by Yuya Sato
It was a scream.
Mei Mitsuya lifted her head and said, “What was that?”
Hono Ishizuka pointed to the western side of Dendera. “I think it came from over there.”
“It couldn’t be,” Kayu Saitoh said. She took a step forward without realizing it. “Over there, that’s where …”
Speaking quickly, Mei Mitsuya commanded, “Hono Ishizuka, fetch the others. Hurry. The rest of us will go straightaway. Got it? We’re going to save them. We’re going to save them!”
2
Everything was already over by the time they reached the hut to where the bedridden women had been evacuated. A hole had been opened in the wall, and a deep stench emanated from within.
Mei Mitsuya, torch in hand, stepped through the hole without pause, and Kayu Saitoh and the others followed after. Straw from the busted wall was strewn about, and the hearth had been destroyed. Blood and flesh and organs covered everything. Kayu Saitoh couldn’t tell what had belonged to whom. Fighting her urge to vomit, she kept looking, and eventually she recognized Mitsugi Kaneda’s and Shima Iijima’s remains. Their bodies had been torn to shreds; their faces alone remained intact. More problematic were the four women who had lacked free use of their bodies. What hadn’t been eaten had been trampled into slurry. Despite a painful prickling that came to the back of her eyeballs, Kayu Saitoh surveyed the carnage. She found a piece of skin that appeared to have come from Seto Matsuura’s face. One part of the floor caught her eye as particularly unusual. There, the pattern of gore felt artificial, and artfully arranged. Kayu Saitoh quickly realized why—it was a painting of the Village made from blood, a vivid depiction of a typical day’s end, with the houses, the sky, the river, the liveliness, the people, and all. It may have been a rough sketch, but anyone who had lived long in the Village would have instantly recognized the scene. An arm was splayed out beside the painting, its pointer finger covered in blood. Kayu Saitoh realized what had happened. As her head reeled, she realized that this was Noi Komatsu, and that the talented artist had painted this scene until her final moment.
Looking up at one of the ceiling beams, Itsuru Obuchi said, “What … is that?”
Something was wriggling about.
Mei Mitsuya held her torch aloft. It was Kura Kuroi, but only the top half of her.
“Kura Kuroi!” Kayu Saitoh yelled, running directly below the crossbeam where the woman’s torso had gotten stuck. “Can you move? How did you get up there? What happened to the bear?”
“So many questions,” Kura Kuroi wheezed. She seemed to be trying to form a wry smile, but her muscles appeared to be largely inoperative, and her expression hardly changed.
On Mei Mitsuya’s orders, the women pulled Kura Kuroi down. The lower half of her body had been ripped away, leaving bones and shredded organs exposed. It was a wonder she still lived and strange that she wasn’t dead.
“I want … water.”
But even if they were to give her water, she lacked the half of her body needed to receive and contain it, so they instead wrapped her in her white robe and some straw. No one expected this would save her, but at least it slowed her rate of blood loss, and they could give her water without it simply draining out the other end.
“My head is still clear,” she said, trembling. “But I can’t … talk much.”
“Don’t talk,” Kayu Saitoh said quickly.
“The bear’s claws caught me,” Kura Kuroi said regardless. “The next thing I knew, I was tossed up to the beam, and my legs were gone. It’s big … that bear.”
Kayu Saitoh watched over her, while Kyu Hoshina, Soh Kiriyama, and Hikari Asami searched about the room, taking stock of the scattered viscera.
“Kaneda and Iijima had a chance to escape, but they protected us.” Kura Kuroi coughed blood. “Go and fetch that straw mat. Kaneda … hid her beneath it.”
Hikari Asami flipped over the mat. Sayore Nosaka lay beneath. A deep gash ran down her back that penetrated down to her spine. She was unmistakably dead.
“Kura Kuroi,” Kayu Saitoh said, ignoring everything else as she squeezed the woman’s hand. “Hang on. Don’t die.”
“First you say I should die, and then you say I shouldn’t die. You need to make up your mind, Kayu. I only have one body.”
“Don’t die.”
“I can do what I want.”
“Don’t die.”
“I’m all right,” Kura Kuroi said weakly. “I can still live. I … feel that I can.”
