Hiroshima Boy

by Naomi Hirahara

  Hideki had stopped crying and sat up. “Smells like smoke.”

  In front of the building, practically on the concrete street, was a hibachi, glowing with heat. Kneeling beside it was Thea.

  Toshi parked the van on the side of road. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Ah, Mas is here.” Thea’s voice was light and cheery, a welcome contrast to what had occurred that night. “I think I have a solution to your problem.” She noticed that both Toshi and Hideki were completely drenched. “What happened to you two?”

  “We’ll explain. Let us get out of these wet clothes and take a shower first.” They both went into the house while Mas stayed back with Thea.

  She was obviously excited about something. “Look what I made, Mas.” She brought out a metal canister that had once held green tea leaves. Inside was not tea but something that resembled brown dirt, only finer, with hard, white bits mixed in.

  “Look like ash,” Mas said.

  Thea gave him a toothy grin. “Yatta! I made it out of ground-up shells and a concoction of other things. Kind of broke Toshi’s coffee grinder, but I can get him another. Worth it, though, right? I cooked everything in this fire. You can now take this to Mukai-san and tell her this is her brother.”

  The girl’s ingenuity caught Mas off guard. He had underestimated her.

  “Whatchu doin’ with dis fire now?”

  “Aha, another surprise.” She picked up some tongs that she had placed on a newspaper and removed something wrapped in aluminum foil from the hibachi’s grill. Letting it cool a little on the newspaper, she nestled it into a towel and presented it to Mas.

  “Watch out, it’s hot.”

  He picked at the foil.

  “Ah, sweet potato,” Mas said.

  “Kind of,” she said. “I guess there’s not enough light to really see. Look.” She brought out her phone and fiddled with a setting so that a beam of light focused on the tuber. Snapping the top of it, she broke the skin.

  “Murasaki,” Mas noted the color.

  “Yes, purple. I saw these at the store, and it reminded me of the yams from my country. They are called ube over there.”

  “Okinawa have same kind of thing,” Mas remembered.

  “You know about Okinawa?”

  “My wife born there,” he explained. As soon as he said that, he needed to hear Genessee’s voice that very second. It was an imposition to use Thea’s phone for an international call, but she didn’t mind. “I call my sister all the time in the States. She lives in Kentucky.” Mas was constantly amazed at the young woman, that her world could be so expansive.

  “Hello.”

  “Hallo.”

  “Mas! Oh, Mari’s here. She’s wanting to talk to you, hang on.”

  After a few seconds, Mari’s voice came through the phone. “Dad, Shoko-san’s been calling. She wants to make sure that you come by.”

  “Yah, yah.”

  “Don’t yah, yah me. You don’t know whether you’ll ever be in Hiroshima again. This may be your last opportunity to see the family house.”

  She returned the phone to Genessee. “Are you all right? Your voice sounds hoarse. I hope you’re not overdoing it.”

  “No,” Mas told her. “Takin’ it easy.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mas remembered traveling on the same train line—not the same train car, of course—when he was about nine. His older brothers got fitted for custom-made suits for a family portrait, but time had gotten away from his mother, and they had to leave before Mas was measured. Again, he was passed over and he couldn’t stand it. He made a fuss from the tailor’s to the Hiroshima train station and then on the rail car. His older brothers were sick of it and they weren’t the only ones. “Go over there and sit down,” his mother, clothed in a kimono, commanded. He was mad as hell and refused to sit among strangers in the back. The anger shot up to his head and there was no containing it. He rushed to the open side door and jumped.

  He didn’t know how he survived the fall and neither did anyone else who witnessed it. He had rolled close to the bottom of the track but only sustained a bruised knee.

  “You’re baka,” his brothers had said to him, but were incredulous over his luck. From then on they said, “un ga ii,” that Mas, the middle child, was blessed with good fortune. He thought that was a terrible joke, one more way that they twisted the knife in his back.

