by Steve Bein
After his bath he went straight to bed. It was useless. He could not sleep. He listened to his father and Hayano chattering in the bathroom, heard his mother’s snores in the next room. At least she was sleeping well.
After a while Hayano came in, walking on her little toes, with one hand on the wall for balance. She slipped under her covers as quietly as she could, so cute he could not help but smile. “Hayano.”
“Oh! Sorry, Keiji-san.”
“Don’t worry; I wasn’t asleep. Hayano, come here, please.”
She crawled up next to him. “Hayano-chan, I want you to tell me what happens if I take Tiger on the Mountain away from the Intelligence building.”
“It falls down,” she said. “It gets all wrecked. And someday Japan loses the war.”
Keiji frowned at that. He hadn’t even realized a child her age could understand the concept of war, especially not one fought thousands of kilometers away, one in which the motherland itself saw no fighting at all. It wasn’t as if Hayano could read the newspapers.
She’s a goze, he reminded himself. “Are you sure? Japan loses the war?”
“There are lots of endings to the war. But if your building falls down, all the winning endings go away.”
How could that be? There were countless Intelligence offices, more than Keiji could count. How could the fall of one building result in losing the war? “You’re certain?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hayano, I need to go after Colonel Iwasaki. He’s the one with the sword that sings.”
“I know who he is.”
“I had it in mind to bring my sword with me,” Keiji said. “I’ve got a hunch that Iwasaki may be willing to face me if I offer to fight him sword to sword. Can you see that, Hayano? Can you see a future where I fight him?”
“I don’t think people fight with swords anymore, Keiji-san.”
“I know. I just think he’s crazy enough to do it. He thinks he’s a modern-day samurai. Hell, maybe I’m the one who thinks that. I don’t know who’s crazy anymore.” Keiji rubbed his eyes. “All I know is, I think you can see how things will go if I bring my sword and how they’ll go if I don’t. What should I do, Hayano? What can you see?”
Hayano wrinkled her face. “Only the tiger can kill the singing lady. But if the tiger leaves, its home will fall, and the tree spirit will make everything else fall down. The tiger has to fight the tree spirit or fight the lady; it can’t do both anymore.”
Keiji closed his eyes. Can’t do both anymore. Not since Keiji ignored his little goze. Not since he let Iwasaki get away.
But in his mind the wheels were turning. He would not let Japan lose her honor, nor would he let her lose the war. There was a way he could save the POWs in Bataan and still use his Inazuma sword to protect his duty station. There was a way because there had to be one. He just had to see it.
67
The weather at the air base in Okinawa could not have been more beautiful. Tokyo’s April had been a gray, dreary, drizzling mess, but the Okinawan skies were clear and blue, the sun warm, the ocean breeze crisp. Tall palms whisked and whispered in the wind, and the oily stink of hot aircraft engines was blown away and replaced with scents of salt and sea foam.
Keiji ambled back and forth along the long wall of the hangar, enjoying the sunshine. There were plenty of places he might sit, but he would be sitting soon enough, and for a long time, so he paced. Inside the hangar, technicians and crewmen were completing all the requisite preflight diagnostics. Outside, uniformed soldiers joshed with each other in groups of three and four. There were hundreds of them, all Keiji’s age and younger. They wore heavy packs and rifles on their backs, playful smiles on most of their faces, and they chatted and joked and sparred to work off nervous energy. The flight to the Philippines would depart in half an hour’s time and these young men were going to war.
“Lieutenant,” a voice said behind him. Keiji turned, expecting to see one of the soldiers. Instead he came face-to-face with one of the air base personnel; the tan uniform was the same, but there was no pack on this one’s back. The man was panting; a constellation of beaded sweat shone on his forehead.
“Yes?”
“Sir,” the man said, breathless, “I’m so glad I found you. There’s been a mistake. Your deployment orders. They’re wrong.”
Keiji withdrew a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and showed it to the man. “It says here I’m due to fly to Bataan. Colonel Iwasaki’s orders.”
