Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (5 page)

Mary walks gingerly down the back of their lot. She tries not to look suspicious but checks slyly whether anyone is out and about, and possibly watching her. She is really only concerned about Aunty Marj, and perhaps a dog barking, which might draw attention to her. All the huts have lights on and it's early, but it's too cold for anyone to be outside, other than Claude, who she sees smoking in the distance. Her heart is racing and she can feel the beats in her chest as if it is about to burst through her skin.

A dog barks and she stops walking but her heart keeps racing, faster. She looks around; there are no people and the dog stops. When she gets to the shelter, she struggles to move the sheet of corrugated iron that covers the entrance and when she finally slides it across, it's noisy in the still of the night. She's convinced someone will hear her. She looks around nervously; her father is still at the back door of their hut. No one seems to be around so she climbs in, pulls the sheet of iron across again and makes her way down the unsteady ladder into the dark pit. She counts the rungs so it's easier the next time: ten rungs then one foot on the ground.

When she reaches the bottom she feels around for the lantern her father had told her is hanging at shoulder height on the left. She lights a match and then the lantern and there, in the corner, she sees a man whose slumped body conveys his fear and gratitude. He watches her with hollow eyes that she believes must hold the horrendous stories of war. The man's face is filled with desperation, but it is also gentle as he looks at Mary and sees a saviour. At that moment she feels sorry for him.

The man stands slowly. He is weak but respectful. He bows.

Mary is startled, unsure of the custom, then bows in response. She hesitates to make eye contact, feeling self-conscious that she has never been alone with a man in any space before other than her father – and Mr Smith, but that experience is always terrifying. There is so much about this moment that is new to Mary and she is thrilled and nervous at once.

She doesn't realise that the man feels the same, awkward in her presence, a member of the enemy nation. And yet he stays, perhaps not knowing a better place to be while away from home, and not wanting to go back to being an official prisoner.

Mary takes the parcel of food from under her coat, unwrapping it and handing it to him. ‘Here,' she says, not expecting him to understand English. ‘To eat. An egg and some damper.' She motions her hands to her mouth and realises immediately how stupid she must look. Of course it is food and he will know that.

‘Thank you,' he says. Hiroshi has eaten eggs before but not damper, but he doesn't care what it is as he's starving and is grateful for any food at all. He is desperate to eat but too polite to do so while she is there.

For all the stereotypes she has heard about the Japanese, the one that was missing is that they are incredibly polite. He speaks English and although she is intrigued and wants to know how and why, she is conscious that she has already been here longer than the five minutes her mother had given her. ‘I must go,' she says, folding the hessian bag and putting it under her coat again. She pauses. ‘There is a lavatory, a toilet
up the ladder.' She points to the sky. ‘To empty the bucket.' She looks towards the corner where a faint stench comes from. ‘Be careful, be fast. Don't stay up there. My parents will get angry. No one knows you are here. We are keeping you safe.'

He nods, trying to understand so much, so quickly, feeling embarrassment and shame about everything.

‘I'll be back tomorrow and will bring something for you to wash with and some more food,' she says as she turns to blow the lamp out.

On the first rung of her climb back to the top, she hears the man repeat faintly, ‘Thank you.'

Hiroshi's first two nights have been restless due to hunger pangs and anxiety. The shelter is damp and cold and he has only the dirt to sit on. It is pitch black and fear of the unknown is making him depressed. At least in the camp there was routine and daylight and people to keep the insanity at bay; here there is nothing but darkness with hints of sunlight through the holes in the iron sheet above. And the endless silence means he has nothing to focus on but his fear and regret and that is dangerous. Hiroshi is desperate to know what is happening outside the bunker he is hiding in. How the others are, how many survived and got to a place of safety like he did.

It's hard for him not to think about what he would be doing back in the camp.

Hiroshi spends the long hours waiting, thinking about how he is going to survive, where he is and what will happen if he is caught. He wonders if he should try to escape again, but what opportunities will there be to get home to his family? He feels guilty about not being the warrior his father wanted him to be. He knows he should already have committed suicide, but he still doesn't see this final action helping anyone – himself, his family or the Emperor.

He is full of regret about dishonouring his family, about how his mother will already be mourning him, believing that he is dead. He wishes he could write to her and tell her he is alive, that he
will
return one day.

He wishes too that he could at least read the newspaper as he did in the camp, if not to the others then at least to himself. Because of his English skills he was one of a few men granted the privilege of reading the newspaper to the men in B Compound. It also meant he knew what was going on in the war, but now he is so lost. He wants to know what has happened to his countrymen, where the war is up to, what chance he has to get home to his family. As a matter of priority he wants to know how many are dead, and if his best friend Masao is still alive. He wonders if he should ask the girl if he can have a newspaper when she reappears. It would be a greedy act, asking for something beyond the shelter and food they have already provided so generously, but the newspaper will hold some answers that the girl might not have; answers to questions he doesn't even know if he should ask. But even the girl's presence makes him uncomfortable.

Hiroshi is confused about where he is, who the people hiding him are, why they are feeding him and whether or not they are Australian. They don't look like the soldiers at the camp, who were mostly white. He saw one brown soldier and sometimes he'd see a dark person make deliveries to the compound, but here the two people he's met – the man and the girl – have both been very dark. He is suspicious as to why these dark people are helping him and where they actually come from.

