“Did you go yesterday?”
“Yeah, and you?”
“Couldn’t get out of work.… See anyone from our class?”
Yoshiaki mentioned two or three names, and Kaneshiro muttered that it wasn’t many. But he then laughed and said he had no right to talk. When Yoshiaki mentioned how surprised he was to see him in the procession, Kaneshiro explained that even though his apartment was in the next town, he’d been participating since the previous festival year. He joked he’d been hearing only complaints from his wife for always going directly to the rehearsals after finishing work at seven. As Yoshiaki listened, he remembered that Kaneshiro had done karate in high school.
“You still keep up with it?” Yoshiaki asked and pretended to attack him.
“Are you kidding? Don’t have time for that,” Kaneshiro answered. His expression sobered. He said that it might be late, but he would call Yoshiaki later that night. Then he ran to join the other men with poles, who had begun to move forward.
The procession continued moving. The next group began to dance in front of where Yoshiaki was standing. Men and women in black pants and white shirts performed a folk dance with odd intensity. It seemed strange for these middle-aged men and women with dark faces and arms from working in the fields to be dancing with such serious expressions on their faces.
Suddenly, some middle school girls standing nearby let out a squeal. An old woman came out from the crowd of spectators lining the road, crossed the path, and began to walk towards the line of folk dancers. “Hiyasasa, hiyasasa,” she called out, stirring the crowd as she moved her arms and legs as if she were dancing the kachashii. Her yellowed gray hair hung down to her waist, and her face was so browned from the sun that her features were blurred. The kimono wrapped around her small frame looked as if it had been worn for days. Yoshiaki was shocked at the condition of Gozei, whose stench drifted towards him though he was more than five meters away.
With the force of Gozei’s waving arms, the front of her kimono opened, exposing one of her breasts. Turning at the laughter of the middle school girls, Gozei grew more excited, opening her toothless mouth and calling again, “Hiya, hiya.” Her sagging breasts swayed. A village office employee who had been directing traffic ran towards her, and two or three women came from the roadside to surround and hide her from the spectators’ eyes. Her cries of protest rang in the air. The village office employee and a young coworker, who had come to help, restrained Gozei, held her on either side, and led her toward the side of the road. An elderly woman whom Yoshiaki recognized followed at Gozei’s side, adjusting her kimono and pushing the crowd out of the way. A police car trailing the parade at the rear sped up to the scene, and an officer stepped out. The people in the parade stood still as well and watched. While the city employee explained the situation to the officer, Gozei appeared to calm down as she was soothed and comforted by the women.
Gozei lived in a small hut downstream, near the bridge crossing Irigami River, which flowed from north to south, cutting through the center of the village. As Yoshiaki looked pityingly at Gozei, who appeared to be quite senile, her eyes, which had been darting about absently, focused on him. Her cry erupted. “Shōsei!”
Yoshiaki turned, realizing she was headed for him, shoving her way through the crowd of teenage girls. The crowd nearby stared at him. As he stood not knowing what to do, Gozei made her way even closer. The village office employee who had chased after her frantically grabbed her and held her back.
“Shōsei, save me. The soldiers are taking me away.” Yoshiaki was certain that Gozei’s eyes were on him as she was taken away to the police car, the village official holding her in a full body lock and the police officer gripping her arm. But what could he do? She screamed as the men tried to push her into the backseat, flailing her arms and kicking her legs in resistance.
“Shōsei, save me!”
Hearing her cry just as the door was shut, several people in the crowd looked again at Yoshiaki. They seemed to have mistaken him for this Shōsei. Feeling uneasy, Yoshiaki moved to a different spot to watch the procession resume. However, Gozei’s behavior and the name Shōsei weighed on him, drawing his attention away from the parade. The dancers also looked distracted. He watched for ten more minutes, then headed home.
“Gozei, Gozei.” Someone was calling her name. “Gozei, wake up.” She was grabbed by the shoulders and shaken.
