Three, Three, Nine

by Pauline Marie Morris

Chiyo smiled as she ran her long, slender fingers over the emakimono’s surface. The dried paint swirled around her hand drawn illustrations. She could feel the subtle, uneven layers, color over color until she granted its perfection. Songbirds chirped happily outside the open window. It was so good to see the sun again. The vivid blue of the sky was set perfectly apart from the rounded clouds, floating on the fingertips of the wind.

Returning to the emakimono, she surveyed her work. The hand scroll was finally complete. She spent days working on the intricate details. It didn’t compare to her Sobo’s work but she knew it would appeal to Isamu’s love of history. The emakimono, the horizontal scroll she chose to depict her and Isamu’s story, was beautiful. She held it with outstretched arms that were draped in the rose-colored kimono Isamu bought her and started on the right.

The sun was bright on the day Chiyo met Auntie, her nakodo, just moments before her very first omiai. Auntie didn’t smile when Chiyo bowed to greet her. Instead, she placed a Japanese azalea in her hair.

“May your future be bright,” Auntie whispered in Chiyo’s ear.

Chiyo wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to be her nakodo. No one knew her the way Auntie did. She remembered twirling round and round in Auntie’s garden. They would spread their arms wide, chasing butterflies or soaring like eagles. Those long summer evenings, just the two of them, warmed her heart.

“What’s he like?” Chiyo whispered back. But before Auntie could answer, Chiyo straightened, feeling a sharp tug on her kimono.

“Okaasan.” Chiyo turned around and bent deeply at her waist.

She could feel her mother’s critical eye roving over every inch of her. Her hair, her clothing, her skin. She would never be good enough. Chiyo straightened, pulling back her shoulders. She stared into the long line of tradition reflected in her mother’s eyes. Reflection bouncing off reflection, back one hundred, one thousand years. She shook it from her mind.

“Come.” Auntie placed a hand on the small of her back. “They are waiting.”

The women moved forward in fluid motion. Their small feet, hidden under blue, white and yellow kimonos, climbed the steps to the Grand Hotel. There weren’t many visitors these days. Auntie led the way through the expansive lobby and to a table in the dining area outside where she greeted the only three people on the terrace.

Chiyo stared at her feet, or where her feet would be, under the draping blue fabric. Her racing thoughts muffled the voices of her mother and Auntie. They were bowing. She felt the kimono tighten around her waist as she bent, head low. This was it. Chiyo lifted her face and looked into a pair of dark, round eyes. Dark hair framed his face, along with whispers of white.

Her eyebrows raised without detection. He was older than she expected. There were soft lines at the corners of his eyes and around the corners of his mouth... but that smile. She caught her breath as his grin grew. Her eyes darted to his parents; they were smiling too. Was she supposed to do something? Should she speak?

“Why don’t we walk in the garden?” Auntie suggested.

Chiyo nodded, following the still smiling man down the terrace steps. Auntie and the parents fell into step a few meters behind them. Chiyo felt the sun on her neck as they walked the path between the lush green foliage and many colorful blossoms.

“I’m Isamu.” He ran a hand through his hair.

She turned away, pretending to admire the garden. “I’m Chiyo.” She looked back at him. He was definitely older. She couldn’t just ask him though, that would be insulting. But she had to know.

“Do you count your age using kazoe or man nenrei?” Chiyo could feel the fire in her eyes.

Isamu held a hand to his midsection and let out a hearty laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Chiyo stopped and stared. What did she say?

With a quick glance backward, Isamu leaned closer to her. She could feel his breath against her cheek.

“I’m thirty-five.” His voice was soothing to her ear.

“I’m sure I didn’t ask!” Chiyo held her hands together, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“You must be what, nineteen?” Isamu started walking again.

“Twenty!” Chiyo followed.

“I see. Well even though I am fifteen years your senior, I can assure you that I use the modern counting system. I’ll leave the kazoe to my parents.”

Chiyo smiled despite herself. He was clever. More than that, he was clever and chose not to follow the tradition that held her mother so far back in time. Her smile vanished. Her father was like him. He wanted to learn everything, do everything, experience everything that life had to offer.

“What’s wrong?” Isamu’s worried tone interrupted her thoughts.

She paused, unsure whether she should divulge this piece of herself. “You remind me of my father.”

Isamu nodded and stopped, picking a flower from a tall burgeoning bush. “Auntie told me he was killed in the war. I’m sorry.” He handed the flower to her. “You know,” he paused, tapping his fingertips together at his side. “We served together for a time.”

“You did?” Chiyo was stunned but ready to grasp at any connection to her father.

“Yes, just before...” Isamu tapped his left leg lightly.

