In the Woods of Memory

by Shun Medoruma

  He gripped his harpoon again. Through her gap-filled teeth, his mother spewed a foul odor that smelled like a decaying rat. When she closed in on him, he thrust at her with his harpoon. How dare you point a harpoon at your own mother! She grabbed the shaft and pulled back with a force one wouldn’t expect from a woman. As Seiji clung to the harpoon with all his strength, he bowed his head and implored, Mom! Please forgive me! Please forgive me! Suddenly, a pole crashed down upon his back. With a groan, he lifted his head.

  Seiji’s father, sitting in a small sabani boat, raised the pole again and was about to bring it down on his drowning son, who was clawing at the air. Seiji paddled frantically, thrashing with his arms and legs, and finally managed to grab the edge of the sabani. Smack! When the pole struck his fingers, he screamed and jerked back his hand. A second later, he was dodging a blow coming toward his head. The swimming skill crammed into Seiji—along with many mouthfuls of seawater—was the one thing he had over his classmates.

  All of a sudden, the pale blue light at the cave entrance turned into water, gushing down the slope. Seiji tried to swim, but was carried away by the current and sank like a stone. As he was swallowed up into the depths, all light and sound disappeared.

  —I’m not gonna die! he screamed in terror. Not like this. I’m not afraid to die, but I wanna kill some Americans first.

  Seiji kicked off the darkness pulling him down and propelled himself through the water toward the opening. When he reached the surface, he ravenously inhaled the night air streaming in from outside. Moving his mouth like a parched fish, he sucked the cool night air into his lungs. But this time, it only filled him with anxiety. To calm himself, he groped along the rock face in search of the flat stone he’d placed there earlier. When he found the stone, he lifted if from the hole it covered, reached into the opening, and pulled out the lump of metal. Then he slowly and carefully opened his hand. Under the moonlight, the grenade gleamed dully. The unmistakable heaviness brought him a sense of peace. When the end came, he planned to hurl the grenade at the Americans and rush at them with his harpoon.

  Seiji thought of the Japanese soldiers who’d spoken with such bravado before the American landing, only to surrender in an instant once the moment of truth arrived. Then he thought of the village men who didn’t resist even when their own women were being raped. They’re like dogs without balls. Well, not me! I’ll blow up these damn Americans with this grenade, and then kill some more with my harpoon. Sayoko! I swear I’ll get revenge!

  Seiji peeked through the Garcinia trees in Sayoko’s yard and listened to the screams coming through the shuttered windows. He could also hear the cries of Sayoko’s younger sister and grandmother. Earlier, when Sayoko had returned home with her mother and the other girls, he could sense from her disheveled hair and lifeless expression that something horrible had happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask directly. So he had circled around to the back of her house and found a gap in the row of trees. Sayoko’s sobs pierced Seiji’s heart, the pain cutting into him like the thorns of a citrus tankan tree. His wounded heart, pumping with warm blood, cried, What happened? Why’s she crying like that? Unable to bear it any longer, he ran away. Under the banyan tree, by the house of worship, he saw a group of five or six men staring at Sayoko’s house in silence.

  Seiji didn’t find out what had happened until that evening. The village men were repeating in hushed tones what they’d heard from Sayoko’s father. Standing outside the circle, Seiji strained his ears. As he listened, he pictured the Americans holding Sayoko down in the thicket with their brawny arms and covering her mouth with their filthy hands. Then he saw Sayoko, crying and struggling and suffering. Sweat broke out over his body, and he had to restrain himself from screaming. He swore to himself that he’d kill the four Americans that had swum across the passageway. Assuming the other village men felt the same way, he scrutinized their expressions. However, even though some spoke words of anger, no one made a call to action. All they could come up with was to station pairs of men at key points as lookouts and to forbid the women from going to the beach. Seiji could see that the men weren’t so much angry as emasculated by fear.

  The villagers had relied on the Americans for canned goods, sweets, liquor, cigarettes, and the treatment of their wounds, and that’s why they’d started to grovel. Even those who’d been ranting about running the Americans through with their bamboo spears were now happy to talk to them. Was there any shame they wouldn’t endure in silence? Seiji began to boil over with rage. His face turned red, and he struggled to breathe. Turning his back on the men, he hurried down a deserted village road heading to the ocean.

