Dark Lanterns

by Zoe Drake

  But she did know it would be a good start.

  March, 1945.

  Through the tumbledown streets of downtown Tokyo, the children were walking home. It was late in the evening, and the winding, narrow roads were almost empty of pedestrians. A few merchants creaked past, on bicycles laden with wicker baskets carrying unsold goods. The acrid fumes of one of the charcoal-fuelled cars passing nearby were carried to them by a chill, stinging wind.

  The three boys' legs, bare and chicken-fleshed below the skimpy school shorts, looked sticklike through malnutrition. Their faces beneath the peaked, military-style school caps were pinched and fatigued. They had lived so long with hunger that they could no longer tell it from nausea. The girl, Taeko, was tall for her age of ten, her wrists poking from the sleeves of her navy blue sailor-suit uniform. She was a head taller than the two eight-year-old boys, Hideo and Yoshi, and almost at eye-level with the lanky eleven-year-old, Shunsuke.

  As they walked, they listlessly played catch with an otedama, a homemade bean-bag filled with pebbles. Their weekly games of tennis and baseball had long since been forbidden — as unwanted foreign influences - and their exercise now was morning outdoor calisthenics performed in time to the radio.

  "Boy's Day," Shunsuke was complaining, "I can't believe it. We've only just got over Girl's Day, and now we have to plan the Boy's Day celebrations."

  "Yes, but you get to practice the archery, and the fencing, and things," Taeko said patiently. "Lots more to do than on Girl's Day. There always is."

  "Yeah, but it means more school. Almost every night. Even in the air raids, we have to go to the underground classrooms. It's too much."

  Yoshi shot quick, nervous glances toward the older boy. He respected Shunsuke; his quick temper meant he often got angry, but it also meant he was the first to react when something needed doing. But the teachers told them repeatedly that the word of the Emperor was always to be obeyed. Never to be questioned or doubted. And sometimes what Shunsuke said was, Yoshi was sure, not what the teachers said they ought to be thinking.

  "We need archery and fencing, though," Hideo said abruptly. "The Americans are coming, and we can't stop them."

  "Hideo!"

  "Well, it's true. You're not in my homeroom, so you didn't hear what Maeda-sensei said. He said that if the Americans come, we have to be very brave. We have to stay here and fight in front of our houses until the last man gives his life for the Emperor." He recited the phrases quickly, and evenly - as every child had been instructed to memorize the lines so, earlier in the day.

  A frown creased itself on Yoshi's brow. "My father said in his letter if the Americans come, we're all going to be evacuated to Nagano, and make a stand there, below the mountains."

  He had spoken without thinking, surprised by Hideo's words, and now the two other boys turned scornful faces towards him.

  "Nagano?" sneered Shunsuke. "What a stupid idea."

  "Are you calling me a liar? Are you calling Maeda-sensei a liar?"

  Receiving no answer, Shunsuke thumped the younger boy high up on his forearm with a small but stone-like fist. "Oi, I'm talking to you. They can't both be right, can they? Maeda-sensei and your father."

  "Yes, they can," Yoshi said breathlessly, bowing his head to avoid the punches that came when Shunsuke's blood was up.

  "What? What did you say?"

  Yoshi's frown deepened. He was taking a leap further into the dark with each answer. "Maybe there are different kinds of right, one for fathers, one for teachers."

  A moment's silence, and then the sharpness of Shunsuke's laughter ricocheted off the walls of the houses herding them in. The others were quick to follow suit.

  "You're funny, Yoshi," Shunsuke said, still giggling, "Yeah, you're really funny."

  Taeko reached out to tousle Yoshi's hair, and the boy turned his face away to hide his blushing. Taeko had short hair, even shorter than the regulation cut for girls, but it seemed to make her look even prettier, to go well with the fine nose and wide lips, the long eyelashes. Yoshi looked at them shyly and thought about butterflies. Taeko always wore a plastic butterfly hairclip to hold back her fringe.

  "So, are we just going to keep arguing?" Taeko said slyly, turning to Shunsuke. "Or are we going to play a game?"

  *

  August, the present day.

