Authors: Kenzaburo Oe
Gii had asked Ikuo whether he thought they were all free to choose their own fate. Ikuo agreed in principle, and Gii went on to tell him how he’d surveyed the people in Kame Village, before it merged into Maki Town, to find the different paths people had chosen in their lives. When they had their school festival in the second year of junior high, Gii had made a display presentation of his findings in the social studies corner. Teachers and parents ignored it, but his display had turned out to be the impetus to forming the Fireflies. Gii had taken a copy of his findings out of the back pocket of his jacket to give to show Ikuo, clearly having prepared in advance for their talk. His list read as follows:
a
. People who live in the village who have some role to play in the social system. Those who control and who are controlled. Each side views the other critically.
b
. People who live in the village but have fallen out of the social system. People without any abilities: the elderly, those with severe handicaps, those who have committed crimes, children.
c
. People who live in the village who tried to create their own subsystem but failed. Leaders and followers in various movements. On the surface they have no influence, but behind the scenes it is a different story.
a
.
1
People who’ve left the valley to live in urban areas and have found a role to play there. These people are greatly respected in the village society, but since they live in cities they have no role to play in the village. Even
if they return to the village, they aren’t given a role, either up front or behind the scenes.
b
.
1
People who’ve left the village for urban areas and have fallen out of the social system there. Generally they’ve vanished, with no reports about them. Occasionally reports surface of some of them becoming criminals.
c
.
1
People who have left the village to live in urban areas and are attempting to create an independent subsystem. Though the possibility exists, no one has yet been victorious or been defeated in these endeavors. One example from the distant past of this would be Fujiwara Junyu from the lower reaches of the Maki River.
“Gii certainly has the ability to think abstractly,” Ogi said, in innocent admiration, as he read Gii’s notebook page. “If you took this to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t there also be a classification in
c
and
c
1
of people who were successful?”
“That’s probably because there weren’t any specific examples in
c
as there were in
c
1
,”
Ikuo said. “When Gii was dividing these into groups, I understand he did have some examples in mind. It’s kind of a typical junior high school way of doing things, but that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of abstract thought. In fact, as you say, it’s quite the opposite. In this classification system, I think Gii himself wants to be a successful example of
c
. In other words, one of Ogi’s missing pieces—someone who’s created a successful subsystem. That’s why he founded the Fireflies. Pretty bold fellow, I’d say.”
As Ikuo was bragging about them, Kizu thought that if it were up to him he would have called them nice kids—and he would have included Ikuo in this category.
“Gii knows that in this region there are examples in the
c
category who’ve failed. First of all there’s the man said to be his father, Satchan’s husband, the Brother Gii who made this lunch box.” Ikuo showed them the lunch box resting in his hand, the contents of which had been devoured, a box with trees painted on it with detailed green leaves. “There were still a lot of these lunch boxes left over at the farm. And Former Brother Gii, who led the so-called Base Movement. Also there are the leaders of the various insurrections and the legendary figures he’s uncovered.
“Gii told me, with a laugh, that he’s thoroughly investigated all these figures from the past in order
not
to follow their examples and has come up with his own idea: a plan—through his own subsystem of the Fireflies—to conquer this land. The children have pledged themselves to create this as their program for the future. This isn’t to say that all the members of the Fireflies have to remain here. Most of them would go to be educated in cities. But they
would never forget their pact and would return here as soon as they could. Those unable to return would support the Fireflies from the outside. It’s that sort of flexible pledge.
“What I find most intriguing is Gii’s notion that this land is the center of the world, and that creating his own subsystem here is equivalent to creating a subsystem in category
c
1
in the entire society. He grew up listening to legends of this land from old people here, who in turn had learned them from their own grandparents, and that’s where he came up with his worldview.”
Ikuo leaned forward to pop open a can of beer, and Dancer took the opportunity to ask a question.
