Chapter one:

Peace Park

Hiroshima, Japan (1987) — It is another hot August morning in Hiroshima. The ground at Peace Park is hard and dusty where I stand between the rivers in a spot where my father once stood. Nearby a twisted parasol tree gives little shade.

A tiny but sturdy Japanese woman in a pleated skirt, her graying hair in a bun, navigates rapidly on crutches and her one remaining leg to her special place beside the tree. She roosts neatly on a small folding chair with her good leg tucked neatly under it. A group of teenagers settles around her. In their school uniforms, the young boys resemble straight-backed soldiers and the young women seem like doe-eyed sailor girls. Even sitting, they tower over the drab little woman, but they all lean forward to hear her. Despite their youth and good health, her energy and presence dwarf them. Her gentle smile and mischievous eyes belie the many sorrows of her seventy-plus years.

Suzuko Numata has been coming here almost daily for a decade. She is doingkataribe, meaning bearing witness to what happened here by sharing her story of the atomic bombing. I am in Hiroshima for the first time and have come with a volunteer interpreter to hear herkataribe.

She begins with the story of her marriage preparations. Two families had been scurrying to arrange a wedding on short notice under the worst of circumstances. Food, money, supplies, everything was scarce in Hiroshima after so many years of war. Nevertheless, the young soldier’s letter promising a brief visit on August 8 drove them to pull together to enable him to marry his fiancée during his furlough. Numata-sensei then lived with her parents, two brothers, and a younger sister. She had seen her young man only twice before he went to war. Still, at twenty-one, she yearned for his return and dreamed of becoming a married lady.

At this poin