all put together, side by side, with only the father’s chair as the only comfortable seat on which no one except him was allowed to settle. Full of hierarchies.
The pictures of the Emperor. On each wall one. Almost of it real size, framed.
Full of respect.
Maybe it was silly that Aritomo Hara had been able to free himself from this confinement by joining the fleet, a hierarchy as crushing as his father’s rule over his family but promising the prospect of liberation, he hoped. Climbing up the ranks, gaining his own command, and finally able to be his own man, to stretch his neck out of the narrowness and out of submission by shouldering his own responsibility.
And now his first, the most important mission, was about to begin, and parting from the family was not bitter; he looked at it like a release from jail, warm as he was to his sisters.
Aritomo urged himself to wipe away the thought. He hadn’t been allowed to tell anyone what the mission was, and he had stuck to it. His father didn’t ask questions and had forbidden his family to touch the subject. He was certainly proud of his son, more than he ever expressed. He was obedient and hardworking, disciplined and honorable in what he did – and everything he had ever expected of him had always been woven into exactly the same tight corset carried by the narrow shoulders of the adolescent boy since childhood. It had been the promotion of Aritomo to Kaigun Chui, Second Lieutenant, which had finally allowed Akemi to bring the marriage to the son of a middle-ranking official to a successful conclusion – her liberation. She was so happy that she had begun to cry hysterically at the news. Normally, a simple artisan’s daughter would have been barred from even considering this social advancement. However, when the prospective father-in-law had heard of Aritomo’s admission to the Officers’ Academy, it had already been suggested that the first promotion from Cadet to Lieutenant would make the Hara family worthy enough. Akemi had been very happy. Aritomo knew the husband. He was not half as rigid, immovable and domineering as her father. He would give her the freedom a girl from a humble Background could expect, and that was all Akemi needed to feel complete bliss. Beniko would surely find a husband as well, whose status was above that of a craftsman. The biggest hope for their mother Yumiko Hara, however, was, that her son, perhaps after another promotion, would himself be connected to a daughter of one of the higher officers’ houses, possibly even of nobility. Successful officers were of status, everyone knew that. That was the point where his mother’s hopes met his father’s, a point where even he himself sometimes agreed to have a serious interest in.
Aritomo was silent on these plans. He intended to focus on the fulfillment of his duties that finally would enable such promotion. A focus which required his deepest concentration, much the same as his mother gave to the uniform jacket.
“You must look good, son.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Did you pack everything?”
“Yes, mother.”
Yumiko Hara had checked his duffel several times. She had washed and starched all his clothes so neatly that, if one looked at them closely, they seemed to shimmer out of themselves in a strange way. Probably you could place each shirt upright on the shelf. Or hammer nails with it.
“I’ve packed you travel provisions, son!”
“Thank you, Mother.”
The small shoulder bag had been handcrafted by Yumiko, with an artfully embroidered flag, the rising red sun, the flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy where her son served. And that should really attract everyone’s attention on the long train ride to Yokosuka. The contents of the bag consisted of delicacies wrapped in oil paper, into which Yumiko Hara had put all her creative power as a cook. Her son would certainly not starve on the journey. Maybe the otherwise so perfectly fitting uniform jacket would get tight in the abdominal area. But starvation was out of the question.
“Mother, I have to leave. The train is leaving soon.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
Yumiko’s answer sounded a bit lost, and when she tugged at his lapel again one last time, Aritomo saw the soft moisture of tears in her eyes. Regardless of the fit of his jacket, he took the slender figure of his mother in his arms. He had spent a week with his family. He knew that years could pass before he met all of them again. The service of an officer was exhausting, and there was little free time. Writing letters was all that was left to him, and even that option wouldn’t be available to him always because of the nature of his duties.
Yumiko Hara broke away from the embrace and looked reproachfully at her son, eyes covered with a tearful veil. “I’ll wet your jacket! That is not right! You have to watch your appearance, you’re an officer!”
Aritomo surrendered to his fate, allowed her to dab the barely visible damp stains off the fabric. His mother did so with the quick, precise hand movements with which she did with everything she had to do, movements all too familiar to her son.
“Leave it, it’s time,” her husband’s growling voice said. No hug, just a grab on the forearm, a quick pressure that said everything his father wanted him to say, and there needed no further words.
Afterwards, everything went very fast, mercifully fast. They stopped at the shrine to ask the ancestors for a blessing for Aritomo and then the Tenno. Their prayers were accompanied by one of the monks, whom they motivated with a small donation to a special prayer. The ceremony was short but serious, and his family’s faces had been full of pride and respect. For them, what the son had accomplished, was of extraordinary importance.
They had arrived at the train station, where, despite all their self-control and formality, at least the mother had cried silently once more, carefully hidden from the public by her relatives’ bodies. Aritomo had booked second class and enjoyed the relative luxury of a neat seat. His compartment was empty when the train rolled in, but that wouldn’t last for long. He waved and looked out of the window until the station had disappeared in the distance and not even the fiercely whirling white handkerchief of his mother was still visible. Only then did he sit down, filled with wistful thinking about his goodbye on one side, full of anticipation for the coming challenges on the other.
For half an hour, he enjoyed the silence, staring out of the window, as the suburbs of Kobe slowly moved past him, and the express train picked up some speed. At the next stop, more passengers climbed in, some joining his compartment, including an old man with a white beard, stock-still in his slightly scuffed suit, bowing slightly to Aritomo. This was rather embarrassing for the young man, but he told himself that the respect was for his uniform, not his plump baby-face, which he had somehow preserved despite his 26 years, and which may have contributed to the fact that he triggered more maternal reactions in women than romantic ones. There were also two other soldiers, apparently returning home from leave, both infantrymen, both older men, senior NCOs, as Aritomo recognized. They greeted each other with formal courtesy.
To avoid a conversation among comrades he didn’t desire at the moment, Aritomo pulled out the newspaper he had bought at the station. He glanced at the date. It was late August in the year Taisho 3 or Koki 2574, a year that, according to the powers engaged in a great war against each other in distant Europe, was also counted as 1914. The events of the war that broke out less than two months ago dominated the headlines. Aritomo had been given instructions from his superiors before he had been granted leave to only convey Japan’s official stance in conversations that their own legitimate interests – especially in Russia and China – would be duly considered, and at most some support would be given to the British allies, such as escorts. In general, however, it was believed that Japan’s involvement in this war would be marginal. Aritomo had kept his relief for this
