Inheritors

by Asako Serizawa

  “Did you find your family?” I asked, blotting my face with my handkerchief.

  Murayama looked away. He’d searched for them in the shanties that had cropped up in the ruins, but nobody had seen or heard from them. “That’s when I decided to make my rounds, see who I could find. Shizuoka was the closest, so I came here. I didn’t think I’d find you—seems like this city too went the way of Nagoya.” He glanced about appraisingly this time, taking in the vase, the wall, the view of the narrow garden. The house, unrefreshed for years, felt indecently opulent.

  I dabbed my face again. “These are troubled times—I appreciate you coming all this way. Yasushi would be upset he missed you.” Again I caught that flash in his eyes. I quickly went on. “Did you know each other long?”

  Murayama explained they’d started out in different units. “As the war went on and we lost more people, units got merged. I was stationed in Luzon. That’s where I met Tanaka—I mean, that’s what your son called himself: Tanaka Jirō. I don’t know if you were aware.” His gaze slid toward me.

  Tanaka Jirō. It was a name I recognized. It belonged to the kenpeitai officer who’d once come to this house to interrogate my husband about his “antipatriotic” views—an unimaginative catchall accusation the government launched at whomever it fancied, even a respected doctor like my husband. That Yasushi had hung on to the name—this was a shock; he’d been so little, and we never spoke of it. But Yasushi and my husband had always had their differences. Still, it was a cruel snub. “Murayama-san, please excuse me. We’ve had no idea about Yasushi’s whereabouts since he ran away from home seven years ago. He was only in high school, but he was committed to serving, so we assumed he’d found a way to enlist, even without my husband’s consent. We made inquiries, of course, but found no trace of him. Now I know why. Did he say why he chose that name?”

  Murayama, listening keenly, shook his head. He explained that the two of them had spent only the three months they were stationed in Luzon together. “Just before we were deployed, I got pulled from my unit because I had mechanical skills they wanted to retain. I went straight to my commander—I asked to go with them.”

  “But you were kept back,” I said, my voice thin.

  Murayama nodded. “When I knew I was staying behind, I offered to, you know, take care of anyone’s effects, if it came to it. At first Tanaka wasn’t interested, said he had no one he needed to send anything back to. But the next day, after they were gone, I found that.” He gestured at the paper.

  The revelation struck me, its bluntness leaving no room for interpretation: as far as Yasushi was concerned, he’d severed himself from us. But the implied subtext was worse. “What kind of mission was this? When was it?”

  Murayama shifted in his seat. “Two years ago. The unit was assigned to garrison an island. Given the state of the war…”

  “And you never heard anything? There was no news?”

  Murayama lowered his gaze. “I got shipped out right after. Last I heard, they’d lost contact. But that doesn’t mean anything,” he added. “Strange things happen all the time.”

  This was no doubt true—it was the source of so much painful hope—but my fears seemed confirmed. I began to shake.

  “Listen.” He set down his chopsticks. “No one knows for sure—that’s the real truth. And these days you never know who’s going to turn up,” he said, alluding to all the soldiers who’d returned only to find their names etched into tombstones in the family lot.

  I nodded, but I felt numb. Outside, the leaves of the osmanthus tree were shimmering like coins, the cicadas chorusing to an emulous screech. I glanced at the vase. Its demurely fecund shape, once so expectant, now only emphasized its hollow interior. “May I?” I gestured at the paper.

  Apologizing, Murayama handed it to me.

  The paper was softer than I had expected, the worn folds releasing a leathery smell, and I saw at once that it was my son’s handwriting, his gruff script, stabbingly familiar, still slouching to the left despite his early determination to correct it. This evidence, along with the other—the two names he’d written: his given one relegated beneath the hideous one he’d chosen to assume—pierced my chest, and my heart swelled, hurt and grief cresting before breaking into gratitude for this scrap of Yasushi that had made it back.

