He used to believe, when he was young, that the blood
of his ancestors, which animated his body and which would animate the bodies of his
children and their children too, was immortal. When he first learned to use the rabbit-hair
brush and deep carbon inksan to form the ancient calligraphy into haiku,
he knew that his grandfather a thousand times removed lived in his soul. He drew
the same characters on the same rice parchment, with the same brush handed down a
thousand generations. He worshipped the same gods of his family's creation and offered
the same offerings on holy feast days. Perhaps he could not remember the particulars
of that thousand-fold grandfather life, but it could not have been much changed.
He knew, and all around him knew, that he was his thousand times removed grandfather
reincarnated. Everything was the same, from the plot of land that the houses of the
clan were erected on an eon ago, to the name passed down like a treasured heirloom,
Sakura.
At university he learned about the world beyond the Empire
and did not wonder that it might have changed a thousand times in ten thousand years.
Populations shifted, governments changed, but the Earth is a constant and all else
merely a construct of mind. It was a comfort to know in those days, that one had
lived before and would, most assuredly live again. That one unquestionably never
stopped living, but rested now and again, as a bird alights on a roof-top before
he soars off into the skies. For that is what a bird is all about, and what it does
best--is precisely, it's reason for being.
He used to know what his reason for being was, when he dipped the fat brush into
the fragrant black pool of ink and slipped it out again, neatly pointed and quivering
with the tension of unreleased characters. He had been an honored poet, one of the
last employed by the Empire, an elite, with soft hands and delicate sensibility.
The early trips to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka were brilliant little gems in his life,
of which his grandchildren a thousand times removed would know about, talk about
and retravel too. That was what he used to think. These days he thought that immortality
was a fiction invented for the young, so that they would not feel cheated and believe
that since all was for nothing, why strive? If one lived only once there would be
little reason to build or learn, and only the basest reasons to procreate. If there
were no yesterday or tomorrow why not simply enjoy today? This, Sakura believed,
was the trouble with the West.
The ride from Tokyo to Hiroshima took six hours by train. It
was only an hour by plane, but Sakura could not bring himself to board a flimsy aircraft.
His business associates, younger than he, laughed at him and said, "Sakura,
you would rather be like a snake that sees only the dirt and leaves in front of its'
face! You would rather shed your skin and lose what time you have by crawling, than
fly like a bird and be there in no time!" It didn't bother Sakura, for he had
found in his life, many dead birds, had occasionally kicked up a bit of debris only
to see that it was the rotting corpse of a blue-jay, cobalt wing feathers still intact.
He had never in his life, not ever, happened across a dead snake. He would crawl
to Hiroshima and be immortal for another six hours.
Thousand times removed grandfather would not have recognized Hiroshima. Would have
had trouble recognizing the faces in the streets, and would have wondered at the
still unrepaired war memorial. That building would never be repaired, for the bureaucrats
in Tokyo believed that a devastated building was a far more effective reminder than
a statue or a plaque. There were these, too, more even than a tour operator could
remember. Sakura would have preferred to rip down the old building altogether, shatter
the statues and meld down the plaques. He would have the citizens wear Kabuki
masks, each lacquered and delicately painted with the same familiar face.
Returning to Hiroshima from Tokyo became more difficult each time. He was always coming back. When he was in a hotel room in Tokyo he dreamt dreams of Old Hiroshima. When he was home, he was anxious to return to Tokyo so that he could dream Hiroshima as it used to be and longed to return in comfort. Hiroshima only existed when he was in Tokyo. There was one business trip remaining before he retired, and then he would wake up every morning in Hiroshima, and face the reality of the city his wife, Okoma, and his son Jiro. Jiro, the son who remained forever home, was nearly forty. When he was born in 1946 they prayed he would die. For a while there was great interest in him and the other children who were born that way. In 1954 a group of Japanese parents and their afflicted offspring had made a momentous trip to New York. They showed their children to millions of people on television. See what your bomb has done? See how we have been affected that even our seed remains contaminated? There were gasps and groans and guilt and beating of breasts, but the American parents whispered thanks that they had not been born Japanese. The Japanese parents took their children home with them, proud that they had made an impact on the world, consoled that they were fated to be the peacemakers for eternity for surely this would never, ever ever happen again. Then. Today, Jiro was an embarrassing remnant of war, to be avoided. He might live to be a hundred but he could not be supported forever by the circumstances of his birth.
