The Souvenir (17 page)

The saga of Hiroshima is part of the history (and mythology) of
both
the United States and Japan. As mutual antagonists in a war of relentless carnage, perhaps looking at the whole picture means we have to look at it
together
.

Shriver writes, “The most sober—and hopeful—form of international remembrance is forgiveness, that long, many-sided, seldom-completed process of rehabilitating broken human relationships.” Could the Japanese have ended the war sooner? Could the Americans have ended it in any other way? To create the empathy that builds toward forgiveness, shouldn't we ask ourselves—and each other—those questions?

C
OMPARED TO REGIONS
at similar latitude, roughly between that of Casablanca and Barcelona, the west coast of Japan is one of the snowiest places in the world. In winter, cold dry air known as the Siberian High builds up across continental Asia. Part of this air blows eastward from the interior, transforming into northwesterly monsoon winds that gust across the Japan Sea, picking up moisture then dropping it as snow in Japan's central mountain range.

Suibara, a little town of twenty thousand or so souls, is located west of that central mountain range, about thirteen miles inland from the bustling port city of Niigata, in what the Japanese call “the snow country.”

We were now, finally, heading toward Suibara. It only took two and a half hours by
shinkansen
, or bullet train, from Tokyo Station to reach Niigata, where we were to spend the night. About an hour into the journey, our sleek train ascended the foothills from the open plain, quilted with the irregular shapes of cultivated fields, and then slipped into a long dark tunnel. I glanced over at Lloyd, who was dozing. I was worried about him. He was still quite ill, his lungs congested, his voice a whisper.

As I looked into the darkness, I began to mull over my encounter the night before with Amy Morita, my only liaison so far with the Shimizu family. We'd met for a curry supper in a Tokyo restaurant.
Though it was the first time we'd met in person, it was easy to talk to this frank and warm-hearted young woman. Over chapatis and beer she told me, “I received a call from an official in Suibara a week ago. He wanted to check with me about you, because a few years ago someone from London wanted to return a sword to someone in the town and it turned out they wanted a lot of money for it.” I was shocked. Amy continued, “I told them your purpose was strictly personal, and then he asked my advice about what they should do. The Shimizu family is a little panicked, you see. I told them you don't expect anything elaborate. I suggested they think of you like a long-lost friend of their brother.”

Then she offered a warning: The Aum guru, Shoko Asahara, had specified April 15—the day Lloyd and I would be arriving in Suibara—as some kind of doomsday. “No one knows what he has planned. Be very careful,” she advised.

Nothing but a sick husband and pending doomsday to worry about, I thought. Suddenly we emerged from the tunnel. A brilliant light flooded our cabin as we headed toward a mountain valley glistening in spring snow.

W
E SPENT A
restless night in a business hotel in Niigata, a city struck off the atomic bomb target list by the American military a mere three days before they dropped Fat Boy on Hiroshima.

While Lloyd slept, I slipped out to the drab hotel lobby to meet Masako Hayakawa, a local translator who'd volunteered to assist us during our visit to Suibara. Masako was an attractive woman in her fifties, wearing a pleated wool skirt and sensible shoes. She'd studied at the University of Minnesota, majoring in library science, and now lived in nearby Nagaoka, where she worked for the city's international division and taught at local universities. Consummately professional, she exhibited a corresponding kindness that put me at ease.

After briefing me on our itinerary for the next day, Masako used the pay phone in the lobby to call the Shimizu family and confirm we would be arriving the next day by bus. We said our goodnights and I attempted to get some sleep.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, April 15, I woke up early. The sky had cleared and the day looked promising, no matter what Shoko Asahara had predicted. Lloyd, moving slowly but not complaining, got dressed and ready. At 8:30 a.m. Masako arrived, and we all set off for the bus station.

After hearing Lloyd's hacking cough, Masako detoured our little party to a pharmacy, where she described flu symptoms to the young pharmacist. While she listened to his advice and then purchased some over-the-counter remedies, my eyes took in the familiar shelves of cough syrups, Band-Aids, aspirins. I always feel at home in pharmacies.

I thought about my father, filling prescriptions behind the counter of Edwards Rexall Pharmacy in Culver City. During all those years of listening to stories about other people's pain—all those years of counting out the Valium, the Librium, the Ritalin—did memories of the jungle seep through from time to time?

The bus wound through beautiful countryside—rice paddies and vegetable gardens and old tile-roofed houses. In the distance gleamed the snow-covered Ide mountain range. The bus stopped frequently to pick up passengers—sturdy farmwomen in cotton pants, carrying plastic satchels laden with vegetables. The cherry trees alongside the irrigation canals were in first bloom, and Masako gasped with delight each time we passed a stand of them.

The bus was slow and as the sun warmed my skin, I nodded off. From my half-dream state, a perverse thought bubbled up: Why are you giving up the flag? It belongs to
your
family! Where had
that
come from, I wondered. Before I could answer, Masako cried
out with excitement, “We're here! This is our stop!” I was instantly awake. We grabbed our packs, threw our change in the box as Masako instructed, and hopped off the bus.

I was surprised to see two men standing by the side of the road to greet us. They carried signs in Japanese that said, “Welcome to Suibara.” The first gentleman was Mr. Asama, from the local Department of Welfare; the other man was Yasue Shimizu, a cousin of Yoshio Shimizu. We filed behind the two men and walked a short distance to the city hall, where the stout and friendly mayor, Mr. Ikarashi, stood waiting next to a shiny black limousine.

More bows. We were introduced to Suezo Shimizu, a courtly man in his sixties with the unruly white hair of an absent-minded professor. He was the husband of Yoshio Shimizu's sister Hiroshi. (He had followed the old custom of taking his wife's surname because her family had lost sons.) Suezo's eyes teared up immediately and so did mine. We bowed deeply. “Ohayo gozaimasu,” I said, “Good morning,” in handbook Japanese. “O-genki desuka?” (“How are you?”) Suezo smiled, speaking rapidly in Japanese, then bowed to Lloyd who extended his hand.