T
houghts of the man under the ground help Mary get through the day working at the Smiths' house. She has been thinking as hard and fast as Hiroshi, and she has so many questions she wants to ask him. The mundane chores are done automatically: make the beds; wash the clothes; sweep the floors; help Mrs Smith cook; clean up after the Smith children, Catherine and Carmichael. The two children are at school all day but Mary is responsible for walking them the three miles to and from St Raphael's, because it is too far for Mrs Smith to walk. Mrs Smith is very English, and an elegant English woman does not walk in the street that distance, or so Mr Smith told Mary when he first gave her her list of duties. Some people think that working for Mr Smith must be the worst job in the world, but it gives Mary more freedom than others, as she gets to go into town every day, even if it's only to walk to the school and back. Sometimes she even sees
the Italian prisoners riding bikes through town, throwing lollies at kids and grownups. She always grabs a couple if she can, and gives them to her sisters. The domestic duties and the long walks twice a day, five days per week, coupled with living on rations, means Mary is thin, very thin. But she is fit.

Mrs Smith likes Mary, and will often send her home with leftover food that she is never to tell Mr Smith about. Mr Smith is the opposite of his wife – if Mary is there at mealtimes she must sit in the kitchen and wait until the family is finished before she clears the dishes. She is never to sit at the same table as the Smiths to eat – or the tables of white people generally, she is told.

Before she leaves the Smiths' house, she hears the wireless being turned on and Mr Smith telling everyone to be quiet. She stands silently as ordered and listens with the others to a well-spoken man reading the news.

‘An international incident has occurred in Cowra, in the central west of New South Wales. One thousand, one hundred and four Japanese prisoners have escaped. It is not clear how many have been captured, how many are still at large, and there is no tally on the death count as yet. There have been many reports of aircraft converging on Cowra from Parkes and Wagga. It is believed the aircraft are British-built Spitfires and Australian-built Wirraways and that crews are hunting prisoners of war who have escaped from the Cowra Prisoner of War Camp.'

John Smith grunts and leaves the room, mumbling something about the ‘Japs not winning the war'. Mary doesn't take much notice – she is very tired, as she is after most days spent
at the Smiths'. Tonight, though, there is exhaustion mixed with the nervous adrenalin that has been bubbling away inside her at the thought of seeing the stranger again.

When she walks in the door, her mother has just finished wrapping a boiled potato and some more damper for ‘the hidden one'. This time at least the logistics of getting to the bunker are sorted: she knows how to slide the sheet of corrugated iron gently to minimise noise, how many rungs there are on the ladder, where the lantern is situated on the wall. The family's faithful mirri, KB, is walking with her tonight, and she hopes he doesn't bark.

As Mary lights the lantern, Hiroshi waits patiently, standing still, trying to silence his anxious breathing. He is as grateful for the human contact as he is for the food that she carries. She hasn't looked at him yet and as she gets the parcel from under her coat, he says, ‘Hiroshi.'

She looks up in surprise at a word she's never heard before.

‘My name is Hiroshi,' he says, pointing to his nose. ‘Hiroshi.'

‘My name is Mary,' she replies, handing over the food with the tiniest hint of a smile and a blush.

‘Mary,' he repeats. He wonders what the name Mary means. It sounds a little like the Japanese name Mari, which means ‘truth child'. He hopes Mary is named so because she is a truth child.

‘I am twenty-five,' he offers, and Mary thinks he looks much older, with lines around his eyes. She can even see a few grey hairs in the light of the lantern. He is very skinny but he has muscles. She thinks there is something attractive
about him, although she is not sure what. She's really only ever looked at the local Aboriginal boys, and never had a boyfriend, but tonight she notices what Hiroshi looks like.

‘How old are you?' he asks, trying not to look her in the eye.

‘I am seventeen.'

Hiroshi thinks Mary looks much younger than her years – she is slim and small like his sister.

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?'

‘I have two sisters, they are young like you.' Hiroshi stops there, refraining from telling Mary that because he is a prisoner it will affect his sisters: they may not be able to marry, they may be ostracised in their jobs, they will be made to feel ashamed of him. That thought is unbearable, but too personal to share with a stranger.

‘I have three sisters and one brother and lots and lots of cousins.' Mary laughs but Hiroshi doesn't know it's because everyone at Erambie has a big family.

‘I am Japanese,' he says with pride. ‘Yamato.'

She giggles a little because she knows he is Japanese but doesn't know what Yamato means. She says it back to him, hoping she's pronouncing it properly. ‘Yah-mah-toe.'

‘Yes.' Hiroshi relaxes his shoulders at the sound of Mary's voice. It is soft and gentle and brings peace to his troubled mind. It is a voice that makes him feel safe and warm inside. But it is awkward, unusual for him, a Japanese man to be talking to a Westerner
and
a woman, in such close promiximity and about his personal life. But war makes a man desperate and he is just a man, and there have been no female
voices for so long. No women to talk to, to look at, to smell, to share anything of life with. He becomes suddenly aware of how much he misses female company and the comfort it brings. Masao has been his only close companion since he's been in Cowra, and now he could be dead. Masao, his loyal confidant in the camp, was true to the meaning of his name – righteous – and Hiroshi knows his friend would do what was morally right and commit suicide.

‘What is Yah-mah-toe?'

‘Yamato are the main people in my country. We are the people who come from Japan, not like other peoples who have settled there in many regions of my country,' Hiroshi says with pride. Although he is ashamed of being a prisoner of war, he will always be proud to be Yamato. ‘The Koreans and the Taiwanese in my country are sometimes called Japanese but they are not Yamato. There were Koreans in the camp too, Mary. Here, in Cowra, and I think maybe the guards might have thought they were Japanese too. Some people think we look the same and so they say we are all one people.'