—Saassa, saassaa, saassaa-saassaa.…
It was impossible to tell one face from another. They did not seem to be water women. It was clear that they were real Hotara women from the thickness of their dark limbs, which showed from the edges of their clothing. A sweet fragrance wafted from the powder on their faces. From a distance, they seemed to move in a circle with certain unity, but with a closer look, their movements lacked coherence. Between the saassa calls were interjections, hoohho, haahha. To the accompaniment of these voices, the figures moved in different ways, sticking their heads out of the circle; shimmying and alternately thrusting their fists in the air and calling out a, iya, ha, iya, a, iya-iya-iyai-ya; keeping their heads still and holding their hands above them while shaking their hips as if dancing the hula; standing as tall as possible on tiptoe and stepping in rhythm, tarat-tat-tat-tat-tat; mimicking butterflies by fluttering around, arms outstretched; arching backward and forward, while swinging their heads and waving their hands.… This jumble of motions was utterly comical, even violent. Yet they followed strangely well the rhythm of saassa, saassa, with a rising intonation every two and a half beats. What had originally seemed like around ten women had gradually swelled, and now there seemed to be tens, no, one hundred and tens. Terribly dizzying and shrill, the chaotic dance lasted forever in the moist space, the depth of which was hard to measure. Were there that many inagu on Hotara? Something sad and painful shook Sanrā’s heart. His eyes and ears were riveted on the dazzling tumult stirred by these unknown women. But he did not know where he himself was located in space as he gazed at this strange sight. Repelled by the circle of wild dance that raised dust and yells, he felt that he alone was at a loss and in a cool space outside of time. But then he also felt he was being jostled and shoved, having been thrown into the eddy of women in a frenzy.
Suddenly, someone grasped his upper left arm. The moment he felt the warmly flushed hands dragging him, the circle of dust rapidly moved into the distance. A sound pierced the depth of his ears, as his body slithered into the dark void. Whether he had mixed into the center of the orgy or simply peered at those women’s weird behavior from the shade of bushes or trees, Sanrā seemed to have been discovered and captured by one woman, who had appeared from somewhere. Thus discovered, when he sensed the distance between the group and himself, he realized that he was being pulled around by a stranger. Slimy fingers ate into his arms. She wrenched his arms up to carry him on her back and seemed to drag him with the gesture of a fisherman hauling a large fish in a net to the shore. His bare feet noisily scratched the ground. Her back, sweaty and warm, was broad like that of a man. His twisted wrists were in unbearable pain, but there was no way to resist. All he saw when he stared at the stranger was an overwhelming dark void. Fear alternated with aimlessness, torturing him, as he was being carried somewhere he did not know. Then his feet, which had been scratching the ground, felt levitated. A wind powerfully blew through his back, and his body, hurled into the void, jolted and fell.… The place, resembling a vault, was filled with moist darkness that had descended there. Around him was rough-hewn blackness like an exposed bumpy wall of rock. The uniform darkness made him feel as if he had gone blind. Cool air embraced his dim, sinking consciousness. He sensed a steady gaze from the heavy darkness. The thick layer of air broke, and from the rift, a voice spouted like water.
—How old is this man?
The low, deep voice that reached from above seemed suffused with meaning. It sounded like a deliberate falsetto, but it was instantly clear that it belonged to a woman. He felt somehow sad. The voice, full of long, lingering reverberations despite its uttering brief syllables, gave him a pang.
—He is twenty,
responded the woman who had dragged him to that place. It was odd that she claimed that the eighty-year-old Sanrā was twenty, but he sensed that she had a reason.
—Twenty, yes?
she asked, nailing him down as it were, looking into his face. A faint smile broke out on her face. He had no way to respond. He felt that his throat was unable to produce a sound. The woman’s face was a dark silhouette with an indistinct outline, but he could hear her voice quake badly from some kind of determined emotion. Even so, she seemed to edge over to the owner of the deep voice.
—His name is Sanrā. I am happy to introduce him to you.
