Vermeer's Angel

PROLOGUE

A Red Hat

"R ED, YOUR EXCELLENCY? BUT LOOK how these traffic lights just turned from red to amber and now to green. Here in Japan, they call green blue . In Rome then, while you see red, some might see white . As the luxurious Toyota Century sped up smoothly, leaving the traffic signals behind, Bishop Picerno Dorf smiled at his colleague’s witticism. Seeing white?" Yes, Monsignor Marco Altemps had to be joking. A red hat was more than Bishop Dorf had ever expected, or deserved. And yet, he mused, "is not the red hat the last step before the white zucchetto? Why not wear white indeed, someday? Who could tell? After all, he was only sixty-seven and, since his minor stroke last Christmas, he had taken steps to lower his blood pressure. Red it is then, for now, the bishop conceded. Destiny is an artist combining unexpected colours. How dull our lives would look in black and white! When Picerno Dorf had been made a bishop ten years earlier, following Pope John Paul II’s 1981 visit to Japan, he had replied to Altemps’ congratulations, I will share this purple with you, Marco." And soon enough, his assistant at the Asian Affairs had been promoted to Prelate of Honour of His Holiness, which entitled him to knot a purple sash around his thin waist. However, for the time being, both men were wearing impeccably cut and undoubtedly black Italian suits.

In pleasant mood, the two clerics had just left the American Centre in Tokyo where they had watched the premiere of Supero, a film about the strange life of Hiroshima survivor, Japanese artist and Communist spy Ken Kokura, after a best-selling novel based on genuine events. They had congratulated co-screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born British author whose own mother was a Bomb-survivor. The American cultural attaché had attended the projection, as well as the Japanese minister of Culture (or Monka-shō). Officially, Dorf and Altemps were representing the Papal Nunciature, where the chauffeur was now driving them back amidst heavy traffic. Through the window of the limousine, Bishop Dorf looked without particular interest at the wide façade of the Akasaka Palace, a government building. That boring imitation of Buckingham Palace evoked Europe to him: Europe, where he would finally return after nearly three decades spent in Asia.

Lowering his voice in the very unlikely event that the chauffeur understood their German dialect, the bishop confided, "Well, that film revealed practically nothing about me. You know what, Marco, I am almost disappointed. After all the fretting about possible scandal. . . The teaser for Supero was ominous for us churchmen, I grant you that: He survived Hiroshima. He escaped East-Germany. Will he elude the Church?"

Much ado about nothing, Monsignor Altemps agreed, adding, And yet, I’m glad we waited before leaking the news of your promotion. The novel made almost no mention of you, thankfully, whatever the author’s sources had been. But who could tell what the film would disclose? If its scenario was to keep closer to the facts, you could have been portrayed as responsible for Kokura’s death. After all, he collapsed when you denied him his request and died in hospital soon after. Of course, you couldn’t know how he would react. In a way, I’m surprised it’s taken ten full years for the media to exploit that incident. Thankfully, now the hindrance of scandal is removed. Starting with your intimate supporters, we can disclose your elevation to the cardinalate next month.

Bishop Picerno Dorf remained silent and turned his head towards the window, as if enjoying the sunset. He hoped that his friend wouldn’t notice his frowning. It was about 6pm and the air was warm. He’d found it hard to focus on Easter the day before. Obstacles to his cardinalate had worried him, but a more personal sorrow weighed upon his heart, namely, the liver cancer of Monsignor Altemps. Only three days earlier, on Good Friday, Bishop Dorf had discovered his friend’s well-kept secret. As he’d popped into the monsignor’s office at the nunciature, one floor above his, Hana, the new maid, had interrupted her dusting and informed His Excellency that His Reverence the First Counsellor would soon be back from chapel. (A very pious priest, Mgr Altemps offered Mass daily, even in Latin for the past two years. Not on Good Friday, however.) While waiting for his assistant, Picerno had browsed through recent correspondence on the desk tray. At the bottom of the pile, a medical letter from the Oncology department of the St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo marked Confidential had attracted his attention. Simply put, Marco was given a year to live, or up to eighteen months if he reacted well to the forthcoming treatment. Picerno made sense, in retrospect, of his friend’s two holiday breaks over the past five months. Mgr Altemps was a hard worker, whose vocabulary didn’t include the word vacation. But of late, his sickness had manifestly compelled him to slow down.

