Kenzaburo Oe - Death by Water

“Akari really hates it when they interrupt his music programs with a breaking-news bulletin, especially when it has to do with murder or any other kind of violent crime,” Ricchan said. “I don’t think our discussion about the state-sanctioned killing of kings sat well with him. That’s why he slammed the door.”

I turned to Daio. “By the way,” I said, “I’ve finally come to understand why my mother and sister were so terrified I might someday finish the drowning novel. I think they were afraid I would tell the world that the Kochi Sensei was using The Golden Bough to convince my father and his cohorts to kill the living god: that is, Emperor Hirohito.”

When Daio didn’t respond, I went on, “The thing is, Daio, the events of that night — the feverish atmosphere of the meeting at the storehouse, and the way the officers seemed to suddenly be ostracizing my father — struck me as completely mystifying at the time. I still find them baffling, even now. What I’d like to know, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me, is whether my father and the young officers really understood each other. I mean, suddenly their ties are severed, and my father rushes out alone and drowns. Surely those occurrences must have had some effect on you, as a young man who looked up to my father?”

The sunlight from the back garden seemed to have turned Daio’s close-cropped white hair into a kind of golden aureole. He stood there for a moment with his head held high, thinking, while I waited for an answer. Evidently something about this tableau rubbed Ricchan the wrong way because she snapped, “Hey, how long do you guys expect Akari to stay barricaded in the restroom in self-defense? I mean, he was down here trying to relax, and then he was forced to put up with your talk about death and murder and drowning, just a few feet away! It’s almost time for one of his favorite FM radio programs, Classics Special, so maybe you two could give him a little space. Please?”

Then she added in a softer tone, “This afternoon we’ll be going to the Saya again, and you’re both welcome to tag along. If you could just do us the favor of not hanging around too close to where Akari’s listening to his music, you can continue your gruesome discussion at the top of your lungs, if that’s what you want to do!”

3

After leaving the van in a large open space (a designated turnaround for forestry trucks), we set out on foot along the pathway, thickly bordered by trees and bushes, that crossed over the mountain stream. Daio led the way, with a thin exercise mat and a blanket draped over his one arm, and the rest of us followed in single file. Ricchan was the very model of a perfect caregiver. Carrying a large Boston bag, she stepped carefully in her canvas walking shoes while her body language seemed to be saying, If Akari should lose his balance and start to fall, I’m ready to jump into the shrubbery and hold him up.

The path dead-ended at the lower part of the Saya. We stopped there and Daio spread out the exercise mat on a flat, narrow strip of grassland next to the stream. Ricchan, meanwhile, was extracting the components of the portable sound system and an assortment of CDs from the ubiquitous Boston bag. After Akari had taken a seat on the mat and started to remove his shoes, Daio and I took our leave and headed toward the upper reaches of the Saya.

“I remember the war was still going on when I was given the second floor of the paperbush warehouse down by the river as a place to stay,” Daio said as we climbed the hill, side by side. “I settled in nicely, but I didn’t set foot in the ‘Saya zone’—that is, this area right here — until quite a bit later.”

“The Saya has had an important place in local history for centuries,” I replied, “but it was never one of the spots local people would share with a visitor from the outside world.”

“I remember one time I was invited to go fishing with the man I’ve mentioned, whose son-in-law became a doctor,” Daio said. “It was sweetfish season, as I recall. Anyhow, he told me the triangular delta where your father’s body washed ashore is considered a ‘special spot,’ and he said that even after all these years children still won’t go in the water there. When you think about the ancient landmarks in an area like this, each with its own story, it kind of makes sense that a relatively new site could have taken on ‘special’ overtones as well.

“Kogito, I know you’ve been having a recurrent dream about what you saw the night of the big flood, when your father took off in his little boat. Asa said you kept insisting that you felt as though you had really seen your father sinking to the bottom of the deep river, and I can’t help thinking the image might have been something you dreamed. Why? Because I was the one who spotted Choko Sensei’s dead body lying on the riverbed in shallow water, and you were nowhere in sight. Asa said you were always saying that Kogii (who was already in the boat) and you were the only ones who saw what happened that night, but she knew for a fact that your mother was standing on top of the promontory, watching the whole scene unfold. And I know there was at least one other witness, because that witness was me.

“After I saw Choko Sensei take off in his little boat, I ran back to tell the army officers. After a great deal of discussion, some of us decided to go out looking for your father as soon as it began to get light. I remember the sky was just beginning to show some faint signs of dawn when we jumped on bicycles and set off down the road along the river. At the top of the sandbar down by Honmachi, we ran into someone who had happened to see a boat flipping over by the light of the moon, so we figured we should start by searching the area along the sandbar. We split up, and as I’ve mentioned before, I was the one who found Choko Sensei’s body lying in some shallow water.

“That’s how it happened, but afterward your mother tried to make sure you never got a chance to talk to anyone who had been involved in pulling your father’s body out of the water; I guess she wanted to protect you from hearing the awful details. You left home when you were fifteen, and from then on you didn’t really hang out much with anyone from here, did you? And even during the five years between your father’s death and your departure for Tokyo, you were kind of a loner. I’ve run into some people who knew you in those days, and they said that whenever they saw you at the new middle school you always seemed to be sitting alone in an empty classroom between classes and at lunchtime, reading a book. Asa was really your only link to this area, and thanks to your mother, you and your sister were estranged for many years. I’m not sure, but I think you may be the only person raised around here who ever uprooted himself so completely — roots, trunk, branches, leaves, and all, as the saying goes.

“But even after everything that’s happened since you moved away, I think at heart you’re still a boy from the forest. I mean, the things you write draw heavily on the stories your mother and grandmother told you growing up, and no matter how much you embellish them with imagination, for me, your books always seem to smell like the truth. That reminds me of something I used to say to your mother during her later years — of course, by then you had long since become a Tokyoite and rarely visited, even though she had finally relented and granted you the freedom to visit whenever you pleased (just as long as you didn’t show up too often).

“Anyhow, I remember one time I said to her, ‘Kogito’s novels are pure fantasy, aren’t they? It’s amazing to me that he can exercise his imagination to such a degree and make things up out of whole cloth. When you come right down to it, I guess it’s a simple matter of talent.’