Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  The female figure that stole into the rear room of Tarā’s house sat by his pillow for a while with the stillness of a ghost. As a breeze through a slit of the wooden door shook the mosquito net, the smell of the woman’s strong incense entered into his sleep. He awoke involuntarily, lured by a world glimpsed during a dream. He spotted the figure, seated at the head of his bed, spreading the skirt of her loose clothes, her lower body pressed to the tatami. He was about to scream, taken aback by the strangeness of the situation, when, perhaps to quickly suppress his reaction, she reached out her hand and touched his chest.

  —What are you doing?

  He tried to shake off her hand, but its tender warmth and its enchanting, clinging feel on his skin let him know her intentions. His body instantly acquiesced to the hand’s motions. As the only projection of his body, still thin and smooth for a man, began to boldly assert itself like a separate animal, the woman’s hand soothed, coaxed, and guided it, until she sent him wave after wave. Each time a wave swelled, he lifted his lower body, clung to her, and let out a woman-like sound, and after the third round that night, he was completely worn out. His partner was voiceless and noiseless; she only swayed like a billow in a storm. This was the way, both horrifying and pitiable, of the woman who is said to tap men’s energy for one profound desire.

  Tarā became aware that this woman was Nabii on the night of her fourth visit, when the moon, past the twentieth day, shone palely on her as she unintentionally looked back on her way out through the backyard after finishing her business and putting on her clothes. What he caught was apparently a left-side view of her slightly oval face with high cheekbones, held still and looking chilly. The decline of womanhood was clearly carved on that face.

  Their relations lasted even after Tarā began to see a second and a third woman. They continued to meet, he claimed, until Nabii reached menopause. The fact that they had a long-lasting inagu-ikiga connection outside her marriage with Jirā never became a topic of people’s yuntaku because of her divinely inspired, clever trick for those secret meetings. The trick was, between visits to Jirā’s house once in ten days, to steal into Tarā’s rear room, cover him tightly with her sagging breasts, let him break into a youthful sweat, and when he fell asleep looking content, leave though the back door like the wind, making no sound and leaving no signs.

  This was the wretched and uncannily sad sight of Nabii: a woman in the lineage of the nīmutu, root family, she was trying to somehow stop the fate of the island that trod a straight path to extinction, and out of her deep attachment to the island, she wandered nightly seeking a man.

  Thus went the secretly shared nighttime story of Hotara men and women from the distant days when the tida, sun, used to travel on its orbit, saw the moon, parted, and waited for the next encounter.

  Sanrā gazed at the traces of tears on Tarā’s cheeks while recalling this yuntaku story, which seemed like a dream within a dream. But now he himself felt nītasa, envy, for Tarā and Jirā, causing pain in his heart. This was an unexpected feeling.

  Aside from the luck of Jirā and Tarā, Sanrā’s yuntaku companions and senior men, at both being chosen by the Hotara’s top woman, Sanrā, unfortunately, never had a relationship with a woman that he could turn into a yuntaku topic. Those who did visit the rear room, where he waited every night, gave themselves only halfheartedly to him and, with no compassionate words after, hastily left him to spend disconsolate hours until dawn with a sense of dissatisfaction. This was the case despite the fact that Sanrā, with his intelligence and deep chimugukuru, heart and guts, was the type much better liked by women than were Jirā, who was absentminded and nonkā, carefree, and Tarā, who was vain and rikuchā, argumentative. Sanrā was more than average in terms of looks and build and, above all, was younger than any man on the island.

  The times were tough for Sanrā. He was separated from Tarā only by eight years, but within those eight years, a deep chasm had formed between one era and the next in Hotara society. Women’s impartial and tender thoughtfulness, which still existed until Tarā’s generation, had begun to fade. Far from being tender, women somehow started avoiding men. They were now reluctant to go out at night. Exhausted from daytime labor, they tended to neglect nighttime activities. Not only that, but there was a gradually increasing number of women who experienced pain and futility while having physical contact with men. This was the root of the matter. It would have been acceptable if the act itself gave pleasure to the heart and body. Granted that Hotara women were traditionally thoughtful, no matter how many efforts they made to have relations with men despite their physical pain and icy hearts, they no longer found joy and meaning in becoming pregnant, giving birth, and raising progeny. Now that this was the case, it was indeed quite natural that women’s thoughtfulness toward men declined along with their desire.

