Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  The singing came from the room diagonal to mine. It occurred to me that the man had waited until the other tenants were gone before engaging in his secretive amusement. I soon noticed that he was singing a popular festival song from one of the southern islands, to which he had added a sanshin accompaniment. It annoyed me. Why the hell did he need to hide from everyone when singing such a song?

  Growing up on O. Island, I always hated the festivals, in which the entire island—without exception—got all worked up. The sounds always reminded me of my grandmother’s crazy dance. When the time for a festival drew near, musical instruments echoed through the whole island. As the festival day approached, the villagers spurred each other on, becoming frantic with excitement, and whipped themselves into a frenzy. When the village finally returned to its normal routine, a feeling of emptiness descended over the entire community. No matter how much I groped at the air, I could find nothing to latch on to and ended up being sucked into a bottomless pit. I recalled with terror that look of my grandmother, who—in trying to claw her way out of the emptiness—kept waving her hands at the sea. I detested the cold cruelty of time, which crushed us with its endless cycle of expectation and disillusionment.

  Day after day, I overheard the young man’s song, with its incomprehensible lyrics. When he finally spoke to me, it was as if to no one in particular.

  “So you’re from O. Island, huh? Well, I’m from the island right next to yours.”

  I felt drawn to him as if by an irresistible force. Obsessed by the feeling, I invited him into my room before I even realized what I was doing. He introduced himself as Ōmichi Hideo.

  By the middle of October of my senior year, I was staying with him in his home on the island. The village had begun to resound with the beating of gongs and drums in preparation for the Kitsugan Festival, held to entreat the gods for an abundant rice harvest. Hideo had received a formal offer to teach at the local junior high school, and since our families had already agreed that I’d be welcomed as his bride the following spring, I had made up my mind to enjoy a nice long stay on the island with his family.

  At nightfall, the family always headed off to practice: Eikichi and Hideo for their singing and Toki for her dancing. Eikichi’s mother, who had started to have difficulty getting around, was left home alone, and I accompanied everyone else to the village square. As the wife in the Ōmichi household, considered the island’s niiya, or oldest family, wielding authority over the community, Toki introduced the ceremonial dance to the women gathered in the square. She wasn’t trying to act like their teacher, but her steady movements and suppleness of limb, in spite of her diminutive stature, allowed her to elegantly demonstrate the simple, repetitive movements of the dance. As I whiled away my time sitting in the corner, I could overhear Toki’s cheerful and encouraging responses to the women, who joked in the local dialect about their awkward movements.

  The rehearsals were for the village dance to be held at the local shrine, and they continued up until the day the priestesses confined themselves to the utaki, one of the sacred spots on the island. The majority of participants only came to the island for the festivals, so the younger ones always continued partying until dawn. They wouldn’t so much practice as take turns playing their favorite songs, and they went on and on with the singing and sanshin playing as if possessed. I, who had not yet become an official member of the village, could only watch as an observer until the gathering finally came to a close.

  One night, my ears grew weary of the never-ending twang of the sanshin and the obnoxious voices of the young men, who could hardly be called talented. I lost the will to wait for Hideo and left the square. Desperate to shut off the ringing sanshin in my ears, I turned down the road heading to the beach. A gentle predawn sea breeze was blowing. The lingering darkness, pursued by a faint predawn light, crept over the ocean, and the dark gray of night clung to the surface as if putting up some last resistance.

  The eastern cape of O. Island was staring in my direction. Why, I wondered—even though I had come so close—had I no desire to cross over to the other side? I looked to my right. The faint outline of the island rose up into a pyramid, tilting to one side. When I stared straight ahead again, the island stretched out into a bumpy line below my chin. When I fixed my gaze, the island became inert and uncommunicative. But when I lowered my eyes, the island seemed to hang over me like a curse. Exasperated with its mysteriousness, which perhaps only reflected my own skewed perspectives, I turned away.

  The wind began to pick up, and I could no longer hear the reverberations of the sanshin. I stepped up from the beach. At the edge of the thicket, Hideo emerged as if he had been lying in wait.

