In a Flash

by Donna Jo Napoli

We fill the center of our square from the pile of dirt. It mounds up beautifully, just like a garden in Italy. Hitomi comes out into the yard and nods approval. She makes me think of my teachers; they say vegetable gardens are the best way to be patriotic.

  In this moment, we are the best kind of Japanese girls.

  21 APRIL 1942, TOKYO, JAPAN

  I stand in the side yard and watch the canary cage in the upstairs window. A shadow passes. Once. Twice. Now the person comes to the cage and stays. Pessa. She feeds the bird from her palm.

  “Come on.” Carolina kicks the side of my shoe. “I don’t want to go to school any more than you do. But we have to.”

  Since when did she become so grown-up?

  She goes out the gate of the embassy ahead of me. We walk slowly. Other children on the street go slowly, too. It’s Tuesday, the twenty-first of April. Three days ago, American planes bombed Tokyo. Their machine guns strafed in wide swaths. They destroyed factories and warehouses.

  But that wasn’t the worst.

  They came right before noon. Most children had gone home, since Saturday school is a half day. But some stayed to help clean classrooms. A child at Mizumoto Primary School was killed. A child at Waseda Middle School was killed. Those schools used to seem far away from the Minato ward, where our embassy is. Now they seem close.

  Adults died, too. But it’s those children that everyone talks about. Children, killed in their schools.

  Yesterday our teachers told us not to be afraid. Japan is strong. America is weak. Otherwise America would not have targeted schools. We must come to school without fail, to keep Japan strong. Everyone counts on us. They said it over and over. They made us repeat it after them.

  We stomped around the room singing military marches. We sang about the goodness of the emperor and the divine origins of Japan, about admirable Japanese mothers sending their sons off to war so bravely, about Mount Fuji and New Year’s Day customs and village festivals, everything we love, right down to pounding rice cakes. We sang about how Japan outshines all other countries.

  I try to sing these songs to myself now. I want to stop being afraid. But I keep looking up at the sky as we walk to school.

  Over the past three days the interpreter has brought the ambassador piles and piles of newspapers. After he leaves, I read the front page of all of them. It’s hard, because I don’t know all the characters yet. But more than half is written in kana, and I know kana. Japan swears to get even with America. It will kill thousands of Chinese people, men and women and children, to show America that Japan is strong.

  How does killing Japanese children prove that America is weak, but killing Chinese children will prove that Japan is strong?

  Could I be right and the newspapers be wrong? My stomach’s jittery; I should be ashamed of such thoughts.

  And I can’t stop scanning the skies for planes.

  Keiko and Aiko join us at the corner, and we greet each other, as usual. But Keiko’s face is stern, and Aiko doesn’t look at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing is wrong.” Keiko stands tall. “Everything is right. Tell her, Aiko.”

  Aiko glances at me quickly, then away. Her face is tear-streaked. “You tell her.”

  “Our brothers received the wonderful welcome yesterday—the call-up notice for the imperial army.” Keiko’s voice is brittle. “It’s on red paper.”

  A chill goes up my spine. “I’ve seen it.” I hadn’t realized Aiko’s brother, Gen, was sixteen already.

  “Do not look like that, Simona!” Keiko says. “Do not make that sad face.”

  I look down.

  “They have been honored. They go for the military physical next week. They will pass with top scores and go to Toyama for combat training.”

  Everyone gets top scores on their physicals these days. The military turns away no one. Everyone who is called up must serve.

  “It’s the emperor’s orders,” says Keiko. “Our brothers will lift their hands in salute and say, ‘Long live the emperor.’ I am so proud.” She smooths the front of her skirt. “They are delivering military call-ups all over Tokyo today.”

  Of course! Because of the bombs on Saturday. Big brothers are being taken away because of the American bombs.

  Shizue and Yoshie and Noriko join us at the next corner. Keiko shares the news, and the girls congratulate her and Aiko. Everyone smiles.

  Aiko falls back. Carolina and I fall back with her.

