Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  “If you don’t bother ’em, they won’t do nothin’ to you.”

  When he turned towards her, Gozei’s face had become almost black. She showed her rotting teeth in a broad smile. The dirty washcloth hung around her neck, and sweat glistened on a face so black that you couldn’t make out her features. He had seen her come to his house nearly every day to receive leftovers, but she had never spoken to him. Though still a child, he saw the coldness in the way his father and grandfather looked at her and that way in which his mother tried to ignore her. Only his grandmother was really kind. She saved the empty sake bottles underneath the eaves after his father had finished drinking and did not sell them to anyone else. Sometimes, she let Gozei sit on the porch and offered her tea and sweets. But Gozei barely touched them, only bowing repeatedly and thanking her, handing her the change for the bottles. Since some of these coins would become Yoshiaki’s, he had no bad impressions of Gozei.

  “You don’t need to offer tea to a woman like that,” his grandfather once said in a loud whisper before Gozei had even stepped out of the main gate. His grandmother ignored him but later said to Yoshiaki, “It’s a hard thing, a woman having to leave the village of her birth and live in another village, all alone.” He did not understand her words completely, but something in the expression of her face moved him.

  When the cart swayed, leftover soup from the oil can spilled. Yoshiaki, who was crouching and holding onto the metal frame, had just enough energy to dodge the flying liquid. As they passed by the row of houses, he was embarrassed by the curious stares. Crossing the bridge, he felt relieved on the one hand, as he began to recognize his surroundings, but unease on the other, because everything seemed strangely different. A white passenger car sped towards them on the road. Behind the windshield, he saw the faces of his father and grandfather. Suddenly, he began to worry that he’d be scolded. The car stopped next to the cart. His father and grandfather, as well as his mother, who’d been in the backseat, flew out.

  “What the hell are you doing? Where do you think you’re taking our kid in that damn cart?”

  Yoshiaki’s body shrank as he heard his father’s shouting voice. Gozei could not say a word. She only stiffened her face and bowed her head again and again.

  “A woman like you! Don’t drag our grandson around in your rotten cart. Do you know how worried we were looking for him?”

  In response to his grandfather’s words, Gozei whispered, “Please forgive me,” in a voice that nearly disappeared inside her.

  “Yoshiaki, get down here, now.” Even at his mother’s words, he couldn’t move. His father grabbed his arms and nearly threw him down to the ground. Another sob rose in Yoshiaki’s throat. He clung to his mother’s waist, unable to speak. Seeing the ferocity of his grandfather and father and then Gozei as she apologized again and again, he began to feel as though Gozei really had taken him against his will. Hiding behind his mother from the eyes of the people who had begun to gather around, he heard his father yell, “Take him away!” His mother took his hand and led him towards the house. When he looked back, he saw a crowd of ten people surrounding Gozei, berating her.

  The guilt and shame he felt at that moment were something he could not forget, even thirty years later. For a while after the incident, Gozei stopped coming around to his house. When he would see Gozei pulling her cart along the roads, her very presence seemed like a reproach, and he would avoid her. As these memories from decades ago came back to him, Yoshiaki realized why he hated even the smell of brown sugar.

