by Kenzaburo Oe
“I think there are always going to be some things I’ll find very difficult to live with,” Unaiko said. “However, because the school administrators are such sticklers about keeping within the allotted time, you’ve already had to make any number of minor adjustments to the script we’re going to use for the performance tomorrow night. Because the version Ricchan and I drafted was based on your screenplay, by the time we added everything we wanted to say ourselves the script was much too long. So then we had to start hacking away at it and somehow, with your help, we got it close to a literary style that seemed to echo the cadences of a call to battle, so that worked out all right. Before the screening at the Saya, I watched the DVD of Meisuke’s Mother Marches Off to War and I was struck by the way Sakura spoke, as her character’s departed spirit, from beyond the grave. Of course, we’ve been talking a lot about mediums and channeling lately.
“Anyway, while I was sitting here earlier, talking to my uncle, I had an epiphany. I realized that what I’m trying to do with this play is to act as a sort of time-traveling medium, channeling the wounded spirit of my seventeen-year-old self. And I think my uncle must have come to the same realization at the same time, which is why he was so freaked out just now. Maybe he could sense the presence of the spirit of that seventeen-year-old girl suddenly reappearing in the present day and speaking through the medium of a thirty-five-year-old actress. I have a funny feeling my uncle might come to visit me later tonight to have a private encounter with the spirit—that is to say, the living ghost of my seventeen-year-old self!”
Just then, Daio reentered the room. His khaki work jacket was soaked through and water was dripping from the hat he wore. Even after he had shed his wet things and tossed them onto the sofa, he still gave off a strong aroma of rain.
“Mr. Koga has spoken with the attorney who’s apparently waiting somewhere, along with Mrs. Koga, and they’ve come to a final decision. They’re insisting on having every single line pertaining to Mr. Koga’s relationship with Unaiko eighteen years ago cut from the script. If those terms aren’t accepted, Koga says Unaiko will continue to be held prisoner here. (He’s in full-on yakuza mode now and doesn’t seem to care that what he and his people are doing is felony kidnapping.)
“And when it comes time for the performance tomorrow night, he says, the show will not go on; if their terms aren’t met, they will crush it into oblivion! And if there should be any further attempts to stage the unrevised play, they’ll use the current version of the script, which is in their possession, as the basis for a lawsuit for defamation of character. This is their final word on the subject—they’re calling it an ultimatum. Mr. Koga will be standing by throughout the night, waiting for Unaiko to soften her position and agree to their terms. Oh, and also, he absolutely refuses to act out the deleted parts, Unaiko’s perfectly reasonable request for closure be damned.
“But listen, Kogito, I just came from telling Mr. Koga that the play really does need to go on, for reasons that have nothing to do with him or his niece. You both know the basic story, of course: the farmers in this area were suffering from tremendous economic difficulties, and Meisuke organized an uprising. Not only men but women and children, too, assembled under the flag he hoisted aloft. They went out and fought in the uprising and came back with a victory. Meisuke alone was captured and ended up dying in prison. Some years passed, and once again the farmers found themselves in dire straits. The Meiji Restoration was in full swing and the country was in a state of upheaval, with the feudal system in ruins and the farmers being persecuted by the emissaries of the central government. If the weakest links—the women and children—hadn’t banded together and staged an uprising, nothing would have changed. The strategy for the second insurrection came from a supernatural source: Meisuke’s mother sent her young child, Meisuke II (whom she believed to be the reincarnation of the original Meisuke), to the grassy hillock known in local lore as the favorite napping spot of the Destroyer. According to legend, Meisuke II was joined by the spirit of his older brother, and they lay down side by side in the grass while the original Meisuke’s spirit gave his young namesake some tactical advice about staging a successful uprising. The adversary this time wasn’t the forces of the feudal fiefdom but, rather, government soldiers. Those troops tried to power through the insurrectionists’ front lines in Okawara, but the small children Meisuke II had enlisted threw themselves across the soldiers’ path and began weeping and wailing in unison, and the alliance of crying children and fierce women managed to drive the soldiers away. The government’s emissary to the district was so humiliated by this unexpected defeat that he committed suicide.
