Beyond Heaven's River Read online

  “There is not much resistance. American pilots from Midway fly twenty, twenty-five fighters to attack, but our Zeros engage. They shoot down clumsy old planes, called Buffalos, and new fighters not yet proved, Wildcats I think. Twenty-two shot down!” He spread his hands out. “We feel like just having done kampai—like long bout with sake. Then we bomb Midway, two islands, Eastern and Sand. A companion flies around Sand Island and drops his bomb on a storage tank for oil. It looks like whole island is carried away in the explosion. Eastern Island looks very bad, too, but our commander calls for a second attack. This is about seven o’clock, and we feel upset that second wave might be needed to finish our work. But we return to Hiryu, refuel, and load more bombs in case we are needed in a third or fourth attack. This is between eight and ten o’clock.” He tapped his wrist again.

  “We are told that Americans have attacked our carriers, are still attacking, but the bombs miss, the torpedos are awful, our ships just swerve around them. And the Americans die, whole squadrons. Very brave. But when we land, there is much confusion on our decks—planes being brought up and down elevators, being loaded with bombs, then the bombs removed and replaced by torpedos, because we do not know just where American planes are coming from, and whether we must attack Midway, or carriers, or both. This confusion goes on and stories are everywhere—that we have sunk American carriers, that some of our ships are damaged. We don’t know what to believe.” He smiled apologetically.

  “It is decided, after more than eighty American planes have been shot down, that if aircraft carriers are nearby, they have been exhausted. So we re-arm planes with bombs. At ten fifteen, another attack—but from where? Twelve torpedo bombers. Three get through to our ships and are brought down by guns, two escape. Seven are shot down by our fighters. Very brave. Our carrier is separated from the others, under cloud cover, very fortunate. We hear sounds of more attacks across ocean, see bomb sprays, smoke, fire. At noon, I fly with another strike. We are looking for the American carrier—but which one? It cannot be Yorktown, she was sunk or badly damaged at Coral Sea—”

  “Just a moment,” Carina interrupted, looking over her tapas screen. “The Japanese lost three carriers by ten-thirty—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu. They were all burning badly by that time. The Hiryu was the only one left functioning.”

  Kawashita nodded. “Yes. But we did not know this for sure, not on the flight deck. We learned in the air, and some of us did not believe. I didn’t. How could it have happened? Rear Admiral Yamaguchi orders us to attack the American carrier or carriers, and just an hour later, we find Yorktown. She has been fixed in just days—a job that should have taken months. What power the Americans have! This is very frightening. But what they had brought back by miracle, we can sink all the same. Our flight leader, Michio Kobayashi this time, gives us courage. Our courage is in the center of our being, in our stomachs, he tells us. But our luck is not good this time. We are attacked by American fighters and lose five or six planes immediately. We approach the American carrier flying in a formation of V’s—” he held his hands up with palms together, fingers apart, and spaced several gestures in a bigger V—“and attacked from the port side, at an angle of seventy-two degrees. Two more planes are shot down, one Kobayashi’s. I watch his plane fall apart and hit the ocean. Helpless, just shooting at American fighters, not knowing when we will go down like Kobayashi.

  “I remember one thing. I think it was before we bombed the Yorktown. An American fighter pulls up behind our plane, very close, not firing. I think he is out of ammunition. He swings back and forth, and I follow him with my gun, trying to guess where he will go so I can fire into him. Then he comes very close, almost touching our tail with his propellor. But he decides not to and flies away. I see his face. I see his anger. It is the first time I have seen an American close-up since I was a young child. It frightens me. He looks very brave and fierce, like he is about to destroy his plane and ours, just for vengeance. I think I just look scared.

  “We drop our bombs and start to pull away. I see one bomb heading for the carrier, and one landing in the water near it. The explosion in the water tilts the ship, and the second bomb strikes it. Another bomb flies right down the stack. Three hits! For a while we fly around the carrier, firing our guns. Two more planes are shot down. I remember watching men throw burning trash off the fantail, all like in a dream. Boxes of wood and other trash float behind the carrier.

