J-Boys Page 8

  “The sky to the south was deep red. We could tell that the firebombs were coming closer. I said to your grandmother, ‘Okaasan, come on, let’s go to the woods behind the Hachiman Shrine.’ Soon we met up with a whole crowd of people also headed toward the shrine. Your grandma and I joined the crowd, gripping hands so we wouldn’t get separated. But soon, the pitter-patter rain sounds shifted to loud whistling sounds, like flutes.

  “And then, right before my eyes, columns of fire came crashing down. We all fell to the ground. The earth shook violently, then flames shot up everywhere, and in an instant the whole area was on fire.

  “‘If we stay here we’ll burn to death!’ somebody yelled. Everyone scrambled to their feet and began to run, desperately trying to get away. We moved with the crowd, rushing toward the woods behind the shrine.

  “‘You can’t go that way!’ someone else yelled. ‘It’s too dangerous! Go back!’

  “Your grandmother and I both heard that voice, and we stopped in our tracks. But a lot of people around us couldn’t hear it and kept running for the shrine. As the two of us stood frozen, wondering what to do, we heard the whistling sound like a flute, and then a bomb dropped right there in front of us. We were so scared, our bodies trembled like leaves as we fell to the ground. When we somehow managed to lift our heads, we saw just ahead of us a woman with a baby on her back. She’d been running for safety like us. Now she lay on the ground, her whole body on fire. The flames were so bad, we couldn’t get close enough to help. The smell of gasoline filled the air, along with another horrible smell—the smell of human flesh burning. We could tell that the flames around us were getting higher and higher and closer and closer.

  “‘We’ll die if we stay here!’ I told your grandmother.

  “Somehow the two of us got back on our feet, still shaking. Clutching each other’s hand, we began to walk in the direction of smaller flames. The heat of the fire was so intense, it singed our eyebrows. We had no idea how long we walked. But eventually we realized we were standing in front of our own house.

  “The fire was everywhere by now. ‘If we’re going to die,’ your grandmother said, ‘then we should die together in our own house.’

  “The two of us went back inside. We huddled together on the bedding, trembling. By that point we could no longer hear the firebombs. Instead, we heard the roaring of the fire. I said a prayer: ‘If we’re going to die, let us die without suffering. And if we are born again, let us be born into a peaceful world with no war.’

  “Finally, it began to grow light outside. Night was ending and morning had come.

  “We’re still alive. With this thought in our minds, we cautiously opened the front door.

  “Outside, everything was gone. All the houses and buildings between our house and Shibuya Station had burned—not a single one was left standing. The area all around was flat and charred black as far as we could see. Off in the distance was Shinjuku Station, a building two stations away that we shouldn’t have been able to see at all. Your grandmother and I took one look and began to weep. Here and there you could still see black smoke rising where fires were smoldering. The stench was so awful we could barely breathe. I was terrified I’d never see my relatives and friends again. And I remember looking at the field of ashes and thinking, ‘So this is what death is.’ ”

  Mother paused to take a breath. “Almost twenty years have gone by since the war ended, but the sights from that day will always haunt me.

  “It turned out that everyone who fled to the Hachiman Shrine was burned to death because the fire spread to the trees in the woods. If we hadn’t heard that voice warning us to go back, your mother and grandmother would no longer be in this world.”

  Both Kazuo and Yasuo listened to their mother with serious expressions. By now, she had told them many times about how there wasn’t enough food during and after the war, and about how as a child she had studied with miniature light bulbs during blackouts, and about how lots of people had died during air raids. But this was a new story. Maybe she had decided to tell them about this because of the bombs flashing on their TV screen every night like a movie.

  Kazuo had looked at a map, and America and Vietnam were far apart, on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. So why did America have to send so many troops and drop so many bombs in Vietnam? He had no idea. He also had no idea why his favorite American TV programs, like Leave It to Beaver, never showed the war. Instead, all they showed was the family’s house with the big refrigerator, and Beaver’s older brother coming home from school and making himself a sandwich, and the whole family wearing nice clothes. There was never an air raid siren going off, or people running frantically to get away from enemy planes dropping bombs.

