I was sound asleep early on a Tuesday morning when I had the strangest sensation, mid-dream, of being flipped a few inches into the air. I had been up very late the night before, during which I had had many beers and sakes and almost nothing to eat. So being flipped into the air might have been a fantasy attributable to a very bad hangover. That sounds uncanny to begin with, but I still have the non-negotiable memory of being both awake, asleep, and airborne, all at the same time, if even for the slightest moment. I hit the mattress and then was tossed up over and over, like a child bouncing on a trampoline.
Meanwhile, there was general havoc all around me. Furniture began moving all to one side of the bedroom, books came flying out of bookshelves, a clock fell off the wall and bounced along the floorboards. The sound was like a huge wave in a sea-cove, splashing onto ancient rocks, just before a storm hits. But the storm in this case was hitting me, and pretty hard, too. Above, a map of the world was torn from the wall and came floating down, gently covering one of my feet. It was all in slow motion, and seemed to go on and on and on.
The largest bookcase fell over with a heavy crash. A bottle of Chianti broke into shards of glass, spilling its blood-like contents onto the rug. And the building rumbled on. I fell out of bed—or was, rather, tossed—and found myself sprawled on the floor, face down. The wreckage and sheer insanity of it all continued, the building still rumbling on as if someone was trying to turn on a reluctant car engine. It seemed to last for many minutes, not mere seconds.
Finally the initial disaster began to settle down. Wearing only my pajama bottoms, I covered my head with both arms and lay prostrate and fearful, face to the floor. The initial shock waves gradually subsided into powerful vibrations punctured by occasional outbursts of Mother Earth’s anger. But nothing else fell down, at least not onto me. I did hear something fall in the dining area. Then I heard one tremendous explosion from outside, followed by a number of smaller crashes.
I struggled to my feet once I figured it was safe to do so. Dust and a few pieces of paper were floating down upon me, and I tried some lights, but they weren’t working. My first impulse was to get out of the building, but my rational side told me that it had been an earthquake, and that the worst was over. Of course, I was mistaken about that.
Trembling like a scared kid, I felt as alone on this earth as I ever had. I found some clothes to put on—socks, sneakers, a pair of blue jeans, a T-shirt and sweater. Then I pulled on a hat and coat for the cold winter weather outside. I moved steadily over to the window to look out, and though it was still dark, I could hear sirens and general commotion on the streets fifteen floors below me. I also saw a number of fairly large fires breaking out. But the most horrifying sight was of one of the buildings just a few blocks down from mine. It was buckled right in the middle, and its upper floors had toppled over like a kid’s Lego castle. Gazing around the other nearby streets, I saw other buildings in nearly as ridiculous a state of emergency. In the distance, toward the bay, I noticed the gleaming Sannomiya Hotel, now cracked in half and leaning to one side. Broken windows and bent iron were everywhere. One of the hydrants right below me was gushing water heavenward. Dozens of people began to emerge out of the buildings and into the streets, in varying degrees of winter dress. One man appeared dazed and naked, except for a pair of boxer shorts. A couple of dogs ran by, loose and free, something you never see in urban Japan.
I located my essentials and prepared to get out of the building. The shock of possibly being trapped in another high-rise about to be broken in half was a focusing motivation. I found my wallet, passport, car and apartment keys, my journal, a few toiletries, pharmaceuticals, contact lenses, some underwear, socks, and a couple shirts. I threw it all into my knapsack and took one more look around at the doorway. That’s when I spotted a flashlight, which I grabbed, and then headed instinctively to the elevator.
I actually pushed the down button frantically several times and waited a second or two before realizing it would never come. Duh. I didn’t even know at that time where the stairs were, and the general darkness in the building made locating a stairwell even more challenging. Good thing I had the flashlight. Meanwhile, I could smell something burning. What it was, or where it came from, I could not quite tell, but again it was highly motivating. As I started down the stairwell, it was even darker, and smokier, than my floor was. There were also several other tenants weaving their lonely way down the ten or more flights to the sidewalks. One guy, braver than the rest of us, was checking floors, pounding on doors, though how anyone could have slept through that experience was beyond me. I respected his courage, but continued descending the stairs. Finally I reached the lobby, also choked with thick smoke, and sprinted out the front door.