“That’s just it, sir. There was a clerical error. Colonel Iwasaki was deployed to Bataan; his orders were signed by a Lieutenant Kiyama in Intelligence. Obviously that couldn’t have been you, sir, or you’d have seen the error. Here it says it was you, Kiyama, deployed by Iwasaki, and not the other way around. There must have been some sort of transcription error.”
“Ah,” said Keiji.
“In any case, sir, a General Matsumori in Tokyo caught the mistake and wired a message just now. You’re to report back to Tokyo on the next available aircraft.”
The man stood with an expectant smile on his face, still sweating from what must have been a desperate run. Keiji wondered what the odds were of this man finding him among the hundreds of uniforms milling about. On any other day Keiji might have been impressed by the meticulous efficiency of this feat. Today it was all he could do to suppress a groan. Another few minutes and the deception could not have been corrected. Men were lining up to board even now. A few minutes more and he would have been airborne.
“Good news, right, sir? You’re not going to the front.”
“Er,” Keiji said, looking at that expectant smile, “perhaps I should fly anyhow? I’d hate for this to be another clerical error.”
“No, sir. The general’s message was most specific. You are Lieutenant Kiyama Keiji, Army Intelligence, aren’t you?”
To lie was to invite a court-martial. “Yes,” he said.
The next flight to Tokyo was two days later. Keiji was on it.
68
Keiji returned home to an alarming surprise. Hayano ran to the door to greet him, her little feet flapping against the tatami. Nothing unpredictable there; he’d asked his father to take care of her before he’d arranged for himself to be deployed to Bataan. The surprise came when he entered his mother’s bedroom.
Tiger on the Mountain lay beside her. His mother lay still, her face sweating but serene, and he knelt down and stroked her forehead.
“Keiji,” she said, her voice stronger than he’d expected. She smiled up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about this beautiful sword of yours?”
“It never came up.” He found her hand and squeezed her thin fingers. “General Itō gave it to me when I graduated. He’s a collector, I think. I’m told he gives one sword a year as a gift.”
“My son.” Her smile widened, her eyes disappearing into folds. “That was a wonderful honor. You should have told me.”
“You were sick.”
“Well, I’m still sick, and I’m still proud of you.” She patted his cheek.
“Mom, how did the sword get here? I left it at my post.”
“A man from your unit delivered it. Oh, Keiji, don’t ever forget anything there again. Your father and I were worried sick when we saw a man in uniform coming to the house. We thought something terrible had happened.”
“I’m all right, Mom.”
“Well, I know that now, don’t I? Oh, Kei-kun, we feared the worst.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” He squeezed her hand again. “Do you mind if I take the sword back? I should go in to report.”
“Of course, dear. It is a beautiful one, isn’t it? Reminds me of my grandfather’s.”
Keiji kissed her forehead and took the sword.
In the next moment noise consumed the world.
An explosion shook the ground like an earthquake. Then came another, and another. Keiji’s bones quaked in his chest. He crouched over his mother, certain the ceiling would collapse at any moment. There wa
s the crackle of fire outside, and splintering wood, and the distant hum of propellers.
Air raid. But how? The thoughts whirled through Keiji’s mind at typhoon speed. The American fleet was much too far to carry out a raid. His father and Hayano were somewhere in the house. No noise from them. Were they alive? Did the Americans have a new kind of bomber Army Intelligence hadn’t discovered yet? It would have to have unthinkably long range to strike Tokyo. Screaming in the street mixed with dogs barking and the rushing, crumbling clamor of a house caving in. Why weren’t his father and Hayano making any noise? China. An American fleet could land there after a raid and wouldn’t need the long range for a return flight. Why weren’t they making any noise?
The whir of the propellers faded. No more explosions came. Keiji got up, realized for the first time that his mother was crying, rushed to the shoji and slid it open.