  The thick darkness was suffocating, as if she were being buried in mud. Someone was trying to blow air into Gozei’s deflated lungs. But when she remembered Ishino’s festering mouth, nausea overwhelmed her, and she shook her head in protest. Nearby, she heard the groans of the Korean woman. Was she being beaten or raped? The rotten soldiers had run away to a cave this deep into the mountains, away from the Americans’ attacks, without putting up a fight and had the nerve to keep using us women. Although in the beginning there were four Korean women who’d been taken from the comfort station into the mountains, one had disappeared along the way, and two, hit in the neck and stomach by shell fragments during the American naval shelling, died. Were the other Okinawan and mainland girls at the inn being mobilized with another unit? Ishino had ordered only Gozei to be brought with his unit. Days had passed since she had begun “mobilizing” with a dozen soldiers in the mountains in the southern part of the village. How she was made to suffer by those damn soldiers. They were forbidden to speak. Gozei felt around in the dark to find the Korean woman. They warmed each other in the chill of the cave. Water had begun to soak through the stone walls, and even the softer places to sit had become sludge, further aggravating the pain in their abdomens. The next time they “mobilized,” she probably wouldn’t be able to walk, she thought. The Korean woman shivered and clung to Gozei. She was still a girl of seventeen or eighteen. Gozei pitied this girl, whose name she did not even know, called only Pī. Knowing that the girl must be in even greater pain than herself, Gozei stroked her back and arms. Her hatred grew against the soldiers who hid in the caves without even putting up a fight. They should all charge the Americans and be left to rot and die. The soldiers boasted that they would wait in the mountains for the Americans to come and counterattack, but they only returned fire for maybe a week after the Americans had landed. They took out the guns from beneath the cliff, but one round had brought down on them a bombardment ten times worse. The soldiers hid in the cave to avoid the shelling. Firing an occasional round at night was all they could manage.

  When she smelled the odor of tin on Ishino’s uniform as he came to grope her, her stomach ached, as if it were being twisted and ripped apart. When they were still hiding in the mountains but near the village, she could go out at night with the lowest-ranking soldiers to dig potatoes. But since they’d retreated deep into the mountains, the soldiers refused to share their food supply. For the past three or four days, she had only been licking the water that trickled down on the cave walls. Every cell in her body reacted to the smell of meat. If someone would give her anything to put in her mouth, she would even endure that mouth reeking of pus, forced on hers. She’d even make noise. But when Ishino finished what he came to do, he quickly left. Damn man. Pitying herself for trying to please him, she wished that the cave and everything in it would be blown to bits. She prayed that the flesh and bones would be burnt to dust by the flame guns. The Korean woman could not stop shaking. Leaning against the damp wall, Gozei flung her numb legs into the mud and remembered Shōsei.

  I’ll come save you. Shōsei’s eyes said those words. When the soldiers in the unit were told that the enemy was after them, they evacuated the cave. As they moved around the mountains, Gozei saw nearly fifty villagers taking refuge in another cave below a cliff. Shōsei was among them. The women and children had been sent to the back of the cave, and the elderly men sat at the mouth as if to protect the entrance. Barely thirty years old, Shōsei stood out among the men. If he had not come to the inn every day and if someone other than Ishino, who knew that he was crippled, had seen him, something might have been said. When the soldiers began to confiscate food from the villagers, pleading cries rose throughout the cave. Ishino, his sword drawn, barked at them to shut up. They immediately slumped down. Although Gozei felt sorry for the villagers huddled together with their families, her life depended on getting the soldiers’ leftovers. She noticed that a fly had landed on top of Shōsei’s slumped head, where there was a wound caked with blood. She felt so ashamed to be with the soldiers that her desire to be with Shōsei wilted away. A baby’s cry was heard from the back of the cave. Voices hissed, “We’ll be caught by the enemy” and “Shut up.” Shōsei raised his head. Gozei feared as she watched his stern profile that he would say something. So far, she had seen three Okinawans shot by the “friendly forces” on suspicion of spying. Watching the mother’s back as she frantically tried to calm her fretting baby, Gozei wanted to run away. Th
e lowest-ranking soldiers came out of the cave with bags of food, and the “mobilization” began again. When she looked back among the eyes of the villagers glowing with hate, the sharpest were the glow of Shōsei’s eyes. I’ll come save you. It may have been only in her imagination. She had betrayed not only the villagers but even Shōsei. When she thought this, she felt as if her chilled body had crumbled and dissolved into the mud and darkness. Suddenly, she heard voices from the cave’s entrance and raised her head. She was certain that she heard someone say Shōsei’s name. Gozei crawled on all fours towards the mouth of the cave. When she looked from behind a rock, she saw several shadows floating in the moonlight that poured in a slant from the entrance. The face of the man, slumped forward on his knees, was hidden in the shadows and couldn’t be seen. But Gozei had no doubt that it was Shōsei.