The voice sounded nasal, as if the speaker was currying favor. She told the name of her catch obsequiously as if reporting on the quality of an offering. Sanrā felt a gaze crawling over him, sizing him up. Caressing and persistent, the eyes of the mannish woman licked every part of his body. It was so uncomfortable that Sanrā tried to turn over, but all he could do was lie there like a spearfish left drying on the sand. He could not even twitch. His limbs, stiff with cramps, felt numb. His field of vision was murky, and his inner ears alone were cold and clear after the pain had disappeared.
—A fine man, isn’t he?
The overbearing voice fell from above.
—He is a live man in his prime.
This was a young voice, whispered near his ears.
—Yes? So he’s alive?
—Yes, he is a genuine, live man. Please take a look.
The voice, indicating an intention to carry out a plot, grew more aggressive.
—You’re right. The more I look at him, the fresher he seems. This man.…
She seemed to have come close enough for her breath to cover his forehead. Her gaze grew stickier. She audibly sucked in her saliva.
—He will taste good, won’t he?
—Yes, he’ll be very tasty, because he’s 20 years old and alive.
—He’s well made, very well made. We’ll have a taste.
The exchange between the two inagu, mouths watering over the big catch before them, hit a surface-like rock face and bounced back, producing a double and triple echo von, voon, voon. For Sanrā, the situation remained as confusing as before, but their words were oddly clear. Heavy breathing approached his eyes. The women seemed ready to cook their live ikiga catch together. A carp on the cutting board, he was at a loss, his situation now appearing critical. But he was feeling oddly serene, because the sasa, sasa-sasa sounds still continued to wash his ears.
Then a peal of laughter burst out, breaking through the wall of darkness. The two women leaped back. Astonished, they seemed to dart about, trying to find out who laughed. But the high-pitched cackle scattered in all directions, making it difficult to tell the source.
—Who’s that?
—Your voice is so noisy, so grotesque
—Who’s that?
The two voices squawked, amahai kumahai, running this way and that, but the only response was a cackle. Filled with echoes of laughter, the dark space nearly sparkled. The field of vision became even more difficult to define.
—I see, you’re here for this man.
Cackle-cackle.…
—That’s not allowed, we won’t let anybody take him.
—Laying a hand on him is not allowed. It’s forbidden, it’s strictly forbidden.
The two female voices took turns shouting at the laughter in the dark.
—Get out of here, you tramp who won’t reveal your identity.
—Get out, get out.
Sanrā sensed that the two female tramps, who themselves didn’t reveal their identities, were heckling and wrangling with the tramp who stayed under the cover of darkness. He clearly heard two types of random yells and strange, merry laughter. Then a cackle even higher pitched than before came from above and changed into an unexpected call:
—Sanrā, Sanrā.
A tender feeling came over him. The stiffness in his limbs loosening, he bent instinctively toward the voice. Just then, he was embraced by something thick dripping from the dark. “It’s hot. I’m melting,” he thought and flailed his arms. As he started dissolving, he soared to a yet darker void.…
That sound came again from somewhere. It was the stream of dry sound that visited without advance notice and vigo
rously bubbled in the hearts of those who heard it.
Sanrā lurched up off his back, which had sunken into a muddy sleep. Or so he thought; instead, he had merely turned over in his sleep. He was not awake enough to get up. As he stayed as he was, a wave of sound rose and undulated, seemingly about to flow over his head—yussa yussa yussa .…When he turned his head to shake it off, the wave collapsed. It scattered, splitting into a thousand fragments. Sanrā drew in his neck and rounded his back. Then the scattered fragments of sound slowly gathered together and turned into a stream of low-voiced consonants with deep vibrations—drrrr .…Between sounds, he thought he heard a shriek. In fact, no voice-like voice reached his ears. Yet, as he hunched there, he believed that there had been hint of a strained voice. It was a scream in a register beyond the human voice, the kind raised during an emergency .…
He thought he was certain that he heard it when it drew a long line and, turning into a clear, high-pitched voice, came toward him. At that moment, he was thrown into the air, his back arched. When he tumbled to the ground, a light entered his field of vision.
