A Thousand Stitches (21 page)

Matsuyama, 1945–1948

“Lollipop,” I repeated,
too shocked to do anything but comply with the order, not really processing how casually it had been delivered.
What am I supposed to do?
Two weeks ago, I was Lieutenant Senior Grade Imagawa of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
And here I am standing in front of an American officer—a superior officer.

“Fine,” said the Colonel, “report for work tomorrow morning at eight
a.m.
” He turned around to talk to the sergeant who was standing behind him holding papers.

As I began to sputter, “But,” Yamamura-sensei elbowed me. “Yes, Sir,” I said as my teacher turned and led me back into the hallway.

“Let's go,” said Yamamura-sensei. “We'll stop at my house before I take you home.”

Sensei
had shown up late that morning on his motorcycle, as positive as ever. I heard the engine sputtering and grinding long before I could see who it was. I went and stood outside the house, wondering if it could be him and was very pleased when he rolled up.

“Imagawa, welcome back! I'm so glad you're home alive. I asked around in Yanai-machi, and some of your neighbors there said your family was out here at Ishii again. I'm lucky today to have enough fuel to come out here.”

“Welcome,
Sensei
,” said Mother, who had come to the entrance from the kitchen, “it is wonderful to see you again. It's certainly been quite some time, hasn't it?”

“Ah, Mrs. Imagawa, you're fortunate to have your son back,” said Yamamura-sensei.

Where was talk of the war, talk of Japan's failure, and talk of how I was back only because I somehow hadn't been able to do my duty? Why weren't my elders and those near and dear to me saying anything about what had kept me awake at night and fretting through the beautiful autumn days?

“When I heard you were here, Mrs. Imagawa, I of course wanted to see Isamu,” he said, “but I must also confess that I thought that coming out here would give me a chance to ask if you or your neighbors have any extra food. It's quite difficult finding much in the city. My wife has been doing a tremendous job making do, but.…”

“Oh,
Sensei,
” said Mother, “I'm afraid we don't have anything to spare ourselves, but let me go ask some of the neighbors.” As she ran off, she called over her shoulder, “Isamu, don't forget your manners. Ask
Sensei
in and make him comfortable. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Yamamura-sensei and I did just that, sitting at the table, drinking tea. We hadn't seen each other for two years. He had news of my Matsuchu classmates. I heard with sorrow the names of my classmates who were dead: Suzuki, Mitsui, Yanagibachi, as well as Sakuragi, who was the bugler in the class behind mine.

“Yes,” he said, “there has been much too much death, Isamu, and we are going to have to live with this sorrow for the rest of our lives. For the young ones like you who were lucky enough to survive, there's a great deal of work to be done to assure a different future.”

I was wondering how to say that the future was the one thing I couldn't imagine when we heard the door open and Mother's wooden sandals clattering in the
genkan.
She rushed into the room where we were sitting, her face flushed, and her apron filled with wrinkled sweet potatoes.

“Our neighbor, Farmer Morita had these extras,
Sensei,
” she said. “I brought as many as I could carry for you. It's not much, but.…”

“Mrs. Imagawa, that's not at all the case. It's sheer delight to see such abundance. I'm sure that my wife can feed the family for weeks. My deepest thanks.”

As Mother knelt and began wrapping the sweet potatoes in a
furoshiki,
Yamamura-sensei said, “Mrs. Imagawa, can I impose on your further and borrow Isamu for the afternoon?”

“Of course,
Sensei,”
said Mother. “If there's anything he can do to help you, please—”

“Well, I'd like him to come into the city with me. He can hold the sweet potatoes. I want to be sure to get this precious cargo back in good order. And I'll take him to Yanai-machi. He hasn't seen the changes in the neighborhood.”

Mother insisted that Yamamura-sensei stay for lunch. She had prepared my lunch and hers when she packed Father's lunch box early in the morning. I'm not sure how she stretched what she had for the two of us, but we had a good lunch. Yamamura-sensei told Mother stories about his Matsuchu music students. It was fascinating to hear the familiar stories from the teacher's point of view.

“Well, Mrs. Imagawa, I'm sure you never suspected how much behind-the-scenes comedy there was as we prepared for those glorious ­parades of the troops to the station,” he said, as he finished the last of his rice.

