He had been stoned to death.
We stood there in silence, bleakly digesting how this man had died. “We should go,” said Shinzo, taking the girl’s hand.
She darted towards the battered corpse and kicked it again and again, driving her tiny feet into his chest and legs. “I hate him! I hate the Yankees! I hate him for what he’s done!”
It was awkward. I had not realised how hard she had been hit by the death of her grandmother. And was there anything so wrong with defiling the body of one of the Imperialist devils? Was it not precisely what all the propagandists had been encouraging her to do for the past four years?
But I found it abhorrent to watch this seven-year-old thrashing away at the Yankee’s corpse. It was not right, could not be right, to allow a child to do such a thing.
I went over and clasped her by the shoulder. “Please don’t do that.”
She kicked the body hard in the head. “I will do what I want. He killed my father!”
“Come away. Please,” I said. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why not?” Again she kicked him.
“I’ll tell you. But only when you’ve stopped doing that.”
She gave the body a final half-hearted poke and as she stepped away, she burst into tears – a forlorn girl not knowing what to believe anymore.
I did what I would have been incapable of doing the previous day. I embraced life. I picked her up in my arms and held her close to my chest. I was still carrying her as we walked off the bridge and could feel her tears on my neck.
“Why was it wrong?” she asked.
“That’s not the way to treat a corpse.”
“But he’s a Yankee dog. He and other men like him dropped the bomb. Soon they’ll be invading the mainland. Why shouldn’t I kick him?”
On I tramped, with the girl’s arms now locked round my neck. So, what was so wrong with kicking a dead prisoner-ofwar?
We had been led to believe that the Yankees were the spawn of the devil, a nation of baby-killers. It suited Japan’s warmongers very well to depict the Yankees as monsters.
Why were our children and our pensioners learning to fight with wooden spears? Because most of my countrymen believed – sincerely – that the filthy Yankees were intent on raping every last woman in the country, not to mention slaughtering every child and torturing every adult. I know – it does sound extraordinary that any of us believed it. But hear it long enough, and loud enough, and eventually you start to believe. After all, if the media and all your friends, your family, are all spouting this garbage, to doubt is to start doubting your very sanity.
I had always doubted the crazy propaganda. I had been to America before the war in my days as a merchant seaman. My father, who had seen considerably more of the world, had described the U.S. as one of the greatest countries on earth. He had found that all their boasts were correct – it truly was the land of opportunity, home of the free. In comparison to Japan during the war, it sounded like paradise.
But now was not the time to say any of this girl. All her life, she had been taught to hate the bestial Yankees. And the bomb had just confirmed everything she had been told.
“That man may have been a Yankee, but he was also some mother’s son,” I said to the girl.
“And he helped to bomb this country.”
“That’s true. And I know that you may have lost your grandmother. But it’s not the way to behave.”
“Why not?”
“Well ”
“Why not?”
“Just trust me. It will take some time. I promise to explain later.”
“In Nagasaki?”
“Yes. As soon as we get there.”
For a while she didn’t speak – and when she did, she changed the subject entirely. “What is Nagasaki like?”
So I told her: like Hiroshima, Nagasaki is another port and has been for many centuries. It has just the one river running through its centre, but its main feature is a long mountainous ridge that splits the city into two parallel valleys, the one short and the other long.
I told her about the kites and the kite-makers; and I told her about the port, far more cosmopolitan than Hiroshima. Once, before the war, it had been Japan’s hub for the merchants of the world.
In this way we passed our time until we arrived at another bridge – though I use the term loosely. Most of the structure had been blown into the river and the remnants of its pilings lingered like rotten stumps in the water. The only part of the span that still remained was a single frail girder. It was, as I remember, about a foot’s width across and traces of masonry and metal still clung to it, dripping off the girder like singed black ivy.
Shinzo was immediately dubious. He walked from one side of the girder to the other, weighing up his chances, scratching, always scratching. “Can we find another bridge?” he asked.
“Who knows?” I said. “There may be one. There may not.”
“It makes me nervous just looking at it.”