General chaos greeted me on Minato-dori, the large avenue outside my condo. One ambulance flew by, siren blaring. Debris had fallen off of various buildings into the street, and the ambulance weaved back and forth to miss the larger pieces. One man held a towel to the side of his head and limped by. A younger couple ran by, the mother clutching a newborn while the father carried bags and a stroller. I saw an old lady seated on a bench, clumps of debris in her hair and clinging to her clothing, gently rocking forward and backward, talking to herself, with an eerie smile on her face. At least she had found some kind of peace. Another woman, in a green bathrobe and curlers, with cream on her face, was smoking a cigarette while holding both hands outward, shouting, “Eriko! Eriko!” I also vaguely noticed others, hurrying in all directions as best they could, given the debris, which was everywhere. More dogs wandered by. There were cats cowering in shadows. Sirens wailed near and far. And ever so slowly, the sun rose over Kobe, Japan.
Once I got out to the sidewalk and scanned the nearby surroundings, the scale of the event began to sink in. From the looks of it, the roads were damaged but passable. For a moment I could not think of what to do, where to go. But suddenly, I looked down the street toward an older residential neighborhood and saw a house on fire. And I immediately understood there was only one place to go.
I ran around the corner, stumbling over a huge chunk of concrete, sprinted up the hill a couple blocks to my Nissan, and jumped in. Revving the motor, I headed up into the mountains, where the road looked fairly open, rather than down the hill into the city. I guessed correctly that the quickest way to Sensei’s would also be the road less traveled, and also the one least likely to have debris and human traffic at this desperate hour.
In all, around 5,300 persons were reported to have been killed by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, a 7.2 magnitude temblor that jolted Kobe awake at 5:46:51 a.m., on January 17, 1995. The quake is still the only one measuring over 7-point magnitude on the Richter scale to strike directly in the center of a major urban population area. It was the largest casualty number recorded in Japan since the Great Kanto Earthquake, which occurred on September 1, 1923 in Tokyo, killing 142,807 persons. In 1995, most victims were crushed to death by the collapse of their houses, and/or burned to death by the fires that followed the earthquake. Half of the dead were over the age of sixty. Among the victims, 59 percent were women, and 41 percent were men. About 170,000 houses were destroyed or heavily damaged in Hyogo Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture. Hundreds of office and apartment buildings were also severely damaged, many beyond repair.
On the first day of the earthquake, there were about a million houses without electricity. For over a week afterwards, almost a million had no gas or water service. A large number of reinforced concrete office and residential buildings, including my condominium, were damaged at the middle or top floors. The number of refugees without homes—which should have included me, though I violated the law by squatting in my severely damaged building for over a week after it was officially condemned—was at least 310,000. Many of these refugees were without homes a full two years after the temblor. I heard later that my own building was pulled down several months after the quake, having sustained serious damages beyond repair to the foundation and other important structural elements. It remained a vacant lot until finally rebuilt in 2004, again as a high-rise condominium tower of twenty-two stories. In all, at least 50,000 buildings were destroyed immediately by the quake, and many thousands were later identified as irreparable, and listed for demolition.
Kobe’s city officials attributed the large number of deaths among the elderly to the growing number of younger people living in the suburbs and the fact that many elderly people lived alone in the quake-stricken areas, and the fact that a large number of homes in the area were built before and immediately after World War II. In the Kobe area, most of the old traditional Japanese wooden houses have heavy ceramic tile roofs and clay filling. Designed to resist typhoons, these older houses presented a poor resistance to the devilish forces of an earthquake of such magnitude. Thus did hundreds of elderly Japanese die, crushed to death in their sleep by heavy roofs as another chilly dawn approached.
I knew the back roads leading up into the Rokko Mountains well, having spent many of my countless weekends exploring them with my new car. I began my trek slowly, since the roadways were clotted here and there with debris, fallen poles, and other damaged materials. By the time I hit one of my favorite roads into the park area, most of the debris, and people, had disappeared from view. As so often occurred in my long walks in the mountains, I was pretty much alone—for the moment.
The path I chose led up abruptly into the mountains, switching back several times, then coming out on a long ledge overlooking the city and the bay. It would lead me northeast for several miles to another winding lane, which would lead me back down to Sensei’s neighborhood. What I saw when I came out of the forest and onto the overlook was nothing short of apocalyptic. I rolled down my window and heard dozens of sirens and alarms going off. Occasionally there were shouts in Japanese, or shrieks, that drifted all the way up the slope. Smoke was rising from countless sites, and raging fires dotted the neighborhoods. Many buildings appeared to be leaning this way and that, and some were simply toppled over. I took a few long moments just to gaze at this surreal scene, and then hurried off for my destination.
