Inside the gate I saw soldiers in khaki uniforms walking toward me. Seemingly unaware that an evening shower was about to fall, they strode toward me in groups of two or three, laughing and talking. They were probably on their way back from the Soviet War Memorial. When I got close enough to make out what they were saying, I realized they must be American GIs. My whole body stiffened. I didn’t remember ever seeing this many American soldiers together at one time. If I had, it was probably in a movie or on TV, a story set in some other time, which I saw not as myself but through the eyes of a person from Okinawa, or Korea, or Vietnam, fearfully watching the American soldiers. No wonder I was so tense. If someone had suddenly asked me what year it was, I would have felt uneasy naming a year beyond 2000. And if asked where I was, the idea of being in a city far from Asia would have seemed as unreal as a fairy tale. The place where I now stood shook, then melted, its outlines unclear. Inside I tensed up, then broke down, felt feverish then cold and hard even as I kept walking at the same pace, trying to hide this turmoil, my eyes trained on a point far in the distance, expressionless.

More and more soldiers walked out of the park—apparently, quite a large group had come to see the memorial. The trees were perfectly silent, standing at attention in rows like soldiers while the real soldiers did as they pleased, zigzagging along, stopping now and then to wave their arms around, completely absorbed in the stories they were telling. There was something strange about that. They all looked so cheerful.

This park is a memorial to Red Army troops who died in the war. Historians give various estimates so no one knows exactly how many, but apparently more Russians died in the war against Nazi Germany than in any other. These lives were literally lost in Berlin. And there is no way to return them to their owners.

But mourning dead soldiers couldn’t be the sole purpose of this huge memorial. If you want to show reverence for a dead person, sprinkling a handful of sand over the grave should be enough. That huge statue of a Russian soldier was built so that no one would forget it was the Soviet Union that saved Berlin from Nazi Germany, and that countless Russians had died defending this city. Even so, Berliners believe they were saved by America. Or maybe England, but definitely not Russia, because even back then Russia was their enemy.

I saw no cold sneers or faces flushed with anger; in fact, these Americans looked as happy as a group of junior high school kids who are done gawking at the Great Buddha at Nara and are now on their way to dinner. “Looks like you’re on vacation,” I wanted to say. “What do you think this monument means?” If I’d asked one of them, he might have politely shared his thoughts, but I was still much too nervous to speak.