Inheritors

by Asako Serizawa

  At last the sacred mountains of Kyushu, darkened by curfew, broke the monotony of the night. It had been four years since he’d last seen these peaks, and the vista, so different from the festive panorama he remembered, reminded him again of the war’s advancing frontier. How had his parents fared? By now they would’ve given him up for dead, his mother heartbroken, his father cursing the blight that was his only son, and this thought, evoking all the years he’d lived under his father’s disapproval, plucked a nerve and sent a melancholic twang through him. How often had he dreamed of returning, head held high, chest lavishly decorated for the years he’d spent crawling among jungle snakes and leeches to repel the white devils who, with their forked tongues, sweetened their cheapest promises while plundering Asia right under the nose of Japan, their ally in the Great War? What he would’ve given to see his father bowed, his father who’d always belittled his ambition to serve the world the way he, Tanaka, believed to be right. But by the time anyone learned of his contribution to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, he’d be gone, reborn eternally in history.

  December 5, 1944, 09:00

  Their weapon was introduced to them fitted atop a transport cart, its long body tapered at the front, four fins attached to the rear. Measuring 14.6 meters, the Kaiten was an enlarged version of the Navy’s own Type 93, the world’s fastest and longest-ranging torpedo. Boasting a speed of 30 knots and projected to carry a 1.55-ton warhead, a single Kaiten was said to be capable of sinking an aircraft carrier. Walking them to the rear, the commanding naval officer, Sub-Lieutenant Nagai, pointed out the rudders, the two propellers blooming above them like caged flowers: the Kaiten’s diving planes. Explaining its propulsion system, he emphasized its quick launch capability, its impressive range: 23 kilometers at maximum speed, more than twice the range of any enemy torpedo. He showed them the periscope—a 15-meter extension—and invited them to look underneath. There, on the underbelly, was a hatch just large enough for human shoulders to pass through. They straightened.

  “Private First-Class Yamada, Maeda, Tanaka, do you have any compunctions?”

  The soldiers gazed at him; nobody had ever asked about their compunctions.

  “I know you’ve served the Army—no doubt you did so courageously. What I’m asking is, are you ready to join the Navy to defend not just our country but our race from extermination?”

  The men lifted their chests. “Yes, sir, we are.”

  “Are you sure?”

  They glanced at each other, then at the Sub-Lieutenant. What difference would it make? Behind them, the transport cart creaked, and the Kaiten shivered, its black body awaiting its vital component. Tanaka closed his eyes; the jungle’s interlocking hands reached to smother him. “Yes, sir,” they said, almost in unison.

  “Do any of you have familial responsibilities?”

  Yamada sucked in his breath. “No, sir,” he said. Maeda also replied in the negative, but Tanaka hesitated. He was an only child, his family’s sole heir. It was a technicality, and the question no doubt a formality, but his throat locked.

  Sub-Lieutenant Nagai recited the conditions for exemption every soldier knew by heart.

  He lowered his gaze. “Sir, I apologize. I have no responsibilities.”

  Sub-Lieutenant Nagai nodded. For a moment, he looked sympathetic. Then his face emptied. “Training will commence at 08:30. You’ll start in the simulation room and report to me until my own sortie is decided. Yes, that’s right,” he told them. “I’m an officer, but I’ve decided to sortie as well. Dismissed.”

  February 6, 1945, 14:30

  One knock on the hull, and he counted to ten. Despite two months of simulation, live training had a different feel to it, and his hands faltered, the sensation of the moving vessel distracting him. Diving crank, seawater valve. He forced himself to focus. The Kaiten’s golden depth was 15 meters, deep enough to avoid detection but shallow enough for the periscope to poke above the waves. He opened the valve; the Kaiten drilled down. Even here, in the bay’s relative calm, his path was crosshatched with currents. He squeezed the crank, rode the bumps. At 15 meters, he leveled off. Checking his angle, he waited for the water to slacken, then accelerated. The Kaiten leapt; he gripped the lever, but the Kaiten raked the reef, disturbing the ghost of a private whose cracked skull and fractured cockpit had sunk him into irrecoverable depths. Tanaka hung on. The Kaiten hopped, skipped, then lifted. Grabbing his stopwatch, he began counting, sweat ribboning his back.

