HIBAKUSHA

My mother never looked like me at thirteen and I will never look like her at thirty three. Only dye can turn my hair blonde, contact lenses make my dark eyes blue and a plastic surgeon’s knife and spoon shape my Japanese face into western features. I am my father’s daughter and must preserve my appearance, keep whole and be faithful to my looks. For how will he recognise me when I find him?
    This face I keep for him is frightened and unhappy, twisted in the reflection of the water below. It is another morning kneeling down and clutching the toilet seat, heaving and retching, desperate to make my fear solid, something I can free from my body and flush away forever.
    “ Hurry up, Shey. You’ll be late for school.”
Lifting up my head I look at the bathroom door. My imagination sees through the wood and visualises my mother on the other side. Tall and slim, goggles over those blue eyes, and strands of her long, blonde hair curling out from under a towel turban. She is wearing her blue, factory overall. Across its back, ‘ Eastern Sun Foods – Sushi UK Ltd.’. I know her bare feet are wedged in red, plastic flip-flops. The knuckles of her narrow fist rap on the door.
    “ I want no messing about today – You are going to school.”
She does not understand.
    “ Shey – can you hear me?”
    “Yes Mum.”
My voice is a groan, but she only wants an answer. The slap of her flip-flops on the landing floorboards sound out her walk to the spare room. Soon she will be laid naked on the sun bed to turn her white body golden.
I look to the window, bright with summer sunshine, trapped into glowing ripples of light by the frosted glass. It makes no difference to me, fear exists in all weathers. My school is a place where black, brown and white faces belong. Not a Japanese – looking girl. Not me. No one comes near me; no one talks to me.
Where I walk and where I stand there is always space. Sometimes in the playground I spin around and around and never brush a sleeve or touch the edge of a bag. Yet I will be touched. Lorna will hit me. Bully me. She hates me. I don’t know why. Others will watch and laugh. I don’t know why.
Today like every day my stomach churns. I feel sick and my hands tremble as I walk through the school gate.
Once I reported Lorna, but no one believed me, not even my mother. To her I was just trying to get attention. If I could speak Japanese or had been born in Japan and knew the country, perhaps it would be different. When I first came here teachers asked me if I would give a talk on Japan. I couldn’t. Many pupils asked me if I knew any Japanese swear words. I didn’t. I am British born, a mistaken child in the wrong country. I am pointless.
My form teacher told my mother on the last parents evening that I am a quiet and well-behaved girl that does her work. They see only what they want to see.

They say if you fight back, win or lose, bullies stop picking on you. It is a lie. I tried. It was in the playground, Lorna hit me in the back and I spun around and went at her with all my might. Punching her as I screamed out all the hate I felt for her. Others gathered around to watch my attack in silence. Yet all my strength and temper was lost and weightless against the older girl. My small fists struck without force into Lorna’s fat body. I tried to reach and pull her short red –dyed hair- but she was too tall, and just flicked my hands away. I did manage to slap her pinky-white face, bursting one of the spots near her mouth. Lorna swore and seized me by the arms – holding them tight to my side while pushing me away from her so my kicking feet were unable to reach her shins. Her big, square face with its weeping spot rushed at me. The head butt almost knocked me out.
Lorna’s large hands lifted my limp body a few inches off of the ground and then tossed me away. The pain and falling filled my thoughts with another hurt, when my mother caught me going through the top drawer of her dressing table. I was ten and searching for my father, trying to find his existence. Something that was more than the answers my mother had given to me. More than the man she said hated us both. I found letters with foreign stamps on them and a photograph of my mother with a Japanese man. He was about her height, smiling and happy looking. It could only be my father. My mother came in unexpectedly before I could really look at the picture or have the chance to read one of the letters.
She smacked the photo from my hand and hit me in the face with the palm of her hand, my nose crunched from the blow and I flew backwards onto her bed. The bed was soft, but the playground floor was hard and winded me. Yet the blur of the world around me - the feet of the girls that had watched me fight Lorna was like the tear-viewed melting away of my mother’s bedroom ceiling. Lorna did not rush to hug me and cry on my shoulder like my mother. She kicked and kicked me. Neither of them said sorry. Now I know I must take it all and wait until I am sixteen. Then I am going to Japan and will try to find my father. This I have promised myself. Yet three years is a long time to be frightened of what every day holds.