  In this or that situation in Hotara society, Umichiru, the utsushingua, natural child, of Chirū the quirk who single-mindedly cared for Jirā, seemed to have been a genuine purimun woman, odder than the usual purimun. What surfaced in Sanrā’s mind from the episode of the water woman of Jirā’s yuntaku story was the image of the much-discussed Umichiru. It was not only that she was much discussed; she was, in fact, the only woman in his memory that weighed on his mind. Out of deference to Jirā, he was unable to refer to her during the story, but he had also made a firm promise to his mother while she was alive that he would never do so. His mother had been seriously concerned that her son’s connection to a purimun woman who descended from a nagarimun drifter would become the subject of rumors.

  It was on the beach in the season when the mīnishi, north wind, began to blow over the isolated island of Hotara that Umichiru first addressed Sanrā.

  That day, taking no afternoon break, he was busy mending fishnets with broken mesh on the eastern Agipama Beach. Even when the sun dimmed and it became hard to see the mesh, his mending hands did not rest. Unlike the majority of Hotara men, he did not dislike work. Once he started working with his hands, he became so absorbed that he forgot the passage of time. For a while, he did not realize that someone had snuck toward him from behind and was sitting there watching his handiwork.

  —Sanrā.

  Turning around, surprised to hear his name suddenly called, he saw a woman’s large blue eyes. They seemed to focus on his hands, which kept reeling the cord.

  —You’re so absorbed, Sanrā.

  He only smiled back faintly at her eyes. In order to look into his face as he resumed his work, the woman took another step toward him and sat flat on the sand by his side.

  —Anything for me, Umichiru? Anything you need to speak to me about?

  —No, there’s nothing I need to talk to you about.

  For a while, the two remained silent. Sanrā continued to mend the parts that came loose, while Umichiru watched his efficient handwork with curiosity. They paid no attention to the shadows that were gradually surrounding their environment.

  She was older by five years. At twenty-four, there was still something childlike about her. Inagu islanders speculated on their way home from haru farms that this was because her purimun mother did not give her inagu-like home training. The reason was, according to the men’s rumor, because her unalterable fate as a purimun’s natural child made her spirit wander to a boundless world.

  Sanrā simply moved his hands, seemingly fixed under the stare of Umichiru’s blue eyes. Abruptly, Umichiru removed his hands from the bundle of fishnets.

  —Stop working.

  With these words, she caught hold of his arm, pulled it, and started running. She seemed to suddenly demonstrate violent inagu force that brooked no resistance.

  —What are you doing, Umichiru? Hey, Umichiru, wait. My feet are caught on the net.

  He kicked the entangling nylon net in a flurry but put up no resistance. He started running on Agipama Beach with Umichiru, who was determinedly pulling him, a large nineteen-year-old ikiga. Before he had time to be ashamed of his response, which hinted that, in
fact, he had been patiently waiting for her to treat him this way, his limbs and heart were rapidly drawn to her.

  The one pulling and the other being pulled—they ran by the rocks and across the sandy shore and reached Nagarizaki, the drifters’ beach. They lay on the sand, which was covered with flowering bindweed, breathed heavily, and twined around and rolled over each other. Clinging and being pushed away, slipping and falling, they laughed like ripples.…

  Umichiru, whether due to her drifter blood or her purimun temperament, tended to like seeing a man only outdoors under the sky. Unlike ordinary Hotara women, she never stole into Sanrā’s rear room but forced him to meet her on the beach at night. This unusual style of trysts made his mother, Mamidoma, worry, which eventually caused the early breakup of the relationship. Mamidoma began secretly and deftly, so that he would not notice, assigning women of her own choosing to her son. Underlying Sanrā’s feeling that every one of the women who visited his rear room was blunt and indifferent was this contrived arrangement, along with the trend of the times.

