The Cake Tree in the Ruins

by Akiyuki Nosaka

  Since completing his training, he had often repeated these words taught to him by his instructor, but they struck him as somewhat hollow. He wondered what he would be thinking at the moment of impact. It was said your life flashed before your eyes like a kaleidoscope, but was that really true?

  The sea was as calm as ever, and now and then he would hurriedly take a look around, but there was nothing in sight. Cloud cover was level two, visibility good, and moreover the youth had 20/20 vision, yet somehow it was as if there was a mist over the water blurring the pattern of waves and clouds on the surface. No, in fact he could see it clearly, but lightly floating there in the sky he felt aimless, unsure even whether he was upright or upside down, whether the expanse of sea below him was in fact sky, whether he was actually now travelling south—or perhaps he had already died and was on his way to the Yasukuni Shrine.

  And again the lead pilot signalled for the three Red Dragonflies to return to base, having failed to locate the enemy. This time the youth had felt keenly afraid. The thought of his own body converted into a bomb and scattered in all directions was just so outlandish that he had rather been lulled into a dreamlike state. However, the gazes of those waiting for him as he returned alive were only too real, and he could hear them muttering amongst themselves.

  “Once a guy fails a mission he gets cold feet.”

  “Whoever heard of a living god? Is this what the Imperial Navy has come to?”

  Indeed, before he’d entered the cockpit of a suicide plane, the youth himself had looked coldly upon any pilots returning fruitlessly from a mission.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” the lead pilot, two years his senior and his mentor, consoled him upon returning from reporting to the commanding officer. “In any case, if you’re in a Red Dragonfly, a hundred times out of a hundred the dive-bomb will be ineffective. Even with the best planes in Japan today, the success rate is less than ten per cent. Still, you never know, we may get lucky so I’m waiting for our chance. Just follow me.”

  Since the kamikaze pilots were exempted from work, the youth spent all his time sprawled out on his straw mattress. If the lead pilot was right, how on earth could he summon the will to go on a mission just to die? It was all very well calling it a glorious death, but in effect all they were doing was costing the Americans a few bullets.

  He lost his appetite, and was too young to drown his sorrows with alcohol. One day he found a cockroach in the mattress. He caught it and put it in a matchbox, where he could gaze at its glossy skin and touch its long, wavy whiskers with his finger. When he first saw it, he hadn’t thought of keeping it, but it was still young and easy to catch. He couldn’t bring himself to kill it, and instead fed it with scraps of bread and vegetables, and ended up feeling quite fond of it. He distracted himself by telling the cockroach he would take it with him on the next mission, and reassured himself with the thought that it would witness his last moments.

  At length the order for the third mission was issued, and again the three Red Dragonflies set off southwards. The youth put the matchbox in his flight-suit pocket, and once he reached cruising altitude, he let the cockroach loose on his knee. It must have become accustomed to being shut up in a small space, or was perhaps affected by the altitude, for it remained unmoving. When the youth nudged it, it crawled onto his finger and sat there waving its whiskers.

  What would happen after he died? The Americans would of course land on the mainland, and would probably advance to the north where his mother lived. He had seen Japanese Army personnel in the vicinity of the base. They were supposed to be the national defence guard, but they didn’t have proper guns and were spending their time either building shelters or training with bamboo spears. It was obvious they didn’t stand a chance of winning like that. Would all the Japanese population die? What about his mother, would she be burnt with flame-throwers as he’d heard had happened on Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, or would she kill herself first?

  He didn’t feel sad, or pumped up for the battle, but instead was enjoying the ticklish feeling of the cockroach as it began to crawl around. You’re the only friend I have, he thought as he stroked its back. Its skin looked hard, but it was actually quite soft to the touch. You’ve got wings, so get away before we crash. Even if it did, though, it probably wouldn’t survive out there at sea, and he felt sorry for bringing it along with him. It suddenly occurred to him that if he’d just let it be, it would now be back at the base crawling around the wall as it pleased, eating scraps of leftover food. He began to regret having been so cruel.

  Maybe all the people in Japan would be killed and Japan would be taken over by cockroaches. All the Mama, Papa and baby cockroaches would enjoy flying and crawling around the mountains and fields, and maybe that was okay.

  While he’d been engrossed in his thoughts about cockroaches, he’d somehow lost sight of the other two planes and now found himself all alone hovering between the sky and sea. Shocked, he scanned the sky all around him, but he couldn’t see his two companions, let alone any enemy ship.

  He was acutely aware of his impending death now. How could he have lost sight of the lead plane? He had no idea which way was which, and all he could do was carry on flying until his fuel ran out and he crashed into the sea.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t feel afraid. Even if he had to die like a dog, though, he wanted to let the cockroach live and decided that he would crash-land on an island if the opportunity presented itself. He strained his eyes harder, and eventually spotted land. The beach sparkled as sunlight caught on the fragments of coral mixed in with the white sand. It looked solid enough to be a runway, so he urgently sought out the widest space and manipulated the Red Dragonfly into a shaky landing.

