Hiroshima Boy

by Naomi Hirahara

  Short of getting down on his hands and knees, Mas implored, “I will not say anything. You know my shame.”

  Tatsuo nodded, making Mas feel even worse, because he was confirming the depth of his haji. “I guess I could call for you and check.”

  They returned to the office, where Tatsuo got on the phone. It sounded like he was calling konbini Kondo, and making up an excuse that he needed to send some additional paperwork to the facility where she was staying.

  After hanging up, he went on the computer to find the institution’s exact address. He wrote all the information in kanji as well as in hiragana, one of the two Japanese phonetic alphabets, treating Mas almost like an elementary school child. He might as well have, because Mas’s written Japanese was about at that level.

  “Sank you, ne,” Mas said in English, and then repeating it in Japanese. “I am truly indebted to you.”

  “The first boat will arrive on this side of the island at eight in the morning,” Tatsuo said, explaining that a smaller vessel, the one that had earlier transported the police officers, only made three trips a day, while the larger ferry had a more full schedule. Tatsuo would be leaving on the last boat tonight and wouldn’t be back for two days. Tuesday was the island’s annual commemoration of the atomic bombing, two days before the massive one at the Peace Park in Hiroshima on August 6. He offered Mas something in a green bag with handles. “My lunch. You must be hungry. I’ve had no appetite today. You probably need this more than I do.”

  With knowledge that the boy’s dead body was now off the island, Mas felt like he could breathe. He went outside through a side door, Tatsuo’s bag in tow. “Haruo,” he called out. And then a little louder, “Haruo.” The sun was going down quickly, yet the heat was still present, not blazing but enough to feel unpleasant.

  Mas sat down on a bench and while swatting mosquitos away from his ankles, devoured Tatsuo’s slightly stale lunch. There were some tough bits of boneless fried chicken, karaage, and misshapen rice balls. Mas wondered where Haruo the cat was. Had he seized a lost hermit crab by the shore? Finally nyaa nyaa, Haruo came around through some side bushes, stalking his new territory like a proud miniature tiger. Mas was relieved that the one-eyed cat seemed so happy in his new surroundings. Luckily, there was some leftover chicken, which Mas showered upon the hard-packed ground. Haruo wasted no time in making the morsels disappear.

  That night sleep came easily and Mas didn’t wake until past eight o’clock in the morning Hiroshima time. Chikusho, he cursed, but he knew that another ferry was due in an hour. Quickly brushing the few real teeth he had and inserting his dentures, he was ready to go.

  The landing was completely uncovered, so he opted to take a seat on a bench underneath a metal awning. He thought he was alone, but then came the voice of a woman: “So many dead people here.”

  She walked over from the jetty, holding an open umbrella, its shade darkening her face. She looked thirty, which meant she was probably at least five years older, with a bob of honey-blond hair, most likely dyed, and a chin that came to a point. Her small, hooded eyes looked strange, even a bit reptilian. Mas almost feared that there might be other bodies floating in the tide.

  The woman closed her umbrella and sat down on the bench next to Mas, who wished he could get up and blend into the environment. But a deserted island provided a man with few options to blend.

  “So hot,” she said, fanning herself with her right hand and attempting to preserve her thick layer of makeup. “I don’t know how a person can stand living here.”

  “Just visiting.” Not that it was the stranger’s business, but Mas surrendered that much personal information.

  “It’s horrible, isn’t it?” she said. “That’s why I didn’t want Sora to come. Forbade his father to bring him. But he never listens to me.”

  Sora, sky. What an odd name, Mas thought. Is this what is popular these days in Japan?

  “Sora was my son. He was the one who was discovered here.”

  Of course, Mas immediately understood what she was saying. He could not find the words to respond.

  “They told me last night. I had to come here, on the first ferry out of Ujina. I had to see where it happened.”

  “I found him,” Mas finally said.

  “What?”

  “I found him in the water.”

  Her eyes welled up. She blinked, releasing tears, stripes down her powdered cheeks.

