A Thousand Stitches

by Constance O'Keefe

  The everyday deadening influence of the kempetai and tokko, the military and civilian thought police, were still in the future, at least as far as regular folks knew. I didn’t think much about what he said, one way or the other. But the drumbeats of wider war grew louder my first year at Kosho. Not the familiar war, not the “incidents” and “necessary occupation” of China, but intimations of the great Pacific war to come, the war that would take Professor Kagawa’s life and the lives of so many others. It was that summer that we began to hear about the “ABCD” line—the alliance of the Americans, British, Chinese, and Dutch. Radio reports and the newspapers detailed how these countries were working together to thwart Japan’s access to petroleum, rubber, and bauxite, the natural materials we needed from Southeast Asia.

  The summer of 1941, as the radio and the newspapers blared news of this sort at us day after day, my dream of the Naval Academy returned. Masahiro Yoshimatsu, who had been two years ahead of me at Matsuchu, had also gone to Kosho, but he transferred to the Naval Academy after his first year. Once again, I ran the justifications through my head: my parents wouldn’t have to pay, I’d get a quality education, and I’d be doing my duty. That seemed more important every day, as the news reports increased in seriousness and drama. I somehow got another application, but I kept it hidden. One day, when I was home alone, I started to fill it out. When I got to the box for my birth date, I finally read the associated small print at the bottom of the page. I was crushed to learn that I was two months too old. Only applicants born on or after November 1, 1922 were being considered. I ripped the form into tiny pieces and put the pieces in my book bag. I didn’t want Father to see them in the trash when he came home from the factory. I didn’t want to have to explain. When I think about it now, I can only assume that that form and all the others I filled out in the years to come just asked for date of birth and not place of birth. The fact that I was born in the United States and still a U.S. citizen never came up.

  I was eighteen when I started Kosho and turned nineteen that summer. Even through the pre-war tensions of the summer, we enjoyed ourselves as college students. I was still a year under the official drinking age, but drinking parties were a regular event. No one thought to stop us; even the police turned a blind eye. Many of my classmates also began smoking openly. I think the only reason I didn’t was because Father was such a heavy smoker, and I had always been bothered by the smell of tobacco. The hated restrictions of Matsuchu were gone. We could, and we did, go to coffee shops and movie theaters. The only reason we didn’t go to bars and restaurants was that we couldn’t afford them—and we were still a bit intimidated by the high life that such establishments represented.

  Sometime that summer the Grahams left, evacuated first to Kobe, where the U.S. Consul was assembling groups of Americans, and then by ship to the West Coast. They were there one week, gone the next, but I don’t remember doing anything special to mark their departure, other than climb, one last time, to the top of the Castle with Morgan.

  What I remember better is my climb the same day with Michiko. When I was finally a college student, years after our giggly walks to school on Okaido, I would stop in the Shizuyama’s shop and chat with Michiko as I made my selection. Small change and small talk.

  When I got up my courage to move beyond the small talk, I used those memories of the walk and the pleasure of seeing each other across the street. Talking about those days and laughing about them with her, I was eventually able to persuade Michiko to go walking with me one Saturday when she finished closing up the shop. Three other Saturday walks followed that year. We took sweets from the shop, ate them as we walked the length of Okaido, crossed the main boulevard, and climbed the hill to the Castle to watch the last light fade from the Inland Sea.

  We always talked about our school days and laughed at our memories of the Okaido promenade. As the sun set on the day I had already climbed the Castle hill with Morgan in the midday heat to watch the old cannon from the Russo-Japanese War be shot off at noon, my muscles burned, but I didn’t care. Standing with Michiko and watching the Inland Sea glow, I was perfectly content. The whole world was just me and Michiko. Although we did see each other a few times over the next two years, our excursion that day had a valedictory tone that had somehow escaped me as I dealt with the Grahams on their last days in Matsuyama. I wonder now if the anti-foreigner rhetoric of the day had infected me. Maybe. Or maybe my feelings about the Grahams were so complicated that I didn’t allow myself to feel them. Or maybe my all-too-clear feelings about Michiko are the only ones strong enough to survive all the time and events since those days, some of them flowing over and past me, some of them carrying me along.

