clock shows three p. m., the two hands cold and distant. They're pretending to be noncommittal, but I know they're not on my side. It's nearly time for me to say good-bye. I pick up my backpack and slip it over my shoulders. I've carried it any number of times, but now it feels so much heavier.
Shikoku, I decide. That's where I'll go. There's no particular reason it has to be Shikoku, only that studying the map I got the feeling that's where I should head. The more I look at the map-actually every time I study it-the more I feel Shikoku tugging at me. It's far south of Tokyo, separated from the mainland by water, with a warm climate. I've never been there, have no friends or relatives there, so if somebody started looking for me-which I kind of doubt-Shikoku would be the last place they'd think of.
I pick up the ticket I'd reserved at the counter and climb aboard the night bus. This is the cheapest way to get to Takamatsu-just a shade over ninety bucks. Nobody pays me any attention, asks how old I am, or gives me a second look. The bus driver mechanically checks my ticket.
Only a third of the seats are taken. Most passengers are traveling alone, like me, and the bus is strangely silent. It's a long trip to Takamatsu, ten hours according to the schedule, and we'll be arriving early in the morning. But I don't mind. I've got plenty of time. The bus pulls out of the station at eight, and I push my seat back. No sooner do I settle down than my consciousness, like a battery that's lost its charge, starts to fade away, and I fall asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night a hard rain begins to fall. I wake up every once in a while, part the chintzy curtain at the window, and gaze out at the highway rushing by. Raindrops beat against the glass, blurring streetlights alongside the road that stretch off into the distance at identical intervals like they were set down to measure the earth. A new light rushes up close and in an instant fades off behind us. I check my watch and see it's past midnight. Automatically shoved to the front, my fifteenth birthday makes its appearance.
'Hey, happy birthday,' the boy named Crow says.
'Thanks,' I reply.
The omen is still with me, though, like a shadow. I check to make sure the wall around me is still in place. Then I close the curtain and fall back asleep.
Chapter 2
T he following document, classified Top Secret by the U.S. Department of Defense, was released to the public in 1986 through the Freedom of Information Act. The document is now kept in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and can be accessed there.
The investigations recorded here were carried out under the direction of Major James P. Warren from March to April 1946. The field investigation in [name deleted] County, Yamanashi Prefecture, was conducted by Second Lieutenant Robert O'Connor and Master Sergeant Harold Katayama. The interrogator in all interviews was Lt. O'Connor. Sgt. Katayama handled the Japanese interpreting, and Private William Cohen prepared the documents.
Interviews were conducted over a twelve-day period in the reception room of the [name deleted] Town town hall in Yamanashi Prefecture. The following witnesses responded individually to Lt. O'Connor's questions: a female teacher at the [deleted] Town [deleted] County public school, a doctor residing in the same town, two patrolmen assigned to the local police precinct, and six children.
The appended 1:10,000 and 1:2,000 maps of the area in question were provided by the Topographic Institute of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
U.S. ARMY INTELLIGENCE SECTION (MIS) REPORT Dated: May 12, 1946 Title: Report on the Rice Bowl Hill Incident, 1944 Document Number: PTYX-722-8936745-42213-WWN The following is a taped interview with Setsuko Okamochi (26), teacher in charge of the fourth-grade B class at the public school in [deleted] Town, [deleted] County. Materials related to the interview can be accessed using application number PTYX-722-SQ- 118.
Impressions of the interviewer, Lt. Robert O'Connor: Setsuko Okamochi is an attractive, petite woman. Intelligent and responsible, she responded to the questions accurately and honestly. She still seems slightly in shock, though, from the incident. As she searched her memory she grew very tense at times, and whenever this happened she had a tendency to speak more slowly.
I think it must have been just after ten in the morning when I saw a silver light far up in the sky. A brilliant flash of silver. That's right, it was definitely light reflecting off something metal. That light moved very slowly in the sky from east to west. We all thought it had to be a B-29. It was directly above us, so to see it we had to look straight up. It was a clear blue sky, and the light was so bright all we could see was that silver, duralumin-like object.
But we couldn't make out the shape, since it was too far up. I assumed that they couldn't see us either, so we weren't afraid of being attacked or having bombs suddenly rain down on us. Dropping bombs in the mountains here would be pretty pointless anyway. I figured the plane was on its way to bomb some large city somewhere, or maybe on its way back from a raid. So we kept on walking. All I thought was how that light had a strange beauty to it.
– According to military records no U.S. bombers or any other kind of aircraft were flying over that region at the time, that is, around ten a.m. on November 7, 1944.
But I saw it clearly, and so did the sixteen children in my class. All of us thought it had to be a B-29. We'd all seen many formations of B-29s, and those are the only kind of planes that could possibly fly that high. There was a small airbase in our prefecture, and I'd occasionally seen Japanese planes flying, but they were all small and could never fly as high as what I saw. Besides, the way duralumin reflects light is different from other types of metal, and the only planes made out of that are B-29s. I did think it was a little strange, though, that it was a solo plane flying all by itself, not part of a formation.
– Were you born in this region?
No, I was born in Hiroshima. I got married in 1941, and that's when I came here. My husband was a music teacher in a junior high school in this prefecture. He was called up in 1943 and died fighting in Luzon in June of 1945. From what I heard later, he was guarding an ammunition dump just outside Manila when it was hit by American shells and blew up, killing him. We have no children.
– Speaking of children, how many were you in charge of on that outing?
Sixteen all together, boys and girls. Two were out sick, but other than that it was the entire class. Eight boys and eight girls. Five of them were children who'd been evacuated from Tokyo.
We set out from the school at nine in the morning. It was a typical school outing, so everyone carried canteens and lunches with them. We had nothing in particular we were planning to study; we were just going up into the hills to gather mushrooms and edible wild plants. The area around where we lived was farmland, so we weren't that badly off in terms of food-which isn't to say we had plenty to eat. There was a strict rationing system in place and most of us were hungry all the time.
So the children were encouraged to hunt for food wherever they could find it. The country was at war, after all, and food took priority over studying. Everyone went on this kind of school outing-outdoor study sessions, as they were called. Since our school was surrounded by hills and woods, there were a lot of nice spots we used to go to. I think we were blessed in that sense. People in cities were all starving. Supply routes from Taiwan and the continent had been cut off by this time and urban areas were suffering terribly from a lack of food and fuel.
– You mentioned that five of your pupils had been evacuated from Tokyo. Did they get along well with the local children?
In my class at least they did. The environments the two groups grew up in, of course, were completely different-one way out in the country, the other in the heart of Tokyo. They spoke differently, even dressed differently. Most of the local kids were from poor farming families, while the majority of the Tokyo children had fathers who worked for companies or in the civil service. So I couldn't say they really understood each other.
Especially in the beginning you could sense some tension between the two groups. I'm not saying they bullied each other or got into fights, because they didn't. What I mean is one group didn't seem to understand what the other group was thinking. So they tended to keep to themselves, the local kids with other local kids, the Tokyo children in their own little group. This was only the first two months, though. After that they got along well. You
