After weeks of sailing across the Indian Ocean, a blur had finally emerged: a rolling lip of green that opened into the wide bay of Lourenço Marques. The bustling port of the neutral African nation glittered in the golden light.
The next day, we marched across the dock to board the waiting Kamakura Maru, while Allied prisoners boarded the City of Canterbury in our place. From there, we cut across the Indian Ocean once more, until we reached Singapore, our journey across the world and back almost complete. The air was milky with warmth. Charred shells of buildings lined the shore—reminders of the Japanese conquest seven months earlier. As I gazed at the crumbling edifices and the blackened dwellings, I realised the battle had been fierce. Before the last leg home, we made a brief stop in Hong Kong where the Japanese flag was raised on Victoria Peak.
On the final day of our voyage to Japan, I stood on the deck of the Kamakura Maru, staring out to sea. My fingertips pressed against the cracked paint of the railing. Spray buffeted my face. A few times during the previous weeks, the skies had darkened and the atmosphere had condensed into a squall, rocking our ship across waves as if it was something small. But now the sea was calm, like a sheet of glass. I wiped spray from my brow, and the sour scent of metal filled my nose. I looked up. Black smoke from the ship’s funnel stained the sky. Seabirds hovered above me, slipping and shifting on the air currents. They appeared each morning, stark against the blue, before disappearing to an unknown place at night.
I heard a creak behind me.
‘Sensei, still out here?’
Torimaru, the young assistant diplomat from the ambassador’s office, smiled. We’d become friendly in the past few weeks as we shared a cabin on the Kamakura Maru. He was returning to his family home in Tokyo after several years in Australia. We often talked late into the night.
I dipped my head sheepishly, conscious of Torimaru’s gaze. ‘Just for a few minutes,’ I said. In fact, I had been on the deck for most of the day. It would be the last time I had the opportunity to gaze at the endless stretch of sea: the next day, we would dock at Tateyama, two hours south of Tokyo, to go through quarantine and immigration before continuing to our final stop, Yokohama.
‘Thinking about tomorrow?’ Torimaru raised a hand to shield his eyes.
I nodded. ‘I don’t know what it will be like.’
Torimaru joined me at the railing. The world spread out in blue monotony. No land or reef or rocky outcrop blemished the horizon. He drew a deep breath. ‘You know, I’m sure your wife will be glad to see you after all this time.’ He was trying to be kind; I had hinted of our estrangement. ‘She’ll see that things have changed. Think of it as a second chance, an opportunity to start afresh.’
I smiled weakly. ‘You may be right.’
For a few moments, we admired the water and the chalky colour of the sky. Then Torimaru stepped back from the railing. ‘Well, I won’t disturb you any longer. I’ll see you at dinner—the ambassador has promised a special feast.’
I watched him walk away. I sensed he had wanted to continue our conversation from the previous night, and I felt bad for not inviting him to stay. As I stared at the glassy surface, I realised there was truth in what he’d said. I, more than most, knew how quickly things could change.
I felt calm with the blue all around me and warm spray on my face. My homeland was a day’s journey away. I was safe in the ocean’s wet embrace. The silence was not a suppressant, but the opportunity to renew. As Torimaru had said, it was an opportunity to start afresh. I would regrow from the embers of my former life, like a mallee tree destroyed by bushfire. I would make myself anew. I promised I would never look back.
Tokyo
1942
After our ship docked in Yokohama, I returned to my family home in western Tokyo, where the streets were narrow and electricity wires crowded the sky. The area was dirtier than I remembered, as if the ashes of war had settled upon the buildings. But perhaps it was just because I was accustomed to the view in Australia, where each day my surroundings had been rinsed by the vivid light.
Mother came towards me from a dark corner of the house, a pained expression on her face. ‘Tomo, you’ve come home.’ She wrapped her arms around me, something she hadn’t done since I was a boy. For several seconds she didn’t let go. My chin brushed the crown of her head. The smell of smoke mingled with the oily scent of her hair. I felt the frailness of her body through her yukata—my mother, who had always been so strong. When she stepped back, she looked drawn. I realised how much she must have suffered over Nobu’s death. Consumed by my own grief, I hadn’t stopped to consider how she must feel. Her letters hadn’t expressed the hardship that her physical presence revealed.
