Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  High in the sky from a small biplane I could see Esperança, spread in neat lots across the landscape, the tiny farmhouses, the plantations of coffee and corn, the grazing cattle, the chicken coops, and the silk barns. I could see the red fingers of the dirt roads we had carved out, branching through the forest. Passing over the town, I could see the long house where all of us had first come to live in Esperança. That house had been turned over to the cooperative for its offices. And there was Okumura’s old house, where Haru’s mother, Tomi, still insisted on living alone, and Kawagoe’s old house at the end of the road. I ordered the pilot to fly over New World Ranch. The plane circled the land while I scrutinized the familiar landscape with astonishment. The dining hall with its great kitchen was gone. So too the barn and the sawmill and the chicken pens. Most of the houses were gone, but a few remained, although the roof tiles were removed, exposing to the open air the empty rooms where we had once lived and slept. I looked again. The water tower was still there, standing like a lonely pillar on the landscape. Haru’s vegetable garden was abandoned beside the old outhouse and the shed. I ordered the pilot to swoop lower, and then I saw the tiny line of activity, the people, carts, and Ichiro’s remaining truck scurrying away with anything that could yet be salvaged and called our own.

  When I arrived on the land provided by the Baiano, I ran about in anger, stalking the dining hall, now completely rebuilt in every detail just as it was but in a different place. It angered me to see that even Inagaki’s paintings were displayed in the same places on the same walls. I had run to the outhouse and found it in the same position relative to the cottage I shared with Haru, which was also in its same relative place. Everything was insidiously the same. Many were still involved in the general task of moving and rebuilding; they scurried past me, busy and devoted to their tasks, avoiding my anger and confusion, intent on their work, as if work could salve their wounds, could obliterate their fears. Far from the dining hall, they could hear me ranting at Befu, “Whose decision was this? Who ordered this? Don’t you know I was about to close a deal with the Bank of Brazil? Now everything is ruined! I want to know who the traitors are!”

  Befu said nothing. For all his courageous words about killing himself, he had relented when Takehashi and the Baiano described how military troops on horseback with rifles would come and drive us out. Of course the Baiano must have exaggerated; he told Befu he had seen troops drive Indian tribes off their land. Befu would not admit his fear, nor would he take responsibility for the move. “It was Takehashi,” he said contemptuously. “He made his own arrangements with the Baiano.”

  I seethed, feeling the blood seeping behind the bandages of my swollen eye. They all came to the dining hall reluctantly, but they came. They heard me explain with great emotion and thunder that to stay on the Baiano’s land was to give up our freedom, to become slaves. I would not remain under such conditions; I would leave. Who would follow me? Who? “Who?” I screamed. “Stand!”

  For a long moment, no one moved. Only Jiro, faithful Jiro, had no thought but to stand. He looked around in bewilderment at all of the others still seated. Then Befu stood, staring sternly at my sister, Ritsu, and their son, Genji, who also quietly joined him. I uttered a painful shudder, wiping away my tears as, one by one, a small group of the loyal awkwardly stood. Haru stood. Kimi stood, commanding her brood of eight to do the same. I saw Akiko standing next to her mother, her eyes wandering toward Ichiro sitting among his brothers, pleading. He looked away.

  I looked around at my small cadre, and then I saw my own son Kanzo still sitting, arms crossed and head bowed. I walked up to Kanzo and commanded him, “Stand!”

  Kanzo shook his head. He did not have words to defend himself. He was a bashful kid, awkward in the manner of his mother but without the confident bluster. It was Kanzo’s first and perhaps last real decision. I grabbed my son, punching and boxing the poor young man, who would not defend himself. As Kanzo crumpled to the floor, I hurled my fist at his right eye. The young man tumbled backward but refused to cry. “Stand!” I screamed.

  Kanzo crawled pathetically to my feet and pulled himself up. He stood before me, blood flowing from his nose, his lip bubbling up in a black bruise. And I stared in horror at a mirror of myself so many years ago.