Picerno had left the study before the First Counsellor stepped back in and had refrained from mentioning the dreadful topic so far. He’d struggled with the brutal fact of his friend’s expected demise and couldn’t decide whether he admired or resented his courageous discretion. He so wished Marco had dared to share the news with him. Truly, losing his long-time teammate made the red hat fade away somehow. The achievement he’d so much desired repelled him rather, when he considered that his faithful collaborator was preparing for death rather than for celebration. And so young—barely past sixty. . . The two men went back a very long way, having spent their early childhood in the same mountainous province of Alto Adige, or South Tyrol, in northeast Italy. In the absence of a third interlocutor their conversation often switched from Italian to Tyrolese spontaneously. And what of their plans, now? While the new cardinal would be based in Rome, Marco was meant to become the first nuncio in Japan. It was time, after seventy-two years with mere apostolic delegates and pro-nuncios in this Land of the Rising Sun. But with widespread cancer now, could he even take the position? He should, absolutely! The current pro-nuncio, Bishop William Carew, would learn on his return from the Easter holiday that he was promoted to Bonn, moving to Berlin in the summer. Hopefully, Marco hadn’t informed Mgr Jacques Pommard, their director in Rome, of his cancer. Ah, what a setback . . . And when would a propitious occasion occur for him to tell Marco that he knew about his illness, and to express sympathy at last? On the other hand, action was needed, and if fate took Monsignor Altemps away, Picerno owed it to his friend to bring their work to completion.

The automatic gates of the nunciature closed behind the car. They had arrived. As he waited for Marco to walk round the limo, Bishop Dorf noticed the Fushichō or gold phoenix logo displayed on the radiator of the Toyota. He found the emblem gaudy. But it was time for some supper, and for planning their next move.

Alone at last. Nestled in his antique Chinese armchair, a carved rosewood throne of the Qing dynasty (on permanent loan from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, thanks to his friend Mingdao), Bishop Picerno Dorf swallowed another sip of whisky from the bottle just unwrapped. As connoisseurs might recall, Okayama Single Malt comes from the Miyashita distillery in the south of Japan, using half German barley. A delicate hint to their shared German-speaking youth in Tyrol, it was Marco’s present that evening. It tasted bittersweet, though. After a first glass and some chitchat, Picerno had eventually addressed the cancer issue. Marco had become very upset on discovering his friend’s indiscretion. He wouldn’t admit that every document marked as confidential justified Bishop Dorf’s interest.

"Neither did you share your heart problems with me, Picerno. I only found out when reading the label on your pill box at breakfast. But in my case it was private correspondence you read."

Sorry Marco; it wasn’t obvious to me just from reading the envelope, and once I had the letter in my hand, I realised that this threat to your health had a bearing on our plans. Why didn’t you tell me about it?

"Look, Picerno: I’ve always shared with you every piece of information that I thought relevant to our work. But my cancer is insignificant. For I will never, never allow it to hinder what we’ve been working for over the past years. You must get that red hat. Your vision for the Church in Asia is vital in the current context and, as we agreed upon, you must now come out of the wood. Your work behind the stage has achieved wonders and calls for consolidation, which only visibility will secure. Our friends and I do see red for you, no longer purple. As for me, doctors are mere alarmists seeking attention. In Salzburg, my aunt Gabriella lived a further thirteen years after having been diagnosed with cancer. If I don’t outlive you, I might last long enough to see you turn white."

I’m impressed by your dedication, Marco, Picerno commented while putting his hand on his friend’s arm. "But what about your new position? You were to succeed me as the unofficial co-ordinator on the ground in Asia. Becoming the papal nuncio in Japan would have given you the clout necessary for our teamwork. If you remained in this nunciature as mere First Counsellor, you wouldn’t be able to achieve much around here once I’m gone."

