Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (12 page)

Dear Mother and Father,

I know this letter will come as a shock. I know that you have been told I am dead, killed in action. I know reading this will be even harder for you to accept than losing your son at war. But here I am, writing to you, which means I am alive. I am in a place called Cowra. In Australia. I am living with a family here, until I can see you again. I beg you for forgiveness. I have become a prisoner of war. I am sorry I am not the brave warrior you wanted in a son. I do not want to bring shame on the family, on you, my loving
parents. I honour my family, my nation, and you have my loyalty, but I am a better man in life than in death. Mother, please do not cut your hair in mourning, for I am alive.

I will not tell you who the other men were in the POW camp in Australia, for it is for them to let their families know. We all understand the shame our presence as prisoners of war will bring you, but I hope, as I know many others will, that you will be happy to see your son alive regardless of circumstances.

I once vowed to complete my mission and destroy the enemy, but I have met some of the enemy. They are called Australians. They have fed me better than my own government when they sent me to war. I have been treated well by the Australian guards, who I have grown to respect. And now I am being cared for by an Australian family. If I ever have a son, I will send him here to visit these kind people. He could live his dreams here. He would not be beaten in training to be a better soldier like I was. He could be a poet if he wished. He could be free.

I hope I will see you again soon, and then I will spend the rest of my days making you proud.

Your son,

Hiroshi

M
ary and Hiroshi sit side by side on a dirty blanket that Joan managed to get from the church. It's been six weeks since Hiroshi found himself at Erambie. Aside from Mary's almost daily visits, the newspapers and brief visits to the lavatory where he steals a few seconds of moonlight and fresh air, it has been his Shinto faith that has sustained him and helped him believe that he will see his family again. But it is his Shinto faith that has also caused him grief.

His family's faith means they will be practising the culture and tradition of respecting and worshipping his death. Understanding this practice upsets Hiroshi even more. He knows his father will be hurt but proud that his son has died at war, died with honour in the name of the Emperor. His mother will be heartbroken and distraught that her only son died at all.

Hiroshi jumps up suddenly, startling Mary. ‘We Japanese,' he puts his hand on his chest, ‘believe that the spirits of the dead live forever on earth and guard their descendants. My family will think I am their guardian deity. They will be worshipping me for my effort in the war and the honour I have brought myself and them.' Hiroshi shakes his head, knowing that such worshipping is misplaced, given he is alive, but there is nothing he can do. The letter he wrote to his parents sits on the ground near where he sleeps. He has not asked Mary to post it – he knows that a Japanese address on an envelope will make someone suspicious. And what if she drops it, or worse still, gets caught carrying it? It is too risky for both of them. Writing the letter helped soothe his mind and his heart, but the words are still there, near him, and not where he wants them to be.

‘What religion are the Aboriginal people, Mary?' Hiroshi asks, knowing that there would be no Shinto followers in Australia outside of his army peers.

‘I am Catholic, my family are Catholic. There are only Catholics and Protestants in town. And people who don't believe in God at all. Uncle Kevin calls them atheists. My mother calls them heathens. Do you have a god, Hiroshi?'

‘We don't have one god,' he says, ‘we have many gods, called kami. They are sacred spirits that represent important elements like the trees and mountains, rivers and the rain.' He stops, wondering if what he is saying makes sense to the young woman in front of him. ‘Our faith is Shinto, it means the way of the gods. We say prayers and make offerings to kami for health, our families, children and safety. We have a
lot of respect for nature, land and the crops we harvest. We have ceremonies but we don't go to church. We go to a shrine.'

‘Your Shinto faith is like our Aboriginal spirituality then, and connection to land and Mother Earth,' Mary says. ‘We respect all living things. I have a totem, the goanna.' She pauses. ‘Where will your family go to pray for you if they think you are –' she suddenly stops short of saying ‘dead'.

