In a Flash

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “She gave it as a gift, Papà. We have to accept her gift.”

  “Make her understand, Simona.”

  I look at the woman. “My father is proud,” I say very softly, as though Papà won’t be able to hear. “He wants me to tell you we are not hungry. We have eaten far too much today to accept your delightful fish.”

  The woman looks pleased. “I make so many mistakes. These sticks of fish are not for you or your father. They are for the little one.”

  “Thank you,” says Carolina. She bows. “I love fish on a stick.” She takes one before Papà can stop her.

  “You have two hands,” says the woman.

  Carolina gives a second bow and takes a second stick. “Thank you.”

  “Would you mind disposing of this last one for me?” The woman holds the box toward me.

  I bow and take the stick of fish. “Thank you. You humble me.”

  The woman bows. “You do me an honor.” She goes back inside.

  We walk out to the main street. Papà takes the extra fish stick from Carolina, and we huddle together as we nibble. Papà smiles at us.

  All it takes is one good thing to change everything.

  1 AUGUST 1942, NIKKO, JAPAN

  “All right,” I say, looking at Carolina and Aiko, “we have a choice. We can go north along the lakeshore, then east up the hill, or we can bushwhack through the forest.”

  “The forest is shorter,” says Aiko. “Two kilometers instead of three.”

  She knows because we went to the falls three times last summer. But Carolina never came; Papà said she was too little to go without an adult.

  “The forest has monkeys,” says Carolina. “And we don’t have Naoki to protect us.”

  We’ve been at the ambassador’s summer villa for a week, and we haven’t seen monkeys yet. Anyway, Naoki didn’t protect us last summer when the monkeys came. But I don’t point those things out. The memory of the monkeys makes my insides quiver.

  “We could ask Naoki’s mother to go with us,” says Aiko. “She looks fierce enough to scare any monkey.”

  “She’s doing laundry today.” Here at Lake Chūzenji we don’t have a local woman to go to for laundry. That responsibility falls on the servants: Hitomi and Papà.

  But Aiko is right. Hitomi is fierce. Whenever she passes, she glares at me. When Hitomi told Papà Naoki couldn’t come this summer, I chewed on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. Naoki loved it last summer, even more than the rest of us. He did martial arts exercises on the pebble beach every morning. He shot imaginary enemy ships on the lake. I miss him. I missed him every Sunday in July, and I miss him now. Who is he staying with while Hitomi is here? I hope it’s the uncle he loves.

  “The only time we saw the monkeys last summer was on the shore,” says Aiko.

  “But they came out of the forest,” says Carolina.

  “How about we go through the forest one way and along the shore the other way?” I say. I don’t know if monkeys can swim, but we can. If we’re on the shore, we can always jump into the water.

  “Then let’s take the shore route going there,” says Carolina. “That way I can see the famous Kegon Falls before I die.”

  “Die?” says Aiko.

  “Before the monkeys kill me on the way back.”

  “The monkeys are not going to kill you,” says Aiko.

  “Promise?” asks Carolina, but she’s looking at me, not Aiko.

  I don’t like this game of hers. But I say, “Promise.”

  “Just don’t look them in the face,” says Aiko.

  The walk along the shore is easy, but as we go uphill, the lowest cedar branches scratch at us, and the last stretch is steep. Who minds? The scent of the trees is like a mix of lemon and pineapple; it makes my skin tingle.

  The hills that surround the lake teem with birds, and their songs are a pleasure. Cuckoos and nightingales. In Tokyo it’s rare to hear birdsong these days. Even pigeon coos have disappeared. Everybody needs soup.

  We come out on top into the open air. The highest waterfall always takes my breath away, literally. The water drops so far and so fast that the air forms a chilly mist that hits us in the face and steals our breath. Behind that fall and on both sides are maybe a dozen other smaller falls.

  “The baby waterfalls are like leaks,” says Carolina over the roar of that falling torrent.

  I look out from this wonderful viewpoint, over the forest and over the huge marshy expanse that stretches to the foot of Mount Nantai. Dead trees poke up through the marsh, gray and spiky and lonely.

  A young man squats at the edge of the trees. He wears a loincloth like the poorest field-workers. I haven’t seen a man his age in the fields for a long time. Only old people and children work the fields. Men his age are soldiers.

  His back is to me, and he’s busy at something. A sheen of sweat coats his shoulders.

  I walk over and stand behind him, close enough to see what’s in his hands. Two rocks. He grinds them together. His back muscles move around his rib bones with each breath. He’s as skinny as anyone I’ve ever seen.

  Carolina and Aiko join me.

  “What do you want?” He doesn’t look at us when he talks. But he must sense we’re children, because he speaks in the Japanese adults use with children.

  “Nothing.”

  He keeps grinding the rocks together. “Did you come for shinrin-yoku?”

  I have no idea what that is. I raise my brows at Aiko.

  “Bathing in the forest scents is beneficial,” says Aiko in her most formal language, “but we did not come for that. We came to see the falls.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Eight,” says Carolina, counting years the Japanese way. She won’t really be that for four more months.

  “Ten,” says Aiko, though both of us are close to eleven.