"I’m up and ready to become the nuncio in Tokyo. All will work according to plan, I’m sure, Your Eminence."

They had left the matter to that, and Marco had gone to bed. Lord, he was looking pale.

Later that evening, sitting in his Chinese armchair, Bishop Dorf whispered the enthralling words for the first time, Picerno, Cardinal Dorf. Then, as if being introduced to himself, he added, Delighted, Your Eminence! This red biretta suits you perfectly. A well-deserved reward for years of crucial service to the Church in Asia.

Now that the potential hurdle of the Kokura film had vanished, they would send the pre-invitations. April had just started. The formal announcement for the consistory was scheduled for 29 May and the creation of the new cardinals on 28 June. But it was essential to secure as early as possible the attendance of the most sought-after guests at his first Mass as cardinal on Sunday 30 June in his titular basilica—especially Mgr Jacques Pommard and Dr Pavel Shevchenko. He wanted some Oriental flavour. Marco had ordered floral displays of Chinese red peonies (that is chi shao), and the best duck and spring rolls in Rome would be served at the reception afterwards, in a grand palazzo (once owned by Marco’s family) near Piazza Navona. Picerno could see in advance the entrance procession into his basilica of San Sisto Vecchio on the Via Appia, the famous church allocated to him as his cardinalatial title.

And Pommard would be there. He had to be. As the king-maker at the Secretariat of State, Mgr Jacques Pommard would appreciate Dorf’s accomplishment. He would smile at the new cardinal, as in Roman antiquity the most influential senators would welcome victorious generals on their triumph along the Via Sacra, hailing them by the name of the territory they had added to the Empire. It would not be Germanicus in his case, or Britannicus, or Africanus, but Asiaticus—or rather, Dorf modestly corrected, Asiaticulus, since his achievements in China and its periphery, however significant, were mere contributions to the long-term Asian strategy of Rome.

Bishop Dorf helped himself to another glass of whisky, trying to define the nature of his emotion. No, he was not ambitious. He was a realist. He wanted power for Rome, not for himself; and his contentment was to add his own limited successes to a series of similar steps walked by other churchmen before him, leaving behind them dusty, sweaty or bloody footsteps. Like the best choreographies, conquest couldn’t be a one-man-show. He was not the only one playing on the Asian stage, and probably not the most important actor. Pommard had helped, and dear Marco had been indispensable. He had encountered fools, like Vaddak, and opponents like Ignatius Kung, the former Bishop of Shanghai, now settled in America after thirty years in prison. Dorf admitted that his understanding of politics, albeit deep, was not infallible. He had done his best to promote the Vatican’s interests in this vast part of the world. Please God, others would continue his task. Not replacing him just yet, though! His red hat was not the end, far from it. Rather, it was a new mode of operation, in the limelight after decades spent behind the scenes.

Through the branches of the cherry trees in the nunciature garden, Picerno looked at the lit skyline. He had arrived in Tokyo less than a month ago. Officially, because his position as Vatican Delegate to the Observatory of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Asia (a microscopic department of the United Nations) was being relocated from Singapore to the Japanese capital. Unofficially, he was to prepare Marco to take over his role as field coordinator for the Church’s Asian affairs, an activity he would still oversee with Mgr Pommard, but remotely, from Rome. The Pro-Nuncio in Tokyo had obligingly lent him two spare rooms at the Nunciature. But Dorf would very soon vacate them. An entire floor awaited him, in a Roman palazzo with high, intricate Renaissance ceilings.