  “Was he alive then?”

  Mas shook his head. He probably hadn’t been for some time.

  The young mother took out a fabric tissue holder from her bag, but it was completely empty, probably from a morning of crying. She pressed the sides of her eyes, as if that would stop her tears. “I never liked coming here. I told Hideki that. Hideki, that’s Sora’s father. I told him not to bring Sora here. Sora barely left his room, and now to take him on a boat to an island. But he never listened to me. I could never stop Hideki from doing anything,” she said. She said it in a way that made Mas think that she wasn’t talking only about this incident.

  “We were on the same boat coming here,” he told her.

  Surprisingly, the mother didn’t react much to this news. “Was he with someone?” she asked casually, as if she might know who he was with.

  “He sat alone.” Mas was still unsure about Sora’s connection to the other boys.

  The young mother took a deep breath and declared, “My son didn’t do this to himself. I know that’s what the police are saying. That I’m an unfit single mother, that I wasn’t keeping track of my son. But his father was supposed to check on him while I was at work.” She explained that Sora had texted her that he was playing an online game with one of his friends. The police had found his cell phone in his pocket, and all the data was lost from being submerged in the water. But investigators were working to retrieve text messages from the phone company.

  Mas stared at his watch, wishing that he knew how to change the time.

  The woman’s jaw tightened for a moment before she started speaking again. “Someone forced him to do it, I’m sure of it. He was not the type to go off and do things on his own. He was afraid of heights, and even water.”

  But then why did he travel to the island in the first place? And why did he debark on the other side of the island? He would have needed some kind of transportation to get over to the east side in this heat. Something didn’t add up.

  Based on his mathematic calculations, it was close to nine now, and he rose to check the water. Sure enough, the small boat with the red trim was zipping through the ocean toward the landing.

  “Here, let me give you my phone number if something comes to you about that ferry ride.”

  “Don’t have a phone,” Mas said, relieved that he didn’t have one.

  The woman went through her bag and brought out a business card. “Well, then. This is where we live on Nagarekawa-dori, at least for now,” she said, forgetting that it was just her now.

  Mas had remembered that lively street from his childhood. Bike riders, horses pulling carts and men pushing carts, row after row of storefronts, and round lights hung above the street. It was magical, quite a difference from the inaka, the countryside, where rice paddies were surrounded by high hills.

  Mas accepted the card, an advertisement for a ramen eatery.

  “It’s the apartment above the ramen shop in room 403. My name is Tani. Tani Rei.” She then asked, “And your name?”

  “Arai.” Although she had offered her first name, Rei, Mas felt no need to reciprocate with his. The given name was just incidental anyway. In Japan, there were longtime friends who were uncertain of each other’s first names.

  “The police want to close the case quickly. Say that it was the case of a poor boy unsupervised by his divorced mother. But it cannot be closed so simply,” Rei said. “Nothing is that simple.”

  The boat was now docked at the landing. “My ferry,” he said.

  “Yes, make your escape,” Rei said. “I plan o
n returning on the noon boat. After I collect some flowers and throw them into the water. While his body is no longer here, his soul might be. Do you not agree?”

  Mas did not answer. Not bothering to say goodbye, he trudged down to the landing, where a couple of other people had assembled. He gave the skipper a few of his coins. On this less-populated side of the island, the vessel was much more humble and small, definitely a one-man operation.

  He sat inside opposite the two other passengers, but he felt a bit claustrophobic. As the skipper, a middle-aged man with a potbelly, powered up the boat, Mas chose instead to sit on the small outside deck. The salt water misted his face, but it was refreshing, as if Hiroshima was entering his pores. He hoped to see some kind of life in the sea—porpoises, flying fish, anything—but apparently they weren’t the type of creatures who lived close to the surface.

  He wondered about what Rei said. Was she just a grief-stricken mother spouting out madness to alleviate her guilt? Or was there something to her suspicions?

