Daughter of the Sword (44 page)

“No, you can’t do that, Keiji-san.”

“I have to. Those people can’t die because of me.”

“They’re not going to die because of you, Keiji-san. They’re going to die because of bad people doing bad things. And if you leave, the tiger won’t stay in his home, and his home will get all smashed up.”

Keiji slid open the door and he and Hayano ducked out of the rain. “What are you talking about?”

She sat to remove her shoes as she spoke. “That’s the tiger’s power. Wherever it is, that place can’t get smashed up. Like the butcher shop during the earthquake, remember? But if you take the tiger somewhere else, then the place it’s supposed to be will get all wrecked. It’ll be real bad if that happens, Keiji-san. Bad for everyone.”

Keiji sighed as he struggled out of his boots. “Hayano, sometimes I really wish I knew what you were talking about.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Tell me again, would you, please? You’re saying the reason the butcher shop didn’t fall down is because my sword was in the building at the time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And that’s true no matter where the sword is?”

“Of course. The tiger protects things. Nothing can make the mountain go away while the tiger is on it.”

“All right. Let me get this last part right, too. You think there’s a particular place I’m supposed to protect? A place the tiger is supposed to stay?”

“Uh-huh.”

Keiji took a deep breath. His socks were wet. His uniform was damp; it would smell tomorrow. “Hayano-chan, what’s the place I’m supposed to protect?”

Hayano giggled. “Where you
work
, silly.”

“What, the Intelligence building?”

“
Yes
. Don’t you know anything?” She giggled again.

“Sounds like someone’s home for dinner,” called a voice from the kitchen. Keiji’s guts went cold. It was his mother’s doctor.

“I’ll be on my way, then,” the doctor was telling Keiji’s father. “Make sure Yasu-san gets plenty of rest,
neh
?” As he passed Keiji on the threshold, he said, “Your mother’s doing quite well, son. Good evening.”

Keiji led Hayano back to the kitchen, where he was surprised to find his mother sitting next to his father on one side of the table. “Welcome home,” his mother said, her voice reedy. “How are you two today?”

“I don’t like doctors,” said Hayano. “Doctors lie. They tell you things to make you think you’re going to get better when you’re not.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Yasu said.

“I think it’s dumb,” Hayano said. “I think they should just tell you the truth. That way I would have known right away that my eyes would never get better.”

“Well,” said Yasu, “I suppose they don’t want to make people feel afraid.”

As she said it, she gave her husband’s forearm a squeeze, and right then Keiji knew her situation had worsened. Hayano was right again. The doctor had lied. “Son of a bitch,” Keiji muttered.

“That’s no way to talk in front of our houseguest,” Ryoichi said. “Come on, Kei-kun. Help me with dinner.”

They ate in silence. Keiji had the feeling that his own thoughts were shared around the table—doctors lied all the time, the bastards; everyone knew it; the stories were all too common—but no one spoke them aloud. Five minutes after he’d finished, Keiji realized he hadn’t tasted a morsel of food. He couldn’t even recall what it was that he’d eaten. Rice and what? His mother was dying. What did it matter?

After his bath he went straight to bed. It was useless. He could not sleep. He listened to his father and Hayano chattering in
the bathroom, heard his mother’s snores in the next room. At least
she
was sleeping well.

After a while Hayano came in, walking on her little toes, with one hand on the wall for balance. She slipped under her covers as quietly as she could, so cute he could not help but smile. “Hayano.”

“Oh! Sorry, Keiji-san.”

“Don’t worry; I wasn’t asleep. Hayano, come here, please.”

She crawled up next to him. “Hayano-chan, I want you to tell me what happens if I take Tiger on the Mountain away from the Intelligence building.”

“It falls down,” she said. “It gets all wrecked. And someday Japan loses the war.”

Keiji frowned at that. He hadn’t even realized a child her age could understand the concept of war, especially not one fought thousands of kilometers away, one in which the motherland itself saw no fighting at all. It wasn’t as if Hayano could read the newspapers.

She’s a
goze
, he reminded himself. “Are you sure? Japan loses the war?”

“There are lots of endings to the war. But if your building falls down, all the winning endings go away.”