  “We have only five planes left, so we return to the Hiryu and land, very tired. We eat. Lieutenant Tomonoga takes off with five planes to make sure the Yorktown is out of action. But we are not able to finish our meal before we are attacked again. I run to the plane and meet my pilot, who does not smile or say anything. We are all deadly tired. We take off to defend our ship. The Aichi Type 99 will not be very good against the American fighters, we know, but it is better to be in the air rather than on deck as a target.

  “We do not stop all the planes. Several bombs hit the forward flight deck. The forward elevator is blown up against the bridge, like a can lid pried by a giant’s hand. We know that we cannot land now. We have fought fiercely, and have lost everything. It is best to die fighting. So we try to pursue the Americans. My pilot is shot in the arm and across the neck. I talk to him, but he is losing consciousness. The plane flies for some distance, going lower, waves striking wings, and we are down. The nose crushes him, comes up with the impact, and I am thrown through the back, crack my ribs on the canopy. I climb off the tail as fast as I can, for the plane will go down like a rock. It is painful to swim, but I have to, or the plane will suck me down with it. Then, in my life vest, I tread water and wait for the battle to be over.

  “It is early evening when I see that the Hiryu has come close to me. She is now dead in the water, listing to the port side. Destroyers—the Kazagumo and Makigumo—are taking away her crew. She is being abandoned. I swim toward her, shouting as loud as I can, but no one hears me. The ship is groaning, belching steam, metal screaming louder than I can. The destroyers leave, sailing away from me. I see men still on the carrier’s flight deck, waving at the other ships. They may be on board to scuttle the ship, or perhaps the destroyers could hold no more. But after a while they walk out of my line of sight.

  “In the twilight, I climb up a gangway hanging from the side. It takes me half an hour to reach the hangar deck. There is no one. I feel very alone.

  “It is dark before I am well enough to walk around. I find an electric lantern and go to a battle dressing station on the hangar deck, coughing in the smoke. I take a first-aid kit into the open air on a gun mount and bandage my side. There are bodies near the gun. They have no heads.

  “I wander over the ship for an hour, looking for the men I have seen. There are explosions from below, and I hear screams, but I don’t know if they are men or metal. In the officer’s mess I find food, changing lanterns after my first wears out. Then I go to the bridge. I hear two men speaking, and it frightens me—perhaps they are ghosts. But I recognize one voice. It is Captain Tomeo Kaku. The other has to be Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi. I shine my light into the bridge and see they are strapped to the helm, talking, waiting for the ship to go down. When they see me, Yamaguchi asks who I am. I say I am a pilot.

  “‘The pilots did well today,’ he says. ‘It is an honorable fight, and we have sunk many American carriers, many ships. They will never recover from this.’ He said it would be best, since the ship wasn’t sinking fast enough, that we all go below and commit seppuku. But I am not willing to die. ‘I will fight again for the emperor,’ I tell him. He becomes angry, but the Captain talks to him, reasons. I am young, able to fight again. So I help them untie themselves, then leave and go down to my bunkroom. I search for things I want to take with me when I leave. My Rolex is gone, ripped off in the crash, so I take an alarm clock. I find boxes in the corridor filled with tinned fish, and a storage locker with bottles of medicinal brandy and some sake. I load these into a canvas bag tied
to a rope, which I swing out over the side. It will wait for me at the water line. I have to find a raft fast, then, because the ship is listing more and the bag will soon be underwater. A raft hangs from a single cord tied to a girder, so I cut it loose and drop it into the water near the gangway. I climb down, more rapidly this time, and put my finds into the raft. Then I push away from the Hiryu with an oar.

  “In the early morning, after I have slept for some hours, I hear a tremendous roar, and I see the dawn sky light up with blasts. I wait for day, but the carrier is gone. She has been scuttled. There are no planes in the sky, no one to rescue me. A few stars are still out.

