CH 55

We had intended to go home right after, but we were stopped by Dr. Suzuki who had something to say, and we ended up staying for a while more.

In addition to Dr. Suzuki, both Lawyer Tamaru and Mossad Tanaka-san were there too. Prefacing that he will be leaving the rest up to a specialist, Dr. Suzuki told me his diagnosis.

“Tooru-san recognizes us and remembers the landslide happening. It’s just the memory of you, his daughter, that is lost. What has most likely happened is his mind, in trying to fill the blank in his memories, has made you out to be his mother.”

“Does that mean that he has also forgotten what he has done to me?”

“… I have heard the gist of it from Tamaru. Tooru-san wanted revenge against his mother. Though I don’t know the details either, you were used for that purpose.”

I cannot accept this. There is no way I can ever accept this.

“Suzuki-sensei. How is the landlady, no, Midoriya Setsu-san? From what I have heard, she is supposed to be receiving inpatient treatment here.”

“Ah, her. Should we go see her? She is always worrying about you. Always bursting into tears every time she says your name. She witnessed you being left behind in the house because Tooru-san covered for her, didn’t she?”

The landlady… She is worrying about me though there is no need for her to. She truly is a kind person. I wanted to go home right after this, but let’s at least show the landlady that I am fine before going. When I tell Comrade Yoshio this, though he told me to not push myself too hard, he respected my wishes and went with me.

On the way to the hospital room, I ask them about the landlady. They say that she has yet to meet my father. They’re in the same hospital though. I wonder if she is in a state where she cannot move. Dr. Suzuki continues:

“Tooru-san wants us to put a bed for Midoriya-san next to his, but Midoriya-san refuses. Since only 3 days has passed since Tooru-san regained his consciousness, we told him to wait until things have settled down a bit more.”

The love my father has for the landlady is deep.

“By the way, Tamaru-sensei. Why did you go so far as to lie just to call me here?”

To my question, Lawyer Tamaru looks guilty.

“This morning, I was informed that Tooru-sama has terminal cancer. Though I believe you will someday come to visit, nothing will ever come of it if Tooru-sama passes away before that. … No, to be honest, I lost my composure, thinking that Tooru-sama will die. The Tooru-sama I thought of as God. I then started contacting those who had relations with him.”

What is this “God” he is speaking of. That man is the god of pestilence.

“If that is the case, you could have just said so. It is not as if he will die today or tomorrow, will he?”

Dr. Suzuki, who has been listening, starts explaining the condition my father is in.

“What Tooru-san has is pancreatic cancer. We found it when we took whole body CT and MRI scans of him, fearing that he might have suffered blows all throughout his body. We ran several more tests to make sure, all while he was still unconscious. He will be transferred to receive treatment for the pancreatic cancer.”

“Does my father know?”

“Yeah. He said he’s known for a long time already. But he is not optimistic about receiving treatment.”

It does not matter to me whether he undergoes treatment or not. It is just that it frustrates me that he does not recognize me. In such a state, there is no meaning in my saying anything.

“I’ll do everything in my power so that Tooru-san can remember you. This is likely only temporary. I suppose you must greatly resemble his mother.”

Ah, I hate this. Why do I resemble Mari-sama? In the distant future, I will be that old lady. How depressing.

In the middle of our conversation, we arrive in front of the landlady’s room. I knock and hear in reply the familiar voice of the landlady. I enter the room wheeled in.

Seeing my face, the landlady’s eyes open wide.

“Good afternoon, Landlady.”

For a while, the landlady made not even the slightest movement, instead just staring at me. After which, her body starts trembling and she bursts into tears, covering her face with her hands. I approach her, make sure my face has a smile on it, and start talking to her.

“Landlady, I am doing fine. Though I may be suffering some injuries, the doctor said that I will still be able to play the piano as I used to. It is thanks to you that I was able to survive, and with only this level of injury too.”

Explaining to the landlady what had happened, I grip her hands with one of mine. If I could, I would have wrapped her hands in both of mine, but my left arm is broken.

The landlady lifted her head up.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would turn out like this. You must have suffered, haven’t you? I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“No. With what has happened, I have come to understand a lot of things. Conceited as it may be, I thought that I was surviving all alone. But I have come to realize that in reality, I was always receiving help from a lot of people. And you are one of them. All I feel towards you is gratefulness.”

“Reiko-chan, Reiko-chan…!”

I waited silently until the landlady stop crying, all the while holding her hands in mine.

After finally regaining her calm, the landlady wipes her tears with a tissue.

“Landlady, I am doing fine. I am fine, see? I will go forage some mountain vegetables again. And grip some bamboo shoots too. Right, let’s make some konjac together! And dried persimmons too! Ah, the plum wine have all gone to waste now, so let’s prepare some for next year too. We have a lot to do! We should get discharged quickly and…”

After the landlady has already stopped crying, it is now my turn to start. I feel like the crybaby teacher from the drama “School Wars” I saw while hospitalized. I have fond memories with the landlady.

“After being told all these, I have no choice but to recover quickly, huh.”

The landlady patted my head, kindly. The landlady has always been kind.

“Reiko-chan, will you listen to this grandma’s tale of the olden days? Tooru-san was someone who would get lonely easily, and he was very kind too. Though I can’t forgive him for having done such cruel things to you, I want you to know more about him.”

The landlady must have really loved my father. As for me, I have no plans of ever forgiving him no matter what I hear.

Comrade Yoshio, Mossad Tanaka-san, Lawyer Tamaru, and Dr. Suzuki are all here. I ask her if it is okay for them all to stay, and she says that she does not mind.

The landlady begins her tale quietly.

The landlady was born in 1943, in Nagasaki. She was born into an exceedingly normal family, with a carpenter father, a mother, and two older brothers.

