by Kenzaburo Oe
Though he had just taken his first step into that intricate passage that connects childhood and youth, he understood everything a certain party said atop the truck that day. In his small head inside a fake helmet, aflame not only with the heat but also the matter that had been enfolded in it, he understood. A certain party’s words ignited his child’s passion at its very source, and his ten-year-old body-and-soul, truly alive atop that speeding truck, shook, radiant and electrified, as though it had been struck by lightning. As the army truck emerged from the valley in the dense forest and started up ninety-nine-curve-pass, they were released from the deep green darkness of the evergreen trees that had walled off their view, and could look out across an expanse of young deciduous woods that were dry beneath the summer sun but retained a pale green luster. And now he gazed at the scenery with the new eyes of a bird, a sharp-eyed bird, a hawk or a peregrine falcon. Tree-leaves, as far as he could see, were trembling ceaselessly. What he had never noticed while he lived in the valley surrounded by a forest, that tree-leaves trembled continuously even when the wind was still, he now perceived distinctly as he finally left the forest depths and at ten was about to end his life. The leaves on the trees are always moving! I’ll remember that until I die, until I die fighting in the army a certain party is leading into revolt! As he was thinking this, a fighter plane appeared from the direction of the provincial city, coming in low over the pass, and the soldiers began shouting,
____Look how reckless he is, he doesn’t care what happens any more!
____We’d better get the planes we need fast, before those bastards crash them!
____We need at least ten, then we can all fly over the palace and skyrocket ourselves!
____Our objective is junshi * —death as allegiance—it’s junshi for us all!
It’s junshi for us all—the hot thorns in the words pierced his small heart, lodged there and continued to burn. And the heat originating inside him empowered his strong eyes and he was able to see, from one corner to the other of the slopes that dropped steeply toward the pass which the fighter plane had just circled and left behind, the hundreds of millions of leaves tilting upward in the strong wind that had risen and to see, vastly and distinctly, the undersides of those hundreds of millions of tilted leaves shining with a silvery gray light. This must be a signal! A certain party will lead our army in an uprising and we will all die. And these soldiers are singing that they want to die as quickly as possible, and are waiting for his Majesty to wipe their tears away with his own hand. His heart pumped vigorously and the pressure in his blood vessels surged until his eardrums sang and all he could hear on the other side of that curtain of piercing sound was the silence of all things. Like a ferret he lifted his head and rotated it, gazing at the soldiers with love and pity through eyes about to dissolve in tears. In contrast to all the other soldiers who had come to the valley during the war, including the cadets who had tapped pine tree roots for oil, who had treated “small citizens” with excessive kindness, the soldiers on the truck had been cold and rough with him from the beginning, had even behaved as if he were unclean. Also they had been drinking steadily in the storehouse since the previous night, and singing drunkenly, and were in general a far cry from the image of the soldier he had cherished until now. But such impurities as these he forgave and accepted with utmost tenderness, and saw in them the very model of “true” soldiers. For these were soldiers not merely unafraid of death but awaiting death eagerly, and he was able now to confirm unwaveringly a choice that had been made with them already somewhere along the way, that he was about to die as a member of their band, and thus effortlessly to transcend the source of his shame for several years, both the hesitation he could confess to no one in his regular answer to the daily classroom question Will you die happily for the Emperor? Yes, I’ll die happily, and his fear late at night when he pictured actual death in war. Before long he was even imitating the officers and soldiers and singing along in his shrill voice.
