Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa's Deluge Read online

  I trudged forward, groaning internally. Yasuda was oblivious to all this, having already entered cowshed number 2. The entrance looked onto barn number 1. It was blocked to the cows by a big red rust-spotted metal gate; off to the side was an opening just large enough for humans. The two chains securing the entrance were removed and I walked in. I let out a sigh of relief at having made it. In the following calm I realized that the manure was less vile smelling than expected. A familiar compost smell was in the air, but nothing so strong as a stench.

  In the gloom of the cow barn I could make out a single concrete hallway that ran down the center, some sixty or seventy meters long, about three meters wide. On both sides of the aisle were spaces for the cows, set some sixty centimeters below floor level. Metal fencing divided the space and prevented the cows from coming up into the aisle.

  “Let’s see now: Sendō-san is soon going to be here with a load of feed for the cattle, so we need to clean up these manure piles.”

  I looked around after Yasuda said this to find that, even though there was no way for the cows to get up onto the aisle, cow piles dotted the surface. “Okay,” I said, having no idea how we were to accomplish this.

  Mikako then chimed in: “Using those shovels, we scoop it up and throw it over there.” She was pointing to the shovels hanging on the metal fencing. I copied Yasuda’s and Jun’s actions, and I again found myself face-to-face with cow manure.

  I tried to convince myself that it was just clay. Slightly more black and viscous maybe, but just clay. As such, I could get most of it with the shovel, but what to do with what remained on the floor? As I scraped the shovel on the floor to pick it up, the sight and sounds of it served to drive home that this manure was—well, shit.

  Yasuda was heaving it over the fence. A number of cows had gotten in from the outside and were milling about. She had good aim and missed them. The manure she sent over the fence would land on top of the growing pile of manure with a surprisingly pleasing plop. This, from a woman who had had no experience caring for cattle but was just your basic housewife crazy about animals. I knew from the article I had read in one of the women’s magazines that she had turned into a woman driving tractors.

  I followed her example and worked toward heaving the manure and getting that pleasing plop, but the task required having it land flat, and it wasn’t going well, so I gave it up. I sent mine flying through the open space between fence and roof, where it not only fell far short but also landed on a cow’s head.

  “I’m sooo sorry!”

  In the face of my apology the cow raised his head, blinking with an expression as if to say, “Unbelievable.”

  A tractor rumbled in the distance. The side of the barn opposite where we had entered was not fenced off but had an open concrete area. Sendō had opened the gate in the electric fencing and was driving his tractor through. Two huge bags were hanging from the bucket. Each was, front to back, top to bottom, side to side, a meter in length. The cows surely sensed that it was feeding time, for they surged forward.

  “There he is!” Mikako’s excitement was obvious in her voice.

  “What’s he carrying?”

  “Bean sprout by-product.”

  Not like I knew what “bean sprout by-product” might be. I had no idea; I was feeling out of sorts.

  The tractor was moving our way. The two heavy bags, stuffed near to bursting, nearly equaled the width of the passageway, so we all moved backward toward the gate from which we had entered. The cows were running from both sides and had taken up all the available space; they were extending their heads over the fencing into the passageway. The ones behind jockeyed for space to push their way to the front. They filled the entire barn with jostling energy.

  The tractor stopped at the edge of the passageway, lowered the bucket, and dropped the feed bags. A woman in a pink matronly apron, silver-rimmed glasses, and a quick step came from behind the tractor and squeezed through the narrow gap between bags and fence. The hair peeking from under her knit cap was more white than black. She looked to be in her sixties. With a box cutter she quickly sliced open the plastic bags of feed. Sendō came down from the tractor and sliced open the second bag in the same way. Then he climbed back on the tractor and used the bucket to knock the big bags in our direction. Clumps of what appeared to be finely crushed soybean, a green soggy mash, tumbled from the open bags. Mikako and Jun immediately went to work on the knee-deep mass and, with their shovels, spread it into the shallow troughs built along the two sides of the passageway. With that, the cows that had been waiting with their noses crammed through the openings in the fence fought with one another for a place to bury their noses in the bean meal and began eating. I stood still, dumbstruck by this turn of events, while Yasuda and the woman in kitchen smock grabbed the ropes attached to the back side of the big bags. They tied them to a hook on the back of the tractor’s bucket. The tractor raised the bucket and returned to the passageway. This turned the bags completely upside down, and the meal came pouring out. Yasuda was using her shovel to distribute it into the troughs; I quickly followed suit.