Carrying torches and spears, a number of women—Hono Ishizuka, Makura Katsuragawa, Kotei Hoshii, Ate Amami, Kaga Kasugai, Guri Togawa, Tsugu Ohi, Tahi Kitajima, Kan Tominaga, Usuma Tsutsumi, Nokobi Hidaka, Hotori Oze, Hyoh Hamamura, Tema Tsukamoto, Tamishi Minamide, and Tsuina Kamioka—poured in through the hole the bear had made. The women gasped at the scene in which they suddenly found themselves. Once again confronted with the gulf that separated the bear’s strength from their own, they held expressions somewhere between terror and frustration. The women did what they could to treat Kura Kuroi’s wounds, but without needle or thread, all they could manage was to tighten and secure her bindings. Showered by her spurting blood, Kotei Hoshii, Tsuina Kamioka, and Hyoh Hamamura tried to stop her bleeding. When they finally raised their heads, their expressions were those of surrender.
Kayu Saitoh pleaded with them, moaning, “Do something for her. Please save her.”
“I wish we could,” Tsuina Kamioka said with a deep sigh. “There’s nothing we can do for an injury like this.”
“Lies! Spare me that nonsense. You can save her.” Kayu flung Tsuina Kamioka back down and again took hold of Kura Kuroi’s hand. “They’ll save you. Don’t let a little thing like this get your spirits down. They will save you.”
“Quiet,” Mei Mitsuya said, her voice low. “We’ll use her as meat.”
“What?”
“We can be sure that bear will return,” the chief said. “It’ll come back to eat the rest of its catch. We can lure the beast with Kura Kuroi’s body and kill it.”
“I see,” Guri Togawa said.
Makura Katsuragawa touched at her nose where the frostbite had taken part of it away, and with a nod, she said, “That’s good. That’s a good idea.”
“Hey,” Kayu Saitoh objected, “what are you all talking about?”
“Don’t you get it?” Mei Mitsuya grabbed Kayu Saitoh by the collar and pulled her to her feet. “The bear ate the bottom half of her body. Kura Kuroi is part of its catch now. We know that the bear will come back for the rest of its spoils. So we will wait in ambush, and this time, we will kill the beast.”
Her head spinning, Kayu Saitoh muttered, “You’re going to use her as a decoy? She’s still alive. We can fix her.”
“She’s been shredded apart from her stomach down. It’s hopeless.”
“Shit!”
Kayu Saitoh pushed away the chief’s hands and looked over her shoulder to Hono Ishizuka, whose expression remained unchanged.
“I have no objections to the idea,” Hono Ishizuka said.
“What kind of Dove are you?” Kayu Saitoh snapped. “You’re a hypocrite.”
“I am no such thing. The Doves are called Doves because our utmost priority is to make Dendera a better place to live, and so—”
“Shut up!” Kayu Saitoh interrupted, leaping for the woman. She couldn’t tell if Hono Ishizuka tried to resist her or not, but with the force with which she threw herself at the woman, it didn’t matter. She toppled the woman and pinned her to the floor with ease. Just as she got the idea to split open the woman’s stomach so she’d know how Kura Kuroi felt, Kayu Saitoh was peeled off and got pinned to the ground herself. As the other woman held her down, Hono Ishizuka quietly arose, looked down at her, and told her that she mustn’t use violence.
“What you all are trying to do,” Kayu Saitoh shouted, “that’s violenc
e.” But her words didn’t resound within any of the women, nor did it impel them to reflect upon their thinking.
Instead, Hono Ishizuka continued, saying, “Kayu, I already explained to you that Dendera has several rules, one of which is that violence is forbidden. Violence threatens destruction upon Dendera’s fragile order.”
“Violence? Destruction? Last time I looked, Dendera is about to be destroyed by the bear’s violence!”
“Please don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you, not the bear.”
“I don’t want another word from you murderers!”
“Kayu, enough,” Kura Kuroi said, her voice a shadow of a whisper. “We can catch the bear by surprise. With my body, we can do that. That’s something to be happy for. I never thought this inferior body could be of such use.”