“The truth is, I learned a lot of fascinating details about this facet of local history from reading the script, and I think putting on this play would have great value even if it only served to remind people from around here about this inspiring story from the past. So I really think it’s worth fighting for.
“And now, that brings me to something a wee bit personal I’d like to ask you, Unaiko. In a play supposedly focusing on a legendary uprising, why did you feel the need to include the story of how you were raped at the age of seventeen by your uncle? Why couldn’t you have put those matters aside and let the play end with a lively reprise of the battle chant—you know, ‘Women warriors, here we go!’ type of thing. If you did it that way, I assure you Mr. Koga wouldn’t raise any objections at all. So I guess my question to you is: Why don’t you accept his terms and move on?”
“Well, Daio,” Unaiko began, turning to face him. “The first thing I’d like to say, just for the record, is that all those events are mentioned in the chant heard every year at the local Bon Odori celebrations: the stoning to death of Meisuke II; the rape Meisuke’s mother was subjected to (and not just rape, but gang rape); and the way she had to be carried home on a makeshift stretcher because her injuries were so severe. I know several scenes depicting those occurrences were also included in the early drafts of the screenplay for the movie we recently screened up at the Saya. However, they were deleted when the project reached the production stage, and that part of the story has never been expressed in visual form. The film ends in the way you described, Daio: with a reprise of Meisuke’s mother’s rebel yell, a scene in which all the women who took part in the uprising are chanting together and their voices fill the air with a rousing chorus. It’s really gorgeous the way their chanting mingles with the Beethoven piano sonata on the sound track—and even after the movie is over, the viewer is left with a sort of musical afterglow.
“I put that ending in my play as well, just as it was in the movie, with the same uplifting chorus of voices. What I did differently in my version, of course, was to actually describe the horrific things Meisuke’s mother and her child experienced in a narrative chant. This may seem a little confusing, but I would be onstage, still dressed as Meisuke’s mother, except that I would have turned into a medium channeling her spirit. And after I had finished chanting about the horrendous things that happened I would begin shedding my Kabukistyle costume right there on the stage, without any assistance, until I was back to the way I had started in the very first scene: as a modern-looking young woman in a navy-blue dress. At that point—playing myself now—I would be transformed into a medium possessed by the spirit of my seventeen-year-old self. Speaking through me, the young girl would tell the story of how she was raped by her uncle, who by his own account—that is, according to his published autobiography—was one of the founding architects of this nation’s modern system of education. She would explain that a few months later, after her pregnancy was discovered, her aunt forced her to get an abortion, saying it was necessary in order to protect the nation’s educational system.
“Presumably the man would want to contradict some aspects of the story, so if my uncle hadn’t shown up, we were going to have an actor sitting in the audience, ready to step into the role. However, I would be poised to mount a counterattack, and any attempts to discredit me or make himself look better
would be swiftly shot down. As I stood there in triumph, the other female characters would appear onstage and gather around me. Then we would recite the battle cry in unison. As the chanting swelled and the voices soared, that would be the finale, with the women exhorting one another to go forth and wage the eternal battle, today and forevermore—because it’s a fact of life that there will always be injustice and there will always be a need for women warriors to fight the good fight. And then a number of no-longer-crying children and their newly cheerful mothers, all dressed in present-day costumes, would join the group onstage, and they would be chanting as well.”
Unaiko fell silent, her speech at an end. She had been staring straight at Daio the entire time she was talking, and he had never once averted his gaze. Now, though, he lowered his head. In the sudden stillness, the sounds of the wind and the rain outside grew even louder. After a second or two Daio stretched his arm overhead, releasing the accumulated tension, and I leaned back and did the same.
