The Place of the Festival By Kyoko Hayashi Published in Japanese in 1976 Translated by Margaret Mitsutani

Showa 20 (1945) August 9 A letter addressed to Professor R. Sagane of Tokyo University recommending that Japan surrender immediately was taped to the shockwave measuring device that was dropped with the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. It was signed by three former scientific colleagues Sagane had known while studying in the United States. The letter, quoted in the Catalogue of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition, reads as follows: We are sending this as a personal message to urge that you use your influence, as a reputable physicist, to convince the Japanese General Staff of the terrible consequences which will be suffered by your people if you continue in this war Within the space of three weeks, we have proof-fired one bomb in the American desert, exploded one in Hiroshima and delivered the third this morning. We implore you to confirm these facts to your leaders, and to do your utmost to stop the destruction and waste of life which can only result in the total immolation of all your cities if continued. As scientists, we deplore the use to which a beautiful discovery has been put, but we can assure you that unless Japan surrenders at once, this rain of atomic bombs will increase manifold in fury. Because I am a hibakusha from Nagasaki, I cant keep a cool head as I read this letter, for the effect of its warning is calculated in the cost of the lives of people I knew. Especially the part about this rain of atomic bombs that will increase manifold in fury. To me, this is not just a voice from the past. Even now I can see the Urakami district on August 9 when the A-bomb came raining down with increasing fury, killing my friends. The three scientists to whom this was perfectly natural and the nation that ordered them to pen the letter were all children of god--thats why they were so full of wrath, I think, sighing in admiration. Theres one more thing that bothers me. The bonds of fate, you might say While the letter states that the third bomb was deliveredthis morning, the name of the place where it was dropped has been left out. I imagine that first one spot, then another was considered; it neednt have been Nagasaki, especially if their purpose was to cut off the war at its source, but still we had the misfortune to be chosen. In fact, Field Order No. 17, issued on August 8, listed Kokura as the first target, followed by Nagasaki,

and when the B29 Bocks Car took off from the military base on Tinian Island at 2:09 on the morning of August 9 loaded with the bomb, it was headed for Kokura. The sky over Kokura was overcast, and unable to discern the target after circling three times, the pilot, who realized he was now running low on fuel, changed course for Nagasaki, the secondary target. It was cloud cover that saved Kokura and plunged Nagasaki into darkness. Bockscar flew over the tranquil Chichiwa Sea past the Shimabara Peninsula to Nagasaki, reaching the city at 10:58. As at Kokura, it was mostly cloudy--eight on the Japanese scale (by international measurement, 6 oktas). When the sky viewed from the ground is an unbroken expanse of white, the Japanese cloud cover measurement is 10 (8 oktas on the international scale). The height of the ceiling is irrelevant. According to the Catalogue, the sky was almost completely overcast. Other sources note that August 9 was a calm day, with no wind. Several hibakusha wrote in their diaries that it was a bright, sunny day. I remember it as being hot, and clear. There werent enough clouds to cast a shadow on the earth. Two B29s flew over Nagasaki that day, the first dropped a parachute with the shockwave measuring device. The pilot of the second sighted the Nagasaki Steel Works through a tiny break in the clouds and in a split second pressed the button that dropped the bomb. The Nagasaki Steel Works is in Hamaguchi-cho, near Urakami Station. At 11:02, 490 meters above Matsuyama-cho, hanging beneath its white parachute the atomic bomb exploded. At around 11:00 that morning there had been an air raid warning, but by the time of the explosion the all clear had sounded. The Mitsubishi Ohashi Munitions Factory, where we were deployed as student recruits, was 1.4 kilometers from the epicenter. Our workplace was in the northernmost part of the factory grounds; the death rate there was 45.5%. A total of 7,500 including both students and regular employees were working there at the time. Of these 6,200 remain unaccounted for. This is the figure for investigations conducted after September 24, 1945. The deaths of these 6,200 people cannot be confirmed, but they are almost certainly all dead. This makes for a much higher percentage than the official death rate of 45.5%. The Mitsubishi Nagasaki Munitions Factory was closed on November 15, 1945. In both Kokura and Nagasaki, the targets whose names went unmentioned, we were going about our daily lives, blissfully unaware of the rain of atomic bombs that would increase manifold in fury. Unable to fathom the reason why we should be the object of such wrath, most of us living under those two unwritten names were planning to go on as we had been, the next day and the day after. Some watched with open mouths as the A- bomb descended through the all-clear sky under its white parachute, wondering if it was a food drop for the American POWs. Somewhere along the train route to Ohashi, in Hamaguchi-cho or perhaps Matsuyama-cho, American prisoners were being held, surrounded by a wire fence. It was very high, like the ones you see around driving ranges for golfers in the city, and inside it, the men were always digging in the earth. They werent tending a vegetable patch. Perhaps it was an air raid shelter they were gouging out with their shovels. If we happened to walk by when they were taking a break, they would

watch us, their white fingers wound around the wire. Their friendly-looking eyes, blue or grey, would follow us, the Japanese, who had the freedom to move around. The men all looked young, in their late teens or early twenties. Did they, too, die in the bombing on August 9? If they were outside working, surely they did. In wartime, death is honorable. What sort of condolences did their families receive? Isahaya is a castle town, about 25 kilometers outside Nagasaki. Starting from Nagasaki Station, the Nagasaki Main Line stops first at Urakami, then Michi-no-o, Nagayo, Okusa, Kikitsu, and finally Isahaya. About an hours train ride will bring you to the last stop. My mother and sisters had taken refuge in Isahaya. Nearby, the Honmyo River flows into the Ariake Bay; the air smells of the sea and sandy beaches. My father worked for a trading company in Shanghai; I commuted to school from a boarding house in Nagasaki. N Girls High School, where I was enrolled, was located in the Nishiyama district. Next door to it was a shrine we called Osuwa-sama, and across the street was a boys high school, Nagasaki Commercial. As the crow flies, Nishiyama was just three kilometers from the epicenter. We were recruited in May of the final year of the war, in the season when the sunlight in Nagasaki is most beautiful, with lush green branches hanging over the white stone paths. On the morning of August 9, my mother and younger sister set out for their vegetable garden. It was around ten oclock. Since Isahaya was not their permanent home, they had only a small patch of land: just ten rows, about five or six meters long. The garden was at the top of a hill along the Honmyo River, with the bus road along on the right-hand side; my mother had planted potatoes, which were easy to grow even for amateur farmers. There was a nice view from among the leaves; up the river they could see the Naval Hospital, as well as Isahaya Station. Make sure you dont cut the roots, my mother warned my sister, sticking her finger into the mound of earth. The August potatoes, deep in the ground, had grown only to the thickness of an adults finger. These so-called doll potatoes, the first of the season, were offered to the departed spirits who return for Obon, the Festival of the Dead. They were much too precious to fill the bellies of the living. Thrusting her finger into the soft, well-cultivated earth, careful not to damage the surrounding roots, my mother teased out the first doll potato. Ten would be plenty so there was no need to use a hoe, but it took time to extract each one from the ground. A breeze carried the salt air up the hill from the river and the sea, so in the morning it was still cool. As noon approached and the sun began to beat down from overhead, the heat rose. The strong reddish leaves of the potato plants wilted in the heat; as the humidity increased the earth, even their bodies grew moist and steamy. My sister, who was in the fourth grade at the local National School, got sick of digging potatoes, and tugging on my mothers monpei trousers whined, Lets go home. My mother glanced down to check the time. Her wrist watch, on which the gold had been replaced by chrome, said eleven oclock. Taking her basket of doll potatoes, my mother stood up. Just then, the winding surface of the Honmyo River flowing at the base of the hill flashed white for an instant, and from the direction of Kikitsu, a

blinding light spread as if lapping the sky. Look, Mom, somethings shining, my sister yelled. Not bold, jagged streaks of lightning but something like a huge flare that simply hung there, then disappeared. There were no clouds in the sky that day, and the sun was shining brightly, but exposed to a far brighter light than the sun, the mountain and river turned pale. Then the earth rumbled. My mother felt the deep roar of an explosion in the pit of her stomach, and a moment later a violent, gritty blast of wind struck her full in the face. The potato leaves were first flattened against the earth, then whipped back, showing their white undersides. Grabbing her basket and clutching my sisters arm, my mother ran between the rows of potato plants. The bomb must have hit Kikitsu. Judging from the nearness of the explosion and the blast of wind that came after, it couldnt be any farther away than Okusa. When she looked up at the sun as she ran down the hill, the sky was red, with tiny black specks like swarms of gnats floating through the air. The mountain ridge at Kikitsu was edged with billows of reddish-black cloud, growing thicker by the minute. You run to your uncles and tell him it looks like Kikitsus been bombed. Our cousin, my mothers older brothers son, was boarding in Kikitsu. He had just entered Nagasaki Medical University. Kikitsu was a quiet village in the mountains near the sea. Some distance from the shore, the hills were covered with mandarin orange trees. It was a good place to study. Our cousin rented a room there and commuted to the university. When my mother and sister reached the bus route, they heard a hubbub of startled voices, and saw people pointing toward the sky. A huge pillar of cloud had formed, now even redder at the base. My mother turned to a middle-aged man in a steel helmet and asked, What in the world can that be? I dunno, but it sure gives me the creeps he answered, never taking his eyes off the sky. Looks like Kikitsus on fire, added a farmer with his hoe over his shoulder. No one imagined that the city of Nagasaki, some 15 miles away, had been bombed and was now in flames. That afternoon my sister, who had been playing in the vegetable garden, came home and said, Look what came down from the sky. She showed my mother a piece of gauze crpe cloth with a wisteria pattern. It seemed to be part of a womans kimono. It must have been ripped off with great force, for the silken threads curled raggedly. Since pieces of gauze crpe dont normally fall out of the sky, my mother just nodded and let it pass. Bits of newspaper are flying over from Kikitsu, my sister went on. When my mother still failed to react, she flapped her arms to demonstrate. And this, too, she added, handing my mother a stick of wood about a foot long. Taking it in her hand, she realized it must have been part of a picture frame. Someone had written Nagasaki on the lacquered surface with a brush. The ink was burned black. The other half, charred to a deep brown, had a date written on it. The day a family photograph had been taken, perhaps.

Both the cloth with the wisteria pattern and the side of the picture frame my sister had picked up had been blown over from Nagasaki. The blast from the explosion had carried that bit of gauze crpe across more than 15 miles of sky. What sort of person was the wearer, and where had she been walking in Nagasaki? A half kilometer from the epicenter, the wind velocity was 360 meters per second. This is the speed of sound. In nature, winds can reach a maximum speed of 70 meters per second. The top speed of the recent typhoon that hit Ise Bay near Nagoya was 45 meters. A blast of 360 meters is strong enough to tear human flesh if it strikes directly. One of the shockwave measuring devices dropped with the bomb was found near Matsubara-cho in Isahaya. Black rain, the rain of death that followed the atomic explosion also fell on Isahaya. It contained a high concentration of radiation, and while my mother was washing the doll potatoes shed dug up that morning in the well, it spattered her neck and arms. It was more like the mist from a vaporizer than rain. This was about two or three hours after the explosion. The commotion about black rain, the rain of death, only came after the war; at the time people thought it was creepy the way the rain dyed everything black, but no one really gave it a second thought. Neither did my mother, who folded the washing shed hung out that day without even noticing that her clean clothes were spattered with sooty drops. Two or three days later, when rumors about an entirely new kind of bomb had begun to spread, she took them out of the drawer and discovered that black rain had seeped into the thread, leaving ugly gray stains like the mold that forms during the rainy season. Had those gnat-like swarms she seen swimming around the sun turned into the black rain that had fallen on her washing? My mother burned that whole load in the garden. It seemed a waste in times when everything was in short supply, but the spots the black rain left looked like human blood to her. The atomic bomb killed 73, 889 people in an instant. Even now, when black rain has been explained away as bits of radioactive material, my mother insists, No, that was blood. By evening, they began to hear rumors that it wasnt either Kikitsu or Okusa the bomb had hit, but Nagasaki. Before my sister had a chance to go tell my uncle, he had jumped on his rusty bicycle and pedaled over to Kikitsu. He came back around five wondering why hed gone to all that trouble. The orange trees and houses are all fine, he said, assuring us that all was well in Kikitsu. Next to Okusa, Kikitsu was the largest producer of mandarin oranges. Peeling one of the big summer oranges hed brought back for the family, he said, My boy was away at school. After a pause, he mumbled that it seemed Nagasaki had been hit, then folded his arms across his chest and hung his head, lost in thought. Nagasakis a big place. A few bombs cant have done much damage to the school or the factory either, my mother replied. She wasnt worried about me, working in the city.