Still in shock, Kayu Saitoh muttered, “Happy? Are you stupid? Has life among all the fools of Dendera turned you stupid? How could you talk like that?”
“Kayu Saitoh!” Mei Mitsuya barked, thrusting her torch in front of the pinned woman’s eyes. The heat felt searingly hot against Kayu Saitoh’s eyeballs, but she didn’t close them. “You broke the rules,” the chief said.
“How can you talk about rules at a time like this?” Kayu Saitoh said.
“A time like this? Yes, we are in a state of emergency. And you’ll ruin us by butting in with your tiresome feelings. You’re deplorable. Take her away.”
Kayu Saitoh was to be forcibly removed from the hut before she was finished. But she had resisted all she could, and it had been for nothing. She decided to hold her tongue.
Then she heard Kura Kuroi feebly say, “I’m not stupid. I’ve found honor, far more than I’d ever known in the Village.”
Kayu Saitoh was taken to the manor.
Kaga Kasugai held her right arm, and Hotori Oze restrained her left, while Nokobi Hidaka and Tahi Kitajima blocked her escape to the front and behind respectively. Kayu Saitoh had no choice but to obey. The first time she’d been inside the manor, she hadn’t noticed the hole in the ground toward the rear of the earthen-floor entryway. Dirt had been dug and packed into ten steps leading belowground, and as the five women descended them, Kayu Saitoh felt a cool, moist breeze. At the bottom of the steps was a tiny room barred by six wooden poles. It was a jail. Kaga Kasugai wiggled the rightmost pole forward and back, releasing it, and tossed Kayu Saitoh inside. Then Kaga Kasugai and Tahi Kitajima went back up the stairs.
“Kayu, stay in there a little while,” Nokobi Hidaka said from the other side of the bars. “I understand how you must feel, but you mustn’t use violence.”
Choosing agreement over sarcasm, Kayu Saitoh said, “Apparently not.” She knew she needed to use her head now. “How long will I be in here?”
“Usually it’s for ten days, but I think you’ll only have two or three days this time, circumstances being what they are.”
“But the bear might come back today.”
“Not with how much it ate,” Nokobi Hidaka said. “We’ll be safe for today.” She scrunched her eyebrows, seeming to be picturing the bloody leavings of the brute’s feast and unable to decide if she should feel sickened or saddened.
“Tell me, why is violence so taboo here?” Kayu Saitoh asked. “I hardly did anything, and now I’m stuck in this cage.”
“Hono told you. The day we allow violence to happen here, everything will be destroyed.”
“The Village had violence.”
“It did.” Nokobi Hidaka sighed heavily, her breath white. “It was awful.”
Violence occurred often in the Village, though not between individuals. As the Mountain-Barring demonstrated, such incidents had been cleverly replaced by violence between individuals and the Village as a whole. For example, if a man had his romantic advances spurned by a woman, and he tried to vent his pent-up frustrations by spreading false claims against her, a violent act called the “Slack-Mouth” was permitted. The man was made to stand in public, while the woman and the members of her family could each place one stone in his mouth and punch him one time. For the next few weeks, the people of the Village made much merriment in exaggerating tales of the broken, sorry state of his teeth. Similarly, if a married person committed adultery, the “Slack-Groin” was sanctioned, and the guilty party and his or her partner were made to stand in public, where they were forcibly stripped, whether it was summer or winter, then ordered to have intercourse, while the people of the Village could cheer and applaud as they threw rocks at the couple.
When violence came, it was blind to the age and sex and social standing of its subjects. The judgments were as coldhearted as they were absolute, as if the Village itself was committing the act. Violence served to wipe away the people’s weariness and frustrations and made the Village function as one entity. It served both this purpose and to educate as well. The children were not only shown these many violences, such as Mountain Barring, the Slack-Mouth, and the Slack-Groin, but they were taught to enjoy them. Because they wanted to see something fun, children would report infractions, and because they didn’t want to become targeted, they behaved themselves. The Village was managed through violence, and Climbing the Mountain was the foremost example.
Nokobi Hidaka said, “Mei has no intention of running Dendera through violence like the Village does. I’ve lived here for eighteen years now. I’m an old-timer. So I know how Mei does things. She forbade all forms of violence. She didn’t even make an outlet for it.”