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  His body, stinking of sweat and awamori, that strong Okinawan liquor, closed in on me. The twanging sound of the sanshin, which I had thought was gone, assaulted my ears again. At the same moment, a powerful feeling welled up inside me. It was an overwhelming sense of repudiation, directed not toward Hideo but toward the island’s very essence.

  “Stop!”

  Before the word even escaped me, my hands had shoved Hideo with unexpected strength. Pushed onto his backside, he glared up at me with a look of anger and confusion. Feeling an unwarranted hatred toward him, I screamed in a frantic voice I could hardly believe was my own.

  “I can’t do it! It’s impossible! I can never get married here and be a wife on this island!”

  Once the words were out of my mouth, I felt as if I had thrown myself into a bright white pit. For a moment, Hideo stared at me incredulously; but then the cruelty of the words seemed to sink in, and he glared at me like a beast about to pounce. After that, we had a furious argument. Of course, we were on completely different wavelengths, and I could only fling my words at him like stones.

  That very day, I left the Ōmichi home, where I had stayed for nearly a month, and boarded the afternoon ferry. Both Eikichi and his mother glared at me with somber expressions, trying hard, it seemed, to accept what they had feared might happen, but neither said a word. Only Toki, who ignored Hideo’s request not to, came to the dock to see me off.

  “Come again when you feel more comfortable,” she said. “Next time, just for a visit, okay? I’ll be waiting. I’ll be waiting for you, Takako.”

  Not knowing how to respond, I gazed at her absently as I stood on the deck, impatient for the boat to leave the island far behind.

  “Let me make you something cold to drink,” Toki called from the kitchen. “This’ll make you feel much better.” One thing that hadn’t changed about Toki was her melodious standard Japanese dialect. Though I couldn’t help being concerned about her obvious physical decline, I could see the expressiveness gradually returning to her face.

  Toki invited me into the tatami room with the family altar. After offering incense, I exchanged gazes with the memorial photographs of Eikichi and his mother. Eikichi, who was unsociable toward me from beginning to end, looked much younger in the portrait than when I had first met him and even sported a cheerful smile. The portrait of the mother, with an abundance of splendidly done-up hair, made it difficult to visualize the fragile, bedridden woman I’d known before. Though the picture appeared to be from when she was older than Toki was now, the tension around her eyes and mouth revealed much more vitality than Toki in her decline. It was as if, in death, the mother and son had been restored to eternal youth, spreading their roots deep down under the house. The outsider Toki, the only survivor in this home without a single blood descendant, now protected the family memory. I had the impression that Toki’s decline was the result of having her vitality sucked out by the Ōmichi lineage rooted to the island.

  “Here, try this,” said Toki, holding out a cup filled with yellow tangerine juice. A bittersweet smell wafted toward me.

  When I finished the drink, I felt much better, so I told her it was delicious. Toki smiled at me with an air of satisfaction.

  “Make yourself at home. Stay as long as
you like, and do as you please. That would make me happy, too.”

  If I only listened to her voice, she would’ve fit perfectly with the image I had of her. But when she stood up to take the empty cup from me, I could see that her dress hung on her limply, due to the lack of roundness in her hips.

  From behind a pillar, I watched her moving around in the kitchen. Her movements were extremely slow. Bending over or reaching for something, she looked like an old lady. As she washed the dishes, her hands moved sluggishly. Sometimes her eyes were out of focus. And her fair skin had turned a sickly yellow.

  “Takako, if you feel up to it … ,” Toki blurted out, turning around.

  I hastily looked away. Toki, apparently not noticing that she had been observed, dried her hands on her apron and stepped into the room.

  “There’s still some time before dinner. They built a beautiful resort called Sunshine Villa out on Cape Komasaki. That’s why we’ve been having more visitors during the summer.”

  I wasn’t really interested, but I sensed that she really wanted me to go; so I nodded.

  “It takes fifteen minutes by car. I’ll call Morio and ask him to pick you up.”

