The Sound of Water
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I. Andrew
The city bus jerked and chugged through the streets, and I counted down the stops to Hiroshima. Bodies packed the vehicle far beyond capacity, and I had to squeeze through the standing passengers with my fare in hand to exit at the front of the bus. An older Japanese man sitting just behind the driver squinted and stared at me. If I had known Japanese, I would have told him that my parents had both rallied for peace all their lives and that none of my grandparents had ever held a gun, so he should pick someone else to stare at.
I nodded to the driver and stepped out onto the curb. The Atom Bomb Dome loomed in front of me, and I approached slowly, like someone walking over plots in a graveyard. They rebuilt the whole city after the bombing, except for this one building, and even after decades of rain and wind, the scarred, blackened metal of the dome looked like it had just been attacked yesterday. Against the shine of the new glass and metal of the surrounding buildings, this ruin looked like a wounded stub of an amputated limb. Brick and mortar hung in ragged clumps like dead skin.
I sat on a bench near the ruins, slipped off my shoes, and squeezed cold blades of grass between my toes. Sunlight streamed through the holes in the top of the ruins and warmed my face. I wondered why Shelia had suggested I come to Hiroshima on my day trip. I flipped through her guidebook, filled with post-it notes with all the extra information I might need, and there were plenty of beautiful temples and sushi restaurants that I could have visited instead. She had to work that day in her town, a couple hours north of Hiroshima, and she thought this trip would be easy enough for me to do on my own. She would use up her vacation days so we could be together for the rest of my visit to Japan. Shelia and I hadn’t seen each other in a year, and we needed the time to remember how we fit together again.
My stomach grumbled. I had some free time before I went to the museum for a scheduled talk, so I slipped my shoes back on and walked down the city streets to find some lunch. Past the ruined dome, everything in Hiroshima looked new. The buildings rose strong and thick, and they towered over car-filled streets. Bushes dotted the sidewalk, green and healthy. The city had healed, and you had to look close to see any of the old scars.
I found a small noodle shop with the help of Shelia’s guidebook. I couldn’t pronounce anything on the menu, but I managed to order a bowl of udon and meat by pointing at the pictures and nodding. A Japanese couple, the only other customers in the restaurant, were sitting two tables away from me. I couldn’t understand any of their words, but it sounded like they were having an argument.
The man talked slowly and coolly and kept his gaze leveled on the woman’s face. One arm hung relaxed down the back of his chair and his legs were stretched out underneath the table. The woman stood up straight with her arms crossed, but sometimes she emphasized her points with swift jabs of her hand. She argued with a strong, low voice.
Shelia used to look like that when she got angry. Sometimes I would pick a fight with her just to see her cheeks light up and to hear her voice drop low. She seemed more subdued lately, as if something about this country had snuffed out the fire in her. I hadn’t told her yet, but I wasn’t sure that I would stay with her. After spending a year apart in different countries, we were like strangers.
Thick, udon noodles slipped from my chopsticks and splashed drops of soup onto my shirt. When I looked back up at the couple, the woman caught my eye for a second, and I pushed my gaze back down into my food.
II. Hiromi
“Do we have to talk about this now?” I said. “That American who just came in is staring at me.”
“He’s a tourist,” said Daisuke. “He probably can’t understand anything we’re saying. Maybe he’s just looking at your pretty face.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m being completely serious. It’s only a question. Why would you vote for Fujiwara? I want to hear your own reasons from your own mouth.”
It was the only thing he could talk about since the election yesterday. Fujiwara had become the new Prime Minister. In spite of Daisuke’s constant political lectures, I had voted for the winning candidate along with sixty percent of Japan.
“Fujiwara will take action instead of just talking,” I said. “North Korea is getting aggressive and they still hold all the old grudges. Koreans never forget. They never let go. Fujiwara understands that.”
“Maybe we should be glad the Koreans never forget. Maybe we need help remembering,” said Daisuke. “The new history textbooks that have apparently gone through all those revisions and additions still ‘forget’ the numbers of casualties and the specifics of the atrocities committed by Japanese forces.”
“My memory is crystal clear. I remember the kidnappings. Korea only admits to thirteen of the hundreds of Japanese kids they took away from their families.”
“But more aggression won’t help anything.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be so easy to say if you had a family of your own, if you weren’t afraid to be a father.”
Daisuke sighed and lowered his head. He played with the bits of noodles left floating in the broth.
“That’s not a part of this discussion,” he said. Daisuke stood up, paid for the food, and stood outside waiting.
I gave him a minute alone before I walked towards the door to join him. The American looked down at his food again – he was having some trouble with his chopsticks. I wondered why he had come to Hiroshima, alone: for atonement or just simple curiosity?
I stepped outside. Daisuke, without turning, said, “I have to go and meet the speaker at the museum. I would still like for you to come. She’s an interesting woman, and you might gain something from what she has to say.”
“I’m still coming with you. I never said I wouldn’t.”
We walked in silence towards the Peace Garden and the Hiroshima Museum. The street opened up into the wide park and the smooth, stone memorials. We walked past the children’s statue with its strings of paper cranes, and we walked past the long, shallow pool of still water that led up to the peace flame. Clouds were moving in and the sky was turning gray.