  He pictured her picking flowers, perhaps from that garden down by the school that commemorated the discovery of the buried bodies. She spoke about her son’s soul. Mas was raised to be a believer in Mother Nature, to believe that trees, plants, and rocks could indeed have a soul like people do. But after he married the churchgoing Genessee, Jesus had come into his life. As he understood it—and there was a lot that he didn’t understand—Jesus was a samurai who accepted death not on his master’s behalf, but on that of those lower, the peasants and the prostitutes. It was a strange religion, but one that secretly delighted him. At one of the services at Genessee’s church, the pastor called God a gardener, and Mas thought he had misheard him. But later Genessee opened up her Holy Book and showed Mas that it was true. God the Father was indeed a gardener.

  Mas really didn’t understand prayer, but from the deck of that speeding boat, he released one for the boy. Even if it didn’t reach God, he thought, maybe there was a place where prayers gathered and rested, waiting for the best time to make their appearance.

  Once they reached Ujina, the boat stopped at a pier east of the large ferry building. Luckily, a black taxi was parked at the curb and a driver ran and opened the door for Mas. He gave the driver the paper on which Tatsuo had written the address of the nursing-home, and they were on their way in a few minutes.

  Mas wondered what he would say to Kondo-Obasan, if she would even recognize him. He didn’t know how he would be able to search her belongings, but he had to at least try. He had no choice.

  The assisted-care facility, a nondescript three-story building, was in the neighborhood of a few museums and the high school that his first wife, Chizuko, had attended. Across the street was Shukkei-en, a public garden that Mas faintly remembered. It was odd to think that Shukkei-en, with its Bomb-torn tree limbs and scorched plants, could have somehow been brought back to life, but based on the sign outside a gate, it was open for business.

  Mas paid the fare and got out of the taxi, wondering how in the world he would pull this off.

  Opening the glass door, he entered the reception area, which was staffed by a woman in her twenties. “Excuse me, but I am here to see Kondo-Obasan,” he said in the most proper Japanese that he could manage.

  “Are you family?”

  He shook his head no.

  The receptionist puckered her lips as if she had bit into a lemon. She bowed slightly. “One moment please,” she said before getting on the phone.

  Mas couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying. Only that his request was causing a bit of a problem.

  The elevator dinged and opened to reveal one of the few people that Mas had gotten to know on this short trip: the girl, Thea, wearing a white polo shirt and a white mask that she had pulled down underneath her chin.

  “Arai-san, what are you doing here?”

  “What youzu doin’ here?”

  “I work here.”

  Mas didn’t have time to process this coincidence. He had only one purpose right now. “Izu come to talk to dat lady, Aunt Kondo,” he announced.

  “May I ask why? We have strict instructions that no one aside from family is supposed to visit her.” She pulled Mas closer to the door and farther away from the receptionist.

  “She saysu sumptin to me,” he said. “Sumptin that don’t sound right.”

  “I wouldn’t pay her any mind. She has Alzheimer’s. She usually doesn’t even remember her own relatives.”

  “Lemme talk to her for few minutes. I’zu no cause no problems,” he said, knowing that he really couldn’t guarantee that.

  “I’m due a break in a few minutes, Arai-san. Just wait here and I’ll come down.”

  Mas nodded. Because of the heat, he stayed in the small waiting area, with the receptionist giving him sour expressions about every ten minutes.

  Finally the elevator dinged again and Thea reemerged without the mask fastened around her ears. She gestured that they should go outside, and they sat on a side table in the shade.

  “What is this all about? Why do you need to speak to Kondo-Obasan so badly?”

  Mas came close to confessing that he had lost Haruo’s ashes. The words had moved from his belly to his throat and to his tongue. But he couldn’t do it. Thea was a female and so young. She could be his granddaughter. How could he admit his failings to a person like this? Besides, there was no doubt she would go straight to Ayako with this news of his failure.

  He bit down on his dentures, offering no information.

  “This doesn’t have to do with that boy, does it? The one who killed himself? You couldn’t have done anything to prevent it, you know. The police say he’s from a very unstable family. A couple of detectives came and spoke to me this morning. I didn’t even notice him on the boat, but I heard that you remembered him from our ride.” She adjusted her ponytail. “His parents are divorced and the mother sounds horrible.”