The world seemed crowded during those first shaky weeks back in Japan, when I felt for the edges of my existence. The sun blazed outside but I kept to the darkness of my home. It was a new kind of confinement. Sometimes I walked to the market stalls near the station. The neighbours who recognised me smiled and welcomed me home. No one mentioned my time at the camp in Australia or my dismissal from my job in Japan, but when they hovered nearby even after I had bid them a good day I sensed they wanted to know more about my past.
Several months passed before I contacted Kayoko. I waited until I had found employment at a hospital on the outskirts of the city. Even though the possibility of being sent to the frontlines as a doctor hung over me, I wanted her to know I was doing my best to build a future with her in Japan, if that was what she wanted.
She sounded tired on the telephone, her voice stretched thin. Tomo, is that you? I’m glad you returned safely. Really, I am.
We arranged to meet the following week at a coffee shop in Ginza. I arrived early and sat at a table in the corner, facing the doorway. As I waited, I studied the sky through the window. The blanket of clouds held the promise of first snow. Snow had covered the ground the last time I had seen Kayoko, almost five years earlier. It had formed a backdrop of glittering white.
In the coffee shop, a dark figure came towards me. My heart fluttered when I realised it was Kayoko. She wore navy monpe trousers knotted above her waist and a matching coat. In the unfamiliar clothes, I hardly recognised my wife. Grey threaded her hair. Her cheeks had lost their fullness and her mouth was tight. We sat together, the hum of conversation surrounding us as we shared fragments of our pasts. She smiled when I told her about releasing the lanterns in Broome and the baseball competition at camp. She described the friends she had made at the factory where she worked, assembling munitions parts.
‘Most of the other women’s husbands are away at war. Some of them have already died. It made me realise how lucky I am that you’re still alive.’
I sensed an opportunity to raise the possibility of our reunion. ‘Kayoko, all the years I was in Australia, I never stopped thinking about you. When you didn’t respond to my letters, I almost gave up hope. But now that I’m here with you . . .’ Outside, the air had turned opaque. Figures walked by the window as if in a haze. I drew in a deep breath to steady myself. ‘Now that I am back, it would make me happy if you returned to live with me.’
Her eyes were fixed on the spoon she held between her fingers. For a while, I thought she would not reply. When she did, her words came haltingly.
‘I want to return to you. The baby, when you weren’t there . . .’ She hesitated.
I realised I had to tell her before the moment was gone. I would tell her then or forever hold my tongue. ‘There’s something you should know—I should have told you long ago. The work I did at the laboratory, it wasn’t what you thought—’
‘No, just listen to me, Tomo. I know it was not your fault. You had your commitments. I can see that now. What I’m trying to say is, I want to return to you, I do. But I can’t. I’m not ready. Not yet.’
I felt as if I would collapse. I longed to put my arms around her as I used to when we were still together, or at least take her hand. But instead I only nodded. ‘If you need more time, I understand. I will wai
t.’
The cold of that winter seemed to chill me to my bones. The days crawled by. To keep my mind from dwelling on Kayoko, I dedicated myself to my work. The hospital was understaffed because of the war and there was always plenty to do. Because of the shortage, I began to assist during surgeries, even though I hadn’t received proper training as a surgeon. I became first assistant to the chief surgeon, and I was often asked to lead other operations. I performed only minor surgeries at first, but as my skills and confidence grew I began to undertake more complicated procedures.