  Ten minutes later, he raised the periscope. Gray-blue sea. He checked his compass: Where was his target boat? He had seven seconds to look and retract. He swiveled to the right. Nothing but water, white sparkles playing like seabirds. He swiveled to the left. Two warning shots. He swung the periscope. Rocks! He cut the rudders and accelerated. Waves slammed against him. He fought the controls; his tail slid, bumped once, twice, then cleared. Two minutes later, his escort boat found him. A quarter of an hour later, he was on the pier, vomiting, sour scraps of his breakfast pelting the water like flesh.

  March 3, 1945, 17:00

  Victory for the Empire! Four vital hits: a transport, a destroyer, two heavy cruisers. It was good, but everybody wanted an aircraft carrier. He’d pictured it hundreds of times, his dead-center hit blowing up the biggest carrier in the water. He’d imagined the headlines, his dumbstruck parents, his soul enshrined in tragic glory at Yasukuni. All he needed were the coordinates to turn the tide of history. Then there would be nothing: just the sun and sea, the empty waves pebbling an island, all traces of the war gone, only his memory, snagged by rocks, blown about by a forgotten breeze.

  April 12, 1945, 13:00

  In war, information management is paramount.

  But inevitably rumors slip from mouth to mouth. Like the death of Ensign Noguchi, the only Kaiten pilot to return from his mission unlaunched. He’d been discharged honorably, his cause for failure a technical malfunction. But a week on shore, he’d dispatched himself, a soft, unshelled torpedo splayed like a starfish in the rocks below.

  Yamada, Maeda, and Tanaka sneaked out to the cliff edge to keep vigil for Noguchi.

  April 18, 1945, 06:30

  Three cheers for the sortieing pilots! He willed his legs to straighten, snippets of the previous night hurtling back at him. Unaccustomed to the free flow of liquor, his head had spun almost immediately, blurring the hours between the first toast and the pounding sunlight; he’d barely made it to roll call, his head swollen to the size of the largest temple bell in Kyoto. Every New Year it took seventeen monks to ring that bell, and he felt like that bell now, rung by seventeen monks wishing to awaken him. One by one, they tipped back their sake cups. Bowing deeply, they received their short swords, then they were marching down the pier to the I-55, the last of the Imperial submarines to take them out to sea.

  April 22, 1945, 04:30

  Underwater by day, above by night, they zigzagged across the East China Sea, circumventing enemy fleets amassing between Formosa and the North Pacific. Below deck, the submarine crew tunneled through hatches, calling out numbers—air pressure, water pressure, coordinates—as they searched for the cluster of aircraft carriers thought to be headed toward Okinawa. Confined to their quarters, a single cabin outfitted with shelves of bunk beds bolted to the walls, the Kaiten pilots read, played cards, wrote. Yamada stood for the hundredth time and paced. “How long can it take to find a whole fleet of carriers?”

  Maeda, sitting with a book, banged the metal floor. “If you lose your shit now, there’s no way they’re going to launch you. You want to end up like Noguchi?”

  Tanaka, lying in his bunk, stared at the metal ceiling inches from his nose. He was a side sleeper, and rest had become intermittent, his body waking him every time it tried to turn, his shoulders too broad for the space. “We might never find any carriers. Better get used to that idea too.”

  Maeda tossed his book. “Who cares. This war
is over anyway.”

  “Yeah? So why are you still here, then?” Yamada toed Maeda. “Why didn’t you surrender to the white man when you had the chance? They wouldn’t have given two shits about you, but you might’ve made it; they might’ve sent you back home to your ma.”

  Maeda swiped away Yamada’s foot as he stood. A Formosan, he’d been sensitive about his status, rounding up the colonial conscripts on base to fight for their collective respect. He’d gotten it too, brandishing his well-honed Japanese to outcuss anyone who challenged him. “Don’t talk like you care about the war. I know what you are. You’re an opportunist. Lots of guys went after those island girls, but you—you’re actually proud of it. You don’t care about anything except pleasing yourself.”

  Yamada smirked. “Those were some good parties you missed. I guess they reminded you of your sisters, huh, Colonial?”

  “You’re sick,” Maeda said.

  Yamada laughed and flung an arm around his neck. “Come on, I’m an asshole. But don’t say I didn’t tell you. You should’ve surrendered to the white man when you could. As for me and Tanaka?” He drew a finger across his throat.

