Fireflies Read online

  I stood there speechless as she started screaming. Her face was twisted with rage. Who did I think I was, she shouted, with my airs and graces? Was I superior to her?

  “You’re just a whore like me!”

  It was awful. People stopped to stare, the faces of the Japanese men twitching with spiteful glee, the Americans folding their arms and sniggering as they watched the show.

  I stepped past them down the avenue, wiping my face with my handkerchief as the dreadful girl hurled insults behind me.

  There seemed to be nothing but streetwalkers in Tokyo that night, lurking in the shop doorways, darting out like crabs to grab passing men. They really were a wretched mob, I thought, their makeup smeared, their bare legs puckered from the cold. Perhaps I did think I was in a class above them, like that floozy had said. Girls such as I drank Scotch in cabarets, while they swigged shochu dregs in dead-end alleys. Allied captains reserved my company in orderly private rooms, while hideous old men pummelled them in the storefronts and frozen bomb craters.

  Michiko had despised them, of course. She called them harlots and tarts, filthy pan-pan. While she, of course, was a modern-day Okichi, a courtesan, a handmaiden of Genji.

  It just went to show, I thought, as I hurried home. People always needed someone else to look down upon, no matter how far they’d fallen themselves. After all, even the dogs that roam in the streets and eat trash have hierarchies of their own.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, when I woke up, I felt very odd. Rain was dripping into the pail, and I felt as if there was a great weight pressing upon my ribcage, as if I were a butterfly pinned to a card. It was so cold that I could see my breath. When I finally dressed, I felt dizzy, and had to lie back down again.

  Late in the afternoon, I was still on the futon, staring up at the stained ceiling. After a while, I began to have the uncanny sensation that someone else was there in the room with me. The feeling grew stronger and stronger, until I became convinced that my mother was sitting over on the tatami by the table, looking at me. I closed my eyes tightly and hid my face in the blanket, but the feeling grew so intense that suddenly, I spun around and looked.

  And there she was. Sitting on the floor, staring at me with her lashless eyes. Her blue kimono was scorched around the edges, her hair all burned away. All of a sudden, there was a terrible smell of char in the room and I started to scream and fainted.

  When I came to, she was gone. But I could still picture her, staring at me grimly, smouldering in accusation, and I knew that the reason she had returned from the other world was to punish me for having betrayed our family by becoming a prostitute.

  I wondered if I should return to our alley and light more incense, but I doubted if that would help. Over the following days, I set out once more to search for Hiroshi at the schools and the railway stations, hoping that by finding some trace of him, I might somehow quiet her restless spirit. But it was useless. There were no graves I could visit, no fragments of bone that I could inter.

  I grew frightened that Hiroshi’s ghost, or Osamu’s, might visit me now as well. Sometimes, when I left the Oasis, I thought I saw a pale figure standing on the other side of the avenue, gazing at me. I imagined that it followed me through the crowd, solemn eyes upon me as I strode through the streets. But whenever I turned to look, the figure was gone.

  Mr. Shiga must have noticed that I was on edge, because one night he summoned me to his office.

  “Takara-san,” he said, “if you can’t get a grip on yourself, then you’re fired. Your gloomy face is causing our customers discomfort.”

  I gave a shrill laugh and bowed and apologized, asking him to forgive me. I tried to explain that I was just very tired.

  He opened the drawer of his writing desk and took out a small green bottle, which he held up to the lamp.

  “Take one of these each evening, Takara-san, before you come to work.” He shook a small white pill into his palm, and placed it in front of me. “Our noble troops were given these at the end of the war to revive their stamina. You may find they help.”

  Later that night, I swallowed one of the tablets shortly before I went to sit at a table of American sailors. I realized that my mind was quite calm, that I felt pretty and sparkling. Their conversation seemed very amusing, and I began to chatter coquettishly away in broken English, an unusual confidence and excitement quivering all through my body. It was quite extraordinary. The Americans gazed at me and made jokes with their friends on the other tables. They all asked me to dance one after the other, and in a few hours I had earned more for tea dances than I normally did lying down on my back.

