After the obscenity
Return with effects
The following undated journal pages were among Corporal Ryan's personal effects. Include with items to be sent to his mother. Attach inventory.
I was 36 years old the day I arrived at Kure, south east of a city now
known for an obscenity. Belsen, Dachau, or, closer to home,
Changi. But also Dresden, Nagasaki and the capital
of the prefecture where I am based —
Hiroshima.
No longer young, I have spent my life with children. My boyhood
sped in Fitzroy's narrow streets, playing cricket with paling
bat and india-rubber ball or sailing in paper boat
regattas when bluestone gutters brimmed
and our vessels foundered or flew.
I became a country school teacher while still almost a child. Drawn to far,
flat horizons and black skies blistered with stars. I grew used
to earnest conversations in the local pub, where some
farmer would ask, 'Is the moon over Ouyen
the same one they see in Melbourne?'
My hungry heart has roamed. Whom have I known1? For nearly
twenty years I have been a flying Dutchman, a wandering Jew,
carting enlightenment to the outer reaches of the Wimmera,
the Mallee. Never in one place long enough to belong
or marry, always the liked outsider.
I carried my books in packing cases from one town to another —
the world I made for myself after supper, by the light
of a kerosene lamp. I refined my schoolboy
Latin, Greek, read The Iliad. And then,
I studied Japanese.
I loved the intricate characters — word, picture, sound. In black sweeps
and scratchings, diverse elements compounded. My struggling
crosshatchings scraped with spattering nib
across the paper, until finally
there was order.
I enlisted early, only to be classified B2. I was relieved. But when
Japan surrendered, I was suddenly of use — an Australian
with a degree in Japanese. No one now expected to fight,
we were an occupation force. I was to be
a translator.
Feasible, if all I had to do was read and write — I could not
speak the language. More Caliban than Prospero,
I had no words to make my purposes known2.
But I did not hate. The war had not
touched me.
No one close to me had died. My brother deserted when our part
had just begun. My father is an old man. Japan,
not the enemy, but a land of myth and mystery.
The Japanese turned out to watch
when we arrived.
Not like the newsreels of liberated France. No cheering crowds,
just ragged soldiers and rows of women in kimonos,
blank faced, babies on their backs. They made
no sound. No roses in our way,
no myrtle3.
We were freighted to the warehouses