Burial in the Clouds (5 page)

I experience pleasure when I take a bath, eat a snack, or change my undershirt. I take pleasure in the hum of a lark I noticed while advancing, on all fours, in a trying battle drill. It is a blessing that I find such bliss in insignificant things—things I always took for granted.

From the looks of it, the larks are immune to the common cold now running its course among us. Full of life, they sing their songs of spring, and are free. As for me, I take medication every morning, a Brocin solution and a stomach remedy called Adsorbin.

After the nightly study session, I joined the astronomy workshop. The clouds of the day had retreated, leaving behind them a beautiful starry sky. I learned to identify Cassiopeia, Orion, Andromeda, Perseus, and so on. It disquiets me a little to think that, a few months from now, we must fly over enemy territory, navigating by the light of these stars. All the same, gazing up into the sky seemed somehow to evoke a fine fellow-feeling among us. Even the instructors spoke with a strangely casual and intimate air. It was nice.

I watched as Douglases, Y20 “Ginga” bombers, navy Type-96 land-based attack bombers, and various trainers flew across the night sky, each at its characteristic speed, each with its characteristic roar. Their red and blue identification lights made streaks in the sky, and from where I stood I could plainly see the purple flash of the engines. The instructor who'd been at Rabaul expressed his deep regrets about those flashes, though. These telltale purple lights, he said, make it extremely hard for Japanese planes to conduct nighttime raids. U.S. aircraft don't have this problem.

Alter we were dismissed, Wakatsuki, a guy in my outfit from Takushoku University, was happily chanting a Chinese poem, eyes cast down toward the drill ground, when a deck officer accosted him. “Stop pining for the outside world!” the officer quipped, and struck him twice. Wakatsuki returned to the barracks wearing a stupefied look. He had thought he had been displaying his true Japanese spirit.

March 19

The weather is utterly changeable. The night before last was awfully hot and humid, and we all broke out in a greasy sweat as we slept. I rose in the middle of the night and removed my shirt and drawers. Then last night, abruptly, we had a snowstorm. Flakes blew in through gaps in the windows, piling up inside the barracks. We got twelve centimeters in total, but today the sun shone. Mt. Tsukuba was all white.

A number of packages arrived yesterday and today, but most of the contents were confiscated. Hardly anything made its way to us. I received a package too, and I found myself presented with a pair of woolen socks. But everything else was seized.

Akame, the assistant division officer, failed to turn up at dinner. It was Fujikura's turn to serve the meal, so he carried the officer's dinner to his room. There, Fujikura beheld on the desk a mountain of confiscated treats—navel oranges, jellied bean paste, rice crackers, chocolates, and cans of fruit cocktail. No wonder the man hadn't come to dinner. “It sure looked good,” Fujikura reported.

Yesterday, Wakatsuki was made to open his parcel in front of the assistant officer. He cut the string and out spilled roasted peanuts, all over the floor. “Throw those away,” the officer ordered. Wakatsuki swept the peanuts into a dustpan, but on his way to the incinerator he managed to wolf them all down, together with their fresh coating of dirt. No doubt that accounts for the severe diarrhea he has been experiencing all day. A copy of the
Weekly Asahi
was sent for N., but that, too, was confiscated. Only the wrapper made its way to the addressee. I don't see why they should seize a magazine like the
Asahi.
Someday I will enter the teaching profession, and the way these instructors behave, including Akame, gives me food for thought.

In the afternoon they passed out cards on which we were to indicate whether we prefer to train for piloting or reconnaissance. Without hesitation I put myself down for piloting. Fujikura and Sakai did the same. I expected Fujikura to go for reconnaissance, judging from his words and deeds, because it carries a somewhat lower risk, but I was wrong. We are to take a Morse code test from 1730 to 1840 tomorrow, the results of which will figure into the decision as to who is assigned to the flight group and who to the recon group.

