Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  When they entered the living room, suddenly it was as bright as day. The light of a Western-style lamp shone evenly across the eight-mat room, lighting up every corner of the fresh tatami mats. In the alcove was the customary old amorous color print and a koto. Next to the alcove were a softly glowing lacquer case for account books and a glass-fitted cabinet. The room was enclosed on one side by a veranda and on the other by a standing screen. On the screen was affixed a lithograph of famous sights in Tokyo.

  Sei’ichi had never seen anything like it before.

  Three female entertainers entered the room. Each wore either a large patterned dark-blue or light-yellow robe and sat down just like a paper doll. Their black hair glistened with fragrant hair oil.

  A word about the red-light districts of the Ryukyu Islands: It was not like the mainland, where women lined up like red birds with red wigs in brightly lit baskets. Here they were hidden away in houses surrounded by high stone walls. Along the dark streets, young Ryukyuan men would sing sad love songs to entice women. So the brothels doubled as teahouses, and the girls didn’t just sell sex; they were also competent musicians and dancers.

  All sorts of delicacies were brought out. A large sake jar from a ceramics factory was set in front of Yokota. Then, as a young girl poured for him, Yokota urged with a laugh as he sipped, “Well, Sei, help yourself!” The girl added, “Yes, please do have something, Master Sei.”

  Sei’ichi felt uncomfortable at first but gradually relaxed and finally helped himself to the bowl of white fish soup.

  After a while, a shamisen and koto performance started up. The dark melody and melancholy voices flowed out over the stone wall. From the outside, all that appeared was a cemetery with the familiar white storehouse. The leaves of the hala pine glittered in the blue light of the moon, and the faint voice of the sea floated in the milky-white mist. With the pathos of the graveyard as a backdrop, the drifting love songs were sad enough to make you weep.

  The moon was setting in the sky when the two stepped out onto the dark Nakajima path. As they walked along, Yokota quizzed Sei’ichi relentlessly on every detail at the principal’s house. In the end, Sei’ichi told him the story of the “blue urn.” When they parted, Yokota warned Sei’ichi never to speak of the evening to anyone. Then he sent Sei’ichi home in a rickshaw.

  Principal Hosokawa Shigeru was arrested on suspicion of fraud five days later, on the evening after the storm. The following morning, as a result of a search of the premises, the blue urn and briefcase were discovered under the floorboards. Secret papers and wads of bills were found inside, clear evidence of a crime. He had tricked Old Man Okushima into giving his money to him for the Chinese army and then embezzled it all.

  Later it came out that Mr. Yokota was a police detective. “Little doll Tsuru” began to show up again in the brothels as an entertainer after the principal was sent to Nagasaki to appeal his conviction. Around the same time, Old Man Okushima was discovered luring into his home pretty young boys from the town with promises of kunenbo oranges and then forcing Chinese philosophy on them. And of all things for a man of his age, there were rumors of “relations with the young boys,” that is, homosexual activity. He was called an enemy of the imperial throne and despised by everyone. To avoid the shower of rocks that rained down into his compound from time to time, he kept the gate locked and hid within. As a prank, a rude poem on a three-foot-square piece of Chinese rice paper was attached to his gray stone gate, where crowds gathered outside and spewed abuse at him. “Devil!” “White-haired pretty boy!” “Traitor!” “Parasite!” “White-haired goat!”

  The gravel sparkled in the light of the sun, which whirled into a blood-red pool in the deep-blue sky, unusually bright for a winter day. And there, with blue sun umbrellas, woven straw hats, island clogs, leather sandals, topknots, and cropped heads, people from every walk of life swarmed and shouted angrily. All were burned by the rays of the ocean sun, and their many faces, tinged in a color unique to the Ryukyus and sturdy like carved wooden statues, gazed up as one at the riddle of the locked black door.

  Notes

    1. The kunenbo is a type of mandarin orange tree that bears fruit after nine years—thus the name, which means “nine-year mother.” The fruit is more sour than a regular orange.

    2. Kunibu is dialect for kunenbo.

    3. Kido (城戸) is a traditional small black door (castle door) built into the high wall surrounding the homes of the wealthy. The front gate was used only for formal purposes, and the small door for everyday use.

    4. Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895).

    5. The Ryukyu archipelago had been under the dual sovereignty of China and Japan during the Tokugawa period, while retaining its own royal family. In 1879, the Japanese government established Okinawa as a prefecture of Japan, settling the issue of sovereignty. Any further claims of the Chinese government were dismissed at the end of the Sino-Japanese War, in which the Japanese were victorious.

    6. In 1274 and 1281, Mongol invaders under Khubilai Khan (1214–1294) landed in western Japan but were repelled by typhoons.

    7. Ishigantō (石敢當) was the name of a legendary strong Chinese man who lived during the Five Dynasties period (907–960). People in succeeding generations carved his name in stone as a talisman to ward off evil. Today ishigantō can be found at dead ends and various other spots where paths intersect in Okinawa.

  BLACK DIAMONDS (1949)

  Ōta Ryōhaku

  Translated by Amy C. Franks

  PANIMAN—THAT’S WHAT HE WAS CALLED.

