Fireflies by Ben Byrne Page A

toast and powdered eggs being devoured by the staff and officers around me.
    I had thrown myself into my Japanese life with vigour, keen to get under the skin of the place. I scoured the markets for books in translation and studied whatever I could find — children’s folk tales, samurai dramas, medieval literature. I undertook a dozen Japanese lessons with an old man in his chrysanthemum garden in Shibuya. I even sat cross-legged through six long, baffling hours of a Noh play in a dusty, empty hall, the pain in my thighs growing more excruciating by the second.
    Dutch was still sore at me for landing him in hot water.
    â€œGive this one to Lynch,” he would simper at editorial meetings. “He’s swell at human interest.”
    My assignments so far had included a horticultural show by the Allied Women’s Flower Arranging Society and a boxing tournament between the 5th Cavalry and a team of British marines.
    In the meantime, I tramped the Tokyo streets, photographing the city and its inhabitants. A bald man washing glasses from a bucket in a shanty. The watchman of the metal mountain up past the Ginza, standing amidst piles of radiators, bicycles, and temple bells.
    One day I was up at Ueno, exploring the stalls of the black market. Men chopped slivers of meat, squatted beside standpipes, unloaded wooden crates of fish from hand-carts. Behind the station, I came across a team of tattered children playing baseball on a patch of wasteground. A grubby boy, his face disfigured by burns, was standing against a broken-down section of wall, holding up a charred plank. Another boy in short pants flung a ball made of rags. The scarred boy whacked it hard. A piece of wood splintered off and he raced around a diamond formed of piles of gravel. The other children hollered in encouragement, their faces as filthy as his, as I pulled up my Leica and fired off shot after shot. He tore along, making it back just in time for the home run, sliding along the gravel in a great cloud of dust. The children cheered and screamed. Then they spotted me. They instantly abandoned their game, and came galloping toward me in a herd.
    I hurled candy bars, of which I now kept a provident supply in my coat pocket. They swarmed me, shrieking with delight. To give them a treat, I decided to take their portraits, and had them scribble their ages in my notebook.
    â€œAll from Tokyo, right?” I asked, in my broken Japanese. “You — Tokyo?”
    The scarred boy pushed forward. His hair was thickly matted and he wore dirty brown serge trousers rolled up at the hem.
    â€œWe — Tokyo,” he said in wavering English, gesturing to himself and the others. Then he pointed. “She — no.”
    I noticed another little girl standing a few paces behind him, apparently too shy to come over.
    â€œOh? Where’s she from?”
    The boy nodded. “Yes. She — Hiroshima,” he said.
    I paused. “Is that so?”
    The girl wore a blue canvas jacket and was very frail. I leaned down and beckoned to her, but she barely dared look at me. I offered her a malted milk ball from my pocket. She quickly shook her head. The other children gathered around us.
    â€œYou — Hiroshima?” I said to her.
    She glanced at the scarred boy, then gave a tiny nod of assent.
    â€œYou have — mother? Father? Okasan ? Otosan ?”
    She stared awkwardly beyond me. A faint wind ruffled her short hair.
    The scarred boy broke in: “Her mother — sick. Send her — Tokyo.”
    â€œHer mother was sick?”
    Tears were welling in the girl’s eyes. All of a sudden, she said something in a strained voice. I turned to the boy.
    â€œWhat did she say?” I asked.
    He wiped his forehead with his fist, frowning. “Bomb — fall,” he said. He made an explosive noise and threw up his hands. “Every people — sick.”
    â€œSick? You mean they died?”
    He frowned, apparently