“Come on!” said the girl. She had already climbed up onto the girder and was prancing back and forth, just as I had once seen her do, a lifetime ago, on the roof of her own home.
Shinzo turned to the river. The current was flowing fast out to the inland sea. Swirling eddies, spumed with white water, bubbled round what was left of the pilings. A snagged body, partially submerged, had caught on one of the metal stanchions, its legs fluttering in the brown water.
Shinzo grimaced as he shook his head “I’ll see you at the station.”
“Feeble!” said the girl. “It’s easy. Watch me!” By now she had pranced out right over the river which coursed five metres beneath her. First she did a pirouette, as comfortable as if she had been on stage, and then she leapt with both feet off the girder. “I’ll go first. Shinzo you follow me. We’ll look after you.”
“You know he can’t swim?” I asked.
It was so unlike Shinzo to be goaded. Like a bull that sits in the sunshine, he was generally content to chew the cud. But, for some reason, that jibe irked him.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
And up he went, fat buttocks straining against the seat of his blue trousers as he climbed onto the girder.
The girl was clapping her hands with delight. She was encouraging the oaf on, like a mother raving over the first few steps of her infant son.
I was not quite so overjoyed at the sight of Shinzo clambering onto the girder – because if the idiot fell in, there was only one person who was going to save him.
He started off well enough, shuffling forward on all fours, his fingers gripping the edges of the girder. I warily followed a few metres behind. It was perfectly practicable – so long as you didn’t look at the river that seethed beneath. But the moment your eyes drifted off the girder, the sheer pace of the river left you feeling giddy. It was like a back screen lurking in your peripheral vision that was perpetually on the move. Even though you tried to resist, your eyes were forever drawn towards the water. A body might catch the corner of your eye and you could not help but watch as it flicked by.
The girl, who was all but over the river by now, was urging Shinzo on. “This is the only difficult bit,” she said. “There’s a large piece of concrete in front of you. Stand up and go round it. You can hold onto the metal rod in the middle.”
I had come to a halt. There was an uncomfortable piece of concrete digging into my leg, but I ignored the pain to observe how Shinzo edged round the obstruction. It was a clump of concrete, about a metre wide, which was completely blocking the girder. He could have tried going over, but it seemed easier to go round.
With infinite ponderousness, he got up onto his hind haunches, like a bulky walrus begging for a fish. Now he was on his knees, clinging to the masonry in front of him. I heard a sound which I could not readily identify. High-pitched, with little snatched pants of breath.
Shinzo was whimpering with terror.
He was upright and clutching onto the metal stalk that protruded from the concrete when he made the mistake of looking down. Directly beneath him was a body snagged in the water, its legs paddling up and down. From up above, it looked as if the corpse was desperately trying to swim against the current.
Shinzo whinnied with fright and with an effort of will dragged his eyes from the water and back to the concrete block in front of him. It was not easy to climb round. You had to hold tight to the metal rod and then slither round the side before your flailing foot could step back onto the girder.
The girl had come back out and was sitting a short way from Shinzo, legs swinging either side of the beam. She was smiling, encouraging Shinzo on. “You can do it!” she said. Oh, for that sweet ecstasy of youth that is ever the optimist and has yet to be sullied by disappointment. I was so nervous I could barely watch.
Shinzo had both hands on the metal rod and had started to squirm round the block. He still had one foot in contact with the beam and appeared to be in control.
A slight noise from beneath him, an eddy of water gurgling the wrong way. The snagged body slowly turns in the water to reveal a face of exquisite horror: one side is black and swollen, while the other has been sliced away clean.
In my bowels I knew exactly what Shinzo would do. “Keep your eyes in front!” I yelled. “Eyes front!” But he couldn’t possibly resist. He peered over his shoulder; shifted his bodyweight to stare at the mangled body; and at that very moment the spike of metal sheared off in his hands.
It was like watching a tower block being brought down in a controlled explosion. First there is the crump of noise, the puff of dust and then, slowly at first but picking up momentum, the whole building crumples to the ground.