‘They will go to our local temple, but there is a special shrine in Tokyo they will go to also. It is called the Yasukuni Shrine.' Hiroshi can feel tears welling as he thinks of his family grieving for their lost son and brother. It is almost more than he can bear and he shakes his head as he adds, ‘They will go there to worship my spirit because they do not have a body to cremate. There are no bodies buried there. And the temple is just for people who have died at war, or protecting Japan. We believe the spirits of fallen soldiers are entombed there. My family will believe my spirit is there already too.'

He takes a deep breath, looking at Mary for some understanding, some comfort, but what can this naïve young girl in front of him who understands nothing about his world possibly do? He is too emotional to explain what his supposed death means to his family. But he wants to talk – he needs to talk about what is happening back home. This friendship with Mary is not a normal experience for a Japanese man, at war or at home.

‘They believe I have died for my country. I should have died.' He almost chokes on his own guilt as he says it out loud.

‘No, you shouldn't have died!' Mary steps towards him. It is the closest they have ever been and it feels like there is a
magnet drawing them together. It troubles them both but the desire is undeniable. Hiroshi wants to fall into her arms and cry like a child. Mary wants to hug him and let him know that no one wants him dead.

‘It is important to protect your country, Mary,' he says, then adds, ‘You are supposed to be prepared to die for your country. I am
expected
to die for my country.' Hiroshi believes he is a pacifist and is trying to convey that to Mary.

‘Australia is made up of lots of countries,' Mary says. ‘Every tribe has their own area of land, like a country. Australia is like the map of Europe – do you know the map of Europe?' Mary knows Europe and Asia and the Americas because the Smiths have a globe on Mr Smith's desk as well as an atlas where she tried to find Hiroshi's island but it was too hard.
Mr Smith likes to think he is worldly
, Mrs Smith has said more than once.

‘Yes, I went to university and I spent a lot of time in the library, learning about much more than English. I was always very interested in geography.' Hiroshi motions for Mary to continue – he likes to hear her voice and see her face light up when she talks about things that are important to her.

‘There are lots of Aboriginal tribes in Australia. We have different languages and foods and spiritual beliefs, so we have lots of countries in one country.' Mary hopes that makes sense to Hiroshi, because she doesn't know how else to explain it. He nods as though he understands.

‘If you think about the map of Europe with Italy and Germany and Spain and all the different people and cultures, well, Australia is like that. And the white people from England,
they are like a lot of noisy, angry visitors on a holiday that never really ends.' Mary giggles to herself, repeating what her Uncle Kevin has said many times. She is very fond of her Uncle Kevin. ‘And this land here, it belongs to my tribe, even though the white people and the government act like it belongs to them.' Mary is now repeating what her father often says.

‘But if the Aboriginal people fight for their land, then the white people won't be able to own it. Don't they fight for it, Mary?'

‘My dad says there have been many wars on our land, but we always lose.'

‘Why?'

Mary thinks back to a late night in a smoke-filled kitchen a while ago, when she sat at the table with her parents and her dad talked about all the massacres on Wiradjuri land. ‘White people have been shooting Aboriginal people since they arrived. It's why so many Wiradjuri are gone,' she says. ‘There's over a dozen massacre sites around Bathurst. That's about sixty-five miles from here. And further up north, there's a town called Mudgee, where some white man led a shooting party and killed so many people no one even knows how many there were.' Mary remembers her father saying that no one probably cared either, but she doesn't say that to Hiroshi. ‘It was about a hundred years ago, I think, but back then it happened all the time. This one man called Chamberlain, well, they reckon he killed about twenty Wiradjuri people just for stealing some cattle – after the white men had come and stolen their land. That's straight out murder!'

‘Did your people fight for your land, Mary?'

‘Not with planes and bombs, no, but we did fight. War takes many forms, so my dad says. And there are more white people than us and we cannot fight guns with spears or fists.' Mary is repeating everything she has heard her father say over the years but they have become her feelings, her words, and her beliefs too. ‘And now we are in a moral war against the government because they do not recognise us as human beings. And if they do not support us, why should we support them?'

