Inheritors

by Asako Serizawa

  Back in the street, Masaharu had no idea what to do. If he’d been a different man, he might have risked the back door and stormed the facility, stripping the curtains to all the cubicles until he found her, sweat-smeared and humiliated. But Masaharu was not a hysterical man; even now, a part of him expected her to emerge, her face lifting with surprise before curling, guessing at his fears. He couldn’t imagine her spread on the bedding, her thin body mounted and speared like a pig.

  Circling the streets, Masaharu returned again and again to check the alley and the doors. The shoulder-length bob, the new Sunday hours—why hadn’t he seen it? He pictured the requisitioned building, the barbed-wire fence, the armed checkpoint to which he’d accompanied her on the first day of her typing job. It had angered him then that they’d barred his way; now he was sour with the irony. Unlike Tomita, he’d banked on Japan’s defeat. Every year another year closer to Seiji’s conscription, he’d wished for a different life. When the bombings began, Masaharu, if briefly, felt a fizz of hope. It seemed possible that his son, too old to be evacuated to the countryside, might still escape the draft. He never imagined Seiji, so close to the war’s end, disappearing.

  Looking about the squalid glitter, Masaharu marveled at the world, its history of sanctioned violence that insisted on dividing the victorious from the defeated. For centuries, men, first in the name of blood, then in the name of national interest, had done this: plunder and rape, decimating whole continents as if it were their noble right. Now there were planes and bombs rumored to vanish entire cities—how could they go on? He pictured the burning streets, the half-charred bodies, all the pyres he’d lit. In every corner of the world, someone was still doing as he’d done—grieving all that the greed of men, his own country’s too, had helped lay waste to—and the thought filled him with remorse. He looked at the facility, the ever-growing line, his wife’s body opening to take every inch of it. He couldn’t imagine how he could ever get past it.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS almost midnight by the time he got off the train and walked the fifteen minutes to the intersection from which he could see their boardinghouse, a single square of light illuminating it. Framed there was his wife, arms on the windowsill, face upturned, as if scrying the stars that were abundant here, unlike in Tokyo, whose spoilt sky showed nothing but a dim smear. But Masaharu knew his wife was merely waiting for him, their best dinner of the week covered by a cloth: the rewards of her labor. Despite himself, his stomach gurgled, and he marveled bitterly at the body’s animal will to survive.

  Behind him the Kannon’s hill loomed unrealized in a dark that hovered there as if held by a new curfew. It occurred to him that he could run away and vanish as many were doing, but after everything, disappearing, he knew, would be nothing short of an apostasy.

  Passing under their window, he looked up and met his wife’s eyes. There was nothing in them to betray her feelings, but he could feel her agitation, the ripple of worry and perhaps anger competing with her will to spare him the inquisition. He rounded the corner and climbed the metal stairs, his footsteps loud in the chilly air. In less than a month, winter would once again dust these steps, freezing off thousands of the sick and starving, but they would not need to worry.

  Loosing his keys from his pocket, he stepped into the shadowy corridor and was again assailed by images of her—her slick mouth and wet thighs, opening for the pleasure of others. For a moment he stood still. How could he do this? He gripped his keys, struggling to recall the person he knew was on the other side of the door, readying his meal, unbegrudgingly. Of course, this was what she’d tried to spare him—he saw that now. And just as she’d tried, he had to try to spare her the knowledge that he knew—that was only fair. After all, they’d chosen to survive; they had a whole life ahead of them to live now, together, in their own silence, separately.

  WILLOW RUN

  Do you know “Willow Run”?

  Yes, “willow” as in the tree, “run” as in the verb. Of course, I had no idea what it meant then, or what he—the soldier—meant by it. But I liked the sound—willow run—like something wispy, something escaping. Looking back, I have to laugh. But at the time? I’d repeat the words, so cumbersome on my tongue. Many women took to reciting the sutras. But in that situation…I’m sorry—was there some way you wanted me to begin?

  * * *

  *

  I WAS born in the first year of Taishō—

  That’s right, 1912. Of course, as a Japanese, I wonder if nuances aren’t lost when accounting in the Western way. For example, unlike Meiji people like our parents, we Taishō people were very open to the Western world. Have you heard of “moga,” or “modan gaaru”? As a girl, I thought we were quite modern, quite the sophisticates .

  I’ll be seventy-nine in October.

  Yes, my husband passed on last year. Which is why I decided to take this chance.

  That’s right, my son is the scholar. But please, as I mentioned on the telephone, I don’t want him implicated—

  Yes, yes, you explained very well your legal ambitions. But are you sure my name won’t—

  No, no, I’m quite prepared to speak. It’s just that…Well, if I had half your courage, a young woman like yourself, coming all this way from America. You mentioned your parents are Korean?

