Hiroshima (21 page)

At the end of the year, on New Year's Eve, Mom said, “It's bad luck to be lazy and see in the New Year with laundry undone.” And standing in the cold wind at the common hydrant, she toiled away at the laundry.

I Go to Tokyo

The next day, exhausted from drawing New Year's signs, I was at work. A phone call came for me, informing me, “Your mother's collapsed.” In a daze, I rushed home on my bike. I found Mom collapsed atop the living room mats and, thinking it strange, asked, “Why not put her on a mattress?” A neighbor said, “She collapsed of cerebral hemorrhage, from being exposed to the cold wind. If we move her, there's a danger that blood vessels in her brain will rupture. Better leave her like this.” The doctor came, and four of us picked her up and moved her to a mattress.

Mom slept on, snoring hugely, as if expelling anger at the world. The doctor said, “Tonight's the critical period,” and left. I'd heard from a neighbor about Chinese herbal medicine that was supposed to be effective against cerebral hemorrhage, hopped on my bike, and raced around the dark streets, looking for it. With our fingers, Akira and I forced Mom's mouth open and stuffed in the medicine I'd bought. That night Akira and I took turns standing watch. Mom slept on, still snoring heavily. Something must have worked, because she survived the critical period. The doctor advised her, “You'd be better off in the hospital,” so she sought admission to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hospital very close to our house, just across Minami Bridge.

The Atomic Bomb Hospital had been built in September 1956 with money raised from the sale of New Year's postal cards.
[10]
It was opened as a hospital specializing in atomic bomb disease, and bomb victims rejoiced that help was at hand. Mom, too, might have atomic bomb aftereffects. Taking her atomic bomb ID and thinking there were no fees, making her load lighter, she sought to be admitted. Akira ran about frantically getting the paperwork done to get Mom admitted. But hearing the hospital's explanation—“Cerebral hemorrhage isn't one of the designated atomic bomb illnesses, so her atomic bomb ID doesn't apply”—I got boiling mad. From that explanation, I knew Mom's atomic bomb ID was absolutely useless.

Akira and I raged: “The atomic bombing made her writhe in agony, but cerebral hemorrhage isn't a designated illness, so she can't get treated on her atomic bomb ID! Even when a bomb victim is suffering illness. Throw in the fact that the state doesn't compensate for its war responsibility, isn't it a foregone conclusion that the state takes care of her?” Fortunately, the company Mom worked for had health insurance, and with that she was admitted to the hospital. If she was found to be incurable, the health insurance had a two-year cap, and thereafter our costs would rise. With that in mind, we hoped that somehow she'd recover completely in the two years. Out of our monthly salaries, Akira and I paid for a private nurse to take care of Mom, and we kept an eye on her condition. We realized that this would be a very long-term illness.

You often hear that “siblings grow up and turn into strangers.” It's really true. K
o
¯
ji said, “My wife hates taking care of the old lady, so you two do it,” and he played absolutely no role in Mom's care. With Mom's illness, the blood link between brothers disintegrated. I shook with anger. How unfeeling he was! I said, “How can you say that about the mother who bore and raised you!” I'd respected K
o
¯
ji, who'd exerted himself to survive, even going off with his one trunk to the coal mine. But once he married and set up his own home, we couldn't rely on him any more. Can human beings change so radically? Akira did all he could to restrain me in my anger. He made me see that this was no time for brothers to quarrel. I paid heed to his words.

Mom's condition improved gradually. She was paralyzed on one side and couldn't enunciate clearly, but she was able to converse in few words. On the way home from work, I'd look in on her in her hospital room and bring her fruit. Thinking that the cold white walls of her room weren't very friendly, I painted scenes at work and hung them on the wall over her bed. I learned from her nurse that Mom boasted happily to her roommates about my pictures, which made me happy, too.