The museum was at the back of the park, and Daisuke flashed his employee ID to get us through the line. We waited in a reception area away from the exhibit halls until the guest speaker, Hotaru Matsubara, arrived. All the time I lived near Hiroshima, I had never seen or even talked to a survivor of the bombing. Daisuke leapt up to meet her when we saw Hotaru approaching the museum through the glass doors. I caught myself looking for scars.
Daisuke and Hotaru smiled at each other like old friends – they had already spoken at length over the phone to plan the event. She seemed to be in perfect health except that her hands shook slightly and her voice was scratchy, like radio static.
III. Hotaru
“It’s good to finally meet you,” I told Daisuke.
“We are honored to have you here,” he said.
A woman behind him walked towards me tentatively to introduce herself. Her eyes darted quickly across my face and I knew she was looking for signs of radiation. Everyone always looks. After doing talks like this for decades, I didn’t really mind any more. The scars from my surgeries stay mostly hidden, and these old bones of mine still move when I ask them to.
“This is my partner, Hiromi Nakayama,” said Daisuke.
Hiromi and I bowed to each other, and she relaxed after we had been officially introduced.
“A group of foreigners, mostly Americans, are taking an English-language tour of the museum right now,” said Daisuke. “And those who want to hear the talk will arrive here shortly.” He looked around the room and quickly counted the chairs. “It is a good sized group – they should fill out this space well.”
“Oh no, I hope they can understand my English,” I said. “It’s so bad these days.” I wasn’t trying to be modest. My English was very poor.
“You’ll be fine,” said Daisuke. “You’ll find the right words.”
We passed the time talking until we heard a knock on the door. A tour guide leaned into the room and told Daisuke that the visitors had arrived for my talk. Daisuke took over and directed everyone to their seats. I moved to the front of the room while the chairs filled up with foreigners. I always liked to speak with Americans. You might think that they would all look guilty walking around Hiroshima, but most feel no guilt at all. They are all so disconnected from history that they don’t have to feel its weight, and instead of wasting a lot of time hanging their heads in shame, they can take action if you give them the right direction.
Daisuke gave me a short introduction when the crowd settled, and then I began my talk. No matter how many times I told my story it was never easy. It felt like sticking a finger down my throat to bring up poison. Memories of the bombing lingered in the present the way smoke sticks to your clothes and your skin for days after a fire.
In order to tell my story, I had to put myself back in that day. The audience disappeared and the walls fell away. I was a child again, eating breakfast with my father and my mother on Monday morning, August 6, 1945. The rice was warm in my mouth and we all sipped hot tea that almost burnt my tongue. My mother absently played with my hair deciding whether to leave it straight or braid it together. My father was getting ready for work. He left silently, still waking from sleep, and I left for school soon after.
It was along the short stretch of road where my mother started back to the house and I walked on to school alone that the bright light filled the sky. I thought the sun had exploded. An invisible force pushed me to the ground. Dirt and sand ripped at my skin and the air burned. When I sat up, I was bleeding from cuts along my arms and legs and I didn’t know why. My skin hurt all over. I looked for Chie. I used to meet her every morning along the way to school, and I needed to find her. Everything felt hot and dry, smoke rose from buildings in the distance, and I heard people screaming so I screamed too, calling out for Chie. She didn’t call back, and I hurried towards the smoke. Crowds of people ran for the river, and a man yelled with his mouth open like a gaping wound. It looked impossibly big, like his face was melting and dripping to the ground. Another man held something red to his chest. It looked like his own body coming out of him, but I didn’t see Chie so I kept moving. Everything was hot and dry and all I wanted was a drink of cold water. I couldn’t find Chie anywhere.
My story slowly surfaced from memory, and the audience rose back into my eyes. The florescent lights and the room temperature air were soft and cool. Everyone had white faces and watery eyes. Some would try to push the images out of their minds, some would forget the story a year from now, but maybe a handful would never forget. If just one person out of the hundreds that hear me talk changes her life to one of peace, I have done right.
The foreigners applauded and slowly stood from their seats. Many of them came up to say a brief word with me, but many of them couldn’t speak at all. I talked with Daisuke about coming to the museum again next week, and then I left for home.
Of course it was raining. The sun was out all day until I had to walk outside. I hurried to my bus as fast as my little legs could manage, and I collapsed into my seat for a good nap. The bus would take its time getting outside of the city where I lived with my cousin and her family.
I moved away from Hiroshima for most of my life, but it never felt right. It was my home, all the memories included, and I could never escape that. I would have liked to have kids and a family, but I lost my child-bearing parts quite a few surgeries ago. Well, it would have hurt like hell anyway. My cousin Naoko and her two kids were my stand-in family, and there would be grandkids soon too.
I got off the bus at our house and opened the front door quietly. I thought my cousin would already be asleep and her kids would be gone to their own homes, but there was still a light on in the kitchen. I poked my head in, and everyone was there, Naoko and the two kids, Riku and Namiko. They were standing around waiting for me, and they had a cake on the table with candles lit. Oh, shit, I thought, I missed one of their birthdays again.