“I still remember the first parade we saw when we arrived home from San Francisco,” said Mother, “and how proud I was the first time Isamu marched as a musician in one himself.”

“And I will always remember how heavy my heart was last year when we accompanied the last group to the station. I thought of how many of my students I had seen off. Of course, we didn't know at the time that it was the last group, but everything did get smaller and smaller and harder and harder, didn't it?”

Mother smiled and bowed.
Sensei
suddenly became his energetic self again. Jumping up, he said, “Well, off we go. I'll get him back before nightfall, Mrs. Imagawa. Thank you again for your hospitality and for these wonderful sweet potatoes.”

I had been on
Sensei's
old scooter years before, but his new motorcycle was bigger and much older; the fifteen-minute ride into the city on the rackety bike was harrowing. While I was wondering if the sweet potatoes and I would survive, I was also steeling myself for the sad sight of the wide street and the empty space where the Yanai-machi house had stood. I had thought about it often in the last year and remembered staring at the dull gray of the Japan Sea on the long train trip from the north, wondering what home would be like with Yanai-machi obliterated.

When Yamamura-sensei stopped and I stepped off the motorcycle, it was worse, much worse than I had imagined. The house was gone; the street was unnaturally wide—about three or four times what it had been, and the new ugly street slashed diagonally through the neighborhood. It wasn't just our house that was gone—all our neighbors' houses were gone too. My eleven years there had vanished without a trace. The past was gone, the future still unimaginable.

“Had enough of this?” asked Yamamura-sensei. “Let's go. I have one more place I need to take you.”

Rather than heading for his house, he turned the bike and headed in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“You'll see,” he yelled over his shoulder. I soon concluded that we were headed for Bancho Elementary School, but he stopped in front of the Ehime Prefectural Library building opposite the school and down the street from the house where the Grahams had lived.

With his usual confident walk,
Sensei
started toward the Library. “
Sensei
,” I called, wondering if he didn't see the big sign in English and Japanese that now hung above the entrance,
HEADQUARTERS, ADVANCE PARTY, 24TH INFANTRY
.

“Come on, come on, don't dawdle, Isamu,” he called. “They won't hurt you.”

He was my teacher. I had to do as he said.

Once we were inside, Yamamura-sensei headed straight for the first room with an open door. I was scrambling to keep up with him. There was a uniformed American sitting behind the desk.

“Good afternoon, Colonel,” said Yamamura-sensei in his lovely, precise English. “This young man was born in San Francisco and can speak English. His name is Isamu Imagawa.”

The officer looked from Yamamura-sensei to me. I stumbled sideways and took a step back. The scrutiny was excruciating. Time stretched as he sized me up. I was shocked when all he did was tell me to repeat the English word for a treat I remembered from San Francisco.

I entered
the building with great trepidation. There was no
Sensei
to push me along. Only my sense of duty, my obligation of obedience. But I was obeying reluctantly. Why should I work for people I had fought against only a month before? What could Yamamura-sensei possibly have been thinking?

My fear was almost immediately replaced with surprise and then, eventually, with curiosity about what my future could hold.

And it was that morning that my future began. Those who survived the
kamikaze
corps and wrote their memoirs all focused on their wartime experiences—as well they should. The Great Pacific War, as it is called in Japanese, was the defining event for those my age—on both sides of the Pacific as well as in Europe. We came of age with our military service and what we experienced during the war shaped our characters for the rest of our lives, even if most of us rarely, if ever, talked about it. But for me, my dual background, my roots in both my Mother and Father Countries, and my English language abilities also changed and shaped my life after the war. I had joy and sorrow, satisfaction and disappointment, struggle and triumph, with the good always outweighing the bad. To complete my story I have to and want to write about my life after the war—the life that began that day—a life that gave me the chance to do some good, and, even though this is a rather grandiose sentiment that I'd never express aloud, a chance to promote international understanding and peace. It has also been a life I've shared with my beloved wife. It is a story I want to write. I've known for almost two decades that I should tell my story. And now I'm finally fulfilling that promise to myself.

It was in Ohio that I first decided I had to put pen to paper.