  “You’re still in elementary school. I went to elementary school. But my grandmother wouldn’t let me go to agricultural school because it was in the city. No one who left our village to go to school ever came back. She didn’t want to lose me.”

  “Our grandmother lost us,” says Carolina. “But we’ll go back one day.”

  “Is Nikko your village?” I ask.

  “I’m from Toga. It’s a speck in the western mountains of Toyama prefecture. No one knows where it is unless they live within a hand’s throw of it.” The man grinds the rocks harder and faster. “But I’ve traveled. I went to Manchuria. I bet you don’t even know where that is.”

  Of course we know where Manchuria is. It’s that part of China that stretches to the north of Korea. In Tokyo all schoolchildren know that. But we don’t want to be rude, so we don’t answer.

  “I went with the imperial army to Manchuria. In 1935. To secure the long western border with the Soviet Union. We pushed our way through bushes, up and down mountains. Just like hiking here today. The next year, they called me to service again. In central China.” He stops grinding the rocks and clacks them together for a while. Then he grinds them again.

  “My brother is serving in the imperial army,” says Aiko. “But I don’t know where.”

  “Poor him.”

  Aiko stiffens. I have to hold my hands together to keep from putting my arms around her.

  “I hope your brother never comes to Kegon Falls.”

  “Why?”

  The man stands up and looks at us. If he’s surprised to see Carolina’s and my Western faces, he doesn’t show it. He drops the rocks and walks into the forest. “Are you coming?” he calls without looking back. “I can teach you something. Besides, I have a gift for you. Something that matters to your brother.”

  Aiko hurries after him. Carolina looks at me. The man doesn’t seem threatening. He’s skeletal; the three of us could overpower him if we had to. Besides, now we
are one more if monkeys should come. Carolina and I join hands and follow.

  The man walks without saying a word until we are at the foot of the mountain. He finally squats by a large old tree and puts his arms around the base of the biggest, ugliest mushroom I’ve ever seen. It’s black and curly. He tugs and tugs at it, and I can see that he’s strong after all. Beetles tumble off the mushroom and fly away. Finally the base of the mushroom rips free, sending the man backward onto his bottom.

  “If you clean this mushroom properly—get all the slugs and larvae out of it—it can be delicious. Eat it with…ah, it used to be perfect with noodles…but now eat it with whatever you have.” He shoves the mushroom in front of us.

  “Thank you for the gift,” says Aiko.

  We all bow.

  How will we ever get this mushroom home? It must weigh half as much as Carolina.

  “This is not the gift,” says the man. “This was my lesson: the forest can feed you.” He walks to a pile of neatly folded clothes not far from where he ripped up the mushroom. He pulls on tattered pants and a shirt. Under them is a magazine. “This is Chikakiyori.” He bows to the magazine. I’ve never seen anyone do such a thing. “This is the gift. Read it. But keep it hidden, because adults will not want you to read it. They can’t risk you knowing the truth. When you see your brother again, he will be grateful that you know.” He gives a final bow to us and to the magazine. Then he walks across a small field and disappears into the forest beyond.

  “He talked like he wasn’t real,” says Carolina. “I didn’t understand him.”

  “He’s real. I think maybe he ran away from the army—a deserter.” Aiko sits on the ground, already reading. “This magazine is not like the newspapers we read at home.”

  I read over her shoulder. An article about the Japanese victory at Kokoda in New Guinea. We know. News about the victory is on the radio, and it fills the headlines in the ambassador’s papers. But this article also talks about the Japanese forces lost in the battle. It predicts that Japan will not be able to hold on to Kokoda.

  My eye moves to the next article. It’s about Poland. In Europe. It says Jews are kept in a walled-off area. They were gathered up and forced to live there. Now they are being taken away to Germany to be killed. I gasp; my stomach goes cold as ice. I re-read, to make sure I haven’t mistaken it. Killed. It definitely says killed. What did the Jews do? I think of the old synagogue in Ostia. Nonna and I used to turn on the lights for them on Saturday, their holy day, when they aren’t allowed to do the “work” of flipping switches.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “This is an underground publication,” says Aiko. “Gen told me about them. They tell us what the government doesn’t want us to know.”

  Carolina screws up her face. “I can’t read most of those words. What does it say?”

  “Nothing.” Aiko stands up. “We never saw it. It’s dangerous. Do you understand, Carolina?”

  “Saw what?” She smiles. “We have a perfect hiding place for nothing under the platform by the pebble beach.”

  “Good thinking,” I say, though my heart is beating so hard, it may pop out of my chest. Reading such a magazine is disloyal. Our teachers would be appalled.

  And angry, like Hitomi.

  Aiko closes the magazine and shoves it under her shirt. She looks fat. “How are we going to get this mushroom back to the villa?”

  “We could drag it on a broken cedar branch,” I say.

  It turns out to be not so easy to break cedar branches; they cling to the tree. But we manage to get one, and we drag that mushroom home. Hitomi and Papà are delighted.

