A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (12 page)

Life at the orphanage may be without much drama but we had one incident of note a couple of months ago. During one of my morning walks, I found the boy Ko standing near the pond, naked. He was wet, as if he had swum in the water, which was still congested from the disease that had killed all the fish. The red slime coated his skin. I called out his name and he turned to me and pointed at the water. I asked him, ‘I don't understand. What's wrong, Ko?' He started to cry. ‘What is it, Ko? Where are your clothes?' He looked at the water once more. ‘I don't understand, Ko.' He opened his mouth and then he did something extraordinary: he spoke. His voice was high-pitched. It belonged to a boy younger than his years. ‘Miki is in the water. Please help her.' I asked who
she was. ‘My friend.' I had heard of no Miki. He grew agitated. ‘Help her, help her.' I told him to wait and I went to fetch the caretaker. We dredged the pond that morning and he watched us, wrapped in a blanket, Sister Abe by his side. Ko shivered as he watched the caretaker and his son pull the empty dragnets into the boat. I told him how sorry I was but no one was there. He shook his head, more angry than sad. ‘Miki is in the water.' Sister Abe put her arms around his shoulders. ‘Ko, there is no Miki. No one of that name lives with us.' He drew still at this and the nun held his chin, made him look her in the eyes. ‘You're speaking, Ko.' The boy looked at her, cowed. ‘My name isn't Ko.' She ran a finger over his face. ‘Who are you then?' He looked at that dead pond. ‘Miki.' And then he stopped talking again.

What to say of Ko? He is my most regular visitor and, with the exception of the two toddler girls, my most curious case. We sit in genial silence as I check his burns and fill out my forms. A surgeon from America has performed some plastic surgery on him and the doctor is keen that I report on the healing process. There is talk of more procedures taking place, perhaps in the US, although the logistics involved make that difficult. Ko's file is thick with medical assessments. The first notes were made when he was admitted to Nagasaki Commercial College on August 18. The burns are not those from the thermal rays of the explosion but some localised fire. Still, his survival is a rare thing. Ninety per cent of survivors exposed to the blast who I saw died by the fortieth day. Think of the care available to him. There was no zinc oxide oil; we used whatever we could get our
hands on to treat burns: rapeseed oil, cooking oil, castor oil, even machine oil. The same thing when it came to disinfecting the burns. We used what we could find: iodine tincture, mercurochrome, Rivanol, boric acid solution. His life was immeasurably improved by the American doctor, that is for sure, but we humans, we do so like to create our Frankenstein monsters.

I can only imagine who this Miki might be. A lost sibling, an imaginary friend, maybe even the thing the boy might like to be. Days later, I was sitting on a bench in the orphanage's front garden. Children were playing catch on the lawn and Sister Abe and Ko were sitting on the veranda, shaded from the sun. Ko watched the other youngsters run around the grass and then he looked beyond them, down the gravel path. I followed his gaze but could see nothing save for the usual flowers, bushes and the gate. He turned to the nun and I saw his mouth move and then she smiled and held his hand.

His name is Hideo. He remembers little else at the moment, not the name of his parents, where he lived, the school he attended. The Mother Superior reported the scant information back to the head office in Nagasaki. They said they would check the missing persons register and various other records for any possible candidates but no one could see a happy ending to this search. We don't even know how many people were in the city at the time. Maybe 240,000, maybe more, maybe less. How many Hideos, of Ko's estimated age at the time of pikadon, were registered missing and how many parents left alive to find them? Eight weeks later I learned the answer: twenty-three.

I scanned the list the church's head office had sent
us. I turned the first page and then the next until only one more was left. And then there you were. I confess I wept as I read the date of birth, school, parents and next of kin: Hideo Watanabe; February 22, 1938; Yamazato Primary; Shige and Yuko Watanabe (née Takahashi); Kenzo Takahashi (grandfather), Mitsubishi Corporation (shipbuilding division). I think this is when the thought began, a kernel of hope, of possibility. As the days passed, this seed began to grow in my mind, burst open and push its way to the light until it became more than a shoot of possibility, but a living, fragile new life in the dead soil. Could this Hideo be your Hideo? Your mother told me he had died but could she have been wrong? And if she was mistaken about Hideo, what about you?