  He was still a student at Bandung Junior High School when he volunteered for the officer training corps at the age of eighteen. His calm disposition much impressed me, but he seemed especially to radiate a natural innocence. He stood tall, with smooth, dark skin and a body slender like a girl’s.

  That beautiful face with sharply etched features, and those eyes—so characteristic of the Sundanese people—like black diamonds. They expressed gentleness and purity of heart, their dark luster radiating the spirit that lived within them.

  Paniman was an urbanite, raised in a middle-class household. His birthplace was the castle town of Solo, in an area of central Java known as home to the oldest dynasty in Indonesian history. I had once asked him, out of curiosity, where he was born.

  His lovely small mouth formed the most charming shape as he pronounced its name, “Sōlō,” in a serenely beautiful voice.

  In order to receive a modern Dutch education, he had come from the time-honored town of Solo to the junior high school in Bandung, a highland summer resort city surrounded by the picturesque Sunda Mountains of western Java.

  When Japanese forces conquered Java, the school in Bandung closed for a time, but he returned after it reopened under control of the Japanese military government. Fighting intensified when the Allied offensive turned the tide of the war, and the military government hastily tried to carry out its most important mission, establishing a secure southern supply base. As the “Battle of Java” escalated, the government’s duties included recruiting a volunteer defense army, made up entirely of locals, from the highest field officers to the lowliest foot soldiers.

  To train the government’s new officers, an educational unit called the Cimahi Training Corps was formed in the city of Cimahi, about eight miles northwest of Bandung. I worked there teaching Japanese to the locals and interpreting the Malaysian language. The corps’ volunteers were young men of about twenty who dreamed of becoming officers.

  Among them, I discovered Paniman. At first, his presence was rather inconspicuous, since all the boys selected for the training corps had at least a junior high school education, were firmly committed, and were physically strong. But as time passed, he seemed to radiate a special glow. Humble and unassuming, he had a natural grace about him. He was shy and reticent at first, but later I could talk with him for hours without losing interest. Although he looked frail and delicate, he was in fact blessed with robust
health. His lustrous skin seemed to house a gentle spirit and a powerful vitality. His unwavering idealism made him seem guarded.

  The students at Cimahi underwent close to a year of harshly Spartan training before graduating from the corps. It was then disbanded, and we returned to our original units.

  As I expected, with Paniman’s talent for academics, he made top grades.

  After that, volunteer armies were formed in various locales throughout the islands, and applications poured in.

  Here and there on the streets of Bandung, we began to see young officers in uniform.

  Attired in the green outfits they had longed to wear, swords at their sides, they seemed filled with ambition and promise, brimming with the nation’s hopes.

  Looking at them, I could never help but think of beautiful young Paniman.

  Before long, I was assigned again to the volunteer army, this time in the Priangan region.

  Paniman was most likely in the Bojonegoro region, over 300 kilometers away. I had the chance to see him again about six months later when I was sent to his unit on official business for three weeks. As usual, he seemed affable and in good spirits, and I—who more than anyone was aware of his beauty—was secretly glad to see that he was popular among his peers.

  I didn’t see him again after that—that is, until that fateful day.…

  For about a year, Indonesia had been abuzz with excitement over the Koiso Cabinet’s recognition of Indonesian independence. The Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Independence was then formed, and most recently, Field Marshal Terauchi, supreme commander of Japan’s Southern Expeditionary Army, had carried out secret talks with the Indonesian leaders Sukarno and Hatta at XX, French Indochina. Before the week was out, however, and just before these two leaders were to make an important announcement to all of Indonesia, the sorrowful news arrived from Tokyo.…

  After that, there was chaos in Indonesia.

  For some time, we had no idea of what we were supposed to do.

  But the Volunteer Defense Army had to be disbanded, and we knew we all faced a highly uncertain future.

  It was the time of an eerie calm.

  I later learned that three or four days after the end of the Pacific War, members of Indonesia’s high command were kidnapped by a radical youth group. They soon reappeared in Jakarta, where they declared Indonesian independence and changed the country’s name to the Republic of Indonesia. Sukarno was nominated as the country’s first president, with Hatta as vice president, and a cabinet was quickly convened.

  What ensued was the greatest ordeal for Indonesian society in modern times, and it still casts a dark cloud over the postwar world.

  At the time, Japanese forces were responsible for maintaining public order until occupation forces arrived and for protecting the lives and property of the Allies. They barred us from any contact with the Indonesian independence movement and from speaking about anything having to do with the local situation. Orders for us to withdraw from all political activities ruled out any attempt to influence opinions on international politics. So that the Allies would not doubt our sincerity, we voluntarily remained passive and uninvolved, strictly limiting our activities so as not to incite the Indonesians.

  Strict neutrality—we expected this to be the best policy, but subsequent events made it impossible to maintain this posture and put us in danger.

  In Bandung at the time, tensions were at a peak among the residents.

  We were caught in a convoluted web of nationalistic sentiments from the Japanese military, the Dutch, the Indonesians, overseas Chinese, the Allied forces, and the citizens of neutral countries.

  In this transitional period of sudden changes, antagonisms turned into the most extreme radicalism.

