The atom bomb was terrifying. I wish that in other countries too they weren't making things like atom bombs. If you drop an atom bomb, it's not just the soldiers, but lots of ordinary people too who get killed... The people who were killed by the atom bomb lived at a time when things were really in short supply. I think they'd be pleased if they could see how plentiful things have become in the world today.

Ever since the atom bomb was dropped, I've been in good health and kept on working. I suppose it's because I keep working that my health is good. Most of the time I work hard, but I look forward to going to the hot springs at Yunotsu (in Shimane Prefecture) four or five times a year. Almost every January, I go with Haru Takasaki and the others to the hot springs at Beppu (in Oita Prefecture).

I didn't have any brothers, so I inherited my parents' land. I was born on 1 December 1906. I must be 75 now. I had one younger sister, but she died in a road accident 27 years ago (in 1954).

After finishing Kawauchi Higher Elementary School, I helped with the farmwork at home. We had 7 tan [about 13/a acres] of dry land and 3 tan [about 3/a acre] of paddy fields. So by those days' standards, we had a big farm.

On 21 October 1926, I had an arranged marriage with a man from a farming family in the same village, called Magoichi. I remember it well because the Taishö Emperor died in December of the same year that we were married. My husband was four years older than me. He'd been born in 1903. He liked to drink and was a rough and manly type. He was in the Reservists' Association and used to train the others in bamboo-spear drill.

For a time before they dropped the atom bomb, he was an in the Volunteer Guards. He was very busy, rushing about he there, helping with things.

On the morning of the 6th, he set off as usual without anything special. On 4, 5 and 6 August, for three days, he went off to Hiroshima to dismantle buildings, under the command Reservists' Association. He wasn't to know that he'd be killed[ atom bomb, so like I said, he went off without saying anything special.

In those days, we were growing a lot of millet. Together with my parents and my eldest boy (Hajime, 17 years old at that time) I’d gone to our field at Jonan to thin out the millet. Just when I was thinking that the sun was getting high, there was a noise like a big BANG. It was a shock and I threw myself face down on the ground. When I raised my head to take a look, a white mass had risen into the sky over Hiroshima. Thinking that something terrible must have happened, I climbed up on to the embankment. Just then, I hap to notice that the Jonan bamboo wood had been flattened, as if it had been steam-rollered. Then gradually the trees started to straighten up again. Over where Jonan Middle School is now, it was bamboo wood in those days ... Myself, I didn't notice any flash at the time, although everyone says that there was a blinding flash.

When I went back to look at the house, it was in a terrible state. The shoji screens were all askew, the ceiling had been pushed up, and a lot of soot had fallen down from the straw roof. I'd close the doors when I went out, and that made the damage worse.

I had a lot of children. I'd brought up seven. My eldest boy, I mentioned before, was called Hajime. My second boy was Shigemi and he was 15 at the time. My third boy was called Takaharu and he was 5. And my fourth boy was called Kazuyoshi; he was 2. As for the girls, my eldest was called Chizuko and she was 19. My second girl was Yoko and she was 11. And my third girl was Sakae; she was 8. Yoko and Sakae came back from elementary school crying their eyes out. I thought immediately that everybody who had to Hiroshima would probably have been hurt. My eldest girl, Chizuko, had been at home since leaving Gion Girls' Higher School, so together with my husband, she'd gone off with the Volunteer Corps. My second boy, Shigemi, was in the second year at Sotoku Middle School. The first thing I thought was what could have happened to my children and husband ...

I was so worried that I couldn't keep still, and kept on popping in and out of our damaged house. Old Man Shimonaka (the next-door neighbour) told me:

`Everybody from Kawauchi seems to have been hurt.'

I couldn't bear waiting any longer. Thinking that Shigemi might be on his way back, I went as far as Higashihara in Gion to meet him. A lot of injured people were making their way back. People were saying:

`Things are terrible in Hiroshima. Don't go there! Don't go!'

So against my will, I turned back and returned home to wait.