The months passed, but there was still no word from Kayoko. I did receive a letter from Ebina, who was still interned at Loveday. He told me Harada had died a few months after I left. Although I wasn’t surprised by the news, in the loneliness of that first year back in Tokyo, his death deeply affected me. Late the following year, Tokyo became the target of American attacks. Lying in bed at night, I heard the wail of the siren, warning of another raid. Mother and I crouched beneath the kitchen bench as the walls shook around us and the sky lit up with flames. The hospital was filled with burns victims and the stench of their scorched flesh. The smell inhabited me, seeping into my skin and clothes. It was a smell I never grew accustomed to. When the patients arrived, either wheeled in on stretchers or walking, they screamed for me to help them. I disinfected their wounds and applied moist bandages, but there was little else I could do. I couldn’t even give them anaesthetic to relieve them from their terrible agony; it was in such short supply that we were only allowed to use it for operations. The most severe cases—the ones who would surely die—were put into the ward furthest from the entrance. Nurses staffed the ward but no doctors were assigned. I visited the patients from time to time. Their blackened and blistered bodies were unsettlingly indistinct, stripped of gender or any distinguishing features. If I closed my eyes I saw the people I had dissected years earlier, their bodies ravaged by disease. I noticed that the closer the patients came to death, the quieter they became. Their screams, which had been so insistent when they were first admitted, soon turned into low moans. In their final hours, I heard only the sigh of their breath as they struggled for air. That sound, so weak and insignificant, was their last tie to life.
One evening, after a particularly long and gruelling day at the hospital treating victims of the latest air raid, I returned home to find Mother waiting for me. She stood up when I walked into the living room. Her eyes were swollen and she clutched a white handkerchief to her chest.
‘Oh, Tomo,’ she said. ‘Mrs Hattori came to see me today. You remember, Kayoko’s aunt?’
Unease bloomed within me and spread throughout my body. Mrs Hattori and her husband had occasionally accompanied the Sasakis and our family on outings to the beach when I was young. She was a jolly, round-faced woman who had stayed late at our wedding. I liked her, and was sorry I had not had the chance to get to know her better.
‘She came to give us some terrible news. Last night, in the air raid—’
I reached out to grip the edge of the sliding door. My fingers punctured the rice paper.
Before she spoke the words, I knew: Kayoko, my wife, was dead.
Tokyo
1989
I open my eyes. Sunshine glows beneath the blinds in a line of light. My cheek is warm against the pillow. Perspiration prickles the back of my neck. I pull the sheet from my body and wince at the pain the movement brings. My joints are not what they once were. I allow myself to linger in bed a little longer, shutting my eyes to try to return to sleep. Although it is still early and my apartment is on the fifth floor, I can hear the sounds of the neighbourhood outside. The persistent beeping as a truck reverses. The distant blare of a horn. From somewhere within my building, a television drones, alternately clear and faint as if carried to me on a breeze. Above me, the ceiling creaks in the gathering heat. I persist with the charade of slumber for a few minutes more, then give up. I am wary of idling in bed for too long—a danger when one is retired and living alone.
I get dressed and open the blinds. In the kitchen, I spoon ground coffee into the filter and fill the machine with water. As it gurgles and hisses behind me, I shuffle to the front door. I open it just as Mrs Ono descends the stairs to my landing, plump arms swinging. There’s an elevator just a few metres away, but she always takes the stairs. For exercise, she says. But she’s not in her usual walking gear of sun visor, polo shirt and slacks. Instead she’s wearing a straw hat over her perm, a skirt and a short-sleeved top that rolls at her neck.
‘Good morning, sensei,’ she says.
‘Good morning, Mrs Ono. Going somewhere special today?’
She walks past the window, over the rectangle of sunlight projected onto the tiles, and marches across the landing towards me. Before I have a chance to bend down, she scoops up the newspaper at my feet.
‘Isn’t it terrible,’ she tuts at something on the front page, before handing it to me.
I glance down to see what she’s referring to. My smile fades. I stare at a small headline at the bottom of the page: ‘Shinjuku bones not suspicious, police say’. The article is accompanied by a photograph of an excavation site. There is an inset picture of two skulls shining through the earth. Memories disturb my subconscious, like the beating wings of a dove.