  All of this struck Kazuo as strange, but it didn’t make him hate America. Instead, the America that appeared on the TV screen continued to look cheerful and wonderful to him.

  After Kazuo’s mother told the story, he expected things to change for some reason. He thought that maybe she would stop nagging them about their homework or about eating all the food on their plates. But even though she began to use the new pet phrase “I’m sick and tired of war” more often, her old pet phrases for Kazuo and his brother did not let up even a little.

  When the two of them were engrossed in TV or comics, she asked, “Did you do your homework?” When they didn’t eat their vegetables, she said, “Clean your plate.” And if they complained that they would like to taste a steak like the ones Beaver and his family had for dinner, she would snap back at them with one of her favorite pet phrases, “Be grateful for what you have.”

  So Kazuo and Yasuo had to keep on doing their homework and cleaning their plates of onions and carrots and boiled fish, all the while remembering to be grateful for what they had.

  Christmas and Report Cards

  Kazuo did not like to study. He did his homework because he had to not once had he ever wished to study more on his own. If he had extra time, he would much rather use it to play with his friends in the empty lot, or read comics, or watch TV.

  Of course, he had privately vowed to study harder when the owner of Yoshino’s Tofu Shop died, but that had not led to anything lasting. Kazuo knew that he wasn’t putting as much effort into his schoolwork as he could, so when the end of fall term and report card day came on December 25, Christmas Day, he felt doomed from the moment he woke up.

  Kazuo knew from TV and magazines that Christmas was the day Jesus Christ was born He knew that in America and Europe, people put up Christmas trees and ate whole roasted turkey, and that children opened presents in front of glowing fireplaces.

  Kazuo knew this, but he had never experienced it. At his house, they never put up a Christmas tree, or ate a whole roasted turkey.

  “Japanese people have New Year’s. Surely that’s enough.” This was Kazuo’s mother’s explanation for why they didn’t celebrate Christmas. Of course, when she put it that way, Kazuo had to agree. He had never been to church, or offered thanks to Jesus Christ before a meal, like the families did at supper on TV Westerns. He did not think of Jesus Christ’s birthday as a reason to feel particularly grateful.

  Then again, Christmas seemed much more stylish than New Year’s, and Kazuo couldn’t help finding everything about it more impressive. Compared with New Year’s pine decorations, Christmas trees were far more splendid and eye-catching. And next to rice-dumpling soup and the salty-sweet dishes that were stored in lacquer boxes for New Year’s, a whole turkey or chicken roasted to a tantalizing light brown seemed much more appetizing.

  Of course, nobody in Kazuo’s neighborhood actually put up a Christmas tree and celebrated the holiday like people did on American TV shows. The stores in the shopping area played Christmas songs nonstop, but the only ones with Christmas trees were the cake shop, Mimasu Sweets, and the toy shop, Tanaka. Then there was Takahashi Meats, owned by Nobuo’s family, which sold specially roasted chicken thighs on Christmas Day only.

  So Kazuo’s Christmas celebration co
nsisted almost entirely of eating a slice of Christmas cake, purchased by one of his parents, after dinner on December 25. And most of the pleasure from that had already been ruined by the handing out of report cards earlier in the day.

  Christmas cake: A sponge cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries and sometimes choc­olates or other fruit. It is usually eaten on Christmas Eve. Only a very small percentage of Japanese are Christian, but Japanese people enjoy many Christmas customs.

  At school this year on Christmas Day, even the boys who usually loitered at the back of the classroom until the teacher came, talking loudly or pretending to be pro wrestlers, were waiting quietly in their seats. None of them could stop thinking about the report cards that were about to be handed out.

  Eventually, Mr. Honda came into the classroom carrying the documents under his arm. Seeing everyone’s tense faces, his eyes sparkled behind his glasses.