The familiar screech of the fax machine by his desk interrupted the prelate. He rose from his Chinese throne with some apprehension. Concern about some last-minute obstacle to his promotion lingered at the back of his mind. The machine was slowly printing a confidential memo. Before the sheet could be extracted, its headline was enough to reassure the anxious diplomat. The Warsaw Pact had just dissolved, it announced. No big scoop there. He knew well that it had been coming. Nothing to worry about; although Moscow’s loss of its Eastern European satellites would boost China as the main power in the Communist world. That would not help the Church’s agenda in China, but it would prove that his path of measured concessions to Beijing was the safest. Another fax message was now printing. Small fry: just a British businessman to be released by the Iranians after being detained five years as hostage. It’s quite fitting, Dorf approved, for one to be liberated on Easter Monday. He switched off his desk lamp, deciding that it was time to sleep.

As he walked by the bookcase, he tenderly brushed the cover of a thick volume. His old doctoral thesis by the title The Anonymous Priest had finally been translated into Chinese the year before. Summarising the two-volume original German version and making it available to Chinese readers had been a pet project of his for years. In 1971, Karl Rahner had deigned to take notice of Dorf’s attempt to apply his concept of anonymous Christian to the priesthood in particular. Picerno had meant the Chinese version as a hint; one of those little signs which glitter through the often dull or dark mist of political negotiations. Thankfully Mingdao, his very discreet friend at the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, had confirmed the good impression made upon the Government. At last, an approach of the Catholic priesthood compatible with sinicization.

As a result, Picerno had been invited to the Fifth National Congress of Catholic Representatives, scheduled to meet in Beijing the following year. Anyone who needed to know—like Pommard—would have acknowledged that Bishop Picerno Dorf was a key player on the Asian stage, more than ever. He took a spare copy of the leather-bound book and dedicated and signed the title page adding ‘Cardinal-elect’ before his name. Tomorrow, as soon as Pommard had confirmed the all-clear for his cardinalate, he would have the book posted to Mingdao in Beijing.

First thing in the morning, still dishevelled and with his crimson slippers on, Bishop Dorf had walked into his office to check the news. Monsignor Marco Altemps, fully dressed and shaven, was already there.

It’s a mistake, Picerno. It has to be. Some misunderstanding.

Altemps tried to sound reassuring, which made his manifest bewilderment even more alarming. Losing his composure wasn’t like him at all. And yet, as he stood by the desk of Bishop Dorf, his hands could barely hold the letter just found on the fax machine. Dorf gently led the sick monsignor to a chair and delicately took the sheet of paper from him.

Let me read it myself in case I’ve missed something.

The note was short and handwritten.

Confidential:

For the attention of Bishop Picerno Dorf, Vatican Delegate to the U.N. Observatory of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Asia, Apostolic Nunciature in Tokyo.

Monday 1 April 1991

Dear Picerno,

The unofficial announcement you were about to make to selected acquaintances regarding the happy matter we discussed last week must be postponed. A difficulty has occurred. I would love to call it a glitch, but it sounds serious enough to require me to cancel our earlier arrangement. Feel free to call me for further details. Wishing you a blessed Easter Week,

J. Pommard.

Bishop Dorf slowly sat down on the end of his desk. His voice sounded surprisingly devoid of emotion when he uttered, It’s Kung’s doing yet again. These Chinese Underground Catholics are relentless. They’ll try anything to block me. They still distrust me and want the red hat on his head or on no one else’s.

CHAPTER 1

Sunburnt Artist

Confidential: Authentic Confession of Ken Kokura, Japanese artist, art expert and former spy, handed to His Excellency Archbishop Mario Pio Gaspari, Pro-Nuncio in Japan, Tokyo, 21 January 1981. The confession is reliably based on the author’s diaries dutifully kept over decades, and his personal archives.

AWAKENING TOOK ME MANY YEARS. It occurred by stages.

