CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“TO DEAL THE FOE THE FINAL BLOW.”

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I held tightly to Sumiyo’s hand as we left the shell of what was once a bustling train station. I kept hoping to see Papa walking toward us with every step we took. I squeezed Sumiyo’s hand as a silent sign of hope. She squeezed my hand in return.

Sumiyo tripped over some concrete steps. I grabbed her arm to steady her. She gasped, “Your papa—he is right here.”

My heart pounded hard in my chest. I looked up; in my excitement I had not noticed that Sumiyo was looking at the ground and not ahead of her. She had not tripped on a step, but rather on Papa!

I looked down and saw a person whose head was twice its normal size and was flushed in a strange shade of blue. At first glance I thought Sumiyo was mistaken. But then I looked closer and recognized the three-piece suit he had worn that morning when he left home. I could see some of the familiarity of his facial features as I stared at his head more closely.

I forced myself to utter, “Is he alive?”

Sumiyo checked his neck for a pulse. “Yes! There is a faint pulse!” She smiled, and for the first time that day her voice held some hope. “We need to bring him back to our house. There will be help for him there. But your papa is a big man, and you and I alone cannot carry him.”

Then the familiar voice of Okada-san sounded behind us: “I could not give up on Ishikawa-san so I followed you here. I think I saw a wheelbarrow on my way here. Let me see if I can get it so we can get him home.”

In a matter of minutes Okada-san had returned with a small wheelbarrow. He and Sumiyo struggled, but managed to lift Papa’s six-foot frame into the cart.

That was when I noticed that Papa’s tie was loosened and his shoes were gone. His feet were engorged. In the vest where he once carried a pocket watch was a strange wound that looked like a hole, which seemed to be melting his skin. Sumiyo placed Papa’s hand in the wagon and covered the wound I had been staring at with part of his vest. Okada-san pushed the cart over crumbled concrete and melted tar to where our neighborhood once stood. We passed what was left of our city hospital. So many burned victims waited in line along the one wall of the building that remained.

My fists tapped at my legs as I repeated in my head, “Papa will be fine, Papa will be fine.” I heard a moan. Papa’s head fell to the side, and his arm dangled off the wagon.

“No!” Sumiyo-san began to sob. It seemed as if I were watching a movie play out in front of me. Okada-san reached down and pressed his finger against Papa’s neck. Then he touched Papa’s wrist and shook his head at Sumiyo-san. He turned around, and I saw him wipe his eyes with his hands.

I looked at Papa’s lifeless body in the wheelbarrow, with his head the color of navy blue and enlarged like a blowfish. But I didn’t see that man. Instead, I saw my papa dressed in his handsome three-piece suit, Panama hat, and shoes that he personally shined with great care. Later, I did not see him on the funeral pyre where Sumiyo sat with him. I saw him walking away, proudly twirling his walking stick as he did when he walked me to school.

Loneliness spread through me like a poison. I tried to imagine Papa hugging me in a loving embrace. I strained to smell the scent of his cologne. I wanted to sob until I could no longer breathe. But the tears would not fall. It was as if the intense heat of the blast had dried them all up.