A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton Read Free Book Online

can’t he speak plainly? Is the war over?’
    â€˜Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion . . . Unite your total strength . . . Cultivate the ways of rectitude, foster nobility of spirit, and work with resolution – so that you may enhance the innate glory of the imperial state and keep pace with the progress of the world.’
    We waited for the announcer to tell us what we did not understand: Japan had surrendered. We did not hug each other with joy or relief, we did not weep, we were not sure how to greet this news. ‘What will become of us?’ Misaki asked. I thought immediately of Shige. He would come home now surely? What joy, what sadness, too. Later when Kenzo returned from the shipyard, he and I stood under our ginkyo tree. We looked at the stars as I took a sip of the sake we had kept to mark the end of the war. ‘Why now? Why this day? Is our city the reason?’
    He held his glass up to the moonlight. ‘Don’t ask that question, wife.’
    â€˜Were Yuko and Hideo taken for a reason, so that the war might end?’ I insisted.
    â€˜They died because our enemy had bigger bombs, theydied because America wanted to teach the world a lesson, they died because they do not matter.’
    â€˜They mattered to us.’
    He downed his drink, grimacing. ‘We don’t matter either, Amaterasu, don’t you see?’
    We waited a month to hold the memorial. We would have delayed the day longer but we had heard nothing from Shige. The news from overseas was one of chaos following Japan’s surrender. But I clung to the belief he was still alive, somehow. He had to be. We couldn’t lose all three of them.
    His parents came to the city and we gathered at Oura Church, too numb to comprehend the size and depth of our grief. We were just one of thousands of families to mourn lost ones but these were our dead. Following the service, we invited guests to our home. What food we could find was served by a weeping Misaki. Some of our guests had lost relatives of their own. One of the wives told me that they were thinking of starting up a group for bereaved survivors so that they might draw support from one another. The thought of sitting in some cold hall or a stranger’s home appalled me, and maybe my face for once betrayed my true feelings. The woman’s husband took me to the side of our living room. He gripped my elbow as he spoke. ‘This life is often beyond reasoning. We will never make sense of this but neither must we allow it to defeat us. We owe such fortitude to those no longer with us.’ I tipped my head to the side as if I understood, but no kind words could heal the wounds inside me.
    The day after the memorial Kenzo and I accompaniedShige’s parents to our children’s home to start clearing away possessions. With so many people in need, we had decided to give clothes to the homeless and much of the furniture and kitchen utensils would go to shelters. Kenzo pretended to busy himself outside and Shige’s father sat in the day room drinking what was left of the sake while his wife and I began to pack away belongings. Too quickly the proof of their lives would disappear. They would be reduced to photograph albums and token mementoes and tricks of our memory. Shige’s mother and I started in Hideo’s room, the black air-raid curtains drawn back, the sun hot on our faces. I was folding up what few clothes he had as I knelt beside his futon. Sonoko had opened a wooden chest under the window. Colouring books, beanbags and a straw hat with a crease in the rim were piled next to her. She picked up a wooden cup attached by string to a ball. The toy was striped red and black, crude in its finish. She sat back and her mouth contorted in a way that made me realise she did not want to cry. Not here, not yet. ‘I gave this to him, two summers ago, when he came to Iōjima. My neighbour, Toshi, made it. Hideo found