Cult X

by Fuminori Nakamura

  By the way, more than three million Japanese died in the Second World War.

  I no longer knew why I had been sent to die. I thought about the opposite scenario—what would happen if we lost? Japan would be forced to agree to unfavorable conditions of surrender and would fall to a low position in the international community. That’s all. They told us if we lost, our country would be trampled, women would be raped and children killed. I wasn’t simple enough to believe that stupid military propaganda. If we fell to a low position, we could just work our way back up. We could make ourselves great again from the bottom. Japanese people can work.

  When the war ended, one way or another, someone would decide the conditions of surrender.

  The war would decide who got the better deal.

  Is there ever a case when the conditions for ending a war justify the numbers who died in that war? I’m going to repeat myself. Over three million Japanese died in that war.

  We went to war because of good feelings. We faced death for our country. For the beauty of sacrificing ourselves to destroy our enemy. All this nationalism was about good feelings. Why does it feel good? It’s not just because of our qualities as social animals—because when we gather together we grow excited and passionate. Is it? When this ill-defined self of mine is swallowed up by a greater purpose, I have a position to fill. Providing us with an enemy gives us somewhere to direct all our dissatisfaction. We get deluded into thinking that we are better people than our enemies. Humans love to believe in superiority and inferiority. Humans also become most violent when they assume there’s such a thing as being good. We use goodness and justice as a cloak under which we can let loose our violent tendencies.

  And then I was set free from the militarist thinking that claimed things were this way or that way. The war had nothing to do with what was right or wrong. Instead of giving in to military propaganda, I found comfort in giving myself up to my own thoughts. I convinced myself that my philosophizing would transform into something great.

  In his novel The Adolescent, the literary master Dostoevsky talks about how thought can restrain an entire person’s being. People consumed inside and out by a certain way of thinking grow hardheaded because of their feelings, and no matter how much they come into contact with people who disagree with them, they cannot change. It is more or less impossible to change their thinking with logic or reason. If there is anything that can change them, it is another feeling. If they experience something that causes their emotions to shift drastically, then they will finally be freed from their way of thinking. Dostoevsky wrote along those lines, and I think it’s completely true. People’s thinking—their thoughts harden. This is at the root of all the tragedies of human history. The soldiers who felt good shouting Nippon banzai! would certainly not be moved by logic. They cut off any other thought before it could enter their minds. Those sorts of single-minded groups still exist. They are psychologically weak and fear really thinking over any possibilities besides the ones they embrace. We could call them ideologues.

  Those ideologues seemed to me the pinnacle of childishness. Having been tossed around and used for the sake of other people’s happiness, lying on the rain forest floor, staring at my hand grenade, I found that “great principle” to be childish. I thought it was stupid. So incredibly stupid.

  Then there were shots.

  The spot where I had collapsed was thick with branches. They spread out like they were trying to grab each other. There was a gentle slope. As I tried to climb up that slope, it grew gradually steeper. From the other side of that hill I could hear shots. And it wasn’t only the Americans firing. I could also hear the Japanese firing back.

  While I criticized the war like some leftist intellectual, right behind me my comrades were fighting.

  I was just a recruit, but I was still a soldier, and on reflex, I gripped my pistol. I remember thinking to myself, but you can’t move. Yet somehow my body moved. I couldn’t run, but I had the strength to pick up my gun, climb to the top of that hill, and show myself to our enemies.

  The image of what I would do next floated up in the back of my mind. That image visited me like some sort of revelation. If I climbed this hill, I could get closer to the enemies than my allies could. This Japanese soldier who suddenly appeared at the top of a hill, me, would aim for the Americans and throw his grenade. All that I would be able to do after that would be fire until my life was up. The slope I had hidden behind was a blind spot from the Americans’ position. That meant I could at least kill a few Americans, and at least buy time for my allies to escape. Killing just one more American meant saving at least one more Japanese.

  And I wasn’t going to get very far before dying anyway.

  I gripped my pistol and heard more shots. No. I didn’t hear them. I felt their vibrations travel through my body. They shook me so violently I could feel the positions of my organs in my body. I was caught in those vibrations. And then these unexpected words popped into my head: I don’t want to kill.

  I didn’t want to kill the American soldiers. They probably read the same books as me. They had people they loved. They spoke a different language, but under the right circumstances, we could have laughed and gotten drunk together. I didn’t want to kill them. Thinking that made me feel relieved for some reason. What was I relieved for? What was I thinking?

  But then another image visited me like a revelation. There was no need to kill. That image told me so. I would show myself to the Americans and throw my grenade to the edge of the field. The Americans would notice me because of the explosion. They would be distracted by me, and they would fire at me while they looked for others, and my allies could run. I was going to die soon from malaria anyway. I could accomplish what I wanted without killing. My heart raced. Still unsure of why it was racing, I felt myself getting dizzy. I placed my gun on the ground and grabbed my grenade. I felt like I was being watched. I tried to stand.

  But my body wouldn’t move.