Komm, O Tod, du Schlafes Bruder,
Komm und führe mich nur fort;
[[Lying there in bed singing away like that I don’t know if this child is serious or what, but there’s no way Heiland can mean “emperor”! And as for having their tears wiped away, those soldiers had worked themselves up to where they were ready to bomb the personage that was supposed to do the wiping, yessir! When that officer came to the main house he called for me by the last name of my real father, which made me suspicious enough to go over to the storehouse, and when I got there a certain party couldn’t even look me in the face, because he was about to make an outrageous demand on top of having brought me there with his little trick. But the soldiers spun his barber’s chair around unsparingly, yessir! so he lowered his eyes right quick, and then drunkenly, his face beneath his stubble of beard beet-red from the saké they’d poured into him, he had the nerve to say to me,
____We’ll accomplish what your father tried and failed to do. We’re going to steal ten fighter planes from the army airfield, and disguise them to look like American planes and bomb the Imperial palace. There’s no other way left to make the Japanese people rise up again and protect the true essence of our nation! After all the bigshot talk about some crazy dream I wondered what was coming next, and the first thing I knew I was being asked to hand over my stocks for battle funds. Well, he was so mean and low I felt I couldn’t listen to a certain party a minute more, so I set my seal to the forms just as he asked me to, yessir! I didn’t know it at the time, because we still couldn’t get telegrams or anything, but the day the Soviet Union had entered the war my foster father had shot himself in Harbin. It was my foster father who had given me the stocks! He’d chosen them because he figured they were stocks the government would help the stock exchange honor even if we lost the war. He must have had control over the bank in our region, he arranged for the bank to take care of everything. Well, a certain party had me put my seal on the papers that released those stocks, and he had me write a letter of agreement on top of that, and then he took the papers and those soldiers took him and carted him off in a ridiculous wooden box with sawed-off logs for wheels. He was hurting bad, and I suppose he must have taken the narcotic drugs he’d bought in China and maybe stuffed them in his nose, because he was reeling like a top, yessir! It was a cruel business, but I didn’t go out of my way to interfere. But in my heart I kept a-thinking to myself, Now you’ll see! Any minute now you’ll see! Ah, what a cruel business, how cruelly the bigshot is going to be used! The child, who of course had no inkling of any of this, he was clutching old diapers for to wipe away blood from a certain party’s bladder, his bayonet clanking at his side, so grim and determined he was pale, lord knows what he was thinking! Well, if you’re wondering whether the soldiers who took a certain party with them really drove that truck onto an army airfield and stole fighter planes and flew to Tokyo, they did no such thing! There was a shootout at the bank entrance, and a certain party and all the soldiers were killed, yessir! None of the officers was killed but they never turned up again, and I don’t know what happened to the stocks, maybe they couldn’t be sold in the confusion after the surrender and maybe they were sold and someone made off with the money, no stocks or money turned up again so I reckon those officers took the money and ran. And I bet that’s what they planned to do all along, yessir! I think a certain party had sensed it, too, and what he planned to do was go through the motions of that fake uprising and then climb back into his wooden box and come home nursing his bladder and announce The officers betrayed me, the boy knows the whole story! and then hide away at the back of that storehouse again! But someone thought a certain party and his bunch had gone into the bank to rob it, or maybe they were planning to rob it themselves and thought someone was there ahead of them, anyhow, instead of notifying the police in that chaos after the surrender they drove up in their own army truck and shot down a certain party and his bunch as they came out of the bank. In his right hand a certain party held his army sword, and he was
waving his left hand frantically as if he was shouting Stop! Stop! but they say he was shot down before he could actually shout a word, yessir!]]
It was truly a pitched battle in the streets, and overhead, fighter planes, possibly Japanese and possibly American, probably both, swooped so low their roar shook the streets. The only one who experienced the entire battle and understood its significance fully was himself. And now, examining once again, in light of the true significance of that battle, the fact that the uprising actually occurred on August sixteenth, he saw for the first time the importance of that date and no other and understood more clearly than before the structure of the festival culmination of his Happy Days. August fifteenth, 1945, the Emperor swiftly descended to earth to announce the surrender in the voice of a mortal man. August sixteenth, his Majesty was circling upward in a swift ascent again. Though it was inevitable that he die in a bombing once, now truly he would revive as the national essence itself, and more certainly than before, more divinely, as a ubiquitous chrysanthemum, would cover Japan and all her people. As a golden chrysanthemum illuminated from behind by a vast purple light and glittering like an aurora, his Majesty would manifest himself. Who is to say that the many gods who have figured in the history of our land did not on that day require of the Emperor who had descended to speak in a mortal voice, in order that the dignity of our national essence be elevated once again, the ritual purification of death by bombing at the hands of martyrs in a plane?
In fact, the palace was not bombed. Instead, a certain party, leading a small, select unit, not on horseback to be sure but in a wooden box mounted on sawed logs like pulleys, confronted the enemy head on, military sword held high, and was shot down. And what if the battle did take place in front of a bank from which some funds had been peacefully withdrawn and not at an airfield where fighter planes to be disguised were being seized, how much can that have depreciated it? Was there a street battle fought anywhere else in all Japan on August sixteenth, 1945, even if it was at the entrance to a bank, that could have resulted in a certain party’s death? Although they would have been justified in resorting to any means whatsoever to raise the money they needed to achieve their objective, a certain party and his army went in to get it lawfully. Whether they succeeded is unknown, for as they emerged from the bank with the wooden wagon bearing a certain party in the lead, another army that had driven up in a different army truck opened fire, even the fighter plane flying low overhead joined the attack, and a certain party’s army was annihilated. Why did the other army attack? Wasn’t it really a unit controlled by spies of the Allies, afraid their maneuvering to end the war might backfire in the final stage? A certain party was planning to disguise Japanese fighters as American planes, why shouldn’t someone else have tried the opposite experiment? Very likely a certain party was strafed, and killed, by a plane disguised to look like a Japanese fighter but flown by an American. It was probably the very plane that had appeared as they were crossing ninety-nine-curve-pass, which had continued following them and finally had attacked.
