“Please sit down, everyone,” he’d said again, louder and with authority. He was pleased to see that this time they did.
Long after he had recovered, Kondo continued to reflect upon what had happened to him. During a checkup, his doctor even alluded to how close he had been to not making it. “You were extremely lucky,” the doctor said several times, although he stubbornly refused to go into further medical details. He would only say that he’d seen many cases where patients in Kondo’s condition had died.
“You’re getting a second life. Enjoy it.”
Kondo hadn’t needed the doctor’s sermonizing. He knew how sick he’d been. He was grateful to the doctor but even more grateful to Aya’s father.
He did not return to Love Letter Alley, for it was obvious that sitting outside for long periods would not be good for his health. Would he miss it, he wondered. Would he miss his customers? He had always prided himself on being a thorough professional. When he had started out, his goal was simply to be a conduit through which words in one language would pass and be transformed into words in another. A mirror reflecting meaning without distortion—pure and unbiased and impartial. But once he started working, he came to see that the words were not just letters or symbols on the page. Each word was bursting with emotion. There were the emotions felt by the writer and by the reader, but also by him, the translator caught in the middle, reading secrets between lovers or dark truths shared.
He hoped he had helped the women who had sought out his services. In the case of good news, that was easy to see. Everyone was happy to receive good news. But when there was bad news, an unwelcome truth? That was harder to determine. He still retained his conviction that it was better to know than not to know, that the truth, no matter how painful or ugly, held its own salve. Not knowing left such an empty gaping hole, a space one ceaselessly sought to fill. And yet how often was it the case that the truth was elusive.
Kondo decided that he needed to get some exercise to strengthen his resistance. Go slowly, his doctor had advised, so he began to take short walks every day after school. The late-winter air was bracing but the sun was strong by this time in the afternoon. Soon it would be spring. Sometimes he walked up and down the lane outside his boardinghouse, but most of the time he simply circled the school two, three, four, or as many times as he felt comfortable doing. He was a bit self-conscious of this exercise regimen, however, and always waited until all the pupils had gone home. On one of these perambulations around the yard, he was surprised to see Fumi and Aya near the entrance to the school. They were accompanied by a woman.
Fumi waved at him. “Sensei!” She pulled on the hand of the woman she was with, urging her forward. Aya followed, too. As the threesome walked closer, the woman’s features came into focus, and then he realized who she was. When he saw the shocked look on her face, he knew she had recognized him in the exact moment that he had recognized her. And so there was no room for doubt. She was definitely the woman who had come to see him in Love Letter Alley, the day before he fell ill.
“Kondo Sensei, I want you to meet my sister, Sumiko.”
He tried not to stare.
Sumiko lowered her head in an exaggerated bow and tugged on the ends of the large gray shawl around her shoulders, pulling it tighter. Her obvious discomfort further convinced him that there was no mistaking the connection they had.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, bowing in return. When he raised his head, she was still bent forward, clearly unwilling to look him in the eye.
He turned his attention to Aya. “How is your father? The last time I saw my doctor he told me he’s putting the medicine he gave him to very good use. He said to pass on his regards.”
After that there was nothing to say, so Kondo stood with his hands clasped in front of him and looked at the ground, wondering all the while if he could think of some way to make Fumi and Aya go away. He wanted to talk to the woman alone.
“I walk out here every day after class,” he offered. “To strengthen my lungs. After an illness.”
“Kondo Sensei had pneumonia. He nearly died!” Fumi said.
“I regret that my illness prevented me from fulfilling my obligations. It’s important to follow through on one’s duties, no matter how belatedly, don’t you agree?”
Fumi and Aya exchanged puzzled looks, and after a moment of awkward silence, Fumi said goodbye and the three turned around to go home.
Kondo hoped that the woman might show up on her own, but she did not come back.
In his room at the boardinghouse, he dug through the pile of materials next to his desk. He realized with chagrin that he was not the thorough professional that he liked to think he was; a professional would have made an effort to return to Love Letter Alley after recovering from his illness and not simply assume that the woman had given up. Now to run into her like this—the coincidence was most unsettling. Who would have thought she would turn out to be the sister of one of his pupils.
He retrieved the draft of his translation and the crumpled newspaper from the bottom of the pile.
BAR LUCKY NOT LUCKY! OFF-LIMITS MEANS OFF-LIMITS!
All U.S. servicemen are sternly reminded once again not to enter any area designated as off-limits. Violations of these regulations will be considered as prejudicial to the goals of the Allied Occupation of Japan. For good reason SCAP has determined that certain districts must be out of bounds. Protect yourselves. Obey all regulations.
The recent increase in the incidence of alcohol poisoning in these quarters is of especially grave concern. All personnel should consider themselves fully warned about the dangers of not obeying military laws and regulations. Offenders will be considered to have engaged in disorderly conduct and will be tried appropriately in military tribunal.
