Above the East China Sea: A novel

by Sarah Bird

  A hard slap stung my cheek. “I forbid you to make any further traitorous remarks that question the honor of a devoted servant of our divine emperor, who stands ready to sacrifice his very life for all we hold dear.”

  “Hatsuko, stop! Stop spouting such idiocies. There are no spies. There are no gallant officers with shining swords to cut off heads. There is no one here but me. Me and our ancestors. Our Okinawan ancestors. I vowed to Anmā that I would protect you, and protect you I will, even if it means I have to knock you out and tie you up.”

  Hatsuko shook her head, snorted a laugh dismissing my threat, located the patch of freshly dug soil where Mother had buried the crock of pork miso to keep it from spoiling, and began scraping away at it with the silver blade from Father’s scissors. When she unearthed the crock and didn’t even remove the lid to so much as take a taste of Mother’s delicious ginger, brown sugar, and pork mixture, I knew she was serious.

  I blocked the exit. “Hatsuko, you can’t leave. I promised Mother. We must live, don’t you understand? For her. For Father.”

  “Don’t be silly. What are you talking about? Mother and Father will be waiting for us with the other refugees.”

  “Hatsuko, no,” I said gently. “Mother and Father will not be waiting for us.” From my pocket, I withdrew what I had found earlier: the mangled remains of Father’s spectacles. A few jagged shards of shattered glass still adhered to the frames that had been smashed, so that the spectacles lay out flat as the skin of a dead animal.

  Hatsuko set the crock down, held out her hand, and I placed the glasses that Father was never without on her white palm. She stared at the twisted metal as if it were a kanji character that she had yet to learn the meaning of.

  I knew she was in shock, and used the moment to explain what had to be done. “We can’t leave and go south. The Americans are driving us toward the sea, and once they have all of us penned up with the high black cliffs above the ocean at our backs, there will only be surrender or suicide. So we will remain here until they find us. Then we will surrender, and the soldiers will do with us what soldiers always do with the women of the conquered. But we will live, Hatsuko. For Mother. For Father. For all who have died.” I held my open hand out to the bones of our ancestors. “For them. For all of them, we will live.” Hatsuko stared back at me as if I were speaking a language she no longer understood. I spoke to her gently, like she was a child with a fever. “This is what must be done, Hat-chan.”

  She shook her head as though she were waking from a bad dream. “No.” She shoved the bits of wire and glass back at me. “No.” She repeated the word again as if she could forbid what had already happened. “No. First I will find Nakamura. Then I will find Father and Mother. They will be hungry. They will need the food we will bring them. You can carry the dried sweet potatoes and bonito fish.”

  “I’m not coming,” I said, though she knew that already.

  This time when she made to leave, I snatched the silver blade from her hand, knelt at her feet, and pressed the point against the artery thumping beneath my jawbone so hard that blood trickled down my neck. “If you leave, I will kill myself!”

  Hatsuko smiled as she took the blade from my hand and slid it into the waistband of her pants. “Life is the treasure,” was all she said before taking the crock and slipping out into the dark where demons now ruled.

  FORTY-FIVE

  “Hey, where are you right now?” Jake asks as soon as I answer his phone.

  “Standing on the highway waiting for a bus heading back to the base. Jake, I tried to call you. You won’t believe what happened in Madadayo. You have to come back with me to explain everything to a woman I met here who, I’m sure, knew the girl in the cave.”

  “I will. But right now, want to come meet me in Naha? See my mad taiko drumming skills?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “Just get the forty-six or seventeen bus. It’ll take you right into Naha.”

  “How will I ever find you?”

  “Can you get back to Kokusai-dōri?”

  “That’s a very long street.”

  “Go to where it crosses Heiwa-dōri, the covered street where we were yesterday. You can watch the parade from there. Maybe you’ll even be able to spot me. In any case, just stay there after the parade, and I’ll come back and find you.”

  He hears the uncertainty in my answer and says, “Just get to Kokusai-dōri, okay? Then keep the ocean at your back and the monorail on your left and watch for Heiwa-dōri. Remember? Peace Street? With the entrance marked by that green arch with the white doves on either side?”

