Requiem

Requiem by Shizuko Go won the Akutagawa Prize in 1972 and was translated into English by Geraldine Harcourt in 1983. It was the author’s first novel, based on her own experiences during the Second World War when she worked in a factory instead of going to school and suffered from tuberculosis which would eventually lead to her losing a lung. The novel opens at a point where Setsuko, who has lost her mother, father and brother, as well as her best friend Naomi, has given up on life even though the war has recently ended.  One of her few remaining possession (her home has also been destroyed) is a grey notebook which contains letters from her friend Naomi:

“…she didn’t want to let go of the small notebook she held tightly in her left hand – not even for a second. Setsuko knew she was going to die. She wanted to die hugging the notebook to her breast.”

The novel incorporates many of these letters as it returns to the days when Setsuko and Naomi were still at school, recounting Setsuko’s experience of the war years with occasional reminders of her hopeless present. The two girls are quite different – Setsuko is a model student, but Naomi comes from a non-conformist family which disagrees with Japan’s militancy. Her father is in prison and other pupils in the school object to her attendance (“your individualism is unpatriotic!”) but, when Naomi strikes another girl, Setsuko supports her:

“…if the headmaster had seen fit to admit Naomi in full knowledge of her background, then it wasn’t the pupils place to criticize.”

Though Setsuko is older, they become friends – Naomi looks up to Setsuko and attempts to emulate her:

“I think I’ve changed a great deal since we became friends. I no longer quarrel with all comers. In fact I smile at everyone. … I tell myself that Setsuko would be upset if I was quarrelsome, and so I put up with the slights and forget them as quickly as I can.”

The girls exchange letters as, by this point, Setsuko’s year group are working in a factory. They find it difficult to meet – Setsuko is exhausted after her work and Naomi must increasingly look after her mother who has taken to drink. Ironically, just as Japan is losing the war and the population is suffering, Setsuko encourages Naomi to become less questioning and more conformist. Conversely, Naomi encourages Setsuko to read. One book which is important to them is Roger Martin du Gard’s Les Thibaults, the first volume of which, ‘The Grey Notebook’, is about two school friends writing to each other. (The final volumes, deemed inappropriate – that is, pacifist – are not translated into Japanese and the girls must read Naomi’s mother’s summary).

However, the novel does not simply move from the present to a chronological telling of the past. Setsuko’s memories are fragmented – for example, when she remembers Naomi hitting another pupil, the blood becomes the blood of Sawabe, a boy who has befriended her at the factory:

“Setsuko covered Jun Sawabe’s wound with both hands, trying to staunch the flow, and wept aloud. However tightly she pressed her fingers together, blood welled up between them.”

This is the first mention of Sawabe in the narrative, but he will reappear, demonstrating his care for Setsuko when he asks a friend out look out for her when the children at the factory must walk home after a major air-raid. This is one of the most horrific sections of the novel, as the group make their way through the destruction not knowing if their families have survived:

“It was all they could do to avoid stepping on the bodies strewn about the road like so many charred pieces of wood.”

Setsuko finds her mother alive, but her home destroyed. He father has not returned from work – her mother will spend the days ahead looking for him, but the body will never be found. They move into a damaged railway car and we can see Setsuko beginning to question the war for the first time:

“Now Setsuko began to wonder how many Chinese these bombs had killed, how many families’ houses and lives they had taken.”

She thinks of a time when she had celebrated this destruction and wonders if American children are now doing the same.

Requiem is a short novel but a powerful one. By including a number of characters who do not agree with Japan’s militarism, Go demonstrates that not all Japanese shared the state’s view, but by showing how these characters are treated she highlights how difficult opposition was. Focusing the novel on the two children makes clear the innocent suffering than war entails: this was Go’s message forty years after the war ended, but sadly it one we have still not heeded.