  He began to break many of his dates with Umichiru. With grief and anger and as a way to get back at him, she developed an abnormal attachment to Jirā, the husband of Nabii, the top woman of Hotara. This was the reality of the delicate and complicated relationship involving Umichiru, Jirā, and Sanrā that could not be a topic of public yuntaku chats.

  —Look, the sun has gone down, Jirā,

  Tarā remarked, gazing at the yard where moist gloom had begun to descend. This prompted Jirā to finally finish his yuntaku tale.

  Jirā had been slowly pouring word after word, unable to stop himself. Mouth closed, bending forward with his chin jutting out, and looking vacant, he rested his eyes on the space between the emptied teapot and teacups.

  The other two men then noticed that the wooden floor around Jirā was drenched. Since the afternoon, he must have had repeated accidents as he lay down, sat up to sip tea, lay down again, sat up once more, and so forth. He might have been too lazy to stand up, too absorbed in his yuntaku, or too far gone with senility to be aware of his incontinence. From the time he had begun the yuntaku on the verandah, Sanrā and Tarā had gone to the yard at different moments, three and five times, respectively, to relieve themselves at the root of the banyan tree.

  Tarā was the first to rise and stand in the yard. Slipping into his coconut-leaf sandals, dusting the hem of his single-layered hemp clothes, he stretched a little, with his hands behind him. Then he hurried away. He did say sachinarayā, “excuse me,” to Sanrā without turning around but gave no heed to Jirā, who remained in a daze on the verandah.

  Tarā had suddenly been reminded of his mother. Kanimega, 111 years old and reluctant to move into the Niraikanai Home, was most likely waiting for his return. Driven by a sense of guilt for being so lost in yuntaku that he had left her alone after feeding her lunch, the honest, filial son hastened on his way. Sanrā, too, was quite exhausted by Jirā’s unusually long yuntaku, even as he felt concerned about how the old man hung his head, strength shed and eyes vacant.

  —See you tomorrow, Jirā, he said and then waved his left hand once and followed Tarā.

  A three-way fork divided the nakanuyu, center residence, that was the seat of nīmutu house, the uinuyā, upper residence, and the sumunuyā, lower residence, the latter two branching out of the first. When they reached that fork, Tarā headed in the direction of the upper residence, and Sanrā in the direction of the center residence.

  In the faint gloom of yumangī, twilight, spread on both sides of the path were the former vegetable farms, which, abandoned for decades from the lack of a workforce, had become a field of lustrous green grass. A path ran amidst sandy dust, splitting Hotara Island, which is shaped like a warped egg, into east and west. Tarā and Sanrā trudged along that path.

  Sanrā’s feet, carrying him eastward, suddenly stopped. Turning around, he no longer saw Tarā, who had hurried along the winding path. Sanrā resumed walking but this time westward.

  A thought had prompted him. He fancied going to Irizaki Beach. He had no family, anyway, even if he went directly home.

  Of his three siblings, the nīnī, oldest big brother, born a purimun, idiot, breathed his last at the young age of eighteen from no particular cause. Of delicate health from the start, perhaps he had a slender lifeline. His thin, pale body, covered with bougainvillea vines, floated away from the Niraipama shore. Sanrā’s, nīnī, second brother, two years his senior, was also, for some reason, fragile and was lost to an epidemic just after turning thirty. His nēnē, big sister, born between the purimun brother and Sanrā, turned into a spirit floating on the water when she was forty, the peak of her womanhood. She caused no trouble to others but simply met her death when visited by a sudden storm on the autumn sea while fishing, woman as she was. The three chodē, siblings, were said to have different fathers. Sanrā’s mother, Mamidoma, who doted on the only son she had left, suddenly contracted a strange disease that made her froth from the eyes, nose, and mouth. That was in winter six years ago, three months before her one hundredth birthday. Unable to eat or drink and remaining unconscious, she died as people watched, lamenting,

  —Oh, no, alas.

  She did not even leave her dying igun words for her son Sanrā, who was left all alone.

  Something streamed, making a sound deep down in Sanrā’s heart, as he trod on the path in the descending dusk. It was a dry sound that spilled from his heart to the soles of his feet.

