Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (28 page)

Smith nods and squints with suspicion.

‘And you know all the reports said that two hundred and thirty-one soldiers died, and the others were captured over the next days. And of course they burnt down the huts and they had to then sleep in tents.' Banjo keeps talking to lessen the chance of Smith butting in, but half of his brain is now thinking about Joan. He's worried about spending time in the jailhouse and Joan being alone with the kids. And all of
a sudden he has a vision of Kevin moving in and taking care of his family. He breaks into a sweat. He's gone from calm to almost desperate within minutes and he can see that Smith is getting agitated because he's taking so long.

The other men are looking at Banjo with a mix of confusion and disbelief, and because Banjo is panicking, Sid strays from the plan and declares, ‘There's a Jap here!'

John Smith stands up, clearly angry. ‘What? Where? Here at Erambie?' And he starts looking for his rifle, which everyone at Erambie knows about but thankfully has never seen. ‘Where is the yellow bastard?' He's so loud that Mary hears him and moves to the kitchen door where she listens but can't see anything.

‘Yes, here.' Sid points to ground. ‘He's a soldier. He must've escaped that night, or after, we don't know, but he's here.' Sid is relieved he's said it and repeats, ‘He's here. We found him.'

King Billie's face looks ready to explode so Banjo acts quickly. ‘Actually, John, he found
us
.' Banjo is back on plan and he nods to Fred and Sid. ‘He must've run here, while the others ran in other directions, and . . .' Banjo pauses, taking a deep breath for dramatic effect.

‘And what?' Smith asks.

‘And it looks like he's been hiding here all this time. Found him in our outhouse this morning. Looks the worse for wear, of course. But he's alive, so that's a good thing.'

‘Why is it a good thing, are you mad?' Smith says. ‘A living Jap is
not
a good thing.'

The three Black men are shocked by Smith's response and they're worried he'll find that shotgun and kill Hiroshi himself. Mary starts to shake.

‘Well, it's good he's alive because if you, as the Manager of Erambie, say you found him, and you were going to lead the way in the after-war effort, well I think the
Guardian
might be interested in doing a story on you.'

John Smith sits down again. ‘Go on.'

‘Well, it's meant to be peacetime now. What if you showed the way in terms of peace in this town, a kind of way forward for everyone?' Banjo can see the harshness in King Billie's face softening and knows that his strategy is working. ‘You could make a statement about how we have a duty now to return the Japanese prisoners – who are not really prisoners any more because the war is over – and return him in good condition, unharmed. Not like what we know they did to our POWs over there. This will just prove that we
are
better than the Japanese! Because we all know the Allies are better.' Sid and Fred nod.

Smith is squinting with suspicion at Banjo, not sure that his idea will work, but he doesn't tell Banjo to stop talking.

‘A statement about how peace must start today, and you could use this one prisoner as an example of how to do it. You would be like the leader, a true leader.'

Mary has her ear pressed against the door and she doesn't like the way her father is talking about using Hiroshi, as though he is not a human being with feelings, a man who has already endured the trauma of fighting in New Guinea, before being imprisoned in a military camp and then hidden underground in the dark and damp for over a year. She wants to say something but she can't. She stands silently, hoping Mrs Smith doesn't come home early from her Red Cross meeting.

Banjo looks to Sid and Fred with a frown.

‘I reckon that Sydney paper,
The Telegraph
, would love to write about you,' Fred says, picking up on Banjo's request for backup. ‘And they'd probably take some photos.'

‘Maybe.' Smith shrugs and becomes less angry as the minutes tick by. His own mind is working as fast as Banjo's as he thinks about how this could work well for him. ‘What else were you thinking, just in case I choose not to take this straight to the police, because that's what I should do, you know that, don't you? I am, after all, a law-abiding citizen and I am a good friend of the Mayor, as you would also know. And many of the councillors.' He pauses. ‘But, Banjo, I tell you, it feels like something doesn't sound right here. And if I find out you're lying to me, well, there's no telling what the Welfare Board will do to you.'

Banjo has small beads of sweat on his brow and is starting to feel a little nauseous. While they have all been part of the plot, he's never told so many lies straight-faced or straight to someone's face before.

‘What if . . .' Sid butts in. ‘What if we have a shindig for the one who got away? I mean, a shindig for the one who you found!' he says excitedly, pointing at the Manager.

‘I'm the good guy, then?' Smith asks, and the men can see his mind ticking over. ‘I can see the headline now: J
OHN
S
MITH
G
IVES A
H
OME TO A
J
AP
.' He shakes his head. ‘No, that won't work, I can't be seen as a Jap lover, that won't win me any friends. I hate the Japs. Most people in town hate the Japs.'

‘Or,' Sid says, ‘maybe something like, J
OHN
S
MITH
G
IVES A
H
OME TO
S
OMEONE
W
HO
U
SED TO BE THE
E
NEMY
.'

Smith screws his face up, but Fred has a better idea, ‘Or, what about M
ISSION
M
ANAGER TO
S
TART
P
EACE
P
ROCESS
H
IMSELF
?'

‘Oh, I like that, that's a good one,' Smith says.

Fred smiles because he knows they all need to make King Billie happy about what they have done. But the truth is the three men feel sick at the lengths they're going to so that they aren't thrown into the lockup and Hiroshi isn't just thrown back into the thick of the military camp. Although none of them know him, they understand that the choice they made to take him in originally means they have a responsibility for his welfare until the end.

‘Mary!' Smith calls out.

Mary's stuck where she stands behind the kitchen door, frozen with the reality that Hiroshi is about to be made public and returned to Japan. Everything is suddenly out of her control. Emotions overwhelm her and she feels dizzy.

