After the war, Sanjuro fed himself by selling scrap metal, then he apprenticed in a small-engine repair shop. Within a decade, he owned it and began designing his own motors. He sold a patent. Married. Started a family. Started another company.
His wife gave him one son and three daughters before she passed. His children gave him ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. An unusually large family in Japan these days. His son grew the company into an international firm worth millions. His daughters all earned university degrees. His grandchildren were educated abroad. They, in turn, had grown the business even larger and diversified it. His entire family was wealthy, comfortable, and close. They worshipped the ground Sanjuro walked on because everything they enjoyed had all come from his hand.
A fine life indeed.
But his blessings didn’t end there. All of his life he loved to fly. His vision was still nearly perfect and he was Japan’s second-oldest licensed pilot. Never a crash.
And today was a good day to fly.
But Sanjuro was no fool. Life begins and it ends like the rising and the setting of the sun. He turned his attention to the ancient black-and-white photographs on the small table near his bed, a shrine of memories. Family and friends long gone. He missed them. He stroked his long silvery mustache.
Soon, he thought.
Sanjuro felt the ocean breeze battering his wrinkled face. He could smell the salt. It made him feel young again. Flying always did. The electric hangar door opened at the push of a button. His great-grandson Ikki was already inside, fixing a GoPro camera on the dashboard of the Mitsubishi A6M. The single-engine aircraft was his favorite. A classic. An extravagant gift from his son years ago.
Sanjuro walked the plane, inspecting it. It had been recently serviced and repainted. He checked the ailerons for play, kicked the tires — plenty of air. The hangar floor was clean. No leaks. The mechanic who maintained the family’s aircraft was an excellent technician. An artist with a wrench. Sanjuro expected no less than perfection from him and usually got it.
Thirty minutes later, Ikki climbed down and helped Sanjuro pull on his old flight suit, green and baggy on his ancient frame. Then he nimbly climbed the pegs in the fuselage, careful to step only on them and the pad on the wing. Once Sanjuro was inside the cockpit, Ikki followed him up and stood on the wing pad.
“You’re still spry, Great-grandfather.”
“Stretching and bending, every day!” He laughed and patted Ikki’s round belly. “Don’t forget! Or you’ll be a fat man in a wheelchair way too soon.”
Ikki explained to him again how to activate both GoPro cameras, the one in the cockpit facing him and the one on the cowling facing forward, but Sanjuro remembered everything. His mind was as sharp as his eyes. An overactive bladder was the only thing that bothered him. No matter. Today was a short flight.
Ikki pulled out his own video camera. Flipped open the screen. Held it up and hit the record button. “Ready, Great-grandfather?”
“It’s a beautiful day to fly, isn’t it?” He smiled like a child at play, a mouth full of crooked teeth beneath his mustache.
“Yes, it is.”
They chatted briefly as Sanjuro tested the stick and rudder pedals. Ikki was Sanjuro’s favorite great-grandchild, now a grown man, though he thought of him as a boy. Ikki was crazy about flying just like Sanjuro was. Sat at his feet for hours and listened to the old man’s stories, especially about the war. Sanjuro talked most about the friends he lost, much younger than Ikki at the time, loyal and brave in service to the emperor. Sanjuro was grateful that Ikki was attentive to his stories. His friends would live a while longer in Ikki’s heart long after he was gone, even if only as Sanjuro’s memories.
Sanjuro adjusted his hachimaki, then pulled on his head gear. Smiled brightly into Ikki’s camera. Ikki smiled back and shut it off.
“Good luck and good flying, Great-grandfather.” He patted Sanjuro’s shoulder. The old man squeezed his great-grandson’s hand.
“It’s an easy trip. Don’t worry.”
Minutes later, the white aircraft lifted off, captured in Ikki’s viewfinder. Sanjuro must have sensed it. He wiggled the Mitsubishi’s wings, waving good-bye.
The television screen flashed LIVE! BREAKING NEWS!
The two attractive Japanese television anchors, a man and a woman, spoke in rapid, breathless urgency. A video flashed on the screen behind them. A GoPro camera image of the Chinese oil-drilling ship as seen from above through the flickering shadow of a spinning prop blade.
The young woman announced, “Moments ago, Mr. Sanjuro Sakai—”
The drilling ship grew larger and larger as the camera sped toward the platform.
“Industrialist, family man, and Japan’s second-oldest pilot—”
The camera plunged into the drill ship’s steel deck, a last-second blur of scattering jumpsuits and steel rigging before the image cut to black.
“Crashed his aircraft today in an apparent suicide attack on the Chinese oil-drilling ship Tiger II, in the disputed waters of the Senkaku Islands.”
The television image cut away from the anchors. Ikki’s video loop filled the screen. Played again. This time with audio. Sanjuro’s voice cried out as the plane plummeted toward the Tiger II, “Banzai! Banzai! BANZAI!”
The male anchor appeared on screen. “No word yet from the Chinese government concerning the extent of the damage. A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force spokesman just released a statement that the ship caught fire from the strike, but that the fire appears to be under control.”
A new image flashed on the monitor behind them. Sanjuro’s smiling face, crinkled and bright, flashing his crooked teeth beneath a rakish silver mustache. He stood in his baggy green aviator’s jumpsuit and hachimaki—a white headband with a rising sun and kanji that read FOR JAPAN! In the background, his white Mitsubishi A6M, the fabled Zero fighter aircraft of World War II legend, gleamed in the sunlight, a bright red sun painted on the fuselage.
The anchorwoman held up a sheet of paper. Other images of Sanjuro flashed behind her, including an Imperial Army photo of seventeen-year-old Sanjuro in the same jumpsuit standing in front of the same kind of airplane, a nearly duplicate image — all carefully crafted by Ikki.
“I have in my hands a copy of the letter he gave to his great-grandson Ikki Sakai just moments before he departed on his fateful journey. It reads, in part, ‘Do not weep for me. Rejoice! It is a beautiful death, to die for one’s country. For today I join my brave comrades who flew their Zeros into the teeth of another invader. We are all delicate flowers, and in the end, our sweet fragrance must fade.’”
The beautiful young woman, a former actress, choked up at the last words and wiped away a tear. She continued reading, inspired. “‘Japan! Do not fear the Dragon. Resist him, and he shall flee. The divine wind shall drive him from our waters. Death is not the end. Do not fear it. But shame will last forever. Fight!’”
The male anchor continued. “Sanjuro Sakai, one of Japan’s oldest living pilots, was almost the youngest kamikaze pilot in history. He volunteered as a teenager to fly a suicide mission, but the war ended the day before Corporal Sakai’s scheduled flight could take place. His family states that Corporal Sakai lived a long and happy life, but in the end, he had become haunted by the memories of his young friends who had completed their missions.”
The newscast continued, reviewing Sanjuro’s long and prosperous life, updating the Tiger II’s damage reports, detailing the specs of Japan’s most famous fighter aircraft, the history of the kamikaze, and broadcasting several other still images and video clips of Sanjuro and the attack. All of this had been supplied by Ikki, who stood in the station owner’s office while watching the broadcast, toasting the owner, an old university pal, with Yamazaki Single-malt Sherry Cask whiskey. The station owner, like Ikki, hated the Chinese, but hated the cowardice of the current Japanese government even more.