by Masuji Ibuse
“What’s up?” I called. He swung round, but glanced at me unseeingly and started running towards the kitchen. Everything about him—the way he clutched his working cap in his hand, the stiff, awkward way he broke into a run—told me that something was very wrong.
I walked along the corridor towards the canteen. A stream of workers passed me, their expressions grimmer than I had ever seen them before. Some of the male hands were crying. Some of the girls had covered their faces with their work hats. One of a group of several factory girls making their way back to their dormitory had her arm around her companion’s shoulder and was saying soothingly, “Don’t cry, dear! There won’t be any more raids now, will there?”
Tears started into my own eyes. Ashamed to be seen weeping, I stopped to wash my hands at the stone washbasin by the entrance to the canteen. A middle-aged kitchen helper who had just finished setting the table came up to me. “Oh Mr. Shizuma,” she began, bowing formally in the manner of one who offers condolences, “I really don’t know what to say at a time like this. You know, I may not be much—I’m only a poor old woman—but I feel so sad, and so angry….I don’t want….” Her voice faltered. “Oh dear….”
For all that, she was not crying. My own tears had dried up, too. If the truth be told, I suspect they had not been tears genuinely shed for that moment—that moment, shortly after noon, on a particular day of a particular month—but for something quite different. They reminded me of the time when I was very small, and used to go out to play around our house. At those times I was often tormented by a village lout, almost a half-wit, called Yōichi, but I would never let myself weep in front of him. No—I would run home instead, and badger my mother into baring her breast for me; and it was only then, at the sight of that familiar haven, that I burst into tears at last. Even now, I can still remember the salty taste of her milk. The tears I shed were tears of relief, and I believe that my tears this day were of the same kind.
In the canteen, a bare twenty or so people were at the table, including the manager and staff members. All were getting on in years, and they sat still and silent, like rows of stone Buddhas. A young kitchen helper was standing with a cloth in her hand, beneath the short curtain that hung over the entrance to the kitchen, looking as though she had just been reprimanded.
“Mr. Fujita—I got those papers done at last,” I said, lowering myself into a seat opposite him. “It seems it’s surrender, doesn’t it?”
“It looks like it,” he replied with unexpected crispness. “The Emperor just broadcast a message. The radio’s not working properly, though. One of the hands tried to adjust it, but the more he tinkered with it the worse it got, and we couldn’t hear very well. But it seems like surrender, all right.”
The bowls of boiled barley with bran were all dry on top, and the flies were gathering on them. There were some shellfish stewed in soy, and they were collecting flies, too. Nobody moved to shoo the flies away.
“Well, everybody,” said the manager with forced heartiness. “Let’s cheer up and eat, shall we? Hey, miss—bring us some pickled plums, will you? Count them before you bring them so that there’s enough for three each all around. By tomorrow, the enemy forces may be in charge of the works, and then I shan’t have any say in these matters.”
Nobody said anything, but the manager picked up his chopsticks, so we all followed suit. We each got three pickled plums. Following the manager’s example, I put my three on top of the boiled barley, poured tea over the lot, and stirred it well with my chopsticks before eating. Halfway through, as I was pouring in more tea, I saw there was only one plum in the bottom of the bowl. The other two had disappeared. I had no recollection of spitting out the stones, and I couldn’t have eaten them without at least some faint recollection of doing so. In short, I must have swallowed them whole with the barley. I ran my hand over my throat, but there was no sign of anything stuck. They were on the large side, too….
After the meal, a factory hand called Yoda suddenly claimed that the Imperial broadcast had been an exhortation to the nation to fight still harder. Everyone looked tense for a while, and neither the manager nor the staff members made any move to leave the table. Then, abruptly, somebody shouted, “Irresponsible rumor!” Encouraged by this, an official from the works section called Nakanishi declared that he had heard His Majesty say quite distinctly, “Should hostilities continue any further, the final result….”
“Me too,” said the manager. “I’m not absolutely sure, but I must say that’s how it sounded to me.”
Two or three of the others confirmed that that was what His Majesty had said. If they were right, no amount of imagination could turn it into a call to fight harder. Finally, everybody agreed that Japan had really been defeated. The defeat was confirmed over the radio at five that afternoon. (A printed copy of the Imperial message that I saw later said:
“The enemy is using a new and savage bomb to kill and maim innocent victims and inflict incalculable damage. Moreover, should hostilities continue any further, the final result would be to bring about not only the annihilation of the Japanese race, but the destruction of human civilization as a whole….”)
I fetched the papers from the office to the canteen and had the manager stamp them with his seal. In fact, now that we had lost the war, a factory making clothing for the military had no reason left for existence. Nor was there any point in my going to Kai Station.
“Where shall I keep these documents?” I asked the manager. “I’ll take them and put them in the safe,” he said. “Remember I’ve got them, now.” He took them from me, and left the table.
I too left the canteen and, passing through the emergency exit, went into the back courtyard to take one more look at the baby eels on their way upstream. This time, I approached the canal particularly carefully, treading gently so as to make no noise. But now not a single baby eel was in sight, and the waters of the stream ran clear and empty.
—
The transcription of the “Journal of the Bombing” was finished. Nothing remained but to read it over and give it a cardboard cover.
The following afternoon, Shigematsu went to inspect the hatchery ponds. The aiko were coming along well, and in a shallow corner of the larger pond some water weed was growing. Shōkichi had probably planted it there; he must have got it from the Benten pond at Shiroyama. Its oval, shiny green leaves dotted the surface of the water, and from their midst rose a slender stalk on which a small, dark purple flower was in bloom.
Shigematsu looked up. “If a rainbow appears over those hills now, a miracle will happen,” he prophesied to himself. “Let a rainbow appear—not a white one, but one of many hues—and Yasuko will be cured.”
So he told himself, with his eyes on the nearby hills, though he knew all the while it could never come true.