  The construction site lay at the heart of downtown Tokyo. A place of bare, clayish earth, ruddy like skin rubbed raw, it was spotted here and there with stubborn grass and stones. Pale yellow Komatsu earthmovers slumbered over to one side, near a row of prefabricated cabins. The site was bordered on one side by the leaden, modular high-rises that had materialized over the years, in the former residential areas. The overspill of corporations that had finally been beaten out of the uptown district by falling profits, their windows reflecting the blinding light of the merciless summer sun. A large tent, the front flap of an entrance pulled back and decorated with wreaths of flowers, with signs painted in flowing, calligraphic Japanese, stood incongruously in the site's center.

  Near the gateway to the main road, between two of the crew's prefabricated cabins, Kenichi Minamoto was seated on one of the square gun-metal boxes that had been left outside. He could have been just another of the hard-hatted workmen on duty that morning, stopping for a cigarette or an early morning lunch. The overalls, however, concealed a slightly faded business suit, and his roundish, thirtyish face lacked the weathering that came froma laboring job. The softness of the skin of his hands, playing nervously with a packet of Caster Milds, would have instantly given him away on closer inspection. Minamoto hoped that he wouldn't have to hang around until that happened, however, and scanned the driveway where the cars came and went, waiting for his prey.

  It wasn't long before he made his move. The morning had seen a steady flow of expensive cars through the gate, with chauffeurs escorting the occupants to the tent. Now a flurry of activity and expectant shouts near the entrance led Minamoto to hurriedly stamp out his cigarette. As he stood up, a black limousine glided carefully down the muddy and gravel-strewn tracks into the heart of the site. He squinted against the glare of the sun, but the windows of the car were specially darkened, giving nothing away. It must be him, he thought.

  Emerging from the gap between the two cabins, Minamoto trudged along in his overalls, swinging a clipboard nonchalantly in his hand. The limousine had stopped, and a few nondescript men in suits were getting out. One of them opened the rear door and bowed as Tetsuo Kasai stepped out onto the site that he owned.

  Kasai squinted, his eyes adjusting to the sun's glare after the underwater shadows of the limousine. Seizing his chance, Minamoto stepped boldly up to the small knot of people around the car and removed his hard-hat. "Mr. Kasai ... this is very rude of me, but ... I was wondering if I could have a word with you."

  The anonymous suits tensed. For a moment, Kasai held the same look of outrage as his men, and then, as familiarity struck home, his features softened into a wily grin. "Well, well ... it's young Minamoto, isn't it? Those overalls are a bit of a change for you. Aren't they paying you enough at the Yomiuri?"

  Kasai's laughter broke the tension in the humid air, his men following him after a second's delay. To Minamoto's ears, their laughter was as mirthless as the calls of crows.

  Telling his men to begin preparations in the tent, Kasai beckoned to Minamoto to follow him. Despite his fearsome reputation, he didn't look like a typical construction magnate, didn't have the sleazy atmosphere of Yakuza cool that most rich Japanese businessmen affected - the arrogant stare, the quick temper, the insect-like morals. Kasai smiled easily, his crooked teeth showing in a sallow face, his hands nicotine-stained beneath the expensive manicured nails. He pulled out a soft packet of Seven Stars and offered one to Minamoto, walking beside him.

  "I thought you might try to get in today. I thought, that is exactly the sort of thing I can expect from a journalist like young Minamoto. Except the overalls, of course." He blew smoke into the air as
Minamoto watched him unsmilingly, the hard-hat held under his arm like a soldier's cap, his boots crunching against the fragments of debris that they were walking through.

  "Can I ask you," Kasai began again, his smile melting now into the bright coldness like the smoke from his Seven Stars, "What did you expect to happen to this place? The memorial garden idea was voted out by not just the local ward office, but also turned down by the ministry itself. What did you expect us to do?"

  "Perhaps waiting until your court case for corruption is concluded might be an idea worthy of consideration."

  Kasai made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "You know, Minamoto, I keep telling you, I only tolerate you out of respect for your father. The fact that you're still here, and haven't had the feel of my workmen's boots on your proud little rump as you leave, shows how much of a debt I still owe him. Your father understood, you see. He understood how the press clubs worked. He understood how Tokyo worked. If there were things that had to be done, if there was progress that had to be made, there was no point in asking questions that might be ... awkward."

