A story from 1945

Shiloh’s grandmother told her a story once. When Shiloh’s grandmother, Akiko, was about fourteen years old, she was living in Osaka. She went to school and helped at her parents’ restaurant and played ping-pong on the weekends. This was the middle of a war. One day in the winter, early spring, Akiko was on the train with her family when the bombs fell. The train stopped. There was fire everywhere. The whole city went up in flames right away, because all of the buildings were made of wood. Akiko and her family fled. They went to the river with everyone else from the city who could make it there. They sat in the river until the flames stopped.

Shiloh doesn’t remember if her grandmother's whole family was there or only part. She doesn’t remember if they all left then or if they went back to their home first to gather what they could. She doesn’t remember if that was when they sewed jewels into the linings of their coats, kneeling in the ruins, or if that was later or earlier. The family left on foot. They walked to the countryside, where friends or perhaps extended family had a vineyard, and they all stayed there for the rest of the war. There was not much to eat but there were plenty of grapes.