The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (24 page)

The scream of the siren woke Haru in the night. It was still dark outside when her father stormed into their room to get them out of bed. Aki sat straight up as if awakened from a bad dream.

“Hurry,” her father urged, “we have to get to the school as quickly as possible.”

Haru rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Everyone in their neighborhood was supposed to assemble at the nearest school in an emergency.
Was this a real emergency? Weren’t most of the air-raid sirens in the early morning hours? Her answer came with the scream of more sirens, followed by a volley of explosions that sounded like distant fireworks.

Haru and Aki jumped up already dressed in their
monpe
, which they’d worn to sleep ever since returning from the countryside. They stumbled down the hall after their father to where their mother waited, with their cloth headgear and first-aid supplies. A series of loud explosions went off in the distance. Their house trembled and the floor shook with each impact.

“Hurry,” her father repeated.

Her mother hugged Aki close and stayed silent, as if she were holding back a scream.

Outside, Haru saw the entire sky to the west alight with a strange orange and red glow. Long strips of flames fell from the dark sky. The heavy smell of smoke filled the air; it stung her eyes and made them water. She could hear the drone of planes overhead, a roar that shook the ground. “Incendiary bombs,” she heard her father shout to her mother. Wherever the planes flew over, fires erupted. Squeezing Aki’s hand tighter, Haru followed her parents through the smoke-filled air the four blocks to the school.

“Where’s Hoku?” she heard her mother ask.

She thought her father answered, “Nowhere …” The rest of his words were lost in all the noise. Where was Hoku? His caretaker’s house sat dark against the smoky sky.

Neighbors were running toward the school, where they squatted in open trenches for shelter. There were so many people, babies crying and children calling for their mothers, Haru closed her eyes in all the confusion.

“You’ll be safe here,” her father said, climbing out of the trench wearing his iron helmet. “I have to report to my duty station,” he said. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

“Please, please, be careful,” her mother pleaded.

Haru had never seen her mother so distressed. Her father leaned over and hugged both her and Aki together, then kissed her mother on the lips, something she’d never seen before. Aki held on to her father’s
arm until he jerked roughly away, leaving her in tears. The winds picked up, bringing a thick black smoke toward them. After her father disappeared into the night, Haru saw her mother still touching her lips.

The whizzing sounds of the incendiary bombs, the deafening roar of the planes and wind overhead continued as they crouched in the trench. Haru counted the continuous explosions, as they grew louder and the line of fire inched closer and closer to the school. The American planes had never attacked their neighborhood before. Someone screamed. The oncoming fire and smoke chased people out of the open trenches, sending them running for their lives. Aki was wearing her cloth headgear, with her eyes squeezed shut, her hands covering her ears as the teachers had told them to do in school. What use was it all now? Haru thought. She could see her mother panicking, not knowing if she should listen to the shouting voices that screamed, “Run, run!” and “If you stay here, you’re sure to die!” Or if they should wait, as her father had directed? Haru’s impulse was to run. She sat up, lifted her hand, and felt the hot wind against her palm. She pulled at her mother’s arm and, without waiting, climbed out of the trench. She wouldn’t stay a moment longer in that open pit only to be burned alive. No sooner had she climbed out than her mother and Aki did the same.

“Go south!” a voice shouted. Haru felt someone pushing her from behind. The fire was fueled by the strong north wind, the wind that left her feeling so uneasy. South was downwind. If they ran upwind, they would most certainly meet a wall of fire. They stood paralyzed; there was no safe passage. On the horizon, it appeared the entire world was ablaze as the fire quickly pushed its way toward them.

Her mother pulled them in the direction of Sunamachi, in the south, where there were many bridges and rivers. “Don’t worry,” she reassured them, “we’ll be all right.” It made sense to head toward water and Haru was relieved to see her mother taking charge again, as if she’d awakened from a trance. They gripped each other’s hands and ran.

The bridge on the Onagigawa River was crowded with people trying to cross. Houses exploded all around them, debris whipped through the air as electrical wires sparked and fell across the road, sweeping a woman with a baby on her back off her feet. Just as quickly she was lost in the thick, black smoke. The wind and flames merged with a terrific force. The air was on fire. Haru saw bodies ablaze hurl themselves into the river, smelled the burning flesh. When the vomit reached her throat, she stopped, then felt her mother’s hand slip away from hers.

“Okasan!”
she screamed, her voice lost in the howling firestorm, unable to see her mother and sister.
“Okasan!
Aki!”

