The Boat (22 page)

After cleaning we eat soybean rice. We have eaten soybean rice every day since the last Visiting Day. Tomoe says out loud that she hates soybean rice as much as she hates the American beasts. She is a sixth grader and everyone laughs. But I see Mr. Sasaki, who is married to Mrs. Sasaki, give her a look like the one Father gave Big Sister on the ferry. Then, like Father, he looks away. Father's face is wet from the rain and he turns to look at me instead of her. Mr. Sasaki is a teacher from my old elementary school in the city. Now he lives in the hills with us. Waste is the enemy! I say in my head. My sister's face is shiny with spirit. Do without until victory! I remember the story of the little boy-prince of
Sendai
. He says to his servant: See those baby sparrows in the nest, how their yellow beaks are opened wide, and now see! there comes the mother with worms to feed them; how happily the babies eat! But for a samurai when his belly is empty it is a disgrace to feel hungry. I do not like soybean rice either but I like it better than pounded rice balls with bran. Or parched soybeans. We third graders are allowed to choose the bowls with parched soybeans before everyone else. The sixth graders are allowed to choose the bowls with rice. All of us weigh the bowls with both hands. On our first day here we had luxurious food: rice with red beans, then red and white rice cakes in the nearby village. See, children, said Mrs. Sasaki to the younger ones still crying for their mothers, is it not better here? But the night before that, at home, I had had sweet rice cake dumpling with bean paste, with extra sugar Father brought home from the Shrine. It was my favorite meal in months. We set an extra bowl at the table for Big Brother, who is with the Emperor's West Eighty-seventh Division in the confidential place. He has been confidential since the Chinese Incident in the twelfth year of Showa, period of enlightened peace. Everything is given to the holy war but everything about the holy war is confidential. We must press our hands together for Tojo-san and the leaders of His Imperial Majesty's government. No, we do not say Tojo-san anymore, little turnip. Koiso-san, says Mother. Suzuki-san, says Father. No, says Big Sister. Just press your hands together for the Fatherland. Mother has a photograph of Big Brother wearing a khaki uniform with a rifle in his hands and a dagger on the right side of his belt. It was taken at
Ujina
Port.
We made a photograph to send to Big Brother too. Look here. Don't blink now. The man's rabbit teeth above the box, the sky behind him dark and green-looking. Your brother Matsuo held you when you were a baby, Mother tells me, and said you were as strong as a carp. At night, sometimes she unfolds a letter from him. I was promoted to First Class Private, she reads. I am grateful that I have skill with the anti-aircraft guns. If you can spare it, please send some ink and a safety razor. And some cigarettes, if you can spare it. Banzai to the Emperor. Well, good-bye, and good-bye to Sumi and little Mayako. Mayako-he is talking about me, but I do not remember him.

At exercise time I run with some of the others to the top of the hill. Running is good to stop the cold but bad for the hunger that comes after. The day is white and clear and cloudless. From the top of the hill we can see another hill, and behind that, the ocean. The ocean is a darker blue than the sky. Behind the hill is the city. We are safe here. Then from behind the hill the warning sounds. The sound is weak, then strong, like the wind. We look over the hill and over the ocean. I do not see anything when a boy says, There's only one. Everyone knows the cowardly Americans drop bombs only when they have hundreds of planes, grouped like geese, when the sky sounds like heavy thunder. When it is a single plane, says Big Sister, it is either taking photographs or dropping handbills. The plane passes far away to our left. Takai, a tall sixth grader, tells a group of third graders to be
China
, then some others to be Americans. The rest of us organize ourselves into His Imperial Majesty's forces. Like Father, I am in the Fifth Division. Evacuation! At Takai's signal, our enemies drop down to their bellies and put thumbs in their ears and fingers over their eyes, just like we have been trained in school. The rest of us pick up stones and clods of dirt and throw them at the enemy. We charge and fall on them with our knees and elbows and bamboo swords. One hundred million deaths with honor! Defend every last inch of the Fatherland! Big Sister says this, taking the words from the radio. Father looks at me instead of her. The soft rain runs down his hair and down his face. Everything is the same color in the rain. One hundred million deaths with honor! I say after her. We are fearless. Pilots of the Imperial Air Force transform themselves into human-guided missiles and crash into the enemy, sacrificing their lives for the Fatherland. I lie dead on the ground, looking into the deep blue sky, overwhelmed with a glorious feeling of happiness.
Kana kana kana
. We will defend our nation through all eternity! Some of the children are crying. I am filled with such love for my nation I forget my hunger and nearly cry too.