  It was Saturday afternoon when Yoshiaki visited the home of Uchima, the former ward head who was now in his nineties. Unable to get Gozei off his mind, he used the weekend to come home to the village. Although he concealed his plan to visit the hospital from his mother, he asked her if she knew of any elderly people who could tell him about the old days. Kimi told him about Uchima, who had served as ward head for over ten years right after the war and had been elected village councilman for three terms.

  For the past several years, the elderly residents who knew the village during wartime had been dying, one after another. The few left were bedridden in nursing homes; or their memories had become vague, and they could no longer tell stories about the past. Only Uchima, who joined the village civil defense unit during the war and had acted as a leader in the detainment camps, was unbelievably healthy for a man over ninety and was said to still work in the fields. White pots overflowing with blooming flowers were scattered in the yard laid with green grass. Even the pine and kuroki shrubs were well looked after. Uchima told Yoshiaki with pride that his eldest son and daughter-in-law, both retired teachers, also lived in the house. They all now lived comfortably. Three of the grandchildren had also become schoolteachers.

  As Uchima sat on the living room sofa sipping his coffee, he boasted that although he’d lost most of his hair, his eyesight and hearing were good and he still had his real teeth. However, the burn marks spreading from his temple to his right cheek and on his right arm caught Yoshiaki’s eye. Yoshiaki remembered the story that he’d heard from someone as a young child. A grenade had been thrown in a cave where villagers were hiding during wartime, and more than twenty villagers had died. Uchima was the only survivor. The scars had been more noticeable years ago and were talked about as proof of his miraculous survival.

  Hearing the names of Yoshiaki’s grandparents, Uchima told him that he and Yoshiaki’s grandmother were distant relations. Then, after naming several relatives of whom Yoshiaki had never heard as proof of their connection, he pointed to the collected village history on the table. Uchima boasted that he had written about life during the war and after the war in the refugee camps. The village history was a fine volume with a cardboard case and a cloth cover and was more than five hundred pages long. Since the book had been distributed to every household, Yoshiaki had skimmed through it once. However, there was nothing that offered clues about Shōsei or Gozei. Although the appendix included a list of the names of all those born in the village who were graduates of the village elementary school, Shōsei’s name did not appear. When Yoshiaki began to question Uchima about Shōsei’s absence, Uchima, who’d been forthcoming until then, became hesitant.

  Shōsei was a distant relation, too.… Lost both parents when he was young, and since then, he didn’t even go to school.… You know where the supermarket is now? Before the war, there was an inn there. He must have been five or six when he was placed in service there. Never talked to him really, even though we were related, since he didn’t go to school and we never played together. Yes … during the war he was here in the village. But, you know, he couldn’t use his left arm. They said that he tripped and fell against the stove. That arm looked like a burnt log, so the local defense force didn’t take him, and he stayed in the village all through the war. Some said he did it on purpose … a draft evader. But Shōsei didn’t have the mind to do something like that. Some people saw him flee into the mountains when the Americans attacked, but after that he disappeared.… Some say they saw him in the refugee camp in Kin.… I’ve heard people say they met him on the streets in Koza. But who knows if it’s true. No one knows if he died in the war or if he lived. If he did live—see, he was, if I remember right, three or four years younger, so he’d be ninety. Aaa, about Gozei? People ask strange things.… You young ones probably don’t remember, but that inn I talked about before, the Asahi inn … it was an inn, but it was a pleasure house, too. You might not know what I mean by pleasure girls.… You do? You still use the word? Gozei was a pleasure girl there. But she wasn’t there to start with.… They brought her a bit before the war started, as a comfort woman for the Yamato soldiers. She must’ve been from the south or from Sakishima islands. So many soldiers came here as defense forces.… They stayed at the elementary school. We called it the National School back then. But the officers were separate. They drove the villagers out of their houses and took over the richest ones. During that time, since there were so many men here, they brought Korean girls for the first- and second-class privates, corporals, and sergeants. But for the officers, they thought women from the mainland or Okinawa were better.… That Gozei was one of the comfort women for the officers. When everyone evacuated to the mountains, she seemed to have gone with them. After the war, Gozei was the only one who stayed in the village.… Who knows what happened to those Korean girls.… This kind of thing isn’t in the book, and when I die, there won’t be anyone left who knows. That’s why I’m telling you now.… After the war, Gozei lived by the river, near—it’s not there anymore, after the river bank construction—near the big yūna tree. You remember that, don’t you? That tree bloomed beautifully. She built a house near that tree and lived there all alone. But once you go into that kind of work, they say you can’t get out.… For a while after the war, she dealt with American soldiers.… They say she never took Okinawan men. Anyway, she couldn’t come into the village. Not that we ostracized her. Back then, everyone was just desperate to survive. You can’t blame people for doing what they had to do.… But anyhow, she survived that way. Later on, she lived by going around the village buying up used bottles and keeping pigs.… You probably remember her from that time.… If you think about it, she lived that way here, alone, for more than fifty years. Till recently, she was still walking around with that cart, but now she’s lost her mind, too.… So she’s in the hospital? It’s a pitiful thing.… You know, she had the looks, could’ve gone to another village, found a good man, and by now be surrounded by kids and grandkids. Was there something between her and Shōsei? No … can’t believe that there was.… They were at the same inn for a while at the same time, but … Shōsei, it wasn’t just his arm. He was missing something up here, too. Don’t think any woman would’ve paid him any mind, even if she was a prostitute.…