“Ahhh, Shōsei, when did you get here?” she answered, trying to get up. But she couldn’t move or open her eyes. Only the faint smell of the river drifted towards her. The clouds broke, and when the moonlight shone through, a yūna tree rose before her eyes, blooming as if large yellow butterflies had flocked to its branches. Though it was night, the blossoms showed no signs of withering; rather, bathed in the moonlight, the flowers looked as if at any moment they would take flight. A hand reached out from the dark and grabbed her wrist. Rough fingers slowly caressed the top of her hand. Whose hand was it? The palm of the hand rested on her brow. What time is it now?
It grew faintly light from time to time and people passed by, but soon night fell. From somewhere far off, the sound of the sanshin drifted towards her. Excited, she tried to get up to play the sanshin, but she couldn’t move her arms. When she forced her hands to move, something tightened around her wrists, and pain seared through her body.
“Ohh, I promised Shōsei I was going to play the sanshin for him, but I didn’t.”
Suddenly her heart ached. But Shōsei laughed and told her she didn’t need to worry. Placing his palm on her brow, he gently caressed her hair. She smelled the river, the scent of forest trees and rocks, before the waste from the sugar distillery polluted the waters. The rich, soft smell of the water blended with the scent of the incoming tide.
Shōsei had always waited for her under the shade of the yūna tree growing on the riverbank. At night, she would wait for the lull in customers and sneak off from the inn, for just a moment. Underneath the yūna tree, they were hidden from view, even from the top of the nearby bridge. She’d caress Shōsei’s neck, chest, arms, and hips, grabbing him, excited and sweaty.
The scent of the ocean blended with the scent of the river. His fingers moved like fish swimming through a forest of sea kelp. Her hair flowed, and the flesh on her side shuddered. She felt as if she had become a sea creature, buoyed by the waves. When she looked up, the yūna blossoms were bathed in the moonlight, slowly dancing up to the sky like a flock of yellow butterflies. “When did your hands get so beautiful?” she asked, surprised that his hands, normally roughened by his daily labor, had become smooth and soft. Suddenly the fingers left her and disappeared into the darkness.
“Shōsei! Where are you?”
“Shōsei!”
She tried desperately to get up, to reach out for him. But she couldn’t throw off the blankets or move her arms that were spread to either side.
“Wait Shōsei! Don’t leave me here all alone!”
When she finally opened her heavy eyelids, Shōsei’s shadow slowly stepped away into the dim light.
“Shōsei!” Her lips trembled slightly, and the breath she released disappeared without making a sound.
Yoshiaki washed his hands and feet in the bath, then went into the kitchen and took out a jar of milk from the refrigerator. As he drank the milk, he heard his mother, Kimi, who’d been in the back tatami room praying in front of the butsudan, call out, “Are you ready to eat?” It was still barely past six, but thinking that he should eat before the festival’s stage performances started at seven, he asked her to make something. Yoshiaki took her place in front of the Buddhist altar and lifted his hands in prayer. Two censers decorated with white lotus blossoms on navy glaze were placed on the altar, with black incense standing in each censer. The yellow-speckled croton leaves placed in the vase with handles were a brilliant green. There were two Buddhist memorial tablets, with Chinese-style gabled roofs. Both of the double-hinged doors stood open, showing the names painted in gold leaf on a vermillion
lacquer plaque. The tablet to his right marked the name of his grandfather and grandmother who had died eight years and three years before. The names of his great-grandparents and that of his grandfather’s younger brother, who died in the Battle of Okinawa, were also recorded there. This tablet had been passed down through the generations to Yoshiaki’s father, who was the eldest son.
The tablet to the left was one being kept for a family whose line had died out. It had been decided that Yoshiaki’s uncle would inherit it. The names Shōsei, Ichirō, and others written below the surname Wakugawa were familiar sights to Yoshiaki since childhood, but not even his father knew who these people were. Of the five names, the only relative of whom he knew from listening to his grandmother’s stories was the man called Shōsei.