  Then I can understand your interest. But your cameraman—is he a historian too? Why an American man would be interested in…I’m sorry, it must be my nerves, chatting away like this . Not that people haven’t come forward—they’ve always come forward, haven’t they? And now with the Shōwa Emperor just passed and everybody reflecting on His reign…You see, when I saw your call for testimonies…Well, it was the first time I saw anybody soliciting that story. Oh! I’m sorry. The hand towel!

  No, no, it’s all right. Is the camera still—

  * * *

  *

  AT THE time of surrender, my husband and I were already in [Ō]-city. We’d fled Tokyo after we lost our son—

  No, no, we only had one child. After the war we adopted our son—

  Yes, the scholar. Of course, we should have told him sooner—about his adoption. But back then…Well, everything was in tatters. And afterward, we had no desire to look back. You see, we never found our son’s body.

  He was thirteen. Why he wasn’t in his room that night…

  Yes, the March air raid. Looking back, I see how unprepared we were. I suppose we’d gotten used to the false alarms—all we’d seen was the glow of distant flashes. But that night…We hardly had a minute before we heard the whistling, like a thousand fireworks. Back then, we slept in our clothes, so all we had to do was grab our emergency bags and put on our silly hoods—

  Oh, they were just padded pieces of cloth, another thing our government cooked up. Still, we put them on, you know, half of us running around with our hoods on fire . We ran and ran, our houses shooting into flames. Until then, I never knew fire could be so loud, crashing about like drunken demons. And the heat. It was like a rubber mask smothering our faces. We couldn’t breathe or see; all we could do was run from street corner to street corner, smoke rolling in from every side, shadows appearing and disappearing, sometimes knocked away like bowling pins. Everywhere families were calling each other, and one mother—I’ll never forget her—came barging past with a baby strapped to her back. She was so determined, you know. But that poor baby. Its little head was knocked back and running like an egg. There were so many lost children—we tried to take them with us. But they clung to the spots where they thought their parents would come for them. We eventually found a shelter, but the next morning…Everything was in piles—even the air was scorched, embers floating like fireflies. Eventually, we all drifted toward our homes, but the bodies, you know. They were sprawled every which way, clogging the ditches, cluttering the streets, and all I could think was whether Seiji, our son, had take
n his emergency bag, or whether I’d seen it at the entrance. Now there’s little to remind us of that time, but it’s the body that remembers. Some people can’t stand the sound of fireworks. For myself, it’s the smell of roasting meat…

  * * *

  *

  AT FIRST I had another job. Thanks to my father, I could type. My mother died when I was a little girl, so he’d taken it upon himself to—

  A secretarial job. With the American administration. Their headquarters was still in Yokohama then.

  Oh, no, my husband loathed the idea . But there was no work for someone like him.

  He was a newspaperman. A political journalist.

  No, no, he leaned very much to the left.

  No, he wasn’t a Party member, but in those days, any “radical” was a “red,” and that never changed with the Americans, so even after the war, no one wanted to risk hiring—

  During the war? We were visited all the time by the Tokkō thought police; our neighbors wouldn’t come within ten meters of us . As a woman, all I could do was serve the best tea we could afford and clean up the “gifts” they liked to leave behind.

  Oh, broken teapots, upturned furniture, ripped shōji—they never missed an opportunity. Throwing tantrums the way only men can. Soon we had a spacious home with very little to tidy.

  Twelve of us. They hired twelve of us, all women in our twenties and thirties.

  No, no, not all of us could type. But we did everything from filing papers to sweeping the floor. I was part of a group assigned to type up memos, transcripts, reports.

  Well, we weren’t privy to that level of information . The only reports we saw were ones touting the success of this or that “democratic”—

  That was the thing; none of us knew a drop of English . Except our supervisor. She—[A]-san—would translate snippets, mostly to make us laugh.

  Yes, she was our go-between. Several Americans spoke Japanese, but we rarely—

  We did like her; [A]-san was a helpful woman.

  Yes, there were people who disliked her, but there are always people who dislike others, aren’t there? And given her proximity to the Americans—

  We did. We trusted her. As much as anybody could trust anybody in those days. We were all so needy, you know; it wasn’t always easy to discern—

  Advantage? What do you mean—

  Oh. No. No, no. [A]-san wasn’t a liaison . That office wasn’t a back door to—

  Well, now that you mention it. About a month after I started, I found a piece of paper. I was, as they say, sleuthing , looking for information about the air raids. The paper was peeking from beneath the file cabinets. It had rows of our faces printed on it, our names below each.

  It was in rōmaji, in English script.

  But we could read our names; we knew the alphabet—

  At first I thought it was a roster. Some faces were crossed out, and I thought they were women who had left the job. Then, when I realized that most women were still there…

  About half. Half the women were crossed out, and at the top someone had scribbled the word “moose.”

  No, not the dessert; the animal . Of course I didn’t know that then, and my first thought was to show [A]-san.

  No, her face wasn’t crossed out.

  Yes, she was very distraught, very unforthcoming. Eventually, she asked me if I’d noticed the American fondness for contractions.

