EARLIER THAT DAY, BUT EVENING IN TOKYO
‘Tsan, my beautiful boy,’ said Saina Yohoto. ‘I am so excited to go flying with you to see the stars. What a wonderful idea. I am a very lucky old woman. But I am worried, you look so very tired.’
Tsan Yohoto smiled. It was amusing to have a woman in her nineties worry about your health. And to be referred to as a boy, when you are in your seventies. Mothers will never change. Before the flying trip, he had taken Saina to her favourite restaurant, Bunkyo, near the National Museum.
‘Do not worry, my darling mother,’ he replied. ‘It has just been the strain of arranging my departure from Yamoura. And there has been a lot of work in connection with this.’ He tapped his finger on the picture of himself on the cover of Time magazine, which lay on the table. He had been telling her all about the great progress they were making in Africa.
‘My son, I am so proud of you. You and I have survived a lot together. But I think we can be proud of our efforts to bring healing and goodness into a dangerous world.’
‘Yes, Mother, and I thank you again, with all my heart, for everything you have taught me and for giving me the confidence and strength to pursue my goals in life.’
‘Thank you, Tsan, such beautiful words. I am sure that your father and Kendo and Lita are proud of the work we have done since they died.’
Tsan took the photograph of Kendo and Lita from his jacket pocket and gave it to his mother. He held her hand and they both felt tears in their eyes.
*
Thirty minutes later, mother and son were in Tsan’s Lexus LX heading south of Tokyo on the Daiichi-Keihin freeway.
‘Soon we will be closer to those stars, Mother,’ Tsan said, pointing at the gathering twilight, and she smiled. He pressed the play button on his steering wheel and a waltz soothed through sixteen speakers. Strauss was his mother’s favourite composer. Forty-five minutes took them to the northern outskirts of Yokohama. He was glad to note that it was a clear sky, as he took a left at a signpost for the Yokohama Flying Club. They were now driving due east, towards the sea. The security guard raised the barrier and saluted when he recognised Tsan Yohoto. The small private airfield was deserted. Tsan drove around the back of the hangars. Yes, there she is. Good, they left the extra fuel. He carefully helped his mother up the step into the plane and fastened her seat belt.
‘Hold tight, Mother,’ he joked, kissing her as he gently helped her put her headphones on. Then he used the seat belts to strap two of the four-gallon containers of aviation fuel into the back seats, placing the other two in the rear footwells. Tsan Yohoto climbed into the pilot’s seat, turned the key in the Cessna’s ignition one stop and checked that the tanks were full, as per his instructions. He started the engine and confirmed that they could hear each other through their headphones. After a two-minute warm up, he taxied out on to runway 07. No need for radio calls. There is no one in the tower at this time of night and we’re outside the zone of controlled airspace around Tokyo’s Kokusai Kuko airport. He opened the throttle wide and, ten seconds later, the wheels of the Skyhawk SP left the tarmac.
*
They crossed the coastline at an altitude of one thousand feet, heading due east. The Pacific Ocean lay ahead, flat and calm. His mother was transfixed by the beauty of the sparkling sky.
‘You’re right, Tsan, you really do feel much closer to the stars when you are flying.’
Once over the ocean, he turned right and took up a southwesterly heading. He allowed his height to climb as he crossed land again and they gasped at the splendour of Mount Fuji, soaring into the sky away to their right. He broke out over the ocean again near Osaka and then followed the coast, on his right-hand side, for another hour or so. Then his whole body began to tense.
The screen in front of him was now showing the town of Kure ahead, which was where he had lived with his mother after the bomb. Kure marks the edge of a headland and, after that landmark, Tsan Yohoto banked sharply right. Into Hiroshima Bay. His heart began to beat more quickly. He tried not to tense up on the controls. He checked his compass and turned slightly more to the right, to pick up an exact, north-northwesterly heading of two hundred and ninety degrees. His eyes filled with tears. He wanted to be on exactly the same heading as the Yankees in the Enola Gay as they had approached Hiroshima from Tinian Island.
‘Mother, I have great and important news to tell you.’
‘Are you okay, my son?’ Saina had noticed the tears in her son’s eyes.
‘Yes, Mother. This is a very important day for us. I have finally managed to take our full revenge on the Americans.’
‘What do you mean, Tsan?’ Saina said, her voice faltering.
‘I have been working on a great plan for many years now. All those deaths in New York – many, many thousands of them. That is my work.’