Shinzo’s stomach seemed to be melded into the concrete, but began to slip. Shinzo, shocked, staring stupidly at the useless lump of metal in his hands. His foot paddling for a purchase. And backwards he falls, arms and legs all clawing at the air to save himself. It is all happening so fast, but the adrenalin has kicked in and I miss nothing. The girl screaming and screaming. Shinzo falling flat on his back into the river, disappearing beneath the surface. His head pokes up above the surface, his hands thrashing uselessly at the water as he struggles for air. I’m already getting to my feet – I will need a huge leap to clear the rubble beneath me. I glance briefly at the girl, over her mouth. She cannot believe Shinzo has fallen in.
I stand up on the girder, swing my arms backwards and then jump as far as I can into the river, landing sort of feet first in a shallow flop. My foot jars with pain as it crunches against something solid beneath the water. Hurts like hell. Might be something broken.
When I draw breath, Shinzo is already five, seven metres downstream from me, screaming like a stricken animal. I strike out after him in a clumsy crawl, the current sweeping me along. Breathe once to the right, once to the left. A few panicky seconds before I catch up with him. He’s like a mad thing, arms flailing on the water, fat head gasping for air.
I make the classic mistake that every rescuer is warned about. I try to save him.
The very moment I get within touching distance he has grabbed hold of me, first one fat hand on my shirt, then the other. I have one single moment to grab a lungful of air and then he’s onto me, smothering me, locking both arms around my neck. The great fat bastard is drowning me! He has an elbow hard beneath my chin, pressing against my throat. I catch glimmers of sunlight as we roil together in the water. The more I try to get him off me, the tighter he clings. I do the only thing that can possibly save me: I go absolutely mad. I am a berserker.
My mouth is suddenly snapping at his fingers, my legs are kicking. Somehow I manage to wind him with an elbow in his gut, which gives me a little more leeway. Then I punch him as hard as I can, a withering right hook to the head, numbing my knuckles and sending shockwaves up my arm. The blow may have been blunted by the water, but Shinzo’s grip slackens and now he’s drifting away in the current.
“Get off me!” I scream, still mad with rage. “Imbecile!” His whirling arms are lying limp on the surface. I’m not even sure he can hear me.
I warily approach him again. “No grabbing!” I said.
He lies limp in the water as I cup my hand beneath his chin and I make for the shore with an ungainly backstroke. It’s hard to make much headway, but now that Shinzo has calmed – is he even conscious? – we make slow progress. His bulk would keep us afloat for hours. It is soothing to look up at the blue sky while finning through the water. We’ve travelled a long way, well over a kilometre and the girl and our makeshift bridge are long out of sight.
We come to a bend in the river and, with a couple of hard pulls, we coast into the bank. My feet touch the bottom and I haul Shinzo out of the river and onto the mud. Blood oozes from his nose. I roll him onto his side into the recovery position, and after a time he vomits, over and over again, heaving up every last drop of the brackish water that he has swallowed.
I sit there on the mud, elbows on knees, basking in the morning sun. After the sudden action, my hands are shaking, though not from the cold. My foot is also throbbing, but I decide to leave the boot on until we’ve reached the train.
Shinzo heaves himself up into a sitting position and fingers his nose, delicately moving it from side to side with the tips of his index fingers. He pats down the rest of his face, searching for other injuries, before spitting out the last of the vomit.
“I think you broke my nose,” he said.
“You’re lucky that’s the only thing I broke.”
“Did you have to hit me so hard?”
“You were drowning both of us, you idiot. It was the only way to get you off me.”
Shinzo pondered for a while as again he fingered his nose. It looked swollen, but not broken. “Ouch!” he said, after giving it too much of a tweak.
“Leave that nose alone. We still have to cross the river. Do you want another try at that bridge?”
“No, I do not.” He was hurting, though I think it was more dented pride than anything else.
“We will find somewhere else then.”
We hauled ourselves out of the mud and wandered through the ruins towards the sea – and if only that were the end of this little interlude. If only I had included the bridge incident as another example of Shinzo’s cack-handed ineptitude. But I include it because, as you know, in the land of the atomic bomb, it is the trivial little matters of everyday life that decide whether we live or die, and Shinzo’s near drowning was one such.