Dendera

by Yuya Sato

  “So you’ll have your family killed by someone else and return the favor, that’s the idea?”

  “Are you mocking us?” Ate Amami asked, her face serious.

  “No,” Kayu Saitoh said, equally serious. “It makes perfect sense. Who would want to kill their own children or their friends, after all?”

  “When my son brought me up the Mountain, he was crying. He was a good boy.” Ate Amami’s expression was one of pure anguish. “That was eleven years ago. He’ll be sixty-seven, now. He’ll Climb the Mountain in three years.”

  Unrelenting, Kayu Saitoh said, “And because he’s a man he won’t be welcome in Dendera. Rejected by the Village and Dendera. In the end, everyone just becomes a burden. Why couldn’t we have just died properly on the Mountain?”

  “My son … is he well?” Ate Amami asked.

  “Yes, he’s fine.” Kayu Saitoh nodded. “He’s a hard worker, always looking out for the Village.”

  “That’s good,” Ate Amami said with a genuine smile. “And Kayu, how about your son? How old will he be now?”

  “Fifty-five. And I suppose you lot want to murder him too? I won’t allow it, you know!”

  She was seething with anger now, but there was also something else—all the memories of her son and her family, all flooding back to her. It was overwhelming.

  “As you say, Kayu. The more you think about it the more complicated it gets.” Ate Amami looked up at the sky and then gradually back down to earth, gazing at the gravestones. “When I think of Dendera, what has happened here, and the thirty-one people who have died, it fills me with hatred, and I want to destroy everything, kill everyone. But then I think of the Village, and the children who live there, and I wonder whether perhaps I’m the villain.”

  “Then don’t kill anyone. Just die yourself.” Kayu Saitoh felt a reaction to that phrase—villain—but she covered it up. Why she reacted, and why she covered it up, she didn’t know.

  “The problem, Kayu, is that we are no longer the same people that we once were. Our world is no longer limited to just the Village and the Mountain. We are in Dendera now. Things are different. We can think in new ways.”

  “Oh, is that what it is? A new way? And here’s me thinking you just want to attack the Village that brought you into this world and looked after you all these years. Disgraceful! You should be ashamed of yourself,” Kayu said.

  “Come on, Kayu.” Hatsu Fukuzawa broke her silence. “Look at where you are. Standing before these graves. Can you really still say that, here of all places?”

  “I’ll say it wherever I am,” Kayu Saitoh said.

  “These people, they all wanted to live. They didn’t want to die. They survived, best they could. Who are you to deny them that?” Hatsu Fukuzawa squatted down in front of one of the graves and brushed away some of the snow that had settled on it. “Look, it’s so cold here that even the stone is cracking.”

  It’s not like I killed her, Kayu Saitoh thought, but she couldn’t find the right words to say it out loud. She felt as if her throat were jammed with jagged little pebbles, and she realized it was becoming harder for her to proclaim her thoughts and beliefs with confidence. She still wanted to Climb the Mountain, she would try to tell herself in her heart of hearts, but there was something about the words that rang false now. She didn’t want it to be false, of course, not for one moment, and she was still disgusted by the cowardliness of the women who chose to live in Dendera, but she found that when she put those thoughts into words they seemed too simplistic, almost glib. She realized that she herself was now tarnished with the same brush, and she thought again about Ate Amami’s villains and realized that even though she herself was hardly in the same category as the others, perhaps the label could be applied to her too.

  “If we attack the Village, I may have to end up killing Ate’s or Somo’s sons and friends,” Hatsu Fukuzawa said, standing up. “In truth, it’ll probably be hard.”

  “Then don’t kill anyone. Just die yourself.” Kayu Saitoh found herself using the same words again.

  “You can say that, but I’m going to kill them. And I’m not going to die.” Hatsu Fukuzawa met her stare. “Do you know why? Because I’m a part of Dendera. I don’t belong to the Village anymore.”

  “Well look at you, with your new life and new creed, all full of yourself.”

  “I’d say the same to you. You’re even more dishonest than we are. You’re even more conceited than us. You don’t take a stance on anything and just complain about everything. You should be ashamed. You’re the villain. Why don’t you try making a decision and acting on it?”