The radio is sick again that night. It coughs and wheezes. Behind this is the small noise of the weak ones trying to hide their weeping. Outside, the wind comes in from the black bay and over the city into the hills. When we were evacuating, the truck stopped on the top of the first hill and we looked down behind us and the city looked like an empty rice bowl with a piece broken off where the ocean was. The
Temple
is dark and silent except for the radio and the small sniffing. I lie on the straw mat and think of Big Sister. It is the holidays and she lets me come with her to mobilization. She has recently joined the Young Women's Volunteer Corps and the Students' Patriotic League by over-telling her age. We do not tell Mother. We catch a streetcar to Fujimi-cho where there are hundreds of students and some soldiers gathering around a large building. It is hot. Big Sister insisted that we both wear our padded air-raid hoods and now the sweat from my neck runs down my back and the backs of my knees. A man from the Volunteer Corps approaches Big Sister and gives her a basket. His shirt is open and the skin beneath it is the color of concrete where the dust sticks to his sweat. He does not check her nametag. When he smiles at her she looks away from him for too long, the way a cat does, and I realize they know each other. This is little turnip. Mayako, I correct. I prefer Mayako too, he says, bending down. It's a strong name. See over there? Watch this. He jogs back to the building and picks up one end of a long two-handed saw. Someone holds the other end. Someone cries out from the roof. Clay tiles and paper doors fall to the ground. Dust rises up and through it Big Sister's face is full of light. She is explaining it to me, the demolition, the need to create fire lanes, but I am more interested in watching her friend's arms as they work – left, right – across the beam, exactly the same speed as the man on the other side of the saw. Everywhere things are falling. More cries, and two soldiers climb to the tops of two ladders with ropes trailing behind them; then, when they climb down and walk away from the building, ten, maybe twelve, men pick up the two ropes and all of them strain toward the street until both ropes are straight. Big Sister holds my hand. The building groans like a tree, shivers, then falls into itself with an enormous noise. Isn't it glorious? she says. The air fills with dust. Cover your eyes. The Fatherland, a voice cries. If the building was a tree it would have died. All things come to
kami
, Father says. He is alone in his Shrine garden in the city. Is it one of the eight million
kami
now? I will ask Father. I will ask Mother on the next Visiting Day to ask Father. The idea excites me, and I try to keep the loudness in my head.

Mayako? It is Tomiko. Yes? Do you hear the warning? It is nothing but the wind. It is the wind, I say. We are safe here, says Yukiyo. You will be safe there, says Mother. My son is gone and my eldest daughter wants to follow – you are my heart. If I die, at least my heart will still be alive.

I am safe here, Big Sister says to Mother before the evacuation. They are in the kitchen and I can hear them from the outside yard where I am trapping cicadas. You are permitted to go, says Mother. You are of the age, Sumi. You will go with your sister. But I am safe here, says Big Sister. What do you mean, safe? – every night there are the warnings. But no bombs, says Big Sister – the planes fly over the city but do not bomb us. There are bombs, says Mother. My friends know students mobilized at the central telephone office, says Big Sister. In
Kobe
there are bombs. In
Yokohama
there are bombs. In
Nagoya
there are bombs.
Tokyo
, says Mother. Yes, in
Tokyo
. But not here – we are lucky here. What of the handbills the Americans drop? Mother asks. On the farm Tomoe tells everyone the American handbills look like money. But on one side only. What is on the other side? It is forbidden to read them. Her father works in the Mitsubishi shipyard in Eba and picks them up without looking at them and delivers them to the Prefectural Office. We are safe here, says Big Sister. I will stay. Her face is white, even through the dirty kitchen window. Your father will decide, says Mother. Yes, I say in the darkness to Tomiko, we are safe here. Then the wind picks up and I imagine I can hear the engines of a B-24 behind it. Father taught me the difference between the sounds. It will also depend on how high they are, he said. The
natsuzemi
cicada says
ji-i-i
, the
higu-rashi
sounds like a bell:
kana kana kana
, the
minminzemi
makes the sound of the lotus sutra. Do you hear that? It's a plane. The wind blows under the door and across the rows and rows of mats and I am back inside the dark
Temple
. It's your belly, I say to Tomiko. The radio coughs. Tomorrow I will find wild herbs to eat with my potatoes, whispers Yukiyo. And my mother said she will bring me more pickled apricots next Visiting Day. I lie back and put my hands on my belly and listen to the wind. It sounds like dry grass moving. I breathe in and out – one, two, one, two. The best and most rare cicada, Father says, is the
tsukutsukuboshi
, which sounds exactly like a bird: chokko chokko uisu.