Haru’s voice was raw, and the smoke scorched her throat. She felt someone grab her arm and for a moment thought that her mother had found her, only to realize that she was being pulled by an old man into a small ditch under the bridge by the river. All around them, she heard screams swallowed up by the roar of the firestorm. Was it her mother or Aki? What had they all done to deserve such a fate?

She pulled away but the old man held her down, leaned close to her ear, and said, “Do you want to get swept away? You have to live in order to find your family.”

Haru stopped fighting and felt the old man’s grip loosen. She allowed herself a moment of reprieve from the hell just above her, leaning back against the dirt and rocks as her eyes filled with tears.

Haru didn’t know how long she stayed in the ditch under the bridge before she climbed back up to the road again. Had she even said thank you to the old man? The howling wind swept another wave of fire toward her. Surrounded by fire on all sides, she had nowhere to go. She could barely see what looked like a slit trench on the other side of the road, dug all over Tokyo by volunteers and students during emergency air raids. Without thinking she ran and leaped through the fire, tumbling hard into the trench. Haru was still stunned she had survived the jump without getting hurt when she saw Aki crawling toward her.

“Haru-chan!”

“Aki!” She hugged her sister tightly. On the other side of the trench, another woman who wasn’t her mother hovered low.

“Where’s
okasan?”
She raised her voice against the howling wind. “Is she all right?”

Aki didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. She shook her head and buried her face in Haru’s shoulder as they pressed their bodies against the dirt. She heard the other woman scream as the fire began showering down on them. The back of the woman’s blouse had caught fire, spreading down the length of her body. Before Haru could do anything, the woman had bounded out of the trench and was blown away by the roar of the wind and fire. It was as if she never existed. Haru turned when Aki suddenly screamed, her padded headgear ablaze. She pushed her down quickly and used dirt and her own hands to smother the flames, then ripped off the foolish headgear. Miraculously, Aki’s hair and a bit of her head were singed but she was otherwise unhurt. It was only then that she felt the stinging pain and throbbing of her own burned hands, her palms red and raw, already blistering. She shifted her body on top of Aki, to protect her from the fire, and placed her palms against the cool dirt, waiting for the pain to subside. It was the only thing she could do. She held Aki close, heard her sister whispering,
“Ichi, ni, san, shi, go …
I’m invisible. No one can see me.” They lay flat in the trench as the fire and wind roared just above them.

When Haru dared to raise her head at dawn, there was nothing but silence. She saw a heavy, smoke-filled sky. The firestorm had blown itself out. They slowly climbed out of the trench to see a steaming world she no longer recognized. Most of the houses were burned to the ground, only concrete structures had survived. Trees were nonexistent and dead bodies floated in the river or lay by the side of the road, their charred remains smoldering, while other bodies were still in sitting and kneeling positions. She imagined them too hot to touch and her palms burned at the thought. She forced herself not to be
afraid, to keep walking through the gray, gritty air, shielding Aki until they were away from the river.

“Wait here for me,” she told Aki. “I promise I won’t be long.”

“Where are you going?” Aki held on to her arm and only reluctantly let go.

“I’ll be right back.”

Haru hurried back to the river and climbed down the embankment to the ditch under the bridge, her hands throbbing with pain. She had to see if the old man was all right, and to thank him for saving her. She bent low and peeked. Tucked in the corner, Haru could see he was still sitting there.

She called out hello.

When the old man didn’t answer, she inched closer to see if he was all right. Only then could she see his eyes were wide open as he stared blankly out at the river. The fire had just touched his body, but she imagined the heat or smoke might have overcome him first. Her body could have easily been lying there beside his had she not had the impulse to leave, to find her mother and Aki. Haru bowed quickly in respect and turned to run back up the embankment as fast as she could.

“What do we do now?” Aki asked, still clutching the charred headgear, strangely calm, standing amid the devastation.

“We go home,” she answered. Haru didn’t know where else they could go. There was a chance her mother had found her way back home, and, if not, surely her father would come back for them.

They began to walk and then they ran.

Hiroshi had just fallen asleep when the first siren went off, startling him awake. His heart raced, and he instinctively knew this time it was something more than a usual air raid. It was the middle of the night; usually the sirens went off just after dawn. Kenji must have felt it, too, for he was up from his futon by the end of the siren’s first wail. Kenji’s ankle was still tender, his limp still pronounced since returning from Imoto just four days earlier. Hiroshi watched him
grimace as his weight landed on the foot. His grandmother had cried the day Kenji returned. The grandson they had sent to the countryside to be safe had been in more danger than they were in Yanaka.