I first awoke on 10 August 1945 under a tent near Hiroshima, Japan. Sunlight filtered through the material above my head as I opened my eyes. It ached. A red disc with beams was spread against the tent above me. I realised later on that it was Japan’s imperial Rising Sun flag, our Kyokujitsu-ki. Thirst, dire thirst was my first impression. They gave me milk, a little. I was lying on a stretcher in a field hospital, four days after the bombing of my city. My fellow-sufferers moaned and shrieked: a hellish lullaby. Around me, many had not awoken yet, and more never would. I was among corpses and unsure whether I was alive. I didn’t know that my memory was dead. Later that day, when asked where I lived, what my name, age and profession were, I could find no answer. Evidently, I was a Japanese man, probably in my late twenties, although the picture they took of me has me looking like forty. My entire body ached. I was cut and bruised; skin was missing from part of my neck and shoulder, and I had lost the hearing in one ear. Thankfully my limbs still held together. But to what purpose, if my soul was amputated from every remembrance?

The doctors were overwhelmed. The main assessment of our condition was alive or dead. Later they refined it, segregating the survivors into those sound of mind and those mentally unhinged. I fell into the latter category. I heard a nurse say, They just bombed Tokyo! I didn’t know what Tokyo meant, nor bombed. And who were they? In fact, what did I know, or remember? Oblivious to earlier times when order and peace prevailed, I could not even call chaos my first impression of the world. In children’s tales, fairy godmothers lean towards the cradle and gift the newborn child with the talents fitting for the heroic mission that awaits him. I had at least four godmothers, called Pain, Confusion, Dread, and Helplessness. Like a child though, whose experience of life is only beginning, I assumed such a state of things was normal. It was all I had ever known, being one day old, as I felt. Hope, I couldn’t lose, having never experienced it.

A few days later, blasting loudspeakers could be heard from our tents. But I didn’t understand what was said. It was the Declaration of Surrender by Emperor Hirohito, although the word surrender was not mentioned apparently. Still, the music played in introduction sounded perfectly familiar to me. Thousands of years of happy reign be thine; Rule on, my lord, until what are pebbles now, By ages united to mighty boulders shall grow, Whose venerable sides the moss doth line. Recognising the Kimigayo, the national anthem of the Empire of Japan, I immediately tried to get out of my stretcher and stand, saluting. But I collapsed miserably. Still, that 15 August 1945 was when my first memory surfaced. I then knew that I had existed before. It meant that I was not presently being born: I was merely awakening. That evening, under my bed sheets, I tried to explain to myself the well-known lyrics of the national anthem. Had there been a Lord, once? What was he to me? Was he to reign forever? Such a prospect seemed to please those singing. They were probably his subjects. But they would not enjoy his rule unless he were kind. The growing pebbles puzzled me. Minerals don’t grow like fruits do. How could small stones grow into boulders? What did it mean? It struck me, all of a sudden! Yes, I had found the answer to the riddle. The stones remained the same all along. The one changing size was me. Or Japan. We were to become smaller than we thought ourselves. We first saw the stones as pebbles because ambition kept us floating far above reality, making things look smaller. Our sense of proportion was distorted, probably through hovering pride. If we became humbler, more attentive and respectful, smaller in our own eyes, we would see the pebbles grow before us, reaching the size of mighty rocks. They would seem to grow as we lost altitude, as through the porthole of an aeroplane landing. Coming closer, we might even discover that the moss lining their venerable sides was hair, for the pebbles turned rocks were our human brethren—people rather than minerals. Was that the reign of the Lord?

In a different part of the camp, I had seen sick children. One looked at me, an embodiment of bewildered innocence. I could hear others crying. I suspected that most victims from the bomb had been civilians. If only, I thought, their parents were still with them. But these poor little ones were probably orphans by now. What future was theirs? Admittedly, I seemed to have lost my entire family, as they had. But I was a grown man. I decided that I could take care of myself, unlike them. That gave me courage, paradoxically. Only later did I learn the horrible irony: the bomber that had taken the mothers of so many innocents was named after its pilot’s own mother, Mrs Enola Gay. It was as if, through that coincidence, that man was telling my orphan children, pointing at his bomber, Behold your mother. And that mother, far from calling herself Sorrowful as she should have, bore instead the surname of Gay, that is, joyful.