He smoothed out the wrinkles in the newspaper as best he could and looked at it again. There was a long article about five servicemen who had gone to different bars in the same off-limits area and subsequently died of alcohol poisoning within a few days of each other. Their pictures appeared in a column beside the text. Almost the entire issue of Stars and Stripes was about the dangers of methyl alcohol, a clear indication of how concerned the authorities were. In recent months there had been a sudden surge in the number of such incidents throughout the city, and Kondo himself had heard stories of many Japanese dying like this. Such a sad way for a life to end, he thought. In their desperate search for a few hours of pleasure or forgetfulness or whatever it was that these powerful drinks promised, people didn’t realize the risk they were taking. Or so Kondo assumed. Maybe he didn’t understand, though. There were many things about the behavior of others that baffled him.
50
Aya’s father showed her a bag he had hidden at the back of the cupboard. It was full of yen.
“It’s not worth nearly as much as it looks, but it’s a start. It will help us move to a better apartment,” he said. “We can move anywhere in the city you want. You can go to a better school.”
“Oh, no,” she protested. She did not want to change schools.
“Well, we can take our time. We’ll be okay for a while. These savings are from some work I did before, some work that I don’t want to do anymore.”
“Is that how you got the medicine, like the one that saved Kondo Sensei?”
He hung his head and nodded slowly, with obvious reluctance.
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe I can go to work,” she said. “I’m old enough. I want to help out.”
“No, you must stay in school.” His tone was firm. “After you finish middle school, you must go to high school. After that, maybe you can do more. You have to study hard. It’s what your mother would have wanted. She always wanted the best for you.”
Aya felt her chest tighten. He so rarely mentioned her mother, hardly ever since they’d arrived in Japan.
“I have something to show you,” she said, quickly standing up. She retrieved a knotted handkerchief from her drawer and sat back down across fr
om her father. She undid the handkerchief and spread the strips of cloth it contained on the tatami in front of him. The stones were in the handkerchief, too.
“Mother did this. She wrote messages to me and hid them in the lining of my coat. I didn’t know. I might never have known. It was an accident that I even found them.”
Her father leaned forward. He picked up one of the stones, rolled it slowly between his fingers, and set it back down. Then he picked up one of the cloth pieces and smoothed the scrap of fabric in the palm of his hand. Respect your elders, it said. He patted the cloth absentmindedly with his other hand.
“She wanted to protect you. I suppose it was her way of staying near you, even after she was gone.”
Aya started to cry. “But then why did she…?”
He picked up two more strips of cloth. Do your best. Be strong.
“I don’t know,” he whispered hoarsely. “Sometimes people do things we don’t understand. Things we can never understand.”
They sat in silence. One by one her father picked up the cloth strips in front of him, examining each one slowly before laying it carefully on top of the others. The scraps of cloth were uneven in length and shape, but they all fit within the cup of his palm. He closed his fist around them. The last one said Be kind.
“She always said you were the strong one,” he said. “No matter what, you would endure.”
“Why would she say that? I’m not strong.”
“You’re stronger than you think. She always said you were so much stronger than she was.”
“But I’m not,” Aya protested, her voice catching.
“You are. You were. You have to be.”
“But I don’t feel strong.”
Her father pushed the cloth strips into her hands, and closed her fingers around them by wrapping his own hands tightly around hers.
“Neither do I,” he said, suddenly releasing her hands. “But maybe we can pretend.”
51
Before Matt knew it, the end of February was approaching. It was still cold, but he sensed that the days were getting longer, the sun a little stronger. For some reason, he felt that time was moving faster, too.
He finished reading Kokoro and immediately set off for the used-book district in Kanda, where he found a store that specialized in literature. He browsed the section on modern fiction, letting his fingers trail across the book spines until he came upon another novel by Natsume Soseki. Sorekara, it was called: And Then. An unusual title, he thought, not catchy at all but somehow very enigmatic. And Then…the words felt incomplete. And then? What next? It was an open-ended question. He bought the book, and all the way home puzzled over the title.
If he saw Baker again, Matt would ask him what he thought. He’d return the copy of Kokoro and maybe he’d give him Sorekara, too.
“Every time I see you, you’ve got your nose buried in a book,” his bunkmate, Eddie, complained when he came upon Matt one evening reading in bed. “You’re gonna ruin your eyes. What the hell is it?”
“It’s a novel.” Matt no longer cared what anyone thought. “It’s in Japanese,” he added proudly.
“Oh, yeah? I don’t care what language it’s in, a book is too much work. Too many damn words, you know what I mean? Here, you should look at these.” Eddie reached into the locker beside his bunk and pulled out a handful of magazines. He tossed them onto Matt’s bed, and the glossy covers slid across the sheet. “Lots of photos, that’s what I like. Believe me, a picture’s worth a thousand words.”
“Thanks.”
“They’re old—you can keep them,” Eddie said as he left the room.
Matt picked up an issue of Life magazine and began flipping through it. There were pictures of housewives taking pot roasts out of ovens, long-legged young people marching in parades and twirling batons, men in cowboy hats, football players running on a field. How would pictures like this look to a Japanese person? he thought. This was America, the land of plenty.
Life. The name of the magazine said it all, didn’t it. This was life, the good life. Carefree, glorious, unfettered life. The life they all wanted.
