Read the book: «Fish of the Seto Inland Sea»

DEDICATION

To my Father and Mother

Itsuji and Shizuko Kumoi

This book is about a family whose traditional home is by the Seto Inland Sea in Southern Japan.

There is a saying that the best fish in Japan comes from here because, as is quoted in the book, the rapid flow of water in many places in the sea makes the fish especially firm and good.

These qualities seem to mirror the strength and resilience shown by the three generations of women of the Shirai family.

HARUKO’S FAMILY TREE

THE SANJOS (Haruko’s in-laws)

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

PART ONE

1 The Landowner’s Family

2 The Russians

3 Haruko and Her Father

4 Shobei’s Garden

5 Spring

6 Haruko’s Uncles

7 The Flood

8 Takeko is Seventeen

9 The Maple Tree

10 The Medicine Store

11 The Chief Engineer San’s Friend

PART TWO

12 To Manchuria

13 The Farewell Party

14 The City of Acacia

15 Gathering Clouds

16 Bamboo Spears

17 The Summer of 1945

18 The Chinese and the Russians

19 A Journey to Chenyang

20 Survival

21 Going Home

PART THREE

22 The Ruined City

23 The Ming Dish

24 Struggle

25 Kei, Her Sons and Daughter

26 The Sisters

27 Ayako and Her Daughters

28 A God to Rescue You

29 For Better Times to Come

GLOSSARY

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

PART ONE

1
The Landowner’s Family

Shobei Miwa was a rich landowner. His land spread far beyond the village of Takao. He could walk from his house for about forty minutes to the nearest railway station without stepping on anyone else’s land. In fact, it was Shobei who had sold the land for the railway and station to the government.

Shobei Miwa had two sons, Shintaro and Rinji. His elder son, Shintaro, was sent to Tokyo at the age of fourteen before the railway had been built. He was accompanied by a servant and walked on the trunk road to Tokyo, taking nearly a month. The servant carried his money, including his school fees, in a bundle firmly tied around his waist which he did not take off even when he slept at night. The rooms of the inns had sliding doors and no locks. There were many thieves. The young master and his servant kept to themselves but at the same time had to take care not to look too cautious and attract attention.

When they reached the Oigawa river, the servant would not trust the boatmen and he crossed the river carrying Shintaro on his shoulders. In the middle of the river, the water came up to his chest. Every year, until the railway was built, he made the same trip to Tokyo bringing Shintaro’s expenses.

Shobei was not much worried about how Shintaro lived as a student. When a rumour reached him that Shintaro was drinking heavily, Shobei laughed and said, ‘A man who cannot drink cannot succeed in life.’

He was generous about his son’s expenses as well. ‘Let him have a good time. One can never be young again.’ He was concerned only about one thing. This was that Shintaro should come home without getting seriously involved with a woman. Shobei was anxious that his son should marry a girl from a good family known to everybody around them.

‘Occasional relaxation from hard work is necessary, but you must remember to honour your obligation to your family,’ Shobei wrote to Shintaro in every letter. Shobei’s letters were written with brush and ink and were difficult to decipher but Shintaro knew the last few sentences without reading them.

Imperial University students were considered to have good prospects and were targeted by ambitious mothers with unmarried daughters, but Shintaro returned to his father’s village, Takao, without mishap. With Shobei’s influence, Shintaro’s future was promising. It was as the director of a new hospital, the largest in the area, that he began his professional life. He was considered the most eligible bachelor for several counties.

Who would be the lucky girl? People speculated. There were many young ladies of suitable families. Relatives and friends were busy sounding out the possibility of a match with girls they knew or had heard about. Parents who had daughters of the right age called on people who knew the Miwas to impress their names on them. The hospital was visited by more young girls, taken by their mothers or maids with minor complaints.

Shobei rejected these proposals one after another without even telling Shintaro.

‘Thank you for your concern, but he has been away so long and has just started his career. It is important for him to concentrate on his work at the moment,’ was his stock reply to every one, although Shobei knew that they were well aware it was not true.

‘What is he scheming for his son’s marriage? Is he thinking of marrying Dr Shintaro to a nobleman’s daughter?’ People talked. It was generally believed that the real reason was that the girls’ families were not considered good enough.

When Shobei refused a proposal from the Abes, a family richer and older than the Miwas, Shobei’s wife confronted him for the first time.

‘Excuse me, but Shintaro san is over thirty now. I would like to ask you what is in your mind. Shintaro san will end up as a bachelor because you are ...’ She wanted to say ‘fastidious’ but said, ‘Well, because you are too careful.’

‘We cannot have Abe’s daughter.’ Shobei’s answer was categorical.

