Fire Flowers (35 page)

“Shirt off, blue and green flashing, sweat dripping down my back. Howling out the bets as the old ladies doled out the cash from their kimonos, the grocers slapping down their wages on the table. That was the real Japan, little shit, not the crap all those military bastards shoved down your throat in school.”

I told him how our heads had been shaved right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, how every Friday they'd given us a lunchbox full of rice with a pickled plum in the middle to look like the flag of the rising sun.

Mr. Suzuki would slump forward, cross-eyed on the desk, the bottle now empty. “Look at us now, little shit,” he'd slur, as he stubbed out his last cigarette. “We're like carp on the fucking cutting board.”

As he started snoring, I'd drag him over to the futon in the corner and pull a woollen military blanket over him. He'd be rolling about, muttering and grunting, as I left, the crows flapping around the market in the first light of dawn.

 

Rain hammered against the window as my train curved around the overground tracks toward Ueno Station. Up in the distance, I could see the bright spotlights of the market sign blazing away in the dripping night. My hair was trimmed and brushed neatly now, and I wore a grey worsted wool suit and a white cotton shirt I'd bought at a tailor shop off the Ginza. The old man had stared at me over his spectacles as I walked through the door, but sure enough, the pile of notes I slapped down next to his sewing machine was enough to get him on his feet in a second, pulling out his measuring tape and getting on with his cutting and stitching as quickly as he could.

I stared at my reflection in the window glass. I bared my teeth.
Monster
, Shin had called me. I turned my head this way and that. I looked almost respectable now, I thought. Almost handsome. It was amazing what a collar and a tie and money in your pocket could do.

The train curved around the embankment, the wheels screeching on the rails. Down below was the wasteground where Tomoko had been attacked the day Koji and I had caught the eel. I remembered her body pressed against mine, as I'd held her up on the carriage coupling, and the train rattling through the countryside all those months ago. It all seemed like a dream to me now.

On the other side of the track was nothing but blackness. It stretched across Asakusa all the way to the Sumida River. Buried below it, somewhere, were my mother and my sister, charred into ash, dissolving now in the rain that fell across Tokyo, washing away into the river that flowed out to the sea.

You just had to get on with life, I thought.

 

Outside Mr. Suzuki's office, the gleaming black Daimler was streaked with rain. The door to the hut was half open. Something was wrong.

I pushed open the door gingerly and walked inside. The room was lit by the single black metal lamp on the desk. A haze of blue smoke hovered by the ceiling and there was a smell in the air like matches. Mr. Suzuki sat on his chair, his close-cropped, bullet-shaped head tilted to one side. His mouth was stuffed with dirty, crumpled pages of newspaper.

The grey suit jacket was hanging on the chair behind him. His stubby fingers, bitten to the quick, were clutching at a dark, gaping crimson and black wound in the middle of his chest, blood seeping like ink into the white cotton of his shirt.

I sat down on the chair on the other side of the desk. The skin on his face was stiff and waxy and I felt awkward looking at him, as if I'd disturbed him whilst he was doing something private.

I remembered how, the week after my father's ship went down, the military affairs clerk brought a wisteria box to the house, painted with his name. “The Great Sea Battle of Leyte Gulf,” the newspapers had called it. My teacher had given me the honour of sticking the little Japanese flag to the map on the wall that day. We'd spent the rest of the afternoon drawing lavish pictures of the battle, sketching the smoking funnels of aircraft carriers and whizzing Zero fighters.

My mother and Satsuko and I sat together in the house that evening. The box lay on the floor in front of us. I stared at the whorls and knots in the wood; they looked just like the shapes of the Philippine islands on the map.

The next day, I'd hammered the cedar sign to our front door.
A House of Honour.
“You're the man of the house, now,” the military affairs clerk told me.

Blood was soaking slowly outward in Mr. Suzuki's shirt.
The man of the house.

I closed my eyes.

Finally, I stood up and walked to the door. As I pulled it shut, I caught a final glimpse of Mr. Suzuki in the lamplight. His fedora lay upside down beside him on the floor.

