The Blossom and the Firefly

by Sherri L. Smith

  “I wish to remind each of you boys,” the base commander was saying, “of the importance of what we do. What does our beloved Emperor wish for us?”

  Taro rose to his feet, along with the other cadets. Hands at his sides, he recited the virtues of the Imperial Rescript for Soldiers and Sailors.

  “The soldier and sailor should consider loyalty their essential duty—”

  “Loyal to jazz,” Nakamura whispered.

  “The soldier and sailor should esteem true valor.” Taro pinched Nakamura on the leg.

  “The soldier and the sailor should highly value faithfulness”—Nakamura pinched back—“and righteousness—” The pinching had become anything but righteous.

  “And make simplicity their aim.”

  “I’m simple,” Nakamura whispered. Taro bit his lip to keep from snorting out loud.

  “If the heart be not sincere, words and deeds, however good, are all mere outward show and can avail nothing. If only the heart be sincere,” Taro said firmly, “anything can be accomplished.”

  At this point, Nakamura pinched him mercilessly. Taro’s voice rose in a yelp on the word accomplished, and he lost track of the Emperor’s wisdom until the vow to fulfill his duty of grateful service to the country and be a source of joy, not only to the Emperor, “but to all the people of Japan!” The cadets all said this last line as loud as thunder. They bowed sharply in unison and broke into clapping afterward. In the front of the room, their commanders beamed at them.

  Taro felt flushed with pride. Almost enough to ease the pain in his thigh.

  “Try that again, Nakamura, and tomorrow I’ll bring a stickpin with me,” he murmured.

  “Try that, and I’ll wear iron underpants.”

  “Now,” the CO said, “we have a treat for you boys. The commandant has procured some entertainment for tonight. After dinner, we’ll be showing a movie. Report back here at nineteen hundred hours. Dismissed.”

  Nakamura groaned as they filed out into the open air. “A mooovie! What are the chances it’ll be something good, like The 47 Ronin?”

  “Next to none,” Taro said. They were much more likely to show newsreels and training films than samurai epics.

  “Whatever it is, I hope it’s short. We don’t want to keep that record waiting. Hey, why the long face?”

  Long face was a good way to put it. Reciting the virtues of the rescript had weighed Taro down. “You should try to be more serious,” he told Nakamura as they followed the flow of cadets toward the mess hall. “You heard the rescript. It’s through moral fortitude that we’ll defeat the enemy.”

  “Oooh, did you write that down in class today?” Nakamura joked.

  Taro stopped in the middle of the walkway. “Kenji, I’m not like you. I can’t laugh at everything. Aren’t you ever afraid of failure?”

  Nakamura looked at him, his broad face growing serious. “Taro, why do you think I make a joke of everything? We’re fifteen! If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. Or worse, I’ll throw up. Sure, it’s all mathematics and calisthenics now, but we’re going to be fighter pilots! It’s the best worst thing that’s ever happened to me. To any of us. Don’t make me get all sober about it now. It’ll ruin the fun.”

  Nakamura shook his head and jogged away. “Catch you inside,” he called over his shoulder.

  Taro sighed. He would make it up to Nakamura. Learn some of this new jazz record later tonight. But the worry would not leave him. Nakamura was a grasshopper, always bouncing around. But Taro must learn to be fearless like the dragonfly, whose wings did not allow it to travel backward. He would not shame his mother and father. As his old music teacher, Ayugai-sensei, had said in his last letter, “To play great music, one must practice every day. Why would moral strength be any different?”

  Taro would need a role model, someone to imitate until he was ready to perform on his own.

  Over dinner, Taro scanned the faces of the boys at his table and the sergeants overseeing the room. But most were just like him—uncertain bodies wearing uniforms they did not yet know how to fill. He closed his eyes and recalled the moment, years ago, when Taro’s father had decided Shōnen Hikōhei would be his destiny.

  “Okā-san,” Taro whispered. His mother had borne the news with dignity, sending off first her husband, then her son into the arms of war. Like the samurai women of old, she put country before all else. He would learn to do the same. With his mother as a moral role model, not even Nakamura’s hijinks could steer him wrong.

