by Jay Rubin
“I survived through sheer luck. No one knew where to run, and I just happened to pick a route that was less devastated by the flames. The hair was singed off the back of my head, and I had a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise I came through all right. It took me three days to make my way to Chiba, but once I joined my family there, I stayed until the war was over.
“My wife and sister had recovered from their wounds by then, but the situation with the baby was worse than ever. The two women never spoke to each other, and my mother-in-law had to set up a daily schedule stipulating who would do what for Mineko at what times. Mitsuko never went back on her promise to give us the baby, but the experience of having saved the child’s life in the bombing had only served to increase her attachment.
“Things continued like this for a few more months. Then, near the end of June, a letter made it through to us from Ichiro in Nagasaki. It contained nothing unusual, but it mentioned, almost casually, that my parents were feeling poorly and that Ichiro’s wife could use Mitsuko’s help with them and the children. It was not a direct request for Mitsuko to come home, more a kind of vague wish that things could be different. But I leaped on it, and from that day on, I wouldn’t leave Mitsuko alone. I kept badgering her about her duty to her parents and pointing out that this was the perfect opportunity for her finally to break her ties with Mineko, who was fifteen months old by then.
“The two of us never crossed paths in the house that I didn’t remind her of these things. And, frankly, I had never reconciled myself to the circumstances of her pregnancy. I couldn’t help feeling that the more she was around the baby, the more her immorality was likely to rub off. She had given us her treasure, and now she was of no use to us. Worse, she might be causing positive harm.
“Having no idea what difficulties she would encounter travelling from one end of the bomb-ravaged country to the other, I sent her out on her own. She left on the seventeenth of July, and we never heard from her again. The bomb fell on Nagasaki on August ninth. After the surrender on the fifteenth, I traveled to Nagasaki, through mile after mile of death and destruction, but when I got there, nothing was left. My family had been wiped off the face of the earth. I found a little mound of ashes where it seemed their house had been, but there was no point in trying to recover it. The ashes could have been anything—other people, a dog, a tree.
“Ever since, I have lived with the knowledge that I killed my sister. In the hopes of consoling Mitsuko’s spirit, we have tried to raise Mineko with all the love and care that her own mother would have lavished on her had she lived. Perhaps this has made us even more protective than ordinary parents. I do not know. I can only declare to you, Mineko, that we have always meant well for you and have never forgotten the obligation we feel toward my sister and her memory. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive us for having concealed the truth from you all these years.
“After what we experienced, it is very difficult for us to reconcile ourselves to the fact that our daughter has chosen to marry an American. Perhaps we will never be able to accept it fully. If, as you say, Mitsuko was devoted to you as a child, perhaps she would not have felt our misgivings. Perhaps we should rejoice that fate has brought together the two children she could not have. If this is truly the case, then perhaps, some day, our hearts will open to you.”
All heads were bowed when Fukai finished speaking, his eyes closed, as if reliving the horror and pain. His wife sobbed openly and Mineko wept quietly into a handkerchief. Bill felt a deep sadness that, he knew, would burst forth as tears if he tried to speak. He listened to the sounds of children playing in the nearby fields.
Mineko was the first to speak, thanking her father for having told her the true story of her birth, and assuring both parents that her feelings for them were now, if anything, deeper than before. “But there is something we must tell you—something Bill must tell you, because he feels it with more certainty than I do.”
Mrs. Fukai was still too overwhelmed with emotion to do more than glance up at Mineko and bow her head again immediately. Fukai himself opened his eyes and looked at her, then Bill, expectantly.
“Your sister is alive,” Bill said with quiet assurance. “You don’t know for certain that she was in Nagasaki at the time of the bomb.”
“I understand your wishful thinking. That thought haunted me for years, both as a dream and as a nightmare. I kept praying that she would present herself to us in forgiveness, but I feared, too, that she might wish to claim Mineko for herself. It has not been easy living with such conflicting emotions.”
“You may not have to anymore. You can be sure that she did not die in Nagasaki.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps she was in Hiroshima on the sixth. Perhaps her train was passing through Kobe when fire bombs destroyed that city. During the confusion following the surrender, it took me only three days to reach Nagasaki. Yes, the trains were in a more chaotic state while the bombs were falling, but she had over three weeks to cover the same distance. I cannot believe she is alive. She would have found her way back to us.”
“My husband is telling the truth,” Mineko said. “I saw her, Father.”
Both her parents looked at her, eyes full of pain and wonder. Mineko took the two mirrors, hers and Bill’s, from her purse, and explained where they had come from. Then she showed them the photograph of Mitsuko holding the young Bill, which Yoshiko had let them take. “And when you told us about the bombing of our house, it ended any lingering doubts I might have had,” she said. “The woman who came to see me had a small scar on her lip. On the right side, like a red swelling.”
“Yes.” said Mrs. Fukai. “The impact of the bomb made her bite into her lip. Most of the scar was on the inside. Only one end showed.”
“But where has she been all these years?” objected Fukai.
“I don’t know,” his wife cried, “but one thing is certain: we must find her!”