 
Mayako. Mayako?
Chokko chokko uisu
.

White rice – bowlfuls of it. Eba dumplings with ground wheat and mugwort grass and sugar and lots of sugar. When the Fatherland wins the war we can eat anything we like. Heaped bowls of silvery white rice. Be patient, says Mother. Waste is the enemy, says Big Sister. Big Brother holds out his dagger and on the tip there is a big stewed white radish. Good-bye, little Mayako. He looks like the man in the photograph.

The soybean rice is cold. When I open my mouth the cold air of morning comes in. Be
filial to your parents, we chant together, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious; as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all
. Tomiko and I gather flax in the hills behind the
Temple
. The day is bright and still cold. Kites and carrion crows fly around us. The crows are evil spirits with black eyes and I am frightened.
Karasu ni hampo
no ko ari
, Mother says. The young crow returns its filial duty and feeds its parents. Don't be frightened, child of my heart. When I tell Father he smiles. The proverb is from
China
, he says.
China
is our reviled enemy, I say. The Chinese are godless bandits. He looks away from me for a long time like a cat. Yes, he says. I look for the flower stalks of butterburs and field horsetails and dig up pine roots. The cicadas say
ji-i-i
. Some of the boys go to the villages three hills away for potatoes. When they come back we go to the farm in the nearby village and work. The village boys tease us about our feebleness. Be careful or you will faint, city dweller. Be careful or your hands will blister, city dweller! See, she holds the shovel like a firecracker ... be careful or it will explode . . .
pika don
! In the line of students everyone is older than Big Sister but she has the strength of two women, passing baskets of sand and rubble from hand to hand, left to right, without stopping. It is white-hot on the street. The air is still dusty from the dead building. Her face is shiny, full of Yamato, and often she looks at the man who moved the saw, left, right. At my old elementary school in the city we farmed the playground for sweet potatoes and eggplants and squash. Turn the soil over, one time, two times, three times. One time, two times, three times. Mr. Sasaki gives the same orders here. He is nice to us. Now my mouth is hot and dry. I am no feeble city dweller. I turn the soil with my spirit. One time, two times, three times.

I am in the Fifth Division on the hill again when some boys cry out from the river. The water is cool and the leaves are green. The stones by the water are covered in moss. There are more than fifty types of moss in Father's garden. The shadows are large and cool. He is always alone there. I like the sound of water running over the stones. Father says the water is singing of impermanence. I am thinking of sweet potatoes and eggplants and squash. There is great excitement because some boys have caught a dragonfly. It is bigger than three thumbs. It is an Emperor's dragonfly, boasts Takai. Is it a female? It is a female, says Takai. He ties it with flax to a cherry branch and the dragonfly spreads its four wings and moves them so fast they look like they do not move at all, and holds them so wide they look like they hold every color-colors of pine oil and wet stone and metal. Don't blink now. We come close and hold out the captive prisoner and sing,
Konna dansho Korai o, adzunza no meto ni makete, nigeru wa haji dewa naikai
. . . O King of
Korea
, are you not ashamed to flee from the Queen of the East? I try hard to remember the folktale. A male dragonfly comes immediately over the water. Someone catches it and we laugh happily, passing it from hand to hand.