I walked over to Mr. Isamushi's noodle stall and sat at the counter. He wiped it down and poured out a big bottle of beer in front of me. “Where's the boss tonight?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Well, you're very welcome anyway, sir,” he said. “You've got a new suit.”

I nodded and swallowed. “What soup are you using today, then, granddad?”

He ladled steaming broth into a bowl. “Rat and snake today, sir. Delicious.” He spooned a pile of noodles on the top.

As I sat there, I held up the noodles on my chopsticks and blew away the steam just like Mr. Suzuki had always done. When I'd finished, I carefully slurped away the soup and lit a cigarette, gazing at the smoke as it twisted in the air in front of me.

I put my hand in my jacket pocket, rubbing the banknotes between my fingers. I glanced around at the covered stalls, wondering if Yotchan was around tonight. I forced myself to picture her lying beneath me, her breasts heaving away.

I left three copper coins on the counter and slipped away into the market passageways. The food stalls were packed with ex-soldiers, their faces lit by orange lanterns. At the liquor stand on the corner, I drank a glass of “special” that made my eyes water. One of the ex-students slapped me on the back and poured me out another.

My head was swimming as I crossed the road to the station. The place was swarming with men and women coming back from the demonstrations, their signs all tattered as they crammed through the doors into the ticket hall, down the stairs beneath which the children and I had once slept.

Around the back of the station, in the wasteground beneath the railway arches, I saw whores at last. They stood around the big puddles, and they called out to me, my stomach coiling into knots. I glanced at them furtively as I stumbled on through the darkness.

The red brickwork of the railway tunnel was brightly lit. The struts of the ironwork began to tremble and squeak as a train rolled overhead. My heart started to pound. A solitary girl was sitting on a railing in a pool of light in the middle of the tunnel, wreathed in a white cloud of cigarette smoke. I fingered the notes in my pocket and swallowed, my flesh hopelessly tightening as I made my way toward her.

F
or a moment, as I awoke, I couldn't remember where I was. The room seemed naggingly familiar, and the light coming through the window had the distant, luminescent effect of sky seen from beneath water. There was a desk, the whitewashed wall, a flower-print dress draped over the schoolroom chair. A pale ivory body lay beside me, silken black hair splayed upon the pillow. A ridge of spine beneath the skin rose and fell minutely as Satsuko slept on.

As I dressed, she woke up and slid her arms around my chest. Her head rested on my shoulder as she buttoned my shirt with careful fingers. I kissed her hands, pressing her palms to my lips. In a low voice, she whispered that she would like me to meet her later on that evening by Asakusa Pond. The bench where we'd sat and watched the cherry blossoms on our first date.

I decided to tell her everything that night. Explain my plan, ask her to come away with me, to wait for me. To trust me. Our reflections gazed back at us from the mirror against the wall, and I felt suddenly romantic and chivalrous and sure of myself.

I'd promised to meet Ward at the press club before going over to watch the May Day protests. Judy was due to arrive at Yokohama on the USS
New Mexico
tomorrow. Perhaps we could all go out and celebrate together, I thought, somewhere expensive and exquisite, before I embarked upon its long return voyage two days later.

As I walked out into the road, men and women were emerging from the muddy side streets carrying placards and banners. Protesters packed like sardines into the tram as it curved on its rails toward the Imperial Plaza. I alighted at Yurakucho and walked over to Shimbun Alley. The lobby of the press club was deserted. Everyone was already gone, covering the action.

Upstairs, the ballroom was empty and a dusty haze floated over the tables as I waited for Ward to appear. There was a stink of old cigarettes and spilled liquor. I glanced at my watch. It was late already.

 

A dense crowd surged beneath the bridge by the Imperial Hotel. A great swathe of the population was represented on the street: students, young women in kimonos, men in suits, elderly folk in yukatas. When I reached the edge of the park, I was astounded. It was a forest of red flags and hand-painted banners. Some were written in Japanese, but most were in crude English for the benefit of the Occupiers. The bandstand was festooned with flags, and applause came from the crowd as a trio of men emerged onto the stage, holding up their hands. The bull-like man in the jersey whom I'd seen before bellowed into a microphone, his voice overwhelmed by shrieks of static. The crowd erupted, drowning him out with their applause. Wind gusted over the crowd, setting the banners fluttering. The park darkened perceptibly, as apocalyptic storm clouds began to swallow the sky.

