a novel by Kerri Sakamoto
EXCERPT
October — Friday Rain
Dear Kiku,
It's growing colder here. I feel dampness in my bones. But it's familiar, like an old friend who knows he's a nuisance. To feel warm and comfortable without you would seem wrong.
You asked me what happened next in my dream and I'm ashamed to say. I gave the arm to a fellow officer who put it inside a flimsy box meant for food and sent it off. It might even have been stained and smelly inside. Why did I do that? Leave the lovely arm that might have been yours or mine, inside in that filth? Yet I felt relieved, because its softness was making me weak. I was afraid I wouldn't take good enough care of it, that I might drop it, or let it get bruised. I do have a strange imagination, you always said. I lack discipline and fall short even in my dreams. But you said if I focused my mind and my spirit, I could accomplish all you envisioned for me. I do cling to your faith in me, like I believe in the sun, even when it isn't shining, and the skies are dark and angry, and it is impossible to see the battleships below that we are to fire at, and that one day we'll be asked to plunge ourselves into. When I flew on an escort mission the other day, I was caught in a thick cloud and suddenly came out of it, and one of those new formidable B29s was right there, banking close and then away, and I thought I saw a face, an American face, large and deep, and a toothy bright smile flashing. I know that sounds like my imagination again, because I've never seen an American, and the sky is so vast, and we are travelling so fast, but those machines, you don't know Kiku, they are just metal not much thicker than cardboard that buckles and wobbles. You feel the engine inside your organs, vibrating as a part of you. There is barely more than air separating them from us
I don't mean to frighten you. I won't fail, I promise. I won't be a senseless casualty before my moment arrives. Yesterday, I heard of one pilot who mistook a small island he was flying over for an American battleship. He disappeared into it in a puff of smoke and mist. I pray that he left something of himself, a lock of his hair or his nail clippings behind to give to his family.
That reminds me, Kiku. I must remember not to cut my fingernails too soon before my mission. I heard of one pilot, his name was Sekiguchi I think, who was always very fastidious, and when his time came, his hair and his nails were too short to trim anything for his loved ones. I'll wait as long as possible so that my family will see I was healthy and thriving and grooming myself right up until the final hour. I have been practising my calligraphy to leave a poem for them. It isn't original since you know I'm not a poet. Actually it's words to a song I heard one night outside, or thought I heard —you see I can never hide from you how strange I am. It sounded like children singing, very faintly, somewhere in the distance outside our quarters. I swear to you I heard them but when I asked the next morning, no one else had, and no one knew of children or a school nearby. But this is what I heard: "You and I are only ephemeral cherry blossoms. Even if we die separately, we shall meet again and bloom in the garden of Yasukuni Shrine-the haven for all flowers." The voices were childish and frail almost, but brave. I hope you believe me.
Yojimoto, Honda and Sato didn't come back. I knew they wouldn't, and there was no time to be friendly with them. The truth is I never felt comfortable enough to join in with them, but tonight I regret their absence. I pray they are happily on their way to Yasukuni.
Hajime