  The youth alighted from the plane with the cockroach, but the sun was beating down so fiercely that he put the cockroach back in the cockpit. He took the remains of a rice ball out of his pocket along with his flight chocolate and placed them beside it. Then he went into the forest in search of better food for it. He didn’t know whether it would like the soft leaves and grasses he gathered, but perhaps it would be able to survive on them.

  When he’d done all he could, the youth took off all his clothes and walked to the water’s edge, where he turned back for one last look at the Red Dragonfly. It looked like a clumsy creature that had simply alighted there. Better that for a Red Dragonfly than disintegrating in mid-air engulfed in flames, he thought. Then he started swimming straight out to sea. He briefly wondered in which direction lay the northern region where his mother lived, but immediately banished the thought and just focused on moving his arms and legs, stretching them out and pulling them in, swimming single-mindedly on and on.

  On 15th August, a Red Dragonfly lay on the white sand of a southern island. In its cockpit a cockroach with glossy skin crouched waving its whiskers, as if yearning for the familiar smell of the youth.

  THE PRISONER OF WAR AND THE LITTLE GIRL

  The 15th of August 1945

  IN THE LONG, NARROW TOWN squeezed in between sea and mountain, numerous tunnels had been dug into the mountainside to serve as air-raid shelters. Nobody bothered to rush to the shelters any more, though, even when an air-raid warning sounded.

  This was because the entire town from sea to mountain had been completely razed to the ground a couple of months before, and only a handful of people were now living in the burnt-out ruins. Now and then a B-29 would fly overhead, but even if they’d wanted to drop any bombs there wasn’t anything left for them to target. All that was left was a bleak wasteland with no gas, electricity or water. You could confidently say that it was the safest place in Japan at the time.

  This was how nobody noticed that a lone American had set up home deep inside one of the shelters on the mountainside. Or rather he hadn’t so much set up home as, having nowhere else to go, taken refuge here. He sat hugging his knees, unaware of the passage of time from day to night and night to day, like a mole fearful of the summer light.

  The Amer
ican was a prisoner of war captured by the Japanese Army on 8th December 1941, soon after the start of the war. His name was Steve.

  At the very beginning of the war the outlook for Japan was good, and they’d advanced throughout the southern Pacific at lightning speed, forcing American, British and Dutch forces to raise the white flag with barely a chance to return fire, and capturing many of their soldiers.

  According to Western thinking, there was nothing shameful about being taken prisoner of war. On the contrary, fighting to the bitter end without fleeing, and being taken prisoner only after exhausting every available means, was seen rather as honourable. And under international treaties, POWs had the right to humane treatment, so to begin with Steve and his fellow prisoners had been quite relaxed about it all.

  They were confined to a makeshift prison enclosed by a fence in a corner of the island that they had been defending. There was no chance of them escaping as they were surrounded in all directions by the ocean, and the Japanese soldiers guarding them could afford to be generous, so they all got along fairly well.

  Half a year later, the POWs were taken to Japan. Japan’s youth were being steadily sent to the front, so there was a lack of workers in the factories at a time when there was a need to make a lot more weapons. Students and schoolchildren were being ordered away from their studies into the factories, and not even womenfolk were allowed to remain idle, so it was unacceptable to have just the POWs languishing at their leisure.

  Steve and his fellows were therefore sent to work in a steel haulage warehouse on the seafront of the long, narrow town. The forced labour of POWs was prohibited, but Japan could not afford to have full-grown men lying around idle, and the military had a rather different idea of POWs from other countries. “Never accept the shame of being taken prisoner!” they ordered their own soldiers. If they were taken prisoner they would bring disgrace not only on themselves, but on their entire family.

  This way of thinking was actually quite recent. Centuries ago, in the Warring States period, for example, even if a warrior surrendered to the enemy, became his ally and fought against his former lord, he wasn’t considered a traitor. Since the beginning of the Meiji period, however, Japan had been a poor island nation striving to conduct itself as a world power. To do this it had to force soldiers to go to war. Once they realized that not just they would be affected, but their parents and children would no longer be able to show their faces in public if they disgraced them, they couldn’t hold their own lives too dear.

  Even if they knew a battle was lost they had to charge to their deaths, and it was this brave spirit that made up for their diminished numbers and poorly armed forces. Each successive war—from the Sino-Japanese, Russo-Japanese and China-Japan wars to the Pacific War—reinforced this way of thinking in the Japanese military. If they had only forced it on their own troops it might have been okay, but they started viewing the POWs from the countries they were at war with in the same way.

  The first town that Steve saw in Japan was still relatively untainted by the shadow of war, and he was relieved at how peaceful it looked. And after all, life on the small southern island had been monotonous with no women or children in sight. Arriving in port and disembarking from the ship, he felt quite relaxed and even smiled and waved at the people they passed on the way to the barracks that had been prepared as a prison.

  “Look at that POW grinning like a monkey. The nerve!”

  “If that’s what these damned Yanks are like, they’re bound to lose.”

  Steve and the others had no idea that the townspeople were whispering such things about them. At the same time, it was natural for the townspeople to think this way. In the early summer of 1942, a woman who had shown sympathy towards some POWs had been branded a traitor and harshly berated by the military before the entire nation.