  “When I was about your age, I hated report card day, too. Please remember, boys and girls, that low grades are an opportunity to work harder next term. And even if your grades have improved, there is still room to go up.”

  Mr. Honda handed the report cards to the students as they filed one-by-one to the front of the classroom. Like everyone, Kazuo took his report card from Mr. Honda and then went to his seat and opened it just a crack. He had gotten fives again in math, science, and physical education. (Five was the top grade on a scale of one to five.) He’d gotten fours in Japanese and social studies. He had a three in drawing and manual arts and a three in music. His Japanese had gone up from a three to a four; otherwise, his grades were unchanged. In the comment section, Mr. Honda had written, “Kazuo was assistant leader of his class group and did a good job getting them organized and looking after everyone. In academics, he did his homework faithfully but could improve further with additional effort. Resist the temptation to be satisfied with the current results, and do your best.”

  Kazuo sighed. Mr. Honda had figured out that he hated to study.

  When the students’ cheers, dejected sighs, and surprised gasps had finally died down, the teacher spoke up.

  “With that, we come to the end of the fall term. From tomorrow until January 7, we have winter vacation. Whatever you do, take good care of your health and try not to catch a cold. I look forward to seeing you all here in good spirits on January 8. Happy New Year.”

  The class bowed, and the term was over.

  If this were a normal day, Kazuo would go with Nobuo, Nishino-kun, Minoru, and Yasuo to the empty lot and play awhile before going home. But when Kazuo went to peek into his brother’s second-grade classroom, not a soul was in sight. Nobuo went right home, saying he had to help at the butcher shop, as they were selling the roasted chicken thighs for Christmas. Minoru left, too, explaining that he had to help his dad. That left Kazuo and Nishino-kun.

  The two of them sat down on the dead grass in the empty lot and showed each other their report cards. Other than a five in drawing and manual arts, and a four in social studies, Nishino-kun had all threes.

  “You got terrific grades,” Nishino-kun told Kazuo. “Just once, I wish I could get a five in something other than drawing and manual arts.”

  Kazuo saw his friend sigh glumly. While Kazuo’s grades were certainly better than Nishino-kun’s, he thought that getting a five in drawing and manual arts, as Nishino-kun had done, was more impressive. Nishino-kun’s drawings—like most of the thoughts in his head, for that matter—were completely different from everyone else’s. When the class was sketching plants, the other students tried to make their drawings resemble the trees or grass or flowers they were looking at. But Nishino-kun’s drawings didn’t look a bit like what was in front him. If he was looking at a white flower with broad, flat leaves, he would put black lines in the flower and draw the leaves slightly twisted. But for some reason the plants he drew looked more alive than anyone else’s.

  “By the way, Nishino-kun, do you celebrate Christmas at your house?” Kazuo asked after he and Nishino-kun had finished sharing their report cards.

  “Christmas? Not really. Mom will probably buy a Christmas cake, but we don’t put up a Christmas tree or get presents or anything.”

  “I see.” Kazuo was disappointed. He had faintly hoped that Nishino-kun’s family would celebrate Christmas because they had so many foreign books. Then again, their house was so crammed with books they probably had no room for a Christmas tree. As far as Christmas went, it seemed Nishino-kun’s family was no different from all the rest in West Ito.

  “Well anyway, I’d better be getting home with these grades,” Nishino-kun mumbled, sounding depressed.

  Nishino-kun would probably get a talking-to from his father. Thinking about it made Kazuo feel bad for his friend.

  At his own house, Kazuo thought, he would have his own problems. Mother would come home from her job and say, “Kazuo, you know perfectly well that you could get better grades if you studied a little harder. Think about that over winter vacation and buckle down next term.”

  As for his father, he would probably work overtime again and come home late. Kazuo hoped that he would come straight home and not by way of Chujiya, the bar by the station. The last thing Kazuo wanted was to hear his drunken father rant, “Son, you are going to study harder and get into a national university, you hear me? Then you’re going to get a Ph.D. and work at a top company. You’re not going to have regrets and end up like me, got that?”