  “Then I see something I cannot explain. It is a bright spot in the sky, like a star but moving. It winks and goes out, just as a plane will wink when it is flying in sunlight and turns to flash its wings. Perhaps it is a plane, very high, I think.

  “But then it comes back, much larger, the size of my thumbnail. It is completely silent. It swoops down to where oil from the Hiryu is still bubbling, and I see it is very large—perhaps twice the length of the carrier. It is a flattened ball, with glowing tear-drops sticking from its sides. When it flies toward me, the water around the raft begins to steam. I look up and see myself mirrored in the bottom of the thing, all the world reflected from horizon to horizon. I know we in Japan have no aircraft like that, and I think perhaps this is what really sank the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu. And I am not afraid any more.

  “I know I am going to die.”

  Eight

  Kawashita held his breath for a moment, then smiled and drank half a glass of beer. “I feel odd then, like electricity is going through me.” He looked around the cabin. “Pardon. I have been talking about your people, about the war, and I do not know what you think. It is very hard—what we did—”

  “We aren’t Americans, Yoshio,” Anna said softly. “It was a long time ago, things have changed.”

  “Desu-ka? Yes, of course. I continue. I find I am not in my raft. For a long time I am examined by things—metal tools, buzzing machines. I lie on a metal bench with a soft part in the middle. I am naked. Twenty meters away, perhaps, in the dark, there is a circle, and in the circle a face. No mouth, no nose, just wide black eyes. I also see one arm—could be an arm—with a hand. Nothing holds me down, so I stand, walk into dark, stop by the lighted circle. There is nothing behind it—it floats in air—but face and arm are full, like in three dimensions. Nothing moves. I turn away and see the bench is gone. Another circle is in its place, with what looks like bird—but not a bird. A man with a sharp, beaked face and thin fur or feathers all over him, with large, naked ears. I see four circles, back and forth across the dark place, before I feel floor going away. I think I sleep.”

  “Sounds like you were shown a Minkie and a Crocerian,” Elvox said. “What did the others look like?”

  “Not sure. Uglier—one like fish that sucks on other fish—what do you call it?”

  “Lampreys,” Carina said.

  “But with snake body and limbs…reversed.” He demonstrated by trying to bend his arms backward at the elbow.

  “That could be an Aighor,” Elvox said. “It’s obvious they didn’t show you what they looked like themselves.”

  “I do not know. I believe I never saw them, never saw anything truly from them. But may have seen and not recognized. When I awake, I am in a house like my grandparents’ house near Yokosuka. There is a forest around it. I can walk as far as I want, in any direction, but I know it is not for real. The house was burned in nineteen thirty-five. And the forest cleared for lumber. For a long time, I think I am dreaming. Then people appear, mostly women, but now—how to say—personable? Most cooperative, like in a pillow-book, but not real. I think perhaps my baser instincts will be provided for by captors.”

  “The women change, however, and soon will not do everything I want. Before long, a whole village grows up around me, a building added each night when I sleep. I am not dreaming. I am making things appear. I decide captors, whoever they are, have the power to let me create whatever is in my mind. They must be kami—divine spirits. Very divine spirits. So I worship them. I build a small shrine and put one part aside for my ancestral kami, one part for these new inhuman kami, new powers.

  “Each day I walk farther. Finally I leave the forest and come to a city, very much like Yokohama. Thousands of people live in it. I am proud to be able to think of so much, but I don’t take advantage of it. I try to find recruiters so I can go back to my ship, to the war. Perhaps I am really home, I think—hope against hope. But there are no ships, no war. Just city. I cannot redeem myself for cowardice. I cannot sacrifice myself for my emperor. I am truly captured, not just insane. I decide to create other things, and find my limitations.