As the sun was going down, somebody said that the people from Kawauchi would be coming back by boat. Thinking that my husband might come back, Hajime and I took one of the sliding doors out of its grooves and went to meet him at Nakachöshi, on the bank of the River Ota. When I got there, I found that my husband was among those on the boat and that he was still alive. Although people had told him not to drink, he was scooping water out of the river with a bucket and drinking it. His face and body were so swollen with burns that his eyelids were turned inside out. The skin had peeled off his hands and was hanging down. All he was wearing were his pants. His vest and trousers had been burnt, so he was all but naked. He didn't have his chikatabi plimsolls on either. All that was left of his hair was the part that had been covered by the hat he was wearing. The rest had all been burnt.

I suppose it was because he was burnt and his body had swollen up that he was so heavy. We put him on the door, and with Hajime in front and me behind, we started to carry him. But he was so heavy that we had to put him down and rest at the Shinmura Shop. On the door, my husband kept on groaning `Water! Water!' He was an awful weight and as we carried him home I was wondering if he could be saved with such terrible burns.

I cleared up the mess in the house and put my husband on a mattress, but I didn't have any idea what would be the best way to look after him. Again and again, he asked me for water:

`I want a drink of water! Won't you give me some water?'

But people said that if I gave him water, he'd die. So I boiled up some thin rice gruel and gave him that to sip. He kept on worrying about the children. He'd say:

`I suppose Chizuko has been hurt too ...

`I wonder what's become of Shigemi . . .'

And all the time he was worrying about Chizuko and Shigemi, he'd keep on begging:

`I want some water! Won't you give me some water?'

While all this was going on, one of the villagers came and told me:

`Your Chizuko has been brought back by boat to Oshiba. From there, they're going to take her to Yutani in Gion. So please go there to collect her.'

I can't remember for the life of me who it was who came to tell me, or what his name was.

Although I'd been told that Chizuko was alive and had taken refuge at Yutani, I couldn't go to her because I had to look after my husband. I stayed by my husband's side, but all the time I was praying that Chizuko could hold on. When evening came on, my husband started to say:

`I've got a pain in my belly. Haven't we got any medicine?'

I gave him some medicine that we happened to have in the house, but it didn't help at all.

From the middle of the night, my husband stopped asking so often for water. He said to me:

`I've had it! Please bring up the children properly.'

With his swollen eyes and turned-back eyelids, he didn't seem able to see me any more. He was waving his burnt and skinned hands in the air. I said:

`Please keep up your strength. Please dear, you must hold on for the children's sake . . .'

But he said: `I've had it!'

They were his last words. I kept on crying `Dear! Dear!', but he'd gone. With burns like his, he couldn't have been saved.

Our five remaining children - our eldest boy Hajime, Yoko, Sakae, Takaharu and Kazuyoshi - were at my side. Together with them, I dabbed water on my dead husband's lips - those swollen lips which had kept on gasping for water. The house was so shaken up that the sliding doors wouldn't fit into their grooves any more and all we could do was prop them up. In that rickety house, I hung up a big mosquito net and sat up inside it all night, together with my children and my husband's dead body.

It was only later that I got to thinking that although my husband had been burnt, at least he got back alive and we had a chance to talk. In many other houses, there was no body and not even a trace of their loved ones. But I brought my husband home, nursed him, and was with him when he died. I count myself lucky.

Even though my husband had died, I couldn't afford to cry. Now I started worrying about Chizuko and Shigemi, neither of whom had got back. I thought to myself that I must go to Chizuko.

Early on the morning of the 7th, I told my dead husband:

`I know you might be lonely, but I'm going to get Chizuko, so please lie there quietly.'

But, of course, he was dead, so there was no reply ... His face looked just as though he was sleeping peacefully. I told Hajime to look after the children and, pulling the handcart, I hurried to Yutani. Yutani Factory was full of dead and injured. Some were groaning and others were asking for water. Near to the entrance, Kiyoto Nomura was still alive. He was burnt terribly and was almost naked. He said:

`I want to drink some water. Could you bring me some?'

I said: `I'll bring you some in a minute.'