  “Kokusai-dōri. Heiwa-dōri. I got it.”

  “You got it, Nahottie.”

  I smile at him calling me by the slang for an Okinawan hottie and flag down the 17 bus that appears a second later as if by magic.

  FORTY-SIX

  Hatsuko, who has remained Kokuba Hatsuko all her long, unmarried life, wakes from a nap. The false cheeriness of her room in the Shiawase Nursing Home, with its sunny yellow walls and harshly bright lighting, offends Hatsuko anew. Her longing for the quiet, shadowed austerity of her home in Madadayo is especially painful during the three days of Obon. It is then that she most regrets having allowed her father’s brother’s grandson, that conniving Tonaki Hideo, to trick her into leaving her home. She is deeply suspicious of the deal he engineered that turned her home, an exact replica of the one destroyed in the war, into a strange sort of zoo. Hideo promised that all would be preserved precisely as it was. That hers was one of the last truly traditional dwellings left on the island, and it needed to be shared with the young. She knows that there is something in it for Hideo and all the greedy Tonakis of her father’s birth family who perch like vultures, waiting to wrest complete control of her mother’s family’s property from her.

  Hatsuko rises slowly and remembers other Obons, when she still had a real home to welcome the dead into. Each year on Welcoming Day, she used to rise before dawn to sweep the courtyard of her family tomb so that the spirits within could emerge. Back at her house, she would string lanterns to guide the spirits to her door and place bowls of water on the long veranda so that the returning spirits could wash their feet after their long journey home. Then she would load the family altar with candles, flowers, sugarcane, papayas, and awamori until the offerings overflowed onto the floor below.

  When the ancestors arrived, Hatsuko would clap and sing along with the spirits, but her smile would be wistful, because those she wanted most never came, since their bones hadn’t been recovered. She yearned for her mother to visit so she could apologize and beg her forgiveness, and tell her that she had been right about everything. She’d predicted that the great war would humble Japan and destroy Okinawa, and that was what had happened. Anmā predicted that her three sons would die when the sun passed too close to the earth, and when the Second Army transferred all three of Hatsuko’s brothers to Hiroshima, that, too, was what happened.

  Most of all, Hatsuko ached for Little Guppy with a longing that the passing years only made sharper. Hatsuko knew she had been stupid and blind about many things, but her worst failing was as a big sister; she had failed Tamiko in death even worse than she had in life. Years ago, Hatsuko had gone to the office of the Okinawa Prefecture Department of Welfare and Health where a technician wearing a blue surgical mask and gloves and a name tag that identified her as Reiko had scrubbed a gauze pad over the inside of Hatsuko’s cheek. Reiko had promised that if Hatsuko’s DNA matched any of the “remains” that had been found, her office would notify her immediately.

  For a long while after, Hatsuko waited expectantly for the moment when Tamiko would be returned to her for a proper burial in the family tomb. Hatsuko was buoyed by happiness at the thought that she and Tamiko would be reunited forever in the next life. Then she read an article in the Ryūkyū Shimpō about widows of soldiers missing in action staging a protest at the prefectural office because they would be cut off from their husbands forever, since their bones ha
d never been found. The widows were outraged at how little progress had been made in identifying the remains that had been recovered. A photograph taken secretly in the vast government warehouse where unidentified remains were stored accompanied the sad story. It showed shelves filled from floor to ceiling with nothing but the skulls that had been recovered from construction sites. The photo made Hatsuko recall that Reiko, with her single-fold eyelids, long face, and proper Tokyo Japanese, had been from the mainland. As usual, the Japanese government had lied to her, and she gave up hope of finding any help in her search.

  In spite of that disappointment, an anticipation that Hatsuko recognized as silly and beyond logic seized her each year as the three days set aside for the return of the departed commenced, and she prayed fervently that this year, her sister’s spirit would find its way to her. Each Obon that passed without a visit from her little sister caused Hatsuko’s desperation to grow; she had so little time left. Then, three years ago, right after the monsoon rains, Hatsuko had awakened feeling like a puppet whose strings had been cut, barely able to lift an arm or a leg.

