Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

I can remember a stiff breeze tugging at my clothes, but I can’t recall my exact feelings. Disbelief and bewilderment, most likely. I do seem to remember being choked by fear, as if I had been the one tied up there naked, and not Mayumi.

I understood nothing of the speech my father gave to the large group of followers who had assembled at the top. I heard his voice, but my mind refused to interpret the sounds as words. I looked at Mayumi, a few metres away from me. He was staring at the ground, but lifted his head a little every now and then to peer at me. His expression was that of a beaten dog, infinitely sad. I felt something change in me, a dreamy state, as if part of me had separated itself. The same feeling, now sharp and sizzling, shot through my body like a bolt of lightning when my father stopped talking, pulled out his katana , turned with the fluidity of water and chopped off Mayumi’s head.

My father took me back down to the building where we lived, his hand on my shoulder, patiently pointing to the places I should tread carefully on the steep, overgrown path. For once, he didn’t seem to be scrutinising me for some shortcoming or weakness.

I was prattling on about nothing, acting all busy and grown-up, like a little lady.

When we were almost at the bottom, he said casually: “Mitsuko, don’t you want to know why you had to see this?”

I sensed that much depended on my answer and my heart raced: “Because I’m your daughter and I deserve respect.”

He gave me a long, inscrutable look and finally nodded. I was deeply relieved, but hadn’t yet realised that I wasn’t the same girl who had gone up to the watchtower.

He then took my hand and asked: “Don’t you want to know what Mayumi did?”

I surprised myself with my answer: “I don’t know enough of the adult world, but I’m certain about one thing: Mayumi loved me.”

We were almost at the bottom. He let go of my hand and walked in front of me, an angular giant in warrior’s clothes from a different era, in a world of his own where darkness was falling rapidly.

I’ve always wondered whether I imagined his answer, but tonight I can feel my feet searching anxiously for the path after he let me go, and hear his voice again in the gathering dusk: “He loved you too much, and that’s why he had to die.”

I saw the gang my father called his followers commit many more atrocities in later years, but I’ll never forget the look on Mayumi’s face just before he died.

It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly and I was rooted to the spot. I remember Mayumi looking up at me just before the sword was pulled, I remember his smile.

How can a child witness such a thing and grow up normally? Everything I did seemed ambiguous after Mayumi’s execution. I was unable to accept the reality of my life, so I made everything unreal.

It only occurred to me much later that Mayumi is a woman’s name. It made me distrust my memory – and as a consequence, my life.

The girl has brought Xavier Douterloigne to a restaurant in the centre of the city. She was quiet on the overcrowded Hakushima tram, a little frown between her eyebrows as if she regretted her suggestion. Hiroshima’s nightlife is just as noisy and colourful as Xavier remembers it, yet it amazes him all over again. The restaurant doesn’t have a single photo album to help non-Japanese speaking tourists choose their food – a good sign. The interior may be a bit cluttered – bright red plastic walls and a steaming open kitchen – but it’s not Western. There are trees opposite, on the other side of the street, date palms colourless and bony, like old men against the cloudless night sky. Xavier orders himself a healthy meal. The waitress smiles at him approvingly; a tall blonde man speaking fluent Japanese is something to tell her friends about. She looks as if she wants to touch him. His table companion introduces herself as Yori, but doesn’t say much else. She attacks the food, licks her teeth with every bite, her pink tongue darting in and out. Xavier notices she’s still wearing her gloves. She starts to talk again in the middle of the meal and before long she’s bombarding Xavier with questions about his life, buzzing around his head like a bee. A girl with seven-league boots. He smiles. He knows that women find him attractive, especially Asian women. He’s evasive when she asks about his family: “My parents have been diplomats all their lives, but they wanted to round off their careers close to home and moved to Brussels. They’re the best. I’m their only son… just graduated. This trip to Japan, where I lived for many years, is my graduation gift.” Yori flashes her eyes at him as she asks about girlfriends.

“Enough about me,” says Xavier with a smile. “My life is boring. A diplomat’s son with doting parents, nothing exciting ever happens to me. Your body’s a story in itself.” He touches her right temple carefully. “And I guess there’s plenty more inside.”

Yori quickly rubs the spot where Xavier’s fingers touched her skin.

“Have you got a boyfriend?”

She nods with a wry smile. “If you can call it that. Our relationship isn’t conventional.”

“So what is it?”

“Passionate.” She lowers her eyes and adds quickly: “But not always in the traditional sense of the word.”

“What’s the traditional sense of passionate?”

She turns her wrists and stretches her body, unable to sit still for a second.

“Sex.” She peeks at Xavier to see his reaction. Xavier smiles. New dishes are served, soup perfumed with delicate yuzu lemon, and fish wrapped in cedar leaf. Excellent food for such a modestly priced restaurant. Xavier watches her as she eats with great relish, but still with the lightness and elegance of a bird.

“What does your boyfriend do?”

“Reizo? He wants to write a novel. A book about what he calls “Japan the whore”. I’ve read some of it. A lot of violence. It’s about young people…” Xavier isn’t paying much attention. He’s basking in the sparkling light of her presence.

“I think Reizo has a screw loose,” Yori concludes. “He’s so over-the-top at times. He regularly ties a hachímalá around his head, one of those headscarfs with special ritual symbols, the kanji , supposed to have the power to fend off evil spirits. Then he sits cross-legged and meditates in zazen , with a dagger in his hands. After a bit, he starts to shake like a madman, pretending to plunge the blade into his belly.” She giggles, again covering her mouth. “Playing the macho comes naturally to him. Man as warrior, flirting with death, that kind of thing.”

Xavier decides not to respond to her comment. “And what do you do?”

“I’m a street jester. I sing karaoke and invent reasons for people to fill my money box. It’s getting tougher by the day. More and more people are losing their jobs. We’re all going down together. The proud yellow race, captain of Asia, blah, blah, blah. In actual fact, we’re a sick people, Xavier.” Douterloigne loves the way she pronounces his name: it sounds almost Spanish like Javier. He’s not in love, but he knows that love is the only natural force in the universe capable of striking faster than the speed of light. After what happened to Anna, he’s having a hard time looking at life through rose-tinted glasses.

“Where do you live?”

“I rent some rooms with a bunch of young people in the centre of the city.” Yori smiles and coughs delicately. “What the hell, I can trust you with the truth. We’re actually squatting in a disused factory. We’ve divided it up into living spaces, using stuff we either found, scrounged or chipped in to buy. And we have our own club: the Suicide Club. Some of us are thinking of really doing it, if they can get enough publicity first. Suicide as a happening, you could call it. If there’s no other way out, suicide is a noble option.” She shrugs. “Want to hear a funny story about my boyfriend Reizo, the crazy he-man ?”