  Decision made, he flicked a bit of rice down the table at Nakamura. His friend brushed it aside like a gnat, but soon a bit of rice came flying back. Taro smiled. Nakamura never stayed mad for long.

  * * *

  —

  Back in the auditorium, some of the boys popped sesame candies in their mouths and stared into the dark, waiting for the movie to start.

  “Mmmm. Just like the kamishibai man back home,” Taro whispered to Nakamura under the clack-clack of the film projector warming up. He slurped to keep from drooling as the honeyed bittersweetness of the candy filled his mouth.

  Nakamura opened his own mouth to reply, but just then the screen came to life. Ominous clouds filled the screen. From the speakers, the wind whistled and screamed. The boys fell silent. A title card announced this was a navy film, but they were army. Some of the boys booed, only to be shushed by the teachers in the room.

  And then the title appeared over violently crashing waves: Momotaro’s Sea Eagles.

  “Hey!” Nakamura grabbed Taro’s wrist. “It’s you!”

  Taro grinned. He was on his father’s shoulders, peering over the heads of the crowd, hands sticky with candy, watching the old kamishibai uncle tell his tale. Only this was 1943, and he was a military youth now. The story unfolded in glorious moving pictures—animations not so different from the kamishibai man’s slideshow, but full of action, sound, and life.

  Trumpets swelled and rolled into a bright military anthem. Plucky xylophones tapped high notes, brass brayed, and the song resolved into a marching version of the familiar folk song “Momotaro.” The boys sang along as a realistic aircraft carrier cut through cartoon waves. “Momotaro-san, Momotaro-san, where are you going, Momotaro-san? I’m going to fight the demons. Will you come with me?” The boys around Taro nudged him as they sang. He wasn’t the only Taro in the group, though. He was glad it was a popular name, or he’d never hear the end of it.

  On-screen, shadowed figures with streaming ears unfolded the clever wings of aeroplanes. Rabbits! The boys cheered as the rabbits fueled the planes. The animal was the zodiac sign for many of the cadets in Taro’s cohort.

  “Flight check!” someone shouted, and everyone laughed.

  A high-pitched whistle summoned the animal crew to the deck of the carrier, and there they were—a battalion of monkeys in boots and headbands, dogs in overalls, and pheasants in flight suits. Taro grinned until his eyes stung.

  “That’s you,” he said, pointing to a proud monkey.

  “No way,” Nakamura said, “I’m the dog with the jaunty circle around one eye. Very stylish!”

  And then he was there, large as life in black and white on the screen. Momotaro was a round-cheeked boy with a strip of cloth around his forehead emblazoned with a rising sun—the hachimaki band of a true samurai.

  The room filled with cheers as Momotaro’s troops piled into their Zero aeroplanes to attack Demon Island.

  “Hey, it’s Pearl Harbor!” Nakamura crowed as the telltale slide guitar music of the islands began to play—full of yearning, dreamy glissandos and deep vibratos that brought to mind warm winds and waving palm trees.

  Momotaro’s pilots bombed row after row of towering battleships, sending pale-faced, piggish sailors and one particularly oafish bearded drunk scurrying for their lives.

  Soon Taro was roaring along with the others as the victory unfolded
. They grew sober when the monkey’s torpedo missed its target and raucous when the brave little monkey dived out of the aeroplane to catch the torpedo and ride it into the enemy ship.

  “Not sure that’s regulation,” Nakamura joked. Fortunately, the resulting explosion blew the little monkey right back up into his badly damaged aeroplane, in which he, the dog, and the pheasant pilot limped home. Try as they might, they could not keep the bird in the air. Fortunately, this was a cartoon, and some friendly pheasants came to the rescue, flying the crew safely home on their feathery backs.

  At least, that’s what Taro thought happened. He never saw them actually land. Only the aircraft carrier waiting for the missing aeroplane, and the small figures carried high on bird-back into the sky.

  The movie ended to much applause and bravado. Someone started the shout, and they all joined in, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” They bowed three times to the screen. A moment later, they were dismissed.

  “Not bad, eh, Momotaro?” Nakamura said as they headed out into the night. “Almost makes a man feel like he can fight!”