His wife persisted. ‘But may I ask why? They say she is pretty and we have heard nothing against her. The family, of course, is beyond criticism.’

‘She might be acceptable, but she has two brothers.’

‘But it’s good that she has brothers. What is wrong with that?’

His wife was mystified. If the family did not have sons, the girl had to stay at home and take a husband into her family to carry on the family name. She could not marry out. That was how the family line was kept. The system was called yohshi, adoption.

‘Abe’s sons are lazy and stupid. The younger one is mean as well.’

‘I am sorry, but please explain what you mean. If you worry about everybody in the family, you will always find someone who is not perfect. Shintaro san is not marrying her brothers.’

‘Her brothers may be no problem while the father is alive. But wait till the sons have a chance to control the family affairs. At first they will sell a bit of land away from home to pay off their gambling and womanising debts. Gradually they will get deeper and deeper into debt. The brothers will quarrel. After ten years, there will be nothing left. They will come to Shintaro to borrow and so on. Shintaro will have to be involved. Not only is he a kind fellow but he cannot stand by while his in-laws ruin themselves. The bad name of his wife’s family would spoil the name of the Miwas.’

‘I see. Well, I hope Shintaro san will be able to marry one day.’

‘Of course he will marry.’

‘But ...’

‘I have already decided on his wife.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes, I have. The daughter of the Shirais in the next village.’

His wife was nonplussed.

‘You mean Dr Shirai’s daughter?’

‘Yes, Dr Shirai of Kitani village.’ His tone told her that his mind was made up and that his decision was final.

‘They have four sons.’ She looked him straight in the eyes, which she normally did not dare to do. She was not satisfied with her husband’s decision, because the Shirais were the poorest among all the candidates so far.

‘And all intelligent,’ Shobei replied. ‘The father is a fine fellow and still young. The whole family will be a great support for Shintaro and for his future son.’

‘But the girl is very young. One of the sons is still a baby.’

‘I know. That is why I had to wait. She has a very good reputation. Besides, she should know how a doctor’s household should be run, although Shintaro’s life is a bit different from her father’s.’ Shobei sounded smug. He had already found out a lot about Dr Shirai’s daughter, Ayako.

‘If you say so,’ his wife conceded.

‘Of course!’

When people heard that the daughter of the Shirais was chosen as Shintaro’s bride, they could not understand why. The Shirais had been doctors in traditional medicine for many generations. They had been the retained doctors of feudal lords until the system was abolished towards the end of the 1880s. Since then, the present head of the family, Tei-ichi, continued to look after people in the area with his hereditary knowledge and experience. He was endowed with a progressive spirit and had already contacted Shintaro to seek advice on some of his patients. Tei-ichi was respected and popular, but the family was not well-off.

Tei-ichi’s house was always full of poor patients. With backs and knees bent from hard lives, peasants brought their children who were exhausted from suffering.

Dr Tei-ichi Shirai would shout angrily, ‘Why did you leave the sick child so long without bringing her to me?’

‘I am very sorry ... We have not paid you the last fees and ...’

‘Who is talking about fees? Don’t you see this child is ill because of your neglect?’

They loved to be scolded by Dr Tei-ichi.

As many of his patients were poor, his fees were often not paid or were paid with small amounts of fish, fruit and vegetables. On the other hand, the merchants who dealt with the doctor’s family sent their accounts twice a year, but were not too harsh in demanding payment. Shobei knew it all.

The Shirais lived in an old house surrounded by a moat and high stone walls. A wooden bridge led to a large gate and straight ahead was an open main entrance. The gate was usually closed and people used a small side door to get into the front courtyard. From the courtyard they walked round the back of the house to go in through the family entrance or the kitchen.

Tei-ichi’s wife Kei was open-hearted and cheerful.

‘Now, what is wrong with you this time?’ she would ask a villager who appeared and stood timidly at the kitchen door. ‘Come in, come in. You won’t get better standing outside.’

And they would tell her their symptoms, worries and difficulties.

‘It sounds exactly like what Yohei had the other day. He is fine now. Go in and see the doctor. Only, don’t mention your own opinions and everything the others have said. You won’t die yet.’

Kei had beautiful skin. She washed her face thoroughly every morning with rice bran in a small cotton bag and consulted a thermometer to choose what to wear for the day. The thermometer had been given to Tei-ichi as a thank-you present when he attended one of his well-off patients and it was the only thermometer in the surrounding villages. Schoolteachers occasionally brought pupils to see it. Kei did not use make-up, but her hair was always fashionably done up and she carried a parasol in summer to protect her face from the sun. The villagers called her ‘okkasama’, which means mother, and greeted her warmly as her neat figure hurried down the village street followed by a maid.

