A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (16 page)

Then six months went by and she heard nothing. No more letters, or postcards, no word from the military either. I told her she had to believe him alive until she was told otherwise. Communication lines were challenged by the fighting, yes, but surely, if he had been killed, she would have been informed by a telegram or a death notice. The newspapers were full of our men who had sacrificed themselves for our country. His name never appeared among them. But Yuko needed proof of life, some hint of Shige alive in the jungles or seas or prison camps. ‘He's dead, he's gone,' she said, her body doubled over with the anguish of that thought. Those months
of silence were filled with more military defeats, more hunger, growing fears of the enemy's retribution if we failed. Decades later, reading Yuko's diary, I learned this was when Sato returned: January 4, 1945.

Hitodama: According to folk belief, if the spirit of a dead person is not satisfied with the way it is treated by the bereaved family, it hovers around in graveyards at night in an effort to locate the right place for a peaceful settlement. The form it supposedly takes when travelling is a reddish, yellowy or bluish-white ball of fire with a tail.

What to say of the moment you see a living ghost? The day was ordinary, the sun did not shine any brighter, the ward did not look any different, but in a heartbeat her world transformed and her fate was sealed. The shock coursed through her body, along quickening blood to eyes that doubted their vision, even her sanity, but Sato was no illusion. He stood surrounded by a group of nurses who were listening attentively as he dispensed instructions. I imagined the panic in her lungs, the strafing in her stomach, the scream in her mind when she recognised him. She waited for him to look up, but still he checked a clipboard and smiled at a patient and walked to a bedside.

‘He must see me. Had I grown so invisible? Was I so much changed? Finally he glanced up and stopped talking. Across the ward we stood, only forty feet but eight years apart. I felt as if I was standing on a precipice, staring down into the waves below, the urge so strong to fall. Step back, Yuko, step back. One step and then another and more
until I was out in the hospital grounds, my breath ragged, my heart so alive it might break free from my chest. I pushed past a screen of shrubs, walked over fallen branches and damp moss. I heard footsteps and the rustle of leaves behind, but I did not turn around. I kept going until I came to a clearing encased by trees. I waited for him to arrive, terrified and thrilled in near equal measure. I see him, standing in front of me as if we had never been apart. All that love, that desire, that pain floods over me. Here is Jomei. Not in my head. Here. I cannot speak at first, I can only stare. The mouth, the mole, his is such a cruel beauty. “Is it you?” He says nothing. I walk up to him. “Are you real?” I dare to touch him, hold my open palm to his chest. “You've been gone so long.” I lay my head against his shoulder, allow myself these few moments, and then I think of Shige. I tell myself to hold on to the smallest possibility he is still alive. I move away. “We cannot be the way we were. Do you understand?” He seems wounded by these words but not surprised. He cannot look at me when he speaks. “I had no idea you were a nurse. If I'd known, I'd . . .” He shakes his head and I close my eyes. When I open them he is gone. I listen to the sounds of the world beyond this cloak of trees. I hear a woman's laughter, a rumble of traffic, signs of life. I say a prayer to my husband. Please, Shige, send word. Remind me I am still a wife. Tell me those vows still matter.'

Those first few days Yuko kept her distance as did he, but they were two caged animals prowling around the pen. She caught him watching her sometimes, staring at her as if she were a riddle to be solved. She had her own questions, ones that had gone unanswered for too long. Why had he not contacted her? Why had he sent no word? Why was he back now? The gossip did the rounds quickly. Sato had been posted abroad for a couple of years, had been up north somewhere and had been
seconded to the medical college, which was desperately short of staff. His reputation proceeded him and the nurses frothed around the handsome doctor with the disarming smile and flirtatious manner.

‘I count the days as they pass. Jomei has been back two weeks. I try to ignore this desperate need to be near him. Instead I scour the death lists in the newspaper to reassure myself that Shige's absence from those pages is a sign he is still alive. He has to be, for Hideo, for me, for him. Every day that I don't see his name, I tell myself, stay true, have faith, be strong. But some days all I can imagine is a rotten body abandoned in a jungle. This morning as Hideo prepared for school, he asked, “Is Daddy dead?” I looked at him, shocked by his bluntness. What a question for a son to ask. What could I say? “No, he's just away somewhere being brave, he's being a soldier.” Hideo scratched his nose. “Tadashi's daddy is dead.” I passed his clothes to him. “Tadashi must be sad.” He nodded and clambered into his shorts. When I arrived at the hospital later that morning I heard Jomei had been called to the prisoner-of-war camp near the foundry. He needed an assistant and there was no shortage of volunteers. I watched the chosen nurse talk with him before she disappeared into the changing room to collect her belongings. He left the building and, iron filings to his magnet, I followed him. “Take me instead, Jomei,” I said. He looked at me, cautious. “Why? You made it clear to stay away.” I could not tell him of the lonely nights passed and those still to come. I could not tell him of the nightmares I have of Shige's death. I could not tell him my body has forgotten the touch of another's hands. Instead, I said, “I need to feel happy today, Jomei, just for a few hours. Spending time with you used to make me happy. Let's see if it still does.” He looked at me, silent. I don't know what he saw.'