‘Mary!' Smith calls again. ‘Your daughter needs more discipline,' he says to Banjo, who has completely forgotten, in the midst of everything, that his daughter is here somewhere, working.

‘Mary!' he calls one more time, and the girl appears. ‘I need my best shirt and suit cleaned and pressed for photos.'

‘Yes, sir,' she says without looking at her father or the other men. Her head is spinning, her heart is hurting, tears are welling, and she feels flushed and sick.

Banjo doesn't like the way Smith speaks to Mary, but he is exhausted from the charade and can't summon the words to deal with the Manager any more. And what would he say anyway? Sid is right, the Blacks never tell the whites what to do.

Smith stands up. ‘Where is the Jap now, then? Is he chained up? I should meet the yellow bastard, I guess. You need to get his name, and does he speak English?'

‘We've got him locked up in the air raid shelter down the back of my lot,' Banjo says. ‘We got his name out of him. And he said thank you when we gave him some damper.'

‘Right, leave him there.' Smith paces as he thinks. ‘That's a good place to keep a prisoner. But we probably can't have him looking sick for the cameras. I am a generous man, you know, I need to have him looking half-decent, because we aren't cruel like the Japs. I don't want him here, but I'll get the wife to make some food and send it over with your girl. When she's finished here, of course.'

There are so many things wrong with Smith wanting to feed Hiroshi but no one comments. As far as all the men are concerned, they've saved their tails, made life a little easier for Hiroshi and got King Billie on side for the time being. They all know he could turn at any minute, but they will cross that bridge if and when they come to it.

When the children are in bed and most locals are inside, Banjo, Joan and Mary welcome Hiroshi back into the world with little ceremony. Mary goes to the shelter to fetch him.

‘We're letting you out!' Mary says. There's fear in her voice.

‘What do you mean? Hiroshi asks.

‘Tonight, we're letting you out. My dad told the Manager about you. It's time for you to come up and . . .' She bursts
into tears and rushes to his embrace. ‘I don't want you to leave. I don't want you down here, but I don't want you to go away.' Her heart is beating so fast and hard Hiroshi can feel it.

Hiroshi has spent months waiting for the moment of release and now it is upon him, he shakes with nervousness. He is not ready for what he will face in the coming days and weeks. All he can think about is the impact freedom will have on his senses. He wants to hear the unfiltered sounds of cockatoos and kookaburras like he did back at the camp, when he sat outside in the mornings. The barking owl that the men would all complain about because it sounded like a screaming woman will now be music to his ears. Having lived with only the muffled sounds of life above ground, and the regular sound of his breathing and Mary's voice for so long has challenged him mentally, taking him almost to the brink of insanity.

Mary wipes tears from her face. ‘Come,' she says, taking his hand to walk to the ladder.

Hiroshi takes each rung cautiously and nervously. He knows as he climbs this time it will be the last.

Mary emerges from the dark of the bunker, followed by Hiroshi. He climbs out slowly, seeing the stars in the night sky, and he knows the day ahead will be clear; there will be sunshine and a blue sky that has been missing from his sight for too long. He wants to see the sun rise and set and to feel the breeze on his skin. He doesn't care that the air will be hot, it will be fresh and not filled with his own odour, which he has had to endure for months in the bunker.

In the dark of night, Hiroshi can't see the lush green of the grass that has grown with recent rainfall, but he can smell it.
And he can smell the sweetness of spring. He breathes deeply, and he inhales his new freedom. Freedom is seeing the stars, smelling the land, hearing the wildlife and touching the woman he loves. And she is there, anxious, conscious of her behaviour in front of her parents. Aware that as much as she wants to throw her arms around Hiroshi, she can't.

It is an awkward moment for all of them. No one knows how to behave; Hiroshi doesn't know how to react. He wonders if the same awkwardness will greet him when he gets home.

‘Clean clothes for you,' Joan says as if she's a nurse speaking to a patient. She hands Hiroshi some folded clothes: fresh shirt and pants, shoes and socks. ‘You can wash over there.' She points to the tub the family wash in, which Banjo has strung a hessian sheet around for privacy. ‘We live up there,' she adds, ‘and you can come and have something to eat with us when you are ready.'

It seems like an eternity before he is standing at their door. He knocks gently and waits for someone to answer. The children are asleep and Mary leads him into the kitchen. They all sit drinking tea for a while and eat damper and treacle. Hiroshi and Mary strain not to look at each other; he feeling guilty for falling in love with the daughter of the family who rescued him, she feeling scared of what her parents will do.

‘Well, it's time for bed, Mary,' Banjo says. He has not told Fred and Sid or their wives what he is doing tonight for fear of overwhelming Hiroshi, and because they'd all agreed to keep him locked up. ‘Big day tomorrow, with Hiroshi being interviewed for the paper. I need to talk to him about that, so he knows what to say.'

Mary takes some time before she nods; she doesn't want to leave. Hiroshi looks up and meets her eye. A grin takes over her face.

Joan sees the spark between the two and knows this is not going to end well for her daughter. She gets up with Mary.

As the women leave the room, Mary turns back once more and throws a tiny wave, her heart racing but glad at the thought that her love will be sleeping in the front room tonight, while she squeezes in with James and her sisters.

Hiroshi listens to Banjo talk about Mr Smith, the story the men concocted, and what the newspaper will probably ask him.

‘Keep your answers short,' Banjo advises, ‘do you understand?'

Hiroshi nods. ‘Yes, I understand.'

‘Your English is very good.'