Matt gathered the magazines to put away in his locker when an issue with MacArthur’s face on the cover caught his attention. Opening it, the first thing he saw was a full-page color photograph of MacArthur and his son posing for the camera on the steps of General Headquarters. The next few pictures were of the young boy getting out of the big black Cadillac, saluting the MPs at the entrance to GHQ, waving to the crowds of Japanese onlookers. Matt checked the date. The issue had been published last September and promised exclusive coverage of MacArthur’s family life in Japan.
Matt rubbed his eyes, incredulous. That was the day, he was sure of it. The day when MacArthur’s son had visited GHQ. The day when Matt met Fumi and Aya.
Turning the Japanese into the SCAPanese! one of the captions read. General MacArthur shares Occupation tips!
A formal family photograph showed Arthur flanked by his mother and father, all three standing stiffly next to the American flag in the embassy reception hall. Most of the other pictures, however, were of a casual nature and had been shot in a variety of different locations: Arthur in his bedroom playing with his toy soldiers, Arthur holding a tennis racket, Arthur seated at the piano with his fingers poised over the keyboard.
The final picture in the series had been taken in the Ginza. Arthur and his mother were in front of the Tokyo PX surrounded by a crowd of GIs. The camera had caught the boy with his mouth wide open as he struggled to take a big bite out of his hamburger. The men standing behind him cheered. There was a long caption under the photograph:
Even living so long in the Far East, young Arthur is fast growing up to be a typical all-American boy. He especially enjoys going with his mother to the PX, where his favorite treat is the B-29 burger. They say you can’t get anything better, not even in the States. There’s nothing more American than a B-29 and a Coke!
Matt used his connections at the Press and Public Information Section to obtain a highly detailed map of the city. As well as roads and streets, the surveyors had attempted to document the location of as many currently standing structures as they could. It was a long shot, Matt knew. He wasn’t sure that such a small building of the type he sought would even have been included on the map. When, after hours of searching, he finally found what he was looking for, he still wasn’t entirely confident that it was the correct place. The building seemed to be too far away. He thought about how long it would take to reach MacArthur’s headquarters and how difficult walking would be: through all the dust-filled streets, through the maze of twisting paths, through the rubble. It wasn’t impossible, of course, but it would have required real determination. Then he thought about Fumi, that blaze in her dark eyes and the fierce energy that radiated off such a small girl, and he knew he had located the right school.
He folded the map and put it in his pocket next to the letter. How fortunate that he hadn’t destroyed Fumi’s letter the way he had Sumiko’s photograph. It was only when he’d looked at it again recently that he noticed something that had slipped his attention before, the name of the school: Minami Nishiki Middle School, Chiyoda Ward. Fumi had identified herself by her school.
Matt now knew exactly what he had to do. The first person he told was Nancy.
Eddie parked the jeep in front of the gate, next to the concrete pole carved with the school’s original name in worn characters: MINAMI NISHIKI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
“You sure this is the right place?” Eddie asked. “It doesn’t say it’s a middle school.”
Matt climbed out of the jeep. “This has to be it.”
Sab and Nancy were in the back wedged among all the supplies: dozens of boxes filled with cookies, crackers, candy, chocolate, Spam, peanut butter, and anything else Matt had thought might be needed. Everyone followed Matt’s lead and got out of the jeep. The four of them stood in front of the gate looking at the school.
The school yard was empty exc
ept for a small boy who was facing a big oak tree with his head lowered.
“Poor little guy. He’s probably being disciplined,” Nancy said.
The boy cocked his head in their direction. They could see he was trying to observe them surreptitiously but he couldn’t help being very obvious. He glanced over his shoulder at the school building, stared at the tree trunk for a moment, and then, as if he couldn’t stand it any longer, ran over to them.
“Haro, haro. Gimme!” he said, holding his hand out to Matt and flashing a hopeful grin. “Chocoretto, puriizu!”
Matt pulled out a chocolate bar and squatted down so he was at eye level with the boy. The name tag on his sweater said Masatomi Hayashi. “Little boy, I wonder if you can help us. Is there a middle school nearby? We’re looking for two pupils, Fumi Tanaka and Aya Shimamura.”
The boy looked puzzled at first, then his eyes widened and his grin spread from ear to ear. He snatched the chocolate bar, turned on his heels, and began racing toward the school.
“Oi! Amerikajin! Amerikajin ga kiteiru zo!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “The Americans are here! The Americans!”
Matt would come back to this moment in his mind for a long time afterward, replaying the event like a short film. The way all the children, including Fumi and Aya, had come running out of the school building. How their teachers, too, had followed, and instead of being angry at the disruption, had seemed quite elated to see them. Nancy had glowed. It occurred to Matt what a wonderful teacher she would make, she so clearly loved being with children. When it had ended and all the supplies had been distributed, down to the last chocolate bar and stick of gum, he realized that whatever self-consciousness he’d felt in this modest undertaking had completely dissipated. What they had done was such a small thing, but it was a good thing. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
The Translation of Love Page 29