I also filed an application to buy a sword. With any luck I should be able to get a stainless steel
Kamakura
or
Kikusui
sword.

It seems like the date for our departure is finally drawing near, though the talk about our leaving the base at the end of March was nothing but a groundless rumor after all. I saw the calendar in the instructors' room. The schedule is chock full through the whole month of April.

March 26

At 8:30, we fell in for an outing. Those who hadn't pressed their pants under the bedding, or whose socks were dirty, or who hadn't shaved or polished the heels of their shoes, were ordered to take a step forward. Each received a blow of correction from the division officer.

At quarter past nine, we were finally granted liberty. We passed through the gate and walked, one by one, for four kilometers along the Navy Road to the railroad station. They say that if you go up to the rooftop of the administration building on a liberty day, you can see a line of navy-blue military uniforms strung out from the base to the town like a procession of ants. Enlisted men gave me crisp salutes, and I acknowledged them with stiff ones of my own, feeling like an officer for the first time. We are commanded, most sternly, to preserve our honor as officers, yet we are hardly ever treated like officers at all. I don't want to take a cynical view of the matter, but if the navy manages to send us all so willingly into the jaws of death simply by giving us an officers' uniform—well, I must say they are doing it on the cheap.

At a used bookstore in town I came across a series of annotations of unpublished classic Japanese literature, but I passed it by, feeling no longer connected to things like that. The time left to me is short and priceless. I know that. I just don't know what to do about it, other than to grow ever more anxious.

We must not drink, we must not enter a restaurant, we must not talk to the ranks, and we must not stray from our designated area. Come to think about it, we are not allowed to do anything at all.

I walked over to Tsuchiura House, the designated officers' club, at a little after 10:30. More than ten men were packed into a tiny room of just four-and-a half tatami mats. This tatami room was so cramped that I could hardly stretch my legs, and once I finished the lunch and the fried-dough cookies I had brought with me, there was nothing else to do. The tea was first-rate, though.

In the afternoon I went to the railway station. I watched the southbound and northbound trains come and go, as the station attendant cried out, “Tsuchiura-a-a, Tsuchiura-a-a!” I bought a platform ticket and roamed around the waiting room, gazing blankly at the crowd for quite some time. The burning smell the brakes give off as the trains grind to a halt, the odor of the toilets—all of it made me nostalgic. A hazy heat shimmered over the tracks, and, vacantly, I imagined that the rails ran all the way through to Kyoto and Osaka, without interruption.

I dropped into a photo studio before heading back and had a picture taken to send home, and also to Professor O. Plum flowers bloomed on the hillside, and the barley fields were a beautiful green, though the grain is not yet tall. Still, I was dreadfully hungry, my legs were exhausted, and for some reason I arrived back at the air station utterly disenchanted. I never expected my long-awaited first outing to be so joyless.

We mustered at 1600 after returning to base, and sang martial songs. I hear that, up until a few years ago, outings inevitably meant a windfall of food. Singing carried the added benefit of aiding the digestion, and therefore of preventing what used to be called “Monday catarrh.” For us, that sort of thing is nothing but a dream.

After dinner I helped transplant a cherry tree to make room for an air-raid shelter. I saw two frogs hibernating in the earth.

April 1

The summer schedule started today. Reveille at 0515.

Glider training is now in full swing, as are examinations designed to sort out the pilots from the reconnaissance men. Yesterday I had my first real airborne experience. I probably flew ten meters. I can't quite control my foot, and no matter how many times I try, the rudder bar always slants to the left. My plane turns left, banks off with its nose tipped down, and hits the runway. Judging from this performance, it's doubtful whether I'll make it into the pilot's group.

