Of Men & Matches

Atami, on Japan's southeast coast, is one of the loveliest resort towns in the world. The mountains tumble abruptly down to Atami's yellow beach, and at this time of year the wistaria blooms in purple luxuriance on the walls of inns and cottages that cling to Atami's hillsides.

All was peaceful in Atami one afternoon last week. Visitors were pausing along the white Tokyo road notched in the pine-covered sea cliffs to take in the view. Aiko Nagai, a plump geisha, was landscaping her elaborate hairdo in preparation for the evening's entertainment. Heiji Tomioka, sake merchant, and his son were filling bottles and stone jugs for delivery to the crowded inns. In a warehouse by the docks, Kazuyoshi Kitamura was pouring gasoline from a drum into a five-gallon can. Yoshio Suzuki lounged about, watching Kazuyoshi. Yoshio, a hulking youth, as slow-witted as Lennie in John Steinbeck's Of Mice & Men, had an unlit cigarette in his mouth; he pointed to it and glanced a question at Kazuyoshi. "This gasoline won't burn," said Kazuyoshi with a sarcasm that was lost on simple Yoshio. Yoshio lit his cigarette, tossed the match on some spilled gasoline.

Eleven hundred houses, a fourth of Atami, burned. So did 37 inns, six hospitals and the city hall. Eight hundred people were hurt. The mains were faulty and the firemen stoutly refused to use sea water; it might hurt their pumps.

Japanese are used to catastrophe. Fifty percent of the matchstick houses rebuilt since the war have since burned down. And the people of Atami are known all over Japan for their cheerfulness.

Sake Merchant Tomioka returned from fire fighting to find his own house burned down, his eight children homeless. Next day he started work on a new house. "By nightfall we'll have it up," he said. "I have no money left, but we can get supplies on credit and by tonight I'll be filling orders again for the inns."

Aiko Nagai, the plump geisha, poked hopefully among the ruins of her house. "All I saved was my samisen [three-stringed guitar]," she said, "but I'm going to entertain at a party tonight. Thank heaven, in our business we don't have to worry so much about equipment."

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