When they arrived at Fukuoka 14 Camp the prisoners stood in groups behind wire fences, emaciated and burnt
by the sun. Some grunted words at Yuko, or whistled, but most said nothing, their wide eyes watching in silence. Sato and Yuko passed two men emptying latrine cans onto the officers' tomato plants, the fruit as big as apples. Two hundred prisoners had arrived days earlier, all of them survivors of a cargo ship, which had been sunk as they were being transported to Japan. Injured men needed treatment before they joined the other POWs working at the Mitsubishi foundry. The camp commander led Yuko and the doctor to an examination room and the first patient was brought in, limping from a hernia. He was young, British, a shock of red freckles across his nose. Sato talked to him in English and the boy began to undress, blushing as he glanced at Yuko. He eased himself onto the table and lay back and she placed gauze over his eyes. Beads of sweat lined his upper lip. She took his hand in her own, squeezed his bony fingers and Sato began to operate.

‘I don't know how but I kept myself from shaking as I passed instruments and administered medicine. We worked in silence, in synchronicity. I took pleasure from watching his hands work and listening to his broken English. When had he learned to speak the language? The afternoon was a perfect moment, a dream realised after eight years of hoping for it. Dusk had fallen by the time we left the camp. We stood outside the gates and Jomei asked if he could drop me off anywhere in the taxi when it arrived. I did not plan what happened next. I'm sure I acted spontaneously. Hideo was staying with my parents that night, I had some free hours. Did he want to have a drink with me? “I thought we might be friends,” I told him. He reached for a cigarette in his pocket and repeated the word as he flicked open the lighter. “Friends? Can we be friends? You think it
likely?” I told him possibly, if we try. “What would your husband think?” I felt shamed by his words. Who was he to judge me? I started to walk away but he called out, “OK, one drink. I know a quiet place.”'

They took a taxi to Maruyama and the buildings and paving stones seemed much dirtier than she remembered. The lanterns that advertised the bars still shone, but the paper was torn, grubby, lopsided. They passed prostitutes who flashed their red under-kimonos as they called out to a group of sailors, gleaming bright in their navy whites. Yuko and Sato walked down a less frequented alleyway to a black entrance painted with a white chrysanthemum. The dull thud of a gramophone began to leak through the walls as they climbed the stairs. They reached a door decorated with a poster of Greta Garbo as Mata Hari.

Inside, beside a small wooden bar, two men stood dressed in blonde wigs, red satin evening gowns stained at the armpits and scuffed gold heels. The shorter and rounder one ran up to greet Sato. He gave Yuko a critical eye and introduced himself to her as Greta. His friend was called Simone. Greta led them past the other clientele, Mitsubishi workers and more sailors on leave, and found them a table near a stage. An old lady in a US soldier's uniform placed two bottles of beer on their table. The opening bars of ‘I Get a Kick Out of You' poured out of a speaker and Simone and Greta shuffled onto the raised platform. They began to sing the song in tortured English as they high-kicked their way across the stage. The audience clapped and Greta worked the crowd, sitting on Sato's knee, wrapping a feather boa around his neck. Another song, ‘You're the Top', was followed by
more beer, the brew weak and mouldy, but potent enough to provide the illusion of intoxication. The cabaret show clattered to a close with ‘What a Joy to be Young' and Simone and Greta disappeared behind a silver lamé curtain, ripped down one side.

