Number 9 dream Page 0,121

Seas is a very low priority, so do not be discouraged if you hear nothing. This evening, a 4-day leave was announced for the Kikusui Group men, before we depart for the target zone.

20th October

Clear day, refreshing breezes. Good fortune begets good fortune. During dinner, Cmdnt Ujina broadcast the evening news over the camp speakers, and we heard of the extraordinary kamikaze successes in the Philippines yesterday. Five American aircraft carriers and six destroyers sunk! In a single wave! Surely even the American savages will realize the hopelessness of invading the home islands. Lt Kamibeppu stood on his bench and proposed a toast to the souls of the brave aviators who had given their lives to our beloved Emperor Hirohito. Rarely have I heard such a moving speech. ‘Pure spirit, or metal? Which is the stronger? Spirit will buckle metal, and blast it with holes! Metal can no more damage pure spirit than scissors can cut a rope of smoke!’ I confess, I imagined the day when similar toasts shall be drunk to our souls.

28th October

Light rain today. The new I-333 kaitens became operational today. They handle more smoothly than the training kaitens. After a longer-than-expected test session, I ran back through the rain across the exercise ground and nearly collided with Kusakabe, who was leaning against the supply shed, staring intently at the ground. I asked him what had caught his attention so. Kusakabe pointed at a puddle, and spoke softly. ‘Circles are born, while circles born a second ago live. Circles live, while circles living a second ago die. Circles die, while new circles are born.’ A very Kusakabe comment. I told him he should have been born a wandering poet-priest. He said maybe he was, once. We watched the puddles for a while.

2nd November

The dying heat of 1944. I just returned from Nagasaki for the final time. Those memories are yours too, so I have no need to describe them here. I can still taste Mother’s yokan and Yaeko’s pumpkin tempura. The train journey took a long time because the engine constantly broke down. The military carriage was commandeered by a high-ranking party of officers, so I travelled with a carriage full of refugees from Manchukuo. Their stories of the Soviets’ cruelty and their Chinese servants’ treachery were terrible. How grateful I am that Father never joined the colonists over the past two decades. One girl younger than you was travelling alone to find an aunt in Tokyo. This was her first time in Japan. Around her neck was an urn. It contained the ashes of her father, who died in Mukden, her mother, who died in Karafuto, and her sister, who died in Sasebo. She was afraid she would fall asleep and miss Tokyo, which she imagined was a small place like her frontier town. She believed she could find her aunt by asking people. At Tokuyama I gave her half my money, wrapped in a handkerchief, and left before she could refuse. I fear for her. I fear for all of them.

‘Golems,’ I explain, lying showered and naked in after-midnight capsule darkness with Ai on the other end of the phone, ‘are totally different to zombies. Sure, they are both undead, but you mould golems from graveyard mud in the image of the dead man buried below, and then you inscribe his rune on the torso. You can only kill golems by erasing the rune. Zombies you can easily decapitate, or set alight with a flamethrower. You make them from body parts, usually stolen from a morgue, or else you simply reanimate semi-rotten corpses.’

‘Is necrophilia a compulsory subject in Kyushu high schools?’

‘I work in a video shop now. I have to know these things.’

‘Change the subject.’

‘Okay. What to?’

‘I asked you first.’

‘Well, I always wanted to know what the meaning of life is.’

‘Eating macadamia-nut ice cream and listening to Debussy.’

‘Answer seriously.’

Ai hums as she changes position. ‘Your question is seriously wrong.’

I imagine her lying here. ‘What should my question be, then?’

‘It should be “What is your meaning of life?” Take Bach’s Well-Temper’d Clavier. To me, it means molecular harmony. To my father, it means a broken sewing machine. To Bach, it means money to pay the candlestickmaker. Who is right? Individually, we all are. Generally, none of us is. Are you still thinking about your great-uncle and his kaiten?’

‘I guess. His meaning of life seemed rock-solid valid.’

‘To him, yes. Sacrificing your life for the vainglory of a military clique isn’t my idea of “valid”, but to