  As we walked back down from the Castle, the cool breezes caressed us, the last of the light melted away, and we both knew that this time—or sometime soon—could be our last time together for a long while, if not forever. I would soon be drafted, and, as a healthy, young, unmarried woman Michiko was likely to be conscripted. By the time I walked Michiko to her front door, night had fallen. Walking home, I thought of the years ahead of us, years of service and struggle to achieve victory for our nation, knowing that I would have my memory of our time together to sustain me. That evening shimmers for me still.

  Early the morning of December 9, I was listening to the radio with Father as we ate breakfast. Since General Tojo had become Prime Minister in mid-October, the broadcasts sounded more and more ominous every day: diplomatic rebuffs, military advances, reports on economic conditions. And that morning, the announcement, when it came, broke all the tension of the year. It was official and serious, and the language was neutral until the end of the message: Here is a special news bulletin. This is a special news bulletin. The Imperial Navy entered into a combat situation with the United States today at dawn in the Western Pacific. This is a special news bulletin. The Imperial Navy entered into a combat situation with the United States today at dawn in the Western Pacific. Banzai!!

  “Hooray,” I shouted and jumped up from the table. As I hopped about the room, I yelled at Father, “We did it! We finally did it. Hooray.” Shouting “Banzai” at breakfast certainly didn’t please Father, but I was very excited. He half smiled at me, and sat watching until I sat back down to finish eating. All he said was “Now it’s really going to be a long time before Mother comes home.” When I put my rice bowl and chopsticks down, he got up slowly from the table and began to get ready to go to work. I felt then absolutely, completely, unquestionably Japanese, but was glad that Father had never seen the ripped-up pieces of the Naval Academy application. I wondered what he thought of what had happened to his son, the San Francisco kid.

  My second year at Kosho began in the spring of 1942. During the vacation before the school year started, I had decided to drop basketball club. I was at best an indifferent guard. The first day of classes, one of the military officers assigned to Kosho stopped me in the hall and asked if I would be interested in organizing a horseback riding club now that I had free time. How did he know I dropped basketball, I thought as I stood in the hall at attention and said, “Yes, of course, Sir. I’d be honored.” I didn’t know a thing about horses; I had never ridden and never thought about it. But I had always been impressed by the beauty of the horses in the cowboy movies I loved. Thoughts of Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, and Johnny Mack Brown floated through my head, along with snatches of some of the cowboy songs I remembered.

  It didn’t take me long to get together a group of about ten. We were all complete amateurs, but our enthusiasm was high. On Sunday, the officer took us to the Matsuyama Regiment. Since the Regiment was infantry, they only had about a dozen horses. The officers rode them in parades and the few who lived in private residences off the base rode them to the Regiment. But the horses needed more exercise. That was where the Kosho Riding Club came in. The officer introduced us to Mr. Oichi, the stable master.

  When Mr. Oichi realized what complete beginners we were, he started that first day showing us how to sadd
le and bridle the horses and how to wipe them down and groom them after exercise. The next Sunday, we were allowed to ride the horses around the Regiment compound a bit. In the following weeks, we progressed from trotting to galloping, and over the course of the year even to steeplechasing. But always confined to the Regiment’s grounds. The army was getting free assistance with the exercise of the horses and doing a little indirect recruiting with us, but Mr. Oichi couldn’t be talked into letting us ride the army horses through the town. He said that his superior officers simply wouldn’t allow it, but I wonder if that was really just his own judgment, because he had guessed that our real motive for wanting to take the horses out was nothing more than a desire to show off.

