Page 39 of Daikon
TWENTY
NORIKO KAN WAS LUCKY SHE wasn’t lying alongside the train tracks, her neck broken, a leg snapped, an arm twisted under her at an impossible angle. She was lucky the conductor hadn’t thrown her from the train.
She hadn’t known what she was doing when she staggered away from the prison, driven off by the Toad, a trickle of blood down the back of her neck where the Tokkō captain’s sword had broken the skin.
The shock and confusion cleared only slowly as she hurried down the road, instinctively heading away from the outskirts of an unknown town, fleeing into the countryside, fields on both sides.
Every time she passed someone, a farmer in a paddy, a man with a cart, a half-dozen soldiers, she expected to be stopped and questioned and marched back to prison.
But no one accosted her. She continued on, unmolested, a half-starved wraith no one bothered to notice, a ghost on the edge of a tattered society exhausted by war.
The road crossed railway tracks. She paused to consider, forcing herself to be logical, to think clearly.
The sun was too high to give her a clear sense of direction.
The surrounding terrain, however, was flat, suggesting she was near the sea.
And those low hills toward which the road was heading—they would rise inland, away from the coast. So that direction was west. And the railway tracks angling off to the left were heading generally northeast and southwest.
She decided to follow the tracks—southwest, for she did not want to return to the town she had just fled. They continued straight, passing fields of ripening rice, plots of cabbage and leeks and daikon radishes, the occasional farmhouse.
After a time, her strength fading, she came to a stream.
A heap of withered cabbage leaves lay on the bank.
Someone had washed cabbages here after harvesting, discarding the coarse outer pieces.
Realizing with a pang that she was desperately hungry, she began poking through the mass and eating whatever wasn’t spoiled, chewing on the left side of her mouth, for her teeth on the right side were sore.
Somewhat revived, she washed the blood from her neck and combed her tangled hair with her fingers.
Then she forced herself to stand up and move on.
She had walked no more than a kilometer when a scattering of buildings appeared up ahead, then a small country station, a sagging open-air shelter of gray boards.
Uchihara, the faded sign read. The name meant nothing to her.
An elderly man was dozing on a bench, his arm protectively around a burlap sack bulging with produce. Noriko steeled herself and approached.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Where is this place?”
The man sleepily opened his eyes and swiveled his head toward her. “Uchihara,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know it. I’m lost.”
The man raised his chin toward the tracks.
“Joban Line.”
The Joban Line. Noriko felt her heart soar. The Joban Line left Tokyo’s Ueno Station, heading north. She must be in Ibaraki Prefecture.
“Excuse me, but which way is Tokyo?”
The man raised his chin down the tracks in the direction Noriko had been walking. She wanted to ask more questions— How far is it to Tokyo? When is the next train? —but she didn’t dare. She retreated to the other side of the shelter, placing a wall between herself and the man, facing the road.
Ueno Station. That was only a short distance from the home she had left in June for her final fateful trip to the NHK Building downtown.
The realization swept away the last of her confusion.
For whatever reason, she had been released from prison to make her way home.
To return there, she had to continue on down these tracks to Ueno.
She had no money, no travel certificate, no ration book, no identifying papers to show.
But somehow she had to traverse these tracks to Ueno.
The train, a crowded local, chugged into view an hour later, as the sun was sinking behind the trees.
Noriko climbed up the steps into the rearmost carriage but didn’t try to find a seat.
She remained standing near the stinking toilet as the train laboriously built up speed, considering the possibility of slipping back out the door and climbing up onto the roof when the conductor appeared, if she had the strength.
The train reached the next local stop, then the next, and still no conductor.
Finally exhaustion forced her to sit on the floor and rest her head on her knees.
A nudge from the toe of a boot roused her. She had fallen asleep.
“Ticket.”
Noriko scrambled to her feet and stood before the conductor.
“Where are you going?” he said, eyeing her with suspicion. She was ragged and looked like a tramp.
“Ueno Station,” she stammered. She was trembling now.
“Do you have money to pay for a ticket?”