  Tanaka closed his eyes. What they needed was a cigarette, the feel of fresh wind blowing down the conning tower.

  April 27, 1945, 08:03

  At the edge of the Philippine Sea, 75 meters deep, they picked up a signal moving rapidly toward them. Two escorts, and an unidentified vessel, possibly a cruiser. Unable to accelerate, the captain, risking sea pressure, dived deeper. Through the open density of water, they heard the faint sound of engines; each man gripped the nearest stationary object.

  The first explosions rocked the submarine. The next snapped off the lights. Clinging to the railing, he listened to the shouts, the long list of damages barked over the shockwaves. Another boom, and steam hissed into his face. He dropped to his knees as the floor batted him into a cage of bolted table legs. Scrambling to latch on, he fought the swing of his body, but the floor pitched, and his head rattled like a sack of beans. He let go. A hand caught his wrist, and Yamada, moving like the fisherman he was, reeled him in. Minutes later the depth charges stopped. Two hours later, they surfaced, risking detection for air. On deck, all three Kaiten were astonishingly intact. The crew broke out a bottle of sake: one sip each to celebrate the miracle.

  May 12, 1945, 15:21

  At last the radar lit up, a microexplosion of lines: two long dashes followed by a third, a giant, flanked by many shorter ones. The captain descended to their cabin. With three Kaiten missions under his belt, the pilots’ emotional threshold wasn’t a mystery to him. He tapped the doorframe, and in a gentle, sturdy voice he described the state of the war, the risks and benefits of their options, the flaws and wastefulness of all except one. “Do you understand the importance of your task?” he asked. Yamada clenched his jaw. “We do,” he said. When no protests followed, the captain gripped each of their hands. Three minutes later, the standby sounded.

  May 12, 1945, 15:24

  Stopwatch, flashlight, sea chart. Tanaka took them from his maintenance man. Flipping the light switch, he shimmied up the hatch into his seat. As usual, the air, cold and still, was faintly sour with rust. He buckled himself in. Diving crank, rudder controls, compass. Water grazed his metal skin. He checked the gyroscope, the start bar. All set: he rapped three times. The hatch below him screwed shut. He breathed, letting the first wave of panic break over him.

  At last the captain’s voice echoed through the earpiece. “Kaiten One, get set.” Tanaka raised his periscope to look at Yamada, his long nose prehistoric in the green-black water. Yamada had wanted to be the first to pass Yasukuni’s gates. Tanaka pumped his periscope three times, but Yamada didn’t return the signal. Ten seconds later, Yamada’s engine ignited; bubbles erupted from his tail. Then he was gone.

  “Kaiten Two, prepare.” Tanaka swung his periscope to the right. In the dim water, he could make out the tip of Maeda’s vessel latched just aft of him. Before Noguchi’s suicide, Maeda, a student conscript, had often fought with Noguchi, also a student, about a people’s revolution that would or wouldn’t come out of the war. It had seemed pointless, two Kaiten pilots passionate about a future they’d have no part in, but it had made everyone dream of a different life. He wasn’t sorry when the talk stopped. The cables released, the engine whirred, and the glittery sound of bubbles carried Maeda away.

  “Kaiten Three, prepare. Angle: forty degrees left. Range: ten kilometers. Enemy speed: eighteen knots. Course: two hundred forty degrees. Your target is a destroyer. Run full speed for twenty minutes, then check your position. Good luck. On your count.”

  Ten seconds later, he gripped the start bar and pushed it back.

  May 12, 1945, 16:15

  The ship was enormous. Even at 500 meters, it filled his vision. He panned to the left: no ships, no debris. He panned to the right. Where were they? He could’ve sworn he’d heard the detonations. He straightened his periscope; the destroyer streamed back, larger than a moment ago. He glanced at his stopwatch: time had vanished. He steadied his hands, adjusted his angle. In less than two minutes he’d blast through Yasukuni’s gates. Fear aerated his veins. But out here, in the middle of the ocean, there was only one way to go. He flipped the activation switch and fired the engine to full throttle.

  May 12, 1945, 16:17

  Green sea; sparkles of light; the receding keel of the destroyer. He sat for a moment, staring at the depth meter. 17.5, 17.6, 17.7…He rattled the diving crank; its empty glide plunged his stomach. 18.1, 18.2, 18.3…He slammed the controls. A minute later, he flipped the self-detonation switch.

