Fireflies Read online

  “You’re sure you want to do this, Hal? You know you could get in trouble.”

  I nodded again.

  He frowned.

  “Come for a drink?” he asked, hopefully.

  I shook my head, my eyes heavy.

  “Okay, Hal. You get some rest, do you hear me? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He patted me on the shoulder before climbing back up the stairs. There was a vague sound of whistling and the heavy office door closed with a thud. I was hopelessly fatigued. I took down the prints from the line, peeled the carbon from the typewriter, and slid the photos and the story into my drawer.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next day at noon, freshly showered and shaved, I walked back into the newsroom. Faces glanced up at me, then dropped swiftly back down to their typewriters.

  “Did the emperor die?” I asked.

  No one replied. I approached my desk with a sharp pang of trepidation. A scribbled memorandum in Dutch’s fine handwriting lay upon it: “ASAP.”

  My scalp prickled as I casually slid open my drawer.

  It was empty. I looked over at Dutch’s office. Figures were silhouetted against the glass, and the muffled sound of argument came from within.

  Watching the door, I hurried downstairs to the darkroom. I switched on the lights. The developing tins were neatly stacked in the corner of the room. Even the drops of fluid on the floor beneath the drying line had been mopped clean. I hurried back up the stairs just in time to see Eugene arriving at his desk. He glanced at me, the sudden look of a whipped dog passing over his face.

  The door to the office swung open and two military policemen stepped out, followed by an extremely anxious-looking Dutch.

  “Ah, our roving reporter!” he called when he spotted me.

  As the MPs loped over, Dutch stood by his door and rubbed his head.

  “Mr. Lynch?” one asked, squaring up to me. He was puffy faced, his skin as soft as a boy’s. I realized, absurdly, that I recognized him: the petty officer I’d sat next to on the gun turret of the Missouri, on the day of the surrender signing, months before. He frowned in vague recollection.

  “We’ve been asked to fetch you, sir.”

  His friendly southern drawl was incongruously loud in the silent newsroom. Everyone was still staring down at their typewriters in studious concentration.

  “By whom?”

  “Just come along with us, would you, Mr. Lynch?” he said, placing an encouraging hand on my forearm. “There’s some folks who want to talk to you.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The Public Relations office was located in a sinister-looking building that had once housed Radio Tokyo, the voice of the Japanese Empire. From here bulletins of lightning victories had rung across the Pacific, the shortwave siren song of Tokyo Rose. The concrete box was painted jet black for camouflage against night attack.

  Flanked by the MPs, I walked up the stairs to the wide doorway as a man I somewhat knew emerged. George LeGrand was a photographer from LIFE magazine who’d approached me a few weeks earlier to ask my advice on aerial photography.

  “Hello, Lynch,” he said pleasantly, nodding toward the MPs. “Everything in order?”

  “Hello, LeGrand,” I said. “It seems the brigadier general wants to speak to me about something.”

  “Baker?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Who did you shoot?”

  “Might just have been myself.”

  Brigadier General Frayne Baker was MacArthur’s new head of Public Relations — a stony, white-haired North Dakotan, as mean and surly, by all accounts, as his predecessor.

  “I wish you luck. In any case, you’ll find him in good cheer.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I’ve come from him just this moment. We’ve all been on an exciting duck hunt.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, sure. The Imperial Palace invited him to the Imperial Wild Duck Preserve to try his hand. They give you these big nets, you see . . . ”

  The southern boy cleared his throat.

  “I’d best be on my way, LeGrand.”

  “Okay, Lynch. See you around.” He glanced at the MPs, then gave me a quick wink. In a stage whisper he said: “Don’t worry too much about Baker. He’s had a damn good lunch.”

  When I opened the door to the office, Baker was sitting behind his desk, cap askew, eyes closed, and hands clasped across his chest. A trio of ducks lay on one side of the desk, necks tied together with twine, beaks hanging disconsolately open. A musty smell came from his person, and I had a sudden recollection of my father’s den when I was a boy, a bottle on his desk as he slept off a lunchtime load.