  Everyone, I’m sure you already know what I was feeling. I was scared. Even though I was about to die, I was scared of dying. I made up excuses, like not wanting to kill the Americans, but really I was just scared. Those powerful vibrations shook my insides. Would the evil heat of their bullets rip my body apart? If I stayed here I’d be safe. I thought I heard a voice: Just stay here. Just hide here like a bug. Amid all that gunfire, I stared desperately at the indentation of a footprint, probably mine, in the dirt in front of me. Shouldn’t I just run while the Americans slaughtered my allies? My thoughts wandered. Isn’t this my chance? Should I crawl from this spot, like an actual bug, and escape? You work at a tile factory, don’t you? That’s right. Didn’t you promise the owners that you’d come home safe? It’s not for your sake. You’re going to run away for them. Shouldn’t you run, so you don’t make them sad?

  This war was wrong. That was obvious. But even though I hung around socialists who opposed the war, I hadn’t participated in their protests. I’d watched from the side as they got arrested, and suffered and died in jail, but I’d done nothing. It was probably natural for me, who did not die in jail with those socialists, to go off to war. Of course it was a cruel fate. But I still had to choose how I lived.

  My innards still shaking from the blasts of American guns, I began to crawl. Feeling proud of my righteousness, saying I didn’t want to kill Americans like I was some leftist intellectual, that was all lies. I truly didn’t want to kill them, but the reason I couldn’t move was fear. Even though I was about to lose my life to malaria.

  Then I heard these words. They seemed to be coming not from outside, but inside me. No, it felt like something outside me used my body to relay those words. “Because thou art lukewarm,” it seemed to be saying. That was the enemy’s god. The book of Revelation, from the Bible. The words of the enemy’s god. “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” I tried to flee, crawling, from the
gunshots. “Because thou art lukewarm.” As I crawled I felt the vibrations of the gunshots on my back before my ears heard them. And my back, which had become just like an ear, heard those words. “Neither hot nor cold.” I was a lukewarm being. I was sent to this war not having accomplished anything. I wanted to savor life a bit longer before dying of malaria. I used my life to crawl away, leaving my allies to die. “I will spew thee out of my mouth.” When the gunshots suddenly stopped, I froze on all fours, dazed. Is it over? I wondered. Had the firing stopped before I even made it to safety? They’re coming, I thought. “Because thou art lukewarm.” They’re coming. After the fighting had stopped, some of the Americans must have been dead or wounded. Though it was said that they were an advanced country and did not kill their prisoners of war, would they have the mental composure to treat Japanese soldiers so kindly right after a battle? “Because thou art lukewarm.” Still on all fours, I stopped moving. Though I read their words, and was growing close to their god, I was being repelled by him at the same time. But the soldiers never came. War gave me no bullets and no courage. All it left me with before it passed over my head was malaria. All it left me was proof of the ugliness of my existence. After that, there was no more gunfire.

  I cried. I don’t know if there were any tears, but there was a sharp pain in my throat from sobbing. It was so cruel. Suddenly the thought rose up within me: life is so cruel. Of course I thought that because I hadn’t died a beautiful death, but still I wondered why I had to be shown so cruelly how trifling my own existence was.

  Then it began to rain. In the dry season in the tropics it rarely rained. But still, it rained a few times on those islands. I lost consciousness while still on all fours, but just for a short time. I collapsed face down, and water began to puddle around me. I should have suffocated, but not being able to breathe woke me up. My body was disgustingly stubborn. There was no beautiful transience. It was ugly, but I drank the water from that puddle, and my body regained a little strength. Next thing I knew, I was standing up.

  I didn’t want to be there. That was where I’d betrayed my allies. But wherever I went, I would be there. I lived in my brain, and I would follow myself anywhere I went. My throat hurt from sobbing. I’d left my allies to die, was forsaken by my enemy’s god, and had nowhere to go. There was nowhere I could stay. I felt the grenade in my pocket. I had to die. My life had no value. But soon I remembered what had just happened and thought, if that was true, why didn’t I die then? I didn’t die when I should have, and now I’m going to die pointlessly. I can’t be alone, I thought. But there was no one around me. I remembered something, and tried to hold on to it. But I had no one to remember at times like this.

  My mother had died when I was young. I couldn’t remember what she looked like. I’d never had a lover. So the woman I thought of then was my father’s wife. The one who’d chased me out. If only she had been kind, and let me call her mom. When I was young, I had fantasized about her being a kind mother. Crawling on the jungle floor, I remembered that fantasy. I held out my hand as if reaching toward her. My left arm, the one without any maggots. It would be rude of me to use the one with the maggots, I thought. I fell. At the time, I thought if I collapsed again I’d die. My vision narrowed. I couldn’t make out anything. An intense pain shot from my stomach to my bowels. I thought I had to say something at the end of my life. Something, before I fell. What could I say? I couldn’t find any words. I had no right to speak. I cried and fell, my arm reaching out for something.