How could that be? There were countless Intelligence offices, more than Keiji could count. How could the fall of one building result in losing the war? “You’re certain?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hayano, I need to go after Colonel Iwasaki. He’s the one with the sword that sings.”

“I know who he is.”

“I had it in mind to bring my sword with me,” Keiji said. “I’ve got a hunch that Iwasaki may be willing to face me if I offer to fight him sword to sword. Can you see that, Hayano? Can you see a future where I fight him?”

“I don’t think people fight with swords anymore, Keiji-san.”

“I know. I just think he’s crazy enough to do it. He thinks he’s a
modern-day samurai. Hell, maybe I’m the one who thinks that. I don’t know who’s crazy anymore.” Keiji rubbed his eyes. “All I know is, I think you can see how things will go if I bring my sword and how they’ll go if I don’t. What should I do, Hayano? What can you see?”

Hayano wrinkled her face. “Only the tiger can kill the singing lady. But if the tiger leaves, its home will fall, and the tree spirit will make everything else fall down. The tiger has to fight the tree spirit or fight the lady; it can’t do both anymore.”

Keiji closed his eyes.
Can’t do both anymore.
Not since Keiji ignored his little
goze
. Not since he let Iwasaki get away.

But in his mind the wheels were turning. He would not let Japan lose her honor, nor would he let her lose the war. There was a way he could save the POWs in Bataan and still use his Inazuma sword to protect his duty station. There was a way because there had to be one. He just had to see it.

67

The weather at the air base in Okinawa could not have been more beautiful. Tokyo’s April had been a gray, dreary, drizzling mess, but the Okinawan skies were clear and blue, the sun warm, the ocean breeze crisp. Tall palms whisked and whispered in the wind, and the oily stink of hot aircraft engines was blown away and replaced with scents of salt and sea foam.

Keiji ambled back and forth along the long wall of the hangar, enjoying the sunshine. There were plenty of places he might sit, but he would be sitting soon enough, and for a long time, so he paced. Inside the hangar, technicians and crewmen were completing all the requisite preflight diagnostics. Outside, uniformed soldiers joshed with each other in groups of three and four. There were hundreds of them, all Keiji’s age and younger. They wore heavy packs and rifles on their backs, playful smiles on most of their faces, and they chatted and joked and sparred to work off nervous energy. The flight to the Philippines would depart in half an hour’s time and these young men were going to war.

“Lieutenant,” a voice said behind him. Keiji turned, expecting to see one of the soldiers. Instead he came face-to-face with one of the air base personnel; the tan uniform was the same, but there was no pack on this one’s back. The man was panting; a constellation of beaded sweat shone on his forehead.

“Yes?”

“Sir,” the man said, breathless, “I’m so glad I found you. There’s been a mistake. Your deployment orders. They’re wrong.”

Keiji withdrew a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and showed it to the man. “It says here I’m due to fly to Bataan. Colonel Iwasaki’s orders.”

“That’s just it, sir. There was a clerical error. Colonel Iwasaki was deployed to Bataan; his orders were signed by a Lieutenant Kiyama in Intelligence. Obviously that couldn’t have been you, sir, or you’d have seen the error. Here it says it was you, Kiyama, deployed by Iwasaki, and not the other way around. There must have been some sort of transcription error.”

“Ah,” said Keiji.

“In any case, sir, a General Matsumori in Tokyo caught the mistake and wired a message just now. You’re to report back to Tokyo on the next available aircraft.”

The man stood with an expectant smile on his face, still sweating from what must have been a desperate run. Keiji wondered what the odds were of this man finding him among the hundreds of uniforms milling about. On any other day Keiji might have been impressed by the meticulous efficiency of this feat. Today it was all he could do to suppress a groan. Another few minutes and the deception could not have been corrected. Men were lining up to board even now. A few minutes more and he would have been airborne.

“Good news, right, sir? You’re not going to the front.”

“Er,” Keiji said, looking at that expectant smile, “perhaps I should fly anyhow? I’d hate for this to be another clerical error.”

“No, sir. The general’s message was most specific. You are Lieutenant Kiyama Keiji, Army Intelligence, aren’t you?”

To lie was to invite a court-martial. “Yes,” he said.

The next flight to Tokyo was two days later. Keiji was on it.