The house was unscathed. His father sat beside the low dining table, Hayano clutched to him, she hugging him back. It was obvious from the way their hands gripped each other that she was comforting him, that he was clinging to her as a drowning man might cling to a floating spar. Her face was calm, her muscles relaxed, and she seemed to be looking at the sheathed sword in Keiji’s hand.
The sword. It protected the house, just as it had done for the butcher’s shop. Just as it was supposed to have done for the Intelligence building, which was why he’d left it there in the first place when he tried to follow Iwasaki. There was no point in hurrying now. He knew what he’d find when he arrived.
Keiji did what he could to fight the fires on his parents’ street, and when those were doused he worked his way toward the Intelligence building. He joined in bucket brigades along the way, and pulled fallen roof timbers off of injured children, and clamped his palms down on bleeding wounds while those with lesser injuries limped away in search of clean cloth. By the time he reached his post the sun had long since set. Only the surrounding fires lit the bombed-out shell of the Intelligence building.
In truth the building was in far better shape than Keiji had expected. Fully half of it still stood. The eastern half—the half where his office had once been—was a gaping crater toothed with the jagged concrete edges of what used to be walls. The building was no longer burning, but vertical black stripes showed where the smoke had poured out. Keiji thought they looked like war paint.
The analogy made him laugh out loud. It was all so hopeless. The stars were shining as they always did, and nothing and everything was different. His hometown was a target. His hometown had been bombed. He couldn’t grasp the enormity of that simple idea. Scores of people died in Tokyo today, he thought, and more died yesterday and more will die tomorrow. But today is different, because yesterday they died of old age and sickness and traffic accidents, and today they died under the bombs of the enemy. Old age and sickness and traffic would have taken their toll today as well, but yesterday there were no bombs.
And Hayano had said if the Intelligence building was destroyed, Japan would lose the war. Now it was half-gone. What did that mean? Would the empire half lose? Was half a building a destroyed building or only half-destroyed? How was he to read his latest failure?
Keiji couldn’t answer any of those questions, so he reported for duty. He could not find General Matsumori, but a captain on the scene reprimanded Keiji for being late and sent him to help the fire brigade. Keiji considered saying he was late because he’d been doing that very thing, but then he thought better of it.
He spotted a chain of people passing sloshing buckets toward a building wreathed in smoke, so he picked his way through the debris to join them.
“Kiyama,” a gruff voice said behind him. “You’re just in time.”
Keiji turned to see Matsumori standing in the back of a puttering T95. “So, Lieutenant, did you enjoy Okinawa?”
Keiji started to answer but the general cut him off. “I’ve convened the Intelligence boys over there.” Matsumori pointed to an inn across the rubble-strewn road. “Hurry up.”
The recon car rumbled away. Keiji ran to the inn as quickly as he could.
General Matsumori had already begun his speech when Keiji slipped through the front door. “We already have men at work,” he was saying, “making every effort to minimize the damage of this raid. The truth is, this was a desperate stroke. I expect it was aimed more at the hearts of our people than at the emperor’s war effort.
“But the Americans got lucky. They can’t have known our building housed His Majesty’s plans for securing the Pacific. Their target was probably the factory district on the other side of the river. But they got lucky, damn them. We lost two good men today, but only two. The real loss was information.”
Matsumori closed his eyes, breathed, opened them again. “Take a moment to remember our fallen. Lieutenants Okada and Sayakawa will be missed. But the mission comes first. You are soldiers; your duty is to forget them now, forget the losses to our city, and concentrate on your work. Our nation’s success in this war hinges on success in the Pacific, gentlemen, and right now His Majesty’s plans for securing the South Pacific light the street in a thousand scattered little fires. We move forward on Tulagi. We move forward on Guadalcanal. It is up to you to recall those plans as best you can, and to work quickly to fill in whatever gaps are left. Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes sir!” the intelligence men cried in unison.
“I have commandeered this inn for our use. Next door is a stationery store, not too badly burned in the raid. I have commandeered it as well. Take whatever dry paper you can find. Take pens and ink and whatever else you need. Then write down everything—everything—you can remember about your work these past days and weeks. Victory is still within reach, gentlemen. We will work through the night if we must.”
