The Translation of Love

by Lynne Kutsukake

  Amid all the gaiety, however, there had been one very hard moment when he’d had to force himself to approach Fumi. He brought out her letter and took a deep breath. Maybe if he spoke quickly, he could say what he needed to say.

  “I’m really sorry your sister hasn’t been found. I have a confession to make. I never gave your letter to General MacArthur. I thought I might be able to help you myself, but Nancy and I searched all over the Ginza and we couldn’t find her. You have to understand, I never meant to…You see I really didn’t…The truth is…” He foundered for words. Nothing seemed adequate.

  “Here.” He thrust the letter at her. “I’m sorry.”

  She accepted the letter from him and examined it briefly. He couldn’t read the expression on her face at all. Slowly a smile began forming on her lips. The smile grew bigger and bigger until it looked as if she would burst out laughing at any moment. But she didn’t laugh.

  “Please don’t feel bad,” she said, patting his arm lightly as if he were the child and she the grown-up. “My sister came back. Everything is all right.”

  52

  Sumiko followed Kondo Sensei into the empty teachers’ room. He sat down at his desk and motioned for her to sit in the chair next to him.

  “I’ve brought the material,” Kondo said. “It won’t take me long to explain what it says.”

  “I’m sorry to cause so much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. I’m glad to be of service.”

  “I appreciate your kindness.”

  After this stilted exchange, there was nothing to do but wait for whatever Kondo would tell her. Everything would depend on what he said. Sumiko put her hands together in her lap and hoped he wouldn’t notice she was trembling slightly. It had taken a long time to work up her courage to contact him, but now, although she was nervous, she was no longer afraid. She’d thought through what she might have to do, and she was prepared to go to the police and turn herself in if necessary. It had been an accident and she would explain exactly what had happened. But first she wanted to be certain that Wada would not be implicated and that he had not been mentioned in the article. Under no circumstances did she want to jeopardize his safety, his right to life as a free man.

  Kondo laid the newspaper on the desk and opened it to the page she had originally shown him. She flinched momentarily, then forced herself to look. The GI’s picture, small and grainy, appeared in a column under four other pictures, all of the same size.

  “This is the article you were interested in, wasn’t it?” Kondo said. “I can tell you what it says. It’s actually quite straightforward. There was a big scare among the Occupation authorities about alcohol poisoning.”

  “Alcohol poisoning?”

  Kondo ran his finger across the print. “It says, ‘Why would a man choose to drink cheap hooch when the finest American whiskey is available for reasonable prices at any military-approved drinking establishment? Why would a man risk his life for a drink he can’t trust?’ ”

  “I don’t understand,” Sumiko said.

  “The men whose pictures you see here died of methyl alcohol poisoning. They had all frequented bars in the same off-limits area near the Ginza. I guess the article was meant as a warning. They wanted to make an example of them. That’s why the paper publicized the men’s names and described the circumstances of their deaths.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “One of the men came back to his barracks late at night and his bunkmates didn’t bother to wake him the next morning because it was Sunday and they thought he was just sleeping off a night of heavy drinking. They didn’t realize he was unconscious. By the time they tried to rouse him on Monday morning, it was too late.”

  Sumiko gasped.

  “Methyl alcohol destroys the nerves in the brain,” Kondo continued, “but it can take hours, even days. The problem is once you pass out, you might never wake up. A couple of the men were on weekend passes, and they died at their girlfriends’ apartments.”

  “What about him?” she asked nervously, pointing to the last picture.

  “He was found on the floor of the bar where he’d been drinking.”

  “Stabbed to death,” she said quietly.

  Kondo gave her a long, thoughtful look before returning his gaze to the newspaper. “No, it says he died of alcohol poisoning. The same thing that killed the other servicemen.”

  “It doesn’t say he was stabbed?” She was suddenly confused.

  “It’s funny you should mention that. In fact, he had been in a fight of some kind in the bar. They speculate it might have been a warning by the yakuza.”

  “Oh, but wasn’t he—”

  “Actually this man’s story is the most complicated of the lot. It seems he was a deserter with a gambling problem. Wanted by the army and in trouble with the yakuza, I suppose with a man like that, if it hadn’t been bad liquor that got him, it was probably only a matter of time before something else would have.”

  What about the blood, she wanted to ask, but said nothing. She recalled how she had stared at the knife sticking out of the man’s side, transfixed by the contrast between the smooth pale handle and the spreading stain on the man’s shirt. Wada had pulled out the knife and dragged the man behind the counter. He tried to hide the body with a large dirty towel that he flung over the man’s face and upper torso. Just before he and Sumiko fled, he threw the knife with all his might outside into the garbage-strewn darkness. She’d assumed Wada knew what he was doing. He’d been in the war; he’d seen plenty of dead men. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have been more afraid than she was.

  She pictured the American lying in the deserted bar—how many hours or even days might have passed before he was discovered?

  “I know this is a strange thing to ask, but about the man in the last picture—do you think he could have been saved? If he’d been treated right away, for instance.”

  “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know,” Kondo said. “Why do you ask?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. By the way, what happened to the bar owners? Did the newspaper mention their names?”