  Some of the other girls were in the dressing room when I finished my shift. They smiled when I showed them the bottle of magical pills.

  “We’ve all been taking them for weeks now,” they laughed. “They really are amazing!”

  The pills had the added benefit, they said, of stopping you from getting hungry, so you wouldn’t get too fat, either. We all laughed at that one: none of us were anything but skin and bones in any case.

  From then on, I swallowed a chalky pill as soon as I arrived at the Oasis. It fizzed inside me as I dressed and painted my face. The Americans gave me swigs of whisky, and I felt as if I was on a glowing merry-go-round as they twirled me across the dance-floor. Finally, I took a yen taxi home, still wide awake, but then I just drank more whisky, and the room would spin deliciously around me as I sank down into a deep, dreamless sleep. And then, even if my mother, or my brother, or Osamu did come and visit me from beyond the grave, I was always too dead to the world to notice.

  ~ ~ ~

  I dreamed that I was far out on the Pacific Ocean, on a battleship, ploughing through the waves. My father was tucking me into a bunk, but the blanket wouldn’t quite stretch. He climbed into the bunk beside me, and I was ashamed, but then he turned around, and he was Osamu. There was a loud explosion, a clanging alarm, and sailors were running through the galleys — we had been struck by a torpedo, the boat was sinking, and I was deep beneath the ocean, the sea water pouring into my lungs —

  Michiko was leaning over me, holding an empty glass. Water was dripping down my cheeks. She smiled. “Satchan!” she said. “I thought you’d never wake up. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  I glanced at her groggily as she shivered out of a thick, luxurious looking white fur coat, which she hung from the nail on the wall. She’s put on weight, I thought. She had a nice sleek look: a pink flush in her cheeks. As she laid out tins on the table, I saw a flash of silver around her wrist.

  She sat down and stretched herself out. As I clambered over to make some tea, she launched straight away into a tirade about her admiral.

  “Such demands, Satsuko,” she wailed. “I sometimes think I would have been better off at the Oasis.”

  I smiled thinly, glancing at the thick fur coat.

  “He won’t keep away. He treats me like I’m a prisoner!”

  “That must be very unpleasant for you, Michiko,” I agreed.

  She gave a sad nod. “But he loves me, you see, Satsuko. He’s going to tell his wife in America that he’s leaving her.”

  I stifled a laugh. “And marry you, Michiko?” I asked. “Is that really likely?”

  “He’s very wealthy,” she said airily, ignoring the question. She took a small, jewelled mirror from a leather purse and applied an invisible dusting of powder to her face.

  “And you’ll never guess, Satsuko,” she said, dramatically.

  “What’s that, Michiko?”

  She cleared her throat and stood up. With one hand against her breast, she sang the notes of an ascending scale in a pure clean voice.

  “Very melodic, Michiko.”

  “Do you think so?” she said, with a proud smile. “I’m learning how to act as well.”

  She had persuaded her admiral to pay for lesso
ns with some old stagehands from the Minato Theatre, and had even managed to cajole him into buying her a piano. In fact, she said, it was to be delivered later on that very day.

  As the kettle boiled, I felt quite queasy and thought instinctively of my vial of pills in the dresser.

  “It’s kind of you to visit, Michiko,” I said, as I poured the water into the pot, “what with all your new distractions.”

  My stomach suddenly heaved.

  “But I’ve missed you so much, Satsuko!” she said.

  “Do you know,” I said, inhaling sharply, “I was at the cinema just last week. I saw an American film that starred an actress who resembled you. Could it be Ingrid something?”

  “Ingrid Bergman?” she cried, clapping her hands. “How clever you are, Satsuko! I think so too. There’s a definite resemblance.”

  I turned my face away, swallowing bile. I wondered if I could politely ask her to leave. But, to my relief, she waved away her tea in any case.

