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flickered up from a building, suffocating billows of black smoke were buffeted and spread by the typhoon. Making the most of the confusion, I hopped over a collapsed wall and ran away along the street.
    The scenes that greeted me came straight from hell. Tokyo had disappeared. Although some buildings were still standing, scarcely holding each other up, the roads had been submerged under a thick layer of bricks, wood and glass. People looked for their loved ones, helplessly calling their names. A madman wandered through the ruins laughing. Three nuns were crouched over the remains of a church, digging with their bare hands in the hope of finding a living soul.
    Houses were burning and, with the aid of the wind, the fires spread. It was six o’clock in the evening and the dark ash whirling through the sky made the night close in. What happened next is confused in my memory. I can see myself feeling my way through this suffocating darkness, my path strewn with broken masonry, with people trying to flee and with dead bodies. I do not remember how I managed to reach our doorstep. I saw my mother sitting on a tree trunk, looking at the few things she had been able to save, with Little Sister at her feet, clinging to her legs. The sound of my footsteps woke her from her dazed silence and she looked up sharply. From the way she threw herself at me I could tell some great sadness was going to carve its way into me like an arrowhead.
    “Father has just left us.”
    I watched over my father’s battered corpse all night. His face was at peace, as if he were contemplating paradise, and his hands were as icy-cold as the underworld. From time to time I would get up and walk to the end of the garden, from where we could see the whole city at a glance: Tokyo was burning, a vast funeral pyre.
    According to legend, Japan is an island floating on the back of a catfish, and the fish’s movements cause the earthquakes. I tried to picture this aquatic monster. The pain I felt was like a fever. I became delirious. Unable to kill the god responsible for this, we had to attack the continent. China, an infinite and stable land, was within our grasp- that was where we would guarantee our children’s safe future.
    When Masayo arrives, I am torn away from a conversation that was becoming unbearably painful. She bows to the ground in front of her employer, who is weeping silently, then drags me by the sleeve and leads me up to her room.

25
    The Resistance partisans withdrew into the mountains before nightfall, and were followed by those soldiers who had rebelled. In the space of an evening the town’s patriotic fever has abated.
    The very next morning Japanese patrols are parading through the streets. A provisional government has been constituted; they are noisily tracking down and dealing with the rioters. If they fail to find any true rebels, they vent their anger on thieves and beggars.
    The new mayor decides to rekindle Manchurian- Japanese relations and announces a series of cultural exchanges. The Japanese army, publicly praised and flattered by the Manchurian authorities, consents to forgive and manages to forget. We slip back into normality virtually in the wink of an eye. April brings us its radiant clarity. At school we start Japanese lessons again.
    This morning I wake up late. My rickshaw boy runs breathlessly, fast as he can, so that I am not late for school. Sweat runs down his back and great blue veins crawl over his arms, and I am so overcome with guilt that I ask him to slow down.
    “Please don’t worry, miss,” he replies haltingly, “a good run in the morning is the secret of eternal life.”
    In front of the Temple of the White Horse I catch sight of Min heading in the opposite direction on his bicycle. I am so amazed that I don’t even think to wave a greeting… Our paths cross for a moment and then we are carried away from each other.

26
    The order to leave is given. I have no time to say good-bye to Madame Violette and