  At the beach, Seiji watched dark clouds move across the sky, block the moonlight, and cast shadows that ravaged the white waves and pure sand, only to then vanish into the night. The light, the shadows, and the waves seemed to be living things with wills of their own. Seiji was greatly disturbed. Glaring at the lights of the port, he again heard Sayoko’s heartbreaking cries. Grieving, he ran up the beach and plunged into a screwpine thicket. He heard the thorny leaves rustling overhead, and hermit crabs scurrying through the piles of dead leaves at his feet.

  Then he heard the laughter of some Americans and footsteps coming up the beach. He picked up a piece of driftwood, hid among some nearby trees, and stared at the screwpine thicket. When an American approached, Seiji jumped out and brought the dry, white wood crashing down onto the man’s head. The force of the blow against the skull caused the driftwood to break in two. Seiji shifted the remaining piece in his hands and plunged the sharp point into the back of the soldier cowering at his feet. When the wood rebounded from the man’s ribs, Seiji swung down again and again, until finally, the American’s moaning grew faint. Scum like you can never be allowed to live! Seiji kept pounding until the wood was as small as his hand. Then he heard Sayoko whisper in his ear. That’s enough. You don’t need to suffer any more.

  The moonlight filtering down into the darkness flickered with the rustling leaves of the trees and the roaring waves of the sea. Seiji struck the bottom of the cave with his fists and broke down sobbing at his own powerlessness.

  —I’d do anything for her.

  Sayoko was always so kind, his mother had said. Ever since she was a child, she was quiet and had a pure heart. And then she grew up into such a beauty. True to Seiji’s mother’s words, Sayoko had kindly protected Seiji when other children had bullied him. They entered school together, but as they moved up in grades, they had fewer opportunities to interact. Yet just like before, they exchanged smiles whenever they met. But everything changed when they were in the fifth grade. One day, Seiji was cutting grass for the goats. Nearby, several girls were collecting firewood, Sayoko among them. Her presence weighed on Seiji’s mind, so he averted his eyes. Suddenly, someone knocked him down from behind. Before he realized what had happened, three boys jumped on top of him, held down his arms, and plucked his sickle from his hand. Oh, no! he thought, another practical joke! From experience, he knew that if he resisted, he’d get the worst of it, so he let them have their way. First, the boy on his back moved down onto his legs. Next, the other two twisted his arms so he couldn’t move. Then the first boy got off and yanked down Seiji’s tattered pants. After that, they flipped him over onto his back and exposed his genitals.

  —Hey, check it out! they yelled.

  Then they turned Seiji toward the girls, who screamed and turned away. But when the three boys taunted them, the girls cast glances in their direction, and one of the girls laughed. Seiji struggled to escape, but the boys punched him in the face until he relented. As blood dripped from his nose and tears ran down his face, Seiji saw Sayoko staring at him with pity. The additional excitement caused his penis to stiffen against his own will. The three bullies laughed. The girls pretended to be disgusted, but they couldn’t avert their eyes.

  —Look! Even a dimwit can get a hard on! yelled one of the bullies. I guess he’s a real man!

  As the coup de
grace, they lifted Seiji up and tossed him into the bushes. Humiliated, Seiji pulled up his pants and ran off into the woods, leaving behind his sickle and the cut grass.

  From the next day, Sayoko turned and ran away whenever she saw Seiji. As for Seiji, he couldn’t even bear to look at her. Even if he saw her in the distance, he immediately ran off and hid. He felt ashamed that his body always reacted at the mere thought of her, not to mention the sight of her. When he recalled the look on her face as she stared at him—with his legs spread and his genitals exposed like a dog—he became overwhelmed less with anger toward the bullies than toward his own repulsiveness. He wished that she’d never lay eyes on him again. Since they lived next door to each other, however, there was no way to avoid her.

  As the months passed, though, Sayoko started smiling and talking to him again as if nothing had ever happened. But Seiji couldn’t speak to her like before, and could only drop his head and stammer. After that, they celebrated their Coming of Age ceremonies, graduated from school, turned fourteen, and then fifteen. From then on, Seiji spent all his time helping his father with fishing. After big catches, Seiji helped distribute fish and shellfish to the families in the neighborhood. Handing fish to Sayoko and hearing her words of appreciation were the happiest moments of his life.