  After our summer vacation that year, the other members of the Riding Club talked nonstop about Mr. Oichi’s restriction. Eventually, as President of the Riding Club, I found myself searching for civilian horses for the club members to ride outside the Regiment. It took a long time, but I finally found one. The horse—and there was only one—belonged to Mr. Miyamoto, the owner of a transport business. More and more of the business involved truck transport, and Chestnut, a mahogany brown mare with a white blaze, was rarely called into service. Mr. Miyamoto was glad to have us exercise her. We took turns after school, and each day one of us took Chestnut out. At first we stayed close to Mr. Miyamoto’s stable, but soon we were roaming all over the city. We were a great object of curiosity. College students had never before been seen horse riding in Matsuyama. As people got used to seeing us, they would wave and smile. I was always proud to be out on Chestnut, and knew I looked good in my Kosho uniform.

  Riding Chestnut was one of the treats of that year. As college students who would soon be in the military, mounting tension was our constant companion—at Kosho, at the Regiment, throughout the city; it pervaded the entire nation. While I know I felt this, I was somehow also managing to drift. All of the things I heard on the radio were far away and had little to do with me, or my everyday life with Father in Matsuyama. But changes had crept into our daily lives. The coupon system was well entrenched, and it wasn’t just sugar that was hard to get. Now rice too was rationed, and even clothing. Fuel was tough enough for the military; it was virtually impossible for civilians. The few cars on the road in Matsuyama were official. People were taking the trolley, riding their bicycles, or walking.

  And the regime that flowed from the National Mobilization Act now touched everyone’s life—a large number of civilians were conscripted into war industries. Mother, with her practical nursing skills, had been in the forefront. More and more familiar faces vanished from my life as they went off to duties in faraway places.

  The Battle of Midway in June of 1942 was obviously important to ­Japan’s Pacific position. The news reports were quite stirring. Thoughts of dramatic sea battles filled my head for weeks, and it was comforting that the press reported that a U.S. carrier had been sunk while our warships were only slightly damaged. So I was especially excited when I got a note from Yamamura-sensei in September inviting me to a party. Sensei organized the party in honor of Keisuke Mori, who had been four years ahead of me at Matsuchu.

  Keisuke had been in the Navy since his graduation from Matsuchu. He was serving on the aircraft carrier Hiryu during the Battle of Midway. He was home to finish recuperating: he had been burned on his face and his hands. Keisuke’s story of the battle was heartrending. He described how the Hiryu was bombarded, caught fire, went up in flames, and eventually sank. I looked at Keisuke’s injuries, but I couldn’t believe what he was saying. And I simply couldn’t process what he said about the sinking of the three other carriers: the Akagi, the Kaga, and the Soryu. It wasn’t true. It was impossible for the Imperial Navy to be defeated and turn and run. What Keisuke said couldn’t be right—it wasn’t what had been reported; it wasn’t what we had been told and it wasn’t what I was sure, in my heart and in my soul, to be true.

  As my third year at Kosho started in April 1943, I took the physical for the draft and passed. But I was deferred so I could finish my studies. At the oral interview, when I was asked if I preferred the infantry or the cavalry, I had Chestnut in mind as I answered cavalry. And as I walked home I thought too of Mother. In the infantry, I would be drafted into Matsuyama Regiment; for the cavalry, I would go first to Zentsuji, where she was stationed.

  But in just a few weeks, my old dream of the Navy came back again. The Navy announced that it was recruiting a large number of college graduates for the Naval Reserves. The test was at the end of May. The prospect of flying would be a possibility for me in the Naval Reserves. This time I asked Father. I was going into the military no matter what. I might as well take this one last chance for my dream if I could. I knew Father was still reluctant, but he wrote to Mother, and when her answer came, he told me they had agreed that I should try. Half a train car of Kosho students traveled together to Takamatsu to take the exam.

  8. SAM

  Mie, 1943

  Gen had slept late but was in the living room with a cup of coffee when Michiko returned from early morning errands.

  “Gen-chan,” she said, “is there anything you need?”

