Read Online Fire Flowers by Ben Byrne - Free Book Online Page B

services, he explained, we were to encourage the Americans to spend their dollars on drinks and dances and snacks.
    â€œAnd don’t let them palm you off with yen!”
    Dabbing at his lips, he quickly went through the financial arrangements, which didn’t seem quite fair to me. The Oasis would take practically half of everything we earned, even though we were still expected to pay for our own makeup and clothing and any medical treatment that might be necessary. But it was a sign of how desperate I had become that I just knelt meekly before him and bowed my head. Anything seemed better than the International Palace.
    Â 
    Later that night, we took great care making ourselves up. The dressing room was cramped, the air thick with the smell of perfume and perspiring flesh. Other girls slumped on the floor in their underclothes, fanning each other.
    Michiko sprinkled powder on the back of my neck and brushed it until my skin was as smooth and white as china.
    â€œWhy, Satsuko,” she said, as she stood behind me and pulled my obi tight around my waist. “You look just like a real geisha!”
    I laughed at the thought. But as we looked at ourselves in the mirror, I really did look quite pretty, even next to Michiko, who was so stunning.
    Years before, I recalled, my mother and I had once dressed up together, just like this, before going out to watch the summer fireworks over the river. We’d painted our faces and glued silk petals to our combs. Then she’d helped me into my beautiful green-gold kimono, hoisting the belt and tying it around me just as Michiko had done.
    After things had started to go badly for Japan, that had all changed. There’d been no makeup or jewellery any more. Skirts had been banned, and the busybodies from the National Defence Women’s Association went around spying, scolding you in public if you wore the tiniest hint of rouge.
Abolish desire until victory!
    One morning, just after I’d reported for war work, Mr. Ogura ordered all of us girls out into the yard. He told us that we were to unpick every colourful thread from our clothes, one by one. After that, it was nothing but shapeless khaki trousers.
No colour but National Defence Colour!
    â€œWhatever would Mr. Ogura say if he could see us now, Michiko?” I said.
    She applied a last minute dusting of powder to my nose. “I think he’d keel over, Satsuko. Just like he did when the emperor made his speech.”
    We slid open the door to the cabaret. It was already busy, filled with American officers from the army and navy, with girls perched on their knees, pouring their beer and lighting their cigarettes.
    As we walked out into the damp, smoky room, a thought struck me. “Michiko,” I asked. “How was it that you persuaded the boss to move us here in any case?”
    She gave a low laugh. For a moment, she sounded just like one of the vulgar types we’d been working with until so very recently. It was a nasty laugh, of the kind that asks: isn’t the answer obvious?

9
E RO G URO N ANSENSU (
Osamu Maruki
)
    J apan appeared like an emerald set in a diadem of glittering blue, and our troop ship at last sailed close to the winding shore, the peaceful coastline. But the soldiers sensed something amiss as soon as we clambered down the gangplank to the damaged harbour: the shops empty, the populace unwilling to meet our eyes. At the dock, three old warhorses, their ribs showing through wan hides, were led stumbling from the dark hold of the ship, unused to the bright light of day. A young man in a grubby vest immediately approached the stableman to haggle for their withered flesh.
    We were shunted toward Tokyo in a cramped train full of poisonous smells and sour faces. The city had clearly taken a smashing: its ribs were showing too, its carcass was open to the sky. Tokyo Station swarmed with fellow returnees wrapped in greatcoats, lying in clumps, or sitting drinking, red-faced and