  “No, there’s no mention of any names. It seems like all the bars closed down and everyone vanished. That’s understandable.”

  “I see.” She was suddenly very, very tired. “I think there is something I should tell you. I don’t know quite how to begin but I owe you an explanation.”

  “No, you don’t have to explain anything.”

  “But you must wonder about me, why I would have asked you to read this.”

  He smiled gently. “Not in the least. You needed a translator, that’s all.” He went over to the corner of the teachers’ room and picked up a small metal bucket. “I’m sure you don’t need this paper anymore, do you?” Without waiting for a reply, he lit a match to the top of the newspaper and dropped it into the bucket. A tall blue flame shot up in the air, and the paper turned to ash in less than a minute.

  Sumiko thought about the moment right before the man entered the bar. She and Wada had just clinked glasses. Kanpai! Her glass was almost to her lips. What would have happened to her and to Wada had it not been for the American stranger? Had he saved their lives when they had not saved his?

  “There’s one more thing,” she said, bringing out the piece of paper she had tucked into her pocket at the last minute before leaving the house. She had been tidying up in the bedroom when she accidentally knocked over a pile of Fumi’s schoolbooks, and the paper had fallen out.

  “I wonder if you would mind taking a quick look at this.”

  He took the letter from her and read through it quickly, smiling when he got to the end. “Do you know what this says?”

  “No, I’m not sure.”

  “Shall I translate it for you?”

  She nodded.

  Dear General MacArthur,

  I am writing to ask for your great and kindly help. I have a serious problem. My sister is missing! Please help me find her.

&nbs
p; Kondo read the entire letter aloud, in Japanese. When he finished, he said quietly, “Fumi must have been very worried about you.”

  My sister is missing! Please help me find her. Sumiko could almost hear Fumi’s voice. Suddenly everything fell into place. She understood all those odd questions Fumi had peppered her with: Who found you? What made you come home? Didn’t someone come and get you?

  Kondo folded the letter and gave it back to Sumiko. “Well, I’ve always been impressed with Fumi. She’s quite something, your little sister.”

  Sumiko looked at the piece of paper in her hand and then she fixed her gaze on Kondo. “You wrote this letter for her, didn’t you.”

  “No, I didn’t.” He appeared genuinely taken aback.

  “But you must have. Fumi could never have done this on her own.”

  “No, you’re right. She couldn’t have. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t know anything about this.”

  “Then who? Who helped her?”

  Kondo thought for a moment. “I think I know who it was. In fact, I’m certain.”

  “Who was it?”

  He smiled. “Aya.”

  Sumiko said goodbye to Kondo at the school gate, thanking him again for all he had done. She began walking home, slowly at first, then faster and faster, her steps trying to keep pace with her thoughts. There had been much to absorb tonight, much more than she had anticipated, and her mind was racing. The night in the bar, the American, Wada, her sister’s letter. Before she knew it, she had broken into a trot and soon she was running. Racing headlong down the lane until she was right in front of their house.

  She flung open the door, took off her shoes, and stepped up onto the landing. “Tadaima. I’m home,” she shouted to her parents, the usual greeting she gave them whenever she returned. But she did not go into the living room to see them. Instead she scrambled up the ladder to the second floor. “Fumi!”

  Fumi poked her head out of the bedroom.

  “Fumi! Where are you?”

  “Nechan, I’m here. What’s the matter?” She’d been doing homework, and her notebooks were scattered across the tatami floor.

  “There you are!” Sumiko said breathlessly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you all right? You look a bit strange.”

  “No, on the contrary, everything is…” Sumiko stretched her lips into as big a smile as she could manage so that she wouldn’t be tempted to cry. Everything is wonderful, she wanted to say but she couldn’t quite get the words out.

  “Are you okay, nechan?” Fumi repeated.

  Sumiko knelt on the tatami in front of Fumi, who was looking at her with a mixture of puzzlement and expectation. Without even thinking, she began stroking her sister’s hair. It was so soft, like a much younger child’s. “It’s just…” she began. She stopped and took a deep breath, forcing herself to slow down so her next words would be clear and strong and without any ambiguity.

  “I’m home,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m home.”

  53

  From his desk drawer Matt took out the letter from the old man and translated it. Once he set his mind to the task, it didn’t take nearly as long as he thought it would. The letter had been written to MacArthur on the occasion of his birthday, so it was already long overdue. Matt put his handwritten translation in the typists’ basket with a strong feeling of satisfaction.

  It was early spring, and in a few days it would be a year since Matt first joined the section. The piles of mail addressed to MacArthur were as high as ever but somehow the work seemed more manageable now.

  The others in the office had left not long ago. From the window Matt caught sight of his co-workers as they crossed the street and fanned out in different directions. He saw the typists, Yoshiko and Mariko, walking together, and then he spotted Sab running to catch up with them. Below, lining the route, was the usual crowd of Japanese onlookers waiting for MacArthur’s car. They were so orderly and patient. Matt recalled the time Baker had brought them to his attention, how Baker had asked him if he would be willing to line up like that.

  The people were so still. Too still, Matt thought. Too quiet.

