Nam Le - The Boat

Mrs. Tamura does not sing that night. I lie on my back. Tomiko is on my left and Yukiyo is on my right. Everywhere there is the sound of sniffing. Mother is on my left and she smells of pine oil and chrysanthemum and close to her body she smells like dust and sweat. I am on her right. Mrs. Tamura says softly to me in the dark, You cannot go home now, Mayako. The truck can come only once every few weeks and it just left today. I feel her lips against my ear. They are just over that hill, she says. Think of that. Just wait for Visiting Day. She smells like spiced potatoes. Do without until victory! There is a warning. The radio speaks. The wind is loud under the Temple doors. Is that the sound of a B-29? It is only a single plane. It is honorable to follow the jeweled path for the Emperor. The radio is sick again. Takai says the American beasts sometimes drop leaves of tin from the sky to make the radio sick. All around us is soft rain. Big Sister and I wear our air-raid hoods, Father wears his white joe . The ferry makes a deep sound like a plane far beneath us. Everything around us is washed until the water is the same color as the sky. We are visiting the Shrine on MiyajimaIsland to press our hands together for good luck with the evacuation. Sumi, says Father. You must go with Mayako. I will stay, says Big Sister. You are in the sixth grade, he says. You are eligible to go. Forgive me, I will not evacuate. It is the order of the prefecture, says Father, and there is not enough food in the city. To bear what you think you cannot bear is really to bear, says Big Sister. Father bends down to speak closer to her. His face is all wet. Sumi, you will be safe there. Through the rain I see the big torii archway to the Shrine on MiyajimaIsland. It floats like a red spirit above the water. Forgive me, I will not run from danger, says Big Sister. Water drips down from the rim of her air-raid hood. You taught me the story of the son of Ieyasu — honor won in youth grows with age. You fought the enemy in Manchuria. I am not a child. I know the way of Bushido and I will fight like you. Who will look after your sister? Mayako goes with the school, says Big Sister. She will be safe. I do not want to go, I say. If the bombs come, says Big Sister, I will stay and die like a shattered jewel. Her face is bright. How is it so bright when it is raining? The air smells like UjinaPort. Sumi, listen to me. Go with Mayako. You will both be safe in the hills. Big Sister says, Anyone who thinks the Fatherland will lose is hikokumin . Traitor. Father is silent for a long time. Then he looks at me instead of her. I will be a hero-spirit like you, says Big Sister. One hundred million deaths with honor! Honorable death before surrender! Defend every last inch of the Fatherland! There is no dust on her face but it looks like stone. Father does not look at her. He looks at me. One hundred million deaths with honor! I repeat after her. Then I say again, I do not want to go. You will go, says Father. You will go, says Big Sister. She looks like a warrior. It is only for a little while until we win the war, little turnip. And I will come to visit you. Promise? I promise, little turnip. The rain comes down without noise. Over the wind the all-clear sounds. Someone in the Temple is softly crying. Then far away another B-29. I see leaves of tin falling like cherry blossoms. I smell pine oil and chrysanthemum. Child of my heart.

If I cannot go home, I will write a letter. I tell Mr. Sasaki before our morning stretches. Should emergency arise , we chant together, offer yourselves courageously to the State . There is lice inspection instead of cleaning. A letter, that is a good idea, says Mr. Sasaki. He nods. So shall you not only be our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers . The morning is hot and clear. There is a warning and the roar of a single B-29. The noise drags across the blue sky. The boys go to train in Morse code and the girls make straw sandals with Mrs. Sasaki. The all-clear sounds. I will do without until victory, but with my family. I go outside to write the letter in my head. Dear Father and Mother. Thank you for the pears and the rice with red beans and the sesame seeds mixed with salt. Thank you for my yukata and wooden sandals. It is hot here. We are taught to make straw sandals here. Yesterday we ate potatoes. Banzai to the Emperor! The Imperial Rescript on Education says, Should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State . Please let me come home and work on mobilization. I will be safe there. I take out the photograph. And thank you for the photograph. Over the light wind there is the roar of another B-29. Just a single plane. The Americans use their planes to take photographs, says Big Sister. It is hot outside. I hear the sound of the higurashi cicada — kana kana kana . There are kites and crows in the blue sky. I imagine I hear the song of the tsuku-tsukuboshi , which says: chokko chokko uisu. Chokko chokko uisu . All around me are the eight million kami . I look in my hand. On my left is Mother and on my right is Father. Behind me is Big Sister. The paper is mostly gray. Then everything turns white and the left side of my face is warm. Don't blink, says the man with the rabbit teeth. Don't worry, says Father. He laughs at me. Don't blink. Look here.

THE SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT WOKE HER. Sarah turned to the window: nothing — night — then, swimming up through the blackness, an image of her face. The cabin lights coming on. She couldn't remember falling asleep. All around her were dark-eyed women dabbing off their makeup, donning head scarves and manteaus in silence, as though beguiled by some lingering residue of Sarah's sleep. Sarah put on her own scarf, felt the knot of cloth against her throat.

The city came up at them like a dream of light. White streams and red, neon lava, flowing side by side along arterial roads; electric dots and clusters of yellow, pink, and orange. She thought of Parvin down there, working her way between those points. With a mechanical groan from the undercarriage the wheels opened out. The plane banked, decelerated, then seconds later they were touching down, roaring to a stop in the middle of a vast, enchanted field. Runways glowed blue in the ground mist. Taxi-ways green. Lights around them blinking and blearing in the jet fuel haze. Sarah checked her watch: 4 a.m. local time.

Inside the airport, Parvin was nowhere to be seen. Sarah hurried through the terminal, pursued, it felt, by photographs lining the walls: faces of men in gray beards, black turbans, their expressions strained between benevolence and censure. Despite the hour, the airport was implausibly, surreally busy.

Low-wattage light pressed on her nerves as she walked, coercing her body into its familiar anxiety: rushing to work through underground tunnels, the digital alarm still ringing in her ears, toothpaste still bitter on her tongue — suspending herself in the slipstream of other bodies. Staving off sleep. She wore a long black overgarment and black cotton scarf. All the women wore long overgarments and head scarves. This shook her a little — she'd expected more visual disparity. She'd expected to be surprised by it. Around a corner an electronic sign pulsed: IN FUTURE ISLAM WILL DESTROY SATANIC SOVEREIGNTY OF THE WEST. It was too early, and she too tired, to burrow beneath the threat. Keep moving, she told herself.

Large glass windows separated customs from the arrival bay. Retrieving her bags, Sarah noticed a young man watching her through the glass. She stopped, waited for some bodies to interpose, then shuffled out behind them. He was still there. Slight figured and clean-shaven, nondescriptly dressed. He hadn't taken his eyes off her. A slow warmth rose up from her abdomen. She'd read too many accounts, before coming, about the plainclothes police in this country. She lowered her eyes, withdrawing into her scarf, and then, without warning, he was beside her.