Mrs Ono shakes her head. ‘I hate to think what happened to them. Those poor souls deserve a proper funeral, don’t you think?’
I blink and stare at her face. Foundation mottles her skin. Painted blood-red lips.
‘Going somewhere special today?’ I repeat, like a simpleton, tucking the newspaper under my arm. I try to make my voice sound bright. Surprise transforms Mrs Ono’s features. It’s the sort of reaction I dread as I grow older. The subtle missteps one makes.
‘The summer festival is on today. Didn’t you know?’
Ah—I forgot. I remembered last night, when the radio began to announce today’s activities. But since waking I forgot all about the festival, the most important day of the year in our neighbourhood. A purification ceremony at the local shrine will take place in the morning. After that, mikoshi carried by teams of men will be paraded in the street to chanting and the beating of drums. The area will be flooded with people. I am relieved I don’t have any plans to leave the apartment.
‘Yes, of course. My memory . . .’ My hand flutters at my brow. ‘The ceremony at the shrine—is that where you’re going?’
‘I never miss it.’ She inclines her head as she studies my face. ‘You won’t attend?’
‘No, I don’t think so. The weather—it’s difficult for me . . .’ I smile, hoping to send her on her way, but she doesn’t move.
‘You don’t get out much, do you? Socially, I mean.’
I bristle at her comment, so characteristically misinformed. I regularly see my old hospital acquaintances, and I play go in Kanda with a group of friends every weekend, although I doubt she’d approve of the hours we spend staring at the board, arguing and drinking tea. I visit my sister’s family every other week. The weeks when I don’t visit, I always call Megumi to hear her news. She tells me what she did that day—ikebana at the cultural centre or a visit to her daughter, Hanako—before passing the phone to my great-nieces so I can say goodnight. I take daily walks in our neighbourhood park. I pride myself on remaining active—even though I’m now retired, I have to practise what I once preached.
Perhaps my irritation shows, because Mrs Ono doesn’t wait for my response. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say such things. Only . . .’ Her eyes wander to the inside of my apartment. ‘In my experience, I’ve found it helps to go to these events. It’s something I’ve had to learn since my husband passed away.’ Mrs Ono straightens up. Her smile snaps back into place. ‘Anyway, a bit of fresh air and sunlight in the morning is vital for a healthy body, wouldn’t you agree? If you decide to come to the ceremony, look out for me near the front.’
She excuses herself and walks down the stairs, straw hat bobbing. My heart thumps as I close the door. I
walk towards the study, annoyed. The way Mrs Ono talked, as if she was an expert on my personal life. In the corridor, the dusty photo of Kayoko catches my eye. Leaning against a tree beside the Kamo River, she smiles uncertainly, her hair pinned in soft waves around her face.
I enter the dim recess of the study and sit at my desk, touching the cool tips of my fingers to my eyelids. When my head clears, I switch on the lamp. It throws a circle of light onto the newspaper before me. I take a deep breath and start to read.
‘The investigator appointed by Shinjuku police to examine the bones of more than thirty-five people discovered beneath the former National Institute of Health building found no evidence of violent crime. Eguchi Kenichi says the remains belong to men and women who died at least twenty years ago. Based on his findings, a criminal investigation will not take place. However, some historians believe the bones are connected to Unit 731—the military unit responsible for biological warfare development during World War II—although no evidence has been found to prove this link. Shinjuku ward officials are pressing the Ministry for Health and Welfare to conduct further tests on the remains, after their initial request was denied last week.’
I pass a hand across my brow. The strain of the morning has condensed into a faint pulse behind one eye. The heartbeat of a long-buried memory. After all these years, for it to come back now.
In Broome, it was always there, like a shroud across the surface, the edges drawn tight. When I froze before the operation on the young Malay. Even in my dealings with Sister Bernice—her innocent attempts to learn more about me brought painful recollections to the fore. At camp, I strove to further distance myself from my past and assimilate better than I had in Broome. But just when I thought the worst was behind me, Stan’s death had brought it back into sharp relief.
After Darkness Page 25