Fire Flowers Read online

  A cold draft gusted in from the doorway and I gulped back my drink and shuddered, feeling a kind of sordid torpidity settle upon me. I studied the cover of the book. Tanizaki would still be writing, I thought, he would still be slogging away. Wasn’t it at times of just such extremity and extenuation that art truly flourished? Japan eviscerated, a foreign army parading the streets—what would Tolstoy have made of it? Maupassant?

  And yet here I sat, my lice-ridden overcoat draped over my shoulders, scribbling fantasies for the lost and the lonely. Hunched over my foul rotgut, tormented by constipation, a cough racking my lungs, my toes dissolving into the mouldy morass of my boots. Keening around a decent woman like Mrs. Shimamura like a camp dog, whining for scraps and sympathy. A wave of disgust washed over me, and my hand instinctively reached to my pocket for the tablets I kept there for just such moments of despondency. I popped one into my mouth, and bit down on it.

  I felt a sharp crack and a shooting pain screwed all the way up the front of my face. I urgently probed my mouth with my tongue. There was a gap next to my front incisor, the rotten gum spongy like dank vegetation. I tasted rotten, metallic blood and spat the split remains of my tooth and the dissolving Philopon pill into my cupped hand: a swirl of blood and saliva, the amphetamine fizzing into tiny bubbles, the decayed tooth a black pearl.

  Whatever next? I thought. Would my eyeballs dim with rheum, the last of my hair fall out? The dull ache in my liver seemed to pulse and flare. I felt utterly destroyed.

  “It’s all gone,” I muttered. “Everything’s gone.”

  Mrs. Shimamura came over. To my utter surprise, she put her tender, matronly arms around my neck. Disgusted with myself, I began to sob into her bosom.

  “There, there,” she said. “Stop being such a baby.”

  She turned to the bar, and poured me a glass from her private supply. Then she folded her arms and became stern.

  “Now, sensei. Don’t go getting yourself so upset about everything. You don’t have it so bad. You’re no worse off than a million others. So pull yourself together.”

  She turned back to her sink of dishes and started crooning again. I shrugged meekly, and went off for a lie-down upstairs.

  There were many things that I pined for in those days following the war. Things that I fleetingly craved with an urgency I had never known before in my life. Persimmons were one of these; as for some reason, later on, were tangerines. I had always been partial to persimmons, of course, but tangerines I had never had any particular feelings about, until, on my return to Japan, quite suddenly, their dimpled, waxy skin, their tart sweetness, and, more than anything, their bright orange colour began to exert a powerful hold on my imagination. I could spot them from a hundred yards off at the black market, amongst the covered stalls and booths, the cups cast from melted fuselages and the muddled heaps of cast-off army garments: the tangerine vendor, his vivid fruit wrapped in newspaper at the back of a handcart. Cruelly, their price shot up almost as soon as they became more widely available; they all came via the American Postal Exchange, descending to us from the gods, as it were. And so they were to remain, perpetually hoisted just beyond my reach.

  What I longed for more than anything, however, was a really decent, proper pair of shoes. Since my repatriation from the green hell of New Guinea, I had worn my hobnailed army boots day and night, as did most of the other returnees from the battlefield. After countless miles of trudging, swelling and shrinking, the cowhide had welded to my feet, so much so that it was now an effort to remove them. They entirely repulsed me. They were a badge of shame, a decrepit symbol of servitude to a suicidal ideal. They were uncomfortable as well: the metal heel rims had long since worn away, the seams split, and icy water leaked in around my toes whenever I stepped into one of the freezing puddles that lurked all across the city that winter. I cursed them every time my heel poked through the worn sole, every time the sodden laces squeezed the fragile bones of my foot. I had heard that certain black market shops sold looted officers’ boots—high, elegant cavalry affairs cut from soft leather or European kid. But the thought of their buttery smoothness made me nauseous: they reeked of everything I despised. Perhaps, I thought, I could revert to wearing split-toe tabi and wooden clogs, as some of the other writers had done. But for all their homely charm, they too seemed fundamentally feudal to me, and, after all, they were hard and uncomfortable, and so very cold in winter.

