Hiroshima

by John Hersey

Kiyoshi Tanimoto was over seventy now. The average age of all hibakusha was sixty-two. The surviving hibakusha had been polled by Chugoku Shimbun in 1984, and 54.3 per cent of them said they thought that nuclear weapons would be used again. Tanimoto read in the papers that the United States and the Soviet Union were steadily climbing the steep steps of deterrence. He and Chisa both drew health-maintenance allowances as hibakusha, and he had a modest pension from the United Church of Japan. He lived in a snug little house with a radio and two television sets, a washing machine, an electric oven, and a refrigerator, and he had a compact Mazda automobile, manufactured in Hiroshima. He ate too much. He got up at six every morning and took an hour’s walk with his small woolly dog, Chiko. He was slowing down a bit. His memory, like the world’s, was getting spotty.