The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  “Would it be all right to come to your house?”

  “Of course!”

  “Will there be some kind of a treat?”

  “Absolutely nothing. But you’re free to come any time.”

  The words, vivaciously spoken, brought the soldiers a sense of heartfelt welcome. Their knowledge of Russian was almost nil. But they instantly recognized the notes of hospitality.

  That evening, mess hall duty done, they left one by one to avoid the officers’ attention and breathlessly clambered up the snowy hill. The air they exhaled turned to ice and stuck frost-like to the heavy fur of their winter hats.

  They hungered for the warmth and magic of a home. How many years had it been since they’d arrived in Siberia? A mere two. But they felt as if ten years separated them from their families and country. As sailors yearn for a harbor and its solid footing; they yearned for homes and missed parents and wives.

  Their present surroundings consisted of nothing but a snowy wilderness, angular brick barracks, and sporadic exchanges of gunfire.

  For whose sake, they wondered, must they be buried in the snow in such a place? It was not for their own benefit, nor that of their parents. It was for the sake of men who did nothing. Nothing except exploit them. Those were their enemies.

  The soldiers were simply rendering free service to their own enemies.

  Yoshinaga felt as if his lungs were going to burst. He was gasping for oxygen. Had it been possible to flee the barracks forever without being shot for it, he would not have wanted to stay a minute longer. Even a brief respite was fine with him—he wished to get out for a bit and taste the flavor of home. With that desire, he hurried up the sloping, snow-covered path.

  Liza’s house was on top of the hill. He stopped in the entryway. Weather stripping had been applied to the door to keep out the draft. He took his hand out of his pocket and knocked on the door.

  “Zdravstvuyte.” It was a greeting.

  A stove was blazing away in the middle of the room, filling it with warmth. He sensed its presence even outside the door.

  “Good evening. Come in.”

  A woman’s voice, clear and full of life, floated to the door.

  “Ah, Mr. Yoshinaga! Do come in.”

  The young woman, happily smiling, put out her hand.

  At first he hadn’t known about shaking hands. He had never done it. It had made him feel nervous, as if he were about to do something illicit.

  But he soon got used to it. Not only that, he became able to understand a woman’s emotions through her handshake. What did a firm squeeze mean, what did the way she used her eyes while shaking hands say? If she proffered her hand limply, there was no prospect of anything. And so on.

  While Yoshinaga was being shown into a room that contained a table, chairs, and samovar, Takeishi, emitting steam from his nose, was banging at another door. And Inagaki, Ōno, Kawamoto, Sakata—each two or three minutes after the other—were pounding on still more doors.

  “Zdravstvuyte.”

  And as the women took their hands, they gauged the response levels and watched the eyes. The eyes told some of them they would be granted a certain something they desired. Their hearts thumped in anticipation.

  “Right. Today I’ll kiss her hand and see how it goes.”

  It happened that two, or even three, men would hit on the same woman. Even three. In such a case, on their way back down the hill, the men would halt in their tracks, spin around to face one another, and burst into happy laughter.

  “Sopernik, aren’t you?”

  “What’s a sopernik?”

  “Sopernik—rival! Competitor in love! Ha, ha, ha.”

  3

  Matsuki, too, was one of the men struggling up the hill. He had no competitor to laugh with. Nor had he encountered a bright voice of feminine welcome. His love, if love it be, was riddled with frustration. Before climbing the hill, he made sure to wrap up and take along some bread, dried noodles, or sugar. Although the goods were meant to be distributed to the soldiers, he had quietly hidden away a portion. Holding it close, he now climbed the hill and skidded down the other side.

  Barely thirty minutes later, empty-handed and dejected, he emerged from the opposite direction, tramping up the identical slope he had just gone down. The other men’s hearts were still throbbing in rooms made hot by burning stoves.

  “I’ve had it. No more.” He trudged the snow exhausted. “This is ridiculous.”