Heading back down the mountainside, I entered the area near Sensei’s compound. I had to work my way down, then back up again, where a fair amount of damage littered the streets leading up to his residence. Fires were already going strong all around me. I was edging my way along the final road up to Sensei’s dead-end location, a road that dropped off immediately to my right, when I saw a massive boulder blocking my path. It had evidently been broken off one of the cliffs overhead, and was deposited there as some test of my commitment. I tried maneuvering around it for a minute or two, then realized that it was a lost cause. I was still a quarter mile away from his house, but I had no choice. So I turned the car around and parked it, right there in the middle of the road, its back bumper almost touching the granite slab. Oddly, I put on the caution blinkers. I remembered the flashlight, and had enough good sense to grab it again. Then I headed up the hill.
Before long, I heard a scream from one of the large homes. “Taskette! Tasketteeeeee!” Desperate, lonely calls of “Help!” I hesitated for only a second. I looked into the property, which was partly hidden behind the kind of six-foot stone walls that were popular in the neighborhoods of the wealthy Japanese. A side of the home was caved in, and burning. Heavy roof tiles were scattered across that side of the lawn like a deck of cards. “Taskette!” The call came with much agony. But my decision was nearly immediate—I needed to ignore the call for help. I needed to find Sensei.
Sometimes, even now, fifteen years later, I hear the cries of “Taskette-Taskette!” in my sleep. Yes, I do have regrets. Many regrets.
My first sight of Sensei’s house was similar to the one I saw just moments before: roof tiles were on the ground, and the whole front entranceway of the house was demolished. A single, large crack had actually torn the stone wall in the front of the house like a piece of cardboard, many of the windows were broken out, and a light gray smoke was rising from a few places, but I saw no immediate signs of fire. The crack in the wall was helpful. I didn’t know the code to the gate, so I just stepped through the wall and into the property. An uncanny silence pervaded the complex, though the distant sirens and general melee continued, providing an ambient mood of disaster. I ran up to the front and found it impassable; pieces of wood were literally stuck into the ground like tombstones. I circled around to the side and then to the back of the building where there was similar destruction. The backside had large windows that came down almost entirely to ground level, and both of them were broken out. I looked around for a piece of lumber, and used it to take out what little shards of glass remained, then stepped directly into the darkened room. An eerie silence greeted me, and for the first time, I was in Sensei’s home with my shoes still on.
“Sensei! SENSEI!”
I could barely see what was in the room. I flipped on the flashlight; thankfully, the batteries were fresh and the beam still strong. Furniture, dishes, glassware, books, and unidentifiable debris were everywhere. Large sections of the ceiling had fallen in.
I inched my way through all the destruction, shouting again and again, “Sensei! Are you here?!” Only silence. I went from room to room. It was a large and impressive building, but now it looked like a bomb had gone off in it. I was not used to entering from the back, and I spent a few minutes inspecting the rooms I had never been in. I pointed the light into another room, one that appeared to be a sleeping chamber for a servant. Heaped into one corner were the gruesome remains of a body, covered with plaster and wood. I turned the body enough to see that it was Omori-san, Sensei’s old gardener/chauffeur/companion, with a terrible gash across his face. My amateur examination found that he had no pulse. Then, from elsewhere, I faintly heard a voice: “Yu-san!”
It was weak, but it was Sensei. “Sensei! Where are you?” I released my hold on Omori-san.
Only silence. Then, “I am in our meeting room, Yu-san. Please come.”
His politeness continued even then, I thought. I stepped out of Omori’s room and followed the corridor around to the kitchen area from where I had entered, and then to the long hallway leading to the front door. Screens were tipped backwards and forwards along this hallway, some at forty-five degree angles across it, making it a kind of obstacle course to negotiate. I smelled smoke.
“Sensei, I’m coming!”
I fought through the screens and found the room. I was deeply moved when he called it “our room.” But today, our room was a mess. Like the others, it was topsy-turvy. A priceless Utamaro print was lying on the floor just outside, the glass cracked and the picture penetrated by the side of a screen. The room itself was even worse than the others. Much of the ceiling had collapsed, and the floor was littered with debris. Tables and vases were knocked over, pictures fallen off the walls. I looked in and pointed the flashlight frantically around the room.
“Sensei? Where are you?”
“Here, Yu-san.” I looked toward the voice and saw a futon for sleeping. I could make out the legs of the old man protruding from underneath one corner of a heavy oak bookcase, covered with part of the ceiling. I pointed my flashlight toward the mess and saw that on top of it all was a massive wood beam, the structural strength of the roof, along with even more clutter and debris. The end of the beam was near my feet. I stuck my flashlight in my coat pocket, placed both hands beneath the beam and tried to lift it. It didn’t budge. I rubbed my eyes. It seemed to be getting smokier, and I realized it was surprisingly warm in the room.