She would buy damaged material and sale goods at a cloth shop. She was clever at cutting and sewing kimonos and clad the whole family handsomely. All her household were well mannered and disciplined. Shobei knew this as well.

Kei also made ointment to sell. It was a simple mixture of beeswax and a few other ingredients. Although the recipe was not secret, her special skill was needed in heating and kneading. The finished product was put in sealed sea shells and was sold widely as Shirai Ointment for cuts and bruises. Kei carefully saved from the income for their sons’ education. She was determined that her sons should go to the Imperial University like Dr Shintaro and succeed their father as modern doctors. But she did not have much ambition for her daughter, Ayako. She should marry one day but not into the kind of family that would involve the Shirais in spending a lot of money for a trousseau. Kei hoped that Ayako would be treated kindly by her husband’s family when she married and would be sufficiently provided for. Ayako was a pretty girl so this did not seem like too much to ask for.

‘Being a doctor, he must have a secret recipe for making his daughter so lovely,’ the villagers remarked when they saw Ayako.

She was nicknamed ‘Drop off a bridge’. This strange name came from a story about a man from another village who was crossing a narrow bridge when he saw Ayako coming towards him. Gawping at her, because she was so beautiful, he missed his step and fell into the river.

* * *

When a distant relative brought the marriage proposal from the Miwas, Tei-ichi was surprised. Until then, he had not thought of Ayako as a woman. Wasn’t she running around with her brothers and catching fish in the river? The last time he saw her up a tree, he had vaguely wondered if it was time he should tell her off for behaving like a boy. Wasn’t it only a few years ago? Besides, he had never considered the possibility of his daughter being asked for by the most sought-after bachelor he knew.

‘Let me think about it,’ he said eventually to the go-between. At first he could not believe what he had heard. Then he reconsidered.

‘Why, we are not such a bad family. We have nothing to be ashamed of. And Ayako is an intelligent and beautiful girl.’

But he had not expected to part with her so soon. Ayako seemed totally unprepared for the role of a young wife in such an august family. However, if he missed the opportunity to marry her to Shintaro, he was convinced that he would never find as good a match as this most accomplished young man. Tei-ichi also wanted very much to become the father-in-law of such a well-educated doctor. He would be a fine example for his sons. Undecided, he called Ayako. She was not at all demure. She looked her father straight in the eye and said, ‘Dr Miwa, otohsan? Oh, yes, I will marry him.’

‘W-wait a minute. You don’t have to rush. Think about it carefully,’ he stuttered, confused. ‘In any case, you don’t know him. I ... I am not telling you that you have to marry him.’ He had expected her to be either shy and hesitant, or look totally innocent.

‘I have heard a lot about him,’ she said, ‘and I have seen him.’

‘What?’

Tei-ichi felt that his stern control of the household was crumbling in front of him.

‘When did you see him?’

‘I went to the station with Yasuharu san to see what Dr Miwa looks like, when he came back from Tokyo.’

Yasuharu was one of her younger brothers. The family had the custom of referring to each other with a respectful ‘san’ at the end of their names.

‘Oh!’

‘Everybody says he is very intelligent, and very kind,’ Ayako said.

‘You don’t understand.’ Tei-ichi struggled to regain his composure. ‘You don’t know what it means to get married. You have no idea, do you understand? You have no idea. It is not playing house. You have to leave us and your home for ever and live somewhere else with someone else.’ Then he said, even more sternly, ‘It is not like going to stay at your cousin’s. You cannot come back. I will not allow you to come back.’ But after a moment, he added wistfully, ‘That is, as a member of this family. You can visit here, of course, but not to live.’

Ayako was listening respectfully but Tei-ichi did not feel that she was in any way impressed by his speech.

‘Did you realise that Ayako is growing up to be a daring modern girl?’ Tei-ichi complained when he was alone with Kei that night.

Kei put a cup of tea in front of her husband and sat directly on the tatami floor without a zabuton, a cushion.

‘Has Ayako done something wrong?’ she asked.

‘I asked her what she thought of marrying Dr Shintaro.’

‘It was kind of you to ask how she feels about it.’

‘Hum!’

Tei-ichi realised that it had been thoughtful of him. A lot of girls would not be given the opportunity to express their opinion. Marriage was the union of two families regardless of the sentiments of the persons immediately concerned.

Kei had not been told about the proposal from the Miwas.

‘So, are you giving her to the Miwas?’

‘There is no reason why not. He is a splendid fellow. But Ayako is too young. She does not know what marriage means. She does not know anything about men and women.’

‘So, what did Ayako say?’ As Tei-ichi went silent, Kei prompted him.

