Features

by Rie Nii, Staff Writer


Four members of the Nakazawa family were at home at the time of the atomic bombing.

It was a miracle that my mother survived the blast. She had just finished hanging the laundry on the second-floor balcony. The moment she moved under the eaves of the roof, the atomic bomb exploded--the eaves prevented the heat rays from hitting her. And while the house collapsed, the balcony was blown to the ground with my mother on it. She landed in the alley behind our house, without a scratch on her.

The next thing she knew, my younger brother Susumu was wailing inside the entrance to our house. “Mama, it hurts! It hurts!” he was crying. She found him with his head caught between a thick beam and the wreckage of the house, thrashing his legs. My father was shouting from inside the wreckage, “Do something! Do something!” My mother didn’t hear a word from my older sister Eiko. She assumed Eiko had been killed instantly when the house collapsed.

My mother tried to stick a piece of wood into the rubble and move the beam in order to rescue Susumu. But the beam, the sort of massive beam used in houses back then, wouldn’t budge an inch. Even when she asked a passerby to help, the two of them were unable to move it.

Soon Susumu’s cries changed: “Mama, it’s hot! It’s hot!” Flames were approaching the spot where Susumu was pinned down. My mother became frantic, hugging my brother as he wailed. She planted herself by his side and said, “Mama will die with you!”

When the fire began to engulf the house, a neighbor who lived behind us happened to be passing by. “Mrs. Nakazawa, you have to give up now,” the neighbor said. “You don’t have to die--not you, too.” My mother wouldn’t leave, but the neighbor took her hand and pulled her away, and they fled together. My mother told me she could hear my brother’s screams from the blaze. His screams continued to echo in her ears. Throughout her life, she was haunted by the cries of Susumu and my father.

Mr. Nakazawa’s older brother, who had been mobilized for the war effort and was in the city of Kure when the bomb was dropped, returned in the aftermath. Together with his older brother, Mr. Nakazawa took a bucket and a shovel to retrieve the remains of his father, sister, and younger brother.

We found a child’s skull at the entrance to the house, like my mother had described. I can’t forget that moment I held Susumu’s skull in my hand. Even in the scorching heat of August, I felt an overwhelming chill, as if a great pile of ice was poured down my back. My younger brother was still conscious when he burned to death.

In the room next to the entrance, we found my father’s skull. Digging in another small room, we found my sister’s skull, too. The bucket became filled with their bones. When we returned to my mother, she told us, “Thank you.” I woke up that night and discovered my mother staring at the three skulls, her eyes fixed on them, her face full of woe.

(Originally published on July 6, 2012)