Fireflies (24 page)

I felt a ridiculous sense of wounded pride, and, at the same time, a dismal, masochistic satisfaction. To be so justly punished for my hopeless vacillation, my weakness, my impotent conceit.

She was gazing at the screen as the American put his big arm around her. After a while, she rested her beautiful head upon his shoulder.

With a rueful smile, I pushed my way back through the crowd. The spring sunshine was bright as I walked slowly back to the Montmartre, my heart spinning with hopeless desires. When I got home, I marched straight upstairs. I locked the door and took out my notepad and pen.

~ ~ ~

I wrote the script entirely from the heart, as Kano had asked me to do. I poured every atom of my being into its pages, scribbling away until long in the night.

I infused the story with “childlike simplicity.” I captured the spirit of the times. From the crystalline vials of Philopon pills, to the dimpled tangerines at the market, I employed every image I had seen on my long voyages around the Yamanote Line that winter, every encounter I had witnessed on my solitary peregrinations through the freezing streets. The American, with his moulded camera case and shoes. The urchins outside the bathhouse. Satsuko Takara, standing poised outside her brothel, the night I returned home, broken from war.

The script became a love story, as is so often the case. But it was one far removed from the frustration and obscenity that made up the dreary leitmotifs of
ERO
. Much of the action would take place overground, I decided. The city itself would play a starring role. As I wandered the streets of Tokyo that spring, I saw the first cherry blossom on the scorched trees, the flash of fresh-cut cedar among the houses, green shoots sprouting in the charred black soil. Could there be hope here still, I wondered, despite all the death and ruin?

I cannot pretend that the script was not sentimental, even melodramatic at times. But Kano was overwhelmed when I showed it to him. It made him weep to read, he said. We were required to submit it to the American censors, and it emerged back a few weeks later, thick with blue pencil, shaved of some limbs, but still with its heart intact.

The day after, we set out from the white warehouses of the Toho Studios with a young and excited crew to film the first scenes in the streets of the city. And it was there, in those burned-out ruins, that for the first time I saw our new star in the flesh, as she practised her lines outside a broken-down house. The actress who I knew straight away would come to define our age, who would capture the hearts of an entire generation of cinema-goers: the glorious, the exquisite, the unmistakable Michiko Nozaki.

27

FRATERNIZATION

(HAL LYNCH)

The flats beside the river park were strewn with rubble, and all that was standing were charred telegraph poles and tin shelters from which emanated wisps of smoke and the scent of charcoal. Faint outlines showed where houses had once stood. There was nothing inside now but strands of rusted iron, broken tiles, shards of crockery. Satsuko led the way through the labyrinth of soot.

I'd asked her if she would take me to see her old neighbourhood. She had seemed terrified for a moment, as if a ghost had appeared before her. But then she looked up at me, searchingly, and finally she nodded, apparently resolved.

We walked in silence through the char, negotiating mounds of earth and ditches filled with brambles and weeds. There was a quality to Satsuko that I couldn't quite define. Behind the frank warmth she exuded as she sat beside me at the bar, as she poured my beer and we talked about the little things, there was an aura of profound tragedy, and yet, endurance. She was an enigma to me, I accepted, but not fatally inscrutable, as so many of my countrymen tediously asserted the Japanese to be. However short our common frontier, however deep our hinterlands, I felt a curious bond with the dark-eyed girl, as she sat in her woollen skirt and white blouse and dealt out playing cards between us on the counter. We had established a wonderful shelter of banality, a soothing, subtle sanctuary of the trivial and the everyday within which we both seemed tacitly content to hide. I flattered myself that we were more than just another man and woman cast together by the great currents of the world. That the flashing sensation I sometimes had when I was with her was correct: that I understood her, and — even more puzzling — that she understood me. But the nights of fire that lurked on the borders of my dreams lay between us, still, and I'd decided that I needed to see the site of her home — the place of her ruin — if I were to hope to fathom her mystery; if I wished to salvage something of myself.

We reached a canal, and walked halfway over a green, iron-riveted bridge. She leaned over and looked down at the concrete bed, streaming with shallow water. She pointed upstream.

“Factory,” she said. “Chemical.”

I nodded, imagining the explosion. She stood there, slim-waisted and willowy as she gazed out. Along the banks of the channel were lumberyards, wet, black ash soiling their cobblestones. Frail stacks of wood stood like piles of burnt matchsticks, waiting to be blown away. Further upstream, a set of lock gates were warped and splintered. She pointed, making a swimming motion with her arms.

“Swim? You used to swim there?”

She nodded. “Children. I. My brother.”

I pictured boys and girls diving into the water, ducking and playing hide-and-seek as they swam around the timber barges. From the other side of the canal came the faint sound of children chanting in unison. We walked on past a schoolyard and finally came out onto a wider avenue. A little further down, by the entrance to a furrowed alleyway, she stopped. She clasped her arms over her chest, and I saw that she was scared and was trying to summon up courage. I attempted to take her hand, but she pulled it away and shook her head. She took a deep breath and strode forward.

