Fireflies by Ben Byrne Page A

placed it upon her chest. She held it there beneath her fingers, and I could feel her delicate heart beat, as we lay there together on the cold, hard floor of the station, gazing up at the light as it pulsed softly in and out of existence.

8
    THE COMFORT STATION
    (SATSUKO TAKARA)
    The comfort station was called the International Palace, and it was housed in an old watch factory, just off the highway out toward Chiba. The name might have been grand, but the building walls were crumbling and the partition rooms had no doors of their own, just sheets of cloth hanging from nails. The Americans had found their way there somehow. There was a long line of them waiting outside. They all clapped and cheered as our buses pulled up.
    There’d been a celebration ceremony that morning in the Imperial Plaza. Lines of us modern-day Okichis throwing up our hands and cheering Banzai! as if we’d been schoolgirls off on a pleasant outing to the countryside.
    The president of the Recreation and Amusement Association — the fat pig from my interview — was already inside the building, dressed like a cheap stage comic. There was an older lady too, named Mrs. Abe, who was to be our “manager.” She led me to a cubicle at the end of the corridor and gave me a crayon and a piece of card and told me to think of an English name for myself. I didn’t know any, and so she stared at me for a moment, then wrote “Primrose” in jagged orange letters and tacked the card up above the entrance to the room. She told me it was the name of a flower.
    â€œGet yourself ready now, Primrose,” she instructed. “The foreign gentlemen will be arriving soon.”
    The cubicle was tiny, hardly big enough for the straw-filled futon that lay on the floor. There was a grubby window high up in the wall and a bare electric bulb hung from the ceiling. I sat down on the edge of the mattress and drew my arms around my legs.
    There was a sound from down the corridor, the heavy thud of boots and the jangling of uniforms. My stomach quivered. The Americans were shouting and laughing as they came in, bursting with excitement.
    My eyes focused on a patch of bubbly mould on the partition in front of me. My heart started to pound. I remembered Osamu on the night before he’d gone away: his pale, thin body; his spectacles lying on the table.
    I could hear the sounds of the girls in the other cubicles, moaning as the men grunted and hollered. Then the curtain of my room was tugged away, and the first one was standing in the doorway.
    ~ ~ ~
    I sat on the floor of our cramped, silent house, staring at the teakettle. I told myself that I should try to sleep, but the thought of lying down on a bed made me retch. I could still smell the reek of tobacco and sweat and almond hair oil. They’d kept on arriving all day, in their uniforms and boots. Most hadn’t even bothered to undress. They just pulled down their pants and turned me around, and then buttoned themselves up as they left.
    After the first one finished, I was stunned. I couldn’t quite believe what had happened. But then, the curtain twitched and there was another one standing there, again, and again, and again. After a while, I just lay dumbly on the mattress and let them pull my kimono aside.
    Most of them were no older than boys and only a few had any idea what they were doing. They only lasted a moment, which was a relief. One was rough. He pulled my hair and twisted me around, but when I screamed, he leaped up, clutching his trousers as he ran out of the room.
    In the late afternoon, I started to get raw and jittery. The room was filthy and stinking and hot and I felt as if I was suffocating. The curtain opened again, and I let out a sob and rolled up into a tight ball.
    But it wasn’t an American this time. It was Mrs. Abe, who told me that my shift was over, that I should go home. I fumbled into my clothes, but when I got outside into the hallway, I very