  Hatsu Fukuzawa’s words hit the mark, but Kayu Saitoh didn’t intend to change the way she thought, so she left the two old women and the twenty-seven gravestones. She thought about life and death and allowing people to live or killing them instead. In the end, she wanted to hear from people who lived as if they were dead, and so she walked to the westernmost hut. An emotion whirled about in the back of her mind, neither elation nor anxiety.

  Six women were in the hut. Two were Mitsugi Kaneda and Shima Iijima, three she couldn’t quite place, and the last was Kura Kuroi.

  Kura Kuroi was nearly skin and bones. She had become even more gaunt than when Kayu Saitoh last saw her. Her head, its cranium bulbous, seemed oddly large, and her body paper-thin. The white robe truly suited her.

  “Oh, Kayu,” Kura Kuroi said from where she lay on the hard floor. She turned her head with apparent weight. “I thought you’d come visit me sooner. It took you so long. Well? What’s wrong? Why are you so quiet? It’s me. Look, I’m alive, aren’t I? I’m no corpse yet. I’m still all here. You have nothing to fear. You have no reason to be sad. You have no reason to be so quiet.”

  Finally, with considerable effort, Kayu Saitoh forced herself to say, “You can talk, that’s for sure. You’re in good spirits.”

  Spreading out straw on the floor, Mitsugi Kaneda said, “You, give me a hand. We have to prepare their bedding.”

  Kayu Saitoh nodded, and as she helped pull apart the piles of straw left near the dirt-floor entrance, she looked around at the women. One of them she hadn’t recognized at first, due to the woman’s advancing age and the grime that caked her hair and skin, she now saw was Seto Matsuura. The woman’s Climb had taken place twenty-one years earlier. Back in the Village, the younger women had sought her advice. Now, she appeared to have gone completely senile, huddled over like a monkey, her mouth hanging open for no reason. Thinking her unsightly, Kayu Saitoh focused on pulling apart the straw. A cluster of straw slid off the top of the pile and hit the back of one of the sitting women, who flailed and fell over more than was strictly necessary. This too was unsightly, so Kayu Saitoh told her to get out of the way.

  “Ah, she can’t,” Shima Iijima said. “She’s blind.”

  That meant the woman was Sayore Nosaka. Then Kayu Saitoh remembered the last one. She was Noi Komatsu, who hadn’t the mind to count beans, let alone remember anyone’s face, but she could draw beautiful pictures in sand, and paint with crushed-flower watercolors. People like Sayore Nosaka and Noi Komatsu, if without husbands or children, were allowed to live together in a house outside the Village, but no matter their mental faculties or any other personal circumstances, all had to go to the Mountain once they turned seventy.

  “So these are the cripples, then?” Kayu Saitoh asked.

  Mitsugi Kaneda nodded and said, “The woman in your hut, Shigi Yamamoto—she’s the same way, but she doesn’t ever leave there.”

  Still lying on the floor, Kura Kuroi grinned and said, “Kayu, even in Dendera, you’re the diligent worker I always knew. I’m impressed. I’ve never seen you complain about anything, not once. You go about each day with this serene look about you. I don’t know how you do it. It’s a mystery to me.”

  “And I’ve never seen you complain,” Kayu Saitoh said, continuing her work.
“Even though you’ve always been stuck with that body.”

  In her weak voice, Kura Kuroi replied, “I got used to it, that’s all.”

  “What about the bear?” Sayore Nosaka asked, looking nowhere near whomever she was addressing. “Can it be killed?”

  “Ah, we’ll be fine,” Shima Iijima said, wiping at the base of her neck. “The chief is committed to bringing it down.”

  “It’s too bad I can’t help. If only my eyes worked, I would give that bear a licking.”

  Mitsugi Kaneda chuckled. “There’s more than your eyes that’s clouded. Keep quiet and get some rest. Leave the bear to the young and able. Once we’ve killed the beast, you can have your fill of meat.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to that. Since I’ve come here, I haven’t had a single piece of meat bigger than my fingertip.”

  “That bear was incredible,” Shima Iijima said. She turned her head toward the ceiling, as if looking up at the giant in her imagination. “It was that big. There’ll be enough bear to fill all of our stomachs.”