  At the foot of the hill ran a broad thoroughfare thickly covered with snow. The snow, compressed by sled runners and boots, was frozen hard. On the way, there stretched the barbed-wire entanglements enclosing the company. Each night Matsuki ducked under this wire, cut across the treacherously icy road, and came to stand under a certain window.

  “Galya!”

  He tapped on the glass with his fingertip. Freezing wind blew through him as if to coat his lungs with ice. He waited under the eaves.

  “Galya!”

  Once more he tapped on the windowpane.

  “What?”

  A woman’s face appeared on the opposite side of the glass. White teeth peeked out from between her lips—terribly attractive.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Bread. I’ll give it to you.”

  The woman opened the window just long enough to take in the paperwrapped package.

  “Hey, open it a little more!”

  “I can’t: the room will get cold. Every time I open it I lose three pieces of firewood.”

  She had light pink skin. When she laughed, child-like dimples showed in both cheeks. She wasn’t a bad woman. She merely had to do what she could to obtain money. Her parents and brother were short of food. Her sister, who had children, had come to get tobacco for her husband.

  Matsuki brought bread. He brought sugar. He brought what he could buy with his salary of five yen, sixty sen. But he was much too poor to support her entire family. Someone who drew a higher pay was desired.

  It wasn’t only the soldiers who were starved for sex. There was a certain big shot with a salary more than eighty-five times greater than Matsuki’s who also lusted after female flesh.

  “I have something to do,” said Galya. “It’s rude of me, but won’t you please come tomorrow?”

  “It’s always ‘come tomorrow.’ If I come tomorrow, it’ll be the day after tomorrow.”

  “No, really tomorrow—Tomorrow I’ll be waiting.”

  4

  The snow had gotten deep.

  The road packed solid by those who came to the mess hall in search of leftovers was obliterated by fresh drifts. The children tramped through them and restored it.

  Their effort was erased by new carpets of snow. The houses on the hill looked like rocks, buried by the snow.

  From a mountain some way off, partisans were tirelessly watching the village. Not only that, at night wolves frequently attacked the sentries. The wolves came running nimbly over snow deep enough to swallow their whole bodies.

  The wolves found no food in the mountains. Spotting a chance, they would raid a village and make off with chickens, puppies, or a pig. They formed howling packs and rushed in with such force that it seemed destined they would kill and devour anything they encountered. The sentries dreaded facing them. Sentries had guns, true, but there were only two of them. The beasts would duck the bullets and close in on the men. It was terrifying. The soldiers had to help each other and fight them. If luck failed them, the wolves’ fangs would pierce their armpits or throats.

  It continued to be overcast. The days were short, the nights long. Not once did the sun show its beaming face. Matsuki was spending his second winter in Siberia. He was tired and melancholy. It seemed to him that the sun had abandoned the earth and flown off somewhere. He was certain he’d get sick if things continued like this. Nor was it only Matsuki. All his fellow soldiers were gloomy and exhausted. So they went to visit women. Only women still possessed the power to excite their in
terest.

  Galya, bearing up under the public gaze, came to the mess hall. Her bleached white skirt glimmered from underneath an old coat made of rather good material.

  “You don’t let a man come anywhere near you. Even if I had leftovers, I wouldn’t give them to you.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  She spoke in her agreeable, crystal clear voice.

  “Serves you right.”

  “Fine.”

  She spun around smartly on the high heels on her polished black shoes and started to walk toward the hill.

  “No, I was only joking! Someone else was just here and took everything we had.”

  Matsuki called out from behind.

  “Never mind, I don’t need it.”

  Her slender long legs bounding like resilient springs, she climbed the hill.

  “Galya! Wait! Wait!”

  Clutching a package of dried noodles, he ran after her.

  Soldiers stepped out of the mess hall and watched, laughing.

  Matsuki, breathless, caught up with the woman and threw the package of noodles into her empty washbasin.