And a certain party, leaping beyond his limitations as an individual at the instant of his death, rendered manifest a gold chrysanthemum flower 675,000 kilometers square, surmounted and surrounded by, yes, a purple aurora, high enough in the sky to cover entirely the islands of Japan. Because the other, attacking army opened fire on their truck first, the soldiers nearby the boy were immediately massacred and he alone survived. A certain party had requested this of the gods on high, for it was crucial that someone, someone chosen, witness the gold chrysanthemum obliterate the heavens with its luster at the instant of his death. And, in truth, the boy did behold the appearance high in the sky, not blocking the light as would a cloud but even managing to increase the glittering radiance of the sun in the blue, midsummer sky, of a shining gold chrysanthemum against a vast background of purple light. And when the light from that flower irradiated his Happy Days they were instantly transformed into an unbreaking, eternal construction built of light. From that instant on, for the twenty-five years that were to be the remainder of his life, he would constantly inhabit this strong edifice of light that was his Happy Days. Half-standing in the cart, his sword held high in his right hand, his left hand thrust out in front of him and spread so wide that each white, fat finger was distinctly visible, a certain party faced his chosen son and spoke as follows, heedless of the enemy firing into him, Have you seen what must be seen? For the next quarter-century that you will live remember always what you have seen, All has been accomplished, you have seen what must be seen, Survive and remember, that is your role, Do nothing else! All has been accomplished! When a certain party finished speaking a fighter plane dived, machine guns ringing, and the head protruding from the wooden cart became a round, bright red pomegranate full of cracks, the mouth, still full of reddish darkness at the back, wrenched open by an unuttered scream.
[[When the person who has climbed onto his bed suddenly yanks his underwater goggles up to his hairline “he” is quick to shut his eyes against the painful glare, but already they have teared. I thought he might be talking that nonsense because he was delirious with fever, but his eyes are normal! The voice that has come from the foot of the bed until now speaks in the darkness above his head, and before “he” can adjust his goggles two thin, scratchy thumbs expertly wipe away the tears in the corners of his closed eyes. His face is so thin, he looks just the way he did when he was a child, it’s like his face as a little boy at the end of the war when there wasn’t enough to eat, yessir! In the darkness overhead from where the voice falls “he” distinguishes a single after-image, like a photo printed with a flashlight. Coal-black hair, eyes bulging from eyelids like gray grapes, narrow, egg-shaped face trimmed of flesh, expressionless, dry skin. In his imagination the image merges swiftly with the negative of the last photograph taken of____before his execution. Though he was only twenty-six, the brutal trial and death sentence were said to have turned the young monk’s hair white. If he was in his right mind when he did all that talking, why, he’s got to be challenged! says the person wedged down close to the floor again beyond the foot of his bed. To see what must be seen—my real father found that line in the Tale of the Heike when he read it in prison and sent it to relatives that were about to be bereaved, yessir! Can you imagine a certain party turning to a pitiful little child and speaking to him in classical Japanese? This child made that preposterous conversation up because he hoped it would excuse him from responsibility for that incident on August sixteenth, yessir! If I’d known it was going to hold his mind prisoner all those years I would never have let him set out that morning all determined like a silly fool and his bayonet a-clanking! It was a cruel business, yessir! A certain party did a lot of mean and low things with his little rising sun flag in his headband and his chrysanthemum crest on his back, in China and Manchuria, but the lowest thing he ever did was drag this child along on that make-believe uprising! He knew it was a fake that would fail, he even wanted it to fail, and he took the child along because he was afraid of the rumor after the fiasco that he never had been in earnest. He took the ridiculous, transparent, mean-and-low precaution of having——’s grandson along with him, because he figured that would make it easier to convince people he really had been prepared to bomb the palace. And young as he was, this child must have understood that perfectly well. Because while a certain party and the officers were in the bank transacting business, before anything had happened, he got scared to death and jumped out of that army truck where he’d been told to wait and ran off! He must have, otherwise he’d have been killed as soon as the shooting started! Not only the driver but all the soldiers who stayed with that truck were shot to death right away! This child didn’t run off after the shooting began, he had the feeling he was being used to give credibility to the entire fake uprising, and that’s when he ran off. Down inside he’d been frightened right along about the blood of a traitor running in his veins, wondering when that blood would start to work in him, and when he w
