DOSIER: MITSUO FUCHIDA
THEIR WEDDING HAD TO BE A SECRET. MARRIED PERSONS would not be allowed on the Mars expedition. Worse yet, Mitsuo Fuchida had fallen in love with a foreigner, a young Irish biologist with flame-red hair and skin like white porcelain.
“Sleep with her,” Fuchida’s father advised him, “enjoy her all you want to. But father no children with her! Under no circumstances may you marry her.”
Elizabeth Vernon seemed content with that. She loved Mitsuo.
They had met at Tokyo University. Like him, she was a biologist. Unlike him, she had neither the talent nor the drive to get very far in the competition for tenure and a professorship.
“I’ll be fine,” she told Mitsuo. “Don’t ruin your chance for Mars. I’ll wait for you.”
That was neither good nor fair, in Fuchida’s eyes. How could he go to Mars, spend years away from her, expect her to store her emotions in suspended animation for so long?
His father made other demands on him, as well.
“The only man to die on the First Mars Expedition was your cousin, Konoye. He disgraced us all.”
Isoruku Konoye suffered a fatal stroke while attempting to explore the smaller moon of Mars, Deimos. His Russian teammate, cosmonaut Leonid Tolbukhin, said that Konoye had panicked, frightened to be outside their spacecraft in nothing more than a spacesuit, disoriented by the looming menace of Deimos’ rocky bulk.
“You must redeem the family’s honor,” Fuchida’s father insisted. “You must make the world respect Japan. Your namesake was a great warrior. You must add new honors to his name.”
So Mitsuo knew that he could not marry Elizabeth openly, honestly, as he wanted to. Instead, he took her to a monastery in the remote mountains of Kyushu, where he had perfected his climbing skills.
“It’s not necessary, Mitsuo,” Elizabeth protested, once she understood what he wanted to do. “I love you. A ceremony won’t change that.”
“Would you prefer a Catholic rite?” he asked.
She threw her arms around his neck. He felt tears on her cheek.
When the day came that he had to leave, Mitsuo promised Elizabeth that he would come back to her. “And when I do, we will be married again, openly, for all the world to see.”
“Including your father?” she asked wryly.
Mitsuo smiled. “Yes, including even my noble father.” Then he left for Mars, intent on honoring his family’s name and returning to the woman he loved.