Saina’s eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘Yes,’ Tsan said proudly. ‘I tricked them. I tricked them into taking too many antibiotics, then I waited until the antibiotic resistance developed and last of all I gave them an infection that they cannot cure. My work is a fitting tribute to father and Kendo and Lita, and now we can join them to celebrate.’
Saina, barely able to comprehend what she was hearing, said, ‘Tsan, what are you saying? Are you mad? You cannot have killed all those people. It is murder!’
Tsan’s face crumpled. ‘Mother, surely you must feel proud of me? This is my dream fulfilled!’
‘Tsan, this is no dream. It is crazy!’ she shouted. ‘Take me back. Stop this madness!’
Tsan, shocked, shook his head. ‘No, Mother, it is too late.’ How could she not be delighted with my work?
‘Tsan. Stop. Stop. Please stop!’ His mother was now beating his side with her hands, but it was futile, and she soon simply sat in paralysed horror.
The tears flowed down Tsan’s face as a voice crackled over his headphones.
‘This is Hiroshima Control. Unidentified aircraft on two nine zero degrees heading to Hiroshima, please declare your identity and your intentions.’
In the tower at Hiroshima’s Kuko Airport, the controller had noticed the blip on his screen approaching Hiroshima’s airspace from over the bay. He tried again.
‘Hiroshima Control to unidentified aircraft over Hiroshima Bay. You are entering controlled airspace. Declare your identity and intentions.’
Tsan Yohoto did not reply and turned the volume on his radio down. He needed to concentrate. Suddenly, he cried aloud, ‘Ah, there it is!’ as the lights of Hiroshima appeared in the distance. He checked his heading again. Two hundred and ninety degrees. So, this was how the murdering bastards saw my city, before they destroyed it and my life. Before they killed my father, my brother, my sister.
He blinked away his tears and gasped again at the instantly recognisable view of the city. A navigator’s dream, he thought, grimly. The river, that is what they would have looked for. North of Hiroshima, the giant River Ota splits in two, and then divides again and again through the city until it bursts into the harbour in seven parallel channels, visible in the air from miles away. Tsan could imagine the Enola Gay navigator doing a last check of the river on his chart, before they dropped the bomb. A bomb they had thought it amusing to nickname ‘The Little Boy’. Tsan Yohoto was sobbing uncontrollably now and he thumped the door beside him in fury and despair. The tears in his eyes distorted his vision, as he flew on over the city centre.
‘Hiroshima control to unidentified aircraft over Hiroshima city. Identify yourself immediately and declare intentions. If you have radio transmission failure, turn on your transponder and squawk seven six zero zero. Over.’
Tsan Yohoto barely heard the increasingly alarmed voice in his headphones as he flew over the city, recognising landmarks. There were still some large empty plots, which had not yet been redeveloped.
Away to his right he noticed green navigation lights rising from the direction of the airport and turning towards him. Probably a police helicopter. Time to move. He banked away to the southwest, maintained his altitude of one thousand feet and checked on the GPS that he was on course. A few minutes later, he was over the southwestern suburbs. He slowed up to about seventy knots then reached back and unscrewed the lids on two of the fuel containers behind him. He dropped the lids into the footwell and began looking at the ground.
‘Hiroshima Control to unidentified aircraft. Identify yourself. Exit the control zone immediately.’
His mother summoned up the last of her energy and began to lash out at him again. ‘Tsan, Tsan,’ she cried. ‘My son, please stop!’
Suddenly, Tsan Yohoto’s heart almost exploded. He could see it. The park. The park. The park where they had been playing when the Yankees dropped the bomb.
Now he was a little boy again. He was lying on the ground, screaming in pain. His head spun in shock. Mother was beating his back. He was on fire. Why? Mother beat out the last of the flames and held him tight on the ground. He could hear Mother’s heart pounding in her chest. Together, the little boy and his mother turned around to find Kendo and Lita on the swings. The smell of burning flesh filled his nose.
In the cockpit of the plane, Tsan cried out. He could see swings in the park. He flung the control column forward and put the aircraft into a steep dive, aiming directly at the swings. The smell of burning flesh grew even stronger. He screamed aloud. His mother was screaming too.
‘Yankees, this is one “Little Boy” you’re never going to forget!’
The aircraft shuddered in protest and the wind howled past as the speed built and built. As the park filled his view, Tsan could see Kendo and Lita’s charred bodies on the swings. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and . . .