As the man on the podium began his oration, rain began to fall. The gaunt faces of the people remained determined as the drops soaked the banners and dripped down their cheeks. They began to chant, their voices rising up in chorus, their forearms beating the air, and as the rain swept over their heads, the noise swelled and strengthened. Another man stepped onto the rostrum, and his shrill voice was welcomed with a huge surge of applause as he waved an accusing finger toward the high stone wall of the palace beyond.

“The emperor sits behind that moat,” he cried, “gorging himself with delicate dishes while outside, the people starve!”

There was a sharp tremor in the air. A bright flash of lightning pierced the grey sky and the crowd jostled forward. Suddenly, a strange, warrior-like cry rose from their throats: “
Washo . . . washo!
” A low rumble of thunder rolled over the park, like some ethereal call to arms, and I was caught up in the crowd as they began to run, the figures on the rostrum waving them forward. We surged over the soggy grass, the horde clapping and howling as they swarmed over the bridge into the Imperial Plaza, fanning out along the stone banks of the moat. Just for a moment it seemed as though they were going to try to storm the palace, that the emperor would finally come face to face with the wrath of his people. But a solid line of white military jeeps and uniformed American troops stood beside the bridge house with its medieval gates and the turret of a tank swivelled casually to face us. The crowd jittered, the muscles tightening in their faces. From a bullhorn came the bark of an order to retreat as rifles were raised in unison.

Tiny clouds of smoke drifted from the barrels of the guns a split second before the thundering shots cracked open the sky. The crowd writhed backward like a shoal of fish, falling and stumbling onto the sodden yellow gravel. Rifles reported again and panic gripped the crowd, people slipping and screaming as they were trampled underfoot. The rain lashed down and the banners toppled to the ground, the letters smeared and the paper disintegrating. I was carried along by the mob toward the fortress of the Dai-ichi building—General Headquarters—where a phalanx of military police and soldiers surrounded the granite columns, their rifles directly levelled at us. A shot erupted above our heads. The crowd swerved away and pounded onward through the driving rain, in the direction of the prime minister's Lloyd Wright residence further on up the avenue.

It was at moments like this that revolutions could break, I thought, that great tragedies occurred. That the world could slip its bonds of gravity and calamity could come raining down. There were hands at my back. A man fell in front of me. I tripped over his body and flew through the air. My head collided with the road, hard, and I curled up into a stunned ball as boots thudded around me.

The asphalt was wet and cold against my cheek. The air was filled with shrieks and pumping rounds of gunshot. A hand grabbed my throat and pulled me up; I felt the scratch and stink of an overcoat against my face. A tall Japanese man was gripping my shoulders. He was dressed in a long camel hair overcoat, a black bowler pinned to his head. His round glasses were speckled with raindrops.

“Had enough, Lynch?”

The voice was purest Brooklyn. With unexpected strength, he took hold of my arm, and, striking out with his elbow, pulled me through the crowd. After a moment, we reached the line of troops. He flashed a badge and they parted to let us through. We paused for a moment on the steps of the building. My jacket was ripped all the way down one seam and my pants were smeared with mud. Fresh blood stained my hand, though whether it was my own or someone else's I did not know. The man popped a piece of gum into his mouth as he watched the mob surge past.

“So, Lynch,” he said, scratching the side of his face. “How long have you been a commie?”

 

G2, Intelligence Division, was sequestered on the top floor of the GHQ building. The ceilings grew lower, the atmosphere more muffled, as we ascended the echoing stairwell. By the time we had reached the frosted glass door of the office, the tumult outside had softened almost to a rumbling melody, punctuated by the occasional whistle. The spook led me into a small windowless room, where a short trim man with a neat blond moustache stood up behind a desk and twisted his hand in salute.