  Nakamura threw an arm around Taro’s shoulder and steered him away from their barracks. “Now where you going, Momotaro-san?” he croaked horribly, trying to mimic the song.

  “I was going to—oh,” Taro said, catching on. “I’m going to listen to ja-aazz,” he sang off-key. “Will you come with me?”

  Nakamura scratched his chin. “Give me a dumpling, and I’ll think about it.”

  And off they went into the night.

  CHAPTER 17

  TARO

  Spring 1944

  Twelve months marched by, and then it was time to graduate. Taro’s mother made the long journey to see him, arriving on a damp spring morning when the cherry blossoms were in bloom. He looked sharp in his air cadet uniform—the blue silk sash that showed he was a graduate, the graceful military sword at his side with its tassel and cord, the pin that said he was destined for flight school. When she saw him, she pressed a handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Taro! You look so like your father. For a minute I forgot where I was!” She smiled, and Taro grinned. “You’ve grown! Sixteen, and you look like a man.”

  “It’s Corporal Inoguchi now, Okā-san,” he joked. “And, you know, I think I’m even taller than Father now!”

  His mother squinted up at him in the morning sunlight. He inhaled the familiar warm scent that came from her kimono, perfumed by the cedar chest her father had brought back from Tokyo years ago. He breathed it in, stepping closer. His mother tilted her chin.

  “I think you’re right. As much as he would want to be here, thank goodness he’s not here to see that! A man always likes to think he is taller than his little boy.”

  They both laughed, and Taro found himself reaching for his own handkerchief.

  Then he brought his mother around to meet Nakamura and a few of the other cadets.

  “We’re off to Tachiarai Army Flying School in Fukuoka next,” Taro explained. Tachiarai was 130 or so kilometers northwest of Oita. Not far, really, but it seemed worlds away. No more classrooms and lectures—they would be on a real air base, learning how to fly. He couldn’t help but smile. “Nakamura and I will be part of the same squad, I hope. Some of the other boys will be studying navigation and gunnery at a different base. If we do well, we will be there until December, and then on to Advanced Flight Training and then . . .”

  “The war,” his mother said softly. “My son, the Imperial Army Air Force pilot.” She smiled again, but slowly. There was mono no aware in this new smile. Taro seized her hand and squeezed it. He was surprised to feel calluses on her once-soft skin. The war was hardening everyone, but he had hoped—stupidly, he realized now—that she would somehow be spared.

  “I have something for you,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of white cloth.

  “A senninbari!” Nakamura breathed—a thousand-person-stitch belt. It was the closest to a whisper that Taro had ever heard from him.

  Taro soberly accepted the belt. Senninbari were traditionally given to soldiers to protect them in battle. He unfolded it— three, then four feet of cloth. The sash ended in strings, allowing it to be tied around the waist. And every inch was covered in neat little rows of red knotted stitches. One thousand in all. Each one made by a different woman. It took his breath away.

  “I stood by the train station at first. But when the trains became less frequent, I went to the temple and even the market,” his mother explained. “Everyone was so kind.”

  Taro folded the senninbari back up, as reverently as he would a flag, and placed it inside his uniform jacket, against his heart. When he bowed, it was almost to the floor. “Domo arigatō gozaimasu, Haha-ue,” he said, using the most formal term for mother to show his deepest respect.

  When he straightened again, she looked pleased. Even Nakamura was impressed into silence. Taro took a breath and smiled.

  “It’s useless to say ‘don’t worry,’ but I will say it anyway. Don’t worry about us, Okā-san. Nakamura has my back, isn’t that right, Kenji?”

  “And Taro has mine!” Nakamura said in his bullfrog voice, the outdoor voice that made him sound like three boys instead of one.

  “Momotaro always comes back to his parents, doesn’t he?” Taro said.

  “Momotaro-san, Momotaro-san, where are you going, Momotaro-san?” Nakamura bellowed the children’s song.

  Taro tried to read his mother’s face. She was smiling softly, but it did not reach her eyes.

  “I’m going to fight the demons!” Taro sang back. He turned to Nakamura, who rolled his eyes and wagged his butt like the dog in the story. “Will you come with me?”

