Kenzaburo Oe - Death by Water

“For those reporters, having their freedom of expression thwarted was exactly the same as if their newspapers had been physically trampled into the ground, and this print could be interpreted as a symbolic depiction of the dilemma they faced. In the foreground, the angrylooking dog that’s facing in our direction, just beginning to bark, is shown in extreme close-up. But is the dog meant to symbolize the newspaper reporters who were resisting the government’s interference, or does it represent the oppressive wielders of authority? I talked about this with some of the cultural movers and shakers who took me to the exhibition where I bought this print, and their opinions were divided between those two interpretations. But the truth is, I just bought this piece, in all innocence, because I liked it. At the end of my term at El Colegio de México (the national graduate school), I received a half year’s pay as a single lump-sum payment, and I used it to buy the print. It’s signed by the artist: Siqueiros.”

“Oh, you mean the Siqueiros?” Unaiko asked. She looked genuinely surprised and impressed. “I had no idea. I’ve seen photos of his big public murals in art books. The funny thing is, I’ve been thinking all along that whoever created this little print must be quite an exceptional artist. Asa was even saying the other day that we should try to make some stuffed dogs with this same kind of visual impact!”

“That reminds me, when you were in tech for your dog-tossing play at the theater in the round, Asa mentioned something about wanting to hang this in the auditorium lobby,” I said.

“Yes, she was saying that the only complaint she had about the production was that there were some people in the audience who thought the stuffed dogs were cute, ” Unaiko said, wrinkling her nose. “She wanted to hang this fierce picture in the lobby to dispel that impression. Next time we do a show, would you please let us borrow it? And, if you didn’t mind, it would be great if we could photograph this print and put the image on T-shirts for our entire crew to wear, like a uniform.”

“Please put me on the list for one of those shirts, too!” Daio said brightly. I had noticed earlier that he was rather stylishly dressed (especially for someone his age) in a beige corduroy jacket worn over a shirt of heavy brown cotton, and it occurred to me that his fashion sense appeared to have evolved considerably during the years since I’d seen him last.

We all trooped into the dining room, where Unaiko had laid out a meal of eggs, toast, and coffee. Daio had eaten breakfast before he came, so he only wanted coffee. Holding his cup, he stood behind Akari’s chair. “Akari, your back’s hurting, isn’t it?” he asked. “Especially here at the very base, on this side?”

“Yes, it hurts a lot,” Akari replied in a voice unusually full of emotion. “It’s been hurting all the time, for a while now.”

“Please just go on eating,” Daio said. “I’m going to try touching your back in a few places but it won’t hurt, I promise.”

As he spoke those reassuring words Daio knelt next to Akari’s chair and began to apply light pressure in the vicinity of Akari’s lower back, using his right hand. (Since he didn’t have a left arm, Daio had to lean his upper body against the back of the chair for leverage.)

“How about here, Akari? It probably felt sore when you were lying in bed, am I right?”

“Yes, very sore,” Akari said.

“I’m not actually going to touch this spot, but I want to ask you about the bottom of your spine — your backbone,” Daio said. “Did you by any chance fall and land on your backside?”

“Once when I was having a seizure I fell down in the entryway at home,” Akari replied. “It started feeling bad after that.”

“Akari, I know your back hurts, so I haven’t been touching the area around that bone. But now Uncle Daio is going to touch the sore place, just for a second. All right?” As Daio continued poking around, Akari’s torso, which was rigid with tension, gave an involuntary start.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Daio said. “You’re a very stoic person, aren’t you, Akari? I mean, you’re very patient and brave. You have had some discomfort when you were in bed at night, but you never mentioned it to anyone?”

“No, I didn’t tell anybody,” Akari replied, looking up at Daio.

Daio turned to me. “Kogito, after my training camp closed, one of my former disciples got some medical training and then came back and opened an osteopathy office in Honmachi. Some years later, the man’s son-in-law went to a university med school, and when he returned after graduation he converted the osteopathy offices into a regular medical clinic. We ought to take Akari there and get some X-rays, for starters. I think we’ll find that one side of the lowest thoracic vertebra in his spinal column has somehow gotten crushed. I have to say it again: Akari is being exceptionally patient and brave about this.”

Akari had gone back to staring down at his plate, but it was apparent that he had already come to trust the much older man (slightly built but with perfectly erect, military-style posture) who was kneeling beside his chair. Daio appeared extremely flushed: his entire face was suffused with blood, from his shriveled, walnut-colored cheeks all the way to the base of his neck, evidently from pride about his amateur diagnosis.

Perhaps because I didn’t immediately concur with Daio’s suggestion, Unaiko shot me a critical look, then said, “The X-rays should probably be done as soon as possible. Ricchan is using our car this morning, so could you please take Akari to the clinic you mentioned in your car, Daio? I’ll ride along, if that’s okay.”

2

After their visit to the local clinic, Akari and Daio returned to the Forest House. The X-rays had confirmed Daio’s intuitive diagnosis: Akari’s lowermost thoracic vertebra had been crushed and he had muscular damage in his back as well. When I called to tell Asa, she gave me the name of a specialist at the Red Cross Hospital in Matsuyama who would be able to make a plaster cast. (At the time I was still feeling flustered by this new development and I mistakenly said that it was the thirteenth vertebra, but Asa was quick to inform me that the human anatomy contains no such bone.)

After lunch Akari and Daio headed out again, this time to Matsuyama. I saw them off (noting again that my son had placed his entire trust in the older man), then went upstairs and lay motionless on my bed, unable to summon enough energy even to read a book. I couldn’t stop thinking about Akari’s back trouble, which was unlike anything we’d dealt with before. I had felt uneasy about his evident discomfort while we were seated on the airplane, but why hadn’t I followed up right away? I thought, too, about the state of mind that had caused Akari to choose suffering in silence over sharing his pain with his father.

I heard the sound of someone loitering at the bottom of the stairs, and when I went down to check I found Unaiko standing in the entry hall.

“Ricchan’s back, and when I told her I was concerned about how dejected you seemed to be, she reminded me that Asa had told us about a place out in the boonies called the Saya,” she said. “We’ve been meaning to go there for some recon, since the location will have some bearing on our next public performance, and she suggested you might be willing to give us a guided tour.”

I returned to my room to change into the proper gear for traipsing through a forest, and when I went downstairs again I found Unaiko waiting for me in the elevated driver’s seat of the Caveman Group’s van, looking fresh and crisp after her own change of clothes. I climbed into the passenger seat.