Ken Liu: Mono No Aware

“Be patient!” the government inspectors said. “We know things are moving slowly, but we’re doing everything we can. There will be seats for everyone.”

We were patient. Some of the mothers organized lessons for the children during the day, and the fathers set up a priority system so that families with aged parents and babies could board first when the ships were finally ready.

After four days of waiting, the reassurances from the government inspectors did not sound quite as reassuring. Rumors spread through the crowd.

“It’s the ships. Something’s wrong with them.”

“The builders lied to the government and said they were ready when they weren’t, and now the Prime Minister is too embarrassed to admit the truth.”

“I hear that there’s only one ship, and only a few hundred of the most important people will have seats. The other ships are only hollow shells, for show.”

“They’re hoping that the Americans will change their mind and build more ships for allies like us.”

Mom came to Dad and whispered in his ear.

Dad shook his head and stopped her. “Do not repeat such things.”

“But for Hiroto’s sake—”

“No!” I’d never heard Dad sound so angry. He paused, swallowed. “We must trust each other, trust the Prime Minister and the Self-Defense Forces.”

Mom looked unhappy. I reached out and held her hand. “I’m not afraid,” I said.

“That’s right,” Dad said, relief in his voice. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

He picked me up in his arms—I was slightly embarrassed for he had not done such a thing since I was very little—and pointed at the densely packed crowd of thousands and thousands spread around us as far as the eye could see.

“Look at how many of us there are: grandmothers, young fathers, big sisters, little brothers. For anyone to panic and begin to spread rumors in such a crowd would be selfish and wrong, and many people could be hurt. We must keep to our places and always remember the bigger picture.”

***

Mindy and I make love slowly. I like to breathe in the smell of her dark curly hair, lush, warm, tickling the nose like the sea, like fresh salt.

Afterwards we lie next to each other, gazing up at my ceiling monitor.

I keep looping on it a view of the receding star field. Mindy works in navigation, and she records the high-resolution cockpit video feed for me.

I like to pretend that it’s a big skylight, and we’re lying under the stars. I know some others like to keep their monitors showing photographs and videos of old Earth, but that makes me too sad.

“How do you say ‘star’ in Japanese?” Mindy asks.

“ Hoshi ,” I tell her.

“And how do you say ‘guest’?”

“ Okyakusan .”

“So we are hoshi okyakusan ? Star guests?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I say. Mindy is a singer, and she likes the sound of languages other than English. “It’s hard to hear the music behind the words when their meanings get in the way,” she told me once.

Spanish is Mindy’s first language, but she remembers even less of it than I do of Japanese. Often, she asks me for Japanese words and weaves them into her songs.

I try to phrase it poetically for her, but I’m not sure if I’m successful. “ Wareware ha, hoshi no aida ni kyaku ni kite .” We have come to be guests among the stars.

“There are a thousand ways of phrasing everything,” Dad used to say, “each appropriate to an occasion.” He taught me that our language is full of nuances and supple grace, each sentence a poem. The language folds in on itself, the unspoken words as meaningful as the spoken, context within context, layer upon layer, like the steel in samurai swords.

I wish Dad were around so that I could ask him: How do you say “I miss you” in a way that is appropriate to the occasion of your twenty-fifth birthday, as the last survivor of your race?

“My sister was really into Japanese picture books. Manga.”

Like me, Mindy is an orphan. It’s part of what draws us together.

“Do you remember much about her?”

“Not really. I was only five or so when I came on board the ship. Before that, I only remember a lot of guns firing and all of us hiding in the dark and running and crying and stealing food. She was always there to keep me quiet by reading from the manga books. And then . . .”

I had watched the video only once. From our high orbit, the blue-and-white marble that was Earth seemed to wobble for a moment as the asteroid struck, and then, the silent, roiling waves of spreading destruction that slowly engulfed the globe.

I pull her to me and kiss her forehead, lightly, a kiss of comfort. “Let us not speak of sad things.”

She wraps her arms around me tightly, as though she will never let go.

“The manga, do you remember anything about them?” I ask.

“I remember they were full of giant robots. I thought: Japan is so powerful .”

I try to imagine it: heroic giant robots all over Japan, working desperately to save the people.

***

The Prime Minister’s apology was broadcast through the loudspeakers. Some also watched it on their phones.

I remember very little of it except that his voice was thin and he looked very frail and old. He looked genuinely sorry. “I’ve let the people down.”

The rumors turned out to be true. The shipbuilders had taken the money from the government but did not build ships that were strong enough or capable of what they promised. They kept up the charade until the very end. We found out the truth only when it was too late.

Japan was not the only nation that failed her people. The other nations of the world had squabbled over who should contribute how much to a joint evacuation effort when the Hammer was first discovered on its collision course with Earth. And then, when that plan had collapsed, most decided that it was better to gamble that the Hammer would miss and spend the money and lives on fighting with each other instead.

After the Prime Minister finished speaking, the crowd remained silent. A few angry voices shouted but soon quieted down as well. Gradually, in an orderly fashion, people began to pack up and leave the temporary campsites.

***

“The people just went home?” Mindy asks, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“There was no looting, no panicked runs, no soldiers mutinying in the streets?”

“This was Japan,” I tell her. And I can hear the pride in my voice, an echo of my father’s.

“I guess the people were resigned,” Mindy says. “They had given up. Maybe it’s a culture thing.”

“No!” I fight to keep the heat out of my voice. Her words irk me, like Bobby’s remark about Go being boring. “That is not how it was.”

***

“Who is Dad speaking to?” I asked.

“That is Dr. Hamilton,” Mom said. “We—he and your father and I—went to college together, in America.”

I watched Dad speak English on the phone. He seemed like a completely different person: It wasn’t just the cadences and pitch of his voice; his face was more animated, his hand gestured more wildly. He looked like a foreigner.

He shouted into the phone.

“What is Dad saying?”

Mom shushed me. She watched Dad intently, hanging on every word.

“No,” Dad said into the phone. “No!” I did not need that translated.

Afterwards Mom said, “He is trying to do the right thing, in his own way.”

“He is as selfish as ever,” Dad snapped.

“That’s not fair,” Mom said. “He did not call me in secret. He called you instead because he believed that if your positions were reversed, he would gladly give the woman he loved a chance to survive, even if it’s with another man.”