  But my body didn’t fall. Something was propping up my back. Though I thought I had been moving forward, I was in fact leaning on something. Was it holding me up? No, it was more like it had caught me. What was it? My consciousness began to fall apart, but I could feel it against my back. It was a tree. It was a Japanese camphor tree with a big trunk, a sort of tree that shouldn’t have been in the northwestern part of the Philippines, on Luzon. The tree was bracing my body. This tree stood in the way of my marching on to death. I broke down sobbing, my back to that tree. The tears leaving my eyes were probably the rainwater I had drunk leaving my body. My life was so trivial. I was forsaken by my enemy’s god. I had rejected the gods of my own country, but now was being embraced by that tree. Things can change, I thought. Even in the middle of life, things can always change. I had no knowledge of physics then, but now I know that in this great flow of atoms from the past to the present, the drifting of my atoms was being embraced by the drifting of that tree’s atoms. Because they were all atoms. Because we were the same. The tree stretched forward. It took in the light of the southern sun, and grandly embraced my tiny body. It stood there with such overwhelming presence. It stood so, so tall. The light slipped through its leaves and fell on my head.

  Apparently when the Americans found me, I was collapsed near the edge of a river. That area was dense with mangroves, but their trunks are thin, not thick like the camphor. There didn’t seem to be any big trees at all. So what had I experienced? What was that thing that embraced my tiny body?

  I became a prisoner of war. After we lost, I returned to Japan.

  20

  Matsuo-san’s Lectures, IV, Part 2

  After returning to Japan, I spent my days idle. I had internalized all the lives lost at war, as if they had entered into my own insignificant body. I felt as though they’d continue to suffer inside me forever. Most of my interiority was consumed by the past and the dead. I drank questionable alcohol. I’d go out, choose people at random and follow them. For some reason, when I followed someone it rid me of my loneliness. I felt a connection with a living person. If nothing else, I felt some relation to those strangers. I felt a sort of relief in seeing others living idly or entering a shabby home. But from time to time, I’d remember that great tree. What was it? That towering tree that seemed to have caught me when I was falling forward. That tree that had felt so real.

  About fifteen years later I joined a certain religion. At the time you probably couldn’t have called it a religion. I became a disciple of the teacher Suzuki.

  My teacher was a terribly strange man. He was tall, and though he was getting on in years, he had a muscular build. His nose, mouth, and ears were all strikingly large, but his eyes were strangely narrow. He was well versed in every religion, and also knew a lot about natural science. Our group lived in a commune in the mountains of a certain prefecture. We lived off of what we produced. I confessed my war experiences to my teacher. Many of us in that group had psychological and physical wounds from the war. My teacher had me tell him about that tree in detail. He said he had also seen it.

  My teacher had once been so sick he was on the verge of death. Just when he thought he was at the end of his life in that hospital bed, something caught him. It wasn’t a big tree, but what seemed like a dirty black bundle of cloth. It fluttered around my teacher’s body and held him there. He had never figured out what it was. A bundle of black cloth? Of course I couldn’t tell him what it was either. I only figured that out much later.

  There were about a hundred members in our group, and we managed to support ourselves. But sometimes our teacher would put on a suit and leave with some of our members to go to Tokyo. They managed the land he owned and also traded stocks. I was surprised the first time I went along. I couldn’t believe our teacher was doing something so profane.

  But I soon learned why. He used that money to create an orphanage for the many Japanese children left homeless after the war, and to send trained members to Africa and Southeast Asia to help provide medical care to people in need. On our commune, all we got was the food we grew for ourselves. “But we’ll all get a turn to eat something delicious in Tokyo,” he would say, smiling. We also drank at hostess bars. It was very comfortable, not being totally pious. I trained hard under my teacher.

  I trained through meditation. I meditated in the forest, deep in the mountains, and learned to hold on to mental images. For example, I’d look at the grass and flowers in fro
nt of me, and then as I meditated with my eyes closed, I’d make myself see those flowers and that grass and work to eliminate the separation between myself and those flowers and that grass until I felt as though those images were actual phenomena. Once I reached that point, when I sat on the ground and meditated, the border between myself and the trees and flowers around me became unclear. I learned to recognize myself as just one part of this great flow. I also trained with other people. Practicing with others, you gradually lose the concept of self.

  Encouraged by my master, I went to the city, rented an apartment, and found a job. I went to visit him just on the weekends. He told me that I was better suited to training in the real world. He said I should make myself useful out there. Apply my training. He told me that when my borderlessness reached the size of a whole town, I could go even one step further.

  I worked in a factory, and eventually got married. To Yo-chan. At the time, I still thought I was disgusting. All I had was my war experience. But even if I was disgusting, couldn’t I destroy myself, and continue living as just a concept or an action? Could I exist only for the purpose of helping others? Did it really matter whether my interiority or the ugliness of my past had any meaning? I had to at least hope for happiness. What changed me was my teacher and Yo-chan. Yo-chan listened to my confessions and told me they meant something. She told me that I had to make use of my experiences to help others. That no matter how ugly or sad my past was, anything could still help others. Even wretchedness and regret have value. It doesn’t matter what kind they are, experiences are experiences, and there’s no way they couldn’t help someone.