The Wakugawa family were said to be distant relations of both of Yoshiaki’s grandparents. However, the only member of the family left during his grandmother’s youth was Shōsei. Yoshiaki’s grandmother had said that he’d worked at an inn in the center of the village, heating and cleaning the baths and doing other odd jobs. Suffering from severe burns, he apparently had no use of his left arm and walked with a limp in his right leg. Although they were distant relations, Shōsei and Yoshiaki’s grandmother had little to do with each other. When they did meet, they never exchanged words.
Shōsei always had an absent look on his face and only did what he was ordered to do. He never spoke. Everyone thought that he was slow. It was believed that he had disappeared after taking refuge in the mountains during the war. Yoshiaki’s grandmother told Yoshiaki that Shōsei may have been shot and killed by American soldiers while trying to escape the fighting.
The name on the tablet was what had come to Yoshiaki earlier that day when Gozei had called him Shōsei. All that Yoshiaki knew about this man was what he’d heard from his grandmother. His grandfather, a man of few words, had never talked about the tablets. Unlike his grandmother, his grandfather didn’t like to talk much about the past. Instead, he lived for the daily ritual of working in the fields from sunup till sundown, drinking awamori before falling to an early slumber. Yoshiaki’s father had also heard of Shōsei only as part of his grandmother’s many stories and had never been especially interested in him.
If Gozei had mistaken Yoshiaki for this man Shōsei, there must be a strong resemblance. Yoshiaki was curious, but there was no way to be certain, since there were no photographs. Even so, he couldn’t believe that it was just the confusion of the old woman’s mind. He stared for a while at the name, now faint and barely legible.
“Dinner’s ready,” Kimi called, and Yoshiaki came to the table. As they ate, they talked about the parade, and the topic soon turned to Gozei. Kimi had heard about the incident at the supermarket and knew that Gozei had jumped into the middle of the procession. According to Kimi, Gozei’s condition had been worsening for more than six months. Especially in the past month, the situation had become rather serious. Gozei would go into the supermarket and suddenly grab the merchandise, stuffing items into her mouth. She wandered around the village at all hours of the day and night. Neighbors took pity and gave her leftovers to eat. She no longer bathed. Her roaming around the village with her disheveled hair and putrid smell had even been raised at the village council. The councilmen had left the problem unresolved, reasoning that she wasn’t endangering the safety of children and that there was nothing they could do right away. But everyone worried that Gozei might cause a fire or be hit by a car. Apparently, there were even some who foresaw that she might disrupt the festival parade. Yoshiaki, listening to his mother, couldn’t help but be troubled.
“Isn’t there a place that’d take her?” Yoshiaki asked.
“There are waiting lists even at the nursing homes.… She doesn’t have any relatives or anyone else who could take responsibility for her,” Kimi answered. “We’ve got apples,” she added absently and walked toward the refrigerator.
It was a predictable response. Yoshiaki knew not to press her any further.
Lanterns put up by the village chamber of commerce lined the path to the community center, so that even within the village, the thick fukugi leaves in the few remaining ancient forests were illuminated. Although it was already the end of September, sweat poured down the people’s brows just going outside.
The community center had been right next to the asagi, a wooden worship house where the priestesses held their ceremonies. Yoshiaki’s father had told him about the arguments that had ensued ten years earlier when the structure had to be moved a few meters for the construction of the new community center, arousing strong opposition from the village priestesses and members of the senior citizens’ association. In the end, it was moved, but the village was held responsible for buying life-insurance plans for the five priestesses in case of a calamity brought on by the transgression against the kami. Yoshiaki’s father, who’d been a councilman at that time, explained that since four of the women were in their seventies and one was eighty-six, they’d had difficulty negotiating with the insurance company.
The yard in front of the asagi was large enough for children to play softball. In front of the stage, there was space—about the width of a car—with the rest of the yard filled with spectators. Yoshiaki had watched the performances while in high school, more than twenty years ago. He was surprised that everyone was still this energetic about the tradition.