  “Here, it’s yours.”

  Galya stopped and looked at him. Then revealing her dazzlingly white teeth, she said something. He couldn’t understand her words. But he knew from the soft, rounded tone that she was eager to have him think well of her. He felt he had done a good thing to go running after her.

  Turning around on the way back, he saw Galya slipping on the snowy path as she climbed the hill.

  “Hey, don’t overdo it!” Takeishi hollered from the mess hall entrance. “If you keep at it this hard, I’ll go after her myself!”

  5

  Yoshinaga’s company was to be detached from the battalion and sent to guard Iishi.

  Between H. and S. there lay a rather broad stretch of forested land. A mountain and a large valley formed a part of it. A river flowed through the forest. The area’s topography was not precisely known.

  A railway bridge located in the zone was constantly getting blown up. Without anyone’s noticing it, sleepers were being ripped up. A military train would suddenly be ambushed.

  Telegraph wires could be counted on to be severed, and communication between H. and S., repeatedly cut.

  It was safe to imagine the region was a partisan hideout. The mission of the company sent to garrison Iishi was to secure communications.

  Yoshinaga was putting together his belongings on Matsuki’s bunk. He was to move out of the mess hall and return to his company.

  He reflected on how often he had been exposed to danger. A great number of men had already been dropped by bullets, lost their eyes, or had arms torn off.

  There was a man he had stood sentry with one evening who suddenly spouted blood from his chest and toppled over. His name was Sakamoto. He remembered the scene vividly.

  The shot had come out of nowhere.

  The two had been standing on a mountain ridge. It was time for the relief sentries to line up and march out of the guardhouse. In fifteen minutes they could return to the guardhouse and rest.

  A bright red sun was about to slip beneath the horizon. A herd of cows and horses, hides bathed in sunlight, ambled lazily across the steppe. It was the middle of October.

  “I’m hungry,” said Sakamoto and yawned.

  “If I were home this time of day, I’d be ready to toss the hoe on my shoulder and head back from the field.”

  “That’s right, isn’t it. It’s potato season.”

  “Um.”

  “Wouldn’t I like to eat one!”

  With that Sakamoto had yawned once again. Was his mouth still stretched open when he was knocked over into the grass like felled lumber?

  Yoshinaga leaped up.

  Another shot zipped past him, grazing his head.

  “Hey! Sakamoto! Hey!”

  He had tried calling him.

  The uniform was stained dark by the blood.

  Sakamoto merely moaned, “Ooooh.”

  They had sailed from Japan and landed at Vladivostok. Ever since the instant of their arrival, everyone had been oppressed by the danger.

  The locomotive burned firewood. Yoshinaga boarded it to travel some thousand miles into the interior. At times they’d jump off to exchange gunfire, then get back on and boil their rice. The kindling smoldered. It was winter. Because it ran on wood, the locomotive frequently slowed to a halt. For two months he didn’t wash his face. He looked black by the time he arrived. It was too cold to breathe. To top it off there was an epidemic of influenza. Enemy airplanes roared over the barracks. Streets fluttered with red flags.

  What did they do there? Conditions eventually turned grim, spelling defeat, so they burned what they couldn’t take and fell back. The Reds cut their line of retreat. They fought and continued to withdraw. The Reds were everywhere, like influenza germs. Again they fought. So what did they do next?

  There were days when they slept in the swamp of melting snow and mud and woke up only to open fire. More than once they were sprayed from above by machine-gun bullets.

  Yoshinaga thought it quite amazing that he was still alive. If he’d ever strayed a foot or two to either side, he might be dead.

  But how was he to know what would happen from now on? How could anyone know? Nobody cared worth a fart if he died. The only human who worried about him was his mother, who sold firewood in a village.