On the 9th of August, 1945, the plutonium core atomic bomb Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. The landlady was in a house approximately 2 km away from the detonation point.

The landlady lost her family. Left alone, she was taken in by a relative and moved to Tokyo for employment after graduating middle school. She worked as a waitress in a restaurant there, feeling the joys of youth. My father was one of her customers.

“Tooru-san was dashing and wonderful. I fell in love at first sight. Of course, it was one sided. But Tooru-san began taking notice of me, and we started seeing each other.”

And she says that my father, much like her, had been all alone.

My father had little to no memories of living with his parents. My grandfather, Kujouin Juuichirou, was busy doing all that he could for the sake of the country, while my grandmother, Kujouin Mari, was never present due to her activities as a pianist. He was raised by wet nurses and servants, and thrown into Eton College, a public school in the United Kingdom, once he turned 13. However, just after he got into Oxford University, he was forced to come home to Japan following Kujouin Juuichirou’s death.

Mari-sama, who had until then been unconcerned with the Kujouin household, became suddenly very fixated on it after my grandfather Juuichirou’s death. It was just as if she had poured all her passion towards the piano, which by then had gone out of her grip, into the Kujouin household instead. And by her side, Fuki-san was always there.

“Tooru-san was in suffering. He was compared to both his father and his mother. Still, he worked hard. And he was kind to someone with no education like me, never putting on airs. He even cared for me when I caught a cold. He was too good for me.”

The landlady then became pregnant with his child. And he rejoiced in it.

“He was so happy. Tooru-san thanked me while crying. And asked me to marry him right away. We then went to meet his mother. Tooru-san’s house was magnificent, and I became intimidated, but Tooru-san gripped my hand tight and assured me that it will be okay.”

Though Hongou Takeru-sama claimed that the Kujouin residence was humble, it must have had more than enough grandeur for ordinary people.

My father and the landlady went to introduce the landlady to Mari-sama. Neither of them went with the expectations of Mari-sama giving them her blessings for marriage. My father smiled and said that he will even throw his family away.

I think my father just wanted to abandon his family regardless, and was just using the landlady as an excuse. Though it might just be me reading too much into things.

Contrary to their expectations, Mari-sama gave them her blessings readily. She told them that she could see that the landlady is a clever girl, and the grandchild she is bearing might be one she can expect more out of than my father. From then on, my father and the landlady started living together in the Kujouin residence. Mari-sama did nothing to interfere with them. Though there was an instance where she called father a good-for-nothing.

Father wanted to marry as soon as possible, but since his household was one where they have to uphold formalities, preparations had to be made. During which, my father had to go to the United States due to work. It was a matter that needed a few months to settle. With plans to hold their marriage ceremony right after returning, he left Japan.

The landlady, suffering from terrible morning sickness, started staying in bed more and more. Mari-sama assigned her a doctor and visited her at times, though she would not speak and only came to check on her by sight. Fuki-san, on the other hand, would make snide remarks towards the landlady. Not even two weeks after father left, Fuki-san presented the landlady with a thick envelope and urged the landlady to end things with my father.

“I did not mind not getting married. I didn’t need money either. But I told her that I want to at least give birth to the child. I wanted to protect the child I had with Tooru-san. They were my only treasure.”

Fuki-san, in her fine kimono, heaved a sigh and exasperatedly told the landlady, that a child of the Kujouin family cannot be born from an atomic bomb victim. That it was foolish of her to ask that. That she was suffering from terrible morning sickness because of the bomb, that a normal pregnancy would not be like that. She asked the landlady what she would do if symptoms of radiation exposure appear in the child.

The landlady became frightened. What if what she had gone through had affected the child? If she were to give birth to such a child, it would be a burden to my father.

“To be told such things when I did not even remember the explosion… Though discrimination against atomic bomb victims was present in Tokyo, I never told anyone that I was one. Though I did feel guilty about it. Of course, I told Tooru-san, and he told me to not worry about such things.”

“… How horrible of Fuki-san! How could she say such horrible things?! I can hardly believe this! To begin with, the Ministry of Environment has made a statement that no significant difference has been found between children born from atomic bomb victims and those who were not!”

After reading Barefoot Gen, I went on to find out more about the development process of the bombs, the bombings itself, and the effects they had towards their victims. Due to this, I have some knowledge about the children of those who became victims. Which is why I could confidently say this. However, at the time of the landlady’s pregnancy, not only had enough time not passed to conduct research about the bombs’ effects on the second generation, discrimination was present regardless of scientific proof.

The landlady did not think that what Fuki-san told her was absurd. It was a time where prejudice run rampant. The landlady had only wanted to avoid inconveniencing my father.

“In the first place, Tooru-san was someone who lived in a world different from mine. He was kind. He was someone who loved me. But I decided to draw myself away from him.”

The landlady was then brought to a hospital and had an abortion. Perhaps owing to the techniques used at that time, the landlady became unable to bear any more children. She then quietly disappeared from the Kujouin residence, with Fuki-san and Mari-sama’s secretary, Sugiyama-san, arranging for her to recuperate in the countryside.

A year after, she married into the family of a well-to-do man in Hanaoka Town. He was a divorcee with a young son. It was a marriage arranged by Fuki-san and the secretary Sugiyama-san.

“I always loved Tooru-san. I felt sorry for my husband, but secretly I never let go of him. My memories with him were both beautiful and full of sadness. Still, I, being unable to bear a child any longer and could not have a family of my own, was happy to have a step son. I sure was easy, was I not?”

The landlady withdrew for the sake of my father. She married a widower in order to not become a hindrance to my father. She believed that even if my father were to find her, he would give her up if he saw how happily she was living. No, it was perhaps Fuki-san who had made her believe that.

I did not know anything.