Tei-ichi remembered his surprise.

‘Amazing!’ He suddenly looked animated and young, telling Kei what he had discovered. ‘Kei, she is not a child any more. She said she wanted to marry Dr Shintaro. She said she knew about him already. Can you believe it? She seems to understand what marriage means.’ Then he repeated, ‘I thought she was only a child.’

Kei laughed. She was not disquieted. She merely said, ‘Girls mature early.’

Tei-ichi felt that he was slighted by both mother and daughter. He straightened up a little. He regained his air of importance.

‘She said she had gone to the station to see Dr Shintaro. Such behaviour is not allowed. From now on, teach her manners and be strict with her. You must not let her go out on her own.’

‘Yes.’ Kei bowed a little and stopped laughing. She admitted to herself that it had been indiscreet for a young unmarried girl of a decent family to go out with her brother, without her knowledge. But in the big house that the Shirais had to manage, there were not enough maids to accompany Ayako every time she went out. Kei had to spare Shige to accompany Ayako for sewing and koto music lessons. Kei’s youngest son, Hideto, was not a year old yet. Shige’s daughter, Kiyo, would have to clean the kitchen and perhaps Kei herself would carry the baby on her back while she prepared the meals ... She could manage. It would all be worthwhile if Ayako could marry such a well-qualified man.

‘We have to prepare her to become a suitable bride for the eldest son of the Miwas,’ Tei-ichi was saying. ‘Don’t be lazy about chaperoning her. It is your responsibility.’ While he was talking to Kei, he made up his mind about his daughter’s marriage.

‘Yes,’ Kei said, looking at her folded hands on her lap.

‘There will be a lot of expenses, to be equal to the Miwas. But we must do our best not to shame ourselves. We must also think of Ayako’s position after she has married. We have to send her off properly. The boys’ education might have to be reconsidered. I hope you understand that,’ Tei-ichi told his wife solemnly.

‘Yes,’ Kei said again, but she was not as worried about money as Tei-ichi was. When the negotiations started, she would gently suggest that her husband have a frank talk with Shobei. Shobei must know the Shirais’ financial situation. If it was money he wanted, he certainly would have accepted the Abes’ daughter. He would not be as unworldly as her husband. Kei sensed that her sons’ education, on the other hand, was far more important than before. They were the family assets, not a large trousseau.

She went back to the kitchen where Shige was supervising Kiyo, who was measuring rice and washing it ready for the next day. Shige had come to the Shirais as Kei’s personal maid when she married Tei-ichi. They had grown up together.

‘O’Shige san,’ Kei called. ‘Come here a minute.’

When Shige went into the chanoma, a small back living room next to the kitchen, Kei was sitting by the hibachi, an elaborate charcoal burner. An iron kettle was always placed on it during the day and from it now came the soft noise of water evaporating.

‘Sit down for a minute.’

Kei pointed towards the other side of the hibachi. As soon as Shige sat down, Kei giggled and whispered, ‘Ayako gave dansama such a surprise.’

She remembered how her husband was flurried and lost his usual dignified air of importance.

‘He is so naive!’ She kept on laughing. Shige, too, laughed.

‘Oh, men are all very naive.’

‘They think they are cleverer than us.’

‘What happened?’ Shige’s husband was bringing in wood from outside and, hearing the laughter, poked his head into the chanoma.

‘Go away. This is women’s talk.’ Shige waved her hand to chase him away. The two women continued to chat to each other, giving vent to feelings pent up by the strain of constant obedience.

As Kei hoped, Ayako was welcomed and treated like a real daughter by Shobei and his wife. Most of her trousseau was made up of the ‘presents of welcome’ from the Miwas. This did not shame the Shirais. On the contrary, people realised that Shobei esteemed the Shirais and their respect for the Shirais increased. At the same time, they appreciated Shobei’s generosity. Shintaro loved his young and lovely wife. Ayako adored him. For her, there was no one as handsome, intelligent and kind as he was. She looked up to her husband with respect and worshipped him as though he was a god. Her obedience to him was sincere.

For ten years, there was nothing but happiness in the Miwa family. The villagers said, ‘Even the sun shines brighter over their house.’

When Ayako produced a healthy first child, even though it was a girl, there was a celebration. She was named Takeko. Then, two years later, in the first year of a new century, 1900, Haruko was born. Slight disappointment was felt at the arrival of a second daughter, but the husband was thirty-five and the wife was only nineteen.

‘We’ll have more children,’ Shintaro said to Shobei.

‘Of course you will,’ he answered.