  No. What I truly aspired to was a good, sturdy pair of Western shoes. Enviously, I had observed an American civilian on the tram a few weeks previously wearing precisely the style I desired. A smart pair of burnished Oxford brogues, reddish brown, aglow with heathery tints. A thick lock of coffee-coloured hair fell over the man’s angular brow; a neat, moulded camera case was slung over his shoulder. He sat holding his book, chin perched on hand, elbow on knee. One leg dangled casually over the other, a neat argyle sock clasping the ankle beneath. Then there was the beautiful shoe, rocking faintly back and forth to the rhythm of the tram. I was racked by a sudden, violent desire. When he alighted near Yurakucho Station, I pressed my face to the window, picturing myself casually clipping along the street, just as he did now. Well, I said to myself. There at least goes a serious man.

  Perhaps as a man with real shoes, I might feel like a human being once more, after years of being nothing but a soldier and subject. The stopped clock of my life might start ticking once again—as a man of purpose, striding boldly into the future. Rather than just another faceless nonentity in a city of pinched, weary men, our service caps pulled over our eyes, our shoulders sparring with the wind as we trudged the disconsolate streets.

  I hoarded every penny like a miser, denying myself tobacco, even shochu. I avoided the temptations of Kanda, and busied myself instead with my third edition of ERO. To my delight and good fortune, it met with considerable success. Struck by the popularity of the feature in our last issue, “The Dish I Most Lament,” I decided this time to expand it to encompass the entire panoply of frustrated desires hidden in our citizens’ souls that winter. Once more I circumnavigated the Yamanote Line, stopping passersby and asking them to describe their heart’s most secret desire. They were hesitant at first, unsure of how to respond. Then, the words began to spill out like a flowing river of dreams:

  “My wife.”

  “My son.”

  “A good, long Noh play.”

  “Pickled plums.”

  “The knowledge that all of us Japanese were on the same side.”

  “A real coat.”

  “A working watch.”

  For me, though, it was always the shoes. I had taken to leaving my boots in the street at night now, plugged with newspaper to contain their rotten smell of fermenting soybeans. The cowhide was crinkled and frosty by morning, and I had to rotate the boots over the brazier to thaw them out. But even from there, they haunted my sleep. I would dream they were calling to me, that they might somehow slip back into the building, hop up the stairs and lace themselves earnestly back onto my feet while I slept.

  I was in Shinjuku one afternoon when I saw a man wearing a sandwich board. When I read it, I thought that heaven must be smiling upon me at last. A shoe shop was opening that very day, not half a mile distant. I rushed over to the place, and urgently scanned the display.

  There, in pride of place, was my heart’s desire. A stout pair of russet Oxford brogues, stitched on each side with bronze thread. Barely worn, looking to be more or less my size. I darted in, demanding to try them on. The shopkeeper eyed me suspiciously while I wrestled them onto my feet. They were a perfect fit, snug and tight. I asked the man to tell me how much they cost.

  The price was absurd. But I barely gave it a thought, and told him I would return directly. I hurried home to fetch all of my hoarded savings. Walking back to the shop, I became suddenly nervous, wracked by the thought that someone else would have purchased them in my absence. But when I arrived, the
y were still there. I thrust the money into the man’s hands and tore my old army boots from my feet. I took the Oxfords in my hands, inhaling the cedary fragrance of the dappled leather, turning them to admire their subtle, coppery tints. I slipped them onto my feet, and firmly laced them up.

  “Should I wrap these old boots in newspaper, sir?” asked the shopkeeper.

  I glanced at them with loathing.

  “Please dispose of them as you see fit, sir,” I said. “I have no wish to see them again.”

  I turned on my heel and left the shop, feeling as if I were walking on air.

