Burial in the Clouds (27 page)

It is now half past eight. Excuse my scribbled note. So long.

Farewell note 2.
To Kashima.

The clouds are my tomb.

Setting sun, grace my epitaph.

My dear old friend, how are you faring? Remember our time in Kyoto, when we studied and had such fun together. We hashed it all out over cups of sake. Those were the good hours, the precious hours. Oh—Otsu, Yamashina, the seaweed offshore at the town of Nabari, the shallows of the Furukawa River. Even after we joined the navy, fate saw to it that we lived under the same roof, never failing to accompany each other. My friend, have you ever thought about that? Close as we were, we seldom had a quiet, heart-to-heart talk. There may be no end to regret, once I am gone, but I hope this letter will do, anyway, as a reminder of something.

My friend, keep yourself well.

Morning, July 9th
Jiro Yoshino

Letter by Kashima
October, Showa 20 (1945)
Parents of Jiro Yoshino
Takebuchi, Yao-cho
Naka Kawachi-gun, Osaka

I can only imagine how lonely and inconvenient life must be at your evacuation camp. Already two months have passed since we lost the war, and obscure feelings have me utterly in their grip. After being demobilized, I left my hometown and set out on an aimless, wandering journey with the help of a small sum of money, and of some friends and acquaintances. I do intend to return to the campus in Kyoto, but I don't feel like doing it just yet. I lost every one of the three friends who joined the navy with me in the middle of our academic pursuits. The shock is too great for me.

As for the final hours of your son's life, I do not know the from the stories of his comrades who were stationed at the same base, once the world calms down. So far, I have checked closely the back-issues of newspapers, and the like, from the period, but I find no articles that appear to concern your son's mission. I noticed, however, that on the morning of July 10, a U.S. task force approached mainland Japan, and that a total of more than eight hundred planes raided airfields in the Kanto district in several waves. Judging from the date of the farewell note I received from your son, I would say that he probably embarked on a special attack mission that day, and that he dived into a U.S. aircraft carrier at sea to the east of Japan. I do not know why you have not received an official report from the navy. Possibly it was mislaid in the confusion of defeat. At any rate, it is utterly inexcusable, and I am very sorry for that.

I am staying in a town called Ubara, on the eastern coast of Chiba Prefecture. In any case, I believe your son's body rests somewhere far from this shore. I am certain that he reposes in peace at the horizon, where ocean and sky meet, with the sea for his grave, and his epitaph written in the clouds. It is a beautiful shoreline, with its many twists and turns, and its sheer cliff rising. Japanese silverleaves grow thick on the cliffside, producing their yellow flowers. The coastline here probably touches on the arc of the great circling route to America, as I often see what look like large American steamers sail by offshore. A storm seems to be at hand. The clouds are disturbed and the water is troubled, though the sun occasionally appears.

I enclose a clumsy poem that I wrote along this shore, to be placed by his picture. I will certainly visit you when I get back to Kyoto, sometime in the future, and talk with you at length.

With kindest personal regards.

“A Visit to the Grave”

—Dedicated to the late Jiro Yoshino

Today I climbed

This headland mountain

Where the southern winds blow in.

And I bowed deeply at your grave,

You who shall never come back.

The ocean;

The cradle of the deep;

Your grave.

Toward me, under blue-tinted clouds that

    seethe and break,

How the vast blue currents heave!

On that day

The struggle swallowed you up.

And now that peace has come

A thousand waves caress you,

And your epitaph gleams in the clouds.

Ah, that epitaph:

It quickens again

The old days, with a sweet pang,

The days we talked together over cups of sake,

The good hours, the precious hours.

Southern winds blow in

From the sea,

Agitating the grass at my feet

And my heart also.

Facing the ocean, I call your name, helpless.

*
Wang Ching-wei
(1883-1944),
rival of Chiang Kai-shek, was head of the government established in Nanking to administer Japanese-occupied China; he lived in Japan during the war and died in Nagoya.