“We spent a day in Nagasaki,” said Bill, “but we came up with nothing. We went through City Hall records, checked the phone books, visited the A-Bomb Museum.”
“The Museum was just ghastly,” added Mineko with a shudder.
Fukai said, “I would give anything to see her alive. But how? She obviously doesn’t want to be found.”
“We’re not giving up,” said Bill. “But first, Mineko, we’re going to have to get you a passport.”
37
MINEKO NEEDED NOT ONLY a Japanese government-issue passport but a full-sized chest X-ray in order to be admitted through United States immigration in Seattle. She couldn’t help giggling as she hoisted the enormous manila envelope over the turnstile.
“It’s almost as big as you are,” Bill said, grinning, as he put his arm around her.
They were no longer smiling as they pushed open the last door leading out to the airport’s reception area. Bill immediately spotted Frank Sano among the crowd of greeters. Frank glanced at him, then locked eyes on Mineko. She clutched Bill’s hand and looked at him, her eyes full of fear.
“Don’t worry,” Bill said. “He’s a wonderful man.”
Frank was wearing a dark brown suit and glossy gray tie, and Bill guessed that he had spent hours agonizing over what to wear, what to say to his daughter.
The crowd of passengers brushed past them as their pace slowed. Frank took one step in their direction and stopped. He held his hand out toward Mineko, who tightened her grip on Bill’s hand.
Bill took another step in Frank’s direction, drawing Mineko along. Head bowed, she came to a stop before Frank. Then she looked directly at him and said, “Musume no Mineko desu. Dohzo yoroshiku o-negai itashimasu.”
Frank seemed to know enough Japanese to realize that Mineko was introducing herself to him as his daughter. He brought his extended hand to his face and pressed hard against his eyes. Then he lowered his hand and said, “Chichi desu. Aitakatta.”
“Frank, I’m impressed,” Bill said.
Frank smiled. “That may be all the Japanese sh
e’s going to get out of me,” he said with a chuckle. He held his hand out to Mineko again, and this time she took it.
“Let’s get our bags,” Bill said, “and then we can go someplace to talk.”
They went to Frank’s spacious apartment on Beacon Hill. Mineko looked at the framed picture of Frank and some of his Nisei buddies in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team hanging over the fireplace.
“That was before Bruyéres,” Frank said. “In France. We took Hill C from the Germans, but they took it back again. It’s where I lost my arm.”
“Did it hurt very much?” Mineko asked.
“Not as much as losing the hill did. But don’t get me started.”
Mineko looked at Bill. “Get me started?”
“Let’s sit down and talk,” Bill said. “I’m sure he’ll give you the whole story.”
Speaking slowly for Mineko, Frank told them about his early life and the wartime relocation and his love and loss of Mitsuko. Bill was thrilled to see the two of them drawing closer, and when the story got into familiar territory, he decided to leave them alone for a while.
“Mind if I borrow your car, Frank? I’ve got a little errand to run.”
“It’s no DeSoto,” Frank said with a grin.
“I’ll settle for the Chrysler,” Bill countered.
Frank tossed him the keys and turned back to Mineko, who flashed Bill a reassuring smile.
Bill had driven no more than two blocks before he spotted a phone booth. He had not spoken with his father since the day he graduated from college—over three years now without so much as a postcard. He wondered if his father had heard anything about his graduate career at the University of Washington, or whether he knew that Bill had left for Japan despite his dire warnings.
Half expecting that his father would slam the phone down when he heard his voice, Bill dropped the coin into the slot and dialed the number he still had engraved on his brain.
The phone rang once, twice, three times, and Bill felt his heart pounding in his chest.
“Hello?” The voice was familiar but more weathered than Bill remembered.
“It’s me. Bill.”
Now was when the crash should come. But there was only silence.
“I’m in Seattle.”
“I thought you were in Japan.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew. Are you coming over?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I think I do.”
“I’ll be alone.”
“Well … I assumed that.”
“I mean, I have a wife now, but I’m leaving her at a friend’s house.”
“You brought a wife back from Japan? Is she …”
“Yes, she’s Japanese. Her name is Mineko.”
“Is she Christian at least?”
“No. And there’s not much of that left in me, either.”
“I was afraid of that.” Another long silence. Then his father said, “I’ll be here. Also alone.”
The drive from Beacon Hill to Magnolia Bluff ended far too quickly. The Olympics soared over Puget Sound, and as he climbed the front steps of the house, Bill turned to see the familiar double peak of The Brothers. The door opened before he had a chance to knock, and a grim-looking Thomas Morton stood there, looking shrunken and bent. He was only fifty-five years old, but something had aged him terribly.
Bill could not hide his shock.
“I haven’t been well,” Thomas Morton said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to keel over while you’re here. Come in.”
Bill had not been expecting humor from his father, even of the gallows variety. He followed his father through the dining room. Bill had last seen the dining table filled with casseroles and plates of tuna salad and deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies amassed to celebrate his college graduation, but now it was covered with jumbled piles of mail and newspapers, the once glossy wood dull under a layer of greasy dust. The place had a musty smell. In the old days, the house had always smelled of bacon or fresh bread.
