When David Baerwald’s The Fire Agent opens, Tokyo is burning. The protagonist, Ernst Baerwald, blames himself. Notice the last names — the writer and the protagonist. This is no coincidence. The novel’s protagonist is based on the writer’s grandfather, and what follows is a family tale of epic proportions, a story that weaves together world events, questions of personal identity, and layered interpersonal relationships.
Ernst has a complicated relationship with nationality as a German Jew who spent most of his life in Japan. By the end of the Second World War his loyalty has shifted to the US but his son, Kurt, is on the ground fighting in Tokyo. Kurt’s failure to save a Japanese woman, Chizuko, sends the book spinning back in time to forty-five years earlier. The timeline alternates between past and present and there is a clear sense of momentum that creates tension and emotional resonance across the sweep of history. One of the central conflicts is the question of Ernst’s responsibility for Chizuko’s death and for the harm inflicted on the people of Japan. Throughout the book, the reader grapples with what we owe each other when our national identities and our individual loyalties come into conflict?
As a teenager in Germany, Ernst works for a chemical company and is brought into their confidence. He becomes, in essence, a spy for them, first stationed and trained in Milan, and then moved to Kyoto, and finally Tokyo. He meets Chizuko, a promising Japanese fashion designer, and the two grow close. When Ernst is told that a woman, Lina, another spy, will be stationed alongside him, that the two must act as husband and wife, his newfound relationships in Japan are threatened. But Lina’s arrival brings the characters closer than ever before: Ernst, Chizuko, and Lina learn how to love each other, despite the societal barriers between them.
As one world war rolls into another, Ernst’s Jewish identity comes into conflict with his relationship to Japan. He sells information to the US government, gaining their favor, and complicating his own allegiances. As the book careens towards its conclusion — a sequence of events made clear from the very first pages — the narrative turns introspective. Baerwald focuses, not on the many, but on the individual.
Because of the writer’s relationship with the subject, the book is suffused with tenderness, as much a study of an individual’s place in history as an exploration of the epic sweep of global events. And this is what both Baerwalds do best: demonstrate that, no matter what we try to do, there is only so much control we can exert on our world. What matters is how we respond to the events outside of our control, who we choose to hold close, and who we can’t help but push away.
Joshua Geller Schwartz is a writer who lives in Brooklyn with his fiancé and his cat, Bubbeleh. You can find him at joshuagellerschwartz.com.
