A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (2 page)

Ninjo: Japanese people believe that love, affection, compassion and sympathy are the most important feelings that all human beings should nurture. This assumption emanates from the fact that one of the virtues that Japanese society emphasises is cooperation among people. In daily life, Japanese people are bound by the code of ninjo in their attitudes toward others. Suppose that you are sent many apples by your relative. Then you will want to give some to your neighbours. This ‘give and take' attitude is based on the belief in the wisdom of mutual reliance.

I try to imagine how Yuko would look if she were alive today but instead I see her thin from the privations and worry of war, head bowed by the weight of the burden she carries. She sits on a pew with her back to me. Light from the west illuminates her hair which is cut short to her shoulders. I want to call out, warn her to go home. She needs to go far from Urakami and she must leave now. But the words do not come and instead I see her slowly turn around until I must close my eyes before they meet her gaze. Dear Daughter, the life I sought for you was not a bad one, was it? Could you understand why I acted the way I did? Could you see I had no choice? Only child, did you forgive me in those final moments? Did you forgive yourself?

I want to believe she was at peace when the clouds
parted over Nagasaki and that B-29 dropped its load. I cannot bear to think of those last moments as a torment for her. I need her to have died if not content then maybe reconciled to the decisions she made as she prayed to her god. My husband and I would tell each other when pikadon fell over the north of the city her body would have evaporated: bones, organs, even the ash of her, gone in an instant. We were adamant she had felt nothing and this gave us a kind of solace. The absence of a body to bury or cremate helped us sustain this version of her death: she had not suffered on August 9, 1945, at 11.02 a.m.

No, I am not haunted by how she died but why. If I am to be the only remaining teller of this tale, what and how much can I admit to myself and to others? Should I begin with this acknowledgement: my daughter might be here today if it had not been for me. I tell myself I acted out of love and a mother's selflessness but how important is the motivation when you consider the consequence? The darker truth is this: she wouldn't have been in the cathedral unless I had insisted that she meet me there. I have carried that knowledge with me through these long years. Not even Kenzo knew. What an impossible admission to tell a husband and a father. I taught myself to carry this guilt lightly so that no one could see the monster in their midst; but sometimes, when my guard was down, I would tell Kenzo I wished it had been me that the bomb had claimed. He would hold me in his arms and say he too would swap places with Yuko and Hideo if he could. He would reassure me there was nothing that could change what had happened; forces
beyond our control had taken them. We were all victims, only he and I had lived, that was all. He did not understand what I meant: death's greatest cruelty is to claim the wrong people. Sometimes the weakest live.

I convinced myself an edited version of my past was necessary for a bearable life. I told myself I must not think too long on the mistakes I had made that led Yuko to the city's death zone. How else could I get up in the morning and face another day? How else could I endure the years as they trickled by, one too slowly following the other? Me, the last one left, or so I had believed until that winter's morning. I had thought leaving Japan would keep Kenzo and me safe from the past. When people asked me about my life before America I changed details I didn't like, underplayed or erased entire years depending on my mood or audience. Sometimes my inquisitors made the connection between my age, Nagasaki and the war. Too curious perhaps to retreat from their question, they would ask in the embarrassed tone of the victor, ‘Were you there that day?' I could not lie about this one fact but at least my poor English helped. It allowed me to reduce my account to a few nouns, weak adjectives, a verb in the wrong tense. ‘
Grandson and daughter kill, gone. Too sad. Big problem for me.
' In response, they grasped for the best words to use, so as not to confuse my limited language: how terrible, just horrible, simply awful, you are very brave. I hated that word, brave. It implied choice. Others hid behind my poor understanding of English to tell me what they really thought, and I guessed at what they said. Those bombs ended the war; think of the thousands of lives saved by your daughter's death; at least you
and your husband have each other. Such casual dismissal of the loss. This was the survivor's sorrow: people expected you to be grateful. I didn't edit my past for sympathy, or persuasion; I did it to ease the guilt just enough to function. These lies or omissions gave me the strength to look in the mirror and be able to stand the woman I saw. And yet, if called upon to turn the magnifying glass on my past, how to cleave fact from fiction? My memory had intertwined the two like wild nasturtium to some rotting trellis, inextricable, the one dependent on the other. This man who had stood at my door would want to know the truth. What a request to ask. To look back would bring neither forgiveness nor release.