  The rail car going toward Kure was vacant. The Hiroshima train station itself had been crowded, with both Japanese and gaijin in town for the atomic-bomb commemoration. By the time Mas reached the port of Ujina on the ferry, the morning ceremony was over. The whole town seemed festive, with an air of electricity. All fools, thought Mas, as am I.

  Who would think about going home after all these years? It was ridiculous. Meaningless. Real home was Altadena, California, the place where he became a father, had two wives (not at the same time, of course), and helped raise a grandchild. California was open and free, with purple mountains and salty brown-water beaches and dying palm trees and lavender jacaranda trees. Liberated green parrots found refuge in California, squawking as loud as they could on power lines in the early morning hours. Coyotes roamed the streets at night during the occasional downpour. Brown bears bathed in swimming pools and mountain lions stalked hiking trails. It was a magical place where anything was possible. That was home.

  But as the train car bounced and click-clacked over rail ties, Mas realized that what was outside these windows was also home. The graceful arches of the Japanese roofs and color of the foliage on the hills—not midori, American green, but ao, the word used for blue but also a blue-green. The name of the color of the sky could not be separated from the color of the trees here in Japan.

  There was also the sense of shibui, the love for negative space, to keep the canvas of life a bit empty to allow something unexpected to permeate it. And the turns of the Japanese garden, how to open up the world by taking a stroll in a different direction. As much as his head and heart tried to reject Japan, his body felt that this was home, too.

  He prepared for the next stop, his destination. He had no idea if his niece, Shoko, would be waiting for him at the station. She was overcome with anticipation when he told her over Thea’s cell phone that he planned on stopping by. Mas was a little bewildered. They didn’t know each other and her mother had only been ten when he left Hiroshima. She might have been at his and Chizuko’s wedding reception in Hiroshima; he honestly didn’t remember.

  The station was nothing to look at—back then and even now. Only one stationmaster was manning the ticket gate and he’d probably just entered his twenties. It was an old, sleepy station with none of the polish and commerce of the Hiroshima one. Mas was the only passenger to debark here and he stopped in the restroom, a dirty, stinky hole of a place that the stationmaster was obviously neglecting.

  There was no one in the waiting room and Mas poked his head out to see if anyone was outside. Instead of open fields, the small town was crowded with housing. He could probably somehow find his way to his old house, but he wasn’t keen on wandering around through the maze of tiny streets under the hot sun. Then a white car stopped by the side of the station. In the driver’s seat was a woman around Mari’s age. She waved and smiled and when Mas approached the car, he was startled to see that the woman had the same face and expressions of his little sister.

  “Mah, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she said through her open car window. “Please, hurry, get inside. It’s so terribly hot.”

  Mas got in, carrying a gift of kaki yokan, a block of sweet bean mixed with bits of persimmon, that he’d purchased at the train station. Chizuko would always tell him that his sense of Japanese etiquette was terribly lacking, but he knew enough not to come on this visit empty-handed.

  Her car was small, with barely room for two people, but perfect for the narrow streets of the old village. Mas couldn’t stop staring at his niece. She was a stranger yet so familiar. There was something about her v
oice that reminded him of his mother.

  They headed up a hill and Mas held onto the dashboard to look out the front window. He remembered all these houses, which were far enough from ground zero to be spared. The family home of Joji and Akemi Haneda, also American-born like him. The three of them formed a tight-knit unit during World War II. The Hanedas, more Americanized with a father in the US, were especially suspect and regularly visited by the military police.

  Shoko pulled into a neighbor’s driveway and backed into a narrow carport that had only enough space for the miniature car. “C’mon, let’s go inside. The air-con is on.”

  Mas slowly opened the door, grasping hold of the gift bag with the other hand. As his feet hit the pavement, he got goose bumps. His body remembered.

  He was greeted first by a rock frog statue next to a “poodled” pine, its greenery carefully manicured into pompom shapes. Ohayo, Mr. Matsu, he silently addressed the pruned tree. It had to be the same one. “Hey, you’zu older than me,” he couldn’t help commenting out loud.