“Ogi and I first thought the incident we experienced was a bit of harassment on the part of adults opposed to the church taking over the chapel, but later we learned it wasn’t the antichurch faction in Old Town at all but the work of these young boys. Do you get the sense that they have special feelings toward the Hollow?”
“As I mentioned,” Ikuo said, “the Fireflies have gone around collecting the legends of this region, and as they’ve done so they’ve started to believe that the Base Movement and the Church of the Flaming Green Tree are historically important. The Hollow for them is a kind of sacred ground that links all these groups. That being the case, when a bunch of outsiders from an unrelated church comes in and occupies this historic building, they can’t help but express how upset they are.”
“It’s like the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Kizu added, “though naturally there are more differences than similarities.”
“Actually,” Ikuo said, “Gii told me that with the sacred Hollow snatched away from them by our church they
do
feel like Palestinians.”
“But surely there are brighter prospects for coexistence here than in the Middle East,” Dancer said.
“First of all I’d like to get them to consider our position,” Ikuo said. “Also, as one member of the church, I’d like to consider what we have to offer to this land. Instead of cooperating with the village authorities to suppress the Fireflies, I think it would be much smarter to get to know them better. At any rate, Patron has agreed to my negotiating. And I want to. After all, Gii’s the son of the owner of the Farm, with whom we’ll be working closely.”
“The more connections we have with the local people the better, I think,” Ogi said. “I haven’t told Professor Kizu this yet, but Asa-san phoned a while ago about the art school and said the local schools can’t help. According to her, the Old Town faction opposing the church staged a comeback.”
“Is that right? I suppose it’s to be expected,” Kizu said disappointedly. “If Aum Shinrikyo had had an artist among them who wanted to open a painting class in the village at the foot of Mount Fuji where they had their headquarters, I don’t suppose the locals would have welcomed the idea.”
“I thought it was going to work out, having the former junior high principal’s wife pulling for you,” Dancer said, a note of dissatisfaction in her voice, though Kizu was already resigned to it.
After dinner, Ogi and Dancer still had work left to do, so Ikuo and Kizu left them at the office, leaving behind a few cans of beer. When they’d left their house on the north shore of the Hollow the wind had made them shiver, and now while they’d eaten dinner the wind whipping down the north slope had gotten even colder and was accompanied by a thick fog, unseasonable even for these woods. The only light was set up where the path through the courtyard ran downhill, so the rest of the time they walked in darkness.
Kizu called out to Ikuo, who was shining his flashlight on the fog-shrouded dam as they walked along.
“They say the dam was made to collect water from the river and from natural springs, but it’s really an amazing amount of water—even in the dark you can sense that. One older person who used to act as electrician at the former Izu Institute proposes to redo the lighting around the chapel and the monastery. He says he’ll also put a light that will burn all night at the corner where we turn to go up to our house. Can’t have anyone falling in the lake, now, can we.”
“The Technicians who’ve moved here have really been working hard. I imagine they think that if they do, this place can become a good foothold for them. Things have gotten pretty lively at the farm since they started working there, that’s for sure.”
Very considerately Ikuo moved behind Kizu so as to light up the path ahead for him. With this young man so immersed in his work, though, Kizu felt more and more left behind.
2
The next Sunday, Ikuo left near dawn to join the Young Fireflies in their training as they made one complete circuit of the forest. Despite his physical condition, Kizu didn’t find it hard to get up early, so he joined Ikuo for breakfast before he set off. Afterward, afraid of the dull pain that sometimes hit him right after he awoke, Kizu wrapped himself in his blanket, opened the window on the lake, and sat looking at the swirl of thin fog outside. The birds
weren’t yet chirping, and bees buzzed halfheartedly around the leaves of the oak trees, dripping with the fog.