I worked my way through the rubble as best I could. My first act was to look him in the eyes. I put the palm of my left hand on his forehead. He was damp and feverish. “Sensei, I’m here. How do you feel? Can you breathe?”
I already knew that there would be no way for a single person to do much good. He was trapped under a ton or two of dead weight, and the miracle was that it had not already killed him. It had to have been at least an hour or more since the quake hit. And yet I was struck by the fact that he looked at me with compassion and even joy. When I think of that moment now—it was odd, yet consoling— Sensei showing compassion for me, being happy to see me, at that moment and under those circumstances. He had his right arm free to move, and first he grasped my left arm, and sort of shook it. Then he mimicked my own movement, and placed it gently on my own forehead. “Ah, Yu-san. You have come back for one more visit, I see.” He actually smiled, but then grimaced in great pain.
“Sensei, don’t try to speak.” I was lost for words. I looked him up and down, flashed the light up toward the ceiling. “I need to go for help. I can get you out of here.”
But he grabbed my arm with his free hand. “No, Yu-san. That is not necessary. We both know.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I tried to stay brave. “But Sensei, I need to get you out of here, get you to the hospital.” Though I knew it was not to be. “Where is the pain worst?”
“My stomach, Yu-san.” I tried feebly to feel around underneath the pile for his abdomen. Pulling out my hand, it was coated with rich, warm blood. It was not a massive issue of blood, but just enough, I suspected, to be fatal eventually.
I think, looking back, that we both knew, in that instant, that he would not last much longer. “Stay with me, Yu-san. Let’s have—” he winced again, his face contorting in pain. He took a shallow breath. “Let’s have one last meeting.”
“Meeting?” I was incredulous, but I somehow understood. “About what?”
He seemed to think about my query. “About the words, Yu-san. About all those wonderful letters.” He winced and tried weakly to push the debris off of his chest. “Pound’s haiku. Hemingway’s stories. The words I spent my lifetime collecting. The meetings have always been about the words and the letters, have they not?”
“Yes. Of course … the words, Sensei.”
He tried again, feebly, to move the weight off of his body. I pulled on it with him. The bookcase shifted, but only slightly. He settled back into his position of fate, lying there on the soiled and bloody futon. “First, I need you to follow some directions. Can you do me this service? Afterwards, we can begin our meeting. By chance, do you have water? My throat is parched.”
“Yes, sensei. Anything.” I ran back out toward the kitchen, located a bottle of water from the now silenced refrigerator; still cold to the touch. Hurrying back, I held it to his lips, and he drank deeply, over half the bottle in one long draught. This revived him considerably.
“Good,” he said, panting. “Thank you. Now I need you to rescue some of my collections. In fact, I want you to have some of them.” More uncomfortable fidgeting beneath the weight. “Can you look into the next room, where I keep many of my things?”
“But Sensei, there’s no time.”
A renewed energy flashed in Sensei’s eyes. “Yes, Yu-san. You will do this. For me.”
I nodded, stood up, and walked out to the hallway, pointing the flashlight and peering into the designated room. The shades were pulled and it was completely dark, and the room was damaged, but navigable. “Yes, Sensei, I can get in OK.” I quickly opened a couple of the shades, which helped.
“Good.” He waited and thought it over. “I want you to open the closet screens.” I did this. “Do you see the safe?”
Of course I did—it was huge, taking up half the closet space, and was almost as tall as I am. The rest of the closet was filled with file cabinets and stacks of those dark green library boxes that were often the focus of our meetings together. I told him that I had access to all of it.
“Good. I want you to open the safe.” He gave me the numbers. On the second try, it clanked open. On top was a large, faded green volume. I took it out and read the gold words on the binding: Leaves of Grass. A first edition of Whitman’s masterpiece, circa 1855, by itself probably worth several hundred thousand dollars or even more, since it contained an inscription by the author. Below it were a number of other books, several file folders, other valuable commodities such as coins and medallions, and several more library boxes. Then Moby-Dick, with Pound’s inscription: “April snow camellia.” There was also a large stash of cash, both yen and dollars, and some jewelry, as well as other documents. I picked up the Whitman and went back into Sensei’s room with it.
“Here’s the Leaves of Grass, Sensei. There are lots of other things in there. What would you like me to do with it all?”