  Mas couldn’t help but frown. Did the police divulge all this to Thea?

  “The father had apparently been on the island during Golden Week in May. Doing some work on a villager’s house. Brought the boy with him.”

  Thea seemed to know a lot about the gossip on the island—especially for an outsider. Maybe she was one of these people who had to constantly dribble out any information that was presented to her. Mas decided to test her knowledge about Ayako and her quest to be reunited with Haruo. “Whyzu Ayako-san wants her brotha’s ashes so much? Kinda don’t make sense.”

  She shrugged. “Mukai-san is tough to figure out. I know Haruo was the last of her brothers and sisters to die. She always talks about being the only one around.”

  “No way to talk to Kondo-Obasan? Take a quick look around?”

  “I’m sorry, Arai-san. I don’t think the family will allow it.”

  A buzz sounded from her shirt pocket. She took the call, responding, “Hai, hai, hai. I must go.” She rose from the table. “I’ll get you a taxi to take you back to Ujina.”

  “Orai, orai. It’s fine. I’d like to stay here for longer.”

  “Really? Well, if you need my help, you know where I’ll be.”

  Mas nodded.

  As she disappeared into the box of the assisted-care facility, he remained seated, trying to figure out his next move.

  So the case of Sora Tani was solved, just like that. The boy had killed himself. What a tragic end to such a young life. This wasn’t the first time that Mas had encountered the dead body of a teenager. There had been so many here in Hiroshima that August of 1945. His classmates, forced to work at the Hiroshima train station. During those last years of the war, there was no school. Men were disappearing and boys too young to be drafted still had to help the war effort by doing manual labor. Names that he hadn’t spoken in years came to his lips: Kenji, Riki, Joji.

  He murmured more prayers before stopping himself. What was he doing? He was really going kuru-kuru-pa now. He took a deep breath. He would have to confess to the young student nurse. Get her help in searchin
g for Haruo’s ashes. He came here as a good-for-nothing gaijin, a foreigner, an outsider, anyway. He might as well fulfill all the low expectations that everyone had of him.

  He returned to the waiting room and once again stood before the sour-looking receptionist, who instructed him to wait. After five minutes, he couldn’t stand it any longer. Without telling her where he’d be, he crossed the street to Shukkei-en. As always, when he needed to think clearly, he gravitated toward green.

  After paying the admission fee, Mas entered the grounds. His heart was pounding because he remembered running through here when he was maybe six or seven. The tall, fat toro lanterns that today reminded him of stone snowmen. The expansive flat pond and the two bridges that joined the islands together. One bridge was a brilliant vermilion red with grand black knobs that he and his brothers used to grab hold of. The pond below was stocked with white, orange, and black koi that opened and closed their mouths, begging for food. Farmhouses with thatched straw roofs, stone mushroom chairs . . . all of that was there in the faithful restoration. Luckily, he had Mari’s camera in his jeans pocket, so he snapped a few photos for old time’s sake.

  When he reached the side of the garden next to Kyobashi River, he stumbled across a large rock engraved with some kind of Japanese writing. It was shaded in darkness and had none of the vibrancy of the rest of the garden. He saw three rectangular stones leading up to it, and two metal vases holding red peonies on the sides as offerings. Reading the old kanji as irei, or comforting the souls of the dead, Mas wasn’t surprised to see a sign explaining that a dead body had been found buried from the blast at this spot during the renovation, followed by the discovery of sixty-four more in the 1980s.

  At this point, Mas was ready to leave. The hedges, toro lanterns, and energetic koi had sustained him and distracted him from his problems, but this memorial reminded him that it was still Hiroshima. New plants, their roots shallow, could not reverse the damage of radiation and black rain. Architects and workers had restored the garden to what it looked like seventy, a hundred, or even more years ago, but it was like a superficial mask covering the darkness that was below.