  That all seemed so long ago. Seiji pictured Sayoko smiling and saying, Thank you, as he stood at her door with some fish. I’ll never hear that voice again, he thought. Never again. He leaned back against the wall of the cave and pressed the harpoon to his forehead.

  —I’m the only one left! The only one left!

  Seiji’s words rippled through the cave. You can do it! You can do it! replied the echo from the cave’s depths. Yes, I’ll kill every American that hurt Sayoko. He picked up his canteen, took a swig of the tepid water, and closed his eyes. The rage heating his body caused him to sweat even more. Suddenly, he felt an insect in the back of his right eye. No bigger than his smallest fingernail, the insect started to move, then multiply. Before long, more were in his ears and nostrils, and under his skin, scratching their way toward his back, hands, and feet. They even worked their way into his head and started squirming inside his brain. At the internment camp hospital, he’d thought the insects implanted in his body by the Americans were trying to kill him. He jumped up screaming and scratched wildly at his head.

  Suddenly, a shell from a warship landed next to the cave, and the blast rushing through the entrance shook Seiji’s body. The smell of burning trees sent him into a panic. Outside, bombs rained down on the sandy beach shimmering in the sun. With each explosion, sand flew up and heaps of screwpine trees leapt into the air. Seiji dropped to the bottom of the trench and covered his ears.

  The night before, he had received two grenades from a Japanese soldier in anticipation of an American landing. He was ordered to throw the first one, and then while the enemy was recoiling from the blast, charge into them while holding the second. Seiji was hiding with the other Defense Corps members in a trench they’d dug along the woods near the beach. As the sky began to lighten, they stared at the enemy ships lined up off the coast. The Americans seemed to have read the minds of the Japanese, however, and instead intensified their bombing along the coast. From the blurry space between the dawn sky and the gray sea, red lights shot up in rapid succession. A moment later, Seiji heard something ripping through the air, followed by a deafening roar and a blast that blew across the trench. Leaves, branches, and trunks of mowed-down screwpine trees rained down with the sand. In a daze, he raised his head. Ōshiro, a man from the neighboring village, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yelled at him:

  —If you don’t get out of here fast, you’re dead!

  The other Defense Corps members jumped out of the trench and chased after Ōshiro, who had started running toward the slightly elevated woods on the western edge of the beach. Taking up the rear was a man in his fifties named Uehara. He turned around and yelled to Seiji:

  —What’re you doing?! Hurry up!

  Just as he’d finished yelling, Uehara tripped on the root of a tree and fell. Aghast, Seiji again heard something splitting the air. The combined sound, force, and heat of each blast pressed down on his body, which was pinned to the bottom of the trench. In the woods, hidden in a trench at the base of the cliff, they had machine guns ready to open fire from the flank on any American forces that landed. Seiji knew that running there would give away their position, so he wanted to stop the Defense Corps members from fleeing in that direction. However, the bombing was so intense that he couldn’t even lift his head. Before long, he was buried under the sand and splintered trees that rained down with each rumbling of the earth. Am I going to die here? he wondered. I don’t want to die yet. No, I don’t want to die. He tried to get out of the trench, but he couldn’t move. Overwhelmed, he threw his arms over his eyes and ears, and started yelling:

  —Mom! Mom! Mom!

  When he regained consciousness, Seiji found himself buried up to his waist in sand. All traces of the screwpine thicket had vanished. The larger trees on the western edge of the sandy beach were now half their previous height. Smoke rose up from the charred remains into the clear blue sky. As he stared blankly at the scene, he realized that the ringing in his ears was actually coming from nearby. He looked over and saw innumerable flies swarming around some objects scattered on the ground. When it dawned on him that they were Ōshiro’s remains, Seiji collapsed on his back in the sand. As the sky suddenly turned dark, he muttered:

  —I guess I’ll be dying soon, too.

  He pictured Sayoko looking down with tears in her eyes. You’d cry over someone like me? Seiji gritted his teeth. His fingers crawled through the sand and picked up a grenade lying on the ground. He took a long time to get up.

  —I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die. For Sayoko, I have to live.

  His voice echoed through the cave.