We walked down a row of incinerated buildings until we reached a square concrete cistern. She stopped and frowned.

“This. I think —”

She crossed an invisible threshold onto a patch of ground, littered with ash and broken glass. I hesitated at the boundary. Weeds had sprung up, as high as my thigh. She closed her eyes, held out her arms, and then gently spun about, like a little girl in a daydream. I watched as she stood there, the field of rubble stretching to the river beyond, and I imagined her that night, the air quivering, as the planes roared over in a great metallic typhoon.

She turned to face me. She sprinkled her fingers in the air to mimic falling bombs.

“My house,” she said. “Burn down.”

I nodded. On the map, the whole of the Asakusa ward had been shaded the darkest of blacks.
Inflammable Area — Grade 1.

She was standing, her arms extended, palms down, as if measuring the space around her. She pointed into the air. “My mother —”

I frowned. “Your mother's room?”

“So.”

She turned and pointed again. “There, my brother —”

“Your brother's room?”

“So.” She frowned and touched a finger to her nose. “My room also.”

“What happened to your mother, Satsuko?”

She held her hands up, waving her fingers around her head.

“Fire.”

I swallowed. “And your brother?”

She looked down at the ground and slowly shook her head. It was then that I stepped over the threshold. I walked to her and took her hands in mine. When she looked up, her eyes were streaming with tears.

“Satsuko —”

What could I say? Please forgive me, Satsuko? I'm sorry, Satsuko, for burning down your house? For killing your mother and your brother? I rubbed my thumbs against her smooth palms, as if, like some saint of old, I could miraculously heal the scars.

“Satsuko —”

She looked up at me, sobbing. She thrust her face into my shoulder and I held her shaking body in my arms. Then she lifted up her face to mine, tears wet upon her cheeks. I pulled her forward and clasped her frail torso. As our cheeks pressed against each other, I imagined the two of us together like this, that night, silhouetted on the blackened plain, the chemical works burning like a livid green candle behind us, as rivulets of fire streamed across the sky.

Finally, we drew apart. The wind gusted around us, ruffling the feathery fronds of the weeds. I gripped her hand in my own, and, together, we picked our way out of the rubble and walked back toward the avenue.

Our shadows cast long in the afternoon sunshine as we strolled among the bustling crowds on our way to the train station. Satsuko drew closer. Western men and Japanese girls occasionally passed us, the men briefly glancing at me with expressions of awkward complicity. I put my arm around Satsuko's waist. I imagined the two of us, walking together along Fifth Avenue, Christmas shopping in the December snow, at the Metropolitan Opera, drinking cocktails before a concert. The pompous looks of disdain from the fur-coated women; the envious eyes of the patrician men in their dinner suits. I was still smiling when a jeep pulled up beside us by the scaffolded gate of the Senso Temple. A press card was wedged behind the windshield.

Eugene took off his aviator sunglasses as he clambered out the door. Japan had filled him out — there was a mottled fleshiness to his face, a hint of gut beneath his khaki shirt.

“Hal,” he exclaimed, holding out his hand. “I didn't know you were still here!”

“Hello, Gene. Where else would I be?”

He hesitated. “I figured you'd gone back to New York.”

“Not yet.”

He glanced at Satsuko and his eyebrows raised in lewd question. I pictured her for a moment in her cheap kimono, tugging him onto the dance floor of the Oasis. I felt a stab of panic that he might recognize her. I looked at Satsuko.
Primrose.
Her face betrayed nothing.

“Gene, this is Satsuko.”

He grinned and saluted.

“Hello Satsuko.”

Satsuko nodded demurely, and drew closer to me.

“Working on something, Gene?” I asked, pointing at the Speed Graphic around his neck.

He rolled his eyes. “The monks here,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the temple. “Apparently they keep prize chickens.”

“Huh. Sounds like Dutch. Human interest?”

“Can't all be hotshots like you, I guess, Hal.”

I studied his face. Acne had erupted across his cheeks and thin hairs were growing on his upper lip, as if he'd just now entered adolescence. Satsuko excused herself, and walked over to browse a stall. Eugene watched her appraisingly, then gave a low whistle. He turned back to me with a triumphant leer.

“So you finally succumbed to yellow fever, Hal. After all your innoculations. Maybe you're human after all.”

I forced a smile. “It's not like that, Gene.”

“Oh no?” He squinted back at her. “What is she? An imperial princess?”

“She's just an ordinary girl.”

He laughed. “She's got her claws into you, Hal. All of them try sooner or later, trust me. They all want to see New York. She ask you to marry her yet?”

“No.”

“So what's the deal, then Hal? Angel with a broken wing?”