Student recruits were to take refuge in trenches in the mountains behind the factory as soon as the air raid siren went off. The one for girls from our high school had been dug out in the slope near a grove of cedar trees. The entrance was covered with moss, and inside water from a mountain stream dripped from the ceiling, but it was deep enough to keep us from harm if we stayed inside. I had told my mother all about it to keep her from worrying, so she believed that if the air raid had sounded I would surely be safe in the shelter. At the foot of the cedar mountain was the huge gas tank that fed all the kitchens of Nagasaki. And at the top was a small wooden shed, about the size of a four mat room. Some of the girls said it was where the army stored their explosives. We sometimes saw men in uniform heading for it, working their way up among the trees. Even running at top speed it would take at least ten minutes to get from my workplace to the shelter. These three things I hadnt told my mother. It was still dark outside on the morning of August 10 when my mother was awakened by the sound of knocking at the back door. A mans voice called her, Sae, Sae. It was Takano, a reporter from the Nishinihon Shimbun-sha (Western Japan Newspaper Company). Drawing back the heavy wooden rain shutter, she peered into the hall. Nagasakis been wiped out, yelled Takano from the back door. And everyone at the factory from N Girls High, too. His message delivered, leaving only the sound of footsteps he ran toward the Honmyo River, still covered in morning mist. The words wiped out spun around in my mothers head for a time. When they finally came to mean a daughters death, she slumped down on the wooden floor. Having heard Takanos news, my aunt and uncle clamored in through the back door. Nagasaki Medicals on fire, sobbed my aunt. Nobodys saying hes dead, my uncle scolded. He was all dressed up in his National Defense uniform, wearing his steel helmet, a megaphone strapped across his shoulder. The factorys wiped out, my mother whimpered. Her brother offered meaningless words of comfort. Surely they wouldnt kill young girls. From the moment the A-bomb exploded on August 9 all communication with Nagasaki was cut off, and the trains also stopped. Some went as far as Nagayo or Michino-o, but not on schedule. On the evening of August 9 a party of 50 from the Isahaya Naval Hospital, 3 from the Omura Naval Rescue Squad, and 10 from the Isahaya Medical Association set out for Nagasaki (Hiroshima Nagasaki ABomb Exhibition). Due to fire, the rescue team was unable to enter the city, and with the disaster right in front of them, they spent the night caring for victims of radiation poisoning who had been carried outside the city limits. These doctors, gathered from surrounding areas, were not nearly enough. Right after the bombing I saw one doctor in the burnt out city, doing what he could to help. He sat alone in what had been the front stoop of a house, examining the injured. For medicine he had an aluminum cooking pot full of mercurochrome. Burn victims were lined up, waiting. But these were the lightest cases; those too badly hurt to move lay at their feet. The doctor himself had suffered a head wound. He had a

towel wrapped around it but still the blood dripped down into his face. I wondered what had happened to his family; since he seemed to be from the neighborhood they were probably either dead or severely injured. I admired that doctor. Yet on the other hand, theres something sad about human beings who even in the midst of unimaginable destruction cant shake off their awareness of themselves as doctors, or struggle to go on being soldiers. I also saw a soldier run by carrying his severed arm; he had to report the injury to headquarters, and there was no time to stop for medical treatment. Some jettisoned everything but their private selves, while others clung to their public duties. War fashions extraordinary drama from the human condition. Youth groups from Aino and Chichiwa came after the first rescue party in trucks. They were instructed to bring towels to use as masks, as they would be digging out corpses. Among them was Inatomi, a Nagasaki Medical student who had stayed home with a summer cold on August 9. He and the others took the Shimabara Line as far as Aino, but nonplussed at the sight of passengers packed in like sardines, turned back. Inatomi was in the same year as my cousin, so I knew him by sight. Their truck loaded with shovels, hoes, whatever medicines they could find, along with rice balls and water, the young men drove first from Isahaya to Kikitsu, then swung around to Yagami. From the source of Carls Hot Spring they proceeded to Nishiyama, in the opposite direction from Urakami, and after passing N Girls High School, entered the city. Because the Nishiyama district was not in flames, Inatomi and his companions were able to reach Urakami early on the morning of August 10. On August 9, I put on a pair of dark monpei trousers and a short sleeved blouse, stuck my bare feet into wooden sandals and went to work. My monpei had a sort of bib that covered my chest, made of heavy Chinese sateen. My father had sent the material from abroad; my bib was cut from a piece large enough to make a kimono, and my older sister had sewn it on for me. My blouse, open at the neck, was made of white poplin. I wore nothing under it. I didnt wear a bra yet. My underpants were bloomer style, made of white calico. They were simply made, gathered with elastic around the waist and thighs. I wore a watch on my left wrist. The band was a chain of round, silver links, made in Germany. This, too, my father had sent from abroad. This was the only place where I was burned, and blisters formed. I didnt notice this until I took my watch off, but there were little blisters about three or four centimeters in circumference all around my wrist. They looked ugly until they healed. But they didnt get infected. My hair was long, down to my waist. I wore it in braids. Hair left hanging loose was in danger of getting entangled in the machines. If enough of it got caught, either the machine would have to be stopped immediately, or a girls head would be dragged into the machine. Hair cannot be broken or torn off. Several students died when their hair was caught in machines. Long hair had to be braided, or if it wasnt long enough, tied back with a rubber band. This rule had to be strictly followed.

If my hair hadnt been braided that day, the wind from the blast would have blown it out around my head. I;t could have twined around pieces of wood cascading down around me, hindering my escape. Section A of the Engineering Department where I worked was a wooden building that was in flames minutes after the A-bomb hit. Section A was the recycling center. All the trash that came from the factoryscrap metal, paper, bits of charcoalwas recycled there. The people who worked there were also cast offs. There was a mentally retarded woman, a man with one leg shorter than the other, the one-armed man who was sub-head of the section, and a middle-aged man who never stopped laughing. On my first day at work, they welcomed me with curious stares, which mademe cringe. This is not intended as a criticism of the handicapped, but there was nothing sad or gloomy about these people. They did not arouse pity. In fact, they exuded health. They seemed uncannily sound, which frightened me. The only one who was physically sound, though, was the Section Chief. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him. He was in such good shape it made you wonder why he hadnt been drafted. He was only about forty, not too old for the draft at the time. Workers injured in accidents in the factory were apparently transferred to our section, a workplace that spoke volumes about the cruelty of sweeping defective people away into dark corners. Several days after I started working, I was trapped in the hut where the machine for recycling paper was kept. Opening the only exit just wide enough for one person to come through, I saw the man with one leg shorter than the other, and the middle-aged man who never stopped laughing standing there. One pushed his way in and stuck out both arms, driving me into a corner. The mentally retarded woman stood behind the other mans shoulder howling with laughter. Fortunately, the Section Chief discovered what was going on and scolded them harshly. I was still standing there, unable to move, when he came over and took me in his arms. There, there, its all right now, he said, as he rubbed my thigh. This was life as a student recruit. The significance of working for the nation was not to be found here. Morality in the factory had gone completely to pot. We were very far away from Imperial Japan. Three of us from N Girls High School were assigned to Section A: Yoko, Akiko, and me. Now that I think of it, we were all cast-offs. Before our workplaces were decided the factory gave us a physical examination. Working the machines required strength and stamina, and the air was full of metallic dust, so weak or sickly students were put on hold. We were the last three. They took our temperatures, checked our blood, and took an X-ray. Having been found unsuitable for any kind of factory work, we were all assigned to the leisurely Section A. I said before that Section A was a wooden building, but shack would be a better word. Appropriately for a recycling center, the building itself was made from recycled planks and boards of odd sizes, and pieces of glass from broken windows. Triangular pieces of colored glass cut to fit in with triangles of transparent glass. Smaller bits of stained glass stuck in the corners of the window. In my free time, I indulged myself in daydreams of these fragments in a former life as a magnificent stained glass window. Our friends called Section A the beggars hut.

Perhaps I was lucky to be in this ramshackle beggars hut when the A-bomb hit. Three friends working in a solid three-story red brick building were pinned under heavy bricks and burned to death. Another friend had been assigned to the Engineering Department, of which Section A was a sort of bastard child. The gleaming glass windows that provided the light for her drawing board shattered, turning her into a porcupine covered with glass quills. Now, more than 30 years later, there are still bits of glass inside her body. From time to time they start to move. They pierce her flesh, causing terrible pain. In order to have them removed shell have an X-ray taken. But by that time, theyll have moved somewhere else. The doctor tells her, Theyre your war medals, so lets leave them in. The pain of others can be amusing. The plane carrying the bomb cut the engines and glided silently into Nagasaki. It was 10:58. We were in the office of Section A. There were six of us, including the Section Chief, the one-armed foreman, and Yamaguchi, a member of the Women Volunteers from Kagoshima. The window with the pieces of colored and stained glass was open, facing Urakami. About ten meters from the window stood three smoke-stacks. They were about twenty meters tall and as thick as two tatami mats put together. In front of them was an open area, paved with concrete. In that open space, a group of high school students were dancing in a circle. One of them was about to leave for the front. The dance was a sort of parting ritual, to see their comrade off. As the war neared its end, students were called up almost every day. The desolate concrete factory yard was where they held their farewell festivals. I was sitting in front of the desk in the office with the windows and chimneys on my left. The Section Chief was in front of me. He was naked from the waist up, his muscular chest dripping with sweat. Akiko sat to his right, close to the window, and Yoko had her back to the window. The one-armed foreman sat to the left of the Section Chief, their shoulders touching. He was a real toady who stuck close to his chief and told him only what he wanted to hear. He was now busy fanning him with his notebook. Yamaguchi stood on my left side, with one hand on my chair. She was by the window. There was still time before the lunch break. We were a motley group, with nothing in common to talk about. Is this cooling you off a little, Sir? asked the one-armed foreman. The Chief must have had something in his mouth, for he swallowed before grunting, Uh, and nodding his head. With nothing more to say, the office was quiet again. Outside in the yard the silent circle dance continued like a mime. From the direction of Michi-no-o a rumbling like the sound of an engine grew closer. Isnt that a plane? asked Yamaguchi, looking at the Chief. Turning an ear toward the sky he replied, Sounds like an explosion. Take a look. Leaning out the stained glass window, Yamaguchi said, I cant see anything, and returned to her place. Since theres been no alarm, it wouldnt be an enemy plane now, would it? said the foreman in a