  I was about to say as much, thank Murayama for the care with which he must have carried the paper, but when I looked up, I saw a strange expression cross his face, an odd detachment as though he’d been noting the moment—a lone middle-aged woman in slow undress—and my stomach clutched. He was a soldier, I reminded myself, the shadowy rumors that had been circulating in the streets suddenly murmuring close to my ear. What did it matter that he was polite, that he had known Yasushi, that he was someone’s son? I glanced at his hands, toughened by mechanical work and who knew what else. As his blunt fingers fingered the teacup, I found myself shifting toward the vase, though I knew I’d be no match for a soldier, even a starving one like this.

  Murayama did not seem to notice my alarm. Once again apologizing for his presence, he thanked me for my hospitality and repeated that he’d only come here hoping against the odds that Tanaka had made it back. “I didn’t know where else to go—where else to be. Us soldiers, we’re pretty unpopular these days.”

  I did not reply. Instead, I stood and slid the glass doors wider.

  Outside, the day had mellowed, a light breeze loosening the air, the cool shadow cast by the eaves beginning to elongate on the ground, evoking the shape of the awning we did not have but had always wanted, a generous one, ample enough to cover the stone step we’d placed at the foot of the sliding glass doors. Even Yasushi had smiled at the idea, probably thinking that it would let him sneak his cigarettes during a rainfall, and for a while, encouraged by his approval, my husband had put considerable energy into seeing it constructed, the two of them tentatively tolerating each other until, one afternoon, Yasushi failed to come home from school. That evening the cicadas had been relentless just like this, and the pang of that memory cut through me. I returned to my seat. “People are just tired. They’re looking for justification—some way to make all this make sense. You mustn’t let them bother you.”

  This time it was Murayama who did not reply. Instead, he swirled the teacup, watching the dregs rise to the rim, and I noticed that a sheen had come to his forehead. Why was he here? The question, contained until now in the back of my mind, effloresced, and a new fear fanned across my back. Given the circumstances, he must have known Yasushi wouldn’t be here. The realization swept through me; I could not move. After a moment, I repeated, “You really mustn’t take these things personally. People are nervous. And you had orders to follow.”

  Murayama had apparently heard me the first time. Looking up, he brusquely told me that he appreciated my sympathy, but he was tired of people, so-called civilians, rolling out the carpet when there were things to cheer about, only to whip it away when the going got tough. “What makes you think you have the right? It was our lives you risked.”

  “Well, if we had known, if we’d been properly informed—”

  “Then what? What would you have done?”

  “Someone would have put a stop to it.”

  “Like the Emperor?” He laughed. “Truth is, none of you wanted to know. And now you want us hanged.”

  “That’s unfair. Nobody faults you for following orders,” I said.

  “Orders?” Murayama looked at me.

  “Please.” I glanced at his hands again, grubby with dirt brought back from Luzon and wherever else. “In a few months, we’ll all see things more clearly. Would you like one more cup of tea?” I moved to comply, even though I knew there was none left.

  Murayama slapped his palms on the table, not hard, but with passion. “I know what people are saying. All the things we supposedly did, the slaughter and whatnot. What I want to know
is, do you believe it? Do you believe your son—”

  I seized the neck of my blouse. “What? Do I believe what?”

  Murayama licked his lips. Then his face slackened. “Forget it. Tanaka was a stellar guy. A model soldier.” His voice was dutiful and hollow.

  I picked up the paper and again examined Yasushi’s script. There was nothing to betray him, but, having assumed myself a mother of a soldier, I hadn’t been immune to the whispers, the hushed anecdotes with their grisly suggestions, and these details, powerful in their obscurity, had collected like secret pearls in the back of my mind. Was this then why Murayama had come? To confess, to be absolved? “Please,” I insisted. “What were you saying about Yasushi?”

  Murayama peered at me, his furrowed face dubious but full of desire. He glanced at the vase, the green color almost blue where the sun had drawn its shade. When he turned back, he reassured me that Tanaka had been an upright soldier, well loved by everybody. “We just had a job to do. Sure, we heard stories—starving men losing their heads and even eating each other—but those guys were in remote places. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Tanaka was on an island, but his island had villages—I mean, sure, he would’ve had to secure his position, but the point is, if people just cooperated, told us what we needed to know, but those natives…” He laughed nervously. “Would you like to see my album?”