  Where am I now? he wondered. Wounded soldiers on cots were moaning with pain and resentment, pushing the stiflingly hot tent to the breaking point. Through the jumble of voices, Seiji heard a foreign one moving toward him, and then sensed a presence hovering over his bed. When he opened his eyes, he saw a pale face with colorless eyes, eyebrows, and skin. Seiji couldn’t even move the finger that had been on the grenade pin. Nor could he refuse the water held to his lips and then poured down his throat. Against his own will, his feverish body craved more and more. The white face with goat eyes smiled and offered him his fill. Yes, I was saved by the Americans, Seiji thought.

  He was treated for his wounds for over a month. At first, he had refused to eat, until the Japanese soldier next to him screamed:

  —Eat, you fool!

  When he finally forced himself to eat something, he was surprised by how good it tasted. The nourishment in the canned meat and beans healed his wounds so quickly that he could practically see his flesh repairing itself. By the time he could stand up and walk, he felt something like gratitude toward the Americans who’d nursed him back to health. Upon his release, he was temporarily sent to the camp area for Japanese soldiers, but he was soon relocated to the area for those from his village. There, he was reunited with his parents and siblings. But mixed with the joy was confusion over having been helped by the Americans. Even after returning to the village, he couldn’t resolve the conflicting emotions, the hatred instilled in him earlier and the gratitude he felt later.

  Is the war over? What happened to the Emperor? He doubted that anyone in the village could answer his questions, but when he saw the US military transport ships moving in and out of the port on the opposite bank, and the soldiers busy at work there, he knew the answer. The war isn’t over. It’s being fought elsewhere. However, the Japanese soldiers had just sat on the ground like cowards, begging the American soldiers for cigarettes with obsequious smiles. When their weapons had been taken away, they hadn’t shown an inkling of having the guts to fight. If they’d fight, I’d fight, too, Seiji thought. But the opportunity never ar
ose, and he had to worry about getting food to live. His sabani boat had been commandeered by the Japanese army and destroyed in the bombing, so he worked the shallows along the coral reefs instead. He stayed busy catching shellfish, octopuses, and fish, and also plowing the long-neglected fields.

  One day, Seiji went deep into the woods and entered a cave abandoned by the Japanese army. He was hoping to find a tool or anything that might be of use. What he found instead was a hand grenade lying in the shadow of a rock. It was a bit rusty but looked usable, so he wrapped it in a towel, located a dry part of the cave, and put the parcel in an opening in the wall. Then he covered the opening with a flat stone.

  Now, after removing the lid, pulling out the lump of cold metal, and holding the object to the light, Seiji understood. Ah, that’s why. This grenade was left for me to avenge the deaths of those killed by the Americans. The heaviness in his hand gave him confidence. I will get revenge without fail, he swore. Even if I’m the only one, I’ll never forgive them. He heard some Americans laughing at him, while a woman screamed in the background.

  How can you just stand there watching as a girl from your village is being raped? How? His words got stuck in his throat and echoed inside his head. The woman’s screams sliced through Seiji’s flesh like a razor and chipped away at the exposed bone. The two Americans next to the jeep turned their rifles on the men and laughed when they cringed in fear. When the three Americans came out of the house, they changed places with the men at the jeep. Stripped to the waist, they stood talking and chewing gum. The stench of their sweaty bodies made Seiji want to throw up. Another house was entered. An old man pleaded for mercy on his hands and knees, but his entreaties were dismissed with contempt. A moment later, they heard another woman screaming. The village men stood motionless, their eyes darting back and forth between the house emitting screams and the ground at their feet. Some glared fiercely at the Americans, but as soon as the guns were pointed at them, they hung their heads. We should steal their guns and kill them all, Seiji thought. But he couldn’t move. Though tears flowed from his stony eyes and dripped from his twitching lips onto his sandy feet, he was powerless to move a single step. Inside the cave, Seiji bit his arm until it bled and scratched at the wounds inside his chest. After the Americans trampled the holy ground near the banyan tree, they sped away in their jeep. The revving of the engine and the screech of the tires echoed inside the cave. The smell of gasoline drifted in the air. After the men had left, Seiji stood there by himself for a while. Then he went home and grabbed his favorite harpoon. Squatting next to the well, he sharpened the head with a whetstone—until the slightest touch made his finger bleed.