  I spotted my missing piece on the desk, heavily scored with blue pencil, thick initials circled in the margins. Two photographs lay beside it. I recognized the picture of the schoolteacher. Next to it — strangely, I thought — was the photo of the Buddha statues. Both of the prints had been torn precisely in half.

  Baker’s eyes flickered open. He spent a second staring at me, attempting to focus on my face.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” he snapped.

  “I was told to come, sir. Obliged.”

  He gave a sullen growl and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  “Who the hell’s your editor?”

  “Dutch. That is, John Van Buren, sir.”

  “Stars and Stripes?”

  “That’s correct.”

  He placed his big, liver-spotted hands down on the table.

  “You do him a great disservice. As you do your paper. You call yourself a reporter?”

  “With the greatest respect, sir —”

  “Respect?” His eyes flashed. “Respect? What does a Stars and Stripes man know about respect? Do you respect military interdict? What in the hell is a Stars and Stripes reporter doing in a restricted area in any case?”

  “With the greatest respect, sir, the Stars and Stripes has a tradition —”

  “Damn the Stars and Stripes, sir!” The fist slammed down upon the table with such violence that the beaks of the ducks rattled faintly together. “Damn you. Don’t you know I could have you court-martialled right here and now? Do you understand that?”

  My mouth was dry. “The public has a right to know what is happening in Hiroshima —”

  “The public has all the information they need about Hiroshima, son!” A vein bulged in his forehead, and I recoiled, picturing my father at the height of a fit. “Don’t you worry about that. This —” He gestured at the table. “This — horseshit? You think you know better than our best medical men?

  “I want to report what I saw, sir —”

  “What you saw? What you were shown. And who showed it to you? The Japs.”

  He stood up behind his desk. As he leaned forward, I could smell the boozy cave of his mouth.

  “Did it ever strike you as convenient, what you saw, sir? Gave you a guided tour, did they? Your own private freak show. Ever consider why they were so keen to show you around?”

  He was panting slightly, perspiration on his forehead. I felt a faint stab of doubt. In my mind’s eye, I saw the police chief as he scowled at me: Now — show America what it has done. Dr. Hiyashida’s familiar wave, his gleeful pride as he showed me his most pathetic victims. Take more pictures! For your newspaper!

  I swallowed. Baker’s eyes twitched. “Played you for a fool, you damned idiot. Don’t you see? You’re a sap. A first-class sap.” He picked up my article and slapped it with one hand. He snorted, as if faintly amused. “Radiation disease.”

  He threw the pages in the air, and they fluttered incoherently to the floor. “Horseshit. Tell me, son. Were you ever in a battle against the Japs?”

  “I was a lieutenant in Third Recon —”

  “Well, I was a general at Bataan, Lieutenant!” he hollered, smashing his fist upon the
table again. “You ever hear of something called the Death March? Does that mean anything to you? You ever hear of a place called Pearl Harbour?”

  His eyes were blazing, consumed with fury as he flung a ferocious finger toward the door.

  “Get the hell out of here!” His ruddy face had ripened to a deep maroon, his tongue lolling from his mouth like an overheated dog’s. “Get out!”

  I rotated swiftly and marched out the door, as tiny, ruffling feathers floated up from the corpses of the ducks.

  ~ ~ ~

  Dutch stroked the ginger-blonde hair that he grew long below his pate, looking at me with watery eyes.

  “There’s no chance, Hal, I’m sorry. No chance at all.”

  His face was grave, as if he were a doctor informing me of a terminal illness. “And there’s trouble. It’s gone all the way up. They’ve been asking me some pretty tough questions about you.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as whether you’re some kind of subversive. Whether you are a communist.”

  “Am I, Dutch? In your opinion?”

  He sighed. “Times change, Hal. They say there’s another war coming soon.”

  “What did you plead?”

