Hiroshima (5 page)

Morning and night, we thought only of food. Our Nakazawa relatives lived mainly in the center of the city, so we were endlessly jealous of neighbors who got food shipped from the country. We glared at neighborhood children who made a show of eating rice cakes in front of us. Susumu and I lamented how unlucky we were not to have relatives in the country.

In 1945 the food situation became worse and worse; we couldn't even get potato vines to eat. The food rations—dehydrated potatoes—alternated with strained soybean lees as staples. Extremity approached.

In front of our house was the mansion of the T. family. The man of the house was a colonel in the army. Each morning a private second-class came leading a horse, and Colonel T., boots shiny and military sword at his belt, mounted and went off to duty. The T.'s had a son who was my classmate, and we always played together. Watching the family ostentatiously eating sweets and canned goods and the like that we'd never seen, I was simultaneously angry and jealous. They lived a truly luxurious life, and the difference between them and us was heaven and hell. I could only marvel that the “haves” indeed had.

Time and again, because of malnutrition, we children got large boils on our legs. They swelled up, the pus ran, and we screamed, “Ouch! It hurts!” Hearing that they'd heal if you immersed them in seawater, Dad took us to Itsukushima Shrine, combining that goal with his search for scenes to paint. With the tide out, he had us strip beneath the large vermilion shrine gate
and swim. Dad sketched the scenery and the trees, and we stayed in the water all day, playing. But the boils didn't heal. Lancing the boils with a pin, we let the pus flow and endured the pain.

At that time my oldest brother K
o
¯
ji was a student-soldier. Mobilized as a welder at the Kure Naval Armory, he lived in a dormitory and came home only two or three times a month. His trips home were fun for us. Why? Because he packed leftover rice from the dorm into lunch boxes and brought it home with him. We listened with shining eyes to the stories he told us. He bragged that he had welded part of the hull of the battleship
Yamato
and that he had crawled into the mouth of its large cannon. From the size of the cannon—he fit all the way in—we could well imagine how big the battleship was. Giving our imaginations free rein, we talked. Another time, damaged warships and submarines came into dock, and peeking inside, he saw chunks of flesh and blood splattered about. K
o
¯
ji did the repairs, but he felt uneasy.

My next brother Akira also left, sent off as part of a group evacuation of schoolchildren to a temple on the border between Hiroshima and Shimane. On saying goodbye, he cried, “I don't want to go!” Mom was annoyed and scolded him: “What if the bombs fell and all of us died? I want at least one of us to survive!”

My big sister Eiko, then a sixth grader, was sickly, so it was decided she would remain at home. We saw Akira off as he marched out the school gate, and our family shrank to five. Feeling lonely, we were told that our next sibling was in Mom's womb, due to be born in August, and we looked forward to the baby's birth: “I want a boy!” “No! I want a girl!”

I was hopelessly jealous of Akira, evacuated to the countryside. I thought the countryside had rice and wheat, persimmons and chestnuts, all sorts of food that you could eat your fill every day, so I had wanted to go on the evacuation. But upon learning there was a minimum age, I was disappointed and vexed. School evacuations began with the third grade. I regretted I wasn't older.

But the letters Akira wrote from the place to which he'd been evacuated told me how wishful my thoughts were. On the day they arrived at the site, there was a welcome party, and a rich spread of foods was set out—food I'd dreamed about: rice dumplings and bean paste, sweet buns, red bean rice. The children had gobbled it down in a frenzy. They'd eaten too much, so in the middle of the night they had stomachaches, and cries resounded here and there as children spat it up. He figured that thereafter, too, they'd have lots to eat, but from the next day on, the food was one cup of soup and a little soybean rice. Day after day he was hungry. Preparing for the worst, Mom had boiled soybeans and packed them in his pillow, and at night he opened the parcel quietly, huddled under his blanket so that those around him wouldn't notice, and not making a sound, ate the soybeans to ease his hunger. He finished up those, too, and reported endlessly in petulant letters, “I'm going crazy with hunger, so please send soybeans.”

