The Blossom and the Firefly

by Sherri L. Smith

  The world is silent but for the two of us. Violin and koto. We play until the last strains of music fade.

  The world waits in silence.

  “Hana?” I hear his voice through the slats of the wooden fence.

  “Wait,” I say. I grab a blanket and umbrella and run outside. “I’m here.”

  I lean up against the weathered wood, slick with rain and moss, and wonder if that’s his heart I hear beating, or my own.

  “Hana.”

  So much in a simple name.

  “Taro.”

  There is nothing else to say.

  CHAPTER 46

  TARO

  Taro leaned against the soaked wooden wall and felt the slight pressure of her body against the other side.

  He closed his eyes against the pain of perfect belonging.

  CHAPTER 47

  HANA

  And, just like that, the rain stops.

  My heart breaks, even as it blooms.

  CHAPTER 48

  HANA

  Some moments should have no after. The whole of creation should stop and let them linger. Time should not embarrass itself by moving forward, bringing only pale imitations of a perfect night.

  Perhaps Okā-san understands this. And that is why, when I step onto the back walkway and slide open the screen to the second room, she says nothing. Merely sits in the dark, her shawl still draped across her shoulders, wrapped in the scent of the rainy night. She says nothing. Only watches as I hesitate, remove my shoes on the walkway, slide the shōji shut, and fall to my knees, prostrate.

  I don’t know if I’m crying or laughing. Perhaps I make no sound at all.

  If she asks me to explain myself, I won’t. I couldn’t. If she raises her voice in reprimand, or even moves to light a lamp, I will break apart, I’ll shatter.

  Perhaps she knows this, my mother.

  For she says nothing.

  And, after a moment, I rise, shamefaced, and rush off to bed.

  There is a knot in the pit of my stomach. And a light inside my chest that shines.

  I can hear her moving in the other room, putting things away. Opening and closing drawers, sighing as she tidies the house.

  This is the quiet music that lulls me to sleep, eventually. A sleep I hope I never wake from, so the dream will not end.

  Because some moments can never have an after, no matter how much we want what might have been.

  CHAPTER 49

  TARO

  Taro walked along the river until it could no longer lead him back to base. He retraced the path he had traveled with Hana, pausing at each tree or rock she had pointed out to him. Where she had eaten too many unripe peaches. The temple where they used to play as children. Her junior high school leaned against the slope on the road above.

  Taro hesitated. Carving away from the road, he climbed the hill to the temple, his violin case clutched in one palm. If the monk was awake, perhaps they would speak. Taro would light some incense and ask him to deliver a letter to his mother. Or to Tomihara-san—many of the boys gave her their true last letters. Ones the army censors would never blacken or redact. So their families received two notes—one, a jisei showing an acceptable face, the other a farewell from a son about to die.

  Taro had not written anything. On his first mission, he had been too unsure of what to say. But now he knew what his jisei would be. He only had to write it down.

  The temple entrance stood on an angle up the steep hill. Taro stepped beneath the carved wooden gate. To his right lay a garden. To his left, the heavy weight of the temple, shaped into curls and flourishes like the Buddhist depictions of the heavens. No lights were on. He would not wake the priest tonight.

  He bowed to the temple and entered the garden.

  Over the little bridge above the koi pond, beneath the bower of bamboo fronds. Leaves dropped lazily from the trees overhead. He did not know what kind they were. He found himself wishing he knew. Hana would know.

  The benches were too wet to sit on. Instead, Taro placed a hand on the stone lantern gracing the corner of the little bridge. Stone was permanent, eternal. He wished a piece of him would pass into the stone, would look down the hill toward Hana, watching over her as she lived ten, twenty, a hundred years without him.

  “That’s what I wish,” he told the stone, and the stone listened. “Please. Give to her what will be taken from me. Let her live a hundred years.”

  I do not fear death

  It grows late and I tire

  But look—a flower!

  CHAPTER 50

  HANA

  I wake up.

  The futon is smooth and hard beneath me. The coverlet lies heavy on my body. Throwing back the sheet brings a shock of cold air. It’s morning, like a hundred other mornings, and my body knows what to do, even if my spirit is wandering.

  I wash my face, brush my hair. Dress. I light the kitchen fire and make tea, leaving a cup for Okā-san, who is in the next room doing who knows what.

  There are two eggs today, from the farmer who brought in Tomihara-san’s kimono. The new pants are almost finished. The eggs are the beginning of a payment plan.

  I scramble one lightly and cook it with a bit of onion I find in the root vegetable basket by the back door. A cup of cold rice turns it into breakfast. My body eats. My mouth sips tea. My mother joins me.

  We say nothing. She does not ask after my health. My voice will not rise to ask after hers.

  I wash the bowls, finish my tea, and take a shawl from the rack by the front door. Mariko is already coming down the road. It’s too early for the truck. And I am in no mood for Sachiko’s prattle. So I bow to my mother and ask Mariko to walk with me to the base for yet another day of waving goodbye.

  But it’s not just another day, is it?