  He frowned. “I told them about your fine work in reconnaissance. I told them about your commendations. I told them that you may have been . . . disturbed by what you saw up there. That you may be feeling the need to make some kind of recompense.”

  “So I’m a bleeding heart, Dutch, is that it? Or are we pleading insanity?”

  “Hal, I’m putting my neck out for you here.”

  “What’s the verdict Dutch?”

  He shook his head. “You’re suspended, Hal, for the time being. Pending their decision on what to do with you.”

  A long moment passed.

  “What about my other pieces?” I said, sullenly. “‘The Touristic GI?’”

  “I’m sorry, Hal,” he said, with more emphasis.

  “And you’ve agreed to all this, Dutch? What kind of newsman are you? Whatever happened to the crucible of change?”

  He laughed. “What do you want me to do, Hal? They’re threatening to have you court-martialled for travelling to a prohibited area. How can I publish journalistic pieces from a military prison?” He looked down at the desk, guiltily. “And I’ve been asked to take back your press pass, Hal. I’m sorry.”

  An unexpected lump rose in my throat as I slid the crumpled paper out of my wallet. I looked at the scrawl of MacArthur’s signature as I placed the pass upon the desk.

  “What’s going to happen to me, Dutch?”

  He leaned forward. Sotto voce he said: “Strictly between you, me, and the gatepost, Hal, I think you’ve been lucky. Believe it or not. I get the impression there’s been some kind of falling out upstairs about what to do with you. There’s a certain amount of . . . tension between Intelligence and the New Dealers.”

  “So they’re not slinging me out?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I can’t write, but I can stay?”

  He shrugged. “For now at least.”

  Limbo, I thought. The realm of lost souls.

  “Okay, Dutch. I’m going to go get my head down.”

  A pained look came over his face. “That’s something else I need to tell you, Hal. You’re going to have to find another place to live. They’re taking away your billeting rights.”

  I let out a short laugh.

  “I know, I know. They’re a petty, vindictive bunch when they want to be. And you won’t be able to draw rations either. You’ve got two weeks.”

  “No more powdered eggs, Dutch?”

  “‘Fraid not.”

  “No more gratis Luckys?”

  “No sir.”

  “Alright. Thanks, Dutch.”

  “Wait, Hal,” he said as I stood to leave.

  “Don’t tell me. I’m not invited to the Christmas party.”

  His face was serious. His throat moved. He opened up his drawer and took out a slim envelope and slid it toward me.

  I glanced at him in question. His brow rippled.

  “It’s very bad form for a photographer to leave his negatives in the enlarger head, Lynch.”

  I tried to recall leaving the darkroom the night before, dizzy with fatigue.

  I half opened the brim of the envelope. Inside was a cut spool of maybe twenty photographs, shots I recognized from the hospital. I felt my heart leap, and I leaned over to grasp Dutch by the shoulders, kissing his bald head.

  “Alright, alright,” he spluttered.

  “I won’t forget this, Dutch. I mean it.”

  He wiped his head with his handkerchief. “Merry Christmas, Hal. Enjoy it while you still can.”

  I suddenly pictured Dutch in his paper Christmas hat, playing Santa amongst his horde of red-headed children. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “And your eggnog!” he called out plaintively, as I left the room.

  19

  CHILDREN OF THE EMPEROR

  (HIROSHI TAKARA)

  Tomoko and I were lying on the cold floor of Ueno Station, gazing up at constellations of fireflies. A moment later, we were standing on the concrete embankment of the Yoshiwara canal, the water strewn with fire as I kissed her and stroked her black hair.

  A pulse went through me. I tried to stop the dream, but it was already too late. We were standing beneath the iron tracks, a train screaming overhead as I opened the fly of my khaki uniform, twisting her hair in my fist as I pulled her toward me —

  I woke with a shout, repelled and ashamed. It was freezing cold. In the darkness next to me, Koji whimpered in his sleep.

  Tomoko had become almost completely silent since her attack, just as she had after her mother had sent her away from Hiroshima. No one had spoken as we walked back home that night. After we’d reached the inn, I told the children to go straight to bed. They were aware that something awful had happened.

