Nagasaki Peace Statue

The Nagasaki Peace Statue is a memorial to those killed by the atomic bomb, set in the austere green expanse of Nagasaki Peace Park. Its monumental gestures give it a public commemorative meaning, but Etsuko recalls it less as an image that could make the bombing comprehensible than as the setting for a particular morning with Ogata-San and the unfinished business of a postcard.

Setting and Appearance

Shortly before noon, after taking a tram into the city and visiting an art gallery, Etsuko and Ogata-San went to the memorial in a large public park not far from the centre of Nagasaki. Etsuko understood the park to be commonly known as Nagasaki Peace Park, though she had never discovered whether that was its official name. Children and birds could be heard there, but the park retained a solemn atmosphere. Shrubs and fountains had been kept to a minimum; flat grass and a wide summer sky left the massive white statue as the park’s commanding feature.

The statue depicts a muscular, seated figure with both arms outstretched and its eyes closed in prayer. Its right hand points toward the sky from which the bomb had fallen, while the arm extended to its left is meant to hold back the forces of evil. The arrangement gives the memorial an explicitly interpretive role: it directs attention to the bombing and presents the figure as resisting the evil associated with it. Yet this prescribed symbolism does not determine how Etsuko experiences the monument.

Etsuko’s Response to the Memorial

Etsuko finds the statue cumbersome and cannot connect its form with the day the bomb fell or the terrible days that followed. From a distance, its pose seems almost comical to her, like a policeman directing traffic. The comparison registers a sharp gap between the solemn purpose assigned to the figure and the visual impression it makes on her; for Etsuko, it remains a statue rather than an adequate expression of historical catastrophe.

Her response is not presented as a denial of the bombing or of the memorial’s purpose. She recognizes that many people in Nagasaki appreciate the statue as a gesture, while only suspecting that their general feeling may resemble hers. The distinction matters: the monument has a public meaning, but she does not claim to know how others privately receive it, and she cannot make its symbolic language carry the force of the events it commemorates. The park’s solemnity and the statue’s emphatic pose therefore coexist with her sense of distance from the memorial.

Ogata-San’s Postcard

During the visit, Ogata-San bought a postcard depicting the statue. Standing about fifty yards from the monument, he observed that it looked less impressive in the picture and explained that he had been meaning to send a card for some time. He expected to return to Fukuoka soon and worried that he might otherwise forget to mail it, so he asked Etsuko for a pen. The contrast between the large memorial and its small printed image is made concrete in this exchange: Ogata-San considers not only the statue before them but also how it will appear when reproduced and sent elsewhere.

Etsuko found a pen in her handbag, and the two sat on a nearby bench. Ogata-San stared at the blank side of the postcard with his pen poised but did not write. He glanced up at the statue once or twice, apparently seeking inspiration. When Etsuko asked whether he was sending it to a friend in Fukuoka, he clarified that the recipient was merely an acquaintance. The intended message and its recipient remain indistinct; the scene gives the postcard a purpose without resolving what Ogata-San will say on it.

Place in Etsuko’s Recollection

Etsuko’s later memory of the statue is bound chiefly to this visit with Ogata-San and to the business of his postcard. Although she recalls the memorial’s appearance and its relation to the bombing, she says that, if the large white statue comes back to mind, what she primarily remembers is being at Nagasaki Peace Park with him that morning. The monument thus persists in her recollection not only as a public memorial but as the backdrop to a small, unfinished interaction.

That interaction remains unresolved in the available scene. After gazing toward the statue and turning the postcard in his hands, Ogata-San decides to call on Shigeo Matsuda, whom he has been meaning to visit, and then perhaps on Mrs. Fujiwara. The shift from the blank card to a planned visit redirects the morning without establishing whether the postcard is ever completed or sent. In Etsuko’s account, the statue’s lasting narrative significance lies partly in this conjunction: an immense memorial whose symbolic message does not reach her directly becomes inseparable from the modest, still-unsettled business of a postcard and a visit.