1 Students, 7th graders and up, were mobilized as workers during World War Two. At first it was only occasional, but was extended to a period of four months in 1943, then all year in 1944 and 1945.

2 Bock's Car, the plane that dropped the a-bomb on Nagasaki was named after Frederick Bock, the plane's original commander (replaced by Charles Sweeney for the flight to Nagasaki); also sometimes spelled “Bocks Car” or “Bockscar.”

3 This refers to the recital celebrating Kana receiving a new professional name when she became an accredited master singer of Edo-style songs sung while plucking the shamisen. The event is mentioned in the title story in the same volume, “Human Experiences over a Long Time” (Nagai jikan o kaketa ningen no keiken). It is customary for such a performer to prepare a square furoshiki wrap or an oblong hand cloth, dyed with their new name or a design associated with it, for each member of the audience to take home.

4 Prior to 1945, girls' higher schools provided 4 or 5 years of secondary education. High schools of 3 years that followed 5 years of middle school, were only for boys.

5 The Shimabara peninsula in western Kyūshū is across the Tachibana (Chijiwa) bay from the Nagasaki peninsula. It is famous for the Shimabara Uprising (1637-38), in which early Christians fought against the Tokugawa Shogunate that banned Christianity.

6 The reference is to ranchū, a variety of fancy goldfish, egg-shaped, fan-tailed, and without a dorsal fin, developed in Japan by cross breeding different specimens of lionhead goldfish, their Chinese precursor.

7 Literally, “traitor to the country.” The expression was often used during the war.

8 The Urakami River runs through Nagasaki City and pours into Nagasaki inlet. The city center lies to the east of the water, Mount Inasa to the west.

9 From the message Commander Frederick Ashworth ordered radio operator Sergeant Abe Spitzer to transmit to Tinian soon after leaving Nagasaki. Lane R. Earns, “Reflections from Above: An American Pilot's Perspective on the Mission Which Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki.”

10 In terms of the a-bomb, New Mexico was the heartbeat of the “United States,” which the author spells in katakana syllabary instead of, as elsewhere, referring to the U.S. as America (amerika in katakana).

11 The steel-made, 240-ton Jumbo was designed to contain the explosion from the 5 tons of conventional explosives used to compress the plutonium in case the chain reaction failed, so that the precious plutonium could be recovered. In the end it was decided that Jumbo was unnecessary. It did serve, however, as one measure for calculating the effect of the explosion. It survived, although not the steel tower on which it was placed. Two years later it was buried in the desert near Trinity after a failed attempt to destroy it. Recovered in the 1970s, it is still displayed near the entrance of the Trinity Site fence. See George Walker, Trinity Atomic Website (1995-2003).

12 Felipe Fernández-Armesto (ed.). The Times Atlas of History of World Exploration: 3,000 Years of Exploring, Explorers, and Mapmaking (NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991), 90.

13 Ibid., p. 91.

14 Ibid., p. 93.

15 The reference here is to a kitchen scrubbing brush without a handle, brown and oval-shaped.

16 Haruna Mikio, Hibakusha in the U.S.A. Tokyo: Iwanami, 1985.

17 Harry Daglian died on September 15, 1945.

18 A critical accident that occurred on September 30, 1999 at the JCO Co. Ltd. Conversion Test Building at Tōkai-mura, about 75 miles northeast of Tokyo, when workers were converting enriched uranium into oxide powder for use in preparing fuel for the experimental Jōyō fast breeder reactor. The chain reaction, which gave off intense heat and radiation, could not be stopped for 18 hours. At least 49 people were contaminated with radiation, including 39 JCO staff, seven residents, and three firefighters who transported the injured workers. Two of the workers died.

19 Steamed buns with sweet bean fillings are sold at Japanese hot spring resorts, enjoyed there or brought home as local gifts.

20 Quoted from information supplied by the Public Affairs Office, White Sands Missile Range, NM, June 30, 2007.

21 Quoted from the current “White Sands Missile Range Top 10 Entry Rules,” Public Affairs Office, White Sands Missile Range, NM, June 29, 2007.

22 The blast left a large crater coated by radioactive glass of light green color, later called trinitite. The crater was filled in soon afterwards, and the remaining trinitite was mostly removed when the site was bulldozed in 1952. But visitors can still find plenty of pieces in the dirt. “New Theory on the Formation of Trinitite” under Trinity Site on the White Sands Range's official website.

23 There are large signs at all missile range entrances, warning that White Sands Missile Range is a military test range where weapons have been tested for many years and that unexploded munitions may exist. The exact wording on a large red and white sign, with the English on top and Spanish on the bottom reads: “WARNING Entering active test range. Areas potentially contaminated with explosive devices. Stay on the roads. Do not disturb any items. If items are found call police at 678-1134.” (Public Affairs Office, White Sands Missile Range, June 30, 2007.)

24 “Radiation at Ground Zero” in White Sands Missile Range's official site, where instead of the Department of Energy, it cites the American Nuclear Society.

25 The test was initially planned for 4:00 a.m. It was postponed to 5:30 due to thunderstorms that began at 2:00. It was feared that the danger from radiation and fallout would be greatly increased in the rain, and that the lightning and thunder might accidentally set off the test bomb. Shortly after 3:00 the weather improved, and after the meteorologist's weather report at 4:40 a.m., at 5:09:45 the twenty-minute countdown began. Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 666-67; Peter Wyden, Day One Before Hiroshima and After (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 210-11.

26 See footnote 19.

27 The display manned by safety personnel has pieces of Trinitite from the test explosion and “items that show radiation in other settings from later years—radium dials on old watches and clocks, the glaze in red Fiesta wear from decades ago, etc.” Monte Marlin, White Sands Missile Range, June 29, 2007.

28 “Haraiso” in the original, from the Portuguese “Paradiso,” as written by early Japanese Catholics.

29 The poet was one year junior to the author at the girls' school. She sent this poem in a letter to the author.

30 In his commentary included in volume 6 of the Collected Works (Hayashi Kyōko zenshū, 2005), the critic Kuroko Kazuo quotes an earlier version of the ending, which refers to the deaths of two victims of the Tōkai-mura nuclear accident (see 18 above) instead of the death of a Nagasaki survivor. He suggests that, by the name Rui, “it is natural to consider that the author deliberately implies humanity.” Written phonetically in katakana throughout the story, the name shares the same sounds with the kanji rui in jinrui (humanity). Kuroko's point is consonant with the characterization of Rui as “one to always start by questioning daily life then moving on to the larger questions facing countries and the world” (p. 156). “What are your thoughts?” This final line is at once the narrator's question to her friend and one the author poses to humanity.