When a third daughter was born, Shintaro, who had been telling his wife that he was not at all worried whether it would be a boy or a girl, had to walk around the garden before he went to see her to make sure he looked cheerful and pleased. The third child was called Sachiko.

It was when Ayako was pregnant for the fourth time that, one frosty morning, Shobei went to inspect his charcoal-making lodge. Wearing his padded jerkin, he bent forward and walked on hurriedly. As he came to the foot of the steep stone steps leading up to a temple, he made out a pair of women’s footwear left neatly at the bottom. He was not surprised. The temple was famous for divine favours for childless women and women without sons. They would go to the temple every day and climb up and down the steps barefoot for their wishes to be fulfilled. During the day, there were always one or two women in the vicinity who had come from far away.

In the grey light, he saw Kei coming down the steps. Unaware that the passer-by was Shobei, Kei squatted once more in supplication when she reached the bottom of the steps. Kei must have been there every morning praying for Ayako to have a boy, before Tei-ichi got up. Tei-ichi’s dislike of what he called superstition was well known.

And a son, Shuichi, was born. Shobei opened kegs of saké and invited the villagers. He ordered pink and white rice cakes from the largest cake shop in town and distributed them. He also donated a large sum of money to the temple. It was in honour of the quiet figure who was praying barefoot in the icy morning for the sake of her daughter and her family. It was his way of thanking her without telling her.

All day, relatives and friends arrived. They brought a large red sea bream as a symbol of felicitation, silk, cakes and other presents. In the kitchen, sushi was prepared in quantity. Only one person did not participate in the party. In the quiet inner room, Ayako was fast asleep.

That was the happiest day for the Miwas.

2
The Russians

At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the International Red Cross appointed Shintaro to be responsible for war casualties. He was one of the few doctors in the country qualified in European medicine. He was stationed on an island of Oki in the Japan Sea where the Red Cross Hospital was set up. Anticipating that the war would last more than a year, Shintaro took his wife and young family with him.

‘Haruko ojosama, there is a Russian man’s body washed up on the shore. Let’s go and see,’ a young servant said to Haruko.

He knew she would come. He was excited and itching to go, but thought that it would be prudent to take one of the children with him. It would look better than leaving work on his own. Of the four children in the Miwa family, the younger two were not old enough, while it was unthinkable to ask Haruko’s older sister, Takeko. At the age of seven, Takeko was a prim young lady. Haruko was different. When she heard the servant, she neither asked questions nor hesitated.

Haruko went out through the gate ahead of the servant. Once outside the garden, the servant rolled up his hakama (wide trousers). Haruko hitched up the skirt of her cotton kimono. Both of them took off their geta (wooden footwear) and, carrying them in their hands, ran along the dusty lane leading to the sea shore.

There was a crowd of some fifty people standing on the beach looking at the body, which was lying on the sand face up. It was late spring and the breeze felt pleasant to the people who were standing around.

‘Huge!’ a well-tanned and bow-legged man exclaimed, looking at the body.

‘If the country is big, it is natural that the people are big,’ someone else said. He meant to state a fact, but the villagers broke out into fits of laughter. ‘They may be big, but we defeated them.’

The Japanese navy had attacked a Russian task force and won an outright victory. Everybody was good-humoured, as though this success was a personal achievement. They forgot about the dead body for a moment. It lay as though it had never known life.

Several children tried to peep between the onlookers’ legs and were scolded and chased away, but someone noticed Haruko and said, ‘Ah, the doctor’s daughter,’ and let her get inside the circle of men.

Haruko thought that the colour of his hair was strange, like an ear of wheat. The face was unnaturally pallid. The eyes were closed. Haruko crouched down to take a closer look.

‘Aren’t you afraid, Haruko ojosama?’ a shop-keeper asked. She shook her head. There was hardly anything that made her afraid, she thought. She was not like Takeko, who was scared of almost everything and squeamish as well.

‘Look at this.’ Someone standing behind Haruko pointed at the chest of the body. A gold chain with a green enamelled ball about one centimetre in diameter hung from the neck. She had noticed it but was not sure if she was allowed to touch it. Tiny diamonds encircled a small piece of glass at the top of the green ball, and threw little rainbow-coloured lights in the sun.

The man bent over the body and picked up the pendant, turning it around. Standing up, he told Haruko to look through the top. It was a small magnifying glass. When she managed to focus, she gasped. There was a foreign lady inside the small green ball. She was sitting sideways with one elbow lightly resting on a cushion. She had long reddish golden hair and blue eyes. Her shoulders were bare. She had something red and gold around her neck and on her ear.

‘Haruko ojosama,’ the servant whispered, and poked at her. She turned around indignantly and realised that her father was coming with several people, among whom were the head of the village and the chief of police.