Looking up, he saw the crescent moon palely afloat between thick clouds. The field was very damp in the middle of the night. A tepid breeze, giving no sense of the season, touched his cheek. His stomping feet traversed the ground in stride, but he only had a vague sense that he was walking; it felt more like swimming around in the dark. Something pushed toward him, making the air stifling. It irritated him as it grew thicker. He shook his head fiercely against the assault of the unbearable dampness. Regardless, he still kept walking, as if plunging into the thick wall of fog. An offensive smell filled the air, to his further disgust. Soon he realized he was moving along a mountain trail. The source of the smell was live trees. Although there was no sign of even a drop of rain, his hair and back were soaking wet. Apparently Sanrā had bathed fully in the rain of life, surging and overflowing in the mountain.
He found himself standing at the dead end of the trail.
The entrance was to a hollow amidst the trees, narrow and shaped like a human forehead. The expressionless clearing was completely still and bare, having pushed away the mass of trees and weeds. In the corner sat three blackened pieces of limestone in the shape of a cooking stove, its mouth gaping like a hole in the world. He carefully looked around but could see nothing else in this plain, mossy space.
This was the unā, sacred garden, closed to men and located at the heart of the divine mountain called Niraiyama, the distant mountain. Sanrā had been told that this was an important sanctuary where the ritual of the Hotara-upunaka retreat took place for seven days and seven nights. Here, the ritual that made Hotara Hotara had been solemnly handed down since the time the island began, not missing a single movement, word, or syllable. During men’s yuntaku chats, they quietly speculated about what occurred here. But the behavior of men throughout the island was restricted under a binding agreement, and they were not even allowed to glimpse the ritual from a distance. Moreover, the women involved were strictly forbidden from talking about it, so everything about the ritual was now buried in the dark. Thus, this sanctuary was the site of the lost secret, about which it was impossible for Sanrā, a Hotara ikiga who came late, to have any notion even in the recesses of his memory or imagination.
Breaking the prohibition, Sanrā had long ago stepped into this site.
Umichiru, who disliked Hotara women’s practice of stealing into ikiga’s rear rooms, had also come to dislike having trysts on Nagaripama Beach:
—The waves are noisy here.
She took him by the hand and led him to this sacred space in the middle of the night. Dragged by the tail of a suddenly revived memory, he had now come back to this place not meant for men. It was just like Umichiru, who had purimun, quirk, blood in her and tended to break Hotara customs, to bring him here in a purimun-like, shameless manner. Back then, Sanrā shook himself free from Umichiru’s firm grip on his wrist. They argued:
—No, it’s forbidden, Umichiru.
—Why, Sanrā?
She grasped his hand again.
—That men can’t enter here is the way from the olden days.
—What’s the way, Sanrā?
—What are you saying? The way is the way.
—The way for whom?
Umichiru further pressed the hesitant Sanrā.
—Whom is it for? What is forbidden? It is not allowed, Umichiru.
—With you and me, what is forbidden for others is okay.
Umichiru pressed him with her rock-cracking purimun logic, baring her desire. With her dragging him by the hand, the two ran along the path after dark and entered the sacred unā, moist with night dew. The unā spread in the heavy darkness of the night was a distant, shadowy space, curved and warped like a deep valley, with folds and layers. Umichiru fluttered into the darkness with the lightness of a butterfly and yelled Sanrā’s name in a shriek that shook the mountain. As they tangled and toyed with each other on the cool grass, Sanrā heard the laughter of the gods, inhabitants of the site, who peeped at them from the shade of trees and grasses. At first, their laughter was a soft, suppressed giggle, but then it developed into a cackle that stirred a chain reaction, causing swirls of shrill echoes to travel across the mountain—kukukku kukuku … kakka kakka kakaka … kohokko kohokko hohoho .… At that time, the unā, sanctuary, itself was swaying in large motions like the belly of a woman rolling with laughter.
Abandoned and tranquil, the unā, sanctuary, was silent, without even the slightest sound. Perhaps the rustle of the wind no longer reached here. After that night, Umichiru began to show a peculiar attachment to Jirā as if to follow the purimun steps of her mother, Chirū. Then, atta, abruptly, she plunged her uncontrollable self into the waters of Nagarizaki. Sanrā no longer remembered when that was.