Nights were full of crying under
the blankets
because of homesickness for relatives in Hiroshima. Some children ran away—that too was in his letters. Dad and Mom conferred, “Poor kid. Shall we call him home?” For my part, I was astonished to learn that even in the country there was no food.

In Hiroshima as August approached, the air raid sirens rang out on more and more days. At school, air raid drills continued—what to do in case of a direct bomb hit. We pupils donned air raid hoods and lined up in the schoolyard. We put our thumbs in our ears, covered our faces with the other fingers, and lay down quickly on the ground. These were actions to keep the sound of the bomb exploding from bursting our eardrums and to protect our eyes and face from shrapnel. Earnestly, we “little patriots” continued air raid training.
[4]
Diligently, we stood up and lay down on command, getting our faces all sandy.

As the war situation increasingly took on the air of defeat, the neighborhood training with bamboo spears and for fire drills became more frequent, too. Dad was totally skeptical: “They really think they can fight American soldiers with those bamboo spears? Before getting that close, the Americans will kill 'em all with machine guns. It's utterly unrealistic!” Against their will, the whole neighborhood had to assemble with bamboo spears, and an old man from the Reservists Association, swaggering with a triumphant air, taught them how to “kill the U.S. and British beasts.”

In the Russo-Japanese War, he said, he'd killed many Russkies; he bragged about that experience. If you stab an enemy in the chest with a bamboo spear, his muscles contract suddenly, and you can't pull the spear out. So if you spear someone, pull the spear out right away; if you can't pull it out, push against his body with your foot. U.S. soldiers spend their lives in chairs, so their stomachs get weak. If it's a matter of hand-to-hand fighting, of course, with our national arts of sumo and judo and because we've hardened ourselves by sitting on straw mats on the floor
,
Japanese have the upper hand. Against feeble U.S. soldiers, there's no way human-bullet tactics can lose. Given logical sounding lectures, the neighborhood folks were all diligent and serious in training to kill U.S. and British soldiers. We children critiqued their performance stabbing straw-bale dummies—
deciding whose father threw his weight into it and had good form.

Smudge pots were placed on the roof beneath the eaves, and people pretended that bombs had fallen and fires started. They ran a ladder up to the roof, and bucket brigades brought water to put the fires out. Mom was rounded up for this task. The baby was due very soon. With her big belly, Mom puffed and panted as she passed along buckets of water. Watching her, we could only feel sorry for her.

In order to prevent the anticipated spread of fires from B-29 firebombing, they created firebreaks in neighborhoods where the houses were dense. The central beam of the designated house had a rope tied around it, and then at the shout of the crowd rounded up for labor detail, the house collapsed. One after another, houses were razed. Through our neighborhood wafted the smell of mildewed red earth. Cleared spots appeared, like the broken teeth of a comb.

Before and after meals we children had to sit up straight and listen to Dad: “Japan'll lose soon. You'll be able to eat your fill of your favorite foods—white rice, bread, noodles, buckwheat noodles. By the time you're adults, really good times will come for Japan.” It was as if we were hearing fairy tales; we simply couldn't believe what Dad said.

When I'm asked what gave me the worst feeling, this is what I answer. When, late at night, you're sound asleep, the sirens blow piercingly and a megaphone voice cries, “Air raid! Air raid!” and rapid steps come up the stairs to wake the household. I really couldn't bear the oppressive unease, as if your stomach was crammed full of vinegar and lead. Giving up, you're determined to stay in bed, but Mom scolds you: “Bombs are falling! Do you want to die? Fools!” and you go down the stairs against your will and run to the neighborhood bomb shelter. Leading up to August, we had day after day like that.

Dead-of-night visitors, the B-29s passed through the skies over Hiroshima and went east or west, to attack and burn out Kure or Iwakuni. At Kure were the naval armory and the naval base where the battleship
Yamato
and other warships lay at anchor. The firebomb raids of the B-29s were horrific. Mom's younger sister had gone to Kure as a bride, and to learn whether she was safe, Mom took me with her and headed for Kure. Kure was a town on a hill, and when you looked from the railroad station, it appeared bare and clean—that's how completely it had been burned over, had disappeared. I was shocked: only at the foot of the hill were houses still standing. The city had become one vast burned-out field. In Iwakuni, west of Hiroshima, the military factories had stood in a row, vulnerable to the firebombs of the B-29s, and had been burned out.

