Naoki Hyakuta - The Eternal Zero

“But I still have not repaid my obligation to Miyabe-san.”

Matsuno looked me right in the eye. “And when will your obligation be fulfilled?”

I didn’t have a reply.

“If you were indebted to him, then you have sufficiently repaid that debt.”

“No, not yet,” I mumbled.

“Are you going to devote the rest of your life to supporting us like this?”

“And would that be so wrong? Miyabe-san saved my life. No, he died for my sake.”

“And what about your own life? What about your happiness?”

“I had a fiancée once. I broke it off as soon as I became a student reservist, but I had intended to be with her were I to return from the war alive.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died in an air raid.”

Matsuno was silent. We both were for some time, and she was the one to break the silence. “Is your sense of obligation to Miyabe the only reason you’ve done so much for us?”

I found I couldn’t answer her. She looked me directly in the eye. Her gaze was so sharp it felt like she saw right through my heart. Instinctively, I looked away.

“I’m ashamed.” I turned my back to her. “I do indeed feel an obligation to Miyabe-san. But that’s not the only reason I have been aiding you. I am an uncouth person.”

Somewhere a cicada buzzed. I was so embarrassed by my ugliness that I shed tears.

Then I felt a gentle pressure on my shoulder. I turned around to find Matsuno had placed her hand on my shoulder. Large tears spilled from her eyes. “Will you listen to me?” she asked.

I nodded.

“The last time I saw Miyabe, he had just returned to the interior after fighting in the south, and was on leave for a few days in Yokohama. He said to me before he left that he would absolutely come home to me. Even if he had no arms or legs, he would come back.”

I nodded.

“Then he said, ‘Even if I die, even then, I will come back. Even if I have to be reborn, I will come back to you.’” Matsuno fixed me with a stare. I had never seen such a fierce look in her eyes. “The first time I saw you, I knew that Miyabe had been reincarnated and had come home. You were wearing his overcoat—and when I saw you standing before my house, I thought, ‘He kept his promise.’”

I embraced her. She clung fast to me. I cried. She was crying softly, too.

“Do you think it’s just another man-and-woman thing?” Grandpa asked after he’d finished telling his tale.

I shook my head. I found I couldn’t speak.

“And so Matsuno and I got married. Nine years had passed since the end of the war. After that, we never spoke of Miyabe-san again. But neither of us forgot him, not even for a moment. And Matsuno was a devoted wife until the day she died.”

I closed my eyes, recalling my grandmother’s face. She was smiling ever happily in my memories. And yet she had led such a life…

“I will tell only you two this,” Grandpa continued quietly. “I don’t want to tell Kiyoko. This is the only secret from her that I want to carry to my grave.”

I nodded, still unspeaking.

“Matsuno suffered terribly after the war. It was very difficult for a single woman with no one to rely on to raise a young child. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

My heart beat faster in my chest.

“Before we married, she told me everything that she’d had to do to survive in those immediate postwar years. I think she hadn’t wanted to lie to me. I listened to everything she said and accepted her without even the slightest reservation.”

Grandpa sighed heavily. “Matsuno was deceived and became a kept woman of a certain yakuza boss. She never went into detail, but I think she was forced to yield to him because of the gangster’s money and violence. Perhaps, after losing Miyabe-san, she’d given herself over to despair.”

Keiko covered her face with her hands.

“Normally, it would have been very difficult for her to free herself from the clutches of such a demon. But something surprising happened—something strange enough to make you wonder if such things actually happen in the world.”

Grandpa lowered his voice. “The yakuza boss was attacked by someone and killed at the house where Matsuno was being kept. Two other yakuza who were serving as bodyguards suffered severe injuries as well.”

I felt something cold race down my spine.

“Matsuno experienced something bizarre then. She was right there at the scene of the murder and saw this man who was wielding a bloodstained sword. Matsuno said she’d never met him before. He was covered in his victims’ blood, and as she cowered, trembling in fear, he tossed her a wallet full of money and said, ‘Live.’”

Instantly, the image of a certain man floated up in my mind.

“Matsuno thought that he was Miyabe-san, reborn. She knew that couldn’t possibly be true, but sometimes miracles really do occur. Perhaps his spirit had come through somehow. I think Matsuno was under Miyabe-san’s protection. Just as he drew her and me together, he’d worked through that killer.”

I thought that I might know who the killer had been. I had no evidence, but I felt certain. That man, too, had spent the years after the war searching for my grandfather’s wife… He, too, had been ready to sacrifice himself for Kyuzo Miyabe.

Tears spilled from my eyes.

Grandpa stared hard at me. “Was that a shock to you?”

I shook my head. He simply nodded.

“In her final moments, Matsuno thanked me.”

I remembered that, too. They were her last words, delivered in a voice so clear it hardly seemed to be coming from someone breathing her last. Then she closed her eyes.

“Do you remember me weeping then?”

I nodded. Grandpa had wailed out loud. He had clung to grandmother’s body, his voice wracked with sobs. He’d cried loud enough to fill the hospital room.

“I wanted to say, ‘No, it is I that must thank you.’ But there was another reason I cried. I saw Miyabe-san then, standing right beside Matsuno. He was wearing his flight uniform. He’d come for Matsuno… I’m sure you don’t believe what I’m saying.”

Grandpa had a very faraway look in his eyes.

“It’s fine if you don’t. I myself feel like I saw a phantom. It must have been an illusion. But at the time, I felt it quite clearly. Then Miyabe-san and Matsuno departed together. Just as Matsuno left, she said to me, ‘Thank you.’”

“No!” I cried. “Grandma loved you!”

“Yeah, I know she did!” Keiko interrupted too.

Grandpa didn’t reply. Tears streaked down his face. “I’m not long for this world myself. When I was young, I was afraid of death. When I was ordered to become a kamikaze, I was scared. I fought back against that fear desperately. But I’m not scared now. I have led a very happy life. I think that when I die, Matsuno will come for me. And I bet Miyabe-san will come get me with her.”

Then he said, “Pardon me, but I would like to be by myself for a bit.”

Keiko and I left the room.

Night had fallen by the time we left Grandpa’s house.

As soon as we passed outside the front gate, Keiko started to cry hard. It was like a dam breaking open.

I hugged her about the shoulders. She clung to my chest and wept. We hadn’t embraced since we were kids. I’d never known she was so petite. The only sound along the dark, quiet residential street was her crying. The pavement was wet, perhaps from a passing afternoon shower.

After a while, Keiko regained her composure. As she started to apologize, I shook my head.

“I can’t marry Takayama-san,” she said. “I’d been worrying over it for a long time, but today my feelings became crystal clear.” Her face was wet with tears, but in the light from the street lamps, it looked almost sunny.