needlessly roundabout way. The sound died away. It all happened in a split second. Suddenly, from above or below, a blast tore through the sky. A woman screamed, Its a raid! Her voice was the only sound we heard. Thats all I can write about the instant the A-bomb was dropped. There was no blinding pika flash; no thundering don. We knew nothing of the 360 meters per second blast of wind. When we came to our senses, we were beneath the ruins of the beggars hut. Hibakusha near the epicenter hardly heard the explosion. What did reach their ears was the sound of the plane making its getaway. Immediately after dropping the bomb, the B29 Bockscar went into a rapid ascent, preparing to make its escape. Like most of us, the men in the plane werent eager to die. Stop the engine, drop the bomb, then straight upthey must have practiced this pattern over and over again. Between the Bockscars ascent and the destruction of the factory, there was only time for that one brief cry, Its a raid! In that single moment, 73,889 people died. Almost the same number, 74,909, were thrown out under the midday sun, their skin ripped off. Like naked rabbits, or boiled tomatoes. Shortly after the bomb fell, everything went dark. Our eyes were open but we could see nothing. Only pitch-black. Had I been able to sense depth, I would have realized that I was looking into the darkness, which would have been reassuring, but the blackness was utterly flat, stuck to the surface of my corneas. I thought Id gone blind. Yoko and Akiko say they felt the same fear for a moment, and rubbed their eyes with both hands. People who looked directly at the blast actually did lose their vision. The ball of fire from the A-bomb was 70 meters in diameter, or about 3,954 square yards. It was rumored that the atomic flash opened the eyes of people who were born blind, though this doesnt seem likely. The destructive power of the bomb seemed to come from the realm of gods and monsters, and left us frightened enough to believe anything. The blast must have thrown me out of my chair. I was curled up under the desk. Comparatively speaking, I could move freely. If I took it slowly there was nothing pinning me down, although pieces of wood pressed against various parts of my body. Without a clue as to why I was in this situation, I lay there for a while under the ruins of the shack. Once you get into the habit of thinking, the first thing you do is try to understand. But this instinctive desire to know whats going on lasts only a moment, after which you begin to think of your personal needs. The moment you realize youre still alive, unconscious, instinctive behavior ends. The darkness began to give way to blue light tinged with red. It was the color of hydrangeas when they have just begun to bloom. It was neither hot nor cold. The light of dead spirits, stuck there like a wall. Is this what you call a 300000 atomic flash? Logically speaking, if you were momentarily blinded by the flash, everything would naturally turn black. I touched a piece of wood and tentatively pushed it upward. I pressed on it twice. It didnt budge. I tried

over and over again, but the wood didnt move at all. Suddenly I became frightened. I could see flames over at Section As paper recycling hut. Smoke was billowing toward me. If I didnt get out I would burn to death. Trying to keep calm, I looked around at the planks and pillars piled up around me, and noticed a flat surface over my head. It seemed to be the top of the desk. It was cracked. If I could shove this flat piece forward, it might slip over to the side. I stuck both hands through the crack. Then I pushed forward as hard as I could. The flat board easily came apart, and I saw a tiny patch of sky. The hole was just big enough for me to get through. When I stood up I caught my left shoulder on a piece of splintered wood, tearing the seam of my blouse. The wood scraped against my bare flesh underneath. I was surrounded by clouds of ash. Fires were burning here and there. Smokeblack or tinged with red rose from the flames. Whirling upward, the black and red flowed with a whoosh out into the empty yard. In front of me was the foreman. Raising his single arm in what should have been a two-armed salute, he raced toward the yard yelling, Banzai! The Section Chief followed him. He hunched over as he ran, his shaven head cradled in both hands. He had hurt his back. ChiefI called to him, but he was so eager to get away that he tore right past me into the flaming yard. The fastest way to the main gate was to cut across the yard. The factory manufactured secret weapons, so security was tight. The wall surrounding it was made of reinforced concrete. The iron gate next to Section A was usually closed with a steel lock. The only exits open would be the main gate and two or three other service entrances. There was nothing to do but follow the Section Chief. About seventy per cent of Section A was now burning. The flames roared as they were sucked out into the yard. Smoke and fire from throughout the factory surged out into that single open space. It was impossible to run across the yard. Through the smoke I saw a student recruit in his undershirt running toward the back of Section A. There he would find a concrete wall and a locked iron door. Unless the blast had destroyed the wall, he wouldnt be able to get out. It was too high to scale, and besides, there was nothing to get a foothold on. Nevertheless, the student ran. On a sudden impulse, I took off after him. The wall was in ruins. A large piece of concrete had been blown away, exposing the iron skeleton. Through the hole, I could see the fields beyond. My mouth dropped open. It wasnt just the factory that had been bombed. I had believed that I would be safe if only I could escape from the factory compound, but the scene outside was even worse. The smoke screen inside the factory had hidden the reality from me. That had been a blessing. The students who had been dancing in the yard either died instantly, or were so severely burned they lived only an hour or two. The blast slammed some down on the concrete so hard their intestines popped out. They were young, and their screams were horrendous. A friend of mine heard those voices while she was running away; even today she puts both hands over her ears when she speaks of it. It is said that many who were outside near the epicenter died instantly, due to the pressure of the blast. There were at least 40 people in the circle dance, most of them university students. In a sad pantomime,

the students danced to see their comrade off The student who was to leave for the front stood in the center, surrounded by his companions. Arms around each others shoulders, the well-wishers formed a circle around him. The leader called out Yo! This was the signal for the circle to begin swaying to the right as each man lifted his left foot off the ground, bending the knee. The men then stomped in unison with their right feet to set the rhythm. They brought their left feet down. As the movements were repeated, the circle inched to the right. From time to time, the leader would call out, Yo! to keep everyone in time. As they moved, the students wooden sandals grated against the pavement. The brittle sound of wood scraping against stone did not reverberate;; it was empty, like a wave that reaches its highest peak but never returns to the shore. I sometimes happened upon the students in the middle of their circle dance. Unable to pass them by, I always stopped. With a silent prayer, I would nod to the unknown recruit standing rigidly in the center with a white sash across his shoulder. If our eyes met, he would nod back. The dance was for exchanging thoughts in silence. Once it was over, the celebration suddenly got lively. The leader, an expert in girls high schools, would call out a school name. The few who were interested would clap in response. The leader would survey the rest, who returned his gaze with feigned applause, using only their index fingers. This meant, My girl doesnt go there. The names of other local schools would be called, including some from outside Nagasaki Prefecture. When he heard the right one, the youth about to leave for the front would raise his hands and clap like crazy. Then the entire circle would let out a whoop, throw their arms around each others shoulders, and launch into a new dance. The steps were the same. But this time they sang as well. They belted out their departing companions school song. And while they sang, they danced, the tempo becoming faster and faster until they were spinning like a whirlwind. Then, the dance would stop. The boy about to leave would bow his thanks. Lets meet again, his friends would call out in response. Nothing fancy, but still a moving elegy to youth. All the participants in the last festival I saw died, both the youth who was to leave and those sending him off. I remember meeting a guy called Maikuma, who was later to die in Okinawa. A student from Kumamoto High School, he was his groups leader, though one of the most unkempt. That day, he was sunning himself out in the yard. The all clear had just sounded, and I was running past when he beckoned and called, Hey there! When I was near enough he said, Lets pick some lice. Its fun watching them try to get away, and pulled apart a seam in his school uniform to show me. Then he whispered in my ear, Dont say this out loud, and proceeded, po-faced, to rattle off a speech that went: Your emperor has just inadvertently emitted noisome gases from his august anus the odor of which you, his loyal subjects, must find noxious so He begs your forbearance for a while.

I couldnt hear the first time, but the second time around I got it. So even a living god farts, I thought, and burst out laughing. If you laugh the thought police will kill you, so matter how funny it is you have to look real serious, he warned. At the time, I didnt think anything of it. I saw three people from Section A escape: the Chief, the foreman, and the middle-aged man who laughed all the time. Yamaguchi died instantly. She was crushed between the desk and a beam that fell from the ceiling. I heard that the beam fell on her neck, smashing her shoulder and chin. She died before the flames reached Section A. For A-bomb victims, sudden death is best. Some who lingered uselessly for a day or two were in such agony they tore off bits of their own flesh. Akiko and Yoko survived. They were both burned but their injuries were not critical. As the flames consumed Section A, they helped each other escape. They got out later than I did. Boy, you were sure fast that day. Thought youd gone crazy, they tell me, laughing. Their laughing eyes seem too penetrating to me. Because I cant laugh with them, I avoid meeting them whenever possible. Akiko lost her entire family. They all died instantly, her parents in their home in Take-no-kubo, and her older brother at Nagasaki Medical University, where he was a student. By the time the war ended, all of Akikos hair had fallen out. She had a foreign look about her, with deepset eyes. Her bald head made her eyes look even bigger, like those of a French doll thrown carelessly into the toy box, its golden locks torn out. Years later, upon discovering that we were both living in the same seaside town, I called her on the phone; she was going into hospital in two or three days. Shed been cut apart and pasted back together; this time, it would be a stomach operation. About 20 years before shed been operated on for breast cancer. Shed have to ask whether the tumor in her stomach was malignant. With cancer, you can tell by feeling. There was a hard lump stretched from my breast all the way over to my arm. Thats how it was last time, so its probably the same Whatre you doing now? I asked to change the subject. I just finished changing the curtains in the childrens room, she said, then paused, and added, If Im not doing something I get scared. After that I hesitated to call back, and since then, two years have passed. My mother died My wife died My daughter-in-law died I am afraid to hear any of these responses. I was unscathed, you might say. I scraped my shoulder and knee when I was running away. There were shards of glass sticking in the back of my scalp, in the part between my braids. While I was

running toward the mountain, I felt them with my fingers, and pulled them out. As black clothing absorbs light, people dressed in black are said to have suffered particularly bad burns. This, too, was a fate I escaped. Perhaps the three smoke-stacks blotted out the blinding flash, or maybe Yamaguchi, who died instantly, absorbed it all. Life and death stand back to back, separated by a line more slender than the thinnest sheet of paper. On October 10, 1970, the Asahi Shimbun (Newspaper) ran an article with the headline JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT CALLS HIBAKUSHA MONSTER MANGA CRUEL. It all started with a cartoon published in a childrens magazine; a seventh-grade girl was reported as saying, Its terrible that this manga shows hibakusha as monsters. Think how bad they must feel. Among the four or five creatures in this Special Monster Edition was one in human form called Alien Spell, depicted as a Radioactive Alien covered with keloid scars. Editors of the magazine, when questioned as to the intent behind the drawing, replied that they would not be able to issue a statement until they had fully investigated the matter, but members of the A-bomb Documents Reading Circle protested, expressing their determination not to let the matter stand. The incident made a strong impression on the Japanese public. It made me feel the cruelty of forgetting, but there is no need for sentimentality where the A-bomb is concerned. I have no quarrel with that monster manga. Anything that provokes some feeling in someone, be it a cartoon or a clown, is fine with me. As time passes, it becomes more and more difficult to show what really happened when the bomb was dropped. Akiko was twenty when she.got breast cancer Statistics on malignant tumors among patients in the Hiroshima Hospital for A-bomb Victims (1956-67) show breast cancer as the third most prevalent type. Stomach cancer has the highest frequency, followed by lung cancer. Since both men and women are equally susceptible to tumors in the stomach or lungs, the rate of breast cancer is quite high. For 60 lung cancer patients, there are 51 women with breast cancer. But recently gaining official recognition as a hibakusha is becoming more difficult. The Minister of Health and Welfare decides who will be certified, based on the deliberations of his Advisory Committee on the Medical Treatment of Victims of the Atomic Bomb, which has over 20 members. Akiko should certainly be certified as a hibakusha, but the application process has her totally exhausted. Its hard for a sick person to get around, and it simply takes too much out of her, just as it did me when I applied for a special hibakusha identification card. Its absurd that hibakusha should need the signatures of three witnesses who can testify to the fact that they were actually there when the A-bomb was dropped. In the case of people like Akiko and me, these can only be fellow workers or students who were recruited at the same time. Finding three who survived is a mind-boggling task. I wonder if the rules have loosened up by now. With a hibakusha ID card you can get medical benefits, which are a financial help. But thats no reason to require applicants to produce three witnesses in order to prevent fraud. To have been exposed to the A-bomb is nothing to be proud of. Theres even the question of whether exposure to radiation affects the genes, so most people would rather hide the fact. The suffering of hibakusha like Akiko and me is year by year becoming our personal problem.