With his free arm, he actually handled the leather-like covering of the volume, admiring it one final time. “This is for you.” He breathed in sharply, and actually pushed the book at me. “There are other first editions in the safe, all for you. Fanshawe, some of the others I’ve shown you, the Stowe, Emerson, Dickens, the rest. Old Man and the Sea. Of course, Pound’s copy of Moby-Dick, Yu-san. Don’t leave that one. Take as many of them as you can save.”
He winced, his breathing labored. “Since our previous meeting, there are some … new materials on Pound and …” He stammered, his voice still firm, but growing faint. “They are in one of the green boxes, in the safe. Do you remember those strange haiku?” He grimaced. “The blood moons? From Joel.”
I was amazed that, pinned underneath debris from his fallen roof, on the very edge of death, he felt it necessary to speak in detail about these treasures, but he did. “Take those files, Yu-san. And don’t forget about … Nook Farm. There’s a large binder of … materials there. Very … crucial. Perhaps some day you can … solve the puzzle. It may be part of some … occultic formula. Save those, they are original and unique. Very valuable!” He actually chuckled at this last comment. “You must try to solve that mystery, on your own, I’m afraid!”
“Yes, Sensei, of course,” I assured him. I had no clue why he referred to Nook Farm just then—the genteel neighborhood in West Hartford, home to Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Isabella Beecher, and others. Maybe just his mind wandering.
“And I want you to have the Hemingway files also, Yu-san. They are in there, marked, as I showed them to you last year. And be sure to take the Hemingway valise, as a memento of our times together. It must be here among the clutter somewhere.” Another smile. “Perhaps you can play the joke on someone else, the one I played on you!” A weak chortle. “I wish I had those other books, On the Road and Howl, here for you; the ones you ‘borrowed’ from the library. I know how much you fancy them. But anything after the War is not so valuable to me.” I also now laughed, with tears in my eyes. Still razzing me, right to the end.
He drew in a ragged breath. “Everything else in the safe should go to Mika-san. There are some files in Japanese, look for those. Find the materials on Mishima. And there is … much cash, and some jewels, and other documents of value.” More strained, raspy breathing. “Yu-san. I must tell you, I regret … interfering in your … friendship with Mika. I know how … seldom one can approach … true romance. Yes, I do regret that.” He was growing short of breath. “But my brother … he would never allow such a thing. And he is … quite ruthless, as you must know. I am sorry for that.”
He was running out of time. “Don’t bother talking, Sensei. You’re losing strength.”
He even smiled again. “We must have our meeting, Yu-san, remember.” He breathed in and out, laboring now. “I must insist. As for the other documents in the cabinets— well, I had hoped to give them to the university. For now, I can only say that I leave it all to your discretion. They are for the Americans, I should say. The most important things are in the safe. Is there more water?”
I held the bottle to his lips again. He drank slowly, finishing the bottle. Again, it strengthened him for the moment. “You know of my obsessions with Hemingway, Yu-san. But he is not the author of my favorite book in America. Do you know what that is?” As he quizzed me one last time. I tried to hold back the tears, but failed.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “No, Sensei. What is your favorite American book?”
Again he reached out and touched the green volume. “You are holding it in your hands.” It seemed to give him considerable pleasure to inform me of this.
“Leaves of Grass? Why Sensei, you surprise me! It turns out that you’re a hopeless romantic, after all!” By then tears were streaming down my face.
He noted my attempt at gently mocking him, and faked surprise, his eyes growing wide for just a moment. “Hopeless? Me? No, Yu-san. Once again, you have misunderstood. True romantics are of all people the most hopeful. That silly phrase—‘hopeless romantic’—is a sign of a weak mind. Have you learned nothing from me?” he joked, instructing me to the very last, but it was nearly over. He grew silent for a long while. I took his hand, and he did not resist.
His voice was now a mere whisper, but he kept talking. “Whitman knew some things, and his words ennobled people. He forced us to think about what we might be in the world. Without words, the people remain powerless. Without beauty, life becomes ugly and unlivable.” A brief moment passed. “It is why both of us ‘romantics’ became teachers of literature, I’m sure. Sowing in hope. Otherwise, the words are just … scratches of ink on paper.”
His face tightened, he gasped for breath, then exhaled. “Is it too late to say that I’m sorry we lost this last year together? You have been … yes, I think, a good friend to me. And I am sorry to think you felt I lied to you, or mislead you.” He stammered. “In fact, I did.”
“No, Sensei. I understand it all now.” And in that moment, I did understand.