  Sasa, sasa, sasa sasa.…

  He believed that the sound was somehow connected to the bottomless, faraway feeling that, without even having received his parents’ igun, he would end his life as the very last Hotara islander. He quickened his steps. With each step, the rustling sound grew louder. The rhythm became faster, now without a pause. Sasa sasa sasa sasa, sasa sasa sasa sasa .… Lured by the intimacy of the dry sound, Sanrā walked even faster. In order to go to Irizaki Beach, he had to go through the forest of she-oak starting from the dusty footpath at the border of the center and lower houses, with the view of the Midarabaru field, which had been the most fertile area on the island. In the past, when it was the season, ears of millet and barley grew golden across Midarabaru. But now, like all other places on the island, it was just a field covered by weeds as tall as people. Each time old Hotara folk traveled along that path, they always stopped there. They looked around once, closed their eyes, and recalled a full-screen image of the golden ears of millet and wheat bowing in the wind.

  —In the old days, that was how it was.

  They would say with an exaggerated nod and sigh. It was as if doing so was proof of their affection for Hotara and the duty of those who had lived long there.

  Whether it was because of the dusk or the fatigue from staying for the overly long yuntaku story, Sanrā’s senses were somewhat hazy. His field of vision lost its clarity, and something was fading. He simply kept walking toward Irizaki Beach along the evening path through the faint air that hung over the island, forgetting to stop at Midarabaru to reminisce about the old days.

  Light-green bindweed on the sand swayed in the wind from the sea. He reached the shade of a screw pine under a rock, where Jirā presumably made it a rule to sit at the end of his evening walks. As Sanrā sat on the sand, he felt the lingering warmth of sun. As he looked on, the leaden color on the undulating surface of the sea turned vermillion, and its slow rocking, which had a sense of depth, drew him in.

  The tide seemed high. He realized that he had to wait until it ebbed in order to encounter the water woman whom Jirā had talked about in his yuntaku, the woman who came up from the sea through the gloom. A small amount of dancing black particles spread, lightly tinting the seaside. Stretching his limbs, Sanrā lay down. One cheek toward the sea, he entrusted himself to the sand. The sun’s warmth gently wrapped him. He decided that he would stay there, covered in sand, until the tide went out.

  … Nothing could be seen in the dark. He was in the deep darkness of the undulating ex
pansion of space that conveyed to him a strange depth and tactility. Deep down, he felt he was dreaming; yet he retained a strong sense of reality. He continued to hear the sound—sasa sasasa. It tickled his eardrums and streamed down to his chest. The rustling eventually changed to a noisier zaza zazaza, and then turned into a human voice that upwardly pierced the void—saassa, saassa, saassaa. It was a high-pitched female voice—slender, loud, deep, and almost shouting. Many women with different tones of voice were shouting, as it were, echoing each other as if singing a round, all tones merging into one deep, resounding stream. Agitated wiggling motions arose to accompany the shouts. On the other side of the white dust blowing upwards, he could see a group swaying in a zigzag circle. Blue, purple, yellow, green, red, and other colors suddenly soared to the dark sky. It was a surging, swinging crowd of people, sprinkling bright colors into the darkness. It seemed on its way to attack Sanrā. These loud, piercing shouts and gaudy colors emerged abruptly at the bottom of a gloomy space, and it was difficult to discern whether it was within Sanrā or outside him. Looking on, he seemed to see women in primary colors whirl excitedly, form a circle, and dance while loudly chanting. Their clothing was truly odd. Each wore a long, wide-sleeved, bright-blue outer robe that fluttered around the ankles. One sleeve dropped off from the shoulder and revealed a shining yellow cloth, apparently winding around the torso, which also showed at the neck and arms. The ends of a red cord hanging from both shoulders coiled around the wrists. Suggestive of the motions of yellow-and-red-striped snakes, the many cords swung in space as if to tease the dark. The ends of the women’s long, bright-green headbands streaming down in back leapt in the air each time the dancers jumped. Their silver-plated, pale-purple sashes tied behind looked like monsterous butterflies. The group of women thus attired spilled out of a huge screen. Using the dark space as a stage, these fully adorned women continually moved, swirling and dancing in a circle amidst the dust, while giving out piercing shouts.