‘I asked Jomei how he had found this place and he said Greta had dragged him off the street. How had she and Simone avoided the attentions of the Kempeitai? He did not know. He said we could go somewhere else if I felt uncomfortable. No, I told him I liked the bar. It was so far removed from my own life. He ordered more drinks and I watched him pour cloudy yellow liquid into two glasses. I wondered how different the man in front of me was to the one I had known in Chinatown. I am so changed, how can he not be too? I had been a young girl and Jomei had been new and thrilling. I felt a similar excitement that night to be out in the city, drinking and laughing. For a few hours, I could be young again, not a mother, or a nurse, or a wife who might well be a widow. I wanted to get drunk, to lose myself. We downed the drinks and I poured more. I had conjured up nights like this one, many times, over the years. Jomei and I together once more, how it might be, how it might feel. I had imagined joy and fear and vindication. Our reunion would confirm that we should never have parted. Only we were different. I am not Cio-Cio-san. I am not even Yuko Takahashi. I am Yuko Watanabe. I reminded myself the man sitting opposite me in this cheap bar had abandoned me. How can I not be angry? But what I felt was more forgiving, more complicated. What about him? Maybe he felt nothing. I reached for more drink. The liquor loosened my tongue. We gossiped about which doctors were having affairs with which nurses. We knew to keep the conversation light.'

She told him about training to be a nurse, the day she had been handed an amputated leg in a bucket and had
tried to throw the bloody stump out in the garbage before a janitor pointed her in the direction of the incinerator. She felt flattered when Jomei laughed, more so when he told her she was skilled at her job. They moved on to tales of Hideo, the day he had stuck a wasabi pea up his nose, the morning she found him reaching for a fat black mukade centipede, drawn to its yellow legs and unaware of its bite, the expression on his face when he ate his first salt plum. The laughter felt good, a release of tension. She could feel herself unfurl, like a nadeshiko at dawn, pink and slender on a strong stalk. They never mentioned Shige.

Carelessly they found themselves talking about Iōjima, the elderly couple who always squabbled on the ferry over to the island, the sound of the sea lice scuttling over rocks. Yuko cringed. ‘There must have been millions of them.' Sato slapped the table in amusement and shouted above the second act of the stage show, ‘And remember the sea urchin? The way you kept clasping your leg, “Am I dying, Jomei? Am I?”' She pouted. ‘I never said such a thing.' Still she laughed, remembering the pleasure she had felt when he carried her in his arms. But Iōjima wasn't just about Jomei. The island belonged to Shige too. Yuko stood up, excused herself and made her way to the toilet. She peered in the mirror. Her face was red with the alcohol, her eyes bloodshot. ‘Remember who you are,' she said to her reflection. ‘Remember the pain this man caused.' She walked back to the table, suddenly more sober.

‘Jomei seemed quieter too, subdued. We looked at one another. I could not avoid the question any longer. “Should we talk about what happened?” He took a long time to reply. “Does it matter now?” This
angered me. How could he be so indifferent? I persisted. “What if the affair hadn't been discovered? What then?” He grimaced as he swallowed more drink. “It's impossible to say. It's probably best not to think too much about it.” How could I not? Where would our lives have taken us if Chinatown had never ended in that way on that day? I felt foolish for expecting some kind of explanation, some show of regret. Mother was right, it seemed. He had not cared for me. I tried to conceal my hurt. I smiled, nodded my agreement. “You're right. The past is better kept where it is. And look at us now. Two old friends catching up.” I clinked my glass against his. He gave me another wary, sad smile. “I'm surprised you even want to talk to me.” Why would I not? I had so many questions to ask. Now it was his turn to look confused. “When I saw you that first day in the ward, I thought about the letter, your anger. I thought you would be furious.” Suddenly I felt sick as I leaned forward to ask above the screech of Greta's laughter, “Jomei, what are you talking about? What letter?” He said the words slowly as if he could not believe he had to repeat them. “The letter you sent after your wedding.” “How could I write a letter? I didn't know where you were.” It only took seconds for us both to realise what had happened. Mother. I asked him what the letter had said. He just held his head in his hands for a long time. “It doesn't matter. It's in the past. Let's forget it.” I looked at him, appalled. “If you don't tell me, I'll ask her.” He considered this and
reached for my hand. My desire was like a light bulb crackling to life in the dark. “You can't. If you do, she'll know I'm back in Nagasaki.” Our fingers intertwined. “Neither of us wants that, do we?”'

Sato stood up, unsteady on his feet, and said he would walk her home. She held onto the edge of the banquette for balance and looked around. Greta's wig had slipped even farther back as she loaded dirty glasses onto a tray with exaggerated care. They headed to the door and Simone
waved a dishcloth in farewell. Outside the streets were wet with rain and the only sound was their feet on the cobbles. They traced the route along the river to the doorstep of her home, hidden behind a wall. Sato looked up at the two-storey house and sighed, as if resigning himself to his next disclosure. ‘The letter I wrote, it was an apology, for the way I left. I wanted you to know how sorry I was.'