Mr. Mihara, the mayor's eager assistant, opened the door for us. We clambered into the elegant limo with our backpacks. As we drove through the quiet town, we passed people standing on both sides of the street, waving small Japanese and American flags. “Is today some kind of a holiday?” Lloyd asked. Masako translated. The mayor chuckled. “You are the occasion,” he said. “We are all very touched that you have come from so far away to return the flag.”

The mayor informed us that Suibara was so small, it didn't yet have a sister city. The biggest event in tiny Suibara was the yearly arrival of the Siberian swans. The town, I gathered, was like an extended family, so this was really a public, not private, occasion. I was returning the flag to the Shimizu family, but really I was returning the flag to the people of Suibara.

T
HE FIRST THING
I noticed as I stepped into the Shimizu house, past the crowd of townspeople, was a simple altar with a framed black-and-white photograph of a young soldier, his face plump and unlined. There he was. Yoshio Shimizu. That's what he looked like.

Lloyd, Masako, and I were ushered to places of honor at the long low table in the center of the room; cups of green tea and sweets shaped like pink lotus awaited us.

Fifty or so people from the neighborhood were crowded into the room. They sat cross-legged on the floor and faced us expectantly, somberly. The mayor sat at the head of the table and he began by introducing the Shimizu family: the three sisters of Yoshio Shimizu—Hiroshi, Hanayo, and Chiyono; Suezo Shimizu; Yasue Shimizu, a first cousin; and the son of Yoshio Shimizu's older brother, Yoshinobu Shimizu, in whose house we were all gathered. Yoshinobu was a robust young man with glossy black hair that stood straight up from his head. His two-year-old daughter sat comfortably in her daddy's lap, observing the event with great solemnity.

Out of the corner of my eye, I gratefully noted that Lloyd, despite his flu haze, had stepped into his role as official photographer. He moved around the room with fluid grace, snapping shots from various positions.

There was an air of electric emotion in the room. When I raised my cup of tea to take a sip, I noticed that my hand was shaking. Masako nodded at me; it was the moment to hand over the flag.

On the bus ride to Suibara, I was gripped by an irrational fear that the box in my backpack was empty, that somehow I had forgotten to take the flag or had left it in the hotel in Tokyo, or on the train to Niigata. I was suddenly terrified that I'd unzip the backpack and there would be nothing inside. I couldn't bring myself to check at the time.

Now I reached into the backpack, felt the contours of the box, and pulled it out. I placed it on the table in front of Hiroshi, whose
birth order in the family placed her closest to Yoshio among the surviving siblings.

Hiroshi opened the box with her gnarled hands and drew out the flag. A collective gasp. Then crying. Then applause. “Show it to everyone!” exclaimed the mayor. Hiroshi spread the square of silk on the table. There it was—an incontrovertible fact. “I realize seeing this flag again may make you feel sad,” I said softly, “but I hope it will help you honor the memory of your brother.” Hanayo dabbed her wet eyes with a handkerchief.

The mayor then presented me with four large wrapped boxes, explaining that they were a gift of appreciation from the town. I started to open the first when the room began to clatter and shudder. No one budged. I sat frozen to the tatami mat.

After what felt like a full minute, the room ceased to vibrate. Everybody cautiously smiled at one other. There. We'd been through something together. Instead of ratcheting up the emotional tenor, the earthquake lent the room a new calm. We all sat quietly without speaking for several moments, a mutual acknowledgment of forces beyond our control. When it was clear that the temblor was over, smiles broke out on many faces.

I opened the boxes. Inside the first box were three traditional “Dharma” dolls, made by a hundred-year-old Suibara craftsman. They were shaped like the conical hats Suibara children traditionally wear to ward off snow. In the second box, a dozen beautiful pastries shaped like swan eggs. In the third was a brooch in the shape of a swan. Inside the fourth box was a framed photograph of swans in flight.

Three of the men in the room stood and introduced themselves. Masako translated: “We were all the same age as Yoshio. We lived in the same neighborhood. Yuko was the oldest and Yoshio was the youngest of the four. But Yoshio was the tallest and was one of the nice-looking young men and he was most popular with the
girls! He was a very gentle and kind person.” Yoshio was eighteen when he left to fight in the Japanese Imperial Army. He was twenty-one when his family received word he had died. His sister told me, “We didn't know if he was killed on a ship or on the land. It was quite difficult to learn how he died, how he was killed. At that time it was difficult to get any kind of information.”

Masako had warned me the family would probably want to know how my father got the flag. One of the elderly men posed the question. “I can't say for sure. I wish that I could,” I said. I explained that my father regretted sending the flag home. That he informed my mother of his regret over and over again. That he probably gathered it up from items left behind in a cave by retreating Japanese soldiers. No one pressed the issue, yet the question hovered in the air. Perhaps, I thought in hindsight, I was fortunate not to possess a conclusive answer.

Masako translated one man's thoughtful offering: “You must understand. For those of us who were in the war, when we see the flag before us, it makes our hearts ache.” I looked at these aging men. I wondered what horrors they had endured or possibly, in the name of the emperor, might have inflicted on Chinese or Filipino civilians, or British POWs. I wondered what conflicts from their war service continued to plague their minds and dreams. One man had served in Manchuria, another in Mindanao. They possessed memories they had probably never shared with their wives or children. I couldn't assure these men that my father had not been the one who killed their friend Yoshio Shimizu, that he hadn't taken that flag from his dead body. The “tragic irony of war,” as Amy Morita had called it, resonated throughout the room.