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205 Manidoo Envoy Ronin is a hafu native speaker of Japanese. He understood a hesitant manner, the hint and tease of the language, but, other than a few common words, he refused to speak Japanese. English is his sense of presence , resistance, survivance, and source of irony. He is the son of a soldier, a ronin of the atomu ruins, and death, or strategic retreat, has been his bushido way. He has died many times over the manners and proprieties of an empire nation that would not embrace the hafu children of the occupation. Lafcadio Hearn, on the other hand, was a hafu teacher who married and became a citizen of Japan. His ‘‘sympathetic trespass’’ and ‘‘authority as a complete witness,’’ rather than his ‘‘linguistic accuracy ,’’ were persuasive to many readers, wrote Carl Dawson in Lafcadio Hearn and the Vision of Japan. ‘‘Astounding as it seems, Hearn never really mastered the Japanese language.’’ Ronin is loyal to the kami spirits of thousands of children who died when the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. He has resisted, countered, and accosted those who endorsed notions of fake peace, as you know, and he has obstructed museums in the name of war and peace. ‘‘Death is my vision in the faint light of morning,’’ he wrote on a bakery napkin. Ronin mentioned an unnamed master. That could be a vision of his father, but the veterans at the Hotel Manidoo were not certain. ‘‘The master said, We are separated from a sense of presence because of our fear of death. Consider the instance of nuclear wounds every morning and the fear of death vanishes. The samurai warrior is never shamed by the fear of death.’’ Ronin was inspired by the courage of his father, Nightbreaker, by the ronin manner of Toshiro Mifune, by the adventures of Ronald MacDonald , by the haiku images of Matsuo Basho, and by the memorable stories of Lafcadio Hearn. The Japanese, he boldly told me, have always been influenced by the outside, and at the most critical moments in their history. Theater, art, and literature were saved by outsiders. Faubion Bowers, for instance, saved the kabuki theater during the occupation. This irony provided him with a vision and sense of adventure. There were times when he seemed convinced that 206 by shouts, encounters of the kami spirits, and trickery he could create stories of human dignity and survivance, rather than the dead letters of tradition, obedience to the emperor, and peace poses. Miko mentioned that the songs of crickets summon the dead to return, and the roamers mocked the cricket tenor of Lafcadio Hearn. She was probably referring to the Noh play Matsumushi. Crickets, korogi, or kuriketto, sing back the memories of the dead in the fifteenth-century play, probably written by Zeami. Hearn was a serious student of crickets and their songs. The memory of the author surely returned that night to his old samurai residence. Lafcadio Hearn and Ronin were both inspired by the story of Urashima Taro. They were drawn to the sea and to the vision of magical flight. Ronin placed a crane feather, a metaphor borrowed from the story, on his mound of clothes at the foot of the statue in the waterfront park. He once dreamed that he was a sandhill crane and soared out of sight. Urashima Taro, Ronin, and Lafcadio Hearn are roamers transformed by the spirit of a crane feather in the story. They are drawn to the sea and vanish in magical flight. Ronin did not mention in his last story that he fastened a tee shirt banner on the back of the statue of Lafcadio Hearn. The police removed the banner later that morning, but the catchwords, ‘‘I am a glorious hafu cherry blossom,’’ became the headline of a story about the death of a tourist in the canal. Ronin inserted the word hafu to the familiar kamikaze metaphor of duty. Miko mailed the three boxes of notes, scenes, and seven ledger books to me at the Hotel Manidoo. The actual manuscript was completed here, as you know, and published as Hiroshima Bugi by the University of Nebraska Press. Ronin truly vanished at the waterfront park, but the roamers and the veterans at the hotel sensed his eternal presence. Handy Fairbanks declared that he would soon emerge in another story. Miko visited the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. She intended to share the grievous stories of his death and the great stories of his manuscript, but she was...

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