I waited for Sister Abe to bring Ko to my office. She held his hand as I explained we had been trying to find out more about his family. I told him we had a list of boys, all called Hideo, who went missing on the day he was injured. There was a chance he might be one of them. Could we read the details to him and see if anything sounded familiar? He said nothing and I began to read the names. By the fifth one he began to cry. Sister Abe said we should perhaps stop, but I asked to try one more, and when I read out Yamazato Primary, he looked up. I promise I did not imagine his reaction. ‘Do you recognise the school, Hideo?' He wiped his eyes and nestled into the nun. ‘Can you remember your mother's name?' He thought for a moment. ‘I called her Mummy.' Sister Abe kissed the top of his head. ‘Can you remember what other people called her?' He looked up at the nun. ‘Can I leave, please?' She glanced at me and I said, ‘We have plenty of time.
This is hard, Hideo, I know. Don't worry. This might help us find your parents.' He shuffled off the chair and touched Sister Abe on the wrist. ‘Miki says our parents are lost, but they're coming back.' The nun smiled as she led him away. ‘Miki sounds kind.'

Over the next days and weeks, I replaced brittle evidence with malleable hope. I study his mannerisms, the signs of the boy before this trauma. There are moments when I begin to see you in him. Why not, Yuko? Why not? But then I give myself a shake. That would be too miraculous for this world. He is no doubt just another orphan. That would be much simpler to comprehend, would it not?

I stopped reading. Sato had always been a foolish man, too ignorant of the damage he unleashed with his musings and desires. He had outdone himself here, playing a god to some boy. Why drape a past on a child that did not belong to him? My grandson would not be the only Hideo with lost parents. This boy could have been found at any number of schools destroyed that day. If Sato wanted to give this Ko an identity, he could have chosen any name pulled from that missing persons register, but he chose our Hideo Watanabe. Why? To ease his own grief, not to help one of too many orphans left behind. His selfishness was obscene.

The man had said he would return today. What to tell him of the letters? I felt soiled by their contents. I wanted to slough the words off my mind, cleanse myself of Sato, but as always the lure of him was relentless. With the coffee long cold by my side, I continued to read.

By 1950, he wrote, the church had managed to contact eleven of the families on the list. They were asked to provide facts that might help prove the boy's identity: a birthmark, blemishes or other features peculiar to their son or grandson or nephew. Some parents were even brought to the island to meet their possible child. Sato explained Hideo's injuries to them and the Mother Superior took them to a spot so that they could view him from a discreet distance. If there was any hint of recognition or desire to meet the boy, Hideo was brought to them and they stared at him and asked questions that he seemed unable or unwilling to answer. ‘Do you recognise us? Where do we live? Do you have any brothers or sisters?' The process seemed crude and ineffective. The couples would fidget and cough and look to the Mother Superior and lower their heads, and she would thank them for making the long journey and apologise for wasting their time. They would catch the ferry home and another name would be struck from the list.

Then Sato mentioned someone who had been understandably absent from the letters: Natsu. He revealed his wife visited him regularly on the island. She had grown fond of the children, and she was particularly moved by Ko, or Hideo, as people now called him. She admired his quiet stoicism and how accepting the other youngsters were of his burns.

Forgive me for writing about my wife, but you will see my reasons. She came to mark the anniversary of pikadon with us. I watched her stare at my city map, flick through pages of my textbooks, pick up scribbled notes. She called
my work an obsession, asked if I would come home for good. ‘You belong in the city.' We talked about the children, what would happen to them. Suddenly, as if the thought had only just occurred to her, she asked how easy it would be to adopt one of them. The question was posed too casually. I think alone in Nagasaki, she has given this idea plenty of consideration. A child might have helped our marriage over the years, maybe. A child would have drawn me home sooner, certainly. She is a good woman and she would make a fine mother. My absence has been a cruelty to her but I could not grieve for another woman while she looked on. Our separation was a necessity, a kindness of sorts, but I realised if I was to return to Nagasaki permanently, I couldn't leave Hideo behind, not when there is a chance he is your son. I told her I did have someone in mind. She seemed uncertain, worried that Hideo would be better off here at the centre, safe from all those prying eyes. Natsu ran her hand down the map. ‘Will people, strangers, look beyond his scars? If you don't see people as human, it's easier to hurt them.' I told her if one city could accept him then it would be ours. What I tell you is this: I look beyond his scars, and all I see is you.