  “If you’ll give me a dumpling, I will go with you!” Nakamura crowed.

  “That’s great! Here you go! It’s nice to have friends!”

  They danced around, Nakamura playing the dog and the monkey and the pheasant, all of Momotaro’s faithful friends, until Taro’s mother was laughing, and the handkerchief came out again to wipe a different kind of tear from her eyes.

  CHAPTER 18

  HANA

  Laundry again. I suppose pilots should not have to sleep on day-old sheets, but I wish just once they would want to. Wet sheets on a windy day can chill you to the bone. I rub my fingers to warm them and pick up another clothespin.

  “Oh!” Sachiko chimes in. “Did you hear the sad news? Lieutenant Fuji’i will finally body-crash today! He has written the commandant so many times, even in his own blood! And they always refused him because of his wife and children.”

  “He is a very good instructor,” Mariko says.

  “Yes! That’s what I thought! But now they say he’s had a letter from home. His dear wife has drowned herself and their children, to wait for him on the other side! Isn’t that romantic? How like a heroine in a novel! A true samurai wife! He must be very proud. You will see how happy he is when he finally joins his men. We should sing a good song for him.”

  “We should light incense at the temple for his family,” I say. The thought of that woman, with two young daughters tied to her body, terrifies me. Is it brave to be so obedient? Perhaps. “Did he ask her to do this?” I wonder out loud. I should not let Sachiko’s gossip drag me in, but I do. I can’t even guess what my mother would do in this situation. What I would do.

  “No! That’s what’s so wonderful!” Sachiko cries. “He didn’t ask! She knew he was unhappy and that they were the cause. That’s true love. She died to set him free!”

  “I would have lied and had a neighbor send the letter. Then he could die, but his daughters would live,” Mariko says gravely.

  “Mariko!” Sachiko gasps. “That is so selfish!”

  “It’s practical.” Kazuko steps in. “Those girls were future mothers of Japan, weren’t they? Just like us.”

  That silences Sachiko for a w
hile, and we all return to the heavy work at hand. The sheets are cumbersome this morning, and my fingers are red and raw. My stomach grumbles beneath my middy blouse. I pat the buttons to soothe it.

  “We can make tea next,” I tell Mariko, who has fallen into a dour mood. She nods, but does not smile, and I see that it’s happened. The war has finally worn her down. Now she will become the old woman she so feared. The wind has made her pigtails unruly. I pin the last corner of the sheet to the line and reach to brush a stray hair from her cheek.

  “Mariko?”

  She smiles wistfully at me, and I see there are tears in her eyes.

  “Hana, I don’t think I can be a samurai wife.”

  I return her small smile. “Just be Nadeshiko, then. Your dolt of a farmer husband won’t know the difference.”

  “Hana!” She swats me with the corner of one of the hanging sheets, and like that, the old woman disappears, and we carry on like we’ve been told to do.

  When the last sheet is hung, Kaori-sensei gathers all the Nadeshiko in the field behind the barracks. A stack of bamboo rods lie on the grass beside her. Mariko makes a disgusted sound. “Time for drills,” she moans. “I thought we’d left those things behind.”

  “Line up, girls!” Kaori-sensei says brightly. “There are no farewell ceremonies until this afternoon, so we have time to do our exercises. Each of you, take a stave from the pile. Sergeant Kawahara was kind enough to drive them over from the school. He thinks we might consider keeping them nearby so we may practice whenever we have time. That’s a wonderful idea. Are you ready?”

  “Lucky for you.” I nudge Mariko.

  “Splinters every day!” she cries.

  Kaori-sensei stands in front of us, looking fresh and cheerful as always. I don’t know how she does it. If Sergeant Kawahara had told me it was a good idea to be armed and ready every day, I would take it poorly, but she seems to believe he is only being practical. That it’s not a veiled warning of an invasion to come. But I cannot forget, if the enemy lands on our shore, honor and the Emperor demand we fight to the last woman and child—gyokusai, the shattering of the jewel that is Japan. I think of Lieutenant Fuji’i’s wife, wading into the river, stoic, obedient. This is different, I tell myself. This is the way of a warrior.