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 <laugh>.
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 <laugh>. 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 <laugh>. 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 taken 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 <laugh>. 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 <laugh>. 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 <laugh>. 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 <laugh>. Except our supervisor. She—[A]-san—would translate snippets, mostly to make us laugh.