  Shōsei was made to sit with his arms tied behind his back. Yonamine, an officer from Shuri, grabbed his collar and beat him in the face. Two or three of the other soldiers kicked his stomach and back, but Shōsei refused to let out even a moan. Gozei learned from the soldier on watch that soldiers returning from searching for food had caught Shōsei near the entrance of the cave. He was accused of spying for the enemy.

  To the soldiers, anyone they suspected in the slightest was a spy. Once they accused someone, who knew what would happen. Gozei had seen two elderly villagers executed because they were found walking near the cave close to dawn. With their arms tied behind their backs, they pleaded in halting Japanese that they were only returning from the village after searching for food. In fact, the straw bags that they carried did hold potatoes and goat meat. But the soldiers did not trust the Okinawans from the start. Under Ishino’s orders, it was Yonamine and a su
bordinate who took the two old villagers into the bushes. Later that night, in the cave, among the soldiers listening intently to Yonamine brag about the sharpness of his sword, were other Okinawans like Minei and Ōshiro. From their accents, Gozei could tell that among the soldiers who beat Shōsei, there were Okinawans besides Yonamine. She knew that at times these soldiers, in order to prove their loyalty, treated the Okinawans captured and accused of spying even more harshly then the Yamato soldiers did.

  There was a woman whose husband was killed in the Philippines fighting for the country. Besides a nursing baby, she had six children waiting for her back in the cave. There were two old people, too, who could barely walk. The captured woman in her thirties placed her hands together and begged for her life. Ishino brought down his sword, but because the woman moved, he struck the back of her head. Blood and brains splattered. But the body of the woman, who was still alive, spasmed repeatedly. She groaned. Ishino, cursing as he inspected the chip on his sword, ordered the soldiers to strike. At his orders, Ishikawa, a Yamato soldier called Sakaki, and Ōshiro stabbed the woman with their bayonets.

  “What’re you after? Huh? Don’t lie. Aren’t you ashamed? As a Japanese? Traitor! Selling your soul to the enemy.…”

  Ishino’s boots kicked Shōsei in the face, and he fell to the ground. Unable to get up, he let out a groan for the first time. I’ve got to go help him. I’ll cling to the soldiers and beg them for mercy, Gozei thought. But she couldn’t move. Though she didn’t care when she died—the sooner the better—still she couldn’t move her hands, arms, torso, or legs. It was as if they were stuck to the rocks and the mud. Two soldiers grabbed Shōsei by the collar and his wrists, tied behind him, and dragged him to his feet. When the soldier with the bayonet jabbed Shōsei’s gut with the butt of his gun, he fell forward. The soldiers’ shouts rained down on him, and he was forced to stand.