  I made my way along the street, pausing every now and again to glance down. The leather pinched a little; I told myself it would take a while for my feet to become used to real shoes again. On the tram, I experimentally tried to cross one leg over the other, as I had seen the Westerner do, but it was an uncomfortable, constricting position and would take practice to perfect. Several of the passengers, I was sure, gave me sidelong glances. I casually extended my legs, rotating my feet from side to side in order to impress upon them the dazzle and flash of the shoes’ superb leather.

  So absorbed was I that I entirely missed my stop. I was now some distance from home. My feet were becoming quite painful, though this was only to be expected at first—this was simply how it was with proper shoes. An alley led off from the main avenue, and I was surprised, halfway along, to see the glowing lantern of a public bathhouse. This was an unexpected treat. Most of the sentos had been badly damaged during the bombings and those that remained had little fuel available to heat the pipes. For a people who so valued cleanliness, this was a considerable discomfort. I myself had not had a chance to bathe for several months. The thought of taking off my shoes and immersing myself in a hot pool of water filled me with exquisite pleasure.

  It was a run-down tenement area and two children were tormenting a cat outside the building. As I approached, the cat went mewling away and the children slunk off—glancing, I noticed with helpless pleasure, at my bronze beauties as I ducked underneath the curtain.

  The place must have been old-fashioned even before the war. Against the wall of the entrance hall was a row of wooden compartments with slotted hatches in which to store one’s valuables, and a scrawny woman dozed away in a booth, her neck a mass of chicken skin. I unlaced my Oxfords, with some relief now, admittedly, and placed them in a compartment. I rapped a ten-sen piece on the counter and the woman yawned and waved me over to the male changing room.

  The place was deserted but for the trickling sound of water, a faint mould growing over an engraved relief of furiously bayonetting soldiers along the wall. As I peeled off my clothes, I was appalled by the odour of my body. I piled my coat, shirt and underclothes into a basket. Covering my nether regions with a hand towel, I slid open the door to the bathroom.

  The air was dank and there was a chemical smell. But steam rose appealingly from the main pool and I shivered in anticipation at the thought of climbing in. I took a wooden bucket, filled it from the tap, and then, on my low stool, began to soap and rinse myself with the deliciously hot water. The hue of the bubbles that ran off down the drain was disturbingly grey. My body was speckled with a patchwork of sores and bites from legions of ticks and fleas and the rampages of bedbugs. It was horrifying. I made a solemn vow to myself that I would track down one of the American trucks that were criss-crossing the city blasting out insecticide, and subject myself to a frosting.

  Eventually, I seemed more or less clean enough, and I slipped into the big, steaming pool. I moaned with pleasure—it was utterly divine. I placed my hand towel on my head, and submerged my body in the hot water. After a minute, I opened my eyes.

  What a startling sight. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed how pale and shrunken my body had become. My skin was as white as tofu and my rib cage seemed to have sunk entirely into my chest. What a transformation had occurred since I had been called to the front. What an old man the war had made of me.

  I sighed and sank back into the water. I mustn’t feel sorry for myself, though, I thought, picturing Mrs. Shimamura’s kindly face with affection. After all, didn’t it seem now as if things might finally be on the up? The magazine went from strength to strength; it kept at least some flesh adhered to my bones. Perhaps I could fatten myself up a little. Cut back on my daily doses of shochu and Philopon, regain some of my prior sturdiness . . .

  My thoughts drifted to Satsuko Takara, and I felt an acute sense of shame. The last time I had gone to the Ginza in the hope of glimpsing her outside her cabaret, she had not appeared, though I waited, shivering, until dawn. Perhaps she was dead now, I thought. Perhaps those visions of her on the street had been heaven-sent driftwood, to which I should have tightly clung.

  I thought of the night when I had taken her to the anarchic revue at the Moulin Rouge, when she had laughed along as heartily as the students, even though she was just a shopgirl by trade.