Anything that conveys some sense of what the hibakusha went throughmanga or anything elseis fine with me. The hellish scene in the field I glimpsed through the wall around Section A was filled with cartoon monsters. In that field I saw hibakusha standing with burnt flesh hanging from their bodies like rags. Outside the wall was a road that led to Michi-no-o. Beyond the road was a field. The Urakami River flowed alongside it. Perpendicular to the river was a narrow mountain path. If you climbed it you would come to the mountain range leading to Mt. Kompira. Thanks to Mt. Kompira, half the city of Nagasaki was saved. Through July and August, there were more and more attacks by enemy planes. Sometimes they just flew overhead without dropping anything. The warning signal and air raid siren went off over and over again. Each time we ran to our designated shelter on the mountain. This irritated the one-armed foreman, who complained, Why should the students always be the first to run? None of us wants to die. This was his honest opinion. It was natural for him to feel this way, for there was no reason to provide special protection to student recruits. We were instructed to take refuge as soon as the siren sounded, but half the time he would try to stop us. We told our teachers what the foreman had said. Three had come from N Girls High School to supervise us: Miss T, Miss M, and Miss K. Miss K, the one with the round face, always told us, Even though youre working now, you are still our students, so were the one you should obey. Its dangerous, though, having the shelter so far away. Lets see if we cant find a safe place thats closer. She talked to the people at the factory, and got permission for us to go through the side gate to a new shelter that was being dug out in the field. The shelter in the field was eventually supposed to be reinforced with concrete; members of the Womens Volunteer Corps were hard at work on it. They were school girls, about 13 or 14 years old. Early in the morning we heard their lively voices out in the field. One of them had brought up a shovelful of earth with a fat, shiny worm wriggling around in it, and they were shrieking with excitement as girls will do. Peeking out through a crack in the iron door, Yoko sighed, Youd think they were on a school excursion. The field was broad and flat, with clumps of dandelions, wild violets, and moss roses. Near the halffinished air rain shelter, some elderly women had brought a group of neighborhood children to pick flowers. One of them spread a cotton handkerchief out on the grass for the kids to lay their blossoms on. When a dandelion joined them on the handkerchief, wild flowers of subtler shades suddenly brightened up; you could almost hear their laughter. While their grandchildren played in the field, the old women went out to the road to gather bits of leftover coal. Every morning, the workers in Section A would carry the coal that had been burnt in the factory outside. The coal was used to pave muddy roads, and neighborhood housewives were always waiting to pick up what was left over. It produced a good flame, so only a little would suffice for fuel in the home.

The old women would sell the coal they found and make a little spending money. We got to know these old women and little girls, so on our lunch break we would slip out the front gate, race all the way around the factory to the field, and pick flowers or retrieve bits of coal for them. The instant the A-bomb fell, this field disappeared. Among the children who picked flowers was a fairskinned little girl with bangs. Her grandmother was small and fair like her granddaughter. She sat in the field surrounded by burning grass, holding the child on her lap. Half of the childs hair had been torn off, and was plastered to her cheek. Her eyes and mouth open, she was dead. I saw the white of her front teeth; only around her mouth did some remnant of childhood remain. The grandmother, her flesh ripped to shreds, sat there like a mop. The girls from the Volunteer Corp, too, stood like mops. Their raw, exposed flesh, like scaly reptile skin, gave them a glow. Trembling, they assailed one another with cries of pain. Their Rising Sun headbands still in place, sporting the slogan Sacrifice Self to Serve the Nation, they cried like children. It doesnt take much effort for the directors of the drama that is war to create a whole parade of clowns. What kind of bomb could have done this much damage in an instant? Must have dumped barrels of kerosene, and then tossed out a whole load of fire bombs, said a man who looked like a factory worker. That must be it. Theres fire everywhere. Theres no other explanation. Some of that kerosene mustve splashed on me without my knowing itlook at this burn, said a woman, pointing to her arm. That clanking sound mustve been the kerosene drums, added another woman with a little boy of five or six in tow. The ones who talked on their way up the mountain path were the slightly injured. Among the more serious cases, those who could walk were relatively unscathed. Many leaned against the slope, unable to move, or lay were they had fallen on the path. There were various degrees of burns. The surface the of skin would be burnt away, exposing the layer of white fat beneath, others were flayed and bleeding like the white rabbit from Inaba in the folk tale. The Asahi Weekly published a report on Nagasaki Medical University Relief Efforts for Victims of the Atomic Bomb. The section entitled Excoriation Due to Pressure of the Blast reads as follows: At first we thought this excoriation of the skin might have been caused by the vacuum created at the time of the explosion. We also wondered whether the enormous pressure of the blast that ripped clothing to shreds might not at the same time have torn the skin off in strips. In the end, however, we realized that this hypothesis was wrong. Had it been correct, then excoriation would have occurred not only in the affected area but over the entire body. But what if these two phenomena were to be taken together? In other words, first the thermal rays burn the skin, weakening it considerably. Then the tremendous pressure from the blast comes and further affects the skin, but while healthy skin remains, the burnt portion is torn and ripped away. We can therefore conclude that this damage to the skin is the combined result of burning and pressure.

The word excoriation here is used to refer to the pitiful state of having literally been skinned, just like the white rabbit in the old story. Other victims neither cracked nor bled, but blistered. Because the rays hit them with equal force all over, they had neither extremely severe nor moderate burns. Their whole bodies were one huge blister, filled with water. Their eyes, nose, and lips were hidden beneath a thin layer of skin, distorted by the cloudy white fluid that covered them. Something like a fish you cook in a microwavea sickly white with no charring. The blistering doubled their size. Still others had thin layers of ruffles hanging from both arms like the skin of new potatoes. One student recruit kept muttering to himself, Hurts like hell, as he climbed Mt. Kompira. The children of god seem to have used us as guinea pigs for their experiments in burning the human body. After the war some students (?) from Kyushu and Nagasaki Universities came to N Girls High School to do some research. They wanted to know about our health before and after the A-bomb. They asked us about our menstrual periods; whether the flow had become heavier since the bomb, and so on and so forth. Some of the girls said, We should not be required to provide any more information about the atomic bomb, and refused to co-operate. The A-bomb left scars on our bodies and in our minds. A man lying by the side of the road asked me for medicine. Anyone could see that he was dying; there was no hope for him. Even so, he begged, Give me medicine, in a voice I could hardly hear. Had I looked into his heart, I believe I would have seen hell. Ill go find a doctor, so you hold on now, I said, trying to comfort him. Dont say thatno ones gonna come, I still feel the weight of his words. And of the curse he left behind. An hour or two after the bomb fell I went to Matsuyama-cho. This was the epicenter. Had I known about the dangers of radiation I wouldnt have been so foolish. I met two apparently unscathed women on the mountain. They were the only people I had seen so far whose clothing was intact, and who had no injuries. I wanted to stay with them. Never had whole, sound people seemed so unusual, or so heartening. They were on their way back from Michi-no-o, where they had gone to buy flour. Michi-no-o is about 3.5 kilometers north of the epicenter. They hadnt found any flour, but their sacks were full of young potatoes. Theyd gotten up early, planning to be home before noon, and had crossed the mountain on foot, not bothering to wait for the train. Near the summit they saw the blinding flash. Must be close, theyd said as they hurried down the mountain path. The potatoes were to be lunch for their families. As they neared Urakami there was a strange smell in the air, and they saw lots of badly injured people. They asked those who could still talk what had happened. Dont knowdont know what hit us. No one stopped to talk. Everyone kept moving, escaping. The two women decided to go on home anyway, and continued down the mountain behind the munitions

factory. Thats where I met them. They said they lived in Matsuyama-cho. The one in dark blue trousers told me she wanted to go to Matsuyama-cho first, since she was worried about her family, but if everything was all right there, shed take me home afterwards. Where do you live, dear? she asked. Junin-cho, I replied. The area nearest the factory seemed to be hardest hit, so surely Matsuyama-cho would be safe, they thought, and set off in high spirits. I dont know when Id discarded my wooden sandals. All this time Id been climbing the mountain path barefoot. We came to the tiered paddy fields on the mountain behind Matsuyama-cho. All the houses were gone. In silence, the woman in blue gazed at the ruins, now a smoldering reddish-brown. The other one, whose trousers were black, had been following behind. Now she bent at the waist and wailed, The haa ouseGrandmaGrandmas dead! and burst into tears. Matsuyama-cho was a wasteland, so flat it might have been plowed under. It had been a cluster of low houses, with small factories and telephone poles rising above. Most of the residents worked as subcontractors for the big munitions factories and steel mills, or repaired pots and pans. It was a neighborhood where the odor of grilled sardines hovered over alleys too narrow for the sunlight to creep in. Families here led simple lives, in a close-knit community. I liked the smell of the place, so Id often make a stop here on my way home just to stroll through the streets. Sometimes Id meet a friend called Inafuku here and wed walk home from the factory together. In the twilight an old man would be hunched over in the earthen entrance to his house, fanning a fire with a bellows. The flames would leap up, catching his kindly face in the reddish light. Inafuku would step inside and ask, Whats that youve got there? The neighborhood was filled with an everyday sort of warmth, something you wanted to hold on to. All those houses had now disappeared, and the people whod lived there with them. The seriously burned were lying in the rice paddies. But their numbers didnt come to even a tenth of Matsuyama-chos total population. The woman in the black trousers was still crying, Grandma, Grandma. The two of them had lived alone. Quit your bawling, scolded the woman in blue. With this many dead itll be a regular mourning competition. So stop sniveling. A mourning competitionthe womans words weighed heavily on my heart. Faced with such a catastrophe she was still ready to fight, and I resented her strength. The thought of still more people who hardly looked human made me shudder. Human beings with no hands, no feet, no eyes. Nagasaki would be full of them. Everyone should have a pair of hands and feet, two eyes and a nosethat was best. Within a 500 meter radius from ground zero the fatality rate was 98.4%; 90.4% either died instantly or later the same day. The people lying in this pumpkin patch would all be dead before the day was over. Four hundred meters from the epicenter, roof tiles melted. Streets paved with concrete also turned to bubbling liquid. So did pebbles lying by the roadside. They were as hot as lava flowing from a volcano. Human beings, with their soft flesh and bones, were as fragile as mayflies hurled into a gas flame.

