I am not writing this letter out of sentimentality, but to fulfil a request from my late mother.
She once said to me: ‘In the world of Buddha there are many wonders, and it may happen that someday you will meet your father. Tell him that I wished to part from him beautifully, but your grandfather was adamant; “If you wish your gaijin to live, then do my bidding. He must see you dead and mutilated. Only then will he do what I require”. I did as he ordered, and it has tormented me for the rest of my life’.
I know this story, I have heard it many times – how my mother sheltered from the blast in a secret hiding place, how my grandfather dragged her out from under the rubble, how she lay on the funeral pyre with black clay daubed over half her face.
The only thing I do not know is the meaning of the phrase that my mother asked me to relay to you if a miracle were to happen and we should meet.
That phrase is this: YOU CAN LOVE.
Boris Akunin
Boris Akunin was born in Tbilisi, in the Republic of Georgia, as Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili. His father was Georgian and his mother was Jewish, since 1958 he has lived in Moscow. Influenced by Japanese Kabuki theatre, he joined the historical-philological branch of the Institute of the Countries of Asia and Africa of the Moscow State University as an expert on Japan.Before he embarked on a life of crime writing, Grigory Chkhartishvili worked as an assistant to the editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature, but left in October 2000 to pursue a career as a fiction writer.
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[i]
‘That tickles!’ (Japanese).
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[ii]
‘Stop!’ (Japanese)
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[iii]
A measure of weight equal to 3.75 kilograms
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[iv]
In Japanese, ‘tanuki’ means badger
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[v]
‘Stop!’ (Japanese)
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[vi]
‘Welcome’ (Japanese)
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[vii]
Company commanders, company commanders, company commanders! (Japanese)
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[viii]
‘Speak! Who are you? Who sent you?’ (distorted Japanese)
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[ix]
‘See this?’ (Japanese)
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[x]
‘Masa, get Asagawa here, quickly!’ (distorted Japanese)
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[xi]
In the English style (French)
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[xii]
‘You’re not going. I’m going alone’ (distorted Japanese)
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[xiii]
‘To protect O-Yumi. Understand?’ (distorted Japanese)
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[xiv]
‘Bring him’ (Japanese)
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[xv]
‘In ten years, Tokyo is nothing. Real power is the provinces. Real power is Mr Tsurumaki. Japan is not Tokyo. Japan is the provinces’ (distorted English)
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[xvi]
‘Rope’ (Japanese)
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[xvii]
‘Let’s go!’ (Japanese)
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[xviii]
‘Again’ (Japanese)
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[xix]
‘Attack!’ (Japanese)
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[xx]
Hidden village (Japanese)
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[xxi]
In Japanese neko-chan means ‘little cat’
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[xxii]
Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Jodo sect of the school of the Way of the Pure Land
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[xxiii]
A unit of area (0.033 m3)
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[xxiv]
A unit of length (1.81m)