  “Satsuko,” she said, “please forgive me. I really must go. My piano is to be delivered at any moment.”

  “Please come again, Michiko. You’re always very welcome,” I said.

  “As soon as I can. Oh, and before I forget . . . ”

  She picked up a package wrapped in red crêpe de Chine and placed it on the table.

  “I’ve no need for gifts, Michiko,” I stammered. “I’m doing perfectly well . . . ”

  “Please accept it, Satsuko,” she begged, kneeling in front of me. “You really must.”

  A horn blared outside. Before I could respond, Michiko had scuttled to the door. She whipped out her mirror and applied a last, rapid puff of powder to her face. Then, with a wave of her gloved hand, she was gone.

  The powder hovered in the air, a pungent flowery smell. Suddenly, I gasped, reached for the pail and heaved up the pitiful milky contents of my stomach. My eyes were blurry with tears as I held onto its cold metal rim.

  After several minutes, I slid over to the table. I took the package Michiko had left me and held it on my lap. There were several silk bows and ribbons criss-crossing the package and I fumbled with them for some time, until finally I gave up and just ripped open the red tissue paper.

  “Oh, Michiko,” I said.

  A fur stole lay in the box, taken from a white fox or some other expensive animal. I lifted it out. It was so beautiful that I felt tears spring into my eyes. The fur was the softest thing I had ever felt in my life, delicate and supple and luxurious. I stood up, and held it against my cheek for a long time. Then I went over and lay back on the futon, and drifted away, lost in its fleecy softness for the rest of the afternoon.

  ~ ~ ~

  A Joe with a pockmarked face was fast asleep on top of me, snoring loudly in my ear. He had been celebrating his birthday that night and his cronies had strong-armed him into swallowing one bottle of beer after another. With an effort, I rolled him off onto the floor and rang for Mr. Shiga. When the man’s friends came to take him away, they snorted with laughter and put his clothes on back to front, which was just the kind of childish joke the Americans seemed to continually enjoy playing upon one another.

  So I wasn’t in a very good mood as I waited in the cold drizzle for a tram that never came. Eventually I decided that it would be just as well to walk to Shimbashi Station and take the overground train home from there. I drew my fur stole close around my neck and walked into a slanting wind.

  It was deep winter now and I wondered how they survived, the pan-pan girls. Several were sheltering under the low arches of the overground railway line. They stood on either side of the short tunnels, each with a leg bent up, cigarette smoke curling in wisps. I quickened my step, dodging the icy pools of water as I fingered the stole around my neck.

  I heard a light crunch of footsteps and a shadow lengthened beside me. I glanced back. A group of women were walking about fifteen paces behind me. I sped up, focusing on the lights of the station, a hundred yards ahead. The footsteps came closer. My heart started to pound in my chest. A voice in my head screamed at me to run, and I hoisted up my skirt. A fist struck me and I collapsed onto the ground.

  There was a shrill chorus of voices around me. A tooth was loose on my tongue and my knees were torn. Thin, strong hands seized my arms and pulled me up. Three women surrounded me, and in the darkness, I recognized the stout girl in the purple blouse who had spit at me the week before. My fur stole was draped around her neck. I smelled cheap tobacco and sour sweat as she stepped forward. She slapped me as hard as she could. She hawked and spat at me once again, and I felt chewing gum caught in my hair.

  “Where have you been tonight, you bitch?” she demanded. She slapped me hard again and I yelped. “Still think you’re better than us?”

  I shook my head, but she grabbed my arm and twisted it.

  “You American whore!” she screamed. “I should stab you in the heart right here and now!”

  I gasped as she shoved me. She seized my bag and began to rifle through it. Another, very tall woman stepped in front of me. Dressed in a crimson frock, her eyebrows were painted high up on her forehead, giving her a permanent puzzled look. She reached for a clump of my hair and twisted it around until tears sprang into my eyes.

  “What are you doing down here anyway?” the tall woman whispered. “You know this is our patch.”

