Fire Flowers (40 page)

Authors: Ben Byrne

“Hollywoodâwell!” Michiko said, a familiar look coming into her eyes. “Wouldn't that just be the dream.”

My chopsticks hesitated over my dish. “Really, Michiko?” I said. “I should think it would be a very lonely place, despite all its glamour.”

Michiko raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Really, Satsuko?” she said. “I'm surprised at you. Didn't you once write to tell me you were intending to go away to America yourself? San Francisco, wasn't it?”

Silence fell and Hiroshi glanced at me curiously. Mrs. Ishino cleared her throat and helped herself to some more rice.

“What on earth made you think that, Miss Nozaki?” Mrs. Ishino asked pleasantly. “Why would a girl like Satsuko-chan possibly want to go to America?”

I laughed politely. Michiko's eyes narrowed, holding my own for a second.

“Please excuse me,” she said. “I was thinking of someone else entirely.”

As I say, she really was a very good actress.

But there was one matter which I couldn't brush over, of course, one that became harder for me to conceal as the summer went on, however much I might try to do so behind loose-fitting cotton dresses. Finally, Mrs. Ishino took me to one side and said that we would have to make preparations for any eventuality.

Certain officials, she said, could be persuaded to draw up certain documents, if the right gifts were slipped up their sleeves. She assured me it was for the best, that it would avoid all sorts of complications later on. She returned later that week with a stamped marriage certificate, with my name upon it. The other name was that of a twenty-five-year-old man, who had apparently been born in Gunma Prefecture. Mrs. Ishino told me that he had died soon after his return to Japan from Manchukuo.

“Your husband, Satsuko. A lightning affair. Poor soul.”

My child would have a father, then, on paper at least. But I agonized over what the child would look like. Would the eyes be charcoal black, like mine? Or would they be sky blue?

In the meantime, Michiko had insisted that we were all to be the guests of honour at the gala premiere of her new film. That morning, Mrs. Ishino helped dress me in my green and gold summer kimono, and Hiroshi and I took the tram up to Asakusa. We had promised to light some incense for our parents in the ruins of our old shop, as well as have one last look for our father's pot. The neighbourhood was as busy as it had ever been, men in shirtsleeves going to and fro on bicycles in the warm afternoon sunshine. The Nakamise Arcade leading up to the Senso Temple was bustling with stalls, and the sound of sawing and hammering came from the temple precincts. Cedar prayer plaques were hanging in bundles from the gates in honour of the Star Festival, and we bought our own little plaques, writing our secret requests on the back in the hope that they would be answered by the Goddess of Mercy.

We bought the incense and then walked rather solemnly toward Umamichi Street. Flags fluttered, advertising new restaurants, theatres and vaudeville shows.

“Look!” Hiroshi said suddenly. Up above the shell of a building was a billboard advertising Michiko's new film, her painted face beaming out.

“The old neighbourhood's really coming back to life, isn't it, Hiroshi?”

He made a noise of assent. I studied him. He was so much taller now, his eyes so alert. I wondered what he could have possibly gone through during those long months when we'd been apart. I wondered if we would ever talk of it. Probably not, I thought. Not at least until we were very old.

We found the square cistern, and stepped into the rubble of our old shop, overgrown now with feverfew and stalks of wild sugar beet. Hiroshi poked about for a while, but found nothing but a few blackened fragments of ceramic. I looked at him in question. He gave a rueful smile and shook his head.

I placed the incense in the centre of the patch and he bent down to light it. We both clasped our hands and bowed our heads as the fragrant smoke twisted up around us.

I felt the child inside me, then, for the first time, kicking gently inside my belly. I gasped, imagining the little feet and toes, the tiny mouth and ears, as it lay curled inside my womb. It would be an autumn child, I thought, just as I had been myself. At that moment, the image of my mother came into my mind. I felt, quite intensely, that she was standing beside me, stroking my hair with her hand. I raised my head. The sunlight fell in my eyes, and I felt my father there tooâthey were both standing quietly behind me, one hand on each of my shoulders.

Cicadas were whirring loudly as we walked back to the street. I noticed a sign advertising a summer
matsuri
and I wondered out loud how lavish the processions might be this year, whether the men would still heave portable shrines up to the temple.

“It's strange,” Hiroshi murmured. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

It would be firework season soon, I thought. Bright flowers would burst in the sky above Tokyo through those hot summer nights and we would light candles, offer prayers and food to the spirits of the dead, set lanterns adrift upon the water. There would be so many offerings this year that the river would be like a galaxy of floating stars.

Autumn would draw in, and before long we would prepare to go up to Asakusa together to listen to the ringing of the New Year's bell. The child would be with us by then, I thoughtâmy baby.

Winter would deepen then slowly dissolve. The days would lengthen once more.

Before long, there would be plum blossom.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This novel was inspired and informed by numerous works of nonfiction and fiction, of which I am particularly indebted to the following:

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
by John W. Dower

Japan at War: An Oral History
by Haruko Taya Cook and
Theodore F. Cook

Japan Diary
by Mark Gayn

Hiroshima
by John Hersey

The Japan Journals: 1947â2004
by Donald Richie

Democracy with a Tommygun
by Wilfred G. Burchett