  Next to his skin he wore the amulet case she had made for him. It was a rather large cloth pouch sewn out of new white cotton. Grime and sweat had turned it black and smelly. He thought he’d open it and replace the pouch. He slit it open with scissors. An indecent profusion of charms had been stuffed in. Konpira Shrine, Nanzan Hachiman Shrine, Tenshō Kōdai Shrine, on and on—they came from every possible source and denomination. His mother evidently felt the more there were, the greater the likelihood was of obtaining divine favors.

  The talismans were so frayed that the original paper shapes were nearly unrecognizable. There was more. Something had been separately wrapped in paper. He opened it. It contained bank notes. A five, ones, fifty-sen bills—in all about ten yen. She’d slipped in the money she’d saved peddling firewood.

  “Hey, hey. There’s money in my charm pouch,” Yoshinaga said happily.

  “What?”

  “Money in the charm pouch!”

  “Really?”

  “Would I lie?”

  “Ho, the man’s rich.”

  Matsuki and Takeishi came running from the table. The notes, too, were black with sweat and dirt.

  “Look at that, bills from back home!” Matsuki and Takeishi held up the notes and tenderly gazed at them. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen these.”

  “Mother must have put them in for me on the sly.”

  “It took you long enough to discover! What a great find!”

  “Hmm, I struck it rich—I’ll share.”

  Yoshinaga thought that at best he’d have to go to Iishi day after the next. He’d be forced to cross a snowed-in valley and a mountain. Partisans hid there. Shooting was inevitable, again.

  Would he live, he wondered. Who knew? Who the hell knew?

  6

  At the canteen Matsuki purchased bean-jam buns, sugar, pineapples, tobacco, and more.

  When the night fell, he wrapped them all in newspaper and went up the hill. Rock-hard frozen snow clacked against his boots. Air cut into his nose. He reached the summit and went down the opposite slope. A light was burning in that window by the foot of the hill. Silhouettes flitted across the pane.

  Walking, he tried out the words.

  “Galya.”

  “Galya.”

  “Galya.”

  “What a lively woman you are!”

  How would he say it in Russian? Voices seemed to float up from the base of the hill. The voice of a woman over thirty. And what seemed to be that of a Japanese. What were they saying? He paused. It sounded somewhat like Galya’s mother, he thought. Abruptly it stopped. Soon blue curt
ains swept across the nearby window, blocking the view.

  “What’s this? They don’t go to sleep so early . . .”

  He ducked under the barbed wire and stalked up to the window.

  “Good evening, Galya.”

  The stepping-stone he had strategically placed to enable him to reach the window had been removed.

  “Galya.”

  A lump of snow came flying at him. It struck the edge of his arctic coat and disintegrated. Another flew at him. It hit his back. He noticed neither but kept looking intently up at the window.

  “Galya!”

  He called with his face upturned. Bright stars shone crisply against the winter night.

  “Hey you!”

  The man who had been hurling the snowballs made a scraping noise with his boots and jumped out from behind a white birch. It was Takeishi.

  Matsuki started. He almost dropped his newspaper bundle onto the snow. Surprised by an officer or someone unknown, he was ready to throw everything and run.

  “You’ve come again,” laughed Takeishi.

  “It’s you. Don’t do this.”

  It took a while for Matsuki’s heart to resume its regular pace. As soon as he realized it was Takeishi, he flushed with embarrassment at the thought he’d been in such a hurry to please a woman with Yoshinaga’s money. He wished he’d come without the sugar and pineapples.

  “Someone got here ahead of us.” Takeishi lowered his voice and pointed to the window. “I thought it might be you, so I was waiting to see how things stood.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Noncom or officer?”

  “I didn’t see. I don’t know.”

  “Who could it be?”

  “Want to go in and see?”

  “No, no. . . . Let’s go back.”

  Matsuki had no desire to come face to face with an officer or anyone else. It would do no good.

  Takeishi disagreed. “It’d be cowardly to just go back like this.” He rapped loudly on the windowpane.

  “Galya, Galya, good evening!”