Day after day we were plagued by the dead-of-night visits of B-29s flying over Hiroshima. It wouldn't do to be spotted by the enemy planes, so in every home, black bunting is wrapped even around lampshades lest light leak out. A single point of light in the dark room falls on the straw mats on the floor, and quite like moths to a flame, the family gathers silently around the circle of light. Wearing air raid hoods and carrying knapsacks, each making the preparations assigned him in advance, we hold our breaths and head for the large neighborhood air raid trench. I simply hated it. We were like cattle being led to the slaughterhouse. When we look up at the night sky, it glows red in the direction of Kure, and we whisper to each other, “It's Kure again tonight.”

Searchlight beams crisscross the night sky, and we point and watch as one B-29 after another passes through the beams. In the air raid trench rainwater has pooled up to our waists. We can't stand it, trembling with cold in the winter and bitten by the mosquitoes that breed there in the summer. The responding anti-aircraft fire resounds like distant thunder, all the more terrifying. Time drags, and we wait, practically praying for the “all clear!”

People exchanged uneasy whispers. Everybody thought it strange—“They're attacking the cities on both sides of us. Why no attack on Hiroshima?” Speculation abounded. Fearing that the big attack on Hiroshima would begin soon and we'd be burned out, Mom talked Dad into packing wicker baskets and chests with daily necessities and clothing and loading it all on a cart. Under the hot sun, sweat pouring, the whole family pushed, taking the stuff to leave in safe storage at the home of Dad's acquaintance in the country.

Living directly behind us was a Korean, Mr. Pak, who always treated me with kindness; he, too, was forced to evacuate and had his house razed. The Pak family included a child my age, Chunchana, and we often played together. When I went to the Pak's house, I saw his wife doing the laundry by beating the clothes with a stick—that was strange, and it caught my eye. Mr. Pak's father had a long beard; he sat on the veranda, his clay pipe resting between his toes, and puffed sweet-smelling smoke—that too was strange, and I watched with interest. Sometimes they served me wheat flour pancakes fried in a pan, and I ate with Chunchana. But on the other hand, unawares, we also spoke thoughtless words to this wonderful Pak family. We made fun of them, jeering in pidgin Japanese, “Korea, Korea—don't make fun of us. We eat same food, so where different? Toes of shoes a bit different.”

I don't know when he learned of it, but Dad got angry at us for making fun of Koreans. He told what bad things the Japanese had done to Koreans. Japan had invaded Korea and colonized it and stolen its resources, and many Koreans had been brought to Japan against their will and were mistreated as cheap labor. I couldn't understand entirely, but I was sorry for saying bad things. I think prejudice had been implanted in me unconsciously. Both Mr. Pak and Chunchana went away, and I couldn't eat wheat pancakes any more. I missed them.

As before, the air raid sirens sounded in Hiroshima, but no attack came. I was aware of attacks nearby only twice. Once, a formation of three carrier planes attacked the city in broad daylight, firing their machine guns and flying off, and a bullet hit the alley by our house. We took a shovel and dug it out, still too hot to touch. I showed that eight-inch piece of shrapnel around boastfully and got scolded sternly by Mom. Again, the anti-aircraft guns placed on Ebayama got a lucky hit on a B-29 passing over Hiroshima and it crashed close to the city. The neighborhood men said they'd take the American crew captive and, grabbing their bamboo spears, set out excitedly to comb the hills.

Later there was a kid who somehow had gotten hold of a piece of the windscreen of a downed B-29. If you rubbed the glass with a piece of wood, it gave off an indescribably sweet, irresistible smell. We lavished praise on the proud owner of that piece of glass and borrowed it; rubbing it all the time with a stick, we kept that sweet smell in the air. We treated him as a hero, making him top dog among us.