Today Lorna dunked my head down the toilet pan and flushed it. She stole my pound spending money and emptied my sandwiches on the loo floor, and stamped them into the tiles. I only cried a little, which disappointed her.
I just made it in time to start a new class with a new teacher. Mrs Newton, took no notice of my wet hair. I have to imagine that she presumes I was late for school and my hair was still wet from a shower.
The class was Modern History and about the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Never before have I been taught Japanese history. If it had been African history, I would have looked at the black faces in class and the brown ones if it had been about India. No one looks at me. Not even the teacher. I guess she thinks I am Chinese.

    “Hiroshima’s doom came out of a silent sky, a blinding white flash of light.”
Mrs Newton’s words. The class is wonderful. I am learning so much. We have seen DVD’s of old films of Hiroshima before the bomb. The people look like me. I have never seen so many Japanese faces before. Then we were shown film of the city after the bomb. Oh the people in so much pain, faces and bodies burned, yet they helped each other, held each other as they walked and stumbled in long lines from the ruins of what had been their homes. I have borrowed videos from the school library and watch them, over and over again when Mum is out or on the sun bed. She is often out, seeing Jimmy. He is her new boss at the factory. Last week I was waiting for a bus to school and Diana, one of my mum’s friends at work, was at the stop. She moaned about having to use the bus because her car was in for repair. I listened as she talked. Then she mentioned Jimmy, the new manager, telling me he was the first English manager they have ever had. Diana said my father had been manager when the company first came to Britain. She looked as if she had wished she had said nothing, and quickly started asking me about my schoolwork. I have told Mum. After the time I had found the photo of my father in room she had made me promise never to ask about him again.
She built a bonfire in the back garden and I was made to watch as she burnt many things, some shirts, the painting of a sunset over a snow-topped mountain that had hung in the hall, the letters with the foreign stamps, and the photograph I had so briefly seen. I watched it burn, the image of that glance alive in my mind. My mother said that there was nothing left of my father’s in the house, so it was pointless me looking.

Mrs Newton has told us that the survivors of the bomb could not be called victims, for it was believed by the Japanese that is was an insult to those who had died, now the ancestors of the living. Instead they were called Hibakusha, it means bomb effected person. I love the sound of the word. It is like a beautiful woman’s name. She also said they called the American bombers in the war B-sans. At last I am learning some Japanese. Every time I hear an aircraft in the sky I say “ B-san – B-san.” Every time I think of Lorna I say “ B-san.”

The P.E. teacher told me off in the library on Monday for staring into the photocopier when it was running. It did hurt my eyes, but I wanted to know what it might have been like to stare at the flash of an exploding atom bomb.

Today Lorna held me by the ankles over the banisters of the top floor landing of the Science block. I was scared, very scared and wanted to scream. But I didn’t . Instead I kept repeating to myself, “ I am Hibakusha.” It makes me feel brave and strong. Mum went out again with Jimmy tonight. He is a very smartlydressed man, always in a suit. He acts nervous and is not sure what to say to me for the few minutes he stands in the hall waiting for mum to come downstairs. I sit on the bottom step and say nothing to him, just stare at him. Watch him go red in the face when mum kisses him hello in front of me. He then fidgets when mum gives me my instructions for the evening, what food is in for my tea, and so on.
I hear them creep in at night, thinking I am asleep, the pair of them whispering and giggling between the long silences they hold in the living room. She is becoming very serious about him. Not that she tells me anything, but I can tell by her excitement at getting ready before he arrives and mentioning his name all the time for the few moments we are together in a day. I don’t care. I have the Hibakusha. After they had gone out I took her make-up bag from the bathroom and used her lipsticks and mascara to paint my face, trying to make myself look burned like the Hibakushas in the films I have seen. When I had finished I stared for a long time at my face in my dressing table mirror and chanted, “ I am Hibakusha – I am Hibakusha.”