  “Gen must be proud,” I say softly. “You must be proud.”

  “Would you be?” The corners of Aiko’s mouth quiver.

  I touch the back of her hand. Just one quick touch, so no one sees. “Don’t be afraid. Japan is winning the war.”

  She looks straight ahead, but her eyes blink fast.

  “It’s in the newspapers,” I say.

  “Don’t act like an idiot, Simona. All the men are gone. Now all the boys are going. If we’re winning, how come no one ever comes home?”

  My stomach clenches. Aiko hasn’t heard from her father in so long. It will be just Aiko and her mother now. “It’s…it’s going to be all right.”

  “You sound like our teachers. First they say we will win. Then they say it’s an honor to die. They don’t even see the contradiction. They’re crazy. Crazy liars.”

  Her words echo my own thoughts from the past days. I’m ice inside. “You can’t say such things,” I whisper.

  “I didn’t. And if you ever say I did, I’ll deny it.” Aiko looks at Carolina. “Don’t you ever say I did, either. Or I’ll do something mean. I’ll…cut off a lock of Lella’s hair.”

  Carolina looks stricken, though she hardly ever plays with Lella anymore. “I wouldn’t say anything even if you stayed nice.”

  We pass a tobacco shop. A line stretches from the front door, around to the corner, and down the side street. People in line bicker. There’s never been a line at the tobacco shop before.

  The train station has a long line, too.

  “Look around,” whispers Aiko. “Look at our wonderful, organized country. Nothing works anymore.”

  “We still have school,” I say.

  “Till we’re twelve. If we don’t starve before that.”

  “We’re all planting kitchen gardens,” says Carolina.

  “How many will they feed? Japan is full of mountains and forests and riverbeds, so we have no big farms. And two years of drought ruined the rice crops. The wheat. And those typhoons.” She wipes away a tear. “Things are falling apart.”

  “No,” I say.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “No.” I walk more quickly. “Your brother will not die.”

  “No one can promise that,” says Aiko.

  Aiko and I look at each other.

  “I promise anyway.” But inside, we know we are crying.

  20 JUNE 1942, TOKYO, JAPAN

  Naoki stands in the kitchen doorway, and I stand beside him, trying to calm my jumping stomach. He says, “I’m going home.”

  Hitomi stops stirring. “You just arrived. You wanted all Saturday afternoon together with Simona in the garden. This June weather is perfect for weeding and thinning the root vegetables.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Working in the kitchen garden is a contribution to the country. Tell me what happened.”

  Naoki glances at me, face pinched. It will hurt him to tell on me.

  “I said something that Naoki didn’t like,” I say.

  “About?”

  “The war.”

  “The Shinto gods hold this war holy.” Hitomi’s voice is as stiff as her words.

  I know how she feels about her gods. I give the smallest nod.

  “What did you say?”

  “Maybe…maybe we shouldn’t be
fighting.”

  Hitomi puts down her stirring spoon. “Those words are an offense to the gods. We’ll go home together, Naoki.” Her voice gives no hint of emotion. “Simona can explain to her father why we cannot be in her presence today.”

  I wish she would shout at me.

  I wish I didn’t have these doubts.

  As Hitomi is about to leave the room, Naoki in tow, she stops. “Naoki, wait for me outside the door.” Naoki goes without a word or glance. Hitomi moves close and says very quietly, “You read the ambassador’s newspapers. I see you. Maybe you hear the ambassador say things in his own language. Different things from what the radio says. You think you are smarter than you are. That is a white-pig flaw. All Westerners have it. You may have it worse than most because you speak Japanese so well, so you think you understand. Do not be fooled. Japan is triumphant throughout the Pacific. The Americans lost many men at the Battle of Midway. Your words and thoughts are an offense to the gods. Learn. Cleanse yourself.”

  And she’s gone.

  My breath hardly comes. My eyes well with tears.

  Papà comes into the kitchen, takes one look at me, and rushes over. He hugs me tight.