Every day Sakura examined his own body for some malignant change.
He watched the whites of his eyes as if something would grow in front of him. He
as afraid of cancer, radiation, micro-waves, warts, flue -- he would not put his
ear directly to a telephone for the noise made him nervous, so he held it an inch
away and listened carefully. Sakura did not believe that he had escaped unscathed,
in the middle of the city when the bomb fell, while his son, safe in his mother's
womb five kilometres away, was born the way he was. Sakura picked his way across
the city, confused because the landmarks had disappeared. He passed reservoirs that
looked like some giant's grisly pot of stew full of human remains bobbing in thick
red gruel. At firs he thought Makurazaki, the demonic wind had blown across
all of Japan. Then, many days later he learned it had been a bomb! He wandered about
for days trying to locate his house, but it seemed as if all The land itself had
ceased to exist, it was so changed. When he finally found the little pile of splinters
that had stood for countless generations he could only sit in the rubble and cry.
Foolishly, he thought it would still be standing and Okoma would be safe inside.
Hiroshima was rebuilt, but Sakura became hibakusha, a reluctant survivor,
a wretched man who even now sifts through the rubble of his life searching for his
past.
When he could stand again he searched the debris until he found a wide gray board
and a splintered stick. There was a bundle of black rain that he mixed with a handful
of ashes. He used this splintered stick as he would use the brush and carefully painted
his name on the board. Then he painted his wife's name and the message that he would
return to the spot in three days. He stood the board on end in a pile of rocks, fixed
the spot in his memory, and shuffled out of the city. He should have never returned!
His eyes avoided the memorials, the school children, the bridge. He walked on new,
brilliant white pavement and wondered who was beneath it. He passed the water towers
and thought they had been built too high. When he reached his house, he was pleased
that it was still standing, for he would never take that for granted again.
In the courtyard Okoma had laid out a plate of firm little mushi dumplings
and mugs of tea brisk with plum wine. When they believed it was the evil wind Makurazaki
that devastated Hiroshima, people believed that the Earth itself was killed and that
nothing would ever grow from it again. The following Spring when tiny, defiant shoots
of green struggled up out of the burnt Earth, there was a carnival of rejoicing.
Kamikaze, the good divine wind, had brought magic cleansing rains that washed
the radiation away. Thanks to Kamikaze, the little garden was as robust and
vital as Eden, lush with fat, droopy yellow roses and espaliered cherry. It was a
shame that Kamikaze could not do as much for Okoma. When Jiro was born she
cried, but had hopes for other children. There were never more children though, and
Jiro in turn became all the more dear to her. There was no question that he would
not marry. Even the families of daughters, "The Flowers of Hiroshima,"
were afraid of the next generation, and had counseled them against breeding. Especially
with one so affected as Jiro. So he would not breed flesh and blood children, but
children of ink, bold, black characters on rice parchment. He was, like his thousand
times removed grandfather and his father too, a poet. But in this modern world without
an Empire there was no room for pets. Behind the keloid mask Jiro's eyes burned.
He was a brilliant poet and a fine artist. This was bitter justice to Sakura whose
career ended when the bomb was dropped. Oh, when it was a war with conventional weapons
he wrote most exquisitely -- of the strength and fierceness of the Empire, of the
pride and intellect of his race. Afterward he could not exorcise the image of the
tiny blue flames that lingered over each corpse awaiting cremation. He thought it
was the soul waiting to escape the bodies -- he thought they were all living in Buddhist
Hell, suffering for the sins of the nation. The rabbit-hair brush did not hold characters
enough for that so he was left mute. The bomb had not only cheated him, it had cheated
his ancestors and deprived them all of any future. He wished again, that poor, sterile
Jiro had died.