Looking through the statistics concerning the effect of the bomb, one wonders why such a ruthlessly efficient weapon was necessary to kill human beings. And yet one is also amazed by the sheer strength of the life force. In September, a month after the Abomb was dropped, plants started growing in the wasteland. Under the earth, cattails and pampas grass were already stirring with new life just after the bombing. But abnormality in cell division, the effect of radiation, has been reported. The chlorophyll was depleted, causing white spots to appear on castor bean plants. Leaves were shriveled, or strangely shaped. In Nagasaki, many farmers reported deformed vegetables, such as twin eggplants, twin pumpkins, and tomatoes that grew in clusters. All of my friend Ikeuchis hair fell out, and later grew back red and kinky. She ended up with a beautiful head of wavy auburn hair like Maureen OHaras. It was an American bombthats what made my hair curl, she laughed. Unbelievable as it may sound, her hair had been straight and black before. Ill never forget how thrilled I was the first time I found grass growing in a field near the epicenter. I was on my way to school. The tall, slender blades of grass had tiny white flowers, about the size of sesame grains. It was rumored that not a single blade of grass would grow for 60 years here. The life force of these common plants gave the hibakusha new hope. So we can go on living too, I thought, and tears came to my eyes. I think it must have been about two hours after the bombing when I began to feel nauseous. In the middle of the field, I threw up. My vomit was white and bubbly. The woman in blue trousers said, Its probably because you havent had any lunch, and brought me a pumpkin from in the field. Leaves and vines had either burned or been blown away, leaving only the pumpkins on the ground. Splitting the pumpkin with a fragment of broken roof tile, she handed it to me and said, Go ahead, eat. I took a whiff, and threw up again. Youre sick because your stomachs empty. Even if you have to force it down, youd better eat, she said. When I tried to refuse, she scolded me. You could be feeling like this for days and days, so go on and eat. The pumpkin, which had been baking under the hot sun, was warm and stank. While chewing it the raw smell made me vomit again. It reeked of rank grass growing in the fields in the heat of summer. When the burn victims skin dried out under the heat of the sun, it would smell just like this pumpkinthe same rank smell as summer grass. The sun is falling, cried an old man wearing an air-raid hood, pointing at the sky. The sun had turned red, and was swirling around as it plummeted toward the earth. It looked like the sun in a painting by Van Gogh. Though it was midsummer, and mid-day as well, the sun we saw from the paddy field was right in our line of vision, near the horizon. Even on the hottest summer day the heat of the sun makes us feel grateful for the gift of life, but these were cruel rays that beat down on us now. This sun had been flattened into a lid to trap all the heat in the world. One of the women hurriedly put up the black

umbrella she was using as a parasol. Scary, isnt it? she said, as the umbrella hid the sun from view. Even under the umbrella the burns on my arms and cheeks stung. Isahayas probably all right but if it isnt, you come home with me. Im all alone now anyway. The woman in the blue trousers wrote her address in Shimabara on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. Taking a ten yen note from her coin purse, she said, Thisll be enough to get you to Shimabaradont lose it now, and folding the note up, she stuck it in my trouser pocket. You need money when youre all alone, so dont you lose that, she said once more for good measure. This is from the Nagasaki Medical University Report on Relief Efforts for Victims of the Atomic Bomb: While it was revealed that the new kind of bomb dropped on Hiroshima had done considerable damage, no details were made public; accordingly, no effort was made to strengthen general defense measures. Therefore, when the same kind of bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, neither the military, nor public officials, nor ordinary citizens were prepared for it. Even those of us who were interested in the atomic bomb must regretfully admit that we didnt realize our city had been hit by such a bomb until we were informed of the fact by the leaflets dropped by enemy planes. When the enemy told us what they had used to attack us, the entire nation was surprised and horrified. Its only natural that ordinary people should have imagined something as fantastic as barrels of oil being poured from the sky and then set alight with firebombs instead of matches. Or that I didnt know any better than to eat a pumpkin left on the ground in Matsuyama-cho. As I write this, I wonder about the potatoes the women bought in Michino-o. Why didnt I eat them instead of radiation-covered pumpkin? The women each had a whole sack of them in her lap. The one in blue trousers must have been too upset to think straight after all. My nausea wasnt due to an empty stomach. It is one of the effects of radiation poisoning, referred to, apparently, as a radiation hangover. Even for those with no apparent injuries, the A-bomb has a carefully laid plan that leads to death. The younger the victim, the greater is the effect of radiation sickness. Children under 15 who were exposed near the epicenter nearly all died within three days. The cause was rapid failure of the digestive organs. After August 9, not only the Naval Hospital, but also elementary and junior high schools, and nearly all public facility as well were taking in radiation victims in Isahaya. Drawn by the odor of festering wounds, the flies increased their numbers dramatically. Human beings covered with flies. Maggots hatching to feed on human bodies. Reality that made a mockery of human dignity unfolded before our eyes. War taught us about the providence of nature. We learned that damp wood is best for burning corpses. Its hard to light, but once you get it burning the flame is stronger than if the wood were completely dried out. The fire lasts longer, leaving no half-raw flesh. The corpse burns to the core, so that you cant tell the difference between it and the wood. Once its charred black, it turns to ash that you can smooth over with a rake until it mingles completely with the earth.

While a body is burning the stomach explodes with a loud popping sound. Bits of fat fly out followed by sparks that set them on fire in midair. Waiting for these flames to suddenly appear out of the darkness you feel a sense of anticipation, like when you hold a picture drawn in invisible ink up to the fire. You stare at the beautiful, fiery display. After a while, you start to think, The stomachs going to pop now, anxious for the moment when that lovely burst of light will fill the air. I recently read Piers Paul Reads book Alive, which is an account of the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes. After 70 days snow-bound in the mountains, 16 miraculously survived. They were young men around 30, devout Christians, gainfully employed, members of the upper-middle class. The only problem was that they resorted to cannibalism to keep from starving to death. At first, they were revolted by the idea of eating the flesh of those who had died in the crash. But then some of the group began saying that the bodies of the dead passengers were Divine Providence granted the survivors by God. They ate. Within a few days, all had partaken of human flesh. When spring came, several who had survived the crash were killed in avalanches; these fresh corpses were more nutritious, and so particularly sought after. When the rescue party found them, some had split human skulls in half, and were using them as plates to make their meals more palatable. They had made spoons from human bone. The human heart changes dramatically as it adapts to desperate circumstances; that fine phrase human dignity, so highly prized in moralistic society comes to mind. Both manifold in fury and divine providence are expressions of gods will, and therefore do not involve a loss of human dignity. But the passage of time leaves only the essence of what happened, as the extremity of the situation slips into oblivion. It was the same with the woman in blue trousers. Though we were in the field in Matsuyama-cho for about an hour neither woman even bothered to look for her family. The destruction was so complete that it didnt leave room for even the slightest hope. Miraculously, someone did survive there, so near the epicenter. It was the husband of the woman in blue. He worked in a factory in Ho-ga-ura, across the bay from Nagasaki. There wasnt much damage there, so had he been at work, he definitely would have been all right. Like Inatomi, he had caught a summer cold and stayed at home. That morning the air raid siren had sounded over and over again, so feeling uneasy, he had carried his bedding down into the air-raid shelter hed dug at the entrance to the house, and was resting there. Outside, the two-storied wooden house was completely destroyed. When he crawled out of the ruins, he found only a water tank made of synthetic granite. As the entrance to the shelter was blocked, it took him three hours to dig his way out with a shovel. While he was running away he burned the sole of his foot. That was his only external injury. After the war, when my mother and I went to Shimabara late that October to thank the old woman for helping me, we found the man lying on the tatami. All his hair had fallen out. The old couple lived in a farm house in Shimabara that overlooked Chichiwa Bay; you could see schools of fish so large they changed the color of the sea.

While my mother was thanking his wife, the husband sat up and said, I was trapped in the shelter like a mole digging to save myself, and she just sat there up in the field looking down on me. Why the hell didnt she come and help me? His wifes lips moved as she served us tea, but she said nothing as she stared gravely out at the sea. Here is another drama, filled with ironyone of many from around that time. From Matsuyama-cho we went back up the path, and made our way along the mountain range. When I reached the hill behind N Girls High School it was getting dark. Looking at a map I realize we must have been somewhere around Shichi-men-daibosatsu Mountain. There were a couple of farm houses that had been half destroyed by the bomb blast. Chickens were trapped in the ruins, and when we passed they stuck their heads out from between the fallen pillars. What happened here? they seemed to be asking, which made us burst out laughing. We humans dont know either, we wanted to tell them, if only wed spoken their language. The city of Nagasaki is situated in a hollow basin, which was now dyed red in the evening sun. I saw Sako Elementary School, a concrete building. Facing the city center, it was over toward the left. I saw the red earthen playground. Four of five children were still there. This part of the city wasnt damaged and the moist wind blowing across it felt good. It brought with it the warmth of families, still intact. While gazing at the ruins of Matsuyama-cho, Id thought of the old man with his bellows. Id imagined his family, cooking sardines together on their little grill. And now, looking down over the city in this cool evening breeze, I thought once again of families. Families nestled in their homes, sheltered by wooden walls and roof tiles. Ordinary houses, with earthen entrance ways, shoji faded by constant exposure to the sun, with soft light inside, provided by not-so-bright light-bulbs. And the average families living in those houses. To me, both destruction and peace are strictly family matters. The nation is always somewhere far away. I shifted my eyes to the slope above Sako Elementary School and saw Kaisei Middle School. It was still standing, with a wartime camouflage pattern painted over its clean gray exterior. My boarding house was in Junin-cho, directly below Kaisei Middle School. It was a neighborhood of stone walls planted with Japanese roses, visible from quite a distance away. Perhaps from relief, I suddenly felt a pain in my lower abdomen. There was a pit toilet in the field. The farmers apparently used it when they were working; it was surrounded by a straw screen. When you squatted down it hid you from the waist down. I crouched down and stared up at the sky. Oblivious to the destruction in Urakami, it was quietly turning light purple. Turning my head, I saw stars coming out. The town was darkening faster than the sky. Of course there was no electricity, but smoke rose from kitchen fires here and there. The children who had been in the schoolyard had gone home. The school looked brighter than the rows of one story houses, for its glass windows shone in the remaining western light. Some must been broken by the blast, though, for among the shining pink panes were black spaces like missing teeth.

The town was so peaceful. And here I was, squatting over a pit toilet that looked big enough to swim in. The breeze from the field felt good on my bare bottom. A soldier on leave had once said to my mother, Id like peace enough to take a shit in a field, and I knew what he meantit was relaxing, out in the open this way. I had diarrhea. It was thin as water and dark green, as though the liquid had been squeezed from grass. I thought at the time that it was because I had eaten raw pumpkin, but this is also a symptom of radiation poisoning. According to the Report on the Nagasaki Medical University Relief Efforts for Victims of the Atomic Bomb, it signifies the onset of gastrointestinal syndrome: The following day inflammation of the abdominal cavity occurred, accompanied by a gradual rise in body temperature, and although internal pain caused patients to experience some difficulty eating and drinking, at this stage they appeared generally healthy. However, this latent period was followed by loss of appetite and other symptoms of gastrointestinal syndrome such as severe abdominal cramps, and the onset of diarrhea. The stools were watery, occasionally mixed with mucous membrane, and more rarely, blood. Within a week to ten days of the onset of gastrointestinal syndrome all treatments proved futile. The death rate was one hundred per cent. After I returned to my boarding house the diarrhea got worse. My room was on the second floor, and the waste from the toilet was carried to the sewage pit downstairs. It was frightening the way the stream of diarrhea poured steadily from upstairs. My symptoms were taking me steadily toward death. When I found out that Junin-cho was still intact, I returned the womans ten yen note. All right, Ill take it back. All Ive got in the worlds in this purse, she said, smoothing out the wrinkles where Id folded the note. We parted up on the hill. The two women started down, saying they were going to call on someone they knew in Nakagawa. The mountain path changed to stone steps, with houses lined up on both sides. My school was at the bottom. I wanted to see my teachers as soon as I could. Im alive! I wanted to tell them. I hurried down. Two students from Nagasaki Commercial High School were walking in front of me. One had injured his leg, and was leaning on his friends shoulder. The bleeding had stopped but I could see the white flesh underneath. N Girls High was near the wealthy residential districts of Nakagawa and Narutaki-cho. A refinedlooking woman in silk gauze monpei trousers was passing out rice balls with her daughter, who looked around twenty. When she saw the students, the daughter said, Youve had a rough time, havent you? as she offered them some. They each took one but didnt eat them. Seeing the well in the front garden, they asked for water instead. Placing her tray of rice balls on a stone in the garden, the girl ran to the well. Next to the gray stone, the rice gleamed pure white. The mother came over and started wrapping the boys leg in a towel. She didnt even notice me come down the steps barefoot behind the two students. I walked past the four of them. Perhaps they didnt realize I was also a survivor, for they said nothing to me. I remember feeling put out about that. Now it makes me laugh. Such petty thoughts at a time like that.