3
Over the space of the next few minutes, Unaiko began to look utterly exhausted. Her skeleton seemed to have become more visible somehow, almost as if her bones were jutting through the usually robust flesh, and her head drooped toward her chest, which appeared unusually thin and concave. In apparent response to this, Daio announced in a calm, composed tone of voice that the sleeping arrangements he and Asa had discussed earlier were being implemented as we spoke. He went on to say that the hot-spring baths I had enjoyed on my long-ago visit had been expanded, and the therapeutic water was now flowing in the main building as well. On this point, Daio’s memory had deceived him—the only people who had gone into the bathhouse that day were Goro and Peter, the American officer—but I didn’t feel the need to correct him.
On the other side of the facility, he told us, there had been a dining hall and several rooms for occasional guests. However, visitors had been few and far between in recent years, and the communal areas had fallen into disuse. At present the only active part of the complex was Daio’s private quarters, toward the rear of the main building.
Daio explained that the new wing, which was built at the height of the training camp’s prosperity, had once been used as a designated teacher-training facility for the prefecture. The first floor featured a capacious classroom, a separate study hall, a dining room, and accommodations for the instructors. On the second floor were some deluxe rooms for special overnight guests. The room in the eastern corner was particularly well appointed, with its own private bathroom—in hotel terms, a suite. Unaiko would be given the bedroom part of that suite of rooms for the night, but unfortunately there was no choice but to put Mr. Koga’s two minions in the living room of the same suite, where they would sleep on a couple of rollaway beds.
The guest room next door, on the west side, wasn’t nearly as large, but it was equipped with two twin beds. Ricchan and Akari were already ensconced there, and Asa had been with them since we arrived. Daio reported that Asa had asked Akari how it would be if, when it came time to go to sleep, his father replaced Ricchan as his roommate, and apparently Akari had replied, “No, it won’t work, because I need to be here to protect Ricchan.” Daio was going to vacate his own quarters so I could sleep there in comfort, and Asa would lay a futon on the floor of the same room in case I needed looking after.
“As for Mr. Koga,” Daio continued, “there’s a chance he may need to take a call from his wife during the night, so since the cell-phone reception tends to be spotty up here, at best, he’s going to bunk in one of the buildings that used to house the long-term instructors, because it has a landline. At the moment I believe he’s enjoying a little nightcap before he goes to bed.
“The bottom line is, nothing more will be happening tonight. Since the storm has ramped up in the last hour or so, one of the young guys is going to come get us in the minivan and ferry us over to the main building. After I see you two safely settled, I plan to return and indulge in a nightcap or two of my own. (No surprise there, eh, Kogito?) If you should need me for anything at all, just give a shout to the young men who’ll be camped out in the lobby and they will be happy to drive you over in the van. Since Unaiko is supposed to be guarded (or, more precisely, held captive) by Mr. Koga’s bodyguards, there’s nothing we can do.”
By the time we were installed in our various nests for the night it was already two A.M. or thereabouts. Peering through a gap in the curtains of my room, I could see the forest plunged in unremittingly rainy darkness. The wind was so strong that every time a faraway flash of lightning lit up the sky it looked as if an immense wave was rolling through the forest, illuminating the tall trees and seeming to turn their voluptuous leafage inside out. The storm showed no signs of tapering off.
On numerous occasions in our lives—from earliest childhood till now, in our later years —Asa and I had slept in the same room on Japanese-style bedding laid out side by side on the floor, so this was a nostalgic configuration. After turning off the light, we lay there for a while in silence, listening to the sounds of the storm.
Then Asa said abruptly, “Kogii, I was just thinking about your relationship to music. You remembered all the words to the German anthem the young officers were singing in the truck, and while Unaiko was rehearsing Meisuke’s mother’s battle chant you would correct her whenever she veered away from the traditional rhythm. As you know, when Akari’s genius for music was first revealed, Mother and I were very happy. We assumed his gift must have been a legacy from Chikashi’s more artistic side of the family, but it strikes me now that part of his talent might have come from you as well. I remember when we were putting on our own play about the uprising, down at the little playhouse in the village, Mother told me she didn’t have any trouble memorizing the words to Meisuke’s mother’s rallying cry.”