Starting at 0745 we underwent what they call a “morphological character examination.” This was done by a visiting physiognomist. First he smeared our hands with mimeograph ink to take fingerprints and palm-prints. Then he read our palms, scrutinized the shape of our heads, and studied every aspect of our faces, turning us sideways and backwards. Afterwards they seated each of us on a swivel chair (rather like a barber's) and whirled it around like all fury. Then, using a stopwatch, they timed us to see how long it took each one of us to walk a straight line and stand at attention. It seems I'm rather good at this. Those who have a defect in the inner ear, or some other physical impairment, collapsed the moment they staggered off the chair, groveling about for a spell like an animal.

The meteorology course began today.

We were given
manju
with white bean paste as a snack—a very rare occasion. It was delicious.

April 4

Lectures on “ship identification” began today. Finally we are getting some practical knowledge of the war. There are battleships of the
West Virginia
type, aircraft carriers of the
Saratoga
and
Hornet
types, Chicago-class cruisers, and so forth.

Incidentally, I read over my own journal today, and it unsettled me. Recently (or so I convinced myself, anyway) I have adopted a rather intrepid attitude with respect to death. However, I find that on March 19 I wrote: “Someday I will enter the teaching profession....” Evidently I “think that I must die, but all the while “feel” that I will surely return home alive. True enough, it gets my hackles up when, at every opportunity, our instructors tell us we must die. But really, it is high time I looked death squarely in the face and steered my mind toward it.

A postcard arrived from Kashima, and I read it over and over again. “Let us end our brief lives together,” he writes, “happily, gracefully, and meaningfully.” I was moved to see that Kashima had at last arrived at such a sentiment. I am certain he wouldn't say these things merely to please the censors. I mustn't fall behind him.

The study session was canceled this evening so that a truly singular man could deliver a lecture. The other day we had a physiognomist, and tonight it was this fox-like orator, this Mr. Gakushu Ohara of the Association for Enhancement of Imperial National Prestige. He is a meager-looking man, about forty years old. He made so many references to ancient texts the—
Manyoshu,
the
Kojiki,
Shinto prayers—that his lecture amounted to little more than a succession of esoteric phrases like “
sumerami ikusa,” “kan-nagara no michi,
”
“kakemakumo ayani totoki,”
and so on, and it was all perfect nonsense to me. Whenever he uttered the phrase
kamemakumo ayani totoki
(or,
we must speak it only in utmost reverence),
a reference to the imperial family inevitably followed, and this required us all to assume, each time, a 'ten-hut! posture in our seats. It was bothersome in the extreme. The man is indiscriminately fanatical, and often sounds as if he is chanting. And indeed, he
did
chant occasionally, joining his palms together. “
A-a-amaterasu o-o-mikami-i,
Goddess of the Sun....” None of us students took him seriously. Some snickered, some took out paperbacks to read, and still others snored away. I dozed off myself, halfway through. Several men farted. This gibberish dragged on for two and a half hours, and just when I thought it was finally ending, Ohara announced, “Now I'd like you all to purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Kasumiga-ura.” It was already past nine! Give me a break!! In any case, the division officer dashed over to confer with the executive officer, with the result that the proposal was declined, after all, on the pretext that “a bad cold was going around.” Who on earth got the idea of inviting such a man to speak?

But no sooner had we seen the lecturer off than the order came. “All hands turn out on the drill ground immediately! On the double!” I knew something was coming, and sure enough, the division officer mounted the platform and spoke.

“However the lecture was”—obviously he didn't think he had heard a fine piece of talking either—“you should have known better. What's with this attitude of yours anyway? All those who drifted off and passed gas, step forward now!”

Instantly, a hush descended upon us, which two men broke with their footsteps.

“There have to be many, many more. Come forward!”

I had itchy feet, but didn't go after all.

“So, you men don't have the backbone to come forward!” the division officer said. “Once, when I was at the Naval Academy, a midshipman farted during a moral lecture. The instructor ordered the perpetrator to show himself, and no less than five men came forward. The guest lecturer was thoroughly impressed. Your spirit is exactly contrary to theirs. The sixth division officer will take up the slack tonight!”