It wasnt that I wanted one of those pristine rice balls for myself. Like the boys, I had no appetite. What I really wanted to know was why, when everything was supposed to be rationed, this family had rice to spare for strangers. To put it more bluntly, I was mean-spirited enough to envy them, having white rice every day, even though I didnt feel like eating any at the moment. Furthermore, their kindness was reserved for the boys. That upset me, too. My character, Im afraid, is far from admirable, as you can tell from this episode The road between Nagasaki Commercial and N Girls High was just under five yards wide. When we were in school it was paved and covered with gravel, but it was once so narrow there was hardly enough room to walk down it with an umbrella up on rainy days. Out of necessity boys and girls ended up sharing umbrellas, and this path created liaisons between students from the two schools. There were tales of tragic love that ended in double suicide. For a time the boys from Nagasaki Commercial were relegated to the road above, up the stone steps that led to Suwa Shrine. The path below was reserved for girls, thus keeping the sexes at a safe distance. After the war, when the road was broader and we were drunk on post-war freedom and the popular movie The Green Mountains, we would tease the boys, calling them by name if they dared to venture onto our lower path. N Girls High was a four-story building of reinforced concrete, perched on the edge of the street. The damage from the atomic blast extended to the Nishiyama area. Every pane of glass was broken. Even the windows in the toilets were blown out. Depending on which direction they faced, walls and ceilings were also missing. With the partitions between the classrooms gone, we could see right into the room next door; having two teachers to watch at the same time certainly helped break the tedium. Fragments of glass from the shattered windows were scattered on the street. I was barefoot. This hadnt bothered me on the treacherous path to Mount Kompira. But it took courage to step onto this paved road, covered with glass. The school was right before me. Looking up I saw that the window frames were bent like bows, some caved in and others jutting out. Even on the same wall the windows would be twisted open in opposite directions, showing the complexity of the blast. The classrooms were dark, and silent. Survivors would first come back to their school. It was their duty to report in. I should have been greeted by the chatter and commotion a crowd of young girls tends to create. And since we were all working near the epicenter, if survivors had come back, they should be forming rescue parties, getting instructions from their teachers. Students and teachers should be lined up in the doorway, ready to help injured students when they returned. But there was no one. It seems strange that right at the epicenter, when I was stumbling over the dead and wounded who lay at my feet, I hadnt really felt the weight of the disaster. Not until I was away from all that horror, back in a place where some peace and normality remained, did the gravity of the situation gradually begin to dawn on me. The silence of the school building, the quiet of the houses, they were all linked to the destruction of Urakami and Matsuyama-cho, the catastrophe of all Nagasaki.

The younger girls from our school were sent to work at the Ohashi Munitions factory, while fourth year students and those who had stayed on for further study after graduation were recruited by the Hamaguchi Factory of the Mitsubishi Steel Works, which was closest to the epicenter. Those deployed to the tunnel factory in Michi-no-o all survived. The death rate was highest among girls working at the Hamaguchi Factory. Looking through a list of my classmates, I found one page of 36, 19 of whom died. With broad black lines beside over half the names, a hush seems to have fallen over the entire page. The date of 70 per cent of these deaths is August 9, 1945: the cause, the atomic bomb. The remaining 30 per cent all died by August 24 of the same year. When I came upon this page while looking for an address, without thinking I closed my eyes and said a prayer. Other deaths are recorded in September; it hurts to think how much those girls must have suffered. When the second semester started in the September after the war, our classes were rearranged. Each year had lost an entire class of 52 or 53 students. There were four years in the high school, and three in the postgraduate course. That makes a total of nearly four hundred students who died in the bombing. Picking my way through shards of glass, I reached the school building. I was nervous, and that kept me from injuring the soles of my feet. The teachers room was a jumble of papers, but no one was there. An evening breeze wafted through the broken door, sweeping up students examinations. We had lost the war; this was a desolate silence. No matter how many times I called from the corridor, no one appeared. The door to the principals office was open. I peered in to see the principal standing by the window, watching some of the older girls burning old newspapers in a corner of the school yard. When he finally heard me and turned around, he patted me on the shoulder and said, Thank god you made it. Then he asked if I was really all right, and whether Id seen any of my classmates. I shook my head. Heaving a deep sigh, he said, No news of survivors yet. The whole staff has gone to Urakami, but all the girls they bring back are dead. Its too awful. There were tears in his eyes. The few who came back alive were in grave condition, and older students in relatively good shape were taking care of them. The auditorium was so full of the woundednot all of them studentsthat there was no room to step. Are you sure youre not hurt? If you are, have someone take care of it and then go straight home to your mother. Your house is still there, isnt it? Stay there until you get word from school, he said, jotting my address down on a piece of paper. All they had to put on burns and open wounds was iodine. They poured it into bowls, and daubed it all over with towels. The supply from the school nurses office wasnt enough. The girls were burning newspapers so that they could strain the ashes through cooking oil, which they would then apply to burns. I wonder what this home remedy did to their patients The section on Amounts of Radiation Exposure Leading to Fatality in the Nagasaki Medical Report says, Although we initially assumed that diarrhea and gastrointestinal syndrome resulted from patients

having ingested pumpkin and other vegetables infused with radiation, we later concluded that these patients had absorbed a fatal amount of radiation throughout their bodies. They absorbed at least a fatal dose of secondary radiation from being on ground that was affected by the bombing, and symptoms appeared after a short latent phase. As radiation poisoning from the atomic bomb always entails a latent phase, even if the dose is fatal, death is not instantaneous. But if the amount of radiation the body has absorbed is sufficient to cause death, all forms of treatment are believed to be ineffective. Whether or not there are visible wounds is irrelevant. This phenomenon was seen in people near the hypocenter who were trapped in the ruins of their homes. When we went to see the woman in blue, her husband spat constantly as he talked. The spittle was red with blood from his gums, and he spat it out in a steady stream, moaning, Stickythis stuffs so sticky. If he absorbed a fatal dose of radiation, he must have died shortly after. To get to Junin-cho I had to pass through Naka-dori, a street lined with shops and houses. This area looked unscathed at first, but had actually suffered considerable damage. Walls leaned forward, facing the street, as if bowing to one another. Not a single house had rain shutters that would close properly. They were nailed in place, with a space left open for an entrance. It was rumored that what was left of the city would be firebombed that night. Families had fled to their air-raid shelters or to the mountains to spend the night. Only the neighborhood National Defense League was left to watch over the town. The street was cordoned off at the corner, and when I tried to slip past, someone stopped me, calling, Who goes there? The atmosphere was tense, and I was questioned until they were convinced I meant no harm. It was after eight when I reached my boarding house. My hair was covered with ash, and when I washed it the next day, the basin was gritty with sand. Mixed in with the dirt and small stones were pieces of glass. I counted six. They were sticking in my braids. What was it that protected me almost completely from that violent blast and burning flash? Someday Id like to untangle that chain of coincidences. On August 10 I met Inatomi, who had come with a rescue party from Shimabara. He came to see me in Kassenba, where I had taken refuge. Kassenba is a gentle slope, famous for the kite-flying competition held there. The kites are covered with a layer of wax that makes them shine like glass. On the night of the tenth, people living in Junin-cho gathered in Kassenba. After first going to my boarding house, Inatomi found me there. On the morning of August 10, Inatomi and the others had arrived in Urakami, where they were laying out corpses. They left them in the ruins, arranging the charred and naked figures on the ground. With the heads toward the center, they placed the bodies in wheel formation. It was an orderly arrangement that would make it easy for their relatives to find them. That way, they wouldnt have to go down a long line, examining each corpse in turn. After working frantically for hours Inatomi sat down in a nearby field to rest, and felt a chill. He prayed

that these souls would find peace, at the same time observing that the wheels of corpses he had laid out looked like mold rotting into the earth. Stretched out next to me on the slope, Inatomi told me what he had seen at Urakami that day. The evening dew cooled our heads. He asked me if I was cold. Turning so that he could see me, I shook my head. He stuck his arm out and laid my head on it. One of the corpses Inatomi laid out was a girl from my school. She had escaped to Urakami from the munitions factory, and then collapsed, unable to move. He found her lying on her back in the middle of the road under the hot sunlight. One of her braids had come undone, and her clothes had burned, leaving her half naked. The skin was ripped off her hands and feet, and her fingers moved spasmodically now and then. She was still breathing. There were no wounds on her face. Her skin was as pale as a wax dolls, and her half-opened eyes or made him terribly sad. Inatomi had taken off his jacket to cover the girls body. A sneaker still clung to one of her feet. Her name and N Girls High School were written on the inside. Inatomi ripped a towel and, wetting a piece of charcoal he found near her body, wrote the girls name on it. He tied the towel firmly around her wrist. She wouldnt last much longer. He went to the truck for water, but when he returned she was dead. The girls name was Araki. There were several with that name in my year at school. The Araki I knew was one of the prettiest girls in our class. She had wavy hair, and skin as fine as porcelain. That fits the description of the girl in the ruins, but after the bombing, we were all as pale as wax dolls. I heard that Araki was the only daughter of a doctor from somewhere out in the country. Whether that was her, I do not know. The sky above Kassenba was filled with stars. There was a small one that flickered on and off. Having met Inatomi, I was feeling rather sentimental. The tiny stars, with their uncertain, wavering light, reminded me of Araki and my other classmates, and of myself as well. The lonely deaths of young girls, with neither mother nor father close by at the end. For the first time, my eyes filled with tears. Surrounded by so many deaths in Urakami, I had become as numb as a robot. The sky over Urakami was red, just as it had been the day before. Arent you cold? asked Inatomi again. He himself was shivering. Then suddenly he said. When the wars over, lets go to Brazil. He was sick of this burnt out city, and of dead bodies. Dont know if Ill be able to walk, I said. Ill carry you, piggyback, he replied. It had taken all my energy to get as far as Kassenba. And I still had diarrhea. I slept that night curled up in Inatomis arms. An explosion sounded in the night sky. The National Defense League scurried around whispering, Enemy attack! Enemy attack! When the sun rose the next morning Inatomi brought water. Its well water so its nice and cold. Itll make you feel better, he said, placing the edge of his helmet against my lip to give me a drink. The leather band that lined the helmet smelled like Inatomi. It was the odor of a healthy young mans sun-baked sweat. I drank in Inatomis odor along with the water. For the first time since the bombing I felt the excitement of being truly alive.