They settled in the living room, Bill on the worn red sofa, Tom in the easy chair on the other side of the crookedly placed coffee table, which held more precarious-looking piles of mail and magazines.
As if he knew what Bill was thinking, Tom said, “I’m the only one who lives here now. Kevin’s already in his second year at Cascade-Pacific. Lucy took Mark and left me almost a year ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He meant it. Lucy had tried her best to be a mother to him, and she had been the bright spot of the household. It was his own fault that he had not been able to respond to her with the affection she longed to share.
Tom said, “I wasn’t much fun to live with. She stuck with me through my illness, but I had too many ghosts hanging around me.”
“Ghosts?”
“You start to see them when you’ve got nothing to do but lie in bed all day.”
Bill assumed that one of the “ghosts” was the woman he was searching for.
“How long have you been married?” Tom asked.
“A little over a month now.”
“I wish I could say congratulations.”
“At least you’re honest about it.”
“I’ve gotten a lot more honest in my old age. I’ve thought a lot about you. About you and …”
“Mitsuko?”
“Yes. Mitsuko.” He sighed. “There, I said it. I haven’t spoken that name for twenty years. Maybe we would still be married if the war hadn’t happened. You would have grown up in a very different household. But I didn’t have the strength to resist everything that was going on. This country was so full of hate, and I let it get to me. It took me a long time to see that. I’m still wrestling with it.”
Bill had come here expecting his father to be as self-righteous as ever, but what he was hearing now seemed to be verging on a confession.
“Facing death makes you see things in a new light,” Tom added.
“You were that sick?” Bill asked.
“It did a job on me, but I’ll be around for a while. I just hope … you’ll be my son again.”
“I’d like that,” Bill said, swallowing hard. “I really would like that.”
Beyond the living room window came the cries of gulls flying over the bluff.
“Are you back from Japan for good?” Tom asked.
“No, I still have a lot more to do there. I’ve been trying to find Mitsuko.” He was not ready to tell his father that his new wife was Mitsuko’s daughter. “For a while, I thought she had died in Nagasaki.”
“Nagasaki? What was she doing there?”
“Her whole family was there. All but her brother Jiro.”
Tom looked up at the sound of the name.
“Yes, I met him. He told me he came here before the war. He even remembered me. What was I—two years old?”
“That was a very unpleasant visit.”
“So I understand.”
“But you say you thought Mitsuko died in Nagasaki, and now you don’t?”
“I’m almost certain she survived the war. It’s just that we have so little to go on. I was hoping you might have some clue.”
“I wish I could help you. As deeply as I was involved with the Japanese community here, I knew very little about her Japanese roots or even about Japan itself. Her name was Mitsuko Fukai, and she came from somewhere in the south of Japan, a little village, I thought. She went to a mission school, and she came here to stay with her sister Yoshiko after a failed marriage. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”
His father seemed truly sorry that he could not be of any help. For a long time, he sat slumped in his chair, head bowed. Bill had never seen him looking so defeated.
When Tom raised his head, his eyes seemed to be focused somewhere far away. “Let me just say this. If you do find her—and I hope you do—please tell her for me …”
Bill waited. His father was obviously struggling with something deep inside.
“Just tell
her I’m sorry. That’s all. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say it any better than that.”
“I’ll tell her,” Bill said. “I promise.”
Tom heaved a sigh, and stared off at The Brothers. “You know, before you go back to Japan,” he said at last, “you ought to talk to Emery Andrews. The Reverend Emery Andrews of the Japanese Baptist Church. He stuck with his congregation all through the war. He even took his family out to Idaho to live near that camp, Minidoka, to minister to his people. I used to despise him in those days. I was glad to hear the F.B.I. was investigating him for aiding enemy aliens. I can hardly believe it now, to hear myself say that. He was an incredible man, a real servant of God. I’m afraid I’ve been something far less. But the reason I think you should talk to him is that, after the war, he went to Japan—twice, I think—with the pacifist Floyd Schmoe. They built houses for people in Hiroshima—and in Nagasaki.”
Bill stood to leave, and Tom followed him to the front door. Bill turned to say goodbye, and before he knew it he was shocked to find himself in his father’s arms. His father never hugged him. Never.
PART SIX:
1963
38
AS THE PATIENTS IN the ward gathered around the television set, the mayor’s voice was drowned out in the shuffle of slippers and creaking of chairs. One of the patients said, “Miss Wada, could you please make it louder?”
Miss Wada reached up to adjust the volume, but she barely glanced at the glowing image of the man on the podium.
“World peace,” he was saying. “Pray for the eternal repose of the atomic bomb victims,” he was saying.
Lord, spare me these platitudes. She walked down to the other end of the ward, looking for something useful to do.
Every August ninth, at 11:02 in the morning, the mayor of Nagasaki and other dignitaries would stand in front of that muscle-bound monument with its finger pointing to the sky. They would say how terrible it had been, and make promises that such a thing would never be allowed to happen again. They would solemnly offer flowers, and there would be songs and prayers, and then it would be all over for another year.