“Sir, yes sir!” they said, Keiji with them.
At a nod from the general the intelligence officers scattered. Matsumori fixed Keiji with his gaze and said, “Not you, Lieutenant. Come here.”
Keiji obeyed. “I won’t work under a civilian roof when so much of our own remains standing,” said the general. “You’ll find me a room in our building and make it spotless. By morning I want a functional office. And you’ll report there first thing.”
69
Not bad,” General Matsumori said the following morning, his eyes roving the room. It was in the southwest corner overlooking the atrium, its tall windows blown out, a light breeze wafting through them. The lightbulbs were blown out too, of course, which hardly mattered since the electrical service had also been destroyed in the bombing. Keiji had swept all the broken glass into the corridor the night before, where for all he knew it still lay in a gray dusty heap, waiting for someone to brush it into a dustbin. He’d labored until oh four hundred hours, then reported back at oh six thirty bleary-eyed and seeing little of his immediate surroundings.
Two small oil lamps did what they could to light the room. They stood on the big steel table that served for the moment as Matsumori’s desk. The general sat on the desk, legs dangling, his belly curving like a pregnant woman’s over his belt. He was halfway toward his usual state of informal dress: his jacket and sword were already removed, but his cap still perched on his closely shaven head and his pistol was at his hip. “We could have used you last week, Kiyama. You’re a man with attention to detail. What was all that nonsense about being deployed to the Philippines? You should have spoken up, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So? Why didn’t you speak up for yourself? Stupid, flying all the way down to Okinawa just so you could fly back. It was your idea, invading the Solomons, and then you disappear for over a week. What were you thinking?”
Keiji’s eyes itched. He was sure they were red. He stifled a yawn and pinched his fingernails into his palms to wake himself. Should I tell him the truth, he wondered, or make something up? You’re too tired to lie, came the answer in his mind. And another answer, too: The truth will get you a court martial. Come up with something, you fool.
“I said, what were you thinking, Lieutenant?”
“Sorry, sir.” Keiji looked at the empty window frames, then back at the general. “Permission to speak frankly?”
“Permission? Hell, consider it an order.”
“Sir, do you remember the little blind girl? The one Colonel Iwasaki attacked?” And he took the plunge.
By the time Keiji had finished his story, Matsumori was sitting behind the steel table with his hands folded behind his head. “Kiyama,” the general said, “where were you when the bombers hit?”
“At home, sir. That is, at my parents’ house.”
“How is the folks’ house? Roof fall in? Anything like that?”
“No, sir.”
“And that’s because of this sword of yours, is it?”
“I believe so, sir.”
Kiyama lit a cigarette. “Too bad. I was hoping you’d tell me a roof beam fell and hit you on the head. All this time I’ve been waiting for some reason—any reason at all, really—to believe I should have you thrown in the hospital instead of the brig. You’re telling me you deserted your post—scratch that: you forged documents, then deserted your post—to hunt down a decorated officer of this army and murder him? All because a crippled street urchin told you a fairy tale?”
Keiji swallowed and clenched his folded hands behind his back.
“Well? Answer me, Lieutenant! You’re telling me you abandoned your post, what, ten days ago, because you believe this damned blind girl can see the future?”
“I…Well, that would be one way to put it, sir.”
“Oh? Maybe you’d like to tell me another way to put it. Maybe some way you’d put this in a positive light? Because as I see it, you’re either criminally negligent or criminally insane. I thought you had a bright future, Kiyama. Your mentor apparently thought so too—but then I don’t imagine General Itō knew he was giving you a magic sword, did he?”
“No, sir.”
“Shut up. You know what my favorite part of this story is? It’s that you were going to try to kill Colonel Iwasaki because he’s doing his job. He’s on the front lines of this war, Kiyama, and you wanted to fly halfway around the world to challenge him to a duel—a duel!—so you could keep him from killing the enemy.”