  CHAPTER 15:

  Twilight

  I left that same day with a group of about a hundred people. We walked away uncertainly with only the belongings we could carry, walked away out into the countryside like a band of homeless refugees. From this moment of separation, our lives began anew. It was not the last time I saw those people left behind, but the rift between us was complete. Perhaps others did, but I never again spoke with any of them. They blamed me for their difficulties, and I do not deny my failings. I have been a great sinner, a man with many faults. But I lived the life of which I have spoken; I could not have lived another. I have denied nothing.

  Now I believe that this parting of ways was a necessary step in our history, a critical parting in which people were forced to choose their destinies. If life had become too easy, too simple, this was a test of true spirit. Those who were not strong enough for what the future would demand of us fell away to their predictable lives of day-to-day survival, their pragmatic ideas of work and money, their common sense. I no longer feel any anger toward these people. They were not made of the same stuff; they had joined us only to survive hard times.

  As for Kōhei Takehashi and Ichiro Terada, I can never forget their betrayal. I cannot forget that Ichiro betrayed me, even though I know that he believed until he could believe no more, and for that he will never forgive me. But what is there to forgive? Who can look back on the passage of their lives and tell such stories, speak of such struggles, remember that they were the participants in a great dream, remember that they pursued a life of ideals, lived their lives as a cup brimming over?

  I see in my mind’s eye even now that scene of my poor band of followers trudging down the dirt road. We pause for moment on a small ridge, and I look among the faces of my people, the purple light spreading across the clear skies reflected in their faces. My thoughts wander back to New World Ranch, which is no longer, back to the old mango groves where we buried Saburo. The trees are flowering now. I hear a voice saying, “Emiru,” but perhaps it is only the wind. Twilight spreads across the Esperança skies. I kneel to fill my pockets with fistfuls of the soft red earth and walk on.

  PART IV:

  Genji

  Man is born free, and yet we see him everywhere in chains.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  The Social Contract

  CHAPTER 16:

  The Silk Barn

  I am Genji Befu, nephew of Kantaro Uno. My father is the old egg expert Seijiro Befu, and my mother is Ritsu. I was born nineteen years ago in 1940 right here at Kantaro’s place. They say Sei Terada was the midwife who took me from my mother. Anyway, Sei lives with the others. They have their own place now.

  No one will talk about the others. It is as if they were all dead or invisible. If we meet them in town or in Santa Cruz, we never speak to each other; we look the other way. It’s been maybe about five years since we split up, and we still don’t talk. Maybe some people talk, but they never let Kantaro know. You see Kantaro sometimes sitting alone, thinking about his anger, thinking about those traitors. You can tell that he is thinking about Takehashi and Terada and those good for nothing “others” because his eyes become distant and blank, and he gnashes his teeth and mutters things to himself. Then Haru will come by and slap him with a wet towel. “Uno-san!” she yells. “Daydreaming again?” And he stops.

  But as I was saying, like everyone else, I was born here and have never been anywhere else in my life. My old teacher, Takashi Inagaki, went to Paris. They say that Paris is where you must go if you really want to paint, so I expect that my old man Befu will send me there when we get out of debt. That may be never, so I don’t expect that I will ever leave this place.

  I have been trying to
think of my first memory. My first memory is a rather strange one; I am in a basket looking up at the blue sky. I must be small enough to fit in a basket but not big enough to move around. I am all squashed, with my knees touching my chin. Above me is the sky; I can see the clouds pass from one edge of the basket to the other. I can see the sky change colors. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I watch the clouds. A bird passes overhead. I pass an entire day like this. When I have to pee or shit, no matter—I soil myself. For a while it is a good feeling, warm and comforting not to be so alone, but after a while, I feel wet and cold. I feel hungry, and my stomach begins to hurt. So I cry and rock around in the basket. No one hears. I rock around so hard that the basket falls over, and I roll down a hill it seems. I roll and roll. I scream and cry and laugh until the rolling stops with a thud. There are cries outside the basket and footsteps running excitedly. Someone, maybe it is my mother Ritsu, grabs me from the basket and wraps me in her arms. I grab and wrestle with her clothing until I can find her breast. Everyone says I have been spoiled; they say Ritsu never stopped nursing her only son.

  For a long time I thought that this memory of the basket and the sky above was a dream, but I found out that it was not. Ritsu used to take me out to the fields and put me in a basket while she worked. Haru says the reason my legs are so bowed is because I was always crunched up in the basket.