  Tomoko shuffled to the bathhouse and slid the door shut behind her. After a while, there was a clang of pipes and the sound of water. I realized that the water would be icy cold and I told Aiko to go through and ask Tomoko if she would like us to light the boiler. After a moment, she came back and shook her head.

  “Go upstairs then. Lay out her blankets,” I said.

  She bowed and darted up the staircase, hardly daring to look at me.

  As I gazed at the paper screen of the bathroom door, it was as if I could see right through the panels to the other side. Tomoko was sitting naked on a low cedar stool, strands of wet hair clinging to her face. Her monpe were crumpled in the corner, growing darker as the water soaked into them. I imagined the white skin of her rib cage, her head in her hands as she stared into the puddles of cold water . . .

  To my horror, I realized that I’d become stiff.

  ~ ~ ~

  There must be a demon inside me, I thought, as I tramped along the Ginza. In the old Matsuzakaya department store, behind the steamed-up windows, crowds of GIs filled the aisles, and they streamed out carrying boxes tied with ribbon. Next door, Japanese whores stood at the entrance of a club, trying to coax them inside.

  As I watched the soldiers I was filled with violent fantasies of revenge. I’ll find a pistol, I thought, a Nambu Type 14. I’ll find that bastard, I’ll track him down. I’ll wait outside that club until he comes out drunk into the street: fire right into his face . . . Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Long after nightfall, I found myself walking past Hibiya Park toward the corner of the Imperial Plaza. Two huge pine trees stood erect and glittering in front of the Allied headquarters. As I squinted at the yellow windows of the building, I wondered about the men who worked up there. Probably all of them had slept with at least one American woman. Probably a Japanese one as well. Even the ugliest amongst them would know the great masculine secret th
at still lay beyond me.

  I walked over to the palace moat. A full moon shone in the sky, the light rippling in the water. I remembered how my father had always told me to look for the rabbit in the moon when it was full. Something bobbed down in the darkness and I wondered if it were the swollen body of a dead rat. Another lump floated over, and then, in the moonlight, more and more came into view, bumping against the high stone wall of the bank.

  A thin American in wire-rimmed spectacles stood beside me, his mouth open in a yawn. He fumbled for a second, and then pissed, a solid splash against the water. The sound slackened to a vague stream and he shivered like a dog. He gave a belch of satisfaction as he buttoned himself up and strode away. As I looked down, I slowly realized what the shapes were. Legions of abandoned prophylactics were bobbing about down in the moat.

  As I crossed the avenue into the Imperial Plaza, there were faint sighs, regular grunts, and sounds of surprise. Against the wall of the gate, twisted shapes humped against each other, the moon lighting up the white buttocks of men encircled by pale coils of legs as vague moans of pleasure came softly, then sharply.

  It was hopeless. A moment later, unable to stop myself, I ran over to the trees and thrust my hand into my underwear. I rubbed myself swiftly and furiously until, after just a few seconds, I felt a dark warmth rear inside my belly, overwhelming me, until I shuddered, gasping, hot and cold all at once, as if my stomach had melted out over my thighs. I stood there, breathless in the shadows, holding onto the tree, quivering with shame.

  ~ ~ ~

  The eaves of the warped tenement houses were low and stank of fishguts and nightsoil. We were rummaging about in a set of garbage cans, and I was arm-deep in refuse, the sickly sweet smell of rot swamping my nostrils as the other children hunted a little distance away.

  Below my fingertips, I felt a soft, smooth sphere, tender and forgiving. I clutched hold and tugged it out. My heart suddenly quivered. It was exactly what I’d thought! A whole bean jam bun, untouched except for a tiny solar system of silver-blue mould on its surface. An intense pang of hunger knotted my stomach as I held it to my face and breathed in the smell of the bean jam.

  Tomoko was hunched over ten paces away, delving through a heap of old peelings. Her tunic sleeves were rolled up, her arms as brittle as sticks.