He was losing steam, but still he kept on. “Yu-jin. A companion. I recall the day I named you. Do you remember?”
I choked back a sob. “Yes, Sensei. I remember everything.”
A long silence ensued. “Perhaps you could read to me from that book, Yu-san.”
I nodded. I could barely speak, but I took a deep breath and opened the volume to the first page and began to read:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me
as good belongs to you….
Sensei grabbed my arm with what little energy remained. “No, not that one. Read to me from ‘The Sleepers.’”
It happened also to be one of my favorite poems. But since the first edition does not have the titles of poems included, or a table of contents, it took me a minute to find it. And so I began to read aloud again, the meticulous, loping lines casting a spell on us both, like a hypnotic trance.
I wander all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly
stepping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
How solemn they look there, stretch’d and still,
How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.
Sensei, his eyes now shut, was mumbling something to himself. He flinched fitfully, then seemed to settle down. A wan smile formed itself on his dry lips. I continued reading from the poem.
I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and the most restless,
I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,
The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.
Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
The earth recedes from me into the night,
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.
I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleepers each in turn,
I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,
And I become the other dreamers.
I stopped another moment, and looked down at Sensei now. And I could tell that he was gone. It was finished, and I knew it.
I closed the book and placed it gently beside him, and wiped the tears away from my eyes. Suddenly I realized that the fire was raging, out of control in a nearby room. I tried to figure out how to leave this gruesome scene, and the only thing I could think of was to cover him up somehow. I stumbled to my feet, swung the flashlight around and into the hall, and noticed a light green curtain on the floor. I pulled it into the room and covered the remains of my teacher, my friend.
The smoke was thickening, and I knew that my time at Sensei’s house was quickly coming to an end. The first thing I grabbed was the copy of Leaves of Grass, just within the reach of his right hand. I looked for the old valise, which I figured should be across the room somewhere. Hemingway’s valise, as Sensei liked to call it. Hunting through the debris, I noticed its faded leather gleaming from beneath a table. It had been badly scratched but was in working order, so I pulled it free, and threw the old volume of Whitman inside. Archivists would faint with horror to see how I treated Whitman’s treasure that day.
Locating the valise had eaten into the window of opportunity I had remaining in the house. I looked down the hallway and saw the glare of fire from another room at the other end of the house. I understood that it was now a matter of rescuing as much of the materials as I could, in whatever time might remain. I took the valise into the room with the safe, drew out the Hemingway files, and threw them in with the Whitman, with a few of the other books—Fanshawe, Moby-Dick, Representative Men, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. There was the heavy green library box, with the Pound materials he had mentioned: a thick file folder, which I took out and put into the valise. I rooted around and located one marked “Nook Farm”—Sensei had made special mention of that one as he faded away. On top I placed Hemingway’s signed copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Being full, I now closed it, clasping the locks of the case. I set the valise outside the doorway, and went back to the closet.
I needed to rescue whatever I could from the safe, first of all, to present to Mika. It took several minutes. I located a few boxes, and filled them with the contents of the safe, then carried them out towards the back. First, I cleared the path of the fallen screens, to create a safer passage out to a back door, which I managed to twist open. It led into the garden, which was now surprisingly peaceful. All of this took even more precious seconds. Then I carried out the boxes for Mika, stacked them near the back of the garden at a safe distance from the building, and headed back inside. The hallway was passable, but I knew I had only another trip or two into the recesses of the house before I would need to abandon ship. My eyes stung, and I was coughing from the smoke. A fire was now raging in the kitchen and back apartment where I had spotted Omori’s body.
I went back to the storage closet and started going through the cabinets and boxes frantically. I figured I owed it to Sensei to rescue whatever I could, and especially to find the most valuable and the most rare of his items. This was a considerable task, and ultimately impossible: the heat was gathering, and Sensei had many wonderful possessions. The things in the safe were simply his favorite items; many other treasures were in those neat green boxes. There were letters written by Edith Wharton, a diary of a Civil War general from Missouri, a volume of autographed poems by Yeats, the manuscript of an unpublished essay by Mark Twain. Thankfully, many of the boxes were labeled as to contents, so I scanned quickly through a couple stacks and pulled out the ones that seemed most promising.
Given a day of leisure to go through the stuff, perhaps I might have chosen other things than what ultimately was salvaged from the flames. But time was running out, and black smoke and heat began filling my lungs. I decided it was time to cut my losses, so I started dragging the boxes I had set aside into the hallway. On the polished wood floor, now cleared of the screens that had earlier been in the way, I could easily drag out most of the things I had set aside, and so now began doing it. But suddenly, as I looked up at the back door, a human figure appeared in silhouette. I froze.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked, in a broken, yet familiar English.
