Burial in the Clouds by Hiroyuki Agawa Page A

the point in setting aside some portion of my limited time in order to write this tripe. And yet when I abandoned what had become a custom with me—writing in my diary during our nightly study sessions—I was overcome with the feeling that something was missing, just as you might feel the need to put something in your mouth after quitting smoking. So today I am inclined to start writing again, and if it’s masturbation, then so be it.
    I might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sometimes I feel utterly lost. I know nothing about keeping a diary, nothing about the war, nothing about life, nothing about death, nothing about scholarship either. I’m just a vacillator. What on earth is there in me that can be “tarnished” after I am gone? I notched up my petty successes, with self-satisfaction, from junior high to high school, from high school to university, and I left the university to become a pilot in the Navy Air Corps, fancying myself as “honorably” singled out. I can’t resist the feeling that I am being stripped bare, so that I might see what my life really amounts to in the end. Not that I can handle an airplane better than anyone else, or that I can face my death with resolution. At the end of the day, I suppose, I simply have no core. I can’t even compose a single satisfactory tanka, even under such uniquely tumultuous circumstances as these.
    To my vexation, by and large I am in accord with what I am told, but none of it ever catches fire inside me. I can only conclude that I don’t have what it takes, that I’m not numbered among those who burn with zeal. I am instructed to purify my mind of worldly thoughts, but what will become of me if I struggle, again and again, to detach myself and still fail, if I am committed utterly to the task and still cannot emancipate myself from what entangles me? Fortunately, during flight my brain functions only at about one-third of its natural capacity. It would be disastrous if thoughts like these swept over me in the cockpit. When, two months back, Senior Aviation Petty Officer D. leapt from the wing of his plane to his death, Instructor Yamaguchi chalked it up to a woman, and the explanation half convinced me. But now I wonder if his case might not have been so simple. Should my skill ever reach such a level as to free my mind up to wander while I fly, I can well imagine that my hand may, of its own accord, shove the control stick forward, sending the plane into a nosedive. I would kill myself, hardly even aware that I was to die. This is certainly among the possibilities, and if it should happen, the men will cremate my body, hold a wake by my ashes, and then forget about me as they return to their affairs, just as we all did when Senior Aviation Petty Officer D. perished. These men are strong; they possess the tenacity of an insect.
    What’s more, I believe that I am unduly influenced by Fujikura, even as I oppose him. My nervous breakdown might well be called “Fujikura’s neurasthenia.” When, on occasion, I find myself in good spirits, possessed of a forthright warrior’s disposition, Fujikura’s voice inevitably intrudes upon me. Of course, he sometimes does come and talk to me in person, but for the most part, it is his words—what he has said and is likely to say—that haunt me, shattering my resolve.
    â€œâ€˜A forthright warrior’s disposition’? What does that mean?”
    â€œDoesn’t it ever occur to you to doubt a war that militarists, capitalists, and politicians started on a gamble? Do you really consider it an honor to sacrifice your life in such a war?”
    â€œNo, you don’t really believe it. You’re just obsessed with the notion and too scared to question it.”
    â€œWhy don’t you take a good hard look, a patient look, at your innermost self, and at the condition of the war?”
    And I offer my weak reply, closing my eyes.