Her father was busy talking to the others about identifying the body and taking it to the temple.

‘Do not touch him. You must respect the dead, enemy or not,’ she heard him say to the villagers. He was also saying to the police chief, ‘There may be more bodies drifting this way.’

Two days before, Haruko had been to the beach with the same servant and they had seen many columns of black smoke on the horizon.

‘There are fifty Russian warships.’ Someone was knowledgeable. ‘They came all the way from the North Sea, taking eight months.’

‘Eight months!’ a fisherman repeated in surprise. ‘Ships like that cannot be in the sea for long without supplies. Barnacles and seaweed grow on the hull. If they are not cleaned off they will slow down the ship. Even our little boat ...’

‘Yes, yes.’ The first man interrupted the chatter impatiently.

The world knew the difficulties of the task force and watched its heroic progress through the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the South China Sea, the East China Sea and, finally, the Sea of Japan. Anchorages en route were mainly hostile. The long suffering of the sailors was nearly over. The year was 1905.

The motive for this extraordinary expedition by the Russians was to secure command of the Sea of Japan by reinforcing the First Pacific Fleet based at Port Arthur. The Russians had leased this port at the southern tip of Manchuria from the Chinese. But Port Arthur had fallen and the entire First Fleet had been destroyed by the Japanese navy. The new objective of the Russian Commander Rozhdestvensky, was to carry as many of his warships as possible safely into Vladivostok, north of the Sea of Japan. The last thing he wanted was to meet the Japanese en route.

For the Japanese the confrontation with the Russian fleet was the culmination of half a century of struggle and preparation. Technology was behind. The nation was poor. Most people had only millet and dried fish to eat. And yet the Japanese had invested heavily in the navy. Those in power were conscious of the vulnerability of an island nation that lacked the natural resources to modernise. A nearby land empire in China would be a lifeline. If they lost the sea battle against the Russians, the Japanese army, which was narrowly winning in Manchuria, would be isolated. It would not take long for them to be ousted.

As the Russian ships neared their destination they had to decide whether to take the direct and shorter route to Vladivostok through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan or sail along the east of the Japanese archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese did not have enough warships to meet them in two places. Which route would the Russians choose? This was the question in everyone’s mind. The nervousness of naval headquarters permeated down to the streets. Rumour had it that a samurai in white clothes had appeared in a dream to the Empress and said, ‘Don’t worry. They will come to the Sea of Japan.’

Standing on the beach, Haruko saw the columns of black smoke far away above the horizon, and heard a man mutter, ‘Thank God, they came this way.’

The news that Haruko and the servant had been down to the beach to see the dead body had already reached home by the time they entered the house.

‘What have you been up!’ Ayako sighed and smiled at the same time. ‘Can’t you behave like a girl?’

‘How can you go and see a body!’ Takeko made a show of shuddering and covered her mouth with both hands in a gesture of horror.

Haruko ignored her sister. She did not dislike Takeko, who was two years older, but she could not respect her.

In the morning, Takeko often said, ‘I don’t feel well,’ before setting off for school. ‘In that case, you had better stay at home,’ her Miwa grandmother, would say and Takeko would stay at home. After all, she was a girl; she did not need an education. As a girl of a well-to-do and long-established family she would have good marriage prospects if she was pretty, and that was all that mattered. Even at school, Takeko often said she felt ill and went home, leaving her books and other belongings for Haruko to bring back later.

For Haruko, school was important. Besides, she enjoyed it. The work was easy for her. She could dominate the village rascals in the classroom. She was given prizes. And she always finished her homework before the lesson was over.

That night, the Miwa children sat on cushions placed on the tatami floor while their father had his dinner. The children usually finished their meal early around a big table with their mother. A maid sat and attended them. Shintaro had his meal later, attended by his wife. He had a small table to himself, and Ayako sat by a little rice tub with a tray on her lap. The dishes were more elaborate than for the earlier gathering. There was soup in a black lacquered bowl with gold and silver chrysanthemums painted on it, a broiled fish with garnish and more plates of vegetables in season. Saké was served as well. As Shintaro ate, he talked to his children.

‘And what did you see in the pendant that you were peeping in?’ he asked Haruko that night. He had seen her on the beach.

‘I saw a lady. Is she Russian?’ Haruko relaxed. She was not going to be scolded.

‘Very likely. She must be his wife or fiancée.’

‘She had jewels around her neck.’

‘Did you like them?’

‘The jewels? I don’t know,’ she said. They had seemed so unreal that she had no feelings except awe. Shintaro laughed.

‘What is a pendant?’ Takeko wanted to know.

‘Russians are enemy,’ three-year-old Sachiko said.