68

Keiji returned home to an alarming surprise. Hayano ran to the door to greet him, her little feet flapping against the tatami. Nothing unpredictable there; he’d asked his father to take care of her before he’d arranged for himself to be deployed to Bataan. The surprise came when he entered his mother’s bedroom.

Tiger on the Mountain lay beside her. His mother lay still, her face sweating but serene, and he knelt down and stroked her forehead.

“Keiji,” she said, her voice stronger than he’d expected. She smiled up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me about this beautiful sword of yours?”

“It never came up.” He found her hand and squeezed her thin fingers. “General Itō gave it to me when I graduated. He’s a collector, I think. I’m told he gives one sword a year as a gift.”

“My son.” Her smile widened, her eyes disappearing into folds. “That was a wonderful honor. You should have told me.”

“You were sick.”

“Well, I’m still sick, and I’m still proud of you.” She patted his cheek.

“Mom, how did the sword get here? I left it at my post.”

“A man from your unit delivered it. Oh, Keiji, don’t ever forget anything there again. Your father and I were worried sick when we saw a man in uniform coming to the house. We thought something terrible had happened.”

“I’m all right, Mom.”

“Well, I know that
now
, don’t I? Oh, Kei-kun, we feared the worst.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” He squeezed her hand again. “Do you mind if I take the sword back? I should go in to report.”

“Of course, dear. It is a beautiful one, isn’t it? Reminds me of my grandfather’s.”

Keiji kissed her forehead and took the sword.

In the next moment noise consumed the world.

An explosion shook the ground like an earthquake. Then came another, and another. Keiji’s bones quaked in his chest. He crouched over his mother, certain the ceiling would collapse at any moment. There was the crackle of fire outside, and splintering wood, and the distant hum of propellers.

Air raid. But how? The thoughts whirled through Keiji’s mind at typhoon speed. The American fleet was much too far to carry out a raid. His father and Hayano were somewhere in the house. No noise from them. Were they alive? Did the Americans have a new kind of bomber Army Intelligence hadn’t discovered yet? It would have to have unthinkably long range to strike Tokyo. Screaming in the street mixed with dogs barking and the rushing, crumbling clamor of a house caving in. Why weren’t his father and Hayano making any noise? China. An American fleet could land there after a raid and wouldn’t need the long range for a return flight. Why weren’t they making any noise?

The whir of the propellers faded. No more explosions came. Keiji got up, realized for the first time that his mother was crying, rushed to the shoji and slid it open.

The house was unscathed. His father sat beside the low dining table, Hayano clutched to him, she hugging him back. It was obvious from the way their hands gripped each other that she was comforting him, that he was clinging to her as a drowning man might cling to a floating spar. Her face was calm, her muscles relaxed, and she seemed to be looking at the sheathed sword in Keiji’s hand.

The sword. It protected the house, just as it had done for the butcher’s shop. Just as it was supposed to have done for the Intelligence building, which was why he’d left it there in the first place when he tried to follow Iwasaki. There was no point in hurrying now. He knew what he’d find when he arrived.

Keiji did what he could to fight the fires on his parents’ street, and when those were doused he worked his way toward the Intelligence building. He joined in bucket brigades along the way, and pulled fallen roof timbers off of injured children, and clamped his palms down on bleeding wounds while those with lesser injuries limped away in search of clean cloth. By the time he reached his post the sun had long since set. Only the surrounding fires lit the bombed-out shell of the Intelligence building.

In truth the building was in far better shape than Keiji had expected. Fully half of it still stood. The eastern half—the half where his office had once been—was a gaping crater toothed with the jagged concrete edges of what used to be walls. The building was no longer burning, but vertical black stripes showed where the smoke had poured out. Keiji thought they looked like war paint.

The analogy made him laugh out loud. It was all so hopeless. The stars were shining as they always did, and nothing and everything was different. His hometown was a target. His hometown had been bombed. He couldn’t grasp the enormity of that simple idea. Scores of people died in Tokyo today, he thought, and more died yesterday and more will die tomorrow. But today is different, because yesterday they died of old age and sickness and traffic accidents, and today they died under the bombs of the enemy. Old age and sickness and traffic would have taken their toll today as well, but yesterday there were no bombs.