  It took a moment for my mind to catch up. When it did, my heart jumped. Of course, the album. I had been shown these books before while visiting bereaved neighbors; that I might one day see my son’s had not registered. I searched Murayama’s face, oily with sweat despite the breeze that had begun to visit the room, and I could smell his body, a seeping acridity. I gripped my handkerchief. Yes, I nodded. I wanted to see the album.

  Murayama wiped his forehead and reached for his satchel. Explaining that Yasushi, originally from a different regiment, was not actually in his album, he assured me that military life was similar everywhere. “See this?” He pointed at the first photograph. “That’s me.” Little more than a schoolboy, his face, like the others, was braced against uncertainty, his ardent resolve only betraying a notion of who he still believed he could be. “That guy there?” His first bunkmate. Page after page, he picked out key figures, rattling off facts about his division, the commanding officer, the number of battalions, platoons, and sections that made it up, his voice rising as the photographs showed fewer rows of soldiers, their individual faces becoming clearer, the background changing to show slivers of fields, runways, harbors. Coming to a portrait of his own unit, he told fond anecdotes about the hardships of camp life, how training, meant to harden them, only made them feel more exposed, more penetrable, their quickest reflexes always plodding against the speed of bullets. “At some point you realize they’re just trying to beat the fear out of you.” He recalled each slap, each punch, how the humiliation pumped him up. “The worst was when some idiot screwed up, we all got punished. So much for team spirit; most days we wanted to kill each other.” He laughed. “Or kill them.” He jabbed at a photograph of decorated officers.

  “Were there incidents like that?”

  Murayama smiled. “Not in our unit. That would’ve been suicide.” He flipped through the pages, looking for images of the more colorful characters known for their petty rebellion, and again the feeling of Yasushi’s proximity seized me. How much had I longed for this? I had lived with a notion of Yasushi as a grown man, but without any context he had defied imagination. Now I was glimpsing his world, the details of his surroundings supplying a hint of his voice, his face, his life, and the experience was so beguiling I found myself giving over to this reunion with my son.

  At five o’clock, my husband’s Gustav Becker chimed, its sonorous report startling us. Seizing the moment to comment on the yellowing sky, I noted the quickening traffic flashing through the gaps in the wooden fence foretelling my husband’s return. To my relief, Murayama flipped to the album’s last pages, where he had pasted in his own snapshots. He lingered over these, locating each one—Singapore, Malaya, Philippines—identifying all his closest friends, explaining that Yasushi would’ve been in some of the images had anyone been able to coax the camera from him. “He loved that thing, thought he could be a photojournalist. These were his favorites.” The images were of small, sentimental things—an ant on a cigarette butt; a fish in a puddle held by an empty crab shell—but they’d captured what his eyes had seen and moved him to record, and I breathed, swallowing the lump that had come to my throat.

  Murayama, noticing this, hastened to cheer me. He described their friendship, the epic arguments they’d enjoyed, sparked by their disagreements over the quality of an image, their technical points turning like empty spits in the heat of their rivalry. “What did we know about photography?” He laughed. “Still, by the end, he’d learned something,” he said, pointing out a few more of Yasushi’s photographs, mostly portraits, some exhibiting a clear development, a growing promise I could hardly bear to witness. I touched the album. Murayama all but leapt up. He slammed the album shut, his gaze darting from my hand to the wall, settling on the vase, the pale shape now burnished by the afternoon sun, and again I saw that peculiar look, cool and assessing but almost guilty now, and it struck me that he had come for something, perhaps to burgle me after all, and I quickly apologized, explaining that I had meant no harm, that his visit had been a gift, one for which I wished I had something to offer. “It’s nothing, but would you like to take some of Yasushi’s clothes?”