  “That’ll be a relief,” Kura Kuroi said. “I’ve been so hungry that any one of these days now my old belly will be gone.”

  Mitsugi Kaneda joked, “I think your stomach’s the only part of you that works right.”

  A wave of modest laughter spread through the women. Only Kayu Saitoh and Noi Komatsu didn’t join in. Noi Komatsu swiftly arranged the straw on the floor into a depiction of the river that flowed just beyond the Village’s fields. Kayu Saitoh had gone there to fetch water many times each day.

  When Kayu Saitoh had finished her task and was about to leave, Kura Kuroi called to her.

  “Kayu, what do you think? How do you like living here?”

  “I’d rather not answer.”

  “Yeah. I thought you’d say that,” Kura Kuroi said. “I knew you’d say that. But this is our new life. You can accept it, you can reject it, you can ignore it, but you have to use your head. You’re resilient, and you’ve got spirit, but you’re not bright. When faced with the unfamiliar, you go this way and that. I know that about you.”

  “Kura Kuroi, are you a Hawk?”

  “Certainly not.” She shook her head. “I could never attack the Village. My little brother, who took such good care of me, lives there … Though I’m no Dove either. What about you, Kayu? Are you the same way? Have you thought about it?”

  “I’m a Dove,” Sayore Nosaka said. She unfolded her legs and tilted her head, favoring her ears over her eyes. “I don’t know anyone in the Village, and they never took care of me right, so I wouldn’t mind if the Village went away. But I’m blind; if Dendera is destroyed by the fight, I won’t be able to survive on my own.”

  Kayu Saitoh looked into the woman’s unseeing eyes. “I envy you, Sayore Nosaka. Everything’s so simple for you. The rest of us have it complicated. It’s hard for us to kill and to live.”

  “Nonsense. It’s easy for you; you can see.” There was an edge in Sayore Nosaka’s voice. “I couldn’t kill anyone without help, and neither could I live. It’s a hardship. Well, I suppose it’s the people who can’t speak for themselves who really have it tough.”

  Seto Matsuura remained seated in silence, and Noi Komatsu was rearranging the straw into a new picture. As Kayu Saitoh looked to these two women who couldn’t speak for themselves, she realized that she was avoiding what she had been wanting to say.

  She glanced to Kura Kuroi, and when she spoke, she was surprised at how the words caught in her throat. “Can I be honest with you?”

  “Sure,” Kura Kuroi replied. “I won’t mind.”

  “Kura Kuroi … after you went to the Mountain, I felt alone. My husband had already gone, you see. I had my son and his wife, but that’s not what I mean. I felt alone. And yet … I was at peace. I was relieved because I could Climb the Mountain.” She looked away from her friend. “I wasn’t afraid of it, and I didn’t resent it. All I wanted was to reach Paradise, and all I had to do was Climb the Mountain. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “But we’re all still alive,” Kayu Saitoh said.

  “We are,” Kura Kuroi said. “We have failed to die.”

  “I talked with some of the Hawks, and while they’re conflicted about certain aspects of it, they seem like they really do want to attack the Village. They’re going to kill everyone they know, even their own children.” She thought to her conversation with Hatsu Fukuzawa and Ate Amami. “I wanted to go to Paradise. That’s all. I won’t join the Hawks.”

  Right away, Kura Kuroi said, “But you also won’t join the Doves. You want to die, so that much is obvious.”

  “But you changed your ways; you want to live now.”

  “Changed my ways? What an odd way to put it.”

  “When we were both in the Village,” Kayu Saitoh explained, “you told me you wished you could Climb the Mountain even sooner. But when you were rescued, you were grateful, weren’t you? What a change of heart!”

  “This is a nice place. Unlike the Village, here I don’t feel guilty about being in this condition. Everyone here is equal. Everyone’s an old hag with an empty belly. We’re hungry ghosts. And we all know it about ourselves, so the able naturally help the disabled, and the disabled naturally accept the help.”

  Sayore Nosaka nodded. “That’s how I feel. No matter what else, we’re all simply nothing more than old women.”

