Fireflies (30 page)

Finally, my sobs subsided, and all that was left was the freshness of the night around me. A cool breeze sprang up and the tops of the trees sighed as they waved back and forth in the moonlight. I stood up and brushed myself off, then walked back through the wood to my cabin. I took off my shirt and climbed into my narrow bunk. Within moments, thank God, I fell into a profound and utterly dreamless sleep.

36

ONE WONDERFUL DAY

(OSAMU MARUKI)

“Wrap!” Kano cried, as if pronouncing a wonderful blessing over the assembled cast and crew crowded below the edge of the soundstage. Michiko Nozaki stood for a second, her hand frozen in tableaux. Slowly, her face dissolved into her wonderful, trademark smile. She flung out her arms, and rushed down the steps toward Kano, kissing him on both cheeks in the French manner. Kinosuke, her leading man, strode over and spun her about in his arms. Hoots and catcalls came from the crew as she emerged from his embrace, blushing and breathless. Only then did she notice me and hurry over.

“Sensei,” she said. “You've come to see us at last!”

She pecked me chastely upon the forehead as Kinosuke strolled over. He slid his brawny arm around her waist and held up his other hand in the air.

“Well,” he called, “I propose now that we all offer a heartfelt
banzai
—”

Disconcerted noises came from the crew and he stopped himself with a chuckle.

“Excuse me — perhaps I should instead say that we offer ‘three cheers' — to our director, Kano. That we might express our respect and gratitude to him from the bottom of our hearts.”

He turned solemnly and touched his hands to his forehead. An appreciative purr came from the rest of the crew as Kinosuke raised his fist in the air: “Hip, hip, hooray!”

Kano smiled, his face half-hidden behind a pair of thick American sunglasses.

“Thank you,” he said. “Though it is I who should really be expressing my thanks. To our stars —” He gestured at Kinosuke and Michiko, and everyone applauded enthusiastically. “— the artists —” He turned to the smocked designers, who held up their paint brushes and grinned. “— and to the crew.” He waved up at the lighting box, from which bright bulbs flashed in gratitude.

“Thank you, all of you,” he said. “But there is one more ‘thank you' I would like to add, one that has perhaps, regrettably so far gone unexpressed in the production of this picture. Without saying any more, I would like to dedicate this film to its true creator.”

I felt an expectant tingle of pride and bowed my head as Kano raised his hands.

“To Tokyo. To the city, and to its people.”

My head jerked back up.

“To a city that will, one day, emerge from the ashes again, as it has so many times in the past.”

Heavy applause came from all sides.

“I have expressed the idea before that a city cannot simply rebuild itself like some robotic automata. Its true spirit lies in the hearts and the habits of its people.”

The crew nodded earnestly.

“This is what we pay tribute to today. As long as the spirit of Tokyoites lives on — gruff and arrogant as it may be — so will their city survive. Thank you everyone for your hard work!”

We stamped our feet and applauded. We flung our arms around each other. At that moment a deep and quickening sense of dignity came upon me, such as I had never felt before in my entire life. I embraced them all. My colleagues; my friends; my comrades.

~ ~ ~

I sat at my usual spot at the counter of the Montmartre, drinking Scotch, tapping the stiff toe of my russet Oxford brogue against the stool. I wondered about the reviews that might appear in the cinema magazines the next week.
Dreamy and melodramatic
, they would say.
Innacurate — naive.

I shook my head. The critics, for once, did not concern me. I only hoped that I might have managed to capture something of the peculiar spirit of the times, the spirit of the burned-out ruins. Of the curious resilience of human hearts in the face of chaos and destruction; of our potential to rise again from tragedy, to cast off the burden of time as a butterfly shrugs off its chrysalis.

We held the gala premier performance, at Kano's insistence, in the ruins of an old theatre in Shinjuku that he had visited regularly as a child. The roof was still mostly open to the sky and battered chairs were lined up in the amphitheatre to face an improvised canvas screen. Michiko Nozaki sat down in the front row, whispering to a friend she had brought along. A matronly lady sat on one side of her, and on the other was a teenage boy, smartly dressed in long shorts and a white shirt. Her friend turned her head.

What a strange and curious thing.