  I must have looked as baffled as you. Do you know the Japanese word for “girl”?

  That’s right. Musume. Or musume-san, as the Americans liked to say. “Moose” was short for musume. They had a popular game they called Hunting for Moose.

  Yes, Hunting for Moose.

  Exactly, the paper was their tally sheet.

  I suppose we knew things went on; most women were widows with small children and parents to support, and the soldiers…It wouldn’t be unfair to say they were here to enjoy a little—

  There were twenty men in that office. Including the officer.

  Yes, I believe they were all in on it.

  [A]-san? She made me promise to keep it to myself. Not that there was any recourse, you understand. For some time, all I could think of were those faces, those terrible slash marks…

  I assumed [A]-san disposed of the paper. Though sometimes…Well, it’s just that one morning, soon after the incident, I arrived at the security gate, and they wouldn’t let me through.

  Oh, I don’t know if [A]-san had anything do with it. What could she gain—

  Yes, I went back every day for a week, returning at various times to catch a familiar face. But no one would speak to me. And in the end, I couldn’t risk anybody’s job.

  No, I never saw [A]-san. But it had always been that way. As though she never went in or out of that building. She was always there when I arrived, there when I left—

  Oh, no, I don’t think she was in on it. Though it’s true: we all did what we had to. If one of them had told me they could find Seiji for me…

  Yes, eventually, I met a recruiter.

  He was Japanese. A policeman. Working with the Public Safety Association. He got the job because, as a policeman, he knew all the licensed and unlicensed women in his district.

  Oh, yes, our government was eager for women—for a “people’s diplomacy,” they called it . Our role was “to soothe foreign tempers and protect the purity of girls and women.” It goes to show, doesn’t it? They knew exactly what to expect, didn’t they? After all, they’d had plenty of experience, all those years setting up ways to cater to our own soldiers’…needs.

  The recruiter? He was pleasant enough. He kept reassuring me of the cleanliness of—

  Coerced?

  Well, he never physically or verbally—

  I suppose, yes, it was, as you say, my decision. But “voluntary” isn’t exactly—

  Well, many women were, as you say, coerced. But “coerced” is such a…cunning word, isn’t it?

  No, no, I don’t mean to trivialize—

  But I never said I was coerced. On the telephone, I only told you—

  But you agreed. You agreed to hear my story, my side—

  * * *

  *

  I WAS fortunate; my shift was during normal hours. And my husband wasn’t the suspicious type—

  Oh, no, I never told him. He was so frustrated in those days; he couldn’t find work, he’d already had a few run-ins with the American authorities. But he did follow me one day. Of course, one might have expected a journalist to be more discreet . You should have seen the fuss he made at the doors. I was afraid he’d barge right in—

  No, no, it was open only to white foreigners.

  Yes, there were designated establishments for black soldiers.

  Actually, some women preferred it. They claimed they were treated more…sympathetically, perhaps because of the soldiers’, you know, own plight—

  Yes, two guards. They were there mostly to watch the line.

  Oh, yes. From opening to closing. All the way around the building. They were usually keyed up too, drinking from first thing in the morning.

  Fourteen of us. Though someone was always out sick.

  Yes, we did; we had our own designated clinic.

  No, they were Japanese. They were overseen by American doctors.

  Oh, yes, every week. Why they didn’t insist on examining their own soldiers with equal—

  Fifteen minutes or a half hour. Most soldiers chose the fifteen.

  Forty yen. Can you imagine? Same as a pack of cigarettes.

  On average? Between fifteen and twenty. One woman had more than thirty in a day. She was relieved when she was taken out for a course of penicillin.

  Yes, for VD.

  Well, of cours
e, they were required. But we could hardly force them to put them on—

  The first time? I never thought I’d make it home, my legs were so shaky. Every few steps I had to stop. And all the way home I bled and bled. And the pain. It was like giving birth all over again. The next day…Everything ached, my hips, my joints, and when I passed water, the sting of it…Eventually, we all found ways to…accommodate things, but I don’t think anyone got used to it. Some days we could hardly wash, we were so swollen, you know. And the feeling of seeping, as though everything were rotting out. I never felt clean, always as though it were infected with some terrible odor or disease. I’d wash and wash…

  No, my husband never said a word. Then afterward, after he followed me, he stopped trying to…you know. Except once. He’d been drinking. But when he saw my…you know…

  Oh, I don’t think they noticed a thing—they might have enjoyed the swelling. Of course, there were always a few who insisted on inspecting…things. One of them even brought gloves. But most were ready before they got in the doors.

  But in their eyes they were paying customers, weren’t they? The things they would demand for forty yen.

  What do you expect? Letting loose a pack of boys in a country where they could do as they pleased. Most were curious, many afraid of losing face, but they all got used to it, didn’t they? Demanding our “geisha tricks,” as they called it. As though we knew such things. Why did they assume—