  “What?” his niece asked, amused.

  “You’ve taken good care of this place,” he said, returning to speaking Japanese.

  The door and window frames seemed to be of the original wood. Mas was amazed. With the heat and humidity of the region, it was difficult to control mildew and mold. Mas and his niece left their shoes at the genkan, and walked down a narrow hallway that had windows overlooking the garden.

  Mas truly didn’t know why they had that garden. It wasn’t like every household had one. But somehow his father, a rice farmer, had felt one was necessary to make his mark in this world. Mas saw more pruned pines, floating orbs of green clouds. And a bunch of hedges cut into domes like the heads of mushroom children. The pond, which had once held goldfish and koi, was bone dry. Too much of an expense to maintain, Shoko explained. She opened up a wooden sliding door and ushered Mas into the traditional Japanese tatami room.

  He knew the configuration of this area with his eyes closed. First there was a small section where the Buddhist altar, the Butsudan, stood from the floor straight to the ceiling. It was gold and ornate, with a lithe standing figure of Buddha at its center. Mas didn’t understand why Buddhas came in all shapes and sizes, with some roly-poly and gregarious, others solid, serene, and regal. This one was dainty, almost feminine. As he walked past, he was assaulted by the brief but pungent smell of incense.

  Beyond the Butsudan was a rectangular area with windows, perhaps six mats in size. Like most other tatami rooms, a wooden trim adorned the walls about a couple of feet from the top. Above the trim over the entryway were framed black-and-white photographs of Mas’s parents, the soft face of his mother and the stern, distant visage of his father.

  In their movements from Japan to America and back to Japan, their lives had been hectic and rootless. Too many mouths to feed, too many tragedies to overcome. Mas knew that a sibling had died in childbirth between him and his next older brother. Maybe that’s why he felt like an afterthought during most of his youth. Perhaps the sadness of a child dying had enveloped his mother, clouding her body not with hope but with fear, leading to a sense of disconnection.

  Friends like Joji became his lifeblood. And Haruo, too. With friends, he could choose. More often than not, they chose him. He had no idea why the best of the best, sweetest of the sweet, were drawn to him. Opposites attract—he was well acquainted with that saying. Either way, he always seemed to end up on the winning end.

  “Please sit on this.” Shoko brought out a padded back rest that he could use to sit against. He bowed and settled in on the floor in front of a low table as she rushed out and returned with a platter of sliced melon and cantaloupe, along with a bunch of giant grapes. Mas knew enough about exorbitant produce prices to realize that this offering had cost her a small fortune.

  “Ah, here,” he said as he handed over the confection, embarrassed that it came from Hiroshima rather than California.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  She apologized for the absence of her husband, who’d gone into Hiroshima for the atomic-bomb commemoration. They had lived in the city before his mandatory retirement from his company at age sixty. Mas was surprised that the Japanese were forced out of full-time employment at such a young age. For himself, sixty was when he was just starting to hit his stride.

  Shoko and her husband had moved into the family house in the Kure countryside after her mother had passed away. No one else seemed open to taking care of the house. “Too bad that she didn’t see you before she died.”

  Mas grunted, not really understanding what his niece was getting at.

  “She spoke of you from time to time.”

  Mas was confused. Shoko’s mother was the runt of the family, the little one who was always getting underfoot. Mas didn’t remember saying more than two words to her as a teenager.

  “She always said that you were the exceptional one, the trailblazer.”

  More like the black sheep that had wandered off, Mas thought.

  “To go to America on a boat by yourself at age eighteen, nineteen. That’s unthinkable.” She peeled one of the giant grapes with her fingers before popping it into her mouth. “From there, you were able to move to Rosu. Get a house. Start a family.”

  Why did she know so much about his life? He’d never shared anything much with his family in Hiroshima once he left.

  She reached for a small photo album in the middle of the table and flipped it open. “Chizuko-san would send letters and photographs to the house. My mother was the one who assembled them in a photo album. See.”