Satsuko Takara wore a flowing cotton summer dress, her hair pinned and fastened with a simple comb. Would she recognize herself up there on the screen? I wondered. In the character who owed so much to my imagination of her?

With a profound sense of humility and providence, I swore that I would go to her after the film had finished. That I would offer the hand of friendship again. That I would, if I were not too ashamed, ask for her forgiveness.

The lights went out and the projector began to whir. A thick beam of smouldering light hit the screen, and the symbol of a torch flickered onto the canvas. The name of the film appeared in stuttering ideograms, followed by the names of Kano, and then of myself. With an excited murmur, the audience settled back in their seats.

It was like nothing I had ever dreamed of. A new world came into being as Michiko Nozaki appeared on the swaying screen, and her bird-like voice emerged from the speakers. Everyone in the audience felt it too, and their breath seemed to emerge in a soft, collective sigh.

Up above, the beautiful face turned this way and that, smiling and nodding, her skin translucent, her eyes glistening. With the blurry backdrop of the ruined city behind her, she began to run down a narrow alley between rows of low, tenement houses . . . 

The audience gazed at the screen. With spectacular longing in my heart, I closed my eyes, willing myself to cling tightly to that beautiful image forever.

Wonderful faces, shining with light.

37

THE STAR FESTIVAL

(SATSUKO TAKARA)

Michiko skipped along a street, low wooden houses set to each side, dodging puddles in the path and throwing her hands this way and that like a dancer. Blurry ruins were painted behind her, distant buildings and a smudgy sky. She stopped at the edge of the stage and put her hands on her hips. She flashed her beautiful smile at the cast and crew. With a flouncing curtsy, she skittered off to one side, where handsome Mr. Kinosuke stood holding a lacquer box of powdered mochi cakes. She pinched his nose, giggling, and promptly popped one into her mouth.

Hiroshi stood on a crate, squinting through the viewfinder of the camera, supported by Mr. Mogami, the cinematographer, who was spinning him smoothly around to film the action. The film made a sound like a flittering clock as it whirred through the contraption. The director, Mr. Kano, stepped forward and raised his hand.

“Cut! Cut!” he called.

The rest of the assembled actors and stagehands laughed and clapped as Hiroshi opened his eyes. He blinked in the bright stage lights, a bashful smile growing on his face.

~ ~ ~

I tried not to think of the excruciating shame that I felt as I came to, lying in the tunnel beneath the railway arch. My kimono was soaked, my crimson nails chipped. Hiroshi's eyes were wide. I could hardly believe how grown up he looked. He wore a collar shirt and smart woollen trousers. I felt a stab in my heart. Coursing across my little brother's face, were thick, swirling welts.

Slowly, I got to my feet. We stood there in the tunnel for a long time, barely able to look at each other.

Finally, he spoke.

“Big sister,” he said. His voice was deep, now. “You're alive.”

A sob rose in my throat. “And you,” I whispered.

He bowed his head, and placed his palms formally together.

“Please forgive me,” he murmured.

Tears filled my eyes. “Forgive you?”

He knelt on the ground, touching his forehead to the concrete. “Please forgive me, sister. For leaving you alone that night.”

I saw him, silhouetted by fire. I desperately shook my head. He finally sat back cross-legged on the ground.

“I needed to fetch the pot, you see,” he said, frowning. “Father was counting on me.”

“Of course.”

He drew his arms around his legs. I gazed down at him, wondering what could possibly be passing through his mind.

“Did you find it, Hiroshi-kun?” I finally asked.

He shook his head.

“Well. Perhaps we might go to look for it together one day.”

He glanced up at me.

“Are you still in pain?” I said, gesturing to his face. His cheeks looked angry and shiny in the streetlight.

He shook his head again.

“Hiroshi-kun —” I started. He glanced at me.

“Please, Hiroshi-kun,” I said. “Let's not mention anything that has happened.”

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded.

I walked over to him, and leaned down, holding out my hand.

“Please, brother,” I said. “Will you come with me?”

~ ~ ~

As we approached Mrs. Ishino's shop, I saw that something was wrong. On the wall outside there were scrawled letters and tin signs just like the Americans had put up outside the Oasis.