He tried to connect the various scenes in his memory, but his sense of time had become unclear.
… The heat that had felt about to consume him rapidly subsided. He had remained crouched on the sandy beach, now all cool, his body stiffly bent. He eased the stiffness, brushed off the sand, and stood up. Looking around, he judged that it was already past the ebb. In the night sea, the tide was rising again and was showing one swell after another. The palely silver water surface swerved under the moonlight’s caress. No matter how much he looked, he could see no indication of anyone coming from the other side. Sanrā’s private expectation, present earlier when the sand was still warm, seemed to have been betrayed. So as to tear himself away from the murky, chaotic scenes, he slowly turned his back to the interior of the island.
It was just after noon the next day. Just as Sanrā had awakened, Toraju, the island boss, came by looking rushed.
—Everyone, I have something to tell you.
Today, there will be wakes for two people.
In a deep voice fit for loudly reading a written circular, he was delivering the message from house to house. Panting, he looked into Sanrā’s house from the front gate, quickly made his announcement, and then dashed off again.
Although the island boss, Toraju, had no power or position, his duty was to make the rounds from hamlet to hamlet every other day. In place of the island office, which had lost 80 percent of its functions more than ten years ago, he was volunteering to check on the elderly who were living alone.
To Sanrā’s surprise, Jirā was one of the two people whose death Toraju had announced. After finishing all the yuntaku talk he wanted to have with Tarā and Sanrā, Jirā quietly passed away. Toraju had just found him dead two hours earlier. Looking into Jirā’s dilapidated house a little later than usual, he saw Jirā lying on the verandah facing the yard, looking like a withered tree with its roots severed. At first, he thought that Jirā was napping, but he went over to him to make sure. There was no sleeping breath. After a moment of hesitation, Toraju called,
—Jirā,
and lightly shook his shoulder. Jirā’s stiff body rolled over on its back. His eyes, half open and looking at the ceiling, wer
e immobile. Instantly ascertaining that Jirā had long passed away, Toraju bowed his head deeply and joined his palms in prayer, as he had customarily done before the bodies of the acquaintances whom he had recently come to often when he made his rounds. Then he muttered calmly,
—I show respect. Today it was your turn, Jirā. For the long span of 117 years, thank you very much. Don’t worry about our future. Go to the other side with peace of mind. Nabii and Kamī are waiting anxiously.
Quickly, Jirā. Pay no attention to other women. Go straight to where Nabii is. Go straight, don’t look aside. I show respect .…
As if this prayer had an effect, Jirā looked peaceful, facing the ceiling and almost smiling. His slightly parted lips and half-open eyes were innocent like those of an infant, Toraju said to the folks who gathered for the wake. While preparing for the rituals, he regarded it as his duty to bow to this and that circle of people, thrust his head into groups, interrupt conversations, and loudly report at length what he had witnessed.
The other person who had died the night before was, quite unexpectedly, Tarā’s mother, Kanimega. Left alone by her son over half a day, whether from hunger or loneliness, she tried to force herself to move on her fragile limbs but fell onto the dirt floor of the kitchen, which is lower than the rest of the house. She split her chiburu, head, on the stepping-stone that had been placed there. She was found dead in this posture.
Perhaps she was hit in a bad spot, but at age 101, she was approaching the end of her life; she would not have died in this manner had she moved into the Niraikanai Home as she had been encouraged to do, commented the people who gathered for the wake. But Tarā thought otherwise when he held her body, which somehow still felt warm: Kanimega, who was obstinate by nature and hated being dependent on others, had experienced embarrassment from living in disgrace and mental torment from facing inconveniences in her daily life, but she also had pride and compassion, which made her want to no longer trouble her son. Thus, she chose a time while he was out to take her own life. This happened because of Jirā’s particularly long yuntaku, Tarā complained, biting his lips out of sorrow. But when he learned later that Jirā himself had died on the same day, he felt comforted:
Islands of Protest Page 24