  On the first page was a family portrait captured on the day he left to take the boat to the US. It was taken in the garden here in the house. This time, he had a suit to wear, as did his older brothers. His younger brother was about twelve, while Shoko’s mother, the only woman in the photo as Mas’s elder sister was already married and living away, wore a dress with some kind of pattern, maybe flowers. Mas recalled that day, a day of excitement and adventure. His mother had cried a little; her eyes were wet. He wasn’t thinking of goodbyes; he was thinking of hellos to California and distant relatives there. If he knew that this was the last time he would see his parents and his siblings, at least before he returned briefly to get married, his thoughts would not have raced to the unknown future, but stayed here in this garden.

  He turned to the next page and the next. There were photos of him as a young man in Watsonville—his hair cut and styled in a James Dean pompadour. Underneath that photo, someone, presumably his little sister, had written onisan, big brother, in hiragana. Onisan, onisan, onisan was written all throughout the photo album. Mas couldn’t remember ever hearing someone address him with that title, but the words on the page seemed to have a voice.

  There were other photos, including his wedding portrait with Chizuko. He was dressed in a rented tuxedo and she in the traditional Japanese kimono, her face powdered white. And then pictures from Altadena, California: Mari as a baby, then a surly teenager with the mouth full of metal braces, later wearing a cap and gown as she graduated from high school. In the background was the house on McNally Street, the autumn leaves of the neighboring sycamore trees carpeting the grass. The parade of images ended around the mid-1980s.

  “They were all proud of you. No one wanted to take a chance to go to America after Papa and Mama couldn’t make it themselves. Too much discrimination. But you took a chance and went back. And you made something out of yourself.”

  At this point, Mas had to interject. “No, nothing like that. I’m just an ordinary man.”

  “Don’t be so humble. It’s just like when the Bomb fell. You were the only one in the city. Everyone thought you were dead. I heard the stories. My mother, though, wasn’t surprised. She said that ‘un ga ii.’”

  Mas sat at the table with the small photo album in a state of disbelief. How could he be considered one of the lucky ones?

  On the other hand, how could he not?

 
Mas was in a daze as he traveled back to the island. In his eighty-six years of life, he’d pictured himself as a lone wolf, but maybe this whole time he wasn’t so alone. He didn’t know what to do with that information.

  He was now comfortable enough with present-day Hiroshima that he could navigate through the train station without giving it much thought. He walked down the stairs of the building and waited in line for a taxi to go back to the Ujina Port.

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” the gloved taxi driver said from the driver’s seat.

  Mas, who was sitting in the plastic-covered back seat, only grunted in response.

  “So busy with all these tourists today. And tonight with the toro-nagashi down the Motoyasu River, all the young people will go out. It’s like a party. Nothing really about peace.” Mas had seen footage on the NHK channel of the colorful paper lanterns being released on the water. The way the news depicted the festival was solemn and purposeful. Leave it to the masses to make it about something else.

  “I tell my children and grandchildren to go the night before. When it’s quiet and you can really memorialize the dead. If that’s what you’re after.”

  After the journey by train, taxi, and ferry, when Mas finally got to Toshi’s house, he was exhausted. Since Toshi didn’t lock his front door, Mas walked right in. The empty house was warm and the faint scent of coffee remained in the kitchen.

  On the kitchen table was a sealed plastic bag filled with brown powder. It was identified with a Hello Kitty Post-it as “Ashes for Mas.” He picked it up and grinned.

  She had gone to all that trouble. The effort should not be wasted.

  Thankfully, after he walked from Toshi’s house and into the nursing home, the younger man, Makoto, was manning the front office. As he bowed to Mas, he probably hadn’t heard about what happened.

  She was in a wheelchair facing the window. Before he could say anything, she said, “I saw you walking up the road.”

  “Ah, Mukai-san,” Mas gave his apology in Japanese. “I am so incredibly sorry about everything.”