He said: `Chizu was lying down at the far end of this warehouse. She's burnt terribly, so even if you see her face, you won't know it's her. So you'd better call out her name.'

Mr Nomura was still completely conscious.

Calling out `Chizuko! Chizuko!' in a loud voice, and pushing my way through the injured, I reached the far end. Then I heard Chizuko's voice, saying:

`Mum! Over here

'Is it you, my little Chizu ... ?

In the dim light of the warehouse, it was a living hell. It was there that I found Chizuko.

The first thing Chizuko said was: `Have Dad and Shigemi got back home?

I couldn't tell her that her father had got back last night and then died at home. I told her:

Dad's been burnt, but he got back home safely. We haven't heard anything about Shigemi yet, though . . .'

Chizuko said: `Oh! That's good.'

Her blouse and monpe trousers must have been burnt. All that was left was the elastic waist of her monpe trousers stuck to her body. Only her knickers were in one piece. Apart from that, she didn't have a stitch on her body. She was the sort of girl who always kept her hair neat, but now it was all anyhow. Her face was swollen with burns and she was so disfigured that I wouldn't have known it was Chizuko if it hadn't been for her voice.

She said: `Mum, I want a drink of water.'

There was a noodle bowl nearby, so I went and got some warm water in it and gave it to Chizuko to drink. She drank it all as though it tasted delicious. After a while, she said:

`Mum, I want to go to the lav.'

But she no longer had the strength to stand up. Holding my hand, she uttered her last word: `Mum!' Without ever going to the lav, she breathed her last. I think it must have been about 6.40 p.m. Our neighbour, Mr Tochimura, was there and he said:

`She's gone and there's nothing more we can do for her. Let's take her home.'

So we carried Chizuko outside.

Kiyoto Nomura, who'd told me where Chizuko was, was already dead, clinging to the fence by the entrance. When I'd arrived, he'd still been alive and he'd told me the place where I could find Chizuko. But now ... He'd asked for a drink of water and I'd promised to bring him some later. But I hadn't known I'd be busy with Chizuko and, in the end, I never brought him any water. I felt really badly about it.

We took Chizuko home and laid her down beside her father. Neither of them would ever ask for a drink of water again. It broke my heart to look at them.

On the evening of the 7th, we took my husband and Chizuko to the place for burning the bodies and we cremated them together there. The children hardly said a word when, later that night, they helped me to pick up Chizuko's and their father's bones. Nobody else came - not even our relations or the neighbours. Everybody was in the same boat ...

On the morning of the 8th, one of the villagers came to tell me:

`Shigemi is at Oshiba Embankment. Please go and collect him.' So pulling the handcart behind me, I now hurried to Oshiba to fetch Shigemi. Shigemi was on the embankment with two of his classmates and they were still alive.

Shigemi told me that the bomb went off during roll-call at Fukuya Department Store, before they started work on dismantling houses. He told me that everybody's back suddenly burst into flames, and that the backs of their jackets and trousers were instantly burnt up. He said that they beat out the flames for each other with their hands, but the skin on their backs was burnt terribly. Trying to escape from the fires, they made their way to Hiroshima Station and jumped into the river. Then they waited for the tide to go out and climbed up on to Oshiba Embankment.

`I've brought the cart, so get on quickly,' I said to him, and got him on to the cart. He kept on complaining: `It's hot, Mum. It's hot!' When I gave him the paper umbrella which I'd brought with me, he clutched it firmly in his burnt, sore hands and held it up for shade.

`I want a drink of water, Mum.

Again and again he asked for water, and another thing he said was:

`We must tell the school, Mum. We must tell them that I'm going back home.'

I told him: `The school's completely burnt down, so there's no way we can let them know. There's no need for you to worry. Mum will see to it later . . .'

But however much I told him, he still kept on, again and again: `We must tell the school …'

When we got back as far as the bamboo wood at Gion, I put the cart in the shade and asked Shigemi if he'd like a rice ball. But he said that, more than a rice ball, he wanted water. In the wood, there was any number of black, charred bodies. They'd fled from Hiroshima and used their last drop of energy to get here, only to die. There were a lot of people who were still alive too. They kept on groaning and asking for water. Those groaning voices filled the whole wood and sounded like a dirge.