  They have no idea about the issue of Chikakiyori under the platform by the pebble beach. If Hitomi knew, she would destroy it. Papà…would want to read it, too. But he’s an adult. If he got caught with it, who knows what would happen? That magazine is a danger to him.

  We’re just children; we can’t get into real trouble.

  For now, it’s best we stay children with a secret.

  3 FEBRUARY 1943, TOKYO, JAPAN

  The ambassador sent for me, and I have no idea why. I stand in the open door to his office, not daring to step in. I hope he won’t make me late for school.

  Important business happens in this office. Carolina and I have never been inside it. Paintings in fancy frames hang on the walls. They’re odd. Not mountains with isolated houses that have curved roofs, or women in kimonos half-hidden behind fans, or dragon boats in the middle of wild seas, like the scenes on the folded screens in the rest of the embassy. These are different—a seated man, three nearly naked women with yellow hair, a landscape with a gnarled tree. It makes me think of the olive trees all around Lido di Ostia. Oh! These are Italian paintings.

  The ambassador works, bent over his desk. Maybe he doesn’t demand Italian food just because of the taste. Maybe he’s homesick. Like Signor Rosati, the consular officer. He left last month without even waiting for a replacement, he was so homesick.

  The ambassador finally looks up. “Come in, Simona,” he says in Italian.

  I walk to the edge of his desk.

  “You talk with the servants. You play with their children. Are you surprised that I know this? I watch everything, you see. Your father tells me you get good grades in school. You help him bargain in the market.”

  What do all those things have to do with each other? I look at him.

  “So I’m guessing you speak Japanese well.”

  I recall the words of the seafoam candy vendor under the cherry blossoms last spring, and I’ve learned so much more since then. “I speak like anyone born in Tokyo.”

  “If that’s true, you’re the only Italian in this embassy who knows Japanese well enough to pick up on the little meanings. Is it true? This is important. Think before you answer.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I’m going to give you a chance to prove that. Every day, as soon as you get home from school, you’re going to put yourself in that corner, right there”—he jerks his head toward a corner—“and listen to the conversations I have with my visitors.”

  I gulp in surprise. “Why?”

  “Once they’ve left, you’ll tell me what they said in Japanese to each other.”

  This feels important. And somehow wrong. “Your interpreter does that.”

  “My interpreter is Japanese.” He looks at me hard. “Do you understand what I’m saying? You’re a big girl. Turning eleven this month, your father tells me. He trusts you with your little sister. Last summer he even allowed you to take her up onto the mountain where the waterfalls are. So you’re responsible.” He comes around the desk to stand beside me. “A big, responsible Italian girl who knows Japanese as well as anyone.” He leans over a little. “My interpreter might not tell me things he doesn’t want me to know. I get the feeling sometimes, when he’s translating newspapers, that he skips things. You’ve seen him come in with stacks of newspapers, right?”

  Has someone complained about my reading the newspapers before they are thrown out each day? Maybe Hitomi? But the ambassador wouldn’t understand if he overheard the servants saying anything like that, anyway. I nod.

  “He might even lie to me.”

  The interpreter is polite to me, and sometimes he smiles. I pull on my fingers. “He seems nice.”

  “Anyone can lie, Simona. I was the ambassador to Serbia before this, and they lied there, too. Even ambassadors lie. The past ambassador to Japan lied to me about what it was like to live here. He said it was fascinating. He claimed to like their revolting food. Anyone can lie. You know that, right?”

  I nod and practically wrench my fingers from my left hand.

  “Even if my interpreter is honest, he might not explain to me the importance of how things were said…or not said.”

  I nod again and fold my hands to hold th
em still.

  “Off to school now.”

  * * *

  —

  Carolina and I race to catch up with the others. The cold, wet February air numbs my windpipe. We all greet and talk, but my head spins. I tug on Aiko’s sleeve, our signal to fall behind.

  “What’s the matter?” Aiko whispers.

  “I’m going to be a spy.”

  She giggles. “You’re bad at this game. Spies don’t tell.”

  She’s right; I shouldn’t tell anyone. But I’m about to burst. “The ambassador wants me to check whether the interpreter is telling him all the news and all the truth.”

  “That’s dangerous.” Aiko’s cheeks go ruddy.

  My stomach clenches. “Don’t hate me.”

  “I can’t stand it when you act like an idiot. I will never hate you.”

  “Good. Because I want to know what people tell the ambassador.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if the interpreter lies to him, I want to tell him the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  I let my elbow touch hers. “I might even be able to bring him other information.” As I say it, my throat burns. “From Chikakiyori.”

  “Don’t say that word!”

  “How can I get copies of that magazine? Regularly?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “You knew of it before that man at Kegon Falls gave it to us. You must…know someone.”

  She looks at me, silent.

  “You don’t have to be in the middle,” I say. “Tell me who, and I’ll find them.”

  She looks away.

  “A name. That’s all I need.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No. I will be in the middle,” says Aiko. “I will help.”

  “Really?”

  “All these lies to win the war, when there’s no point in winning a war if it means we’re all ruined. Thank you, Simona. Thank you for this chance.”

  After school, I rush home. Carolina trails behind me. “Hurry up!” I call.

  “Why are you walking so fast?”