‘This is where you grew up, Okaasan?’
‘Yes. See how there’s a huge volcano on the water over there?’
‘Wow! It’s so big.’ The little boy’s eyes widened in wonder as he took in the mighty Mount Sakurajima.
‘There’s a lovely onsen nearby we’ll visit later, and I can tell you all about volcanoes. Would you like that?’
Nene held her son in her arms, Hisakichi at her side. It had been four years since she had last been to Kagoshima. Her father, with whom she had been exchanging letters ever since they had settled on the farm in Miyazaki, couldn’t wait to meet his first grandson.
Now they strolled along the riverbank towards the familiar town, the sea sparkling beyond the sloped roofs. The sakura blossoms were blooming, and a cherry ceiling shielded them from the spring sunshine. Pink-white petals fell like snow, and little Ichirō giggled when one landed on his nose.
Despite her excitement, nerves jangled through Nene. Hisakichi didn’t meet her father before they married. Her parents had dreamed of her marrying a samurai, but the noble warrior class was no more. Nene had married for love, and they now lived on a farm that she and her husband owned. It was everything she had ever dared to dream of, and more.
Hisakichi sensed her apprehension and scooped their young son into his arms. Hisakichi’s skin was darkened by working in the sun. He wore a simple robe on his shoulders. Their work on the farm was hard, but Nene had never been happier. Now they were together properly, instead of her having to sneak over to his farm or send Aiko-chan to pass letters between them like spies.
A dull ache weighed in her stomach at the memory of her dear friend, of holding her in her arms as she had breathed her last. It was something she would never forget. So many people Nene loved were gone. Hirayama Aiko, Maeda Keiichirō, MacKenzie Isla. Even after four years, she missed them all more than she could bear. She wished she could have introduced her son to them.
Keiichirō’s sister Kana had told her through a river of tears that her brother had perished on Mount Shiroyama alongside the last of the samurai. It was a brave death. Nobody knew what had happened to Isla. Her body was never found.
Isla’s claims that she was from a different time felt almost like a dream, and Nene wasn’t sure she believed it. Perhaps her Scottish friend had finally made it back to her homeland. Nene liked to believe that MacKenzie Isla was alive, somewhere out there. Maybe they would even see each other again someday.
Now, it was strange to return to where she had grown up, helping her merchant father sell fine cloths and farmer’s tools, thinking her path held a marriage with a young man she considered merely a friend when in fact her future had held something quite different. The town of Kagoshima still reeled from losing so many of its men in the war. Nene was glad her father had not joined the conflict that was swiftly becoming known as the Seinan Sensō, the War of the Southwest.
Just like Isla had tried to warn, it had been a massacre, a rout. The samurai had been doomed as soon as their great leader had departed from Kagoshima.
The town seemed emptier, somehow, without Saigō Takamori. He had been known and liked by even the lowliest of peasants. Although he was branded a traitor by the country, the Satsuma people’s love for him would never die.
‘Look at that,’ said Hisakichi as they came to a grassy slope that edged the river. Ichirō wriggled until he let him down, and the boy ran off on his chubby legs.
‘Be careful! Don’t get too close to the water,’ Nene called. Men liked to do rough and tumble with their sons, to teach them to fight and be brave from the moment they could walk, but Nene would wrap Ichirō in linen and hide him from the world if she could.
Ichirō stayed an obedient distance from the water’s edge, collecting fallen cherry blossoms. Nene followed Hisakichi’s gaze to see what he was staring at.
It was a little shrine made from stones, a primitive version of a grave, yet oddly charming.
Nene knelt to peer at it. Her merchant father had taught her to read and write, making it safe to send letters to the farm under the care of her illiterate fellow women. The two kanji characters carved clumsily into a long, flat river stone made her brow furrow.
‘It says Kuroki.’ She glanced up at her husband. A few petals had landed in his thick hair. ‘I didn’t think you had more relatives in Kagoshima. Did someone you know make this?’
Her husband crouched beside her and examined the etchings. One long finger reached out to trace them. The first character, black, and the second, tree, spelled their surname. ‘I can’t be the only Kuroki around here, I suppose.’
‘We’d better pray, just in case.’ Nene rose to her feet and bowed to the little shrine. She didn’t know why, but it gave her a strange feeling.
Hisakichi mirrored her and, after chasing down Ichirō, they got their little boy to show his respect to the strange monument, too.
Nene stayed for a moment longer as Hisakichi chased their giggling son, who wanted to go the far end of the grass. Above her head, a warbling white-eye chirped in a branch.
She thought of her fallen friends and made up her mind to pay her respects to their graves too while she was here. It felt like the least she could do.
‘Wait up!’ she called to her family, who had raced ahead along the riverbank, cherry blossom petals floating in a trail behind her son’s chubby fist.
She took one last glance at the lonely little shrine before breaking into a run. She wasn’t sure why, but the memorial made Nene smile.