  Without exception, Bandung and other Javanese cities became stages for revolution and guerrilla warfare.

  In Indonesia, various military organizations—the TKR (People’s Safety Army) created by the former volunteer army, the student forces Balisan and Api (fire brigades), the Islamic Army, and other insurgents—all with different chains of command, began to present a united front with revolution as their common aim.

  The once-peaceful city of Bandung turned into a battlefield of bloodshed and gun smoke as street fighting dragged on for months.

  It happened on one of those days.

  That day, a guerrilla war was spreading—mainly in Bandung—with fierce fighting between Gurkha soldiers from India, who were part of the British occupation forces, and an Indonesian revolutionary youth faction. We were standing on a street corner, having been ordered by the occupation forces to police the city’s streets.

  Starting that morning, gunfire rang out nonstop in the city, and British war planes bombed local villages all day.

  It happened around eleven a.m. Earlier, at daybreak in the mountains of Lembang to the north of Bandung, armed bands of Indonesians had suffered defeats one after another and were withdrawing to the south.

  As we stood guarding the streets, they streamed past us like a tide rushing in—straggling soldiers in mismatched clothes, carrying a mishmash of weapons.

  “Toan! Mister!”

  Standing idly on the street corner, gazing at this scene, I thought I heard someone in the cluster of troops call out to me. And, sure enough, I soon noticed him.

  From out of the crowd, a young Indonesian in the uniform of the revolutionary army came toward me.

  “Abdullah Khalil!”

  Without thinking, I shouted his name. I hadn’t forgotten this soldier from the Cimahi Training Corps. Looking nervous, he clearly had no time to stop here for a conversation.

  “Hello, mister,” he said and took two or three steps away from me, then turned around as if remembering something.

  “Paniman is with us.”

  Paniman. When I heard that name, the scene before me suddenly seemed radiant, though I was watching the same bunch of straggling soldiers pass by, dirty and battle weary, in their mismatched clothes.

  “Where?” I asked him.

  “Over there.” He held up a sword in one hand, pointing it at a cluster of soldiers walking about three hundred yards to the rear.

  “Where?”

  But by then, Abdullah was gone.

  I hadn’t seen Paniman for over a year. It seemed like a very long time long time since I’d visited the Bojonegoro volunteer army, where he’d been assigned.

  Just after the war, local sentiment turned hostile toward the Japanese army. In some places, Japanese citizens went missing or were found slaughtered. We were all outraged.

  Yet, for some reason, Japanese soldiers in eastern and central Java agreed to complete disarmament, handed over all their weapons to the Indonesians, and were promptly imprisoned.

  After that, all information about the tens of thousands of soldiers under Japanese army command in those regions was cut off.

  Occasionally our operatives flew reconnaissance missions and made contact with bases there but could only speculate vaguely on the status of a few units.

  At the time, only those of us in western Java were ordered by our commanders not to hand over our weapons to the Indonesians, and the Japanese army policed the region.

  In February 1946, the year after the war, President Sukarno convened the “All Indonesia Youth Convention” in Yogyakarta City in central Indonesia. I also heard the radio speech he made from Bandung: “Young men! Assemble, all of you, in Yogyakarta!”

  We learned that youth representatives at the convention in Yogyakarta had risen up, denouncing the government for its apathy. After that, Indonesians in central Java began protesting in opposition to the Japanese army’s police powers.

  For a while, Japanese forces were able to suppress protest demonstrations, but eventually armed youths from the central and eastern areas descended on Bandung by the tens of thousands.

  They looked menacing, crowded into trains covered with slogans scrawled sloppily in colored paint—“Independence or death,” “Government by the p
eople for the people.” Later, Japanese forces fought them in the streets and, after three days, overpowered them, driving them out of Bandung. But it was around this time that some Japanese soldiers started to join the Indonesian independence movement.

  Much later, British forces arrived and began their occupation, but with extreme caution. Their liaison officers flew in periodically from Singapore to inspect the sanitary conditions, salaries, and security at the Dutch internment camps. Their method was to make a series of careful inquiries.

  After the British occupation began, however, Indonesian opposition to the Japanese was now redirected at the occupying forces.

  The underground movement in Bandung, which had been keeping a low profile, sprang into action again, and the revolutionary youth groups began operating openly.

  With these troubles falling on us one after another like raining stones, my thoughts of Paniman had receded to the back of my mind. But now, hearing Abdullah Khalil say Paniman was with these troops, suddenly my heart was pounding.

  All the memories of our time together in Cimahi pressed in on me—how I had always sought him out in the clusters of chatting soldiers, in the lines of marchers, and during training exercises. Now I focused my eyes intently on the group Abdullah had pointed out.

  Even among a thousand men, I thought, I would recognize him instantly.

  But I couldn’t spot anyone who looked like him, even as I kept staring at the approaching soldiers.

  “He’s not here,” I thought.

  The expectant tension I’d felt throughout my body slackened all at once with disappointment. Now searching desperately, I turned to look in another direction, and it was then that I noticed someone approaching.

  He was short in stature, with a nimble stride and a small mouth revealing white teeth.