  Fortunately, my body does not know this. It walks down the road, away from the samurai houses and the rushing river, up the sloping hill, and onto the air base. The darkness helps make this possible. Perhaps I am sleepwalking. When the dream ends, I will wake up.

  Kaori-sensei is waiting at the gate when we arrive. We bow, and I let Mariko speak for us. She has been speaking this whole way, I think. My ears have been listening, but my soul is not present to hear her.

  When the other girls arrive, we all take the slow walk to the runway. The sky is paling now, as if it’s received bad news.

  The aeroplanes are already on the tarmac, dim shapes on the black runway. And the pilots are already present, standing before a small table where Commandant Bulldog barks a speech about war and fortitude and Japan.

  I would kill him, if I were able. I would shake him until his head fell off, and I would shout into his neck to stop this war.

  But that’s my spirit talking. My body bows, a smile already shaping on my lips. It knows its duty, even when my soul does not.

  We have no cherry blossoms today. Between the rain and the early departure, nature and time have conspired against it.

  Instead, we Nadeshiko will be the flowers, pink-pinched cheeks and bright faces lining the branch-black runway.

  There are no parents here this morning, no mournful wives. Only Tomihara-san, and two of the women from the mura. Dawn departures are hard, but she has never failed.

  A clatter of geta announces a newcomer, someone who does not know the mournful pace of the tokkō farewell. A family member, after all, I suppose.

  “Hana!” Mariko whispers urgently, tugging at my sleeve.

  I turn.

  Okā-san is coming down the path. She wears her best kimono and holds a bundle in her hands.

  She sees me. We see each other, but I don’t know what to say. Instead, I watch her take her place with the other tonari-gumi members, and I return to my duty. I watch the boys drink a toast to Japan from tiny ceramic cups. I smile.

  The boys thank
Tomihara-san first, bowing deeply before her and the tonari-gumi women. My mother is no longer with them. Mariko shuffles aside, and my mother comes to stand beside me. I feel ill. After so many goodbyes, all more or less the same, I don’t know what’s happening. The rhythm has been broken, like a snapped koto string. Jangling, ruining the song.

  Still, I smile. I am Nadeshiko. I am Japan. I am in control.

  And then Taro is there, standing before me in his flight suit, violin in his hands, deep brown eyes on mine. And my soul comes slamming back into my chest like a fist. I gasp. My smile fails.

  Okā-san is the first to speak.

  “Corporal Inoguchi-san, it has been an honor. Please accept this poor offering as thanks.”

  She unravels the bundle and holds it out to him across both hands.

  It’s a hachimaki, the helmet-scarf once worn by samurai. A white headband, like the one Sachiko so boastfully gave to Nakamura with the Rising Sun dyed red with her own blood. Only this sun is an appliqué of richly woven silk, carefully stitched to the center of the linen cloth with rays of red light streaming to the edges.

  She must have worked all night.

  I bow to my mother as he accepts her gift. He removes his flight cap, and she helps him tie it on.

  “If you have a message for your mother, I will see that she receives it,” she says.

  He feels around in his pocket and gives her a small envelope—his letter, his jisei, and perhaps a lock of his hair.

  It’s all I can do not to tear it from her grip and throw it away. I want to burn it, to destroy it, to destroy the very reason it exists.

  But there is no use denying what comes next.

  He steps up to me.

  “Hana-chan,” he says, the term of endearment clear. My body flushes hot, then cold, then hot again. His voice is warm and rough as sunlit trees. “You gave my violin a good home once. I hope you will do so again.”

  I can’t look at him. I can’t do this. I can’t say goodbye.

  “No, Taro-chan. Please. Keep it with you.” I look up through tears I can’t hide. “Listen for my koto. Play to me from the other side.”

  And there it is, that face I couldn’t see beyond the fence last night. Beneath the red-and-white hachimaki, his brow furrows. His jaw clenches, holding back emotion. But his eyes hold nothing back. I will never forget his eyes.

  He swallows hard, a lifetime of things that he will never say. That I will never say.

  He drops into a bow. I do the same, my hair brushing the top of his flight cap. I clasp my hands to my stomach to keep from reaching for him. To keep my heart from falling out.

  And then we rise.

  “Sayounara,” he whispers. And I conjure a smile.

  He mounts the steps to heaven.

  And the girls wave.

  Goodbye.

  CHAPTER 51

  HANA

  There are no miracles. No fat fireflies bumbling into the barracks. No ghostly violin.

  When I go home that night, I play my father’s koto until my fingers are sore. I play as if each note is a knot in the thin barbed wire that is holding me together.

  My mother listens in another room, so I cannot see her weeping.

  CHAPTER 52

  HANA

  The first day is the hardest. Waking to a world of doubt, unsure if the ride to base will be cruel or kind. Did our brothers successfully body-crash yesterday? Will he be standing there in the shadowed hall of the barracks, head hung in shame? Or perhaps he will feel no shame because he’ll be here with me.