I took the letter he had given me into the kitchen and sat at the table by the window. The red Formica shone with bleach, the plastic jars by the cooker stood neat in line and only the hum of the refrigerator broke the silence. We had bought it not long before Kenzo fell ill. He insisted on buying an American brand, Frigidaire, which came with an ice dispenser. He loved to press against the lever with a plastic tumbler and watch the chunks of ice clatter down. ‘America,' he declared that first time, shaking his head in wonder. ‘What will you think of next?' I had planned to feed him good meat and fresh vegetables but in those last weeks he wanted nothing more than processed food in tins. Macaroni and cheese, SpaghettiOs and corned beef delighted him the most. His last meal before he went into hospital had been vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. He watched me from the kitchen table as I squirted Reddi-wip into the bowl and brought him his dessert. We sat across from each other and held
hands while he ate a few shaky spoonfuls. A drop of cream rested on his unshaven chin. ‘Good?' I asked. ‘Good,' he replied. I could not help myself, I leaned forward and wiped the white blob away with my thumb. ‘Let me give you a shave, you look like a wild man.' He shook his head. ‘My skin hurts.'

 • • • 

‘I bring you good news.' Those were the words the man had used. I looked at the white envelope in front of me, the thick paper,
Amaterasu Takahashi
printed in neat black ink. The last time I had seen my name written in kanji was eight years after we left Japan, in a letter sent by my former maid, Misaki Goto. Her daughter was getting married, we were invited, she would be so happy if we could make the journey from America to Nagasaki. I was delighted for her but sent my sincere apologies. I hope she understood why I could not go back. Instead I shipped off a painting of the Rocky Mountains, even though Kenzo and I had never visited. We moved from California to Pennsylvania not long after receiving the invitation and Misaki and I lost touch. I had kept in contact with no one else, which forced me to ask the question: who could be writing to me?

I glanced up to a picture framed in black wood on the wall. The sun had bleached the figures but you could still see Hideo dressed in his school uniform, standing between his parents, Yuko and Shige. On August 9, every year, Kenzo would bring out his best malt, imported from Scotland, in preparation for the day. We would work our way through the bottle, the peat flavour smoky on our tongues, and my husband would create new stories for our dead grandson. Some years he was a sailor, in others
a lawyer, or sometimes a poet who lived in the mountains. He was handsome and kind and witty. He had a brood of solid children or a mistress from France. His life was joyful and exotic and full of adventure. The man at my door did not fit this movie-house picture. This was not the ending I wanted for any of us. Here was another monster raised from the rubble of Nagasaki. I did not believe him. This envelope could not contain good news and yet still I walked to the cutlery drawer, retrieved a small knife and returned to my chair. The blade slid too easily through the paper. I took out the note, laid it flat on the table and read the signature. Two words rocketed toward me, only two words, but what words: Natsu Sato. The doctor's wife. Sweat prickled across my body. I walked to the window, and even though the street was empty, I drew down the blinds. I could have thrown Natsu's letter in the garbage; I could have turned on the TV too loud and drowned out the possibilities of its contents, but instead I sat back in the kitchen chair and began to read.

To Amaterasu Takahashi,

Firstly, I must apologise for the shock of this revelation. The man that you have no doubt just met is your grandson, Hideo Watanabe. I can confirm this. You may have little reason to believe me, but I do not lie. Hideo didn't die that day, he survived. Is that not marvellous to know? But as you will have seen, he was severely wounded during pikadon. So injured in fact that the authorities could not identify him. He was sent away from the city a year after the end of the war to an orphanage for child
victims. This is where my husband found him and where we later discovered who he was. You would have already left for America by this time. It took many years for us to find you. As luck would have it, a former employee of yours, Mrs Goto, read an article about our peace organisation that mentioned Hideo's birth name. She contacted me and provided an address for you and your husband – an old one, as it turns out. We are trying to locate your whereabouts as I write. I apologise for this delay. I can only imagine the confusion this must be causing you.