  One day I painted a picture of this memory, of my view from deep inside the basket, of the sky above and the clouds passing from one edge of the basket to another. I never told anyone the meaning of this painting. They all shrugged and asked me when I was going to finish it.

  They all say that when I was little I was very cute. Haru says this all the time. What she means is that she is amazed that such a cute little child should have grown into something like me. On the other hand, there is Tsuneo, who wasn’t much to look at as a kid, and look what a strong young man he turned into. I can’t see what there is to be amazed at. It is like my old man Befu says: you can predict what a child will be like from its parents. Anyone can see that I was going to end up something like my old man.

  When I was little, I used to play with Tsuneo and the others, but I would cry if I didn’t get my own way or if I lost the game. If my old man Befu was around when I was crying, he would get mad and tell the others that they didn’t know how to play fairly. I would always get my way. Tsuneo and the others tired of this, so they would find a way to go off and leave me behind.

  About this time, Inagaki came. Inagaki was one of those artist friends that Kantaro met in São Paulo. There were a lot of them like Inagaki. This place used be swarming with such types, but this was before everything went bad. Then none of them ever came around again. Kantaro said you can never tell who your true friends are until things get bad. I don’t know what has become of these artists. We never saw them again, especially Inagaki, but that’s another story.

  I was about nine years old when Inagaki came around and boasted to my old man Befu that he could teach anyone to draw. Inagaki said anyone could be an artist. My old man said that true talent was hidden in the blood of a person. Inagaki said that this was nonsense, that you could learn to paint as well as you could learn to read or write or plant seeds. My old man said that true genius came from careful breeding. They decided to find out who was right, so they chose me and some others to apply Inagaki’s method to. For a while some other children and a few adults took lessons from Inagaki, but they lost interest or had other work to do, and dwindled away, leaving me as Inagaki’s only student. When this happened, my old man said that his theory had, of course, won out, as I could only be the product of superior breeding. Inagaki said nothing; he only continued to teach me. Perhaps it’s a pity Inagaki didn’t have an ordinary child to test his theory, but he didn’t seem to mind. As long as Inagaki taught me, we had all the paint, brushes, and canvas we needed.

  My mother has kept every drawing and painting of mine from that time. My old man likes to take them out and show them to people. He likes to impress people.

  One day Inagaki left. He didn’t tell me that he was never returning, so I continued to paint the last scene we did together, one of the mango grove on the knoll. I went out there every day and finished the painting. I finished his painting too, in the style I thought he would have chosen. I could imitate anything he did anyway. I finished everything and waited for him to come back, but he never did. When Inagaki left and things went bad, they stopped giving me paint and canvas. No money, they said. I had to draw on scraps of paper and pieces of wood with pieces of charcoal from the fire. Once in a while now, I get paper and pencils from Mizuoka, but he forgets unless I remind him. I haven’t seen oils and canvas for more than five years now.

  When I asked my mother about Inagaki, she shook her head, and when I asked my old man, he said that Inagaki had served his purpose and that I didn’t need him anymore. For a while I didn’t know what to do without Inagaki; this made my old man angry. He shouted that I was a genius and didn’t need any teachers. He ordered me to paint. So I painted the mango groves again, but after I finished painting the mango groves, there was no more canvas. But I was supposed to be painting every day, so I went back to the mango groves with an old painting and painted over it. I painted over several old canvases with the same mango grove scene until my old man noticed all these paintings of the same scene and got angry. He was angry that I had painted over one painting of his chicken barn which he particularly liked and that now he had all these mango groves. He wanted me to paint his chicken barn back onto the canvas, but by then I had used up all the paint.

  Anyway, Inagaki never came back. I don’t think I missed him. Like my old man said, he had served his purpose. What I missed was being able to paint. They wouldn’t buy me any more paint or canvas. Pretty soon, they wouldn’t even consider paper or pencils. My mother scrounged around for old paper and notebooks. She saved the wrappings on packages and made black paint from charcoal soot, like the stuff used for calligraphy. Suddenly, there were no colors; I was supposed to make color from black. I had a tantrum and screamed until my old man had to come beat me up. He told me that sacrifice and suffering were the only road to great art. Already I have had enough of this road.

