We moved to another spot in the field to rest, and no sooner had we done so than it began to rain fire again. This may sound strange, but it occurred to me that perhaps there is a splinter of divinity in each of us after all. Not only our family but everyone who’d taken refuge in that field escaped injury. We all busied ourselves snuffing out the sticky, greasy, flaming globs with futons or blankets or dirt, then sat back down to rest.

My sister-in-law left for the house of a distant relative in the hills some four miles from the city to try to get food for the following day. My wife and the children and I sat on one of the futons and used the other to cover ourselves. We decided this was as good a place as any to hold our ground. I was exhausted. I’d had just about enough of running hither and thither with the girl on my back. The children were now lying quietly on the futon, asleep, while their parents gazed vacantly at the glow of Kōfu going up in flames. The roar of the airplanes had decreased considerably.

“I guess it’s about over,” my wife said.

“Yeah. Well, none too soon for me, I’ll tell you.”

“I suppose the house burned down.”

“Well, you never know. It’d be nice if it was still there.”

I figured it was hopeless, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if by some miracle the house was still standing?

“Not likely, though,” I said.

“No, I suppose not.”

It was hard to abandon the last flicker of hope, however.

A farmhouse was blazing away right before us. It took an incredibly long time to burn to the ground. One could almost see the history of that house going up in flames along with its roof and pillars.

The night faded into a pale dawn.

We carried the children to the national school, which hadn’t burned. They let us rest in a classroom on the second floor. The children began to wake. Even after waking up, of course, the girl’s eyes remained closed. Groping about, she amused herself by climbing up on the lecturer’s platform and what not. Her condition seemed scarcely to weigh on her mind.

I left the wife and children there and set out to check on the house. It was a tremendous ordeal just walking through the streets, what with the heat and smoke from the smoldering houses on either side, but by following a roundabout path, changing course any number of times, I somehow managed to reach our neighborhood. How happy I would be if the house were still standing! But, no, it couldn’t possibly be. I told myself I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but the phantom of that one-in-a-million chance kept raising its head. I came in sight of the black wooden fence around the house.

It was still there!

But it was only the fence. The house itself was completely destroyed. My sister-in-law was standing in the ruins, her face black with soot.