Okoma was a young, pregnant woman that bright summer day in
1945. She was well out of the city, on he way to visit her parents in Kure when it
happened. It was brighter than a hundred suns and she fought with herself. GO on
to Kure or return to Hiroshima? The bus driver fought with her, did she expect to
get her money back? Finally, Okoma began walking back to Hiroshima. She got as far
as the river and stopped. An army of naked, sexless people were shuffling out of
the city, with long strips of their own flesh trailing eerily behind them, like shrouds.
She scanned each fragment of a face hoping that one of them would be Sakura, but
if one was, she could not recognize hi. She sat on her heels by the river, awake
all night, and still the army came. Those with mouths left to speak with pitifully
mewled for water. Others fell face first into the river, never to surface. Others
walked and walked until they dropped or disappeared into the distance. Some fell
at her feet and she inched carefully away from them -- not too far, because she didn't
want to miss Sakura. There was neither man nor woman among them, these newly dead.
Just pieces.
When the stream of stragglers dwindled the following day, Okoma became brave enough
to cross the bridge and enter the city. It was raining, an evil, black rain that
made the fires sputter and smolder. All of Hiroshima was hissing and gray. She believed
she must be the only one left alive and a tug at her heart told her to retreat to
Kure, where Hiroshima would be safe again. Sakura must be dead, and if he were not,
she stood virtually no chance of finding him. Perhaps because she was a bride still,
or was carrying his child, or simply because she was made that way, of Samurai
caste, Okoma continued, searching for what was left of her home. The delight
she felt when she found the message from Sakura was incongruous. She would not wait
though, and hastily scrawled back that she would be at her parent's home. Relieved
that something had been accomplished, she hurried out of the city and was amazed
to discover government trucks at the river bank. She rode home to Kure in luxury,
after spending seventy-two ours in the city.
Sakura and Okoma greeted each other joyously, as they did each time he returned from Tokyo. The steaming mushi dumplings were Sakura's favorite and his wife took pleasure in his smile. She made a holiday of his return by dressing in a traditional kimono, instead of the slacks she preferred. For a few moments they were alone, and Jiro waited inside patiently, to greet his father. He was the last of his thousand times removed grandfather's lineage. His parents had been of the fortunate very few that had found one another and reconciled after the war. When news of the bomb finally trickled out of Tokyo, all of Japan was in shock. Over one million people had been killed outright, children, mothers, old ones, even American prisoners of war. Included in that count were all of Sakura's family -- parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of them. Of Okoma's family there remained her parents and one sister. If there were other survivors, they had been scattered to the wind, lost in the bowels of Tokyo or Kawasaki. There had recently been a great even on television, a call-in show wherein survivors of the explosion told thier stories over the air. It was broadcast all over Japan, in California and new York too. These people cried out to the cameras over three continents is my bother among the faceless millions who watch? Has anyone memory of or knowledge of my parents who lived at such and such a place? Many were reunited through this great event. Those who were exclaimed it was like the dead come back to life. Okoma and Sakura watched too, and silently congratulated those who won this lottery. There were not enough winners, and Sakura sat in front of the television for the two weeks of the broadcast, hoping to hear his name. Perhaps, he consoled himself, some member of his family was like him and only watched, afraid to participate. That would be just like his brother, he thought. In fact, he convinced himself this was so. He could keep them all alive this way.
The bomb was as removed from Jiro's life as the Mongul Invasion that grandfather a thousand times removed lived through, both buried deep in history. And it as the same divine wind, Kamikaze, that drove the invaders back over the mountains and washed away the deadly radiation. Everything was the same. Jiro knew what Sakura did not. That the immortality of his ancestors lived in the rabbit-hair brush and the deep carbon inksan that would never change. He greeted his father with all due courtesy, and presented to him his latest poem.