In going back and forth to the Atomic Bomb Hospital, I became acquainted by sight with apparently healthy bomb victims who had rooms in the hospital with their own facilities and were eating food of their own choosing that they cooked themselves. When one of them was suddenly gone, I'd ask Mom, and she'd say, “He died.” I was stunned. There were many days when I encountered the hospital deaths of bomb victims and came home gloomy. With massage therapy and the beginning of physical therapy, Mom got back her spirit, smiling and blurting out words almost impatiently. Akira and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Discussing the insurance that would run out after two years and Mom's prospects, Akira and I lamented the fact that we had no sister. Eiko had died in the atomic bombing; had she survived, she would have been a great help. When I, a male, pushed the chamber pot under her so Mom could move her bowels, she got embarrassed and was reluctant to relieve herself, even though I was her own child. Asking a nurse led to issues about work time. Akira told Mom that she needed a female relative at her side. Our house was both closer and more convenient to the Atomic Bomb Hospital, and Akira suggested that we move out and turn it over to K
o
¯
ji and his wife, have them move back, and get his wife to help out. I agreed. Akira and I asked her to help Mom, and we each rented an apartment and moved out. Since first grade I had done the cooking and the laundry, so even on my own I got along absolutely fine.

My apartment adjoined the red-light district, and women of the night and gangsters thronged the streets. It was a very raucous place: in a fight between gangsters at a nearby cabaret, dynamite exploded. Seventy millimeter films made their debut, and the impact of the giant screen and the sound increased; when I saw
Ben Hur
, I was blown away—it was a great movie.
[11]

Mom learned to walk grasping handrails. Mom hated being dependent on others. With her fierce will and never-say-die spirit, she sighed and hummed the
Gondolier's Song
. Things were okay now, and I relaxed.

Taking advantage of a vacation, I went to Tokyo with manuscripts in hand and visited a certain publisher and asked for criticism of my work. An editor looked my work over and said, “If you really want to become a manga artist, your best course is to join the world of the pros and learn. If you're game, I can introduce you to a manga artist who needs an assistant.” I returned to Hiroshima and talked frankly with Akira about my desire to go that route.

Akira had gone to Osaka for work, so he understood my desire and encouraged me to go to Tokyo: “You don't want to live in obscurity in Hiroshima. Get on with your chosen path on Tokyo's broad stage, with all its opportunities! Leave Mom to me. But if you come back to Hiroshima in tears, don't expect sympathy from me.” I was deeply grateful my brother understood.

It was agreed that I'd become an assistant to manga artist K.,
[12]
and when it came time to send my belongings to Tokyo, Akira packed my stuff beautifully, using skills he'd learned in Osaka. That night I visited Mom at the Atomic Bomb Hospital and told her, “I'm going to Tokyo to learn manga.” Mom looked forlorn but said, “It's what you want to do. Go for it!” I said, “You learn to walk again! I'll come for you and show you the Tokyo sights!” Mom nodded happily.

The next day I left Hiroshima on the noon train. The moment the wheels started to turn, the impulse hit me to jump off the train. “I don't know a soul in Tokyo. How can I get along there? Can I really become a manga artist?” I was sad, forlorn at leaving the Hiroshima I knew, and unease spun like a kaleidoscope in my head. Bucking myself up—“I've got the sign-painting skills of a professional. If manga doesn't work out, I'll become the best sign painter in Japan!”—I headed for Tokyo.

It was February 1961. I was twenty-two.

Early in volume VIII Gen vows to take political action. The year is 1950, the year of the outbreak of the Korean War. Gen's teacher encouraged his class: “All of you must take responsibility for the future of Japan. You must never stop hating war with a passion and working for peace. And to do that, you have to keep a close eye on what's going on in politics. If you look the other way, before you know it, the drums of war will be beating and by the time you notice, it will be too late.”

Gen encounters a peace demonstration, with his teacher as one participant, and here delivers political thoughts perhaps unrealistic for Nakazawa, then thirteen years old. Then he hearkens back to the words of the family's Korean neighbor, Pak.

In following segments Gen takes a leading role in routing right-wing “patriots.” By the end of volume VIII, Gen has “set off on a new path of self-reliance”—both for himself and for Japan.