Lorna really hurt me this afternoon, twisting my arms, giving me Chinese burns. I resisted crying. She has told me she will do worse if I do not bring her ten pounds by Friday. That is impossible. My Mum has told me she is going away for the weekend with Jimmy. He said I could go, but Mum told him in front of me I’d rather be alone and have the house to myself. He looked relieved. Hopefully, she will leave me some money. Ten pounds would save me. For two nights I have not been able to sleep, worrying about what Lorna will do to me on Friday if I do not have the money. I can’t eat and I have been vomiting in the mornings before school. Mum is angry. She thinks I am sucking soap, pretending to be ill so she can’t go away with Jimmy.

The Hibakushas of Hiroshima came to me tonight. I was tossing and turning in my bed and they suddenly appeared, just like those in the films I’d seen, walking through the ruins of the blasted city. Only this time, shuffling through my bedroom walls. I was not scared. They were smiling, their burnt, swollen faces grinning, happy to be in my room. I was sure my father was amongst them, the burning face in my mother’s bonfire. It was good to have them near. They all helped me sleep.
It is Thursday, Lorna, the B-san, has told me I must bring the money tomorrow. She slapped me about to remind me of what she can do, but I am now used to that. I fear more what I do not know she can do.
Mum has only left me five pounds.

Lorna would not accept the five pounds. She dragged me to the lavatory and kept hitting me with a rolled up magazine. I did not cry, but it hurt…then…she did something terrible to me with the magazine. I cried and screamed, no one came – no one. Lorna told me I must now give her twenty pounds by Monday or she will kill me. I believe her.

I have had a bath and I am drying my body laid on the sun bed staring at the light through Mum’s goggles, staring into the glare of an atomic explosion that lasts for hours.

It is difficult to move, I hurt all over, but I have to get up, look at myself in the mirror. Taking off the goggles almost make me cry, but I must not, no more crying, ever. I look at my reflection. I am Hibakusha.

Everything hurts – putting my dressing gown on hurts – walking down the stairs hurts – every step to the front door is painful. I see my hand turn the latch. It is the hand of a Hibakusha. Seeing that helps me forget the pain. I open the door and step into the night, overhead I hear a plane and look up at its lights in the dark sky. B –san. I am - so thirsty – the night air makes my face – my arms – my shins and feet sting. Thankfully the pavement is cool, the streets are empty and Lorna’s house is not faraway. I hope to get there before anybody can stop me.
    “ I am Hibakusha.” My words are a groan in the back of my throat.
Lights turn the corner ahead of me, bringing loud music –thumping music – it’s from a car – it races past me. Someone shouts something out of one of the windows, everyone inside laughs as they go by. I keep walking – short – painful steps, every part of me hurts. In my imagination all the houses around me become the ruined city of Hiroshima, behind me march all the Hibakushas that have ever been. My father is there with them. I am sure. I am not alone.
I turn up an alley – a short cut. Something comes out of the darkness – gliding – yet noisily moving fast towards me. I see a blurry – white face staring at me as it goes by – under the yellow light of the alley’s one lamp. It’s a boy on a skateboard. He gasps out something – I keep moving – he keeps moving.

Lorna’s house is all lights, every window bright. It means everyone is up. I open the gate – walk slowly up the path. The front door seems faraway, but I get there – press the doorbell – the porch light comes on. Inside I hear Lorna shouting to her parents that she will get the door. Good.
She seems to take forever to get to the door. I am swaying – feeling dizzy – dry – hurting.
Lorna opens the door –smiling – her smile quickly falls off her face. She steps back – a hand over her mouth. I stagger into the house. It is agony to speak, to move my dry tongue and part my cracked lips. 
    “I am Hibakusha. I am beautiful.”
The B-san screams. I struggle to move closer to her as she backs into the hall. I follow as I untie the belt of my dressing gown. I no longer feel any pain. I let my dressing gown fall to the carpet to show that I am all Hibakusha. All my skin is Hibakusha. Lorna keeps walking away , muttering, jumbled, jittering words caught up with little squeaks of fear, I know the language well. She backs into a wall and wedges herself into a corner and starts to slide down to the floor; she looks scared. She is scared of a Hibakusha.
Her father appears – her mother appears – they stare – they see me – they see a Hibakusha.

Stephen Loveless