“You were injured.” Chiyo ran her eyes over his leg, hidden behind his Jubon.

“Yes, they say I’m lucky I didn’t have to have it amputated. But I think I’m lucky my injury sent me home at that time. Otherwise...” his face grew grim.

Chiyo nodded, and brought the blossom close to her face, breathing it in. The scent of growth and rebirth surrounded her senses, taking her, encapsulating her in a floral dream world, with Isamu standing at its pistal.

Auntie was right, of course. Chiyo was not one to walk blindly into marriage, even though arranged marriages were still fairly common. But Chiyo realized that especially now, in this world of soldiers, the world that had taken her father and injured Isamu, the luxury of ren’ai was something that might not ever come her way. Marrying for love was a concept far removed from this world where life itself wasn’t guaranteed.

*

The spring blossoms came and went, giving way to the stifling, hot days of summer. Chiyo struggled to breathe through the pressure of the thick air and her own anxiety. It smothered her like a scarf, covering her painted face. She tried to claw it away, instead focusing on the many bouquets of flowers placed around the altar. The shinzen kekkon was small, intimate. It was not at all like the elaborate western style weddings Chiyo read about. But, in its own simple way, it was perfect. She could feel Isamu’s eyes on her, taking in her ceremonial shiromuku. A small table in front of the altar held fruits, water, sake and salt. Chiyo’s mother and Isamu’s parents stood nearby.

The priest purified the shrine and called upon the kami. Chiyo’s heart, full as it was, ached a little, as the image that repeatedly plagued her flashed again through her mind. Her father was in a swamp, on an island somewhere, surrounded by soldiers. A typhoon of bullets flew past him from every direction. There was no escape.

Chiyo pulled herself back to the present, hearing the voice of the priest, announcing the san-san-ku-do ceremony, three, three, nine. Isamu was smiling at her. It was that same broad grin that softened her feisty demeanor only months earlier. He looked handsome in his hakama shirt and jacket and stood tall wearing his family crest with honor. Isamu drank from the small cup of sake and handed it to her. Chiyo took a small sip, curling her red lips over the rim, savoring the sweet rice wine.

Chiyo took the second cup from the priest and brought it to her lips before handing it to Isamu. He sipped it, eyes locked onto hers. She felt the seconds tick by, surrounded by quiet and only exhaled when the priest gave Isamu the final cup from which he drank before offering to her. The ritual was repeated three times. Three cannot be divided in two.

With each sip of sake, Chiyo drifted farther and farther back in time. She was sitting with her father on the hillside, overlooking the city. The air was getting cold as the sun set but her father pulled her close to him, his warm arm wrapped around her small frame.

“You can see heaven and earth here, Chiyo.” A light breeze brought out the pink of her cheeks.

“It’s pretty.” She looked out over the expanse.

“It can be. The world is what we make of it.”

Chiyo replaced the cup of sake and approached the altar, Isamu at her side. His eyes were warm as he spoke, reciting his vows. He thanked Auntie, Chiyo’s heart thanked her too, for giving her this gift of marriage to a man like Isamu. It may not have been ren’ai, but over the last few months, Chiyo felt that early inclining of attraction and affection blossom into something deeper. Isamu was a soldier, like her father had been. He treated her with kindness and was always ready to match her wit. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t found each other on their own.

They were together now. Chiyo’s mother, Isamu’s parents, Chiyo and Isamu lifted their sake and drank.

“Kanpai!”

Chiyo ran her fingertips over the emakimono’s final illustration, depicting three glasses of sake. Isamu should have been home already. Her heart leapt at the thought of his broad grin when she gave him the emakimono. He told her to wait for him at home, but she waited far too long already. Besides, the day was beautiful, and the air was quiet. He didn’t need to worry.

Leaping up, Chiyo wrapped the emakimono in a white scarf and held it tight to her chest as she ran out the door of their minka. It was small, but it would be a beautiful home for their children. Just down the hillside, Isamu was making his way to meet her, cane in hand.

“Isamu!” She called, running toward the large concrete wall that surrounded their home.

Isamu looked up and smiled his broad grin as he waved up at her. Chiyo took a step forward then stopped as a familiar, heart stopping sound resonated in her ears. It was a plane. Chiyo’s wide eyes darted toward the sky, then back at Isamu. The ground shook beneath her.

“Isamu,” Chiyo whispered, seconds before a blinding white light surrounded her. It penetrated her senses, swallowing her whole. She was helpless to defend herself against the wall that knocked her backward. She fell to the ground, the back of her head making contact with the earth, uttering a gut wrenching, smack. Darkness surrounded her as she lost consciousness.