With Inatomi carrying me on his back, we descended the slope from Kassenba. Though the season was too early for them, Japanese silverleaf flowers were blooming in the grass. It was hot in the sun, and sweat ran down Inatomis neck. When I stuck out my tongue and licked at it, I found it wasnt salty at all. Your sweat tastes good. You licked it? he asked. I havent had a bath for a whileI must be awful dirty, he added, jostling me on his back. Inatomi spent the following week digging out corpses, sleeping in the ruins. He said he was afraid to return to Nagasaki Medical, where hed been a student. He felt guilty about having been lucky enough to survive the bombing. Hope some of my friends made it, too, he said as he carried me down the slope. After hearing from Takano, the newspaperman, about the destruction of Nagasaki, my uncle set out from Isahaya early on the morning of August 10. Ill go to the university and see for myself. When I get back you can decide what to do, he said, and after oiling his squeaky bicycle, left my mother and my aunt to wait. By that afternoon, Isahaya was full of bomb victims. The train was running as far as Obashi, which was between Urakami and Michino-o. There was no station at Obashi, but the conductor drove the train as far as he could, up to where the rails were destroyed. The wounded were loaded into cargo cars and brought to Isahaya. Isahaya looked like a fish market. The most serious cases were lined up on the platform like skinned tuna. With not enough people to help them, the badly injured lay on the platform in the blinding sunlight, waiting. Among them was Tayama, another girl from my school. Her back was badly burned, and pieces of glass stuck out of the burned flesh. She lay face down on the hot concrete waiting for her turn. The sun hurt, she said later. The light beating down on her had been sheer torture. The light from above was a second burning. The blood dried and the flesh scarred. She could feel the sunlight digging into her wounds. All I wanted was for someone to come and pour some water on my back, she said. Araki must have suffered in the same way. My mother and aunt didnt have time to worry about individual lives and deaths. Everyone in the Womens Association was involved in relief efforts, around the clock. My mother went to care for patients at the Naval Hospital. There she met Tayama. When my mother asked her if I was alive, Tayama looked down, unable to answer. Tayama and I worked in different places. She didnt know if I was alive or not. Misinterpreting her vague response, my mother sank to the floor in despair. Late the night of August 12, my uncle came home, dragging his bicycle. He sat down in the doorway

and, opening his furoshiki, said, Its all over... The furoshiki was full of small pieces of bone and ash. My uncle had asked a student doing rescue work near the university if he knew whether his son was safe. I dont know for sure, but he should have been in class, the boy said, and gave my uncle the number of the classroom. Ever since my cousin had started at the university, my uncle made excuses to go to the campus. As he himself had left school after the fourth grade, the university seemed a very special place, and he was proud to have a son there. Thus hed learned quite a lot about the school, and knew just where to go. When he reached the classroom, he found only bone and ash on the floor. The mounds were arranged in a circle, one of bone and one of ash for each person. The bones looked oddalmost like people sitting on the ground around a campfire. He counted them--there were nineteen. There were two mounds in the center, too. That must have been the professor, my uncle thought, and started examining the mounds in the circle around him. Being careful not to scatter them, he felt through the ashes, looking for teeth. My cousins teeth had been bad since he was in middle school; hed had several capped with gold. You money eater, open your mouth. He told my mother and aunt how he remembered the cost of each gold tooth. If he found his sons teeth, he would know for sure that he was dead. Something glittered in one of the mounds. When he fished it out, he realized that the gold had melted and hardened into a lump. So far there was nothing he could definitely link to his son. My uncle sat there a while, wondering if his boy might not be alive after all. Hopefully, he examined the last mound, where he found the tip of his sons fountain pen. This solid piece had belonged to his boy. It was gold, a part of the German-made fountain pen my father had given him when hed entered the university. The tears my uncle had been holding back poured forth at once, as he held the ashes in his hands, sobbing, Dead after all, youre dead, youre dead. My uncle took one bone that he thought was the professors and put it in his furoshiki along with one from the mound next to his son. He finally ended up taking one from each of the nineteen mounds. Im going to take all of you home with me, my uncle said to the bones as he carefully picked each one up. But even after finding the fountain pen, it was still hard for my uncle to give up completely. He checked the corpses and the severely wounded lying in the ruins. He told other students his sons name, and asked them what they knew. The two or three who knew him said the same thingthat hed been in that classroom. His death seemed to be certain. While searching through the ruins, my uncle ran into Inatomi. From him, he heard that I had survived. From that day until the war ended, my uncle didnt come out of his room. Ill never forget what he said when he heard the radio broadcast on August 15, the day the war ended. Biting his trembling lip as he listened, my uncle said bitterly to the voice, Why didnt you say this sooner? The owner of that voice we heard on August 15 came to Isahaya after the war. Im going out to see, my younger sister announced, and was on her way out the door when my uncle grabbed her by the collar and said, You do and youll never come back in this house again. And that goes for the rest of you, too! We were staying at my uncles at the time. He kept the heavy wooden rain shutters closed all through the

day. That was the strongest gesture of protest he could manage. Nagasaki Medical University lost its president as well as professors and studentsover 850 people in all. It was literally a catastrophe. As soon as my uncle returned, my mother left Isahaya. People were talking about fliers that being passed around saying something like, On August 13 we will completely destroy what is left of your city. People of Nagasaki: escape while there is still time. These rumors, carried by human voices, sounded all the more real, and truly ominous. My mother and my aunt walked the whole way, 15 miles. My aunt went along because she wanted to see where her son had died. As Inatomi had done, the two women entered Nagasaki through Nishiyama, and parted at Hama-no-cho. After reaching my boarding house at 2:00 on the morning of August 13, my mother lay down for about an hour, and then forced my feet into a pair of straw sandals. I still had diarrhea, and could hardly walk. To keep the sandals from coming off, my mother tied a strap across the back. Just like Miyo-chan. Singing a snippet from a childrens song, she was in good spirits. That bomb wont work right unless they drop it at midday, when the suns beating down, she told me. That was what people were saying. The heat of the sun plus the bombs powerthats was made it so hot. We believed that rumor, too. The blast from the bomb was too hot for it not to have been true. We had to get out of Nagasaki before the sun came up. At exactly three oclock, my mother and I left Junin-cho. It was past noon when we reached Isahaya, about 2:30 in the afternoon. We didnt stop once for a break and still it had taken us twelve hours. On our way, on Kikitsu Beach, we ran into Miss M, one of my teachers. It was purely coincidence. On August 9, Miss M had been in Omura for a teachers meeting. She thus escaped the bomb itself. Miss T and Miss K both died instantly. I feel so terrible, being the only one to surviveIm going to do everything they would have done plus my own share, she told my mother. She had spent August 13 in Isahaya, looking for student recruits from our school, and was on her way home. Tomorrow she was planning to gather sticks and stonesanything that could be used as a weapon. A crane fell on Miss T, splitting her forehead open and killing her instantly. Miss K, who taught Japanese literature, lived an hour or two after the bomb fell. She was pinned under an iron beam and, unable to free herself, died squeezing the hand of one of her students who likewise was unable to move. One of my classmates burned to death with one arm caught under the rubble. She apparently died screaming, Somebody cut my arm off! The terror of the approaching flames must have been hell. At least Miss Ks workplace didnt burn. Thats the sole comfort. I heard that her fellow teachers cremated her. A month after I met her on Kikitsu Beach, Miss M also died. She fell victim to secondary radiation poisoning. Her hair fell out, and several days before she died she went crazy, wildly slashing the air with a

wooden sword. The other teachers burned her body in the field in front of the school gate. The ground was covered in soot from the fires, and thats where they cremated her, a friend told me. Well all just have to live on air until the wars over. If the B29s come, you run away. These were Miss Ms last words. All three of these teachers were unmarried. They were around 25 or 26; I wonder if they were ever in love. Miss T, whose head was split open, was a beauty with light brown eyes. Tall and slender, she was the only daughter of a Buddhist priest. I remember the physical we all got on the day we were recruited. We were sent around from room to room to have a blood test and our temperature checked, and finally I was waiting outside the X-ray room, standing in a corner feeling very put out when Miss M came over and said, Its nothing to worry about. Smiling, she took the chain I had around my neck in her hand and asked me if it was an amulet. It was a silver locket my father had sent me, with a tiny ruby in the frame. Of course theres no picture in it, I answered, flustered. Wouldnt it be nicer if there was? But then if you didnt take it off your boyfriends face would show up on the X-ray, she teased. Her eyelashes were a dusky brown On August 15, 1945, the war ended. It was only a week after the A-bomb was dropped. Why didnt you say this sooner? My uncles words summed up my own thoughts on the wars end; I had nothing to add. Soon after the war ended, a young girl from the City Office came in through the wooden door. She spoke to my mother, who was hanging out the wash, Do you have any old newspapers? Theyre gonna use them to make medicine; they say it really works, so can I have your old papers, maam? Then, she noticed me. Youre the daughter, arent youthe one that got hit by the bomb? She looked thoughtfully at my mother, then back at me, before finally saying, You know, maam, theyre saying with this new bomb, even the ones that live through it, they all die in the end. The bomb was made that way, Im so sorry. The girl looked a couple of years younger than me. She didnt speak in a hushed tone. Her sympathy was genuine. Stop babbling and get out of my house! my mother yelled. The city was full of such rumors. And it wasnt just talk. Coffins were carried past our house. Lots of people who lived in Isahaya commuted to factories in Nagasaki. They were the ones being carried by relatives in plain wooden coffins, on their way to the crematorium by the Honmyo River. The family who lived behind us lost a son. In the morning we heard the priest reading the sutras. The boy worked in a steel factory in Nagasaki. He came home without a scratch and, poking his head over the backyard fence, called to my mother, Boy, was I lucky. Two or three days later he was feverish; then his hair fell out, he got green diarrhea, and then died. The wounded who were taken to the Naval Hospital and the elementary and middle schools died one after another. They all had green diarrhea. Many lost their minds before they died like Miss M; could it have been the horror of August 9?

It was creepy, losing your hair. Every time you turned your head, loose hair would fall lightly onto your shoulders. I felt that death would be near when my hair started falling out. In the morning when I combed my hair, I would check to see how much I had lost. The amount was increasing, day by day. Every day I would bundle the hair up and show it to my mother. Its because its autumn, my mother said casually. One morning, the comb was gone from my mirror. My sisters combs also disappeared. My mother had hidden them all. From that day I didnt comb my hair for a month. I tied the ends of my braids tightly with a rubber band, and just left it that way for a whole month. I was very weak and had no appetite. I grew more listless day by day; my own head seemed terribly heavy. When I tried to kneel properly, my head bore down on my shoulders like a huge boulder and I couldnt hold it up. My hands and feet were like barbells, much too heavy to handle. I was most comfortable lying down on my side. I stayed that way, stretched out on the floor all day. My younger sister had apparently been told not to bother me; she observed from a distance. My older sisters were nice to me. My stronger sisters did whatever I told them to. One day when I was gazing at my arm, I noticed some red spots, about two millimeters in diameter. There were lots of them, all on the outside, spreading from my wrist up to my elbow. The flesh around my pores was slightly swollen; the redness was especially bright in the middle, right near the roots of the downy hairs on my arm. The spots itched and when I scratched them, the hairs came out, with tiny globs of oozy fat attached. They were infected. Spots also appeared on my legs. There were none on my stomach, chest, or back. They were limited to the areas of my body that had either been exposed or covered by my black monpei trousers. In my case, this distinction was very clear. There wasnt a single spot on my upper arms, which had been covered by my short-sleeved blouse. The infection in my legs spread from the red spots up to the boundary formed by the elastic of my calico underpants. Among Nagasaki bomb victims, the part of the human anatomy most suseptible to radiation poison was the digestive track, but hair roots were also vulnerable. The festering was due to general physical weakness and a decrease in the white blood cell count. Since the cause was internal, its intriguing that the symptoms should be limited to specific areas of the body. Had I had a blood test at the time, it probably would have shown that my white cell count had gone down to two or three thousand. Several years ago, it decreased to 3,600. This was discovered through my regular hibakusha physical. I was informed by post that I needed a closer examination. At the time, my fear of death was stronger than it had been when I was fourteen. I had a young son, and prayed that I wouldnt have to die yet. The festering got worse, and every time I moved, the lymph glands all through my body ached. It was mid-September, and still very hot. My younger sister said I stank, and wouldnt come near me. It wasnt just the wounds that smelled bad. My hair was rank, too. I hadnt washed it in a month. The itchiness reached a peak on the tenth day; after that I got used to it.