Inside, it was as if a typhoon had swept through the place. Chairs had been thrown aside, streamers pulled down, and broken glass littered the floor. I shivered as a memory came to me — of how the Americans had torn away the little curtains that covered the girls' rooms at the International Palace.

Sobbing came from the back of the bar. Mrs. Ishino was slumped over, her thick arm hugging a bottle of shochu. On the table was the photograph of her husband in his flying jacket, the glass shattered in the frame. The gramophone played a mournful fragment of “The Apple Song” over and over again.

Hiroshi's eyes were so wide that I was terrified he would bolt. I wouldn't have blamed him. But instead, he sat down on a stool as I shook Mrs. Ishino and tried to pour water down her throat. There was the sound of a motorcar in the alley outside.

The whole scene had the feel of a dream then, as the rain blustered in through the open doorway. I heard a soft knock. A voice called my name.

Standing there, dressed in a pleated white skirt and wool sweater, was Michiko.

~ ~ ~

The workmen tottered on a ladder in the alley, and I called out in direction as they hoisted up the sign with the name of our new shop painted upon it in large crimson letters: Twilight Bar. Inside, two carpenters were sanding down the new counter. There was a strong smell of paint and sawdust. Hanako and Masuko were sitting with Mrs. Ishino, poring over the shopping list for our opening week. Hiroshi stood with them. He had all kinds of connections at the market now, he said, and could get food especially cheap, though I didn't care to know how.

Several of his photographs were framed on the newly painted walls. Shoeshine boys buffing the boots of American soldiers in Ueno Plaza; a four-car train travelling through the countryside. Above the bar was a photograph he'd hung there specially: a portrait of a tough-looking gangster, dressed in a three-piece suit, scowling away beneath the big sign at the Ueno Sunshine Market.

Michiko had barely asked a single question, that night. She had stepped over the threshold, calmly taking in the wreckage of the bar.

“Aren't you going to introduce me, Satsuko?” she asked, gesturing at Hiroshi.

“This — this is Hiroshi-kun.”

“Your brother?” she asked, staring at me in amazement.

I nodded. “Well, well,” she said, and she walked over to him and pushed the hair out of his eyes.
She really is a good actress
, I thought.

“Satsuko,” she said, taking one last look around. “Why don't you fetch everybody's things and come along with me.”

Every afternoon that summer, on her return home from filming, she brought us gifts: slabs of chocolate; summer clothes for Hiroshi; fish, rice, and vegetables for the rest of us. I cooked our meals in the evenings and we all ate together at her Western dining table of her luxurious apartment. It was all hers now, her admiral having been sent back to America following some scandal. Mrs. Ishino, who had fallen quite in love with Michiko by then, told stories of Tokyo theatres of the past, of the glory days when she had danced in the cabarets and operettas. Michiko told us all about the antics of the actors and stagehands, about her famous leading man Kinosuke, and the screenwriter, who she said always looked so tragic.

One evening, the conversation turned to the subject of Hollywood. The film
My Darling Clementine
had just opened, and Hiroshi had come back from the cinema earlier on that day, breathless with excitement.

“Hollywood — well!” Michiko said, a familiar look coming in her eyes. “Wouldn't that be the dream.”

My chopsticks hesitated over my dish. “Really, Michiko?” I said. “Doesn't it seem a very lonely place, despite all its glamour?”

Michiko raised a quizzical eyebrow.

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

Silence fell. Hiroshi glanced at me. Mrs. Ishino cleared her throat and served herself 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?”

We all laughed politely. Michiko's eyes narrowed, and held 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 a matter which I couldn't brush over, 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?

On the morning before the gala premiere, 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, and to have one last look for our father's pot. It 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 again. The sound of sawing and hammering came from the temple precincts and little cedar prayer plaques were hanging in bundles from the gates in honour of the Star Festival. We bought our own little plaques, and wrote 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?” I murmured. 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 too — they 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 firefly season, soon, I thought. There might be a hunt down by the banks of the Sumida. Bright fireworks would fill the sky above Tokyo throughout those hot, summer nights and we would light fires, 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 thought — my baby.

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

Before long, there would be plum blossom.