“What’s all this cake for?” I said.
“It’s for Chie,” said Naoko. “We always have cake on Chie’s birthday.” They smiled at me expectantly.
“Oh, of course, for Chie,” I said. It was the first time I had forgotten in over sixty years.
IV. Hiromi
Daisuke stopped the car at the next light and put his hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What?” I said. It was the first word I had spoken since hearing Hotaru’s talk.
“I’m sorry for picking a fight with you.”
“Oh.” He was talking about our argument over lunch and the world came back to me, present and wonderful. This was local. This was manageable.
The light turned green and Daisuke accelerated. The windshield wipers sloshed rain across our view.
“I’m sorry too,” I said. “I didn’t mean to say –”
“We’ll just forget about it, then,” said Daisuke. My mind was already past the fight. I wanted warm food in my mouth. I wanted to fall asleep next to his warmth.
We sat in silence until we got home to our apartment. I stepped out of the car, and the rain drops felt cool and alive as they splashed on my face. Daisuke pulled me inside the front door. My fingers squeezed in between his and my wet hair dripped onto his shirt.
We cooked plain white rice and vegetables, and it tasted like a gourmet meal. I savored every bite and slowly felt my body warming up again.
Daisuke flipped on the television. “Let’s watch Fujiwara’s address tonight,” he said. “We should listen to what he has to say.”
“And no lectures on politics?” I said.
“No lectures,” said Daisuke.
The Prime Minister spoke to the nation about his new stance on foreign policy. I had never really listened to his words. I had cast my vote based solely on the passion and the aggression in his voice. That night I really started listening.
V. Andrew
I held Hotaru’s hand briefly before I left her talk. I almost couldn’t believe that she was the girl in her story, that anyone could have lived through that nightmare. But her hand touching mine – that was physical proof. I walked out into the peace park and sat by the shallow, memorial pool. The late afternoon sun was completely covered in clouds, and it soon began to rain. I didn’t even notice at first, when the rain splashed onto my head and dripped down my neck and chest. It started slowly – a scattering of drops broke the surface tension of the water and sent ripples out to meet each other, reverberating like echoes to the edges of the pool. I sat listening to the sound of the water and it helped clear my mind. But the rainfall increased and the violence of all those drops hitting the pool over and over again was almost too hard to watch.
I looked down at my feet and felt puddles in my shoes. I had forgotten to put Shelia’s guide book back into my bag. It had become a swollen mess of soggy paper, heavy in my hands, and her notes and post-its dripped black ink. I walked to a bathroom near the museum and tried to dry myself off with paper towels. The air dryer didn’t do much good for the guidebook, but at least I could read the bus schedule again. I had to catch a bus to the docks and then a ferry to Miyajima where I would meet up with Shelia. My hair looked oily in the mirror and I rubbed my face with both hands, trying to get the feeling back into my cheeks.
The bus stop was close to the museum, and I waited underneath the canopy to stay dry. Cars drove by steadily, and through the rain-soaked windows, I thought I saw the Japanese couple from the noodle shop. It wasn’t until then that I realized they were at the talk too. The man had introduced Hotaru Matsubara, and the woman had sat in the front row.
I wondered what had caused the fight between them, and I hoped I wasn’t headed for an argument with Shelia about our plans for the next year. As much as I missed that fire she had, this fight would be a serious one. The bus came and I took my seat. I spent the whole ride looking at her guidebook, not actually reading the words on the page, but looking over all her color-coded post-it notes and tracing her handwriting through the rain-splotched ink.
The bus driver dropped me and several other passengers right at the docks, and the ferry ride was a short trip over dark water. I saw Shelia as soon as I stepped onto land.
“You look so wet!” she said. “Are you okay?” It was still raining slightly, and she held her umbrella up to cover us both.
“Yes, I’m fine, but I’m afraid your guidebook didn’t fare as well,” I said and handed her the soggy book.
“Oh god, it’s a mess. Well, I never use it much anyway. Let’s just get you back to the room and into something dry. How was your trip?”
“It was – interesting,” I said. I wanted to tell her about the whole talk, but I knew it would only come out sounding watered-down in my own words.
We walked along the island’s edge, following the lanterns that led up to the hotels. A red Shinto gate rose from the water just off shore, and the lantern light glowed in the haze.
“We’ve got things to talk about…” she said.
“Yes, we do,” I said.
Before either of us could start, a deer walked up to me and sniffed at my shirt. I jumped back in alarm, and Shelia laughed.
“Oh, the island is full of deer,” she said. “They’re harmless.”
The deer bit onto my shirt and started pulling. I yanked hard to get my shirt back, and the animal let me stroke the rough hair between its ears. The rain had stopped completely, and the air felt quiet. Shelia seemed very much a part of that island and the dim light from the old stone lanterns.
“Look, we could just start over again,” I said.
We stood there for some time at the edge of the island, looking out past the red gate at the inky night until even the deer that sniffed and bit at our clothes grew tired of us and fell asleep.