I got lice. I could feel them scurrying over my scalp. It was a sensation like the tiny zing when a silk thread is suddenly pulled taut. As their numbers grew, they began crawling down my neck. My older sister couldnt stand to watch it, and finally cut the rubber bands around my braids. My hairll fall out, I cried to my mother. Let itif youre going to die, youll die. My sister had no mercy. After putting up with my selfcenteredness for a month, she had had enough. Stop it. Your sister might really die, you know. Unintentionally, my mother let slip what she was really thinking. Without missing a beat, my sister retorted, Sure, she might die, but when? Im going to die sometime, too, you know. Im fed up with her whiningshe never thinks of anyone but herself. My younger sister peered out from behind the fusuma. Id used my weakness as an excuse to keep her running errands for me. I agree, she chimed in. Id been hoping that the heroic afterglow of my miraculous escape from the jaws of death would last for the rest of my life, yet here I was getting the thumbs down from my own sisters. When a patient scheduled to die in the next few days lingers on longer than expected, the people around her get tired of waiting. If shes going to die, they want her to hurry up and get on with it. Upon discovering this irritation in my older sister, I felt duty bound to show my loyalty by dying for her. Duty and loyalty these yakuza values are so deeply ingrained Ill never shake them, it seems. In the end, my hair didnt fall out. All I lost were a handful of hair and a sake-cup overflowing with lice. Around that time, I received a letter in the mail. It was in a cheap, brown envelope. The tip of the pen used to write it had split in two, splattering the ink. It was addressed to me. On the reverse side was the stamp of the factory where I had been working. Inside was a typed letter of about four or five lines, and a postal money order. It was my salary for the three months I had worked. It came to exactly 18 yen. I wonder if they paid the girls who died 18 yen, too, my mother said from the kitchen, where the evening sun was just streaming in. The monthly school fees for N Girls High School were 7 or 8 yen back then. This amount had to be paid even while we were working. Paying out more than we earned, we gave our all for the nation. How do you calculate profit and loss in such circumstances? At any rate, 18 yen would be enough to buy funeral flowers. Not enough for an expensive bouquet of imported lilies, but 18 yen would be sufficient to fill my coffin, perhaps with wild flowers. I at least wanted lots of flowers, to give me a sendoff suitable for a young girl. If I die, why dont you use this 18 yen for flowers? I asked, making a joke of it. My mother, who was steaming sweet potatoes, retorted angrily, Im not going to waste money on a child who dies on me. I heard a rumor that 52 yen was paid for every student recruit who died. I dont know who paid it,

thoughwas it the factory, or the government? Either way, its good to have your life converted into money. That way, youd know exactly how much you were worth and could act accordingly. If I die now, the State will pay for my funeral expenses. The amount is 16,000 yen. The government has stated that this amount will be provided for special hibakusha. But merely dying isnt enough to receive this payment. One must first be certified as a victim of radiation poisoning. Special hibakusha are people in possession of a Special Hibakusha Health Card. The card is issued to anyone to whom Paragraphs 1 through 5 of Section 6 of the Medical Treatment for Atomic-Bomb Victims Act applies. I am a Special Category 1 hibakusha. This category is limited to hibakusha who were directly exposed to the atomic bomb within three kilometers of the hypocenter, including those exposed in utero. Areas where black rain fell are also included. Isahaya is outside of the certification realm. In order to receive the 16,000 yen, all you have to do is fill out an Application for Payment of Funeral Expenses and present it along with the Death Certificate, the deceaseds cancelled Resident Card, Special Hibakusha Health Card, and personal seal. I am planning to leave instructions in my will that the 16,000 yen be used for funeral flowers. Tulips cost about 200 yen each, so even in the winter that should cover expenses for 80 tulips. That should make for a gorgeous funeral. It that seems a bit too much for someone like me; Japanese radishes would do as well. There should be enough for 80 of them, too. But since I started writing this the price of Japanese radishes has gone up, so now the 16,000 yen will only buy 53. It was rumored that persimmon leaves were good for radiation sickness. They would purge the poison, so the festering would stop. My mother took a pole out to the garden to knock down the leaves on the persimmon tree. It was September. The leaves were still a very dark green; it was much too early for them to fall. Like parents, the leaves were determined to see the buds grow. When my mother beat them, the entire branch would bend, and the leaves would tear off. My mother carefully picked them all up, washed them, soaked them in water and then boiled them. Over a wood fire, she patiently watched them. As the leaves simmered, the water turned from green to brown, and finally to black. My mother would then pour the liquid off into a rice bowl, which she then brought to me, ordering me to drink it all. The persimmon tannin had a strange odor. It tasted so bitter it sent spasms through my chin. I cant drink this stuff, I protested, pushing it away. Then you wont get better, she replied with a sad look in her eyes. Her sadness was unbearable. When I grit my teeth and drank it all she would smile and give me a spoonful of sugar. Sugar was a rare commodity in those days. It had been carefully stored in a can for so long it was permeated with rust from the can. Yet despite the slightly rusty flavor, it was delicious. She might just as well have mixed the sugar in with the persimmon tannin, but she never did. The more bitter it tastes, the more good it will do, she always said.

Within a week, the persimmon tree was completely denuded. My mother went out to collect sickly looking leaves that were lying on the ground. She was cheerful on days when she found a lot of them. Weve got to get you better, she murmured as she stood by the well, washing the dirt off the leaves. They turned a dark, glistening green, and even the sickly brown ones, once they were wet, sparkled in the bamboo basket. They looked so full of the life force that it really seemed as though drinking their tannin would drive all the pus out of my body. But it didnt. The next rumored cure was the foul-smelling leaves of the Chinese lizard tail plant. Right away, my mother set out for the narrow paths between the rows of vegetables planted on the banks of the Honmyo River to pick them. Without even bothering to hang them up to dry, she boiled the leaves. This produced a liquid the color of persimmon tannin; the taste was unbelievable. Furthermore, it insisted on lingering, sinking into my stomach, leaving me with a heavy, uncomfortable feeling. When drinking it had no effect, my mother filled a wooden tub with water and leaves and made me soak in it. My mother daubed the sores with Chinese lizard tail tea. Perhaps because its a medicinal herb, it stung like crazy. The pus on the surface would wash off and float in the water. Then she would wring out a towel and press it over the red spots to dry them off. When she pressed hard enough the towel would stick and the sores would bleed. When scabs formed there was no salve to protect them. We had no bandages, either. When I sat down, the sores would press directly against the tatami. When I stood up suddenly, scabs would stick to the tatami and be torn off. The wounds would fester again. The process was repeated, over and over again. Takano, who couldnt bear to watch this anymore, brought me some medicine hed gotten from an American military doctor stationed with the occupation forces in Kohama. He took something out of his pocket, carefully wrapped in manuscript paper. It was three white tablets. I was to take them at six hour intervals. My mother set the alarm clock to make sure I took them exactly six hours apart. In ten days the festering had stopped, and yellow scabs formed over all the sores. I have no idea why antibiotics should have cured an infection caused by general physical weakness and a decrease in my white blood cell count. No matter how many times its explained to me, it seems as strange as a tree with rotten roots bearing healthy leaves. On September 23, Inatomi died. It was a cool day, with a cold wind blowing off Ariake Bay. A typhoon was coming, and the sea that spread out before the mouth of the Honmyo River sparkled gray in the sun. On days like this the cool breeze took away the burning sensation in my festering wounds, and I felt good. Thanks to the medicine Takano had brought, no more red spots appeared. I was sitting on the veranda leaning against a pillar, watching the clouds float by. My mother, whod come back from digging potatoes, said, Inatomis in the hospital. Hed had a high fever for days, and had gone into hospital that morning. That afternoon I went to see him, riding in a cart attached to a bicycle. My wounds were healing, but

walking made them worse again, so whenever I had to go out I rode in a cart. Inatomi looked better than Id expected. Hey there, he said, waving to me, but then the nurse came and said, Thats enough, cutting our interview short. His eyes were red from the fever, and his breathing was labored. He was sicker than he looked. I could see that there was no strength in his jaw. He couldnt chew solid food, or pronounce his vowels clearly. When he talked, his lips were always halfway open. No one knew why. Im not getting enough saltthats what it is. Give me a bowl of rice gruel with plenty of sesame-salt, and Ill be fine, he said casually. Were really going to Brazilgot that? he said, looking at both me and my mother. I dont know if Ill be able to walk, I replied. Hearing me give the same answer Id given him at Kassenba, Inatomi laughed. Ill carry you on my back again. You dont mind, do you? he asked my mother, who replied with a vague laugh. Before I left, I promised Inatomi Id make him some really good sesame-salt. Id lay a sheet of nori on heavy Japanese paper and grill it over the hibachi, then crumble it up in my hands, and mix it with sesame and salt This was the first time Id been out in a long time, and when I came home, I had a fever. That night Inatomi died. It was September 23. At 11:00, the heavy rains that would usher in the typhoon started. The cause of Inatomis death was listed as radiation poisoning due to secondary exposure. In October, 1945, the second semester began, one month late. The opening ceremony was a memorial service. The doctor said it would take too much out of me, but I was determined to be there. My mother went along. The service was held in the auditorium. There was a large hole in the roof. Beyond the steel girders, we could see the clear autumn sky. A cool autumn breeze blew in from above. A chandelier hung from what was left of the ceiling, and the milk white teardrops tinkled in the wind. The names of the students and teachers who had died in the bombing were written on paper which was pasted on a board in the middle of the stage. There were five rows of names, stretching from one edge of the stage to the other. How many names were there in each row? Offerings to the dead were placed on a table covered with white cloth. Persimmons from the garden, green dates, still unripe, green mandarin oranges, and sweet potatoes. The only flowers were cosmos from the surrounding fields; it was a shabby-looking altar. Sitting in chairs were the students who had survived. About half were bald. We were wearing middy blouses. Young girls who should have had luxuriant black hair looked like Buddhist nuns. Or rather, it would have been better had they looked like nuns. Nuns have their own liveliness. The heads of these girls looked withered, worn out. The students sat in the middle, flanked by their teachers, and the parents of the girls who had died in the bombing. The reading of the sutras began. His fists clenched, the principal sat with his eyes closed and didnt move. Mothers dressed in monpei trousers couldnt stand it and burst into tears. Fathers stared up at the

ceiling. The surviving students felt guilty to be alive. The mothers sobs stabbed our feeble bodies. Teachers read out the names of the dead in their classes, lingering sadly over each one. Columns of smoke from the incense rose to fill the auditorium. The autumn wind blew them asunder. The survivors sang a song in memory of their friends who had died in the bombing. A number of the girls who took part in the memorial service later died. I have friends who married, had children, and then suddenly one morning died of radiation sickness. Occasionally I hum the memorial song. It is a memorial to the youth of the student recruits. Spring flowers, autumn leaves every year appear bringing their fragrance. Where have my dear ones gone I call and call again They do not return. So sad, so sad My teachers, my friends That you might hear our festival today An American documentary on the bombing ends with a truly wonderful line: --And thus the destruction ended