“Does it matter?”

He shrugged. “I guess. I'm glad you've found yourself a piece at last. Do you good.”

My fist tightened involuntarily. “She's not a piece of anything, Eugene.”

My house
, she'd said, staring at me with tears in her eyes.
Fire.

His eyes widened. “Is this what they call penance, Hal? Atonement for your sins? Or is it just good old Catholic guilt?”

I felt a sudden rage and moved forward.

He jumped back, fear in his eyes. Then suddenly his face became wreathed in a smile. Satsuko had wandered back over. She put her arm in mine and I felt her fingers squeeze my own.

“Well, it was good to see you again Hal,” Eugene said. “You two look swell together. Mind if I take a snap?”

My rage slowly ebbed as he held up the camera. Satsuko combed back an invisible wisp of hair and smiled up at him. I waited for the flicker of the shutter behind the lens.

“Smile!”

~ ~ ~

When we got back home that night, we went straight upstairs. I shut the door and when I turned around, she was naked. It was cold in the room, and she stepped lightly over to me, putting her arms around my neck. I rested my chin on her head for a moment, rubbing the ridges of her spine beneath my fingertips. She looked up at me, and I kissed her gently, feeling the soft warmth of her lips on mine, her small tongue darting timidly into my mouth. I quickly undressed, and she led me over to the futon and I blew out the light and pulled the covers over us.

Moonlight was falling into the room as we lay there, very close, holding each other tenderly. Haltingly, she moved around until she was lying on top of me and pressed against my ribcage. I felt her hand move, and then her chin tilted upward and she gave a small gasp. Her pale belly was trembling in the darkness, black tresses of hair falling down over dark-tipped breasts. She placed both of her hands on my chest and, with a deep sigh, pushed down. Slowly, she arched her back, and I could see the indentations of her ribs rippling like shadows beneath her breasts. Her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed and finally, with a moan, she twisted her hips and gasped. Her breath came out slowly, in shivers. She gazed at me, and I heard her whisper my name; in the darkness, I could see her black eyes glistening with blurry stars; the smeared reflections of faraway fires.

28

AN ONLY ONE

(SATSUKO TAKARA)

America.

I couldn't remember ever having even seen a map of the United States before. But Mrs. Ishino had an old atlas of the world on her shelf, and I sat with it now at the back of the bar, spelling out the unfamiliar names of the cities and rivers and prefectures, trying to commit them to memory.

New York, where Hal-san had studied, was famous, of course, and so was Chicago, with its skyscrapers and gangsters and jazz cabarets. But what about Nebraska? Utah? Albuquerque?
Half of the names were unpronounceable, even if I had been able to speak English fluently. I closed the atlas in frustration. The thought of America was becoming an obsession. I was worried that I would bore Hal silly by asking him about it. I picked up the wrinkled magazine that someone had left on the bar earlier that week. There was a long feature with a set of colour photographs of California inside. While New York and Chicago might have been exciting places to visit, I'd decided it was California that was the place for me.

San Francisco seemed almost Japan-like, I thought, as I studied the photographs in the magazine for the hundredth time. Brightly painted wooden houses stood up on the hills and fishing boats were docked at the bustling wharves. There were forests and mountains in the distance, you could see that, and Mrs. Ishino had once told me that other Japanese people lived there too, so I might still be able to buy miso and
katsuobushi
whenever I had a craving for Japanese food, or felt homesick for Toyko.

Not that there seemed much chance of that. The magazines were so glossy and the colours so startlingly rich that I wondered if the sun might somehow be brighter in America than it was in Japan. The pages were packed with pictures of healthy-looking men playing baseball and tennis and golf, lounging by swimming pools and smoking cigarettes, whilst neat, smiling housewives in bright calico dresses stood next to refrigerators laden with meat, churned yellow butter, and glass bottles of orange juice. There were advertisements for everything and anything, from syrup to stockings, spectacles to hats. Silk gloves, leather shoes, bedsheets, perfume, whisky and wedding rings. Everyone was happy, and judging from the way America looked in the magazines, that was hardly surprising.

I sighed and placed the magazine down. I walked over to the open doorway. The sky was grey and the street outside was full of churned mud. Children ran half-naked past the shanty houses, and a toothless man walked slowly past with hollow eyes, his clothes loose upon his body.

~ ~ ~

The idea that I might go to America had started as a joke. One evening, as we sat at the counter, Hal-san was telling me about his old college in New York, which sounded quite similar to the castle-like buildings of the Imperial University. Just at that moment, he caught my eye.

“Would you like to live in America someday, Satsuko?” he said.

My heart rose to my throat. For a moment, I had thought he had actually asked me to go away with him, just as casually as he might ask me to the cinema. I started to stammer. Then my cheeks flushed as it dawned on me, that, of course, he had just been asking a general kind of question.