as told he was actually on his way to bomb the palace he decided the responsibility was all his, because the blood flowing in his body led to the kind of action that turned the country’s history upside-down, and that made him want to run and run as far away as he could go, even from his own body, yessir! And when a certain party was shot to death as they pushed his wooden wagon out of the bank it was probably this child who was more relieved than anyone! When the police who brought the news drove me to the scene of the crime later that day, that wooden box with wooden wheels like large pulleys was standing in a bombed-out lot next to the bank, all spattered with blood, and a certain party’s stiff corpse was sticking out at an angle like a fountain pen somebody had stuck into the box, but this child wasn’t watching over him, he was squatting down in the shadow of a truck with the air raid crew that had carried away the soldiers’ bodies, and every once in a while he’d steal a quick look in the direction of the box, peering through the dusk. And no one had any idea he was the son of the dead man in that wooden box! He deceived everyone that day, the air raid crew, the police, the soldiers, and he’s been deceiving without a minute’s rest ever since. I never said a word to him about the blood flowing in his veins until now, he managed to dig that up himself and he began fearing it by himself. Neither a certain party or this child were serious about bombing the palace, just playing with the idea had them both so horrified they began scrambling around for a way out. There’s no point in speaking ill of a certain party after all these years. But I still can’t understand where he found the gall to tell a person who wasn’t able to live anywhere on these islands just because she was the daughter of a man who had been implicated in grand treason, and who just barely managed to survive overseas by becoming the foster daughter of an agitator who was a socialist and an ultra-nationalist at the same time, We will accomplish what your father tried and failed to do—now if that wasn’t gall I don’t know what is! Especially when he wasn’t even serious about it, just trying to get money out of me! At the time I didn’t have the energy to find out whether the stocks had been sold or not, but assuming they hadn’t and were still worth something, we would have had an easy time after the war. But a certain party made sure this child and I would have hard times after the war, and then he tells me We’ll accomplish what your father tried and failed to do—that’s how mean and low he was, yessir! Of course this child is just as mean and low, he’s afraid there may even be an emperor in the Japanese world after death, and if the emperor over yonder said to him You may not have rebelled against the emperor in the world of the living, but you escaped by committing suicide, which means you weren’t truly a subject, either, he’s terrified he wouldn’t have an answer, and that’s why he won’t commit suicide, but he tries to blame it on me. Which seems pretty rude, impertinent too, wouldn’t you say, considering I’m——’s daughter! And now the child can hardly wait to die of cancer, the day and hour of his death is all he can think about and it makes him so excited he can’t help singing a happy song, and do you know why? Because he reckons he’s finally going to be able to run away and not be responsible, yessir! YOU’RE RIGHT! YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! shouts the “acting executor of the will,” who has been silent for some time. Do you know he’s made me promise over and over again that I’ll take our child and marry an American when he dies! He even went out and found an American deserter. We kept him at home for a long time as a member of the family, and a number of times he pretended to get drunk and started carrying on, trying to make me seduce the American. He hopes that if his child becomes an American citizen his own blood will be freed from both the emperor and the ghost of the name of____. Abruptly “he” shouts in a voice like a cracked bell, his underwater goggles bouncing on the bridge of his nose, I RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR POSITION AS “ACTING EXECUTOR OF THE WILL”! Listen to him still carrying on, mean and low as he is! The voice crawls up from beyond the foot of his bed. I’ll take the child back to the forest, and you come along, dear, and we’ll live together. This time I’ll make right sure to tell the child about his great-grandfather____. Sooner or later the Japanese are going to change their attitude about what happened, and I intend to live to see it, yessir! THIS IS THE DREAM. THIS MUST BE THE DREAM! I’ve figured out the dream that’s been making me scream and weep! “he” shouts, and bursts into tears, writhing on his bed. It is a dream, truly. When he was a child he used to have cruel dreams and sob, and he’s still dreaming and weeping uselessly! The mild, flat voice from below the foot of the bed is comforting now. And here he is thirty-five years old, it’s a cruel business! When he was a child he’d dream the teacher at elementary school was asking him If the emperor ordered you to die, would you die? and he’d sob and repeat the cruel answer in his sleep, Yes, I would die, I would die happily! and here he is thirty-five years old and still weeping away as if the teacher was asking him that same question, it’s a cruel business, yessir!]]