Noriko stood frozen before him, her head bowed.
“No.”
“So you’re stealing.” The conductor seized her arm and turned her toward the door. “Riding the train without a ticket is stealing.”
Noriko’s legs gave out. She crumpled to her knees, a pathetic figure. The conductor looked down at her with disgust.
He left her where she was until the next stop, then ordered her off the carriage.
She set out following the train, which had now disappeared, on and on until it was twilight. She had no energy left now. She needed rest and something to eat.
She wandered away from the tracks, following a raised path between fields of golden grain, soon ready for harvest. She tried stripping one of the drooping heads—it was barley—but found it impossible to eat the coarse handful.
She paused to scour the low bank on either side of the path, looking for edible greens.
She found nothing. Then she spotted a glow in the distance, the flickering light of a building. She made her way toward it.
It was a thatched-roof farmhouse, lantern light showing through oiled-paper windows.
And off to the side, a garden plot: daikon radishes and mustard spinach and sweet potatoes, leeks and cabbages and onions all in a jumble.
Could she take something and slip away? She was sorely tempted but she was also afraid.
There had been reports in the newspapers of farmers beating thieves to death.
But if she just took something and quickly went away—
A dog started barking. It was tied at the back of the house. She hadn’t seen it. The sudden noise breaking the silence made her heart race. She turned to flee, but something told her not to.
She approached the front of the farmhouse, the dog now apoplectic. She knocked on the door.
It was opened by a woman with a creased, sun-darkened face.
“Please,” Noriko said quickly before the door could be closed. “I’m very hungry. Please give me something to eat. I have no money, but please…”
The woman stared at her, suspicious. “Shiro!” she bawled at the dog. “Be quiet!”
The barking abated to whines.
“Please,” Noriko repeated, her eyes downcast. “I’m going to Tokyo. I can’t go on without something to eat. Please.”
The woman continued to look her up and down, deciding.
“Wait there,” she finally said, pointing to a bench against the wall under the eaves. She disappeared inside, sliding the door closed.
Noriko eased herself down and leaned back against the wall of the farmhouse, listening to the woman moving about and conversing with someone inside. “A beggar,” she heard her say. Then a male voice, too low to make out.
The door opened.
“Here,” said the woman, thrusting out a bowl. “Leave it there when you’re finished and go.”
It was a small battered metal basin, the sort scraps would be put in to serve to the dog.
Noriko bowed low and expressed her thanks and took the bowl with both hands.
It contained a scoop of barley and rice in the remains of a fish stew.
She forced herself to eat slowly, sitting alone in the darkness.
The door opened again, letting out the lamplight. A grizzled older man emerged, squatting in the doorway to watch Noriko eat.
“Catfish,” he said, gesturing toward her bowl. “I caught it.”
Noriko bowed. “Thank you. It’s delicious.”
The man gazed out into the night for a time. Then: “Do you know where Hiroshima is?”
“It’s in Chugoku,” said Noriko. “On the western end of Honshu.”
“Ah, a long way off, then. I heard a strange rumor about it today. Something about a—”
“Close the door!” the woman bawled from inside. “You’re letting in mosquitoes!”
The man’s whole body contracted into a ball of rage, which he vented into the night with a bellow: “Be quiet!” Then he obediently pulled his head back in and closed the door.
Noriko finished her meal in the dark, listening to the couple bickering inside. Fatigue was overtaking her now. She wanted nothing more than to curl up on the ground and go to sleep, but she knew that she couldn’t, that the woman wanted her gone.
“Thank you,” she called out, setting the empty bowl on the veranda. “I’m leaving now.”
She made her way south, following another path that seemed to angle back toward the train tracks. She proceeded slowly and with care, for it was now fully dark under the barest sliver of moon. She knew she couldn’t go far, not in this blackness, not on the verge of dropping from fatigue.
She continued on until she came to the remains of a pine grove, most of the trees cut down. It did not provide much shelter, but there were a few patches of fallen needles that were soft. She found a comfortable spot against a gnarled trunk and sat down.