“Isssamu,” Chiyo groaned, rolling on her side. One arm still clutched the scarf wrapped package. She tried to sit up but it felt like one thousand needles were sticking into her skin. One particularly sharp needle sent a searing pain up her side. She felt the sticky, flowing blood before she saw it. A large triangular piece of glass was sticking deep into the skin, fat, and muscle just above her hip.

“Aghhhh!” she screamed, pulling it from her flesh. The concrete wall was in pieces. Behind her, their minka had fallen, as if it were stepped on by a passing giant. Shattered glass littered the ground around it and flames licked what was left of the rooftop. Chiyo’s body roared with pain but she pushed it away, thinking only of Isamu. Unsheltered limping, waving, Isamu. She pulled herself forward, across the devastated earth. Shards of glass created new holes in her skin as she made her way to the crumbling, concrete wall. Chiyo gasped. All of the pain she felt before now felt like butterfly kisses compared to the pain that began deep inside, a small ball of incomprehension that grew into disbelief, then finally into abject horror as her mind accepted what her eyes told her brain to see. Every hair stood on end, every muscle tense. She wanted to scream but could only stare, motionless and afraid.

The sky looked as if it had been painted with muddy water, creating swirls of other worldly purple and gray. Plumes of smoke rose from the city below, adding to the growing darkness. Homes and buildings lay in ruins as flames erupted as far as she could see. The air carried the devastated screams and wails of the civilians below and far in the distance, Chiyo saw an altar still standing, but surrounded by debris. Her home was gone.

Chiyo pulled herself upward, leaning on a large chunk of broken concrete. She had to find Isamu. Every step brought more pain as she limped down the hill. Blood oozed down her side. She shook her head to rid herself of the light, airy feeling that was beginning to replace her ability to stand.

Movement startled her about ten meters ahead. Gasping, she fell to the ground.

“Waater. Waaater.”

The chilling chorus was coming from a small group walking ahead of her. Chiyo suppressed the urge to vomit. Blood and pus spilled from their melting flesh. Skin hung down like loose clothing and eyeballs glowed inside their sockets as the group continually called, “Waaaateeerr.”

She watched in horror as, one by one, they fell into the river. There were so many. People – but not people. Bodies, living, breathing, dying bodies! She didn’t think she could be any more frightened but then, a soft melody reached her ears. They were singing.

Blood spilled from her side as she squeezed the scarf wrapped package close to her. The white silk was now a vibrant and alarming red. This couldn’t be happening. There were no alarms. People left the shelters. The Americans couldn’t do what they had done only three days prior in Hiroshima. They couldn’t bomb Nagasaki!

Chiyo ran forward, past the train of melting bodies, eyes roving frantically over the landscape, searching for a body that was not reminiscent of the horrors behind her, searching for just one person whose flesh wasn’t burning, or whose eyes didn’t glow. She had to find Isamu! Where was he just before the light? She couldn’t picture it. She couldn’t picture anything but melting flesh and even that was becoming fuzzy. The pain was lessening but replacing it was an even more concerning numbness as her body began to reject this new reality.

Body after body, dead, dying. No Isamu. She fell to her knees. Chiyo was fading but could see a figure ahead of her. A man lay at the edge of the road. He didn’t call to her or even move. He just lay still on his back, facing upward, as if he were watching the clouds go by.

“Isamu?” Chiyo called weakly.

She pulled herself over to the body and unwrapped the blood-stained scarf. She held the emakimono to her chest. The man was tall and muscular. What was left of his dark hair held whispers of white. But his face had congealed into one grotesque, unidentifiable mask.

“Isamu.” Chiyo let out one final desperate gasp and fell onto his unmoving chest.

The emakimono fell beside her.

Chiyo and Isamu lay amidst a devastated city, dying along with thirty-nine thousand others that day. Twenty-five thousand more were wounded. The Hibakusha, although they survived, paid a price for their survival, experiencing much higher rates of leukemia and other cancers relating to radiation exposure with effects being felt by generations to come.

Chiyo’s fingers trembled as she drew her last breath, reaching toward the flames that were beginning to singe the edges of the emakimono. Her eyes dimmed as she stared at the three cups she and Imasu drank from only days before.

Isamu took the first cup. His parents, her parents, Isamu and Chiyo. Sip, sip, sip.

Chiyo wrapped her small hands around the second cup. Three human flaws. Hatred, passion, ignorance. Sip, sip, sip.

Isamu drank from the final cup. Freedom from the three human flaws. Sip, sip sip.

Chiyo and Isamu died on August 9, 1945. The Japanese, the Americans and the atom bomb. Sip, sip, sip.