Air raid sirens were blaring and a dark, empty street beckoned.
‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake. Are we back here—again?’
I leaned against a bamboo pole on the street corner, as I’d now lost both the sofa and stool—and then decided to go for a walk to exercise my legs.
There was always that alley a few houses down from Kohana’s okiya, the one I had a hankering to explore. I considered strolling straight in, but Kohana’s arm barred me.
‘Not there.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t get distracted. It’s not the reason we’re here.’
‘Well, what are we doing?’
‘You’re so impatient.’
‘Absurd. I’m far more bored, and annoyed.’
‘And I pray for considerate.’
Aside from distant buzzing and the loud bawl of the sirens, I could make out light chatter. This time, a few other people had ventured outdoors, moving slowly here and there around us.
‘Friends of yours?’
Kohana skipped the question. ‘Most people had become accustomed to nightly visits by the B-29s, since in practice they dropped few or no bombs, so we paid scant attention to the sirens this specific evening.’
I decided to play along. Perhaps if I did, it would be easier for me to get to the bottom of things—and then get back to the hovel for a spot of bed rest.
‘All right. What’s the date?’
‘March 9, 1945, almost March 10.’
This didn’t ring any bells—and since we were in Tokyo, there was no need to get over-excited about atomic antics.
‘No,’ Kohana agreed, interpreting my train of thought, ‘but more people will die tonight than at either Nagasaki or Hiroshima, where the atom bombs were dropped six months later. Those B-29s you hear up there are on their way over to kill a hundred thousand of my neighbours.’
‘One hundred thousand?’ I stared at her. ‘You’re pulling my leg?’
‘The master of the appropriate comeback,’ she muttered. ‘Sadly, I’m pulling nobody’s leg. I may be off in my stats—you can give or take twenty thousand. No one knows for sure. The exact figures are unknown, probably because a lot of people simply disintegrated.’
‘Here? Tonight?’
‘Now.’