  “No, wait. I’ve caused him enough trouble already.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him. Now that the rice harvest is over, he doesn’t have anything to do. He’ll appreciate getting the chance to kill some time.”

  Being imposing in their attentiveness was how islanders expressed themselves. They were always eager to welcome outsiders and did everything they could once guests arrived. The shared desire to please visitors and to see them learn to love the island had become the customary way of showing kindness. I knew all this quite well, so to avoid the inevitable haggling, I decided to give in.

  Morio’s blue van appeared almost immediately. When his stocky upper body leaned out of the window to signal to me, I could detect no signs of his previous displeasure.

  “Sorry for all the inconvenience,” I said, rushing over to the van.

  He brushed off my concern with a wave of the hand. “No problem at all. To tell the truth, all this free time is killing me. I’ve got nothing, absolutely nothing to do. It’s driving me crazy. I’ll take you anywhere you like.” Morio blushed and pointed to himself. “I know every secret spot on the island: where pigeons nest, where octopuses hide, and any other place you can imagine. Just say the word, and I’ll take you there.” With a hearty laugh, he beat his chest.

  I knew I was getting special treatment, and that helped me to relax. But I really wasn’t in the mood to visit a spacious resort that marred the island’s scenery. So just before the turnoff for Komasaki, I headed him off.

  “Morio, if you don’t mind, take a right. I’d like to climb Mount Ufudaki.”

  “Gotcha! Mount Ufudaki it is!”

  His overly enthusiastic response was amusing. He was so excited to be occupied during the off-season that he started whistling lightheartedly. Familiar scenery rushed past us. The waning light meant I no longer had to deal with that burning sensation at the back of my eyes. We passed the woods where religious ceremonies were held and a small area overgrown with weeds, which I remembered was called Sukubaru.

  We could reach the summit of Mount Ufudaki, ninety-nine meters above sea level, by walking thirty minutes from the base, where the road ended. After Morio parked the van, we plunged into the dense brush and began threading our way up the side of the small mountain. Finally, we reached the summit and spotted the concrete one-hundred-meter marker, hidden in the shadow of a dense thicket on the rocky surface. Apparently, no one ever came here, other than people who climbed the mountain on a whim during the short-lived sightseeing season.

  We had a panoramic view of the entire island. Completely surrounded by ocean, the island had sunk its roots to the ocean floor and poked out its head. Several other islands, the largest being O. Island, were visible on the periphery. Though we stood at a fixed location, we had a bird’s-eye view—but without that sense of soaring above the earth you’d get with flying. It was less like having the view spread out before us than riding on the crest of a wave and having the island rise up beneath our feet.

  “Yeah, it sure is tiny. I mean, really, this is it. I know ‘Ufudaki’ means ‘big mountain’ and all. But look at it! What a joke!” Still panting from the climb, Morio seemed to fling his strongly held opinion down at the world below.

  We could see the two inland villages; the fishing community along the coast; and the resort, Sunshine Villa, emitting white light into the area along the beach on Cape Komasaki. Other than the parched, narrow roads meandering between the villages and the cultivated land on both sides, the entire island was tinged with various shades of green. My eyes fell on the small, uncultivated rice fields of Ufudā. Though irrigated, the Ōmichi fields were covered not with rice plants but with weeds so thick you couldn’t even see the paths that separated the paddies. I guess it was impossible for Toki to take care of the fields on her own—especially in her condition.

  “Morio, can I ask you something about Toki?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “She’s really deteriorating. She’s much too thin, and she walks with a limp.”

  “Yeah, I know. She suddenly lost a lot of weight.”

  “What do you mean ‘suddenly’? When exactly?”

  “I guess it was the beginning of August, when Hideo and his wife bought their condo, and she went to celebrate and help them with the move.” Morio crossed his arms and mulled over the problem. “I think she got depressed when she realized that Hideo and his family would never be coming back. There’s not much we can do about it. Once a person loses the will to live, they start aging fast.”

  I sat down on a small rock, with Morio sitting behind me. He seemed convinced that Toki’s deterioration was due to old age and depression.