  “Hitomi and Naoki left because they’re mad at me. Maybe Hitomi hates me.”

  “Oh, Simonuccia,” croons Papà into my hair. He hasn’t called me Simonuccia since I was little. It feels good. “We can talk about this after Carolina goes to bed tonight. Without an audience.”

  I look around the kitchen. We are speaking Italian, and no one understands anything we say. No one has even paused in their tasks. I doubt they heard what Hitomi and I said to each other. But I’m sure they saw my tears. This is not how a Japanese child my age should behave. I step back and nod.

  But I’m already realizing what I can and cannot tell Papà. I can tell what I said to Naoki—that if we’re doing so well in this war, how come people are so hungry? How come the emperor keeps taking more men and boys from their homes? I want to know what Papà thinks. But I cannot tell Papà what Hitomi said about Westerners. She was angry; she couldn’t mean it.

  “The midday meal is already prepared,” Papà says to the servant Masaaki. “You know how to serve it. My daughters and I must do errands.” He turns to me. “Go get Carolina.”

  Carolina is still outside in the kitchen garden, weeding around the sunflower stalks. The government handed out seeds, and when the flowers are ready, government personnel will take them to press for oil to be used by the military. We’ve been talking about how wonderful it will be to see cheerful sunflowers. Carolina is waiting for Naoki and me to come back and help weed. Will Naoki ever come back? He must. We’re friends.

  I call Carolina inside, and we meet Papà in our room.

  “Put on kerchiefs and tuck your hair up under them.” Papà wears brown pants, a brown shirt, and a field cap. A citizen’s uniform, what men who aren’t in the military wear to show their loyalty. People wear them more often since those bombs dropped on Tokyo. “We’ll do the errands Hitomi was supposed to do this afternoon. Inconspicuously. You walk behind me and look down like obedient daughters. I’ll keep my face down, too.”

  Does he really think people will take us for Japanese? Carolina and I walk like Japanese girls, but Papà doesn’t walk like a Japanese man at all. Every step gives him away. People are going to know we are Westerners. Maybe they’ll think we’re horrible white pigs.

  We go straight to the laundry. I’ve been here many times, because Hitomi takes Carolina and me on errands if she needs extra hands to carry things. When we part the curtain to enter the doorway, bells chime. The washerwoman calls a greeting. Papà and I place the dirty laundry on the counter, and we all straighten up, because the washerwoman is blind. It doesn’t matter whether our faces show. I do all the talking, so even if it she hates Westerners, like Hitomi, she’ll never know that’s who we are.

  She sets our laundry to the side and takes two pieces of paper from a box. She folds one piece of paper into a mushroom. Then she folds the other into the exact same shape. She puts one origami mushroom on the stack of our dirty clothes, and she hands the other one to me.

  Every time we come to her shop, she makes us a different shape. She’s smart. Writing numbers on a slip of paper as a receipt won’t work for a blind person. But when we come back and hand her the paper mushroom, she’ll go straight to our stack of clean laundry, and her fingers will check the little paper mushroom sitting on top and know that it’s ours.

  I’m good at origami now. I can make a mushroom like the washerwoman’s, but not as fast. And not with my eyes closed. It’s a marvel that those rough red hands can move so precisely. The first time I saw her hands, I asked Hitomi about them. She said it was because the washerwoman has to pluck laundry out of boiling soapy water and scrub it, then drop it back in, and then scrub again. How can she get out the dirty spots when she can’t see them? Do her hands constantly hurt?

  We leave, and my arms feel light without that bundle of sheets. For no reason at all, I’m happy. “Can we go to the department store?”

  Papà turns his head to me sideways, keeping his face down, but I see the surprise there. His mouth opens, and I watch his lips go to form no. I can rattle off all the reasons myself. I never should have asked. But instead he says, “Why not?”

  Carolina squeals and makes a little skip. “We can buy treats,” she says in Italian.

  Papà presses his finger to his lips, and I’m afraid Carolina has just ruined it. But then he says, “Speak only Japanese.” He switches to Japanese on the last word. “If we buy anything, let Simona handle it.”