  Then, everything went from bad to worse, and we got split off from the others. Kantaro says it was like the separation of water and oil; those with vision rose to the top. We all left the others behind and, like a bunch of beggars, went down the road to nowhere, led by Kantaro. I was maybe fourteen when this happened. I didn’t know why we had to leave like that without even eating dinner and trudge off after Kantaro. I saw Kanzo get beaten up by Kantaro, and I thought, good, Kanzo got beaten up just like me. His face was all bloody and swelling up purple in a lopsided way. I trudged behind everyone, and Kanzo trudged behind me. When we got far enough behind, I turned around and asked Kanzo why he didn’t smash Kantaro’s other eye in, blind him and kill him right then and there. Kanzo said I didn’t understand anything. I said, if he had killed Kantaro, he would be the new leader, and we wouldn’t be out on the road like a bunch of beggars with no dinner and no place to go. Kanzo told me to shut up.

  When you hear Kantaro talk about this particular day, he talks about when Moses parted the Red Sea and took his people out of Egypt. But it was nothing like that really. Nobody bothered to chase after us, and the Red Sea just parted onto Tanaka’s place. This was because, in the meantime, old Jiro had run off ahead to find a place for us to stay. This was the insane mission left to Jiro: to find accommodations for one hundred homeless people. The first place he ran over to was the Tanaka’s. He ran into Tanaka’s wife and asked if a few of us couldn’t stay for just a few days until we could find another place. Jiro had some idea that we could all just be spread around Esperança like manure. Tanaka’s wife said she would ask her husband, but while she was wasting her time asking, we all arrived in a big pack. And Haru said, “Please excuse us,” and “This is a terrible imposition,” and “How can we ever repay you, Tanaka-san,
” but “The children never got dinner in all this confusion,” and “It’s the children who suffer.” And Haru took over Tanaka’s kitchen just like that.

  Tanaka was an old baseball buddy of Kantaro’s. He got caught up in the nostalgia of those baseball days you always have to keep hearing about, as if no one can play baseball like those old-timers used to. Kantaro sat down and wept about it all, so this settled the question in Tanaka’s mind. He figured it would only be for a month or two. He told Kantaro he was expecting a batch of silkworms in a couple of months, but he could let us have his barn until then. This was a pretty nice barn as barns go. It was newly built with the help of the cooperative after the old barn had burned down. I heard one of those Terada brothers burned it down and went to jail for it. Fried all the silkworms inside to a crisp. Now we were going to live inside this barn.

  All hundred of us squeezed inside the barn, got it partitioned with blankets and that sort of thing and slept all over the floors. We had always been close, but this was very close. This is when I got into the habit of staying up at night; I could never sleep because someone was always snoring or crying or humping around. At first, I would lie there in the dark all night and just listen, but after a while, I began to sneak around and look at people sleeping. It was always interesting to see how people you see in the daylight get rearranged at night. All the kids, except for me, got rearranged into different families. Pretty soon, even the five Tanaka kids were sleeping with us, wedged in here and there. They started to forget that this farm belonged to their folks.

  A lot of people began to forget this detail after a while, especially when the two-month deadline passed and we were still there in Tanaka’s silk barn. Tanaka put the boxes of tiny sleeping silkworms in the kitchen so that everyone could see them, but no one said anything about leaving because of a bunch of worms. Pretty soon, those bugs must have shriveled up, and the Tanakas had to throw the boxes out. “My, what a shame. What a waste. What can we do to repay your generosity, Tanaka-san? As soon as we find a permanent place, you will see,” everyone said. In fact, the months dragged on, and we stayed on. Kantaro was beginning to make big plans for Tanaka’s lands: a chicken operation over here, the incubators over there, replace the mulberry fields with corn, a new generator, a new truck, that sort of thing. Kantaro was always around while Tanaka must have been running here and there, trying to figure out how he was going to keep a family like this fed. So while Tanaka was out, people naturally came and talked business with Kantaro, who always had ideas. You could tell that the Tanakas were beginning to get worried, that the baseball nostalgia had worn off, so to speak. But Kantaro kept Tanaka going in circles, and Tanaka was too nice a man to say no.