  While Hatsuko was still recovering and couldn’t make her tongue stop betraying the words in her head, Hideo seized upon the opportunity to pack his “auntie” away to this place that had “home” and “happy” in its name, but which was neither. Here Hatsuko knew despair almost as dark as she’d experienced in the Americans’ detention camp after the war; her beloved Tami-chan would never find her way to this soulless place.

  Every morning the aggressively cheerful activities coordinator would fling her door open without so much as knocking and chirp out, “Hatsuko, the others are waiting for you. Don’t be naughty and make the group wait.” And every morning, Hatsuko yearned to turn her face to the wall and refuse to ever again leave her bed. That was when she forced herself to recall Onaha Buten, the legendary musician she’d met in the detention camp after the war. Onaha had survived horrors to equal anyone’s, yet had somehow summoned the mabui to fashion a sanshin from an old Spam can so that he could sing and play for his fellow detainees. With Buten’s trademark song playing in her head—“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Rise up, come on, rise up! Fall seven times and jump up eight. Let the world know. About our Uchina”—Hatsuko would rise up one more time.

  UKUI THE LAST NIGHT

  The Dead Are Escorted Back to Their World

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Late on the afternoon of the third and final day of the festival for the dead, Hideo and his wife, Saori, and their two daughters arrive to fetch Hatsuko for the lavish dinner to be held in the Royal Ryukyuan Banquet Hall, where they will bid farewell to the spirits who’ve returned, and hopefully send them back to their world happy.

  Hideo and Saori’s daughters are already dressed in their Eisā dance costumes, and the sight of them in the traditional short-sleeved, navy-blue kimonos with closed fans tucked into yellow obis, hair pulled back under polka-dotted kerchiefs, causes Hatsuko’s heart to ache with the swell of memory. They wear the same work kimonos that she and Tamiko wore when they were girls and their island was a place out of a fairy tale. The steps the girls practice are the very ones that she and Tamiko danced so long ago, when they escorted the spirits of their ancestors back to the tombs and never seriously believed that they, too, would ever get old and die.

  Hatsuko tells Saori that she is not feeling well enough to accompany them. At that the wife heaves a sigh of impatience and reminds her that she was the one who insisted upon inviting her cousin Mitsue. Arrangements have been made. Mitsue is waiting even now to be picked up in Madadayo. Besides, the dinners have already been paid for, and whether they’re eaten or not, no money will be refunded. Because the girls beg her, their favorite auntie, to come, Hatsuko acquiesces.

  When they arrive at Madadayo and she sees the familiar thatched roof, Hatsuko feels as if she herself is an Obon ghost returning to a home she will never again truly inhabit. Her spirits rise tremendously, though, when Mitsue, still able to hop about like a little bird, comes aboard the van. At dinner, Mitsue encourages her cousin to drink the many toasts to honor the dead that are being imbibed. “We’ll be joining them soon,” Mitsue says, laughing. “And we don’t want any hard feelings when next we meet, now, do we?”

  Soon she and Mitsue are leaning together, their cheeks flushed, singing the old ceremonial songs in thin, quavering voices that neither of them recognizes as their own. Because they know they don’t have many Obons left, Hatsuko and Mitsue agree to drive into Naha with the family to watch the Eisā dancers from all over the island parade through the streets and alleys, sweeping the dead back where they belong for another year.

  In the van, the great-great-nieces make a big fuss over their old aunties. Hatsuko and Mitsue, speaking in the dialect that Hideo and Saori don’t understand, agree that the girls are quite sweet, in spite of their horrible parents. The girls’ excited chatter combines with the smell of face powder to unloose a flood of memories that washes over the two old women. Hatsuko closes her eyes and Tamiko is again beside her in the cart, swaying back and forth in time to Papaya’s rolling gait. They are girls once more, laughing and whispering about which boys they might see that night in the nearby village.