  Soon, the two boys stood up and began to walk slowly down the roads that led to their houses.

  That night Kazuo did get the usual talking-to from his mother when she came home from her job. But his father, who came home late after working overtime and stopping at the bar, was in extremely high spirits. He had bought a Christmas cake, which he placed on the kotatsu. Then he immediately fell asleep.

  Sitting next to Father’s snoring body, Kazuo, Yasuo, and Mother each enjoyed a slice of cake. Christmas was just one day, but tomorrow was the start of winter vacation—and that meant two whole weeks without having to think about school. Just the idea of it almost made Kazuo forget his grades, and that was a very good thing.

  Winter Earnings

  The first two days of winter vacation were pure heaven. Kazuo and Yasuo didn’t have to go to school; their mother left home at eight in the morning and didn’t return until five, and their father left even earlier, of course, and didn’t come home until late. The middle part of the day, when both parents were away, was Kazuo and Yasuo’s to spend pretty much as they pleased.

  New Year's: The period around New Year’s Day, known as O­shogatsu, one of Japan’s biggest and busiest holidays. People clean their houses and pay off their debts to get the new year off to a fresh start. Many travel to visit their families. There are shrine visits, decorations, special foods, lots of games, toys, and all kinds of seasonal events and TV shows. With children home from school and relatives around, most homes are full of bustle and noise.

  The TV stations were broadcasting special animated programs for children during winter vacation, so Kazuo and Yasuo stayed sprawled on their bedding all morning and watched TV. After that, they made instant ramen with cabbage and egg for lunch. When they had finished, they headed out to the empty lot to meet Nobuo or Nishino-kun or Minoru, and Kazuo continued training with Nobuo to run as fast as Bob Hayes, or they sumo wrestled with Minoru. Or they flew kites, even though it was a bit early for New Year’s kite flying.

  But the boys knew that their blissful freedom would come to an end soon.

  That was because their father’s company and the electronics factory where their mother worked both closed for New Year’s vacation. On December 28, both parents would finish work earlier than usual. Mother would arrive home just after noon, and Father would be back around three.

  On the morning of December 28, Kazuo and Yasuo’s mother reminded them of something else.

  “Kazuo, Yasuo. Uncle Yoshio is coming today, so don’t mess up the house.”

  “Hooray
, sukiyaki tonight!” exclaimed Yasuo, grinning widely.

  Sukiyaki: A popular dish of meat simmered with vegetables and other ingredients in a slightly sweet broth of soy sauce and sugar. You prepare it at your own table using a pot on a gas burner. When the meat is done, you pick it out of the pot with chopsticks and dip it in a small bowl of raw, beaten egg.

  Uncle Yoshio was their father’s older brother. Each November he left the rural prefecture of Yamagata, where he lived, and came to Tokyo to work on construction sites to earn money for his family. This year he was helping to build a subway tunnel.

  Once, during summer vacation, Kazuo and Yasuo had visited Uncle Yoshio’s village, which was also where their father had been born. Surrounded by mountains, it was a quiet place with three clear streams meandering through its center. Spread out around the streams was a patchwork of flooded paddy fields. After dark, the fireflies that lived on the riverbanks filled the village with their tiny, faint lights, like dancing stars. For city kids like Kazuo and Yasuo, the sight was so beautiful it was like a dream.

  Yamagata: A prefecture (a bit like a state in America) in northern Japan, part of the rural Tohoku region along with Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi prefectures. Known for farming, forestry, and fishing, Tohoku receives heavy snow every winter.

  The two of them had spent whole days outdoors with Takashi, the third of Uncle Yoshio’s three sons and the closest to Kazuo in age, catching beetles in the mornings and swimming in the streams in the afternoons. At night, they would flop down on their bedding, worn out from play, and drift off to sleep while gazing at the fireflies. Takashi told them how beautiful it was in winter, too.