‘Haruko.’ Her father called her as she was getting ready to go to school the next day. ‘I want you to come with me to the Russian hospital ship today. I will send someone to fetch you from school.’

‘But I cannot miss school.’ It was an awful dilemma. To miss school was bad. On the other hand, she had been told that her father’s word was absolute.

‘I will send a note to the teacher. It is to help me visit the wounded and make them feel better.’

‘Russians?’ Ayako opened her eyes wide with astonishment. She forgot her usual modesty in front of her husband and protested, ‘You cannot go to the enemy place with a little girl. They will kill you.’

‘No, no. They will not kill us. They are doctors like me and their patients.’

Ayako was not totally convinced but did not say any more.

‘In foreign countries,’ Shintaro explained gently, ‘it is the wife’s duty to go with her husband on such occasions.’

‘Wife!’

‘Yes. Wife. You see, in foreign countries, wives attend dinner parties looking like the lady that Haruko saw in the pendant, and are able to carry on conversations with other men.’

‘Do foreign women eat with men from the same table?’

‘Yes, they do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they think it is sociable.’

Most of Shintaro’s knowledge of life in Russia came from reading translations of novels by writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.

Although she did not understand why Shintaro wanted to take Haruko to see the Russians, Ayako had Haruko’s special kimono, which was kept for New Year’s Day, spread out on the tatami floor and dressed her daughter.

‘You must stay with your otohsan. I heard that foreign men have hair all over their body like animals,’ she told Haruko. A rickshaw came and Haruko climbed up after her father. He held her in front of him. She was almost hidden behind a large bunch of flowers that the servant handed to her.

‘Foreign wives are like geishas,’ Ayako confided to her maid, Kiyo, later.

The hospital ship was a small vessel of about three and a half thousand tons but as Haruko stood in a little boat ready to be hoisted on board, the side of the ship soared up beside her like a cliff. They were winched up in a kind of basket. Shintaro was tall among fishermen and tenant farmers but the person who approached them on the deck was of another species. He was like a bear. A reddish beard covered half of his red face around a big nose. Her mother was right. His hands were covered with golden hair even between the knuckles.

‘This ojisan is the captain of this ship,’ Shintaro told Haruko. Although ‘ojisan’ meant ‘uncle’ it was freely used by children for men of their parents’ age. But this giant was not another ojisan. Shintaro amiably shook hands with him and talked in German. Then he handed Haruko the large bunch of flowers he was carrying for her. Pushing her gently towards the Russian, he said, ‘Give the flowers to the captain.’

The giant said something. His voice was deep and sonorous. He took the flowers from her and, still talking to Shintaro, put his large hand on her head. The hand covered her head and she could see the tips of the fingers. The hand was heavy. She shuddered a little. Her whole body went rigid.

‘Were you scared?’ Takeko asked when father and daughter came home.

‘No,’ Haruko said. ‘Not at all.’ She had decided never to tell anyone that she had wet herself when the large hand was placed on her head.

Soon after the Tsushima naval battle, the war ended, and the Miwas went back to the family home in the southern prefecture of the main island by the Seto Inland Sea.

3
Haruko and Her Father

In the autumn after he had been married for ten years, Shintaro caught a cold and could not shake it off. His university friends, who were well-established doctors by then, were consulted. He had suffered from incipient tuberculosis as a student. It had been contained, but it seemed to have resurfaced.

Shintaro was afraid that his condition might be infectious, particularly to his family. He bought a small house not far from home along the coast of the Seto Inland Sea and stayed there. His four children were told that he would be better soon and come home, but they were never taken to see their father till his last days.

When the children were told that they were going to the seaside house, they were delighted. The oldest, Takeko, was then ten and the youngest, Shuichi, was just four.

It was balmy autumn weather and the sky was full of clouds like fish scales. The adults talked about a coming storm but all the children, except Takeko, romped about in the garden and played hide and seek. When they were hushed and scolded, Shintaro gestured that they should be allowed to play and watched them from his bed.

A maid came to Haruko to tell her that she was wanted by her father. When she went into the room, Shintaro nodded slightly to Haruko to come near him. After looking at her for a while, he said, ‘Give me your hand.’ When she placed her little hand on his thin veined hand, he whispered, ‘Promise me to help okahsan look after Shuichi, will you? I can rely on you, can I?’

Haruko nodded gravely. She felt an enormous weight of responsibility. She did not understand how she should help her mother. She concluded that they would become very poor like a lot of her school friends. If it was so, there was no problem. She would carry water, wood, and cook meals for Shuichi. She would fight village boys if they harmed her brother. She could picture herself in a tattered kimono going to school hungry because she had given her breakfast to Shuichi. Yes, she would do that.