She doesn't give Hiroshi a chance to respond to the question. ‘We are not citizens, Hiroshi, we cannot vote and we can't go to war overseas either, because you have to be Australian to fight for Australia.'

‘So your people do not go to the war in New Guinea or Europe either?'

‘Some of our men have enlisted in the war, yes, but some also had to lie about their race, because you can't be Aboriginal and go to war. It's very confusing for us. One of our local men from here, Jim Murray, he was in World War One,' she says. ‘When people talk about our soldiers, they always talk about Jim. He is a guard up the camp, but I don't see him much. Maybe you saw him?'

‘I saw one guard who was the same colour as you, I think that must have been the Jim you are talking about.'

‘Some Aboriginal men tried to enlist because they wanted to travel, to leave Cowra. Some also wanted to defend their land, even if the government wouldn't let them keep it. But they were rejected on the grounds of race, of being Aboriginal, but Jim reckons when Australia needed more soldiers and
they couldn't use conscription, then there was some kind of order that said that half-castes could enlist in the Australian Imperial Force.'

‘Half-castes?' Hiroshi asks, shaking his head, a look of confusion on his face.

‘That means you had to have one white parent and one Aboriginal parent. They call you half-caste and as long as the medical officers are happy that you have one white parent, then they'll let you enlist.' Mary wishes now that she had talked to Jim whenever she saw him, because then maybe she would have a better understanding of the camp, of the war, an ounce of what Hiroshi had experienced and what Aboriginal men experience too. Sometimes, when she talks to Hiroshi, she feels incredibly knowledgeable about life and at other times she feels like she knows very little.

‘So you must be white to fight for Australia?' Hiroshi asks.

‘That's what it seems like,' Mary says.

‘But why would Aboriginal people fight in an army for a country that doesn't really want them? I don't really understand.'

‘Firstly, this is
our
country Hiroshi,
our
land, so we are still fighting for our land even if it doesn't really make sense.' In fact, it doesn't make sense to Mary as she says it out loud – Wiradjuri fighting for their land here and overseas. ‘Aboriginal people are loyal to this place, it is our home. I think some of our men might want to prove that we are as good as the Europeans who have come to live here and then go to war. Our men are strong and brave and courageous like other men. Our men are warriors.' Mary's pride comes through as
she speaks. ‘Some Aboriginal people think that if we fight in the war then maybe the government will treat us all better when the war is over.'

Mary doesn't know how many Aboriginal men served in the First World War, only what she hears when the Elders meet at her house and talk about how men came back and were still discriminated against when it came to getting jobs and housing. Even Jim said that discrimination had got worse while he was away at war.

‘My dad says that the only reason Blacks were part of the war was because the army needed more manpower, so they recruited our men into the labour corps. Or that maybe they thought they'd get more food than the rations we get here.'

There is silence as both consider her words.

‘Hiroshi,' Mary says finally, in a way that makes him weak with the need to make her smile more, make her happy, ‘I need to know why you broke out of the camp. Being down here must be worse than being with your friends and having three good meals and daylight and playing baseball.'

It is a genuine and fair question but Hiroshi doesn't know where to begin. He pauses to think how he might tell her that dying for the Emperor is honourable.

‘It will be very hard for you to understand, Mary, because I think your people and the Australian soldiers are very different to my people. To what Japanese soldiers and people generally believe and how we are expected to behave.'

‘I want to understand,' she says softly. ‘I want to know why you broke out and why some of the Japanese soldiers killed
themselves.' She cannot imagine what would make someone want to end their own life.

Hiroshi takes a deep breath and then speaks slowly: ‘In the Japanese army there is a code, a law.' He is taking his time as he tries to find the words to simplify what is a very complex thing for someone who is not Japanese to understand. ‘We have a set of morals we must live by. It is called Senjinkun.'