Naoki Hyakuta - The Eternal Zero

At the time, everyone had their hands full just trying to get by. I was incredibly fortunate to have been allowed to resume my education. My mother was a primary school teacher in Tokyo, so we never went hungry.

But that doesn’t mean our lives were easy. All I had to wear were my mended and patched clothes from my days in the military. I continued to wear the overcoat that Miyabe-san had given me, too.

It was a friend of mine who worked for the Ministry of Welfare that was able at long last to tell me where Miyabe-san’s wife and daughter were. Since she was his widow, she had applied for a bereaved family’s pension with the Demobilization Bureau of the Ministry of Welfare. The pension system had yet to be completed, but the Demobilization Bureau had been making preparations for its implementation.

The address was in Osaka. I immediately headed there. This was in the winter of 1949.

Back then, it was a ten-hour trek to get to Osaka from Tokyo. Nowadays you could get to America in the same amount of time.

The day was cold. As I searched for the address, I entered a very poor section of town that could easily have been called a slum. There were rows of barracks-like tenements whose residents were indeed destitute. The entire area gave off an offensive smell.

I felt like my chest was being squeezed. It was so depressing to learn that the wife and child that Miyabe-san had wanted to protect so badly had ended up living in such a squalid neighborhood. No, it was more than just depressing. My response crossed over into something akin to rage.

I entered an alleyway and spotted a little girl standing alone. She wore a red woolen scarf and a skirt covered with patches. She had an affable countenance. And looked at me with lovely eyes. As soon as I saw her, I was reminded of Miyabe-san’s face.

“Miyabe-san?” I asked.

The girl turned around and dashed away. I followed.

She went inside one of the row houses. Well, if you could even call it a house. The walls were comprised of random old boards stuck together and the ceiling was a sheet of galvanized metal.

I stood in front of the house. A small wooden board served in place of a proper name plate. On it, written in beautiful script, was the name MIYABE.

“Excuse me, please,” I called out in greeting.

“Coming!” a voice replied straightaway, and a woman emerged.

She wore work pants and had a towel wrapped around her head. Her attire spoke of poverty, but she was very pretty.

I was temporarily struck dumb, and found myself staring at her.

Strangely, she, too, stood there looking at me in blank amazement. She looked at me as if she was seeing a ghost or I was some strange, scary phenomenon.

“My name is Kenichiro Oishi. Your husband was very kind to me during the war.”

She gave a start, and then bowed deeply. “I’m Miyabe’s wife. I am sure that he is much indebted to you.”

“No, I’m the one who’s indebted to him.”

The little girl from before stood beside the woman.

“Please come inside.”

I took her up on her offer. Past the entryway there was no foyer; the door opened immediately on a single tiny room. The floor wasn’t tatami matting but boards covered with straw mats. There was a vast number of buttons piled high inside the room.

“Sorry for the mess. This is for my side job.” She called her daughter and asked her to go out and buy juice. She took a coin purse from within her blouse and handed her some money.

“Juice! Really?” the girl exclaimed.

“No, please don’t go to any trouble,” I said, flustered. I took out my wallet and handed the girl some money. “Please use this to buy juice and sweets and anything at all you’d like.”

“No, that won’t do.”

“It’s fine. I arrived without announcement and came empty-handed. So please let me pay.”

After I repeatedly reassured her, she finally relented and said, “Then I’ll take up your kind offer.”

I told her about how he had been such a kind instructor during my days in flight school, and that we had been together at Kanoya Base.

But I didn’t say anything about the day we had gone on that special attack mission. I couldn’t tell her that he had died in my place. Instead, I told her that he’d saved my life during an air battle. She listened to everything quietly.

“It’s all thanks to Miyabe-san that I’m still here today.”

“Oh then, Miyabe… He was of some help to someone,” she said poignantly.

“He helped a great many people, not just me.”

“So he didn’t die in vain.”

As soon as she asked that question, tears sprang to my eyes. “Please forgive me,” I said, going on my knees and placing both hands on the floor. “I should have died instead of him.” Tears spattered the back of my hands.

“Please, raise your face,” she said. “Miyabe died for all of us. Not only him, but everyone who died in the war. They died for the rest of us.”

I lifted my head. She was smiling.

“How did he die?”

“He went out honorably, like a true soldier.”

“That’s consoling,” she said and smiled again.

She is such a brave woman, I noted.

“But he lied to me,” she said, her tone suddenly cold. “He promised me that he’d come back.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. She shut them, sending large drops streaming down her cheeks.

My heart ached as if it were in a vise. I was beset with the same regret that I’d felt countless times over the past four years.

Why did he ask me to switch aircrafts with him then? Why didn’t I staunchly refuse to give in to his request? Had I done so, she could be living happily with him now…

Just then, the girl returned. She was shocked to see her mother in tears.

“It’s nothing,” she reassured her daughter. “We were talking about your father, and that made me a little sad.”

“Kiyoko’s daddy?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Mom, what was daddy like?”

“He was a wonderful man. He was braver and kinder than anyone else,” I answered in his wife’s stead.

“But he died.”

Once again, my chest clenched painfully.

As I got up to leave, I handed Miyabe-san’s wife an envelope I had brought.

“It’s not much, but please accept.”

“What is this now?”

“It’s meager recompense for the debt I owe Miyabe-san.”

“I can’t take it.”

I refused to yield, imploring, “You must. If I couldn’t somehow pay back the person who saved my life, I would be something less than human.”

After we argued back and forth for a while longer, she finally gave in.

That was how I first met Matsuno.

Every few months, I lied to my mother that I had to go on a business trip and went to visit Matsuno in Osaka. With money each time.

Matsuno would refuse, but I always insisted on leaving it with her. I don’t remember the amount anymore, but I think it was close to half my salary. I lied to Matsuno about how much I made, saying that college graduates working for the National Railway received handsome salaries.

Thanks to this, my mother had a very hard time with the family budget. Just as I had graduated and started working, her health had taken a turn for the worse, and she’d had to quit her job as a schoolteacher.

My mother was under the impression that I’d taken up some bad habits, but she never said anything. She knew I’d been part of a special attack unit and assumed that I was trying to forget by being a spendthrift. Meanwhile, my colleagues at the National Railway thought I was being thrifty. I never went out with them, and I still wore my patched-up military clothes. I caught wind of rumors that I was hoarding loads of cash, but I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. Some whispered that I was spending all the money on a woman.