Surrounding us, on all sides, was a large tract of war-torn disarray, pockmarked with lagoons of dark, odorous water. I could make out methane gas in the air.
Someone, sight unseen, plucked at a guitar, and I heard mosquitoes buzzing about. At my feet was an abandoned, half-buried doll. Enclosing the open space were the shells of dozens of broken and shattered houses—in which life was starting to return.
I lifted the doll and shook it down. ‘I wonder if the owner is still alive? Hopefully, she more simply grew out of it. All this reminds me of some Akira Kurosawa films I saw, from his gritty urban phase, post-World War Two.’
‘Over fifty percent of Tokyo looked the same,’ I heard Kohana pipe up, ‘in 1946—levelled. All Kurosawa-san had to do was lug his camera crew outside the studio, and take some footage.’
In the middle of this eyesore, my grandfather was playing cricket.
Kohana had propped herself up on a broken wooden fruit crate, reclining back in the weak winter sun.
She had her hair tied back loosely, a single pink flower tucked behind the left ear, very little makeup, and she was wearing a short-sleeve white shirt tucked into beige, boyish shorts.
I thought she showed too much leg.
Her feet were tucked into brown American-style open-toe platform high heels, with ankle straps, that looked more dangerous than the geta wooden clogs she wore as a geisha.
Every now and then, she leaned forward to cheer and applaud some on-debris shenanigans.
Out there in the rubble, Pop ran about with a group of happily shouting children, dressed in rags. He had a prodigious smile plastered across his face.
He had donned an oversized white v-neck cricket jumper, turned grey from the dust and mud, as well as long khaki shorts, and shoes without socks. His army slouch hat was stuck on the back of his head.
After catching something in his bare hands, he cursed—it obviously hurt—and then, straight after, held up the object, and whooped.
It may have been a primitive version of cricket, but I did eventually recognize the game. For starters, the willow bat was real enough.
‘He borrowed it from one of his mates,’ disclosed Kohana.
The ‘ball’, however, was an endless supply of lumps of rock or concrete, each one replaced when it was accidentally knocked into a rancid pond. There was some hefty surface damage being done to the borrowed willow.
‘The kids here loved it when Les dropped by. He had so much time for the children—sometimes he forgot all about me, to entertain them.’
Kohana put one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand. ‘It’s a terrible thing when you become jealous of people no higher than your hip bone.’