I pretended to laugh. America certainly sounded wonderful, I said, but I couldn't speak English very well, and of course, I'd miss all of my friends. He put his hand on my wrist and stroked it gently. I wondered if he wasn't a little bit drunk.

“We could find you a teacher,” he murmured.

I laughed again, more cynically this time. Teaching you English was something they all promised to do.

“Cat, sat, mat,” I muttered. “How are you? How do you do?”

It was a stupid thing for him to have asked, and I felt annoyed at him for suggesting it.

But then I saw that he was looking at me quite seriously. For a moment, I let myself imagine what it might be like, living far away in a foreign country. A house beside a shady park that stretched all the way to the ocean. I could grow daikon and burdock in the garden. The days would come and go. Hal went off to work at his newspaper every morning, and I would visit the beach, and listen to the seagulls, as our children played around me in the sunshine.

~ ~ ~

Posters were appearing all over Tokyo with Michiko's beautiful face upon them. Everyone was looking forward to her new film. The cinema magazines reported that the action was to take place in the burned-out streets of the city itself, and I found myself watching out for the film crew whenever I visited the market.

For weeks, I had been convincing myself that I should write to Michiko and tell her where I was living. But as I pictured her, lounging in her glamorous apartment, surrounded by clothes and magazines, I wondered if she would even open a letter from me. She might fling it from her in terror when she saw my name, repelled by the thought of contact with this spider from her past.

But finally one afternoon, I sat down to write in any case, intending to keep the note brief and to the point. I wrote out my address, and told her that I was working in a restaurant again, that I had several warm-hearted companions and that life was full of possibilities.

“I was so thrilled to see you on the screen last month, Michiko,” I wrote, “when my American and I visited the cinema together.”

I stared at the words I had just written. My American? My heart started to patter, as I picked up the pen once more.

“Yes, Michiko, it's true. I too have found an ‘only-one,' as you yourself did last year. I very much hope that you will have the chance to visit us soon. Please do not be too embarrassed to come. I admit that I was upset when you moved away, but I know now that it was all for the best. After all, you were simply choosing to live, Michiko, in the only way you knew how. Just as we must all try to live.”

I started to feel quite emotional. It was at this point I got carried away. “I hope, in any case, you will be able to come soon, though I know how busy you must be with your cinema activities. Because very soon, Michiko, my American will be taking me away from Japan. We will be going to live in San Francisco, and I may not return for a long time. So you see, Michiko, it is not only film stars like you that can have exciting romantic adventures!”

My heart was in my mouth as I sealed the note and hurried to the post office. I quickly copied out the address of Michiko's studio from the back of a film magazine and handed the letter to the postmaster. As I did so, I felt as if the flimsy note was a votive plaque that I was hanging at a shrine, a hopeless prayer that I dreamed might somehow come true.

~ ~ ~

When Hal came back to Mrs. Ishino's that evening, he seemed worried and drew his fingers through his thick hair. My stomach tightened as I went to make him a sandwich. I poured him a drink. After a while, he seemed to relax.

Later on, casually, I took down Mrs. Ishino's atlas, and opened it up to the map of America. His eyes lit up and he laughed. Taking my hand beneath his own, he drew my finger to the eastern side of the country.

“New York,” he said, pointing at himself. “The Empire State.”

I smiled and shook my head. I drew his hand back to the other side of the map again.

“No empire. San Francisco,” I said.

He started to laugh again, the glorious, warm laugh that poured from his chest.

“You want to live in San Francisco, Satsuko?” he said.

I smiled. “Yes. You take me.”

“You want me to take you to San Francisco?” he said, sweeping his fingers through his hair. “Sure! Why not? Let's go to San Francisco. We'll take the next boat.”

I couldn't quite tell if he was joking or not. He shook his head with a faraway smile. He gazed at me for a second, then looked away, rubbing my hand over and over again.

We went up to his room soon after. His body was strong and taut and I felt a great, piercing sense of relief sweep through me. In the middle of the night, I woke up and gazed at his smooth, white skin, his chest moving softly up and down. I wondered whether I should slip downstairs to my room, but the nest of blankets was so cozy, and there was such a gentle warmth emanating from his body, that I just lay beside him, clasping my hands around his broad chest, and fell away into a deep sleep.

When I woke in the morning he was already getting ready to leave. I lay there dozing for a while, taking pleasure in the sound of him washing and getting dressed. Just before he left, he leaned down over the futon and kissed me on the forehead. For a moment I could smell the musky scent of his cologne on his smooth cheeks. Then the door closed and I lay there in a shaft of spring sunlight, breathing in the scent of the sheets, watching the motes of dust dance in the air. I thought that I should probably get up and go on with my work quite soon, but then I told myself I should stay for a little while longer, that I deserved to be happy, just for this short time. And so I lay there, smiling secretly to myself, stretched out on the bed like a satisfied cat.