  Murayama blinked. Then his face creased, stricken. Shaking his head, he muttered an embarrassed apology and stood up. Stuffing his album into his satchel, he thanked me again for my hospitality. “You never know,” he told me as he pulled on his gaiters and hoisted his satchel, his voice edged with a chattiness that rattled the house. “Tanaka was famous for pulling things off.” In fact, when he did show up, would I mind letting him know that he, Murayama, had looked him up?

  I promised I would and unlatched the gate, asking if there wasn’t anything more I could do. Telling me that he’d already inconvenienced me sufficiently, he bowed deeply and stepped away, turning once to wave before dissolving into the evening crowd.

  Returning to the room, I hastened to straighten up, gathering the chopsticks, nesting the teacup in the bowl. I wiped the table, swept the tatami, gently slipping the paper into my pocket. Closing the sliding glass doors, I locked them, vigorously testing the latch. On my way out, I stopped to wipe the vase. There in the depths of its womb was a photograph, its white shape stenciled against the dark, and a chill snaked up my spine. I picked it out. In the foreground was Murayama, his open smile revealing a sunny boy not yet browned by the tropical sun. A field spread out behind him, a few shrubs in the distance, the open meadow bisected by a diagonal line: a newly dug trench. Along the trench was a line of people, roughly clothed and blindfolded, their legs folded under them, their ankles and wrists bound by ropes tied to stakes hammered deep into the earth. Though diminished by distance, their faces were crisp, the ends of their blindfolds flapping around their open mouths contorted by their anticipation of the soldiers standing several meters behind them, bayonets unsheathed. Like the prisoners, the soldiers’ faces were also diminished but crisp, and as I stared, my eyes darting from the ferocious faces of these boys gripping their bayonets to the runny faces of the prisoners twisted in desperation, I realized that their expressions were in fact identical, both parties bound by the same fear, the attackers anticipating the same moment of piercing anticipated by the victims, and it was then that I registered that what I was looking at was not, as I had first assumed, an execution, but rather a training session, the line of shrubs not at all shrubs but a row of chairs fattened by decorated officers observing the performance. Two questions sprang at me: Why had Murayama left this picture hidden in this vase? And was this, like the others, Yasushi’s photograph? Then it dawned on me that perhaps this whole visit had been a plo
y plotted perhaps by Yasushi himself to not only leak the incriminating image—wasn’t that what photojournalists did?—but also signal to me that he, though uninterested in presenting himself, had in fact survived.

  This last thought seized my imagination, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed plausible. Wouldn’t it explain Murayama’s peculiar behavior, and hadn’t he, at the last moment, been careful to prepare me for Yasushi’s return? I brought the photograph closer, its faint chemical odor penetrating my nose. Yes, those were indeed officers, and that was definitely a row of training soldiers, one end eclipsed by Murayama’s head, the other end cut off by the photograph’s border, the last visible soldier a mere slice, one visible leg stepping forward, one visible arm raising the bayonet, his face, cocked and therefore visible, sending a bolt of shock through me. Yasushi.

  Outside, the sky had cooled to a pleasant cobalt, and as the clacking footsteps of the passersby began to thin, one pair branched off to stop outside the gate: my husband. I gripped the photograph. Glancing about for a place to hide it, my gaze, like Murayama’s, alighted on the vase. I carefully lowered it image-side up so that its gray face would blend with the vase’s dark interior. I stepped back; my buckling knees folded me to the floor. Outside, the gate rattled, the rusty bolt catching as usual. Smoothing my skirt, I arranged myself, tugging my blouse, straightening my back, as the momentary quiet of the room, once again assailed by the cicadas, was swallowed up by the darkening summer sky.

  TRAIN TO HARBIN

  I once met a man on the train to Harbin. He was my age, just past his prime, hair starting to grease and thin in a way one might have thought passably distinguished in another context, in another era, when he might have settled, reconciled to finishing out his long career predictably. But it was 1939. War had officially broken out between China and Japan, and like all of us on that train, he too had chosen to take the bait, that one last bite before acquiescing to life’s steady decline. You see, for us university doctors, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We all knew it. Especially back then.