Before long—from the woods that ran behind the monastery on the heights of the opposite shore, where the fog was lifting—he could sense a line of people cutting through across the woods. He could hear the sound of trees being struck and lush branches snapping—all to the accompaniment of the sound of soft-soled sneakers, so this wasn’t some herd of animals. Was it really natural for people used to walking through the woods to make so much noise? Perhaps, Kizu considered, Gii was deliberately having his boys cause a commotion to advertise their presence.
Two hours later Ikuo was back, redolent of fresh foliage and grasses, and he asked Kizu if he’d noticed them passing by in the woods. Racing through the forest with a group of young men seemed much better able to revive him than spending time shut up indoors with an older man. Kizu just listened as Ikuo enthusiastically talked about what he’d found out about Gii.
“He seems to be about fourteen, though his mother has never disclosed his birth date, so even on his family record it’s not clear how old he is. This is why Gii says there are people here who insist he’s adopted or even stolen. Did you know that until she graduated from high school, Satchan lived as a man?
“Anyhow, Gii’s only about fourteen, but he lives with a woman, if you can believe it, an old friend of Satchan’s who came back here awhile back; she does dyeing. Gii helped her collect the tree branches she needed for her plant dyes and that’s how they became friends. Gii says he finds it amusing how, no matter what he says, the older woman always replies, ‘No way!’”
That afternoon, Kizu and Ikuo happened to run across that same woman at the crossroads at the main bridge. At first Kizu thought she was bald. The head on top of her well-balanced muscular body had sparse reddish hair wrapped around it.
Just as it had upgraded to having vending machines, the general store at the crossroads had begun to accept parcel post deliveries, and Kizu wanted to check on the art materials donated to him by the store in Tokyo. According to the owner of this local shop, a thin, gloomy man who never looked you straight in the eye, several boxes had indeed been delivered, but this was before anyone from the church had moved into the Hollow, so he’d returned them to the main office in Matsuyama, where they were in storage.
After some tiresome haggling with the owner, they agreed that he would go pick them up, provided Kizu paid for it, the owner finally coming out from the entrance of the old wooden building to accept their documents. A woman who had been in the back of the dirt-floored entrance preparing a long box for shipping ran after him.
“Hello, Professor! It
is
Professor Kizu, isn’t it? I’m Mayumi, the one you helped arrange an exhibit of Japanese dyed cloth in New Jersey. I’d heard from Gii that you were here.”
Kizu searched his memory as he gazed at the woman, clad in a white-and indigo-dyed dress, her face with its taut tanned leathery skin smiling at him.
“I must look very different to you, I’m sure. I used to have quite luxuriant hair, but this spring I developed a rash from the dyes, and look what’s happened. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
Kizu’s memory was still a little hazy, but Mayumi was sure he remembered her and continued, bashful at her own recollections.
“Would you mind talking for a while? There’s no coffee shop along the river, but there
is
a nice little place just right for having a talk.”
Kizu and Ikuo agreed, and Mayumi led them on, a basket woven from arrowroot swinging at her side.
“Just up the river from the main bridge there’s an old bridge at the next curve in the road. No one drives on it anymore, and it’s perfect to sit there and have a chat or to cool off. In fact that’s how the local people have been using it.”
The bridge had a weathered railing made of coarse granite, with a line of logs set up to keep cars out and thick knobby stumps and short logs arranged for people to sit on, making the bridge into a small park. Mayumi led them to the center.
On the opposite shore a grove of zelkovas formed a screen with their still, soft, light-green leaves. Seeing Kizu observing the trees so closely, Mayumi explained about the zelkovas and the broad-leafed woods on both sides of them. When she moved into the small house next to the farm, construction on the cross-Shikoku highway bypass was in full swing, and the cypress and cedar woods had all been mercilessly leveled. Cracks and holes appeared all through the broad-leafed woods that ran down to the riverside. But in the years since, the forest had recovered, and looking from below, at least, greenery covered the remaining wall of the bypass that ran though it—so much so that if a major economic downturn came and the bypass were to close, trees and vines would soon cover the slope completely, returning it to the state it was in before human beings inhabited the valley.