  A shopgirl. What did that matter, in any case? The war hadn’t cared much for class, had it? The careful social gradation my mother had ruthlessly applied to every facet of her universe, from the pattern of a kimono belt to the arrangement of a teacup. What a mockery death had made of it all. Of rank, of ancestry. As if our blood type had mattered as the crimson poured from our veins; as if the bone fragments of a lowly private could be distinguished from a general’s as they sluiced into the sinking mud of that tropical hell.

  And if Satsuko Takara was a fallen woman, wasn’t it I who was to blame? The man who had taken her virginity, as if it were a prize, the day before going to war?

  I would find her again, I thought. I would seek her out, wherever she was in the city. There was little hope that we might rekindle our lost, unlikely love, such as it had been. The war had slaughtered my romantic capacities in any case. Yet, I might apologize to her for my failings. Make some small recompense.

  I emerged from the bath feeling entirely cleansed. I dressed in my clothes, overwhelmed by their tarry stench of cigarette smoke and sour sweat. I vowed that I would make a bonfire, burn them all up in a great blaze. I’d buy myself a new set entirely, before going on my search for Takara-san.

  I stood in front of the mirror; combed my hair; gave my teeth a quick scrub with my finger. I might even visit a teahouse on the way home, I thought. I felt more refreshed than I had in years.

  As I emerged from the changing room, a sudden panic struck me. The scrawny old woman in the vestibule was asleep, her head tilted backward, a line of drool dangling from her mouth. The door to the compartment where I had left my shoes was open. I rushed over. The latch was up. The compartment was empty.

  I seized the woman and shook her violently. She stared at me in dull incomprehension.

  “Where are my shoes?” I demanded. “Why have you moved them?”

  “I haven’t moved them anywhere, sir,” she complained, “Why should I?” She’d been right there, she said, keeping an eye on things all this time.

  I had a sudden vision of the two boys outside. With choking trepidation, I darted out. The street was empty. Back inside, the woman was looking vexed, sucking at her lips and shaking her head.

  “Oh sir!” she moaned. “Those two dirty children! They were playing right outside! They must have noticed sir’s hand- some shoes, and taken it into their heads . . . ”

  Oh, it was wicked, sir! Those dirty, wretched, evil little shrimps. Scampering about right by the entrance, she had told them to clear off, but she must have just dozed away for just a second. Oh sir! Whatever must the honourable gentleman think? Such nasty urchins. What a wicked place Japan had become, that two innocent little children could do such a shameful thing!

  Methodically, I opened every other compartment as she prattled away, praying that I had somehow been mistaken, that I would open a wooden hatch to see amber contours glinting calmly back at me.

  It was to no avail. They were all empty. I felt a hard lum
p in my throat, an intense sensation of loss, as if someone close to me had died. Wretchedly, I went back outside and looked up and down the street. It was no use. The area was deserted. The shoes were gone.

  I shuffled from the bathhouse with bales of newspaper wrapped around my bare feet. They grew sodden and bitty as I negotiated the puddles, and soon threatened to disintegrate altogether. People passed by with smiles on their faces.

  I stubbornly filed a complaint at the police box. The officer on duty rolled his eyes as he wrote out a form. He suggested that I go down to the nearby black market and search for them there—that was where most of the stolen goods in the area ended up, he said.

  If he knew that, I asked myself sullenly, as I prowled up and down the aisles at the market, then why didn’t he do some- thing about it? Icy water had risen up the legs of my breeches now, and my feet were almost naked. It was dark by the time I found a stall selling shoes on the very edge of the market. It was just as the officer had suspected. My Oxfords were sitting there, in pride of place upon the trestle table.

  I pointed at them. “Those are mine.”

  The stunted stallholder squinted up at me.

  “Four hundred,” he said. He glanced down at my naked feet. “Perfect for a gentleman like you.”

  “Four hundred? What are you talking about? I paid three for them just this afternoon.”

  He shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

  “But they’re mine!” I shouted. “They were stolen from me this afternoon.”

  The man came a little closer. “So I’m a thief, am I? Is that what you’re saying?”