Yoshiaki offered his donations at the reception table under the eaves of the community center. Familiar faces greeted him with “Yoshiaki, when’d you get back?” and he was handed a beer. After getting a plastic bag of tempura, he went around to the back of the crowd. At a glance, there seemed to be over three hundred spectators. Several camcorders were set up. A group of university students with notebooks in hand, apparently conducting field research, were interviewing the village elderly and taking photographs. Towards the east, a curtain with the large characters “Bountiful Harvest” hung over the stage made of metal scaffolding. When the sugarcane leaves in the fields behind the stage swayed in the breeze, the heat abated slightly. But the heat from the crowd quickly erased any effects from the wind. As Yoshiaki drank the beer and took in his surroundings, the sacred groves extending from north to west, as if to protect the village, floated up darkly in the sky. As a child, he thought he’d seen a seima, a red-haired tree spirit, which was sitting on the branch of a large pine tree in the sacred grove, looking down on the festivities below. Now, he only felt the lingering nostalgia of the memory. Compared to his childhood, the area around the asagi came to be a carefully maintained park, and the dense growth of trees was now gone.
When the lion with hair made from the bark of the palm tree used to come out dancing from between the trees, the children used to shriek and run away, as if they’d seen a real demon. Now, that lion was also just placed on the side of the stage as a decoration, showing its beloved and respected face. Behind the lion, by the bamboo blinds, the accompanying musicians seated on the stage wings were absorbed in their tuning and vocal exercises.
The noise was nearly deafening with families seated on the grass mats chattering as they ate feasts and children ran around the yard. When the curtain opened ten minutes behind schedule, applause and whistles erupted from the crowd. The first onstage was a man with a mock beard playing Old Man Ufushū, the wealthy villager of local legend, followed by twenty preschool- and school-age children. Ufushū was believed to have been born around the time of the founding of the village and was said to have lived for nearly two hundred years, blessed with many grandchildren. The man recited the origins of the harvest festival and the invocation for the harvest of the five crops. The old women in the crowd placed their hands together and muttered the words of the prayer with him. As the children nearby pressed their hands together, imitating their grandparents, and the young parents laughed, the harvest performances began.
Beginning with the kagiyadefu opening dance, performed by an old man and an old woman, the traditional drama of the village, including the inishi
ri kyōgen and shōchikubai dance, were presented, one after another. Usually Yoshiaki had few opportunities to see traditional Ryukyuan theatre, but it wasn’t that he disliked it. In fact, he’d become aware that the music of where he was born and raised flowed through his veins. Recently, he’d begun watching Ryukyu dance and drama performances on the local TV station, programs he’d have ignored in his twenties, as well as listening to tapes and CDs of Ryukyu folk songs. He even spent two months learning a traditional dance. He wasn’t any good, but he enjoyed it.
A number considered to be central to the program that day was performed by a master from a school of Ryukyuan theatre. The level of his skill stood out, even to Yoshiaki’s amateur eyes. After an hour had passed, the most anticipated performance began.
In the village, a number of play texts had been passed down since before the war. These plays were performed in rotation. Most were based on the experiences of villagers who had left Okinawa from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century to find work on the mainland, primarily in the spinning mills of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kanagawa. Some were proletarian plays put on in Tokyo during this time and later rearranged and performed in Okinawan dialect. At times, researchers even came from the mainland to study these plays.
The opening play, titled “The Tragic History of an Okinawan Factory Girl,” chronicled the life of a young girl who left for the mainland to work in a Kanagawa mill. The actors were all amateurs, but having been directed and coached by a professional Ryukyu theatre actor, the performance was quite impressive. The old women in the crowd cried at the scenes of Chiru, the heroine, fighting with her roommate in the factory barracks and being called an “Okinawan pig killer” and of her standing paralyzed in front of a sign at a canteen near the factory that read, “No Koreans, Ainu, and Okinawans.” Some of the men crushed their beer cans in their hands, shouting, “Damn mainlanders! Kill ’em!”
Islands of Protest Page 9