  Minamoto listened, his jaw silently working.

  "You youngsters ..." Kasai paused, thought for a moment and then began again. "Look, Minamoto, people don't want to be reminded of what happened here. They've had over ten years to think about it. People don't want the 'venerable idea of a memorial garden', because they'd rather forget what happened. Get back to work. Breath a sigh of relief, because the past is now the past."

  "Until it happens again," Minamoto commented quietly. "That's what really concerns people, Mr. Kasai. Yes, of course, they want to forget it. But more than that, they want to know that kind of stupidity won't lead to more people dying in the future."

  Kasai stopped walking, turned round and finally looked Minamoto in the eye. "You talk to me about the past, and the future. I think you'd better stay for the ceremony. After that, you can talk about whether I care or not. You can report on whether I'm doing my job or not. You'll have to do something about these, of course," he said, lightly tapping the journalist's overall's, "I only hope you've got a suit under there. I don't want you to make a bad impression with our special guest. You might not have seen him when you were skulking around the site, he got here early this morning, before anyone else, in fact, and he's been preparing ever since."

  Kasai reached out a hand to point at the tent. The central flap opened as someone pushed it away from the inside.

  "Ah, here he is now."

  *

  Hide and seek was Yoshi's favorite game.

  He was the same age as Hideo, but shorter and thinner, so the number of hiding places he could squeeze himself into was comparatively much wider. He trotted through the half-lit alleyways, down gaps between wooden houses where his shoulders almost brushed against each wall, through gardens where he skipped over the dried hollows of ornamental ponds, passing silently through the vegetable patches behind the local shrines.

  "Mo ii-yo?" - "Are you ready?" he heard Taeko's lilting voice calling, carried by a cold wind that seemed to be gaining strength. "Mada da-yo," he called back, "Not yet," changing the direction of his flight. That was one of the best parts of the game. Giving the call and answer, trying to throw the hunters off the scent.

  As he ran, Yoshi thought frantically of where he could hide. Maybe one of the local bomb-shelters, but that was too obvious. All of his little gang had tried that. He could clamber up one of the houses and hide on the tiled roof, but he'd tried that a few times, too. About the only places he'd never hidden in at all were the two canals that crisscrossed each other near the neighborhood they all lived in.

  Yoshi stopped sharply in his tracks. He couldn't hide in the canal. But he might be able to hide on the canal . . .

  Cutting to the left, Yoshi ran headlong past the row of shuttered shops, coming quickly to the murky, slow-flowing canal. He was in luck; there was a boat there. A low barge. He could just make out the hand-painted sign of the tonarigumi - the neighborhood fire-fighters. And there was a hatch left open invitingly. He lowered himself down into the barge without a second thought, and hurriedly closed the hatch cover.

  Huddled in the damp sweat-smelling darkness, Yoshi felt the edges of a coarse blanket nearby, and pulled it over him, for warmth rather than concealment. Moments later, he heard Taeko's voice, calling in the distance. "Mo ii-yo?" Then Shunsuke's voice, deeper, commanding, holding a hint of puzzlement.

  "Mo ii-yo?"

  Yoshi stiffened when he heard it answered by the howl of an air-raid siren.

  *

  The figure stood by the entrance to the tent, standing and turning in the direction of Minamoto and the construction magnate, hesitating, as if his weak eyes were readjusting to the sunlight's glare. Yoshitaka Akiyama. The chief priest of the Shinto Shrine of Shibahiko, swathed in his official white robes, the kariginu kimono, the baggy white fabric sweeping from his shoulders down to the ankles showing above archaic wooden sandals. His thin, gnarled hands poked from the kimono's voluminous sleeves. Upon his head he wore the black conical hat that signified his rank as Chief Priest, and the kimono's fabric was shot through with the embroidered spiral motifs of the Shinto divinities.

  He approached the two men, picking his way carefully on wooden geta sandals across puddles and potholes. As he grew closer, Minamoto recognized the face from the newspaper's photo files, the face the colour of old wood, the deep creases around his mouth and cheeks, the thick bifocals resting upon his thin nose. As he joined the two, he smiled curiously at the journalist in greeting.