I pretended not to hear Asa’s modulated voice as it mingled with the sounds of the rainstorm and the creaking and groaning of the old wooden building. The ambient noise was so loud that it almost drowned out the constant ringing in my ears—a legacy of the Big Vertigo.
“Kogii,” Asa went on when I didn’t respond, “do you remember some of the other songs from our childhood? Gishi-Gishi, where did you come from? Mr. Rhubarb, where are you from? And where on earth did you leave your arm? Dun-dun. The neighborhood kids used to sing that song when Daio was around, and once when I innocently joined in Mother came over and boxed my ears. I remember being really startled because it was the first time she had ever hit me.”
I tried unsuccessfully to conjure an image of Daio as he might have looked as a child, but then it struck me that the Daio whom Asa and her pals had been teasing with a cruel song would already have been a full-grown adult.
“So, Kogii,” Asa went on, “while you were visiting Akari in the room he and Ricchan are sharing tonight—and by the way, since it looks as if it will take a bit more time for you and Akari to sort things out, isn’t it great that he’s bonded so nicely with her in the meantime?—anyhow, while you were gone Daio popped in to check whether his young helpers had delivered our bedding. When I casually picked up a photograph in an antique frame from the desk over there he said, ‘Here, I’ll take that,’ and he snatched the framed photo out of my hands and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket.
“You’ll never guess what it was, Kogii: a picture of our father, standing on a high bluff overlooking a savannah, dressed like a world traveler or maybe a spy! Next to him was a burro laden with luggage (I didn’t have a chance to look for the red leather trunk, but I’m sure it must have been there), and a very young Daio, who still had both his arms, was shielding the luggage with his body in a protective way. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about how Daio grew up in China or someplace. Maybe Manchuria? I forget the details, but wherever it was, that’s where Father found him. But since he knows the drowning novel isn’t going to happen now, you’d think Gishi-Gishi would be able to let down his guard a little bit, wouldn’t you?”
Once again I responded to Asa’s prat
tling with silence, but of course, with her infallible sisterly instincts, she knew I was only feigning sleep.
“Daio had an incredibly difficult childhood,” she continued. “Maybe that’s why he tends to play things pretty close to the vest, and in the past as well as in this current situation … I don’t think he’s on anybody’s side but his own. I don’t think he really trusts anyone completely.”
I was finally moved to reply. “Maybe so,” I said. “However, you seem to be forgetting that Daio has said on numerous occasions that he will always consider our father his one and only mentor, until the day he dies.”
Asa continued with her train of thought. “I think the mysterious accident must have taken place right after the photo was taken,” she mused. “You know: And where on earth did you leave your arm? No question about it, something horrible happened to Daio when he was young, and I can’t help wondering whether Father might have been responsible for the accident, or at least involved in some significant way.”
“We’ll probably never know,” I said. “But speaking of luggage, I saw something in the office that reminded me of the first time I ever brought Goro home for a visit, when we were on our way back from this training camp. It was your first encounter with him as well. At the time Daio was in possession of what appeared to be a larger version of Mother’s little red trunk, which I’m guessing Father must have given to him, and I saw the same trunk again tonight, on the couch in the office. The first time I ever laid eyes on that piece of luggage was when Daio turned up unexpectedly in Matsuyama, lurking around the Occupation-run library where Goro and I spent a lot of our free time. After he approached me and invited us to dinner, I remember he made his young disciples carry a big red leather trunk to the inn at Dogo Hot Springs, where he was staying by himself. (His acolytes were bunking at farmhouses and temples to save money.) While we were sitting around Daio’s room at the inn feasting on crab and sweetfish and getting tipsy on sake, he quipped that the trunk was their portable arsenal. Then he proceeded to give us a graphic description of how the rubber spearguns used for fishing in the river could also be converted into weapons for guerrilla warfare. Goro said something disparaging like ‘That doesn’t sound like much of a weapon to me,’ and Daio took offense at that.