One week later, following my daily assessment, the staff ruled out mental alienation. I was separated from the lunatics and found myself merely among amnesiacs. By then we were housed in a concrete building, not under tents anymore. The authorities had gathered some hundreds of us from Hiroshima, Nagasaki and probably from other bombed cities. Thin pouches hung around our necks, comprising whatever pieces of information had been found about us. I’ve kept mine all these years. It is here on my desk as I write, like a birth certificate. As if we were kindergarten children, we were shown elementary depictions of animals, fruits, trades, landscapes or musical instruments and asked to name them. The purpose was not to teach us our mother tongue anew, since most of us could still speak fluent Japanese. Rather, the slideshow was meant to unlock memories by association. My doctor had done his best to assemble the few clues I had tried to extract from my numbed memory. They were images and sensations rather than words or concepts. Classroom; children; paintbrush; paint smell; kneeling; girdle; cup; silk; wave. . .

Ah, yes, wave was my first victory, or blessing. I immediately recognised Hokusai’s Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagaw, an iconic woodblock print from the early nineteenth century. The mental health nurse asked me to explain the picture. It’s a system, I answered her hesitantly. It’s a warning. An invitation. I was afraid of speaking further. After a silence, my speech was unleashed. As one diving into clear and fresh water, I was carried by a momentum from which it was impossible to refrain.

Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain, and yet it appears very small in the background. In the foreground, the great wave seems about to crash down as if on the distant volcano. It’s an illusion of perspective. In the foreground, to the left, another wave is forming. It has exactly the same triangular shape and colours as the smaller silhouette of Mount Fuji. The foam on the crest of the wave echoes the snow on the top of the dwarfed mountain behind. That wave looks like a larger replica of Mount Fuji. But since the great wave above is about to cover belittled Mount Fuji, as it seems, symmetry calls for a yet larger wave to threaten the bigger liquid replica of Mount Fuji. I looked interrogatively at the nurse. She was taking notes. I continued. First we identified the relation between Mount Fuji and the Great Wave. Then we noticed the similitude between Mount Fuji and the Smaller Wave. So, looking at the Smaller Wave as a larger Mount Fuji demands yet another wave, that one enormously bigger than the Great Wave. It’s an analogy of proportionality. Does it make sense?

I stopped, as one feeling his way along a dark corridor. Some door stood slightly ajar before me. I was afraid of pushing it open. The nurse was listening to me invitingly. Feeling encouraged, I dared to unfold my hypothesis. "The question is: Where is that greater invisible wave? It does not show in the picture. Then it must be swelling outside of the picture. The audience is prompted to look behind them and check if that colossal wave, so much bigger than the already gigantic Great Wave depicted by the artist, is not right over their heads, just about to engulf them, exactly as the painted Great Wave is falling upon the three fishing boats." Standing on the opposite side of the table, the nurse playfully glanced over her right shoulder, as if fearing submersion. She had a very fine profile. As she turned her head back towards me, she smiled. Her smile was my first gift. Never until then had I experienced a gentle and gratuitous gesture. From my awakening, everyone’s attention to me had felt hurried, concerned and professional. I realised that the nurse had meant her sideward glance as a friendly touch of humour. She was not really checking whether a colossal wave was swelling behind her. Rather, she had just been playing with me, like a sister might. It was a very small thing, but one that revived an essential part of my personality. Only then did I notice her stomach, and wondered how pregnant nurses were allowed on the front line. Or was war over for good?

The nurse had identified some mnemonic thread of mine and was trying to engage me further. I furtively returned her smile as she wondered, Surely you haven’t invented all this right now, just by glancing at the print laid before you. You must have found that explanation stored somewhere in your memory. I lowered my eyes, strangely ashamed, as if I had trespassed into significance—a foreign kingdom—without a passport. Meaninglessness was all I had ever experienced since awakening. Was I clandestinely coming home? After a silence, she went on, Here on the table the caption reads, ‘The courageous fishermen represent the indomitable Japanese people, rowing to victory against daunting odds.’ You interpret the picture as a cautionary warning to a vulnerable audience. Is it a memory of yours, or did you just imagine this? Are you influenced by the country’s defeat, or have you caught up with something familiar to you, emerging from your past? Could you have been an artist, perhaps, or an art teacher?