  May 12, 1945, 16:55

  The Kaiten continued its lonely descent, its one-and-a-half-ton nose towing it down. He pounded the hatch, jiggled the detonation switch. 35.1, 35.2, 35.3…His legs began to twitch, a riot of muscles and nerves. 35.6, 35.7, 35.8…The Kaiten’s estimated crush depth was 400 meters; at his angle and speed, how long would it take to reach it?

  The water crackled and swayed, gently letting him pass.

  May 12, 1945, 17:35

  A soft bump. He looked at the depth meter: 78.9. He pressed his eye to the periscope. The Kaiten had obviously hit a shelf, but with evening inking the water, it was impossible to see. He rattled the rudders. 78.9 meters. He banged the walls. The light blinked off. Shouting, he groped for his flashlight and snapped it on. The dark air swallowed its meager light, and a new fear studded his chest. He thumped the walls, shifted his weight from side to side. 78.9 meters. Outside, the water was a thick black curtain. It shifted and swayed but revealed nothing. A sob welled up in his throat. Then his bladder released.

  May 12, 1945, 18:30

  Submarine I-55, three Kaiten hits! Two destroyers and one transport. Banzai for the Shōwa Emperor!

  Banzai

  Banzai

  Banzai

  May 21, 1945

  As they came to bloody grips with their exotic enemy, Americans were beginning to realize that to the Japanese mind (an entity utterly alien to them in culture and almost as uncontemporary with them as Neanderthal man), the Emperor Hirohito was Japan. In him was embodied the total enemy. He was the Japanese national mind with all its paradoxes—reeking savagery and sensitivity to beauty, frantic fanaticism and patient obedience to authority, brittle rituals and gross vices, habitual discipline and berserk outbursts, obsession with its divine mission and sudden obsession with worldly power….

  —TIME

  August 6, 1945

  “There was a terrific flash of light—even in the daytime….I could see a mushroom of boiling dust…up to 20,000 feet….”

  —Cpt. William S. Parsons, weaponeer, ENOLA GAY

  FIVE

  PASSING

  Once upon a time, there was a fisherman named Urashima Tarō who lived with his aging parents. One day, on the seashore, he came upon a gang of boys bullying a sea turtle and rescue
d it. The next day, when he returned from fishing, he found the turtle waiting with a gift: to take him to Ryūgū-jō, the Dragon Emperor’s Undersea Palace. Clambering atop the turtle, Tarō journeyed deep into the ocean to a wondrous paradise where he was greeted by the enchanting princess Otohime. Time passed blissfully, but on the third day, Tarō, unable to forget his parents, asked to be returned home. Otohime was heartbroken, but pained by his unhappiness, she pressed a keepsake tamatebako into his hand and, cautioning him never to open it, summoned the turtle. When Tarō arrived ashore, he saw immediately that something was different: he recognized no one. Rushing into town, he found everything changed. For days he roamed the unfamiliar streets searching for his home, but nobody knew anything. Eventually he came to a graveyard and learned the truth. Three days undersea had been three hundred years on land, and everyone he knew was dead. Devastated, Tarō flung the tamatebako to the ground. Out poured smoke and ashes, transforming him into an old man.

  * * *

  —

  LUNA WHEELS her carry-on down the branching road to her grandparents’ house. It has been more than two decades since she last visited this rural town in Kanagawa, and despite nine hours aboard a plane across the Pacific, she feels unprepared, the dusty road disorientingly familiar, the winding curve still blind with coniferous trees that incrementally reveal the shallow peak of the roof, the tinted top of the carport, and the quiet face of the house itself, with its sidelight window and stately door, the blue umbrella crock, faintly mossy from years of rain, holding the keys left there for her. The last time she faced this door, she was six and visiting her grandparents with her parents and sister. It was 1986, her grandfather was ill, and despite the tension between her parents, no one—not even her father, Luna believes—knew he’d end up staying behind in Japan and leaving them. Now, twenty-three years later, following a phone call from a Mr. Watanabe notifying the family of her father’s death, Luna, the only one in her family who bothered to learn Japanese, has decided to return to sort the house before demolition.