  Gazing beyond the line of immobile people, Matt was now aware of just how much activity there was elsewhere. Everywhere he looked, there was movement, rapid, darting, frenetic movement. There were many more people in motion than standing still. These people weren’t in line; they weren’t waiting around for anyone. They were running to catch a train, or hurrying to meet a friend, or rushing to go home. They could be going anywhere, he thought, anywhere at all, but one thing was very clear: They were all moving without hesitation toward whatever would happen next in their lives. Suddenly Matt made out Nancy’s figure in the distance as she threaded her way through the crowds in that comical fast-walking way of hers. The loose sleeves of her blouse billowed out in the warm spring wind like small sails. She moved forward, only forward, never once looking back.

  As Matt stood at the window watching the panorama of humanity before him, the sun began to set and the sky slowly changed color. Then there it was, what he had been hoping for, the rich crimson sky that sometimes appeared at sunset. The magic of those shifting shades of red always took his breath away. “It’s just dust,” Sab had once explained. “Beats me, but the more dust and dirt there is, the better the sunset.” Was that really true? Matt only knew that in the desert some of the sunsets had been spectacular.

  It had been like that on the evening before Henry shipped out for basic training. He and Matt had sat outside, just the two of them. They didn’t talk much. Henry told Matt he should put on more weight, he was too skinny. He cuffed Matt playfully on the side of his head and said he’d never get a girlfriend unless he built up a few more muscles. Matt had laughed and punched his brother in the shoulder; then they’d wrestled briefly on the ground, Henry letting Matt win, as he always did. They lay on the ground, panting and covered in dust, when Matt looked up at the sky. It was covered with thick streaks of red and purple and orange, as if someone had run wild with buckets of paint and a giant brush.

  That beautiful desert sky, with its unending vastness and freedom, how often it had seemed to mock him, Matt thought. But since coming to Tokyo, oddly, in this cramped dense patch of life, something had opened up. What it was he didn’t understand, but something within him felt released.

  Maybe life came down to this. In the end there was only the task of moving forward, one step after another, making your way through the dust and dirt of living. You lived your own share of life, and if you could, perhaps you lived someone else’s share, too.

  Ah, the old man’s question. How should a man live?

  Maybe there was no answer.

  How to live? How to be?

  Just day by day. Going forward.

  And then?

  Just live.

  54

  Fumi had suggested that Aya meet her in their special spot on the grounds of Shotoku Temple, adding that Sumiko would be joining them. It had been a long time since Aya had been to the temple. She recalled her first visit on that hot early-summer day last year. How her nostrils had recoiled at the sharp stink of urine and how dank it had been, how the furry moss grew everywhere like mold. The buzz of the mosquitoes, the feeling that in this dark part of the temple grounds the sun never penetrated.

  But to see it now, at the beginning of April, was to see it completely anew. When Aya arrived, the first thing she heard was chanting. From inside the temple building came the low monotonous sound of voices repeating a Buddhist sutra, and through a wide gap in the not quite closed doors, she caught a glimpse of the worshippers seated on the tatami flooring. They sat with their feet tucked under them, and as their backs were to the door what struck her most were the soles of their feet, some stockinged, some bare. Those feet all seemed so vulnerable, exposed as they were. All along this had been a working temple, she realized, a place meant to offer comfort.

  Aya
went around the side of the temple to the grounds in the back. Again she was surprised at its transformation, for the area appeared to have been entirely cleaned up. Someone had recently swept the grounds, and the even marks of a bamboo rake were firmly etched onto the hard earth, giving the flat brown surface an appearance of order and tranquillity. There was no refuse, there were no bad odors. But the biggest difference was in the quality of the light. There was none of the darkness and gloom she remembered from before. The dramatic change startled her until she realized it was because of the time of year. Without the dense foliage of summer to block the sunlight from streaming in, the area was now bright and airy and, in an unexpected way, almost cheerful.

  And to top everything off, one of the trees that stood in the spot where Aya and Fumi had always met was a cherry tree. It was at the peak of its bloom. Aya had never known what kind of tree it was until now, and she gazed with wonder at the frothy clouds of sakura blossoms that floated overhead. The petals were so light and so abundant that when she stood at the base of the tree and looked straight up, Aya saw nothing but pink, as if the entire sky were lit up with a luminous glow.

  Tomorrow, she thought, would be a big day. Monday was the first day of the new school year. She and Fumi would enter second year, and although they knew they had been assigned to the same class, they did not know if they could sit together. They would have a new teacher, too.

  While she waited for Fumi and her sister, Aya went to the far end of the grounds where the cemetery was. Whenever she had come here with Fumi in the past, they had never entered the section where the graves were. The worshippers in the temple Aya had seen earlier would probably come back here after the service to clean off the family graves and light incense. The headstones were close together and the calligraphy was too arcane for Aya to read, but she could tell from the worn surface of the stone markers that the graves were very old. The temple had been here for centuries, she’d been told. To her, an unimaginably long time. It was truly remarkable that both the temple and its cemetery still stood, that they had not been destroyed by fire or flood or earthquake. Or war. The cemetery was very small and cramped; it looked so crowded that Aya couldn’t help wondering if there was room for any more dead, and if not, then where would they go?