  “My mother, you know, is Eikichi’s younger sister, so she’s been really worried. She always tells her, ‘Why don’t you live with Hideo and just come back for the festivals?’ But Aunt Toki always says, ‘No, I’m okay. I’m okay.’ So there’s not much we can do. She can be really stubborn, you know.”

  Catching his breath for a moment, Morio cast me a confiding glance.

  “I heard this from the lady who runs the market, but apparently Aunt Toki’s been buying alcohol. On top of that, it’s been about a bottle every three days. Aunt Toki said it was for pickling stuff that she sends to Hideo, but the lady didn’t really believe her.”

  A pale-blue haze swept down in front of my eyes. In a panic, I stood up and interrupted Morio, who was still talking.

  “Morio, let’s go back.”

  “But we just got here!”

  “That’s all right.”

  “But what about ‘Sunshine Villa’? And isn’t there any other place you want to see?”

  “Just Mount Ufudaki is fine. I want to get back to Toki.”

  Morio glared at me with the same annoyed look as before. Impatient with his dawdling, I started down the mountain without him.

  “Why the hell did you come back here? Don’t tell me you’re doing more research!”

  I turned around at his harsh words. His expression was unbending, and his eyes were filled with hostility. No doubt, he was annoyed at being deprived of his precious opportunity to kill some time. His question struck a nerve, reminding me how rash I’d been, quitting my job with no other prospects. Thinking that Morio suspected as much and that his question was a trick to find me out, I instinctively became defensive.

  “I came to see Toki. I don’t have any other agenda. Is there some kind of rule that says I can’t just come here to visit?” Issuing this challenge, I scowled at him. Completely taken aback, Morio took a deep breath and smiled wryly.

  “That’s not what I meant. It just seems strange that you’ve come at this time of year. That’s all. Aunt Toki’s been really looking forward to seeing you. And, well, I don’t have any problem with that. I mean, she once wanted you to marry into the fami
ly and all.”

  Ashamed of my outburst, I turned away from him and scurried down the mountain.

  “You really are weird, though! You really are!” he spat out behind me.

  The Ōmichi home was located near the utaki, far from the rest of the village. When evening deepened, one could hear the owls hooting to their human neighbors. Toki, who had suggested having a party that night, brought out a couple of cans of beer before dinner. I took a sip and put the can down, but Toki chugged hers down in one gulp. We barely touched the various fried food laid out on the table. Neither one of us had much of an appetite, and our conversation meandered into the evening.

  “You’re from Nagasaki, aren’t you? Do you ever get back?” With my casual reference to the past, Toki’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I have nowhere to go back in Nagasaki, even if I wanted to. This is my only home.” The reply slipped from her unconsciously, and her gaze seemed to be trying to reel in some distant object. She wore the same expression as during my first evening spent on the island, ten years earlier. Answering all my questions then about how she had ended up living here, she had kept lowering and raising her eyes in order to piece together her fragmented memories. As if she, too, had recalled that time, Toki turned toward me with watery eyes.

  “I was eighteen when I first came here. It was reckless to come on my own.”

  She had come to the island all by herself because her family had been in Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombing and were still missing several years later. She had escaped the same fate only because, as the oldest of three children, she had been evacuated to a distant location. What brought her to this small southern island was a chance encounter.

  During the war, Toki was sent to stay at a house in Miyazaki, one of the southernmost prefectures on the mainland. She was only thirteen. At about the same time, Ōmichi Yūkichi, a boy one year her junior, had been sent to a nearby village from his island in the south as part of an evacuation program for children. Toki became friendly with the boy after stopping to talk with him one day on her way home from gathering firewood in the hills behind her village. Before long, the two sometimes slipped away from the other children to be alone. Yūkichi told her that after the war when they grew up, he wanted her to come to his southern island, where they would live happily ever after. This became their promise to each other. It was only a naive promise of two children, but their childlike love assuaged their feelings of hopelessness at living apart from their families during the dark time of war. After the war ended and Yūkichi returned home to his island, the two continued their correspondence.