It took a few confused seconds for me to realize that it was Miyamoto. “Put those things back where you found them,” he shouted, moving into the house.
I did drop them to the floor, and then stood my ground and faced him. “Sensei gave me these things. He’s dead now, killed in the quake.”
“Is he? And you expect me to believe that he has given you these valuables that you are now carrying out of his house? How convenient.” He was now moving slowly toward me, with his arms held at both sides, menacingly I thought.
“Yes, he did. What are you going to do about it?” It was hard to think, hard to talk.
The blaze intensified. Miyamoto glanced into the kitchen, then the room with Omori-san. “You should have known your place, Jack-san. You should have stayed away. Now, I cannot allow you to leave.”
I suddenly recalled that Miyamoto had once boasted to me that he studied the martial arts. He did not have the appearance of a very intimidating fighter, but I also knew that my own prowess was fairly limited. Anyway, the house was on the verge of total collapse, due to the growing fire, and I knew we were now in grave danger.
“Help me get these things out of here. Let me take what Sensei has given me, and you can have the rest, I don’t care. Just move out of the way!”
“I will NOT move out of the way. If you will kindly move away from those boxes now, I will permit you to leave.”
We were now less than ten feet apart. Flames were literally leaping out of the room just behind Miyamoto, and I knew there was no other way out. I put myself instinctively into a defensive posture. “Get out of my way,” I told him.
With that he leaped toward me, and to the best of my ability I thrust him to one side, into the wall. He scrambled up and punched me, sending my head snapping back. Stunned, I stood there letting him hit me again. But then my anger rose. He awoke within me the slumbering animosity that I held, not only for Miyamoto himself, but for all the rat fink nonsense he represented, all the repression of institutional Japan. And for his threats, and for getting between me and Mika. I remembered the creepy night he showed up at my place, with his henchman, Endo, looming behind him. I didn’t give him a chance to hit me again. I reared back and struck him in the nose. I felt his blood spray as his nose cracked sideways. And then I smashed my first into his face again, this time for Guido, I guess. Then the third time, I caught him square on the jaw with a powerful left. I would have kept pounding him, but he fell to the ground and the back of his skull cracked against the doorframe leading into the hallway. His eyes opened wide momentarily, and he jerked upward. I saw his tongue jut wildly out of his mouth for a fraction of an instant. Then he fell backward again, eyes open and mouth closed, motionless now but for one strong exhalation.
I figured he was just dazed and resumed pulling the boxes out the back door and into the garden. Flames from the kitchen singed my hair and jacket, but I decided to make one last pass through the rooms. Several boxes remained that I desperately wanted to save, but I just couldn’t do it. The walls would surely be coming down any second. Then I realized the safe was still standing open. Though it was by now nearly empty of its treasures, instinct told me, weirdly, that I must shut and lock it, to remove any suspicions that might linger in the minds of curious investigators whenever they would get around to Sensei’s property. Maybe it would preserve the remaining valuables, I thought. So I quickly closed and locked the safe.
Finally, though I had second thoughts, I knew I had to pull Miyamoto to safety outside. I shook him, trying to revive him. He was out cold, barely breathing. I saw around the back of his head a pool of what looked like black blood, swelling almost imperceptibly. As much as I disliked the guy, I knew I had to get him out of the house so he wouldn’t burn to death or suffocate in the smoke. Turning his body headfirst toward the back of the building, I towed him down the hallway. I had to pick him up to get him out the door, but I managed to do it. In the garden, I laid him out on his back. I pulled a few of the curtains off the back windows, and covered him up in the January chill—and yes, I left him right there in the cold. He was nearly lifeless, and blood was still seeping from his head wound.
Now outside for good, I could see that other homes in the area were facing similar emergencies. I had many opportunities to be a hero that day—to help Sensei’s neighbors, most of them old folks like him. And as I left the yard with the first load, heading for my car, I thought I even heard Miyamoto say something. Maybe he yelled out in agony, or maybe it was a neighbor, or just my imagination. But I imagined later that I could hear him calling for help. “Taskette! Jack-san, tanomu yo!”
But I had to get the boxes and other items out to my car, which was a big job since I’d had to park on the other side of that boulder, a good way down the hill. So I started going back and forth, lugging stacks of boxes. It took four or five trips, but I finally managed to get everything into the car.
