Read Online Fireflies by Ben Byrne - Free Book Online

me!”
    She raised herself onto one arm. “Satsuko?” she murmured. “What is it?”
    I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t she understand? She was looking at me in the darkness and I could smell the whisky on her breath.
    â€œIs there nothing we can do, Michiko?” I whispered. “Nothing at all?”
    Her answer came sharply. “No Satsuko. There’s nothing we can do. So the sooner you get used to it the better. Now go to sleep.”
    With that, she rolled over, pulling the covers across herself. I drew my arms around my body, shivering. A few moments later, I heard a rasping sound. She was snoring.
    ~ ~ ~
    Every time I looked up, there was another American standing in the doorway. The building was hot and airless, and my room was like a wretched, stinking cave. I spent as long as I could in the murky bathroom where we were told to wash and disinfect ourselves after each visitor, but the smell in there was sickening too, and no matter how much I scrubbed myself I couldn’t get rid of the stink of chlorine and men. On the train home at night, I was sure that the other people in the carriage could smell it too, and that they were looking at me in disgust, as if they knew exactly the kind of woman I had become.
    At the end of the first week, one of the girls killed herself. I remembered her from the bus on the first day. She’d worn a yellow dress with a bow in her hair. Mrs. Abe had forgotten to tell her to go home and the Americans had kept on coming for hours on end. She was only seventeen. Later on that night she threw herself under a train at Omori.
    Michiko was already home when I got back that evening. She had an excited look on her face as she knelt down and took my hands in hers.
    â€œSatsuko,” she said. “You’ll never guess, but I’ve fixed it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I stammered.
    She clutched my hands. “I’ve fixed it so that we don’t ever have to go back to the Palace.”
    I stared at her in disbelief. “Please say it’s true, Michiko,” I moaned. “Please don’t say it’s one of your jokes.”
    â€œListen,” she said. “I spoke with that fat pig of a boss and he’s agreed to transfer us to another comfort station. A high-class place, up on the Ginza. It’s reserved for American officers.”
    My heart sank. Another comfort station.
    â€œWill that really make such a difference, Michiko?”
    She stared at me. “Are you mad? Of course it will. We won’t have to go with those common types any more. We’ll be just like real consorts now, Satsuko,” she said. She squeezed my hand, and I saw the old star-struck look in her eyes.
    â€œModern-day Okichis!” she whispered.
    ~ ~ ~
    Jeeps were driving up and down the Ginza and taxis went past with acrid smoke pouring out from their charcoal-run engines. American soldiers and sailors strode along the street in groups, and I flinched as one raised his cap to me. He said something to his friends, and they all guffawed.
    We hunted about for the address near the tall, sooty shopfront of the Matsuzakaya department store. As I looked at its shuttered windows and barred doors, I felt a stab of guilt. My mother had brought me there four years ago, on my sixteenth birthday, to buy my first real kimono. It was woven from beautiful green silk and embroidered with golden peonies. I’d had to sell it to buy rice back in June.
    Next door to the Matsuzakaya was a low, white building that had clearly been used a communal bomb shelter. A large sign in English hung outside, freshly painted in pink and white.
    â€œThere it is, Satsuko!” Michiko said, tracing the letters in the air with her finger. “ Oasis — of — Ginza ,” she pronounced. “We’re here!”
    We walked down a flight of dingy steps. The underground shelter had been transformed into a cheap cabaret, with a small dance floor