Nagasaki Peace Park

Nagasaki Peace Park is a large public park near the centre of Nagasaki, best remembered in Etsuko’s account as the setting of a visit with Ogata-San and of a massive white memorial to those killed in the Nagasaki atomic bombing. The park presents an official-looking landscape of remembrance, but Etsuko’s recollection resists treating its statue as a complete or persuasive expression of the disaster: what remains most vivid to her is the visit itself, including Ogata-San’s hesitant attempt to write a postcard.

Setting and Memorial

Etsuko and Ogata-San visit the park shortly before noon, after travelling into the city by tram and spending time at an art gallery. The park is commonly known as Peace Park, although Etsuko never learns whether that is its official name. Its broad green space is marked by restraint rather than abundant ornament. Shrubs and fountains are kept to a minimum, leaving flat grass, a wide summer sky, and the memorial as the dominant features. Sounds of children and birds coexist with an atmosphere Etsuko describes as solemn.

The memorial is a massive white statue commemorating those killed by the atomic bomb. Its seated figure has the muscular appearance of a Greek god, with both arms extended. One hand points towards the sky from which the bomb fell; the other reaches sideways and is understood to hold back the forces of evil. The figure’s eyes are closed in prayer. Its gestures make the statue a public statement about the bombing and its aftermath, combining remembrance with an image of protection against further destruction.

Etsuko’s View of the Statue

Etsuko does not experience the statue as an adequate embodiment of what happened. She finds its appearance cumbersome and says she cannot connect it with the day the bomb fell or the terrible days that followed. From farther away, its pose can even look comical to her, like a policeman directing traffic. The distance between the memorial’s solemn purpose and this mundane resemblance shapes her personal response: although people in Nagasaki seem to appreciate the statue as a gesture, she suspects that many share her limited sense of connection to it.

That reservation does not mean the memorial is absent from her memory. Rather, the park returns to her chiefly through the specific morning spent there with Ogata-San, not as an abstract symbol of the bombing. The distinction is important to her recollection: the statue stands in public view as a monument to collective loss, while her memory attaches itself to an ordinary shared visit and a small, unfinished exchange.

Ogata-San’s Postcard

Standing about fifty yards from the statue, Ogata-San holds up a postcard depicting it and remarks that the monument looks less impressive in a picture. He has been meaning to send a card and says he will soon be returning to Fukuoka, so he asks Etsuko for a pen lest he forget. She finds one in her handbag, and they sit on a nearby bench. When she notices that he is staring at the blank side with his pen poised but not writing, she sees him glance up at the statue as though seeking inspiration. Asked whether he is writing to a friend in Fukuoka, he says the recipient is only an acquaintance.

The postcard makes the memorial both a place to be visited and an image to be reproduced and sent elsewhere. Yet Ogata-San’s pause prevents the exchange from becoming a simple act of commemoration: the card remains blank while he looks between it and the monument. The evidence does not establish that he completes or sends it. Etsuko’s memory instead preserves the hesitation, the request for a pen, and the circumstances of their visit as part of what the statue brings back to her.

Place in the Recollection

The park’s meaning in Etsuko’s account is shaped by the gap between a public memorial and individual recollection. She records the statue’s commemorative purpose and the solemn character of its setting, but also her inability to make its imposing gestures answer to the lived horror they represent. The visit becomes memorable through concrete details—the tram ride, the art gallery, the bench, and Ogata-San’s postcard—rather than through a declaration that the monument resolves the meaning of the bombing.

After the park conversation, Ogata-San says he has been thinking of visiting Nakagawa and would like to call on someone there. This proposed next destination gives the morning a movement beyond the memorial, though the park remains the place Etsuko later recalls in connection with the postcard. Its narrative significance lies in that return: a monument intended to hold public memory is remembered through a private encounter, while Etsuko’s candid ambivalence keeps commemoration from becoming a settled or uniform response.