8-Fold Path
Luxury is our enemy! Yet another slogan emblazoned in red on the street banner was everywhere in Hiroshima and probably Japan, Chiemi guessed. It was generated and distributed by the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement, which the government established in 1937 but only in the 1940s was coming into prominence. They propagated the idea that Western decadence, baseball, movies, and especially jazz, made the Japanese forget their true nature. War was necessary to restore the pure spirit of sacrifice within the people. The Emperor was Japan and everyone must be loyal to Him to bring glory to the country.
Other mantras appeared on posters. Follow the Example of the War Dead; Increase Production; Our Homeland is a Battlefield too; Success is Determined by Character and Strength of Mind.
Some repeated the phrases in daily conversation; others recited them loudly in the streets. Chiemi turned away from them.
***
Chiemi sat in front of the butsudan trying to meditate, but she instead gazed at the black-and-white photographs contained within the home altar. Her father’s forlorn face, Hideki’s picture with so much optimism in his eyes, and grandparents and unknown elder uncles and aunts, maybe cousins. No photos or paintings of the warrior ancestors. She thought about Chisato and felt the tears drip down her cheeks.
She didn’t know her husband’s fate, sniffing at the thought. She always held her children close to her, their warm bodies comforting her.
The papers were full of military victories all over the South Pacific; that too she sneered at. Instead, she depended on rumour and private publications, distributed by anonymous people in the streets, to know the truth. She never knew where the information came from; she always looked side to side and behind for fear of arrest.
The walls of Japan were buckling.
Food was becoming scarce. The enemy navy sank so many supply ships surrounding Japan. They patrolled like sharks. Rice was abandoned for millet altogether. Enough could not be grown for the population and importation was now impossible. There was also the possibility of the bombing of the rice fields. Fishing boats no longer went out for fear of submarine attack. Vegetables were scrounged, dandelions and other weeds took their place. Spent fish, spoiled meat, and once discarded vegetable stalks and leaves were reused for soup stock. Fortunately, she and her mother had pickled cucumbers and cabbage in the last few years. And their supply of dried fish was still plentiful.
She constantly worried for the children in the compound. How would they grow without adequate nutrition? It was all part of the Americans’ Operation Starvation, primarily aimed at the military, but affecting the civilian population as well.
***
The oil and scrap metal embargoes, the frozen assets overseas, and the shipping blockade all served to strangle the economy. Despite these strictures, the success of the air and sea operations, and the steady takeover of Japanese bases in the Pacific, the military leaders refused to surrender. They could see everyone, men, women, and children, fighting in the street to beat back an Allied invasion.
The numbers of dead were becoming all too real for Chiemi. Death was no longer meaningless. She held onto the words of a sermon by Sensei Fujita, delivered the last time she went to the temple to seek comfort, if not advice.
The autumn moon of the Buddha over Nirvana is hidden behind the clouds full of...trouble. Nobody remains to jolt us awake from this long, dark dream of birth, death, and rebirth. In the not-too-distant past, there was an emperor who embraced the Three Jewels of the Dharma and showed benevolence towards His subjects. He happened to have an inspired dream, and for the sake of peace in the realm, He built a magnificent temple. The temple was destroyed in a fit of vanity by local peasants. Our reigning Emperor deeply regretted its destruction and wishes to erect a temple of temples. It will be a lotus among sacred lotus flowers. And peace will reign.
Though he didn’t mention the war, some considered such talk treasonous, but Chiemi saw the wisdom in the words. She brought her hands together before the ancestors, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and clapped her hands before saying,
I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Dharma; I take refuge in the Sangha.
The Three Jewels
But there were few left to form a Sangha. She lit the incense in front of the butsudan, the family altar, and recited the phrase again and again.
***
At the beginning of 1945, the Americans staged an invasion of the Ogasawara Archipelago and Iwo Jima, specifically.