People who weren't there when the atom bomb was dropped say all sorts of things about the bomb. But unless you actually saw it, I don't think you can really understand how cruel it was ... Somebody who fought in China said to me:

`In all the battles that I've been through, I've never seen such a horrible way of dying as this.'

Some time after mid-day, we eventually got back home and I laid him on a mattress. He babbled on and on:

`I was thinking that if I got on to the Öshiba Embankment, you would come and get me, Mum ... When I waded across the river, the water was above my waist ... I lay down on the embankment. The town and Ushida Hill were on fire, and they did look pretty ...

My legs were injured, so I couldn't walk any further. I saw people die in front of my eyes. I was waiting and hoped you'd come quickly, Mum.'

I listened to him, and kept on nodding and saying things like, `Oh, did you ... ?' My heart was breaking and I could hardly bear it.

He'd escaped with his bare life to Oshiba Embankment, and there he'd spent the night, lying on the sand, seeing people dying and the injured fleeing, and watching the town and the hillside as they burned. When I thought about what he'd been through, it was heartbreaking. It made me so angry to think that a child in the second year of middle school should have had to go through that terrible experience. To nobody in particular, I screamed in my heart: `What is this terrible thing you've done to my child ... ?' Inside me, I was boiling with anger as I looked after Shigemi.

People said that powdered human bones were good for burns. So I got my husband's bones that we'd cremated the evening before (7 August) and ground them up in an earthenware mortar. Then I put the powdered bone on to Shigemi's burns. But it didn't work at all. My husband's bones had been poisoned (by the radiation from the atom bomb), so of course they wouldn't work. I realised that later … All the same, I was desperate enough at the time to try anything. But it's a nightmare to think that on that night I ground up his father's bones, my husband's bones, in an earthenware mortar and put the powder on my boy's burns.

Neither on the way home, nor after we'd got back home, did Shigemi say a word about his father or his elder sister, who were already dead. It's strange that he didn't ask about them. I wonder why ... ? Since he was on the Oshiba Embankment for more than one night, someone from the village might have told him about the death of his father and sister. Even so, you'd have thought he'd have asked about his father at least once. But he never asked about either of them. And I didn't say a word about them either.

Until he died, all he kept on saying, every now and again, was: `We must tell the school . . .'

It was about 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 8th that Shigemi breathed his last. Then we set about making the third coffin. Seventeen-year-old Hajime helped me a lot. He was in the second year of the regular course at the Prefectural Technical School, but he gave up school in the middle of his studies and started to work on the farm for me. In those days, you couldn't grow crops unless you went and brought nightsoil from Hiroshima. Even though Hajime was still young, he used to take the horse and cart, and go to collect nightsoil.

Although I'd lost my husband and two children, I couldn't have cried even if I'd felt like crying. I didn't even feel lonely. All I could think about was the future - from now on, what would we do? Because of the state we were in, for a while we couldn't grow any good crops, although the weeds were certainly thriving. It was a time when food was in short supply, so I eked out the rice by adding mouli and potatoes to it, and brought up my growing children in that way.

Hajime was the eldest boy and he threw up school and sacrificed everything for me. Since then, Hajime has put his heart and soul into the farmwork. My daughter-in-law, Teruko, is a good person, too, and she manages the house really well.

After the war, we farmers lived from hand to mouth and we were really hard-up. These days, I often think that we did well to get through that period. Nowadays, whatever it is you want, there's almost too much of it, so it makes you realise just how hard things were after the war.

Even now, I can sometimes feel the weight of my dying husband as I carried him home with Hajime on that door. How he must have suffered when he was burnt by the atom bomb. I sometimes wonder whether that suffering of his turned into a weight. Was that perhaps why he was so heavy? It's the type of memory which only people who've had a really cruel experience can understand, and it's my karma to carry it with me till I die.

Kanda, Mikio (Ed.). Widows of Hiroshima: The Life Stories of Nineteen Peasant Wives. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989; pp. 142-151.