  “In morning, I squat in my shrine—I have built another in the city—and concentrate on as much of Japan as I can. Then I take a train and go away from the city, which is very much like Yokohama, to Kyoto. And there I live, work, marry. Have a child. But nobody grows old. I help design airplanes in a factory—airplanes nobody uses, probably—waiting for war to come and find me. I feel that none of my workers or friends change, become more worthy. Everyone stays the same. Soon I am bored. I think of other things—about heroic times, when there were ways to gain honor and live a full life. I think of days after Japan was created, and of the Sun hiding in a cave, and what happened to Her. I think of Jemmu Tenno. But nothing changes outside—it is just very deep night. I don’t know enough about such things.

  “So I think of a library. It is barely clear in my mind before I am wandering through stacks of books and racks of newspapers, reading about all sorts of things. I learn what has happened since I left. I find news about the war. Real news? I don’t know. But there is so much, so self-consistent, that I decide I cannot have made it all up. My captors must inject some of real world into my creation. I find English books about the war, and other subjects, so I learn how to read and speak English. I don’t need to rest, so I study for days, weeks, time no matter. I learn the war had gone badly. We had lost. And surrendered. The emperor declared that the beginning of Japan was a myth, and he was not descended from the Sun Goddess, but was a mortal.”

  “Emperor Showa,” Carina interjected.

  “Yes, Hirohito when he was alive. That night, to soothe myself, I hang a ribbon for Japan in my shrine. Then I go to other parts of the library and find books on Japanese history, besides traditional ones I have read in school. My thoughts about the past are clearing. I decide first on nineteenth century, since I had heard a lot about it from my grandfather, who was actual samurai. I learn about Bushido, the warrior’s way. Next morning, I go outside library, and nineteenth century is outside door. I go out to live as a traveling priest. That lasts, I think, for many decades.

  “But after turn of century, as war with Russia grows near, I become unhappy. I go to shrine and make it night outside. With that night goes two wives, one who had died in childbirth, three children, many friends.

  “When day comes, I am in a Japan I have never seen before. I haven’t created it myself, not intentionally. I decide it has been created for me by the kami.

  “It is the twelfth century. I am a man named Tokimasa, a very important adviser. I begin to see what the kami wish me to do. I am to examine Japanese history, to find what has flawed us.”

  “They told you that?” Elvox asked.

  “No, never speak. Never show. But this is strong suggestion, no? I think perhaps I will see how to change history, to bring Japan to enlightenment before my time comes—an experiment. To decrease pain and killing and ignorance. I try to…”

  He stopped and looked down at the table. “That is all my shame. From the very beginning it is my shame, to be captured alive, to accept the destruction of my land, to act so before the kami who are testing me. You say there are things I will have trouble understanding. Well, you cannot easily understand my shame.”

/>   “Hoji Tokimasa was a member of the Taira clan,” Carina said. “He was given charge of two Minamoto boys, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, sons of Kiyomori, a chieftan killed by the Taira. Yoritomo married your daughter…uh, Masa, but you didn’t accept the marriage until they had a child. When Yoritomo staged a revolt against the Taira, you…uh, Tokimasa switched allegiance.”

  “That is history,” Kawashita said. “And I was too weak to change it second time around. When I created, what I meddled with—it would have been better if I had killed Masa in her bed as an infant.” His voice was quavering with bitterness, and his eyes brimmed with tears.

  Elvox was impatient. “How long before the Perfidisians left and everything stopped?”

  “I don’t know. I try to change things, but everything snaps back. I try to run away by making another world, but I have to return. Time does not mean much under the dome. The last years, I advise Yoritomo after he makes himself the first universal shogun—the first to establish the place of the shoguns in Japan.”

  “When did the trouble begin?” Anna asked.

  Kawashita shook his head. “It was awful.”

  “Storm’s letting up,” the pilot observed, entering the lounge. “Anna, we have a signal from the Peloros. Two Centrum ships have entered orbit. They’re waiting for permission to send down landers.”

  Anna looked across the table at Kawashita. “Well?”