I broached the subject of adoption with the Mother Superior. She tried to hide her surprise. I told her the chances of finding Hideo's birth family were reducing by the days and weeks. We had some responsibility to protect him from this further disappointment. She looked at the list of Hideo's possible parents. ‘Do we not owe the boy a thorough search?' I offered her a cigarette but she declined. ‘Mother Superior, I should have said earlier
but I know one set of parents on the list, the Watanabes, on the last page. They did not survive; it is likely the other names will prove fruitless too. I want to offer Hideo a future, stability.' She asked if the Watanabes had other family members still alive and I explained my wife had made enquiries. I told her that one set of grandparents had moved from Japan, their destination unknown. No other relatives had left contact details. ‘You think this Hideo is Hideo Watanabe?' I waited a beat before I replied. ‘I think we will never know.'

What to do with anger that can go nowhere? Kenzo and I had left contact details with the authorities but only for our Nagasaki address. There had been no need to make contact from America. But surely we could have been found, somehow? What if the orphanage had contacted us? Would we have believed in the possibility? It felt like hope had died so quickly and absolutely back then. Sato's letter made me try to comprehend the joy and agony of us being reunited with Hideo. How would he have fared in this country with those scars and the reason for them? How would we have coped as his grandparents turned parents? I imagined only good. I saw him sitting in a classroom in a baseball jersey, playing in the street with friends, going to summer camps, heading to university. We would have told him about his parents, how they met and fell in love, the sacrifices they made in the war. He would have had a better understanding of who he had been, where he had come from, maybe where he was going. This Hideo Watanabe would have been a blend of Japanese past and American future. We would
have drawn such comfort from his presence. Our lives in this new country would have made more sense; the three of us would have known what we were supposed to be after pikadon: a family.

But the doctor and his wife took away the opportunity for us to know if this was our Hideo. On Natsu's next visit to the island they went for a walk in the woods with the boy and found a shaded spot for a picnic.

We explained that we had tried our best to find his real family but we had been unsuccessful. He asked why and I said that the likeliest explanation was his parents couldn't find him because, as Miki had said, they were lost. I showed him the list of names. ‘It's likely these were your parents, Hideo.' I pointed to your name and Shige's. ‘Will they find me again?' Natsu took his hand in her own. ‘If they can, I'm sure they will. But until then we thought you might like to live with us, in Nagasaki.' He raised his hand to his cheek. ‘What will people say about my face?' Natsu put her arm around his shoulder and drew him to her. ‘We'll just tell them you were hurt but now you're better. We'll tell them how brave you've been, how clever you are, how proud we are of you.'

As the day drew near for them to leave the island, Sato could see how nervous Hideo was about the departure. He had been so closeted at the orphanage. The children seemed almost blind to his scars. His schooling, his confidence, they had thrived on the island. Natsu and the doctor were worried about how he would adapt to a busy
city, strangers' eyes, new classmates, but Hideo would have a future in Nagasaki.

The island has been a good place for both of us to heal but we cannot hide here forever. For a doctor, I have done so few kind acts in my life. He can be one. I will love him as my own and raise him as my own. He will have a good life. He will be the child I never had. I cannot shift the thought that you and Hideo are connected. I imagine him to be your son, not only to keep you close but to push other memories away. And even though I cannot see the marks of you in his face, his presence is as close as I can get to you now.

I checked my watch and skipped ahead. I wanted to know how Hideo had adapted to life in the city. Had he struggled, had he been tormented by bullies at school, had he pined for the safety and seclusion of the orphanage? On August 9, 1951, Sato and Natsu took him to a commemoration of the bomb. Crowds had gathered near what remained of the hypocentre. Survivors huddled together under umbrellas, sheltering from the heat. People wore garlands of paper cranes and carried doves made of paper. They listened, heads bent, as men and women took to the podium to talk of compensation and tolerance and medical assistance. A group of former Korean prisoners had gathered silent by a fountain. Hideo was enthralled by the spectacle; inspired was the word the doctor used. Sato said perhaps it was the one date in the calendar when Hideo could be accepted and embraced not as something to pity but a testimony, a caution, a living will.