On the last trip, I checked Miyamoto. He was dead. Another large puddle of blood had formed around his skull; the clumsy fall into the door jamb must have fractured it. I shook my head, stood for a moment with palm on my forehead as if considering my options, then decided there was nothing I could do for him. I had made my choice about what was valuable and what was not. So I turned and left the property. Back at the car, I got in, started it up, and headed back down the road out of the neighborhood.
As Kobe burned, I decided to get as far away from it as I possibly could. With a car full of precious documents, I made another decision, and headed up into the Rokko Mountains that looked down upon the vast area of destruction below. I drove north, toward central Japan, and away from the coast.
It’s funny, the things I remember about that day and the things I don’t, or the many things that remain blurry. I remember every word of Sensei’s last lesson, and the sad look in his eyes as he lamented the time we’d spent angry and apart. I remember the voices calling for help. I remember the rage that washed over me as Miyamoto launched himself at me. I remember the impact of my fist connecting with his face. I remember telling myself it was not really my fault that he was dead. (Maybe that’s true, maybe not.) And I remember the cold, logical decision to close and lock the safe. The decision not to recover Miyamoto’s dead body. And how I valued, instead, the boxes of letters and manuscripts above the men and women in the damaged, smoldering houses surrounding me. All “for the words,” as Sensei might put it. Shouldn’t I feel some remorse?
Yes, I should. But, in fact, I feel almost nothing— except now and then when that shadow of horror awakens and claws at my gut—and so I refrain from looking back directly at those moments.
I’ve never spoken of the events of that day, but have known for years that I must someday write something down. I’ve often wondered if I’d suffered some kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome, a common enough prognosis these days, something I usually associate with military vets and others who live in the line of fire. If I’m honest, I have to say I do not regret what happened. And I don’t, or perhaps, can’t, feel remorse. Why is that?
But when I close my eyes at night, the images often return. The massive beam pinning Sensei to the futon. A skyscraper bent over like a pipe cleaner. The sound of Miyamoto’s skull striking the hard wood at the base of a doorway. The futile cries of the dying: “Taskette! TASKETTEEEE!” Dragging Miyamoto’s body out to that peaceful garden, then hurrying to load my precious boxes in the car as he bled to death on the frozen ground.
And there are other misgivings as well. Of the cash that was in the safe, I sent most of it to Mika—but not all of it. I kept a large sum to complete the tasks assigned to me by my mentor. I packaged up the items Sensei wanted Mika to have—including the majority of the cash and jewelry— and shipped them to her Tokyo address from a post office outside of Kyoto. But that didn’t take all the money I’d set aside for the task. I kept the rest.
I don’t know if Mika or her father ever went to Kobe to check on Sensei’s house, to see the destruction with their own eyes. I never asked, and I didn’t have the courage to face her anyway. I could never have found the words to tell her about her uncle’s lonely, painful death. And I didn’t want to see her again knowing she was about to be married. Especially not after what Sensei, in his dying moments, had said about true romance. So, after I sent her the packages, I never saw or communicated with her again.
Portentous rumblings, indeed. When I read Jack’s words for the first time, I felt as if the ground beneath my own feet had shifted, revealing the flaws within the foundations of both of our worlds. It is difficult to express my sense of horror—in particular, the description of Jack’s final meeting with Miyamoto and his role in the man’s death. Death, I say—not murder.
Here we can see why the clinical signs of trauma were so neatly and mysteriously listed by our narrator, early on. How he must have suffered! But I still admit to a nauseating confusion that has made me wonder if I even knew this version of Jack. The former student with whom I had been corresponding all these many years. My very own intellectual progeny, in fact— my own precious offspring, as it were, which, to my mind, implicates me in some way. It caused me to speculate further: to what extent do parents share in the guilt of their children’s crimes? Or teachers, mentors, coaches, pastors, or priests? Those of us, in other words, called to provide not mere information, but formation, character, integrity, honor, the knitting together of a human soul? Sowing in hope, indeed. I recognize that some readers will find these to be mere abstractions that have grown rather stale in our postmodern age, alas. But some of us still hold onto them.
This nausea of which I speak comes in the wake of that conjecture—to what extent am I guilty as an absent participant in the senseless death of Jack’s nemesis? And knowing all this, how can I embrace the spoils of Jack’s adventures overseas?
And yet, dear reader, as you will soon discover, I did, and still do, share in those delightful spoils. And like Jack, I do embrace them with some queasiness, yes, but with little or no,remorse.