Nurse Tanaka’s smile had been my first present, reminding me of what a relationship is and unlocking my capacity for pictorial analysis. Unfortunately, this first success was soon undermined by a remark from my roommate at supper. I told her nothing, Yamato boasted. Why, the Americans destroyed our country and now, they send staff to extract intelligence from us survivors.

But she’s Japanese, not American, I objected.

"You moron, don’t you know she’s a Nisei! Hundreds of them have landed since the ignominious surrender. She may speak our language, but she was born and raised over there in the USA."

Surely you’re mistaken. I can tell American doctors and military, whereas she looks as Japanese as you and I.

I don’t care what she looks like or what year her parents left Japan. Now she’s part of them, our sworn enemies. They trained her. Sharing any information with her lot is sheer betrayal.

That night upon my bed I turned my head towards the wall, hiding a few tears. What if my fellow amnesiac guessed that I mourned the smile of Nurse Tanaka—an American, an enemy? Had she deceived me? Had my trust in her been a mistake? And yet, she’d been right: I hadn’t invented the interpretation of Hokusai’s Great Wave, I had recalled it. It was a very promising improvement. It was a victory, and the nurse had given it to me. Could I call such a successful carer a fiend, a traitor? But if I suspected her, who could I ever trust?

The following day Yamato gave me my first iaijutsu lesson. For several mornings I had seen him sitting on his heels by his camp bed. He kept totally immobile for up to half an hour, breathing very slowly, his hands spread on his thighs. Then, suddenly, with awesome velocity he caught with both hands a bamboo cane hanging from his side and projected it forward as if it had been a sword. Drawing his mock katana from an imaginary scabbard was so natural to him that he must have been an army officer—or so he believed. I learned from him. Once as I was shaving, he pointed at my knees visible below my trunks. What calloused knees you have! You must have been a camel in your previous life. After a fortnight, I felt surprisingly comfortable squatting for half an hour like him. I was much slower at drawing my bamboo cane, though. I had probably never been an army man.

Sometime later in August, all of us amnesic men were made to stand side by side along a low fence. Each of us bore a sign displaying his presumed name, age, profession and place of origin. Groups of civilians slowly walked by, looking with anxious hope at our faces. Some men were identified by a father, a wife, a daughter, by friends or colleagues. They would clasp and sob in disbelief. After an hour, no one had claimed me, though. Unlike my only friend Yamato, no wife had swooned on my shoulder. No son had leaped into my arms. No friend had uttered my name. I felt humiliated. Group after group had walked by, trying in vain to read my features. I stood discarded, like a lame slave, an unworthy item on this market of affection, of acquaintance, of history. How I wished for bonds with kith and kin. How I longed for human ties to assert my belonging to a family, to a village or a trade. But no thread—however tenuous—connected me with the warmth, love or sympathy of any fellow Japanese. If tenderness wasn’t to be mine, would not hatred or jealousy at least help identify me? I would have worshipped any rival, any bully—if they had been able to tell me my name. Facing scorn, anger or vengeance would have been my delight, if they had revealed to me who I was.

I needed a name. Those of us still unidentified were shown a map of Japan and invited to pick the name of whichever town or village we fancied. That is how I became Ken Kokura, after a nearby city. Yamato was moving there, having been admitted into the new domestic police force. I had started drawing. It seemed the best thing I was able to do. The staff suggested I had been a calligrapher. It wasn’t a promising trade in 1945 Japan. The country was on its knees and builders, doctors, bakers, electricians, mechanics or accountants were in demand. No one advertised for artists. However, I showed the head of the amnesia department at the hospital a few of my drawings, depicting fellow patients, trees of the nearby forest and wrecked military vehicles. Some of them were published in the local newspaper. Following Yamato’s suggestion, I went to Kokura and managed to find a job as an illustrator for a magazine. I still suffered from nausea two or three times a day, and hearing was still muffled in my right ear. But I could breathe, walk and even sleep almost normally.