  I was alive for fifteen years and dead only a few weeks before Taro brought me back. It is hard to shut off the tendrils of light I’ve begun to feel. To will myself back into death. But I try. The truck bounces up and down the track, moaning its way to the truth.

  We strip the beds (his bed); we wash the sheets (his sheets). We light incense on a flat stone behind the barracks, and even Sachiko is silent. Of all the days to have no news. I would flatten her face with my fist if I could. But it’s not her fault. The sea was cloudy, the escort pilots complained. A thick marine mist rolled up out of nowhere. They have nothing to report.

  * * *

  —

  Days later, we learn two American ships were damaged. Neither was destroyed. Is it better to be a glancing blow than a missed one altogether? The new batch of pilots behave as if it is a great victory, carousing at Tomiya Shokudo, hoisting cups of shōchū and chanting their toasts to the new unnamed gunshin. Eight planes departed. Which ones struck true?

  * * *

  —

  “Wondering will drive you mad,” my mother says one day. It’s another Sunday, and we are hanging newly washed officer uniforms out to dry in the sun. The higher-ranking staff like to have their government-issued clothing tailored to flatter. Washing is the first and last step in ensuring the best fit.

  “I know, Okā-san. But I don’t know how to stop.”

  Okā-san carefully drapes khaki trousers over the drying rack, then comes to me. Her hands are warm and damp when she takes hold of mine.

  “Hana, it is both simple and hard. We continue. One foot, then the other. Just as we have since your father went away.”

  I have not thanked my mother for attending Taro’s farewell. Sufficient words have not been invented for what I feel. Instead, I try to be a better daughter than I have been these past months. I try to be helpful, to listen. To attend in my own way.

  I listen now and proffer a bow.

  “‘Fall seven times, get up eight,’” I quote the old saying.

  She pats my hand, her palms firm and sure. “Exactly so.”

  CHAPTER 53

  HANA

  We are climbing the hill to the barracks when a roar like thunder shatters the birdsong and fills the cloudless sky.

  American bombers fly overhead, darkening the air, and I am back in that sweet potato field. Only there is no old woman to grab my hand and rush me toward a fatal trench. Instead, Kazuko and Mariko shove and push us all into the trees. I find myself pressed against a stand of bamboo as thick and sturdy as the staves we use for self-defense.

  A concussion of air. Black earth explodes. Again and again, bombs drop, like the pounding notes of a military march. A chorus rises of screams and prayers.

  I close my eyes and listen for the violin that will lead me to him.

  “Hana? Hana, it’s over now,” Mariko whispers.

  I open my eyes.

  Dust in the air. The thrum of engines moving east. I am still alive.

  Kaori-sensei claps her hands, and we assemble as best we can in the bamboo forest. “Girls, girls! Sound off. I need to know everyone is here!” She calls out our names, and we respond. She asks if we are injured. Mariko has a splinter—she used her sewing scissors to carve a prayer into the bamboo—but otherwise we are fine and accounted for.

  “Ah, well, that is good,” Kaori-sensei says, relief in her voice. “Now we must assess the damage.”

  “How did they know where to find us?” Sachiko cries out, her voice pitched high with panic. “We were beneath the trees!”

  “I do not know,” Kaori-sensei says gravely.

  But the reason is evident when we climb the hill.

  The damp spring winds are blowing more warmly, and the branches that cover the barracks roofs have gone dry. Sensei does not reprimand us. Our duty has gone unnoticed by everyone. It is only luck that we have survived and the barracks are unharmed.

  We set about gathering fresh boughs to rectify our mistake and then do the work of dusting each other off.

  But something has changed.

  Perhaps the army no longer has the stomach for it. Or the Chiran ladies’ association has seen one too many smiling farewells. Or my mother has had a word with the right officer.

  We are pulled from tokkō d
uty the next day. Reiko comes by to spread the word. Tomorrow we will wear our monpé and middy blouses again, but we are to report to the school that is now a hospital. The Nadeshiko Tai will become nurses.

  CHAPTER 54

  TARO

  Taro flew.

  Sunlight on windscreen. Engine rattle. Green fields. The final circle over the peak of Kaimondake. The farewell waggle of the escort planes’ wings as the battleships came into view. The taste in his mouth like gravel as his mind switched from seeing to calculating, sighting the sweet spot on his target as the rest of his unit did the same. The small faces of American sailors turning to look up in fear. The clench in his stomach, a fist that held his fortitude in place. The bump of his violin case, jarred loose from where it was wedged beside him.

  The sudden scream of interception.

  Mustang wings and bullets.

  Taro reached for his trigger, but found none. This was not a fighter plane. It was a bomb.

  The gas line ruptured. Hydraulics failed. He fell out of the sky, topsy-turvy, unable to see the fleet, to even crash onto one of its decks, anything to make his death a strike against the invasion. He was going to die in the sea—

  A sudden fog, the marine layer dense, blinding. Then gray water, a strip of golden white sand. A tiny islet, a narrow beach, barely more than that.

  New instincts took over. A struggle to control the aeroplane, lift the nose, lower the flaps.