  I tried to shake my head, gasping in pain. Her other hand moved quietly in the darkness and I felt a sudden cold, sharp point between my lip and my nose.

  “We own this ward,” she said, staring at me with startled eyes. “You’ll pay your share like anyone else.”

  The point jabbed into my flesh and I screamed. She suddenly drew it away, and I fell sobbing to the ground. The girls were pulling my things from my bag now, pocketing what they wanted and flinging the rest away like foxes devouring a chicken. The stout girl was stroking my stole as if it were a cat.

  The woman in the crimson frock squatted beside me. The knife blade glistened in her hand.

  “I’ve seen you before,” she said, in an empty voice. “I’ve seen how you look at us.”

  I shook my head desperately.

  “Do you really think you’re better than us?” she asked. She raised the knife and drew the blade around my neck. My entire skin crawled. A humiliating seepage came from between my legs. She smiled as drops spattered against the ground. “See? You’re no different.”

  I fainted dead away.

  When I came to, the women were disappearing underneath the iron struts of the railway bridge, curses and animal shrieks echoing behind them. My blouse was torn and my stockings were shredded. When I touched one side of my face, my mouth was swollen, and my fingers came away smeared with dark blood.

  As I struggled to my feet, I squinted at a card that lay on the ground in front of me. It was ornate, emblazoned with a red satin peony, and inscribed with hand-brushed words. The symbols spelled out a name. Ketsueki Sakura Gumi, I read.

  The Blood Cherry Gang.

  ~ ~ ~

  So it seemed we really were to have equal rights in Japan now. Women would be able to vote and the men could no longer divorce us whenever they chose, and now we even had our own lady gangsters to terrorize us, just as the men had had the yakuza all this time.

  The Blood Cherry girls were already infamous at the Oasis, I discovered. The rumour went that they had all made a blood pact. Their leader, Junko — the woman in the crimson frock -— had once been the famous geisha “Willow Tree” and the mistress of Akamatsu, the ace fighter pilot. They were witches in human form; they were kitsune, fox-spirits, who could bewitch men and even shift shape when they chose to. It was all nonsense, of course, but, when I recalled my nightmarish meeting with them, it was still enough to send a shiver down my spine.

  In any case, the gang was composed of the very worst kind of pan-pan who worked the area between Yurakucho
and the Kachidoki Bridge, which they now claimed as their own territory. Dressed in lurid clothes, their faces garishly painted, they claimed the right to organize all the girls in the surrounding streets, which meant harassing them, bullying them, and stealing from them as much as they could. And it was the Blood Cherry girls who, for some unfortunate reason, had decided that I needed to be punished.

  ~ ~ ~

  I was squatting in the filthy lavatory shed outside the Oasis when I felt a sharp pain, as if hot needles were passing through me. I knew straight away what it was. The other girls had talked about it often enough.

  The doctor confirmed my suspicions when he made his rounds the following week. I was distraught. Mr. Shiga would be informed and I would be obliged now to take several weeks off work, in which time I wouldn’t earn a sen. I’d have to find the money for medicine to treat the condition, which was only available through the black market, and which, of course, was extremely expensive.

  I approached Mr. Shiga on my hands and knees, begging him to advance me a loan. To my horror, he dismissed me, right on the spot.

  “You’ve been an embarrassment for months now,” he said. “Just look at yourself, Takara-san. This is the last straw.”

  Stunned, I packed up my makeup and my collection of trinkets. I said goodbye to some of the other girls, and walked out of the old bomb shelter for the last time. When I got home, I filled the pail from the standpipe in the street, then went inside and sponged myself slowly down. Afterward, I studied myself for a long time in the mirror. Hollow sockets stared back at me, and my hair was lank and brittle. My belly was swollen, and my arms and legs looked like sticks. A red sore had formed at the side of my mouth and my ribs showed under my shrunken breasts. I looked like a ghost.

  Wearily, I wrapped up my beautiful green kimono, and took it back down to the Shimbashi market.