  Summoning a feeling akin to courage, Kayu Saitoh looked to Kura Kuroi. “What you both said is true. We’re all the same here. We’re equally elders. We’re equally women. And we’re equally frail. But is that really all you have to say, Kura Kuroi? Be honest with me.”

  Kura Kuroi’s eyes locked on to her, and their intensity didn’t diminish as she answered. “In Dendera, to want to die is to be a villain,” she said. “From your perspective, raiding the Village and living peacefully in Dendera are both wrong and shameful acts. I understand that. But I have to repeat myself: whoever believes that here is the greatest villain.”

  “And that’s why you started wanting to live? Ridiculous. I can’t change the way I think so easily. Kura Kuroi, are you … really happy to be alive? Are you fulfilled?”

  “I am happy,” Kura Kuroi said, and nothing more.

  And so Kayu Saitoh needed to leave the hut.

  Night came, and the funeral began.

  For a funeral, it was a simple affair. The women could afford the ceremony no extravagances, and shared not a drop of sake nor lit a single stick of incense. They merely lined up the four baskets that held the victims’ remains, clasped their hands in their respective ways and with their respective thoughts, and then left the hut. Ten remained until the end—Kayu Saitoh, Kyu Hoshina, Mei Mitsuya, Hatsu Fukuzawa, Soh Kiriyama, Inui Makabe, Ume Itano, Hikari Asami, Itsuru Obuchi, and Somo Izumi—and in the silence, they built a fire in the sunken hearth together. The flames turned the chief’s face, already dark red with anger, into an even deeper red. Kyu Hoshina clasped her hands and didn’t speak, while Ume Itano cried, her throat occasionally twitching. The only other sounds in the room were the popping of the fire and the women breathing out their noses to keep the stench of the remains at bay.

  “Unforgivable,” Mei Mitsuya said, breaking the silence.

  Kyu Hoshina nodded in agreement and said, “I want to get that bear as soon as we can.”

  Itsuru Obuchi reached with her wrinkled arm and added a fresh log to the fire, then said, “Right, we won’t be able to raid the Village until we kill the beast.”

  “Feh!” Mei Mitsuya exclaimed. “I bet that makes you Doves happy.”

  Her voice hoarse, Itsuru Obuchi said, “You always have so much energy. You’re only six years older than me, yet you haven’t changed a bit since you were a little girl. Are you really a hundred years old?”

  Baring her yellowed teeth, the chief said, “I’m a demon now.�
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  “We’re all old here. No one would be mad at you if you took it easy.”

  “I’d be mad. And listen, Itsuru Obuchi, you’re not old yet. You’re on the expeditionary force, aren’t you?”

  “With a brown bear about, we can’t idle. But anyway, why has the bear come in the middle of winter?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have a den,” Hikari Asami said, standing beside the earthen-floor entryway. “Bears typically hibernate through the winter, but if they’re unable to store up enough fat, or if they can’t find a hole the right size for their bodies … they will roam and forage.”

  Itsuru Obuchi asked, “And that bear hasn’t found a—what was it, a den? The humans and the bears are all starving. It’s tragic.”

  Hatsu Fukuzawa folded her arms and said, “But still, I’ve never heard of a bear attacking a place where people lived.”

  “The creature might think us weak,” Itsuru Obuchi explained. “After all, there’s no one in Dendera but a bunch of old hags who have outlived their deaths.”

  “Itsuru Obuchi, that’s enough of your crass remarks,” the chief snapped.

  “No, she might be right,” Hatsu Fukuzawa said. “I’ve heard that bears are clever. Maybe it’s figured out that we don’t have any hunting rifles here.”

  “Like that damned brute has that much brains,” the chief said.

  “Bears,” Hikari Asami said, “have sharp noses. And rifles smell of oil and gunpowder.”

  “Hikari Asami,” the chief bellowed, “what is all this? How do you know so much about bears?”

  “My husband … was a bear hunter. I’ve heard most all there is to know about them.”

  “I remember that now,” the chief said, her expression calculating. “So, do you think we have a chance?”

  “It’ll be tough …”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t have rifles,” Hikari Asami said.

  “But we have spears!” the chief countered.

  “It’s true that people used to hunt bears with spears before there were rifles, but even then, the hunters had steel spearheads. All we have here is … wood.”