  “No, Gran, thanks. I’m ready to start again whenever you are.”

  She knelt on the tatami at the entrance to the living room and said, “Let me get these flowers arranged and then we can start.”

  “Anytime, Gran, but I do want to ask you about this Sam guy. I’ve never heard anything about him. Are you sure you want me to read the next chapter? Is it going to get hotter?”

  “Gen-chan, hot is hardly what I’d call what you’ve read so far.”

  “‘That moment shimmers for me still…’ seems pretty hot to me, Gran.”

  “I only saw him once more after he left Matsuyama to join the Navy.”

  “I’m interested in what will come next. And what about Gramps, Gran? What did he think about all of this?”

  “Gen-chan, I didn’t meet your grandfather until the last months of the war. Long after the time you were just reading about.” She turned and picked up flowers that she had spread out on the newspaper she had carried them home in and started arranging them in the tokonoma. Gen could only see her back.

  “Gran, I haven’t talked to you about Gramps since his funeral last year. I miss him.”

  “I know. I do too, my darling.” There was silence until Michiko finished. When she positioned the vase in the tokonoma she turned back to her grandson, got up off her knees, crossed from the tatami room into the living room, picked up her needlework, and said, “What’s next?”

  ———

  I was thinking about President Tanaka as Father and I walked out of the early autumn sunlight and onto the ferry. Just five days earlier, on September 7, 1943, I had stood with six others in the office of the President of Kosho. In August, word had arrived that we were among the very few—fewer than 5,000 of the 70,000 who had taken the special exam in May—who had passed and who were to become Naval Reserve officers. Our graduation from Kosho, scheduled for the next year, had been accelerated by six months because we were headed for formal service to the nation.

  The hastily arranged ceremony was unusual but no real surprise. We were military age. We were strong and healthy. Our country needed us. Glory awaited us.

  “Your diplomas will be sent to your families a little later,” the president said. One of the many details of normal life swept aside; they were just too slow to keep up with the rush of events. He looked each of us in the eye and told us that we should be proud to be Kosho graduates. “All my best wishes for a successful military career. Take care of yourselves, and come home alive.”

  As we filed from his office, I thought of the kindness of this gentle man, of my wonderful experiences at Kosho, and how he didn’t, any more than any of us, believe what he said. Despite his best efforts to be positive, his words were suffused with resignation and melancholy. His sorrow was so close to the surface that his formal demeanor barely masked it.

&nbs
p; Crisis was in the air. There had been news reports that Italy had surrendered to the Allies. Those reports disappeared quickly, but rumors about the war in Europe continued. Each day brought a new one more shocking than the last. The official news focused on the Pacific war, battlefield successes, and civilian efforts to support the military; the stentorian, authoritative voices poured from the radios, backed by stirring martial music. Despite all that, everyone knew that military service was essentially synonymous with certain death. Perhaps that was why it was easy for Mother to get special leave on short notice and come home just to see me off.

  As we approached the benches on the lower deck, Father reached for the bags I was carrying and said, “I’ll find a place for these and save us seats. Why don’t you go up on deck? I’ll join you in a minute.”

  I leaned over the handrail and scanned the crowd on the dock, shading my eyes against the morning sun. My glance moved from Mother’s solid figure to those around her—Kosho friends, as well as buddies from Matsuchu, some Bancho classmates, and neighbors from Yanai-machi. All the adults had the same look on their faces I had seen on President Tanaka’s. By the time Father came to stand beside me, murmuring that he had found a good place to store my bags, the ferry was beginning to move. He raised his hand to wave at Mother, and she and I locked eyes. As the boat pulled me away, I thought that this would be my last sight of her, my last sight of all these dear and familiar friends, and my last sight of Matsuyama. The Inland Sea, which cradled and sustained our city, which was never far from our thoughts, the source of so much of the beauty in our lives, would carry me away. At its other side would be hustle, bustle, challenge, glory—and death. I hoped I looked stoic as they watched me fade from view.