  “I speak Japanese, too,” says Carolina. “As good as anyone. Simona still says things wrong now and then.”

  “Yes,” says Papà. “But Simona knows how to handle situations.”

  I look away, trying to hide my smile from Carolina.

  We ride the subway to the Shinjuku Station. Carolina whispers that the yellow cars are like sunshine streaking below ground, making it warm. Her words feel like poetry, like the haiku we study in school.

  We walk through the station to the huge department store, behind a woman with two daughters. The older daughter must be seven or eight. The younger is a baby wrapped onto her big sister’s back inside a wide sash at the waist just for that purpose. The baby sleeps, and her head hangs backward.

  That baby has to feel very loved, to be carried like that. And that big sister must feel very loved, to be trusted like that. I imagine a baby on my own back.

  Carolina has the same reaction. She drags us around the store looking for a child-size sash, so that she can carry Lella in it.

  We go to the roof first, to the children’s play area. But no other children are around, so Carolina quickly jumps off the swing. The pet supply section is gone; the garden supply section is nearly empty. The last time we were here, the store bustled, but that was more than a year ago.

  We go down floor by floor, searching for a child’s sash. The shelves are half-empty. No pottery. No lacquerware. Our footsteps echo in the aisles.

  All the pretty children’s kimono sashes are gone. No bright colors. Nothing to make Carolina smile.

  In the basement grocery and food court, people crowd in a corner. Oh! Someone is making tempura. Papà is the world’s best cook, of course. But he never makes tempura. I’ve eaten it only three times in my whole life. It’s crisp and delicious.

  The fish sizzles in the bubbling oil. Everyone murmurs about how long it’s been since food counters have served anything but miso soup. We are lucky to go by this counter at this very moment on this very day. The cook quickly drops the fried fish into bags and seals them up. We buy a bag and hurry outside to find a place to eat. Tempura is best hot.

  Beside the department store stands an old building, like an ordinary house. This part of the city has big new buildings beside little old ones,
all helter-skelter. Along one side of that old building is an alley with a plum tree in a tiny plot of dirt. A trash cart is parked under the tree, the two-wheel type. A man sleeps in it.

  We sit on the stone bench near the cart, and Papà rips open the bag. A stench comes out—the fish is bad. Carolina drops her hands onto her lap and moans.

  A mangy dog hobbles along the alley. Big splotches of his fur are missing, and his ribs show. I take the bag and walk after the dog. He growls; he’ll bite if I get close. I set the bag on the ground and go back to the bench. The dog finishes off that rotten fish in three gulps, and licks his chops. Then he turns down the alley. I pick up the ripped bag.

  We hear a door slide open. A tiny woman comes out of the low building, and we stand. When the woman’s eyes meet ours, she hesitates. She didn’t see our faces till now. She carries a wooden box.

  She comes closer, and we all bow. “Sit, please.”

  We don’t sit, of course. That is her bench, under her plum tree. “We were just resting a moment,” I say. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  The woman tilts her head. “I saw. You must have bought that unlovely fish at the department store. Many people have had that misfortune today. The dog you gave it to is an Akita. That’s a special breed. Did you know that the police have been ordered to kill dogs they see wandering alone? No one is allowed to feed them.”

  I tense up. “We didn’t know.”

  “That dog will live a little longer because of you. Animals are innocents.” She takes the lid off the box and sets it on the bench. Then she holds the box toward us with both hands. She’s so skinny, her hands are birdlike. “This is not fancy tempura, but the fish is not rotten.”

  There are three perfect sticks of fish glazed with teriyaki sauce. Studded with sesame seeds. They smell so good.

  She bows. “Please enjoy them.”

  Papà bows back. “Thank you,” he says in Japanese. “You are kind and generous.” He turns to me. “Simona, explain that we were disappointed at the rotten fish, but we are not hungry,” he says in Italian. “We cannot accept fish, not when she’s hungry herself.”