  "I can't express my apologies enough to you, Akiyama-sensei," said Kasai, "but it seems that we have an unexpected quest for today's ceremony. Let me introduce Mr. Minamoto, who will be joining us in the tent."

  The reporter and the priest exchanged slow, formal bows.

  "There is no trouble at all in another person joining us. The rules of Shinto are not as strict as you might remember, Mr. Minamoto. "

  "It is a great honor to be part of your ceremony," Minamoto said carefully. "After all, the chief priest of this area must have great emotional ties to it."

  "That's true." The priest lifted a kimono-laden sleeve, a bony hand sliding from beneath the fabric to point outwards at the site, and the skyscrapers beyond. "I was born here, Mr. Minamoto, and I chose to return here roughly ten years ago. I've belonged to one shrine or another all of my adult life, and at length I realized that this is where I had to be. Where it all began."

  "There've been reports of mysterious lights in the sky, above this site. Have you ever seen anything like that yourself?"

  Before Minamoto had finished asking the question, Kasai held up an arm across the reporter's chest, as if to shield the priest from bad influences. "You mustn't listen too much to young Minamoto," the magnate growled. "He's seen too many American TV dramas."

  "Is it also true that several years ago, you performed an exorcism on this site?"

  The priest's smile refused to waver. He nodded his head slightly, the dark cone of the hat tipping forward and back. "That depends on what you mean by exorcism. Yes, I appealed to the spirits that died here, to calm them, to try to find where ... they are supposed to be. But there's more to exorcism than that. In Japan, ghost lights have been said since ancient times to be the shades of the restless dead. There has been tragedy, here, that much is certain."

  Akiyama gestured at the churned ground in front of him again, this time his hands making slow, esoteric signs as they indicated a corner here, a mound there. "We can clean the land, but we fail to clean our souls. That's where the true pollution lies. If we don't learn, then whatever we build, however grand or gorgeous it may be, however far it reaches up to the heavens, it will be grounded in the muck of corruption, and it will fall. "

  The priest paused. Kasai stared at him, unsmiling, apparently speechless, whether with anger or surprise Minamoto could not tell. "Mr. Kasai," The priest said silkily, "would you object if Mr. Minamoto and I had a word toget
her ... alone?"

  Kasai's eyes widened even further. Turning on his heel, he stalked off towards the tent, pulling his Seven Stars out of his suit pocket. "The ceremony starts at twelve exactly," he called back over his shoulder. "There'll be no delay in the schedule."

  "Akiyama-sensei," Minamoto began once Kasai was out of earshot, "let me apologize for my conduct. I didn't mean - "

  The priest gestured for silence. "You have offended no-one. Men like Kasai will carry on, despite what people say or do to them. Men like Kasai say, 'I am here, because I have a job to do,' and they cannot see beyond that. You, however, are a different matter. I know that you're asking the questions that need to be asked. You see, Mr. Minamoto, you think you have come here today of your own free will. You have not. All of us - you, me, and Kasai - have been summoned here."

  Minamoto stared at the priest, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "So ... you seem to agree that Kasai shouldn't build anything at all here. But are you still going to conduct the ceremony?"

  "I am indeed. There's nobody else who could do it. This is a troubled area, Mr. Minamoto, with many sad memories. It's like a fault line causing earthquakes that stretches beneath the ground; but it stretches further than anyone realizes. You see, the New Sakura Hotel was not the first fire to bring tragedy here. In the old days, fires were so common, they were known as the Flowers of Edo."

  "I'm familiar with the Edo period," Minamoto said, becoming increasingly confused. "But a fault line ... under this area ... I'm not sure that I -"

  The priest turned away, with a sad smile. ""Mr. Kasai is getting impatient. Let us begin the ceremony."

  *

  The air-raid siren rose in pitch, and stayed here, a mournful wail breaking the city's fitful silence. It was followed a moment later by a man's harsh, amplified voice, echoing through the streets, telling the residents that this was not an exercise, enemy fighters had been spotted crossing the Japanese coast.