  The POWs were put to work right away. They might have been big and strong, and so were highly valued, but they were also despised in equal measure. For one thing they were considered stupid for working so hard for their enemy captors, and for another they were feared for their ability to dispatch their work far more efficiently than any of the Japanese workers.

  At that time, many people had been drafted from their regular occupations into the war effort, and put to work in factories and warehouses. Skilled craftsmen were made to push trolleys, barbers to wield hammers and clockmakers to dig holes. However, they could never throw themselves into the work, however much they were told it was for the good of their country. After all, if they injured their hands they wouldn’t be able to make a living back in peacetime, and so they were very careful not to crush their fingers.

  The regular workers, too, were annoyed by the military who knew nothing about the factory yet came and threw their weight around, acting as if they were the only ones doing anything for the war effort. And what’s more, there was a shortage of electricity and materials. Even if ordered to work through the night, it wasn’t as if they could build aeroplanes and ships on the Japanese spirit alone.

  There were also some unscrupulous workers who were so fed up that on cold winter days they burned machine tools for warmth, and stole paint, wire and oil to exchange for food.

  The hardest workers of them all were the POWs and also the schoolchildren, who believed that Japan would definitely win the war as they’d been taught at school. Steve and his fellow POWs were increasingly given the toughest jobs, while their food rations became more and more meagre by the day, although this was true for everyone.

  They were all reduced to skin and bones, with just their eyes bulging, but never for a moment did any of them ever doubt that America would win the war. They had been completely shocked when they were first taken prisoner in an ambush, and were so impressed by Japan’s Zero fighter planes that they thought Japan must be an incredibly strong country. Once they saw the reality on the mainland, however, they felt almost disappointed.

  Just about all the machinery had been manufactured in America or Britain, and most of that was so old it wouldn’t be out of place in a museum. All the factory workers were sickly, and they still used horses and cows to transport materials. On the whole they were rather to be pitied.

  The POWs were never given any news but, piecing things together from what they happened to see around town, they could get a general idea of how things were going. People were beginning to construct air-raid shelters on the roadsides, and their clothing was becoming more and more ragged, while the soldiers guarding them were replaced by increasingly doddery old men.

  “Looks like Japan’s finished, eh?”

  “I’m already dreaming of ice cream floats…”

  “Wonder what’s happening in the baseball league?”

  “I don’t want to see another grain of rice as long as I live!”

  They all felt homesick, and fervently longed for the day when the Allies would land in Japan and rescue them.

  Then, in the late autumn of 1944, the B-29s began flying reconnaissance missions. Steve and his fellows cheered loudly at the magnificent sight of a plane trailing a cloud as it flew west to east over the town, only to be berated by their irritated guards.

  “Let them drop their bombs! We’ll make sure you lot are right underneath.”

  “We’ll execute ten of you for every Japanese they kill.”

  They knew these were just empty threats, but nevertheless they felt a twinge of discomfort knowing that their factory was producing weapons and could very well be targeted by the Allies. If they were in Europe they might consider escaping, but in Japan they had nowhere to escape to. As the day of victory drew closer, if anything their unease grew.

  At the start of 1945 the air raids finally began in earnest. Steve and the others were strictly confined to the factory to prevent them from sending signals to the B-29s, but otherwise they weren’t treated any more harshly in retaliation for the attacks.

  One night in early summer the town was hit by an air raid for the second time. The first time the POWs had clapped
their hands and cheered, but this time incendiary bombs rained down all around them. There was no shelter in the prison, but ironically the guards consoled them, “Don’t worry, those B-types know you’re here, don’t they? We’ll be okay.”

  That might be so, but if the flames reached them they would have no means to get away, so the POWs searched desperately for an escape route. As they were doing so, a small bomb fell right next to them and blew a hole in the prison fence.

  They ran out through it but, surrounded by flames, they didn’t know which way to run. Even if they did manage to escape the blaze, they’d probably be lynched by townspeople whose houses had burnt down. Some ran for the sea, and others returned to the prison. Steve went off on his own in search of refuge.

  Soon the entire area was razed to the ground and was like a dreamscape, with fires glowing like fireflies all over. He didn’t meet a soul as he walked the streets. It was the first time in years he had been unsupervised, and he became quite carried away roaming around. By the time he came to his senses, he had reached the foothills.

  And as the fires were finally extinguished and darkness fell, people began appearing here and there. Steve suddenly felt afraid, like a child who had become separated from his mother at a festival. But even if he wanted to return to the prison, he didn’t know how.

  He lay down on a gentle slope and thought to himself that it would be fine if the night would never end, but before long the sky in the east grew light. Looking down at the town he saw that not a single building was left standing. Everything had burnt down. But there was no time to feel either shocked or happy at the Allied forces’ success. The military police and civil guard must be out and about, and already aware that the POWs had escaped.

  For the time being, Steve sneaked into one of the abandoned tunnel shelters. As long as he was in a darkish place, he could feel at ease. He recalled playing in old gold mines as a child, fascinated by the damp air in the shafts, despite his mother scolding him that they were dangerous.