The Emperor of Any Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

could such a story be true? How could such a story ever end?
    Now, from the midst of the swirling mayhem, stepped the most impressive of samurai with a mighty ax, which he swung at the loftiest of the ogres. The ogre ducked but not fast enough, for the top of his head was sheared clear off! As you can imagine, I gasped in astonishment. Then as if all this were not strange enough, out of the white ogre’s skull appeared the head of another miniature ogre. A hatchling that rose on tiny white wings and floated into the air above his fallen father, higher and higher, until he hovered above the battle. All the brave samurai stopped their fighting to look up in awe. The hatchling held a rose-colored orb with a fuse that flashed and sparked.
    A bomb!
    If there were black-gloved hands holding that flying ogre-child aloft, I swear I could not see them. The mightiest of the samurai, stunned by what had happened, regained his composure, raised his ax, and swung at the tiny winged warrior, back and forth, leaping and twirling and lashing out. How comical he was — deadly comical. But with great alacrity the ogre’s offspring averted every blow, rising to just the right height above the battle scene.
    The fuse grew shorter and shorter.
    And then the bomb went off.
    A hot wind made the bamboo culms click together. I did not open my eyes this time, afraid of what I might see. I was thinking about something I had been told, something that had been drummed into me, when I became a soldier. “There can be no surrender. A great man should die as a shattered jewel.”
    A great man, yes. But I, Lance Corporal Isamu Ōshiro, knew I was not a great man. I was a burned man, a broken man. A puppet deserted and left to die by my manipulators. I was nineteen, married not four months, before I was called to serve my country and my Emperor. Which I had done and failed. Failed not once but twice, for I was too weak now to throw myself on my own sword. To be fair, I had no sword. But I was too weak to throw myself on the sword of the conqueror.
    There was even greater shame inside me. In my heart of hearts, I knew that, given the chance, I
would
be a tile under the invaders’ feet — would suffer the infamy of becoming a prisoner of war — if it meant eventually I could be with you again, Hisako. If you have survived on your island, then I would live on this one, with any amount of shame, just to be with you there again. I did not then know that there was a third island, a third choice. Ah, but I get ahead of myself.
    There I lay. Tears sprang from my eyes, I will tell you, and mingled with the sand, which coated my cheek. The burning in my side throbbed and throbbed. My breath came in sobs.
    I dreamed of you, your face so somber and strong. “Live,” you said to me. “I will live, if you will, too. Live and come back to me.”
    I woke a third time to the thumping of a bittern. I could hear again! I listened to the wind stir the leaves of the trees. Is there a more glorious sound in the world? Then I heard human sounds, voices. Not the cries of war, but of men talking. I lay perfectly still. A burst of tired laughter split the air. One voice louder than the others sounded on the verge of hysteria. I knew that kind of laugh only too well, but I could not understand what the voices might be saying. From the pitch and the lazy timbre I could tell they were
gaijin.
    It was dawn. A day and a night had passed. Or maybe several days and several nights — how would I know? I raised my head, scraped at the sand coating my cheek. Dug the sand out of my ear. The voices were still there. They were not a dream, although it had been a night of uncommonly strange dreams!
    I cleared the sleep out of my eyes. Then carefully, I rose on my knees and peered again through the bamboo. This is what I saw: American soldiers walking amongst the dead and dying, eyes peeled, rifles fitted with bayonets. A wounded Japanese soldier was helped to his feet. He was frisked and