My husband and I decided to adopt Hideo. We brought him back to Nagasaki and he grew into an accomplished man. But I will let him tell you his own story. We are proud of him as I know you will be. Hideo has a package for you. This will help you understand what happened all those years ago, should you wish to know. I have not shown Hideo this package. Whether you do or do not I will leave to your discretion, but I ask that you read the contents first. I'm sure when you have, you will know how best to proceed. I return your grandson to you today not only because I can but also because I want to. This final act is the least I can do after so many years of forced separation. I hope he will bring you as much joy as he has brought happiness to our small family.

Yours in sincerity,

Natsu Sato

There was no date, a message caught in the vacuum of time. I folded the letter up and walked out of the kitchen, down the windowless hall to our bedroom. Kenzo had first
taken me to see our home in Chestnut Hill in 1956. ‘I've found the perfect spot for us. It's a commute for me, but it is beautiful, very traditional.' The Victorian house was painted green with a white wooden porch and set back from a quiet street lined by beeches. As a realtor showed us around, I whispered to my husband that it felt gloomy. He was prepared for my objection. ‘We'll paint it with strong colours, pale wood, bring the light inside.' Ever the engineer, he saw brighter possibilities among the shadows.

He hired carpenters to replace the oak wardrobes in the bedroom with maple. ‘Reminds me of cherrywood,' Kenzo said, running his hand down a panel. Decorators painted the walls yellow. In Japan this had been the colour of lost love; here it meant the sunshine. I bought a rose-print duvet, pictures of purple mountains for the walls and lilac cotton curtains so flimsy you could see your hands through them. When we were done, we stood in the doorway and appraised our rendition of an American life. Kenzo asked, ‘You like it? It's much brighter, yes?' I nodded. He never realised: he was my only sunlight after the war.

We'd lived in that home together for sixteen years. When Kenzo died in 1972 I'd considered moving, but where? At least here I had a routine of sorts, the territory was known, the boredom familiar. I filled the silence with the noise of wildlife documentaries, rolling news, soaps. Without him, mornings could go by with me just sitting on the couch. At night, I began to drink neat whiskey in growing amounts, the curtains drawn. You live with loneliness long enough and it becomes a kind of company. Besides, those solid walls and polished
floorboards contained all I had left of my family. I still saw Kenzo sitting on the couch reading the newspaper, filling in forms or shouting answers at a quiz show, proud of having mastered this foreign language enough to make it almost his own. My resistance to learning English had provoked arguments, but what could he do – force me to read textbooks, march me to classes? ‘Contrary, stubborn, wilfully ignorant,' he would say in those early years before Chestnut Hill, when we lived north of San Francisco, near Mare Island and close to the shipyard. He'd speak in Japanese and then translate the words into his adopted tongue. ‘Ugly words, ugly language,' I would reply in English, trying to mimic the accent to prove my point. Kenzo would shake his head and go back to his crossword, which I noted, with cruel satisfaction, he could not do.

One Christmas a year or so into our American life he gave me a book wrapped in gold tissue. The paper cover was the colour of a red autumn poppy with the texture of frost on a windowpane. The kanji was translated as:
An English Dictionary of Japanese Culture
. Kenzo smiled at me. ‘I thought this could be a compromise. See, the Japanese is here, and the English is on the other side.' I flicked through the pages, some decorated with crude black-and-white sketches. I read one of the entries: ‘
Wabi: A simple and austere type of beauty. The word is derived from the verb wabu (to lose strength) and the adjective wabishi (lonely). Originally, it meant the misery of living alone away from society. Later, it gained a positive aesthetic meaning: the enjoyment of a quiet, leisurely and carefree life
.' I wrapped the gift back in the sheath of delicate gold and asked him where he had found the book. He reached for another parcel. ‘You can get anything
in the USA. You just need to know who to ask.' I flashed him a sceptical look. ‘Honestly, Ama, sushi, teppanyaki, even shabu-shabu, they're all here. America is the world.' He never understood my reasons for not learning the language. This country was shelter from pikadon but it was not home, the people were not my own, I did not want to be close to them.