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“Yes, we’re trying to piece together his story. He was one of the highest-ranking Japanese prisoners of war in Australia and New Zealand. But we’re having a difficult time creating a coherent account of his time before being captured or during his imprisonment. All we have about his stay in the camp was the account of his illness, and later his death, from the camp physician’s records. There are no real details.”
“I am afraid there is not much I can tell you about his time before the war. He was already in the service when I was born in 1939 and was gone most of the time on one campaign or another. I only have the vaguest memories of him.”
“But surely you looked into his life as you grew up?”
Chiyoko shook her head. “After the war, there was no real mechanism in place to do so. The country was busy reinventing itself as it rebuilt, with no interest in revisiting the past. I did spend a little time investigating him when I was in college, but it was like chasing ghosts. There were no records left—almost nothing to go on.”
“Did he have any siblings? Anyone he was close to?”
“Yes. A sister.” Chiyoko swallowed hard before continuing. “She raised me. But she passed away twenty years ago. The only things she could tell me about my father were that he was a very brave, honorable man who died doing his duty and that he had been a scholar and a fine husband to my mother, who also passed away during the war.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Remi said in a soft voice.
“It is still hard to talk about even after all these years. I was six. The Allies bombed Tokyo regularly, but in the final days of the war there was a huge firebombing campaign that destroyed whole residential neighborhoods.” Chiyoko stopped and drew a ragged breath. “She was caught in the fires. I was lucky. She wasn’t.”
“It must have been terrible,” Remi said.
“Nothing I say can describe it. Miles of Tokyo burned to ashes. Over a million lost their homes, and it’s said that over a hundred thousand civilians died. My mother one of them.” When Chiyoko looked Remi directly in the eyes, they were moist, the pain still fresh. “It was a vision of hell I’ll never forget. Nobody who went through it could.”
“I’m . . . I’m so sorry, Chiyoko,” Remi whispered.
“It was a long time ago. Regrettable acts were committed on all sides. I’m grateful to have lived, and that there has never been another war like it. I grew up and lived in a time of relative peace and prosperity. A rebirth of Japan as a world power, but without the need to conquer militarily. A better time, I think.”
Remi sat silently for several moments before she spoke. “What about photographs? Letters?”
“Most were lost in the fires. Although I do have some very old ones that my aunt salvaged. I’m not sure they would be of any help. Mostly, him as a young man.” Chiyoko hesitated. “Would you like to see them?”
“That would be wonderful,” Remi said. Chiyoko stood and left the room, and Sam gave Remi a hopeful look. She returned several minutes later, carrying a cardboard box. Sam leapt to his feet and approached her.
“Please. Let me help you.”
Chiyoko reluctantly handed him the box. “Thank you. It’s easy to forget that I’m not as fit as I once was. Time is a thief. It steals our memory, our hopes, and our strength, leaving only the sense there’s never enough of it.” She pointed to the low table in the center of the room with a scarred hand. “You can put the box there.”
Sam complied and sat beside Remi again, watching as Chiyoko removed several tiny metal picture frames. She stared at them for a long moment and then handed them to Remi.
“These are the best ones. My father as a young boy, then as a student, graduating from university. And that one is his wedding photograph. That is the only one I have of my mother.”
Remi and Sam gazed at the picture. A stern-faced young man stood by his diminutive bride, who seemed to glow in the faded black-and-white picture. Remi gasped as she held the frame. “Oh my . . . she was breathtaking.”
“Yes, she was considered a great beauty. My aunt reminded me all the time.” Chiyoko’s voice was oddly flat. She lifted a final frame from the box and passed it to Remi with trembling fingers. “This last one is my favorite—I keep it by my bed. It was taken by his sister at the cherry blossom festival in Arashiyama before the war with America began. She said that the trees bloomed late that year because it had been an especially cold winter. They were there on the final day before the blossoms began falling. She said when they did, it was like the air was filled with pink snow.”
Remi and Sam studied the photograph of the martial Kumasaka in uniform, staring off into the distance beneath a canopy of cherry blossoms, figures in the background adorned in traditional Japanese garb. The image had an otherworldly quality to it, something from a different era. They both regarded it with intense concentration, trying to reconcile the accounts of a savage monster with the serious man in the shot, about mid-thirties, his profile pensive. Sam noted the insignia—Kumasaka was already a colonel by that point, already a veteran of Japan’s foray into China, which had begun in 1937 with the start of the bloody Second Sino-Japanese War.
“Do you know anything about your father’s service? His involvement with Unit 731 or the Meiji Corps?” Remi asked.
Chiyoko lo
oked confused. “I’ve never heard of either. Do they have some significance?”
“They’re army groups that were involved in medical research.”
“Medical? My father was a soldier, not a doctor.”
“He had a degree in microbiology.”
“Yes, but he became a career officer. He never put the degree to use. It was a strange time, according to my aunt. Many educated Japanese pursued military careers instead of their trained professions.”
“Do you know anything about what he did in the army?”