The River. Prologue

The sterile air of Lukou Airport smelled of nothing — a calibrated, artificial void of disinfection.

Ichiro Miyazaki passed through customs leaning on a cane of light wood; its smooth handle was an extension of his own withered hand. His single small bag contained almost nothing: a change of shirt, shaving supplies, and a small pouch of dull silk drawn tight with a faded cord. He moved slowly, like a man carrying an invisible yet unbearable weight within.

A taxi bore him through Nanjing. The city beyond the glass was alien, composed of glass, concrete, and neon characters layered over old, gray scars. But the air seeping through the cracks was the same — damp, carrying the aftertaste of coal dust, raw earth, and something sweet, elusive, like the scent of decaying leaves. Ichiro did not look at the buildings. He inhaled this air, and memory, dormant for decades, stirred lazily at the bottom of his soul.

In the faceless hotel room, the first thing he did was take the silk pouch from his bag and place it on the nightstand. Inside was ash. All that remained of the house in Shitamachi. Of Yuki. Of Ayame.

He did not know why he had come. He could not explain it to himself, nor to those who remained in Japan and had long since stopped asking questions. He was neither a pilgrim, nor a tourist, nor a repentant criminal. He was simply a man who had once lost everything and had lived ever since as stones live at the bottom of a river: without resisting the current, without hoping for the shore.

The next day, he went to the Memorial. A geometry of sorrow, cast in gray concrete. A wall of silent screaming, inscribed with thousands of names. He walked along it, his cane tapping out a hollow, steady rhythm. But he was not looking for names — he was searching for an absence. A single one. Here, in this earth, in this mass grave, among thousands of shadows nameless to him, Daisuke could have lain. But he knew: buried here was everything that had once been his own life as well. Here, in this mass grave, lay not only ash, but memory — an alien memory, needed by no one but himself. This monument was not a tombstone for this city. It was a tombstone for his, Ichiro’s, world.

He did not pray. He simply stood, listening to the wind drive last year’s dry leaves across the paving stones, thinking how the river would, in the end, receive everyone — the guilty, the innocent, and those who simply found themselves on the wrong side.

A young Chinese woman was photographing the wall. The shutter clicked beside him; she apologized in Chinese. He nodded. She did not know who he was. To her, he was just a tired old man with a cane. A tourist. One of many.

And now he was here, on the embankment. At the edge of the great Yangtze River. The wind coming off the water was winter-cold, yet it already carried the promise of spring. It smelled of river silt and blooming plum. The meihua was shedding its last blossoms on old, gnarled trees; the wind tore away the pale pink, almost transparent petals, twirled them in the air, and lowered them onto the gray, indifferent water. Ichiro Miyazaki sat on a cold bench. His hand inside his coat pocket clutched the silk pouch. He had come to scatter their ashes here. Perhaps. He had not yet decided. He had not come to repent. Repentance is for those who believe that words can alter the past. He had come here because it was the only place on earth where his memory was still alive. The river had seen everything. It remembered Daisuke’s face, how he laughed that day he cooked a real meal. In it, in the river, in its murky, eternal water, his own history had not yet turned to ash. He watched the river carry the petals, just as water and time carry everything that falls into them. He was a stranger here. A guest in a city he had once helped destroy. But the river was not a stranger. It was a mirror reflecting the sky and its emptiness. An emptiness devoid of past, of future, devoid even of himself.

Why was he here? There was no answer. Only the wind, only the river, only the falling petals. And memory — the only place where Daisuke was still smiling, where Yuki was playing the koto, where Ayame was taking her first steps.

He sat on the bench, an old man with a cane, and looked at the river. He had not come for repentance — the river is no confessor. Not for forgiveness — the dead do not forgive. He had simply come. To the only place where his past still breathed. Where December of ’37 had never ended. Where he was still a young soldier, and Daisuke was alive.

The sun was dipping toward sunset. It was time to return to the hotel. But he did not move. He sat and watched the pale petals swirl above the gray water. He was waiting for the river to claim his reflection as well.

Part One. Chapter One →
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