“And yet everything has worked out?”
“We’re so busy scrounging for food each day that we don’t have time for violence in the first place.”
“Nokobi Hidaka, I think you’re hiding something,” Kayu Saitoh said, pointing a finger at her. “You know the real reason violence is forbidden in Dendera, don’t you?”
“That’s enough,” Hotori Oze said, stepping forward.
Nokobi Hidaka placed her hand on her stooping back and climbed the stairs.
Hotori Oze watched the woman go, then wedged her face between the wooden bars, locked eyes with Kayu Saitoh, and said, “No more prying. That’s an order, Kayu Saitoh.”
Kayu Saitoh was always quick to accept any challenge or provocation, but this time she averted her eyes and sat down on the bare floor. Even in the Village, she hadn’t wanted anything to do with this woman.
Sixty years ago, Hotori Oze had married into the Village from her home in another land. Kayu Saitoh didn’t know from where she had come, not then and not now. The woman had appeared suddenly, showing her unfamiliar clothes and talking about unfamiliar things. Her disdain for the Village, apparent in her attitude, galled Kayu Saitoh, and when she advised the woman to correct her manners, Hotori Oze coldly replied that she didn’t have any desire to listen to Kayu Saitoh’s childish envies. Kayu Saitoh’s dislike for the woman may not have been the direct result of that incident, but it didn’t help. When Hotori Oze Climbed the Mountain seventeen years ago, Kayu Saitoh had been glad to be rid of her, though she certainly didn’t speak such thoughts aloud.
She shook off the recollection and tried to think of seventy and eighty-seven as not that far apart. Then she said, “I’m not prying. I’m just worried about the bear.”
“This is a time for self-reflection,” Hotori Oze said. “When you’re sorry for what you’ve done, you can get out of there and kill the bear. My life is not to be wasted on some animal.”
Despite her efforts, Kayu Saitoh’s tone turned belligerent. “What did you say? Are you some coward?”
“My life exists to attack the Village,” Hotori Oze replied. “To destroy the Village. To destroy the Village. To destroy the Village. The place where I was born was nothing like it. It was a good place.”
Saying no more, Hotori Oze disappeared up the stairs.
Kayu Saitoh was alone. With the torchlight gone, she was beset by darkness. The light of the hearth upstairs reache
d her so faintly that it might as well have not, and she could only barely perceive her own outline against the shadow. But even worse was the lack of heat. The cell was nearly as cold as the outside, and her nose ran, and her teeth chattered. Soon she could bear it no longer and tried to force herself to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come, and she remained awake until Nokobi Hidaka returned and provided her some straw. Normally, the prickly roughness of the stuff bothered her, but not today. She burrowed into the straw like a spoiled puppy, and gave herself over to sleep. When she awoke, neither the cold nor the dark had changed, and she hadn’t the slightest notion of how long she had slept. She sank back into the straw, deciding that even fitful sleep was preferable to thoughts of the bear and of Kura Kuroi as she suffered her continued imprisonment. She wished for a dream. She wanted to wear a kimono with beautiful colors. She wanted to have a smile on her face, a face without a wrinkle or even a single blemish. She wished for a dream of the time when she could dance and leap about in youthful exuberance. Perhaps because she wanted it too strongly, she didn’t dream at all.
Suddenly, she felt warm, and the pleasant feeling awoke her. Torch in hand, Nokobi Hidaka and Makura Katsuragawa were looking down on her.
Her voice listless, Makura Katsuragawa said, “Hey, Kayu. Looks like you’re awake.”
“Can I finally get out of here?”
“It’s only the first night,” Nokobi Hidaka said, moving her torch to direct more heat onto Kayu Saitoh.
“Then why are you two here?”
“Your dinner.” Nokobi Hidaka handed her a single potato through the prison bars.
“That’s all there is? You shouldn’t have bothered waking me.”
“Why, were you eating something nice in your dream?”
“My dream,” Kayu Saitoh said, the word carrying a sweetness. A part of her responded to the thought, trying to grab at it but failing, and in its place reality came crashing down on her. “Wait, what’s happened to Kura Kuroi?”