blocked by four huffing soldiers who had momentarily united to halt him.

  * * *

  —

  NEVER HAD Masaharu imagined pacing this alley, slick with vomit and urine, looking for his wife. He exited the alley and rounded the corner for the third time. The same MPs, the same line of jittery GIs, the same closed doors. He glanced up at the grandiose sign. The same cheap brushstrokes coaxed up the same cheap waves, one word ostentatiously scrawled across it: OASIS.

  At first he failed to connect the dots, his skittering brain unable to grasp anything. Then he did, and for a moment he stood rooted: the MPs; the line of GIs; the alley into which his wife had disappeared. His body shimmered with a new fear. The front doors swung open. He saw the smiling proprietor; he saw the row of women. Their faces were too far for him to make out, but every one of them had the same short bob he’d enjoyed on his wife. The doors slammed shut. Masaharu rushed forward.

  Two pairs of hands clamped down on him: the black MPs. “No Japs.” They pointed at the sign. Their faces were neutral, betraying none of the hostilities of a moment ago, but their grip was firm. Masaharu stared at their hands. No doubt the world’s advances had produced the miracle of bringing them—men from opposite ends of the map—together; yet it was also the madness of those advances that spared them no time to understand each other. What means did he have to explain? He pictured their hands on his wife moments ago; a dim light expanded in his brain. Did they know her? Could they have been protecting her? He looked up at their faces, his meager collection of English words scattering like beads. Behind him, the doors opened again. He twisted around, the English word for “wife” suddenly coming to his mouth. He repeated it, pointing and struggling. The GIs laughed. The MPs shook their heads. The doors closed. “Dah-meh,” they told him, emphasizing each syllable, pushing him away.