By then I had put together a little routine which involved my early morning sword-drawing meditation and exercise, and a lot of calligraphy. I had been lent three books full of coloured illustrations on European and Japanese paintings and drawings. I soon became very familiar with the depictions. The thinnest book was about Japanese folding screens. I recall one such six-part screen by seventeenth century artist Kanō Naganobu, Merrymaking Under the Cherry Blossoms, with four women carrying swords as they performed the Okuni Kabuki dance. A later, three-part, screen, represented three elegant ladies indoors, the last one of whom was reading a letter. A magnificent bird came to speak with the middle lady. Its long colourful feathers, like Fra Angelico’s archangels’, filled the entire background. It was by Kitagawa Utamaro, an eighteenth-century artist whose work later inspired the French Impressionists. All images had become like friends to me. I wished I could have known more about their authors, but books and time were scarce. I seldom went out. I started wearing a green bow tie found in a charity shop. I am not sure why, but I felt safe and prepared once I had it around my neck.

A few months later, in March 1946, a foreigner asked for me through the newspaper I was working for. He was a youthful German representing a university near Berlin. He had seen a few of my published drawings. We met in the quiet archives of the newspaper. Through a Japanese interpreter, Heinrich affirmed that I had real talent. Would I like to study in Europe? His offer unsettled me. I had never left Japan—to my knowledge—and was afraid of travelling so far away. On the other hand, having no intimate acquaintances in my homeland, I felt a bit alien among my own people. I was most at home—or least estranged—when drawing and painting. We met several times over that week with Heinrich and with fellow-Japanese. He showed me various illustrations by Lucas Cranach and assured me that I could study in the hometown of the great German painter. Heinrich knew many anecdotes. He explained that a winged serpent was the signature used by the artist, after his coat of arms. I was fascinated by the intensity of several portraits by Cranach. One in particular seemed to awaken memories. It represented Martin Luther. I had no notion of who the German Reformer was and yet, his features looked very familiar to me. Could I have been a Christian before? I also recall vividly Cranach’s depiction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I knew the famous Christian myth, as many non-Christians did. It was part of the world culture and did not imply that one belonged to that religion. I asked Heinrich why Cranach had omitted the wings on the snake around the apple-tree. He answered with a smile that it was not a signature serpent, this time, although a pun might have been intended. Once again, I realised how patchy my remembrances were. Sometimes I was certain of having heard a sentence or seen a picture, while on other occasions things felt totally new to me. The doctor had warned me against déjà vu. I had become accustomed to feeling my way through memory mirages.

Later that week, our little group was sitting around the table in Yamato’s tiny kitchen. His wife was out. We had had several Kirin beers. Yamato boasted of drinking Kirin beer always, as in Hiroshima, the Kirin reinforced concrete parlour building had miraculously resisted the blast and stood alone as a proud monument to our happy life before the bomb. Yamato remembered the Kirin Beer Hall as a popular venue since its opening in 1938. He lifted a third bottle as a toast to Kirin, the survivors’ beer, and filled Heinrich’s glass again. But the interpreter brought by Heinrich, still refused to drink beer. It irritated Yamato. The interpreter looked and sounded Japanese, although speaking fluent German and American. My friend Yamato had already warned me against him, assuring me that he was a Nisei, an American spy masquerading as a Japanese, like Nurse Tanaka. The interpreter praised Martin Luther and the vibrant Lutheran communities in America. He deplored the fact that in 1941 the Japanese Government had forced all Protestant churches to merge into the single Nihon Kirisuto Kyoudan. He hoped for religious freedom to be promoted under American rule.

Yamato slammed his bottle of Kirin beer against the table, shouting, "To hell with the Americans! Japan did not surrender to Washington, but to Moscow. We had signed a five-year neutrality pact with the Soviets in April 1941. Moscow only declared war on Japan three days after the Yanks had bombed Hiroshima. Nearly seventy of our cities had already fallen under American bombs and we