“Exactly, Saeki-san. But I’m not saying they were completely different. I just think that the volunteers had a stronger than average desire to dedicate their lives to their country to begin with.”
He had valid points. Maybe one couldn’t discuss conscripts and volunteers in the same terms. Had something within my grandfather made him consent to becoming a kamikaze? Why had he joined the Navy in the first place? Hasegawa had joined the Navy to escape from reality, and Ito had joined out of an admiration for the air corps. Had my grandfather also been a militant youth who yearned to become a pilot?
“By the way, I have a request for you, Kentaro. Will you allow me to write an article about you gathering information about your grandfather?”
“You want to write about me?”
“I could write about your sister, but I think a young man is preferable. I’m not sure yet what the final product will look like, but a young man hailing from a generation that knows nothing of war tracing the itinerary of his grandfather, who died as a kamikaze, and visiting former comrades is an extremely fascinating project.”
“I don’t know about that,” I tried to refuse.
“Why not do it, Kentaro?” Keiko butted in.
“Um, let me think it over.”
“Of course. Please take your time.”
After Takayama had left, I asked Keiko, “What the hell was that all about? A project about me? Was that the point of this meeting from the start?”
“No, Takayama-san came up with that today. He probably thought of it after I told him about our research.” She didn’t seem to be lying. “He has a crush on you, doesn’t he?”
Keiko didn’t deny it. She had always been popular with men. She was turning thirty this year, but looked much younger and was fairly attractive.
“Is he single?”
“Yes, but divorced.”
Keiko said she met Takayama at the beginning of the year through work. Thanks to his introduction, she got to do an article for the newspaper company’s weekly magazine. Naturally, it was Takayama who had recruited her for the sixtieth anniversary project too.
“He likes you. That’s why he’s doing you so many favors.”
“Don’t put it that way.”
“So what about you? Do you like him?”
“Hmm, I don’t really know. I don’t mind him. I think he’s quite a guy.”
“So he’s the one who hit on you?”
“Pretty aggressively, yeah,” she said and gave a forced laugh. “But I don’t really mind men being that way. Besides, I’m getting to the age where I should settle down, and I’ve got no objections to him as a potential spouse.”
“Sounds like a calculated marriage.”
Keiko looked annoyed by my remark. “There aren’t many men out there who are sympathetic to working women like me. For men, whom they marry might not have that much of an impact on their careers, but it’s a considerably more weighty decision for a woman. You could even say it’s the biggest job-related issue. Right? The type of man a woman marries determines what kind of work style and lifestyle she’ll be pursuing. So don’t call my being careful ‘calculating’!”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“That’s okay,” she quickly assured me. “Sorry for flaring up. But women like me who don’t jump right into it might be the permanent part-timers of the marriage world.”
Though she smiled as she said this, her expression was a little lonely.
On the weekend after meeting Takayama, my sister and I visited former Imperial Navy Flight Chief Petty Officer Genjiro Izaki.
Izaki was in a university hospital in the city. We had been contacted by his daughter. From the outset I planned on going along with Keiko on the interview; Ito’s story had really spurred my interest in researching my grandfather.
A woman in her fifties was waiting in the hospital lobby. “I’m Izaki’s daughter, Suzuko Emura,” she greeted us. “This is my son,” she also introduced a young man standing beside her.
He lazily jerked his chin out. He looked to be around twenty. His hair was dyed, and he wore a Hawaiian print shirt. In his left hand was a gaudily painted motorbike helmet.
“My father is quite ill, so he can’t talk for very long.”
“Please, we don’t want him to overexert himself,” Keiko said.
“He once told me about Miyabe-san. That it was only thanks to Miyabe-san that he was still alive.”
“Oh, really?”
“I ain’t heard nothin’ like that,” the young man said brusquely.
His mother ignored him. “My father was very surprised to hear from the veterans’ organization that Miyabe-san’s grandchild had contacted them.”
“He must’ve cried himself to sleep that night,” the young man mocked.
“My father is in poor health and the doctors have cautioned him against discussing anything that could upset him. But he ignored them and insisted on meeting you.”
“I’m sorry for all this trouble,” Keiko said, bowing her head deeply.
“Also, he wanted his grandson to hear what he had to say as well, which is why I’ve brought my son along. I hope that’s all right.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Whatta pain in the ass,” the punk-haired youth muttered, but his mother seemed not to have heard him.
Izaki had a private room. Upon entering, we found a skinny old man sitting upright on the bed.
“Father, should you really be sitting up?” Suzuko said in a fluster.
“I’m fine,” the old man responded in a sure voice. Bowing his head towards me and my sister, he said, “I am Genjiro Izaki. I apologize for my state of dress.”
He was referring to being in his pajamas. He stared at Keiko and me.
“To think I’d be able to meet Miyabe-san’s grandchildren after all these years…”
“I was born thirty years after his death,” Keiko said.
“I hear Miyabe-san died a kamikaze.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Izaki looked up at the ceiling. “In the past week since you contacted me, I’ve been recalling all sorts of things about Miyabe-san. I lay in bed remembering those days of the war, sixty years long gone, buried for over half a century at the very bottom of my memories. I’d forgotten plenty of things.” He turned to his grandson. “You listen to this, too, Seiichi.”
“Got nothin’ to do with me.”
“It doesn’t. But I still want you to hear it.”
Seiichi signaled his acquiescence with a wave of his hand.
Izaki turned back to us and righted his posture anew. “I first met Miyabe-san in Rabaul,” he began slowly.
I graduated from pilot training at Yatabe in Ibaraki Prefecture and was assigned to the Tainan Air Corps. That was in February 1942. I was twenty by the old reckoning, eighteen going by the Western style.
After graduating from higher primary school, I worked at a local silk mill. I joined the Navy when I was fifteen. The first year I was a gunner on the battleship Kirishima, but when I heard they were recruiting sailors to join the air corps, I went through pilot training and became part of the aircrew.
Why did I join the Navy?
Hmm, sometimes I wonder why. In those days, I’d have been drafted once I turned twenty anyways. I figured if I was going to join the military in any case, I preferred the Navy. The wages at the silk mill were meager, the work was grueling, and it had poor prospects. Looking back now, I think it’s strange that those were the reasons I joined the military when I could die by doing so. In those days it was pretty typical, but when I think back to it, I believe that poverty was behind my choice to join the Navy.