Oh Electric Lamps Are Shining There!

About two weeks after the bombing we began to live in a barrack. It was not the usual style of one family in one shack, but a temporary living together of all the survivors of some related households. We built the barrack on the premises of our head family. We felt quite cramped in it because we were squeezed into such a narrow space. Fortunately, we didn't need to live in a dark room because we had some oil. We made a lamp by pouring oil into a saucer. In that light we could hardly see the mosquitoes buzzing about. In the morning we used to find many rashes of scabs all over our bodies. They were caused by scratching mosquito bites.

By and by, houses began to be built one after another around here. Some of my relatives also began to build houses at their places by using the unburned wood. Then they left the barrack where they had lived collectively. But it was far from satisfactory. Lighting in all their houses depended only upon lanterns.

One night I went up to the mountain and looked down at the town far away.

"What's that?! I thought. Everything could be seen brightly then. "Oh, electric lamps are shining there! I wish I could have an electric lamp set in my barrack." We knew it was inconvenient for us to live in the barrack so long.

Finally we planned to build a house to live in permanently. We gathered pillars, boards, nails and other available materials to build the house. The next thing we had to do was to look for a man who knew how to build. When a man who looked like a carpenter passed by the barrack, we asked him what he was. Fortunately he was a carpenter, so we asked him to build a house for us. It made no difference whether he was skilled or not. The carpenter came and worked on our new house.

In those days there was some talk that electric lamps were going to be installed around there.I wondered whether it was true or not. After a while, however, I saw a few people come with some tools around their waists. "Oh," I shouted, "the electric lights that I have waited for so long!" I was so glad then that I forgot everything but the electric lamps. A 40-watt bulb was screwed in at our house at last. In the evening the switch was turned on and the light blazed. "How beautiful! It dazzles my eyes!" people cried with joy. Even the earth floor was brightly lighted. I felt how valuable the electric lamps were.

In the meantime our beautiful house was completed. It was really magnificent in those days. It also pleased me. Everything made me happy then. We could really start living. "Now I can take things easy," I said to myself. Our happiness owed a great deal to the hardships involved in building the house. Father had his shoulders barked when he carried the wood. But those hardships were offered to the dead.

We had spent fifteen days burrowing among the ruins and about one year living in the barrack until we finally started living in the new house. Now everyone seems to have forgotten all about the hardships that they had endured in those days. Now you can see Urakami Cathedral rebuilt in half the size of the former one. And you also hear the Angelus bell ring throughout the city every day.

At last the world was at peace. Japan has renounced war. The feast day of St. Francis Xavier was celebrated recently. Nagasaki was established as the International Culture City.

It gradually became uncertain to me whether our defeat was unfortunate or fortunate was struck a deadly blow by the people were branded as a defeated people. I felt at that time how miserable we were, but now I hope that the agony and the sacrifice will bring us great happiness in different ways.

Anyway, I have made up my mind:

I'll never make war.

I'll never have any idea of causing war, all my life!

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