  In Naha, Hideo drops his daughters off at the far end of Kokusai-dōri, where dozens of teams of dancers and drummers are assembling for the parade. The rest of them then drive back to park and make their way to the spot Hideo has already picked out for parade viewing. Hatsuko clings to Mitsue, who is so much steadier on her feet, as they follow Hideo through the masses of spectators. People pack the parade route. They perch on the sills of upper-story windows and on rooftops. They pack into alleys and line the steps of outside stairways. A tall man with a news camera on his shoulder, followed by a pretty woman holding a microphone, push their way through the throng. Bar owners send hostesses with trays full of glasses of iced oolong tea and awamori into the crowd. Haughty tourists from the mainland stand apart from the common folk. Immense Americans freeze gaggles of their friends in the flashes of their cameras. Hatsuko and Mitsue exchange disapproving glances when the Americans, always eager to flaunt their triumph, rudely hold up Vs for victory each time they are photographed.

  The old ladies are buffeted by drunken revelers as they totter along. They search the crowd, but don’t see one single familiar face. Even Hideo and his family seem to be strangers, and Hatsuko misses not only the ones who are gone but even the Okinawa she once knew, for it, too, has been lost.

  “Aunties,” the odious Hideo calls back when Hatsuko and Mitsue fall behind. “You should have asked us to get you wheelchairs.”

  “I’m fine,” Hatsuko barks at the toad. She leans even more heavily on her cane and curses the silly shoes they’d stuck on her feet at the nursing home. Puffy balls of white dough with Velcro closures like a child would wear, the ridiculous shoes force her to shuffle along. Bare feet! She’d walked the length and breadth of this island in her bare feet. Potbellied Hideo, trying to look patient and benevolent, wouldn’t have lasted one day. With or without shoes.

  Hideo makes a sour face and hisses at his wife, “All the places at the front will be taken if we don’t hurry. I won’t get any good video.”

  “Let him go on,” Mitsue pipes up. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Go ahead then,” Saori says to her husband, with an annoyed sigh. “I’ll wait for them.” Happy to be free, Hideo rushes off. “Save us a spot,” Saori calls after her departing husband.

  “What is wrong with watching from right here?” Hatsuko asks.

  “No, no, this isn’t a good spot for video,” Saori answers sharply. “Hideo has the place all picked out. He’s even told the girls to look our way when they pass.”

  “How much farther is it?”

  “Just up ahead. Right there on Kokusai-dōri.”

  “Lean on me, cousin,” Mitsue says, and Hatsuko, knowing her own legs won’t carry her any farther, does just that.

  “Thank you,” she whispers to Mitsue.
<
br />   When at last they stop, Hatsuko, breathing heavily, her legs trembling, raises her eyes and sees a lighted green arch with white doves on either end spreading their wings and rising toward the heavens. In the middle is one word. In her own dialect, Hatsuko pronounces it out loud: “Peace.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I lean over the riders crammed up against me in the aisle of the crowded bus, and crane to get a view of the place where the sky and the ocean meet. The juncture flutters with a shimmery coral and crimson light as the sun dips into it. The sunset tints the faces of the Okinawans around me as rosy as if we’re staring into a fire. All but the last wobbly slice of sun has disappeared into the East China Sea, and the evening is growing dark when the bus hisses to a stop next to dozens of others. I join the crush of excited passengers being disgorged.

  Sodden heat still rises from the pavement, but a sea breeze cools the air. Overhead, the monorail shoots around a curve in the lighted track. Behind me, in the distance, a freighter docked in the Naha port is illuminated bright as a fairy castle. The reflections from its lights make blurry columns of aqua and gold in the water. Keeping the freighter at my back and the monorail tracks on my left, I join the throngs surging onto Kokusai-dōri toward the center of the city.

  The street has been shut off to traffic, and its wide sidewalks are packed with spectators. I make my way up the broad avenue, dodging around the policemen shoving the crowds back onto the sidewalk. In the dark, nothing about the street looks familiar, until I spot the giant cat with the dead black eyes hanging from the second story of the souvenir shop, waving in his creepy animatronic way. Unfortunately, I can’t recall whether the cat was located before or after Heiwa-dōri.