‘Yes, otohsan, I will,’ she said. Shintaro smiled a little.

It was an honour to be asked. Haruko thought she knew why she was selected. When she was five, she and Takeko were having a nap in a kotatsu, a little charcoal burner in a wooden frame with a cover over it. Haruko was woken up by Takeko’s scream. Takeko had put her foot too near the fire. Her tabi, a sock, was smouldering. Haruko opened a window, scooped up snow in both hands and put it on the burning sock. By the time the grown-ups came, Takeko was still screaming but the fire was out. The burn was not severe.

‘You are such an intelligent child. You are more cool-headed than most grown-ups.’ Her father had patted her head then.

The night Haruko promised her father to look after Shuichi, there was a lot of rain. The sea was rough and the roar of waves was heard very close. Around midnight, a sliding door was quietly opened and Kei came into the room where the children were asleep. She woke the three girls and carried Shuichi.

When they went into the room where Shintaro lay, they were told to sit by his bedside. Shuichi was made to sit first and the girls followed. Their mother held a bowl of water and a brush for them. In turn, the children were handed the brush and told to wet their father’s lips.

The doctor was at the other side of the bed holding Shintaro’s wrist.

‘I am sorry ... Please look after Shuichi and the other children, and help Ayako,’ Shintaro said in a low but clear voice. In Confucius’ terms, Shintaro was an undutiful son, as his death preceded those of his parents and gave them grief.

‘Don’t worry. Shuichi will be well taken care of as the heir of the Miwas. And the other children, too, of course,’ Tei-ichi said from behind Shobei. Shobei had his arms folded and did not move.

‘Thank you,’ Shintaro said, and closed his eyes.

The wind blew hard and bamboo bushes kept hitting the shutters. The electric bulb hanging from the ceiling swayed in a draught and moved their shadows.

The next morning, Haruko found that all the white hagi flowers had gone from the garden, blown away by the wind.

‘He was blessed with too much,’ people said. ‘He was intelligent, handsome and rich. He had a lovely wife and children. He was so lucky that the devil was jealous of him.’

The coffin was taken back home and there was a quiet family funeral that night. The public Buddhist ceremony was held at home, three days later. Ayako wore a black kimono and the children were all in white. Shuichi was sitting nearest to the altar as chief mourner. Ayako sat next to him and then the girls in order of age.

Baron Kida, a close friend of Shobei, was the senior member of the funeral committee. Led by the head priest of the family temple, the ceremony was impressive and well attended. The house was filled with wreaths sent by the famous. They spilled out from the house through the gate into the street.

The mourners were struck by Ayako’s loveliness. At twenty-eight, she seemed to be at the height of refined beauty. The black kimono enhanced her classical features. It was customary to include a black mourning kimono in a trousseau, and Kei had bought the most expensive black silk. Kei had always been frugal and Tei-ichi had been shocked at its price.

‘It is not necessary to have such good quality,’ he protested.

Kei was undaunted on this occasion.

‘Black silk is very revealing,’ she said. ‘If the material is cheap, the colour is muddy and it will stand out when everybody is in black. The young wife of the Miwas cannot look unstylish.’

Pale-faced but composed, Ayako sat between Shuichi and Takeko. The expensive black silk was almost luminous. The edge of her collar against the dark kimono was so white that it almost hurt her eyes. The guests forgot for a moment the rites and incense when they saw her.

Shintaro had prepared her for the day. During his long illness, he had often talked about her life after he had gone.

‘I have loved you from the moment I saw you,’ he said. Ayako was unaccustomed to this kind of expression and at first she looked at him blankly. He took her hand. ‘I will always love you wherever I am.’

It was Shintaro who told her to become a Christian. He thought that her simple adoration of him could find an outlet in the worship of Christ. The teachings would comfort her.

The funeral went on for a long time. Many people came from all over the area. The thick white smoke of incense and the incessant chanting of sutras continued. Shuichi stayed still all through the funeral and people talked about how good he was.

Shobei sat squarely right behind Shuichi. He kept repeating to himself, as though to convince fate, that he had to live for twenty more years. ‘I have to see to Shuichi until he finishes university.’

The next day, an ox cart made a slow journey to the temple through winding village streets carrying the coffin. The villagers came out to pay their last respects to Shintaro. Most women cried, but their tears were for the four-year-old Shuichi in a white kimono, carrying his father’s name tablet and walking behind the coffin. Haruko walked with him. It was either Ayako or Takeko’s place to be nearest to Shuichi, but no one protested. In the family, Haruko was beginning to be regarded as trustworthy.