  It was ground up like flour, but given the high moisture content it was really heavy. I firmly gripped the shovel and had my feet planted solidly on the ground; the cattle that had not yet eaten moved their heads and followed every movement of the shovel. The cattle, one broad head pressed against another, moved together. And, in a confused commotion, others pushed from behind to force themselves into every available space. Still others stared directly at me, dribble falling from their mouths. And others stretched their necks as far as physically possible, heads turned sideways, extending their long gray tongues further still in order to lap up the meal that had spilled onto the passageway. The sheer force with which they moved, their horns constantly banging into the metal fencing, sent clangs and bangs across the open space. Their fierce single-mindedness bore down on me; I frantically shoveled, oppressed by a sense of “faster, faster, faster,” compelled by a single thought—“get this food out.”

  Even though it was the middle of winter, sweat was in my eyes and soaking me to the skin. I shouldn’t have worn an undershirt and tights. I had even strapped heat packs to my back, a real mistake. I don’t think I had been this active since childhood. I had spent my time cooped up with housework ever since quitting my office job. I was soon out of breath. Even the surgical mask was drenched from my sweat and breath, making it even more difficult to breathe, so I pulled it down to my chin. My elbows, hips, and knees creaked with every movement. I could no longer raise a full shovel of bean meal; it was taking all my effort to lift just half a scoop.

  Looking at the number of cattle, I could see no way that we would be able to feed them all. Even with the two big containers we just barely covered the full length of the troughs. Not knowing if this was all the feed we had, or if more bags were coming, I tried to spread it all as widely as possible. But given how tired I had become, I could not control the shovel and left uneven clumps. I was tempted to just give up and leave it uneven like that, but if I did, I would be responsible for a situation where those that could reach would eat more than their share, and the others would hardly get anything at all.

  I could not bear to leave it like that. I didn’t know which was better: for the lucky ones to be able to eat their fill or all of them to get only a little. I was the type that would always choose the latter. In which case, I felt I had to take a shovel to the clumped feed and to expend more energy spreading it around more equitably. But the work that I was putting into being fair, my body kept reminding me, was sucking up my time and energy.

  I was just making extra work for myself; a sigh. I tend to be overly obsessive about such things, which meant that no matter what company I worked for, I always got myself into impossible situations. It had happened at my last job, the temporary staffing agency where I had worked until last year. The excessive work and responsibilities were wearing everyone down. Given how many people in the office were taking leaves of absen
ce or quitting entirely, I asked some of the managers and colleagues if we shouldn’t do something about this situation, like address it in a department memo. But all I got back was a cold, “If people don’t like the work, they can just quit, right?” Even the younger colleagues who were working all-night mandatory unpaid overtime or straight through their weekends and holidays, black circles under their eyes, responded this way. Then I began to hear comments in the break room: “God, she’s sure the leftie liberal,” “Absolutely. A regular commie, the kind that takes their own unfulfilled unhappiness out on everyone else.” “You got that right, exactly what I was thinking.” So I stopped talking to people and concentrated only on the tasks that I needed to finish. Before long, of course, I was hearing buzzing in my ears and having panic attacks before leaving for work. So that is where I am at present: concentrating on my housework while looking for a new job.

  Eventually, all the bean meal made it to the troughs and I swept the passageway clean. Even the smallest quantity of meal is important food. The same series of tasks continued for four more sets before we took a break. There was another load of bean by-product. That was followed by a load of apple by-product. This appeared to be the squeezed-out mash that remained after making apple juice. The apron lady told me, “Be careful, it’s slippery.” And, indeed it was. Given that there was not quite enough to go around, the cows would lap it up with their tongues, going at it as though their lives depended on it. After that came a garbage truck with a load of vegetable and fruit parings. Outer leaves of cabbages, ends of daikon radish with leaves still attached, bean sprouts, carrots, Satsuma oranges, pineapple skins, bananas, halves of squashes, and other vegetables and fruits that go into compostable trash. Sendō was on the tractor. With the bucket he pushed the vegetable scraps that had been dumped in a large pile on the concrete area to the head of the passageway. We then shoveled the pile into the troughs. “Dessert!” said the apron lady. It was true: this was clearly the cows’ favorite. I was worried that such hard objects might not be good for them, but they just wrapped their tongues around them and greedily started chewing. I was right that they couldn’t get the squash halves into their mouths, but then they smacked them against the concrete until they broke into smaller pieces. The sounds of chewing, munching, and biting reverberated loudly across the inside of the barn. Kappoh … kappoh … tappuh … kappoh …

  It was a gentle sound that, to me, undulated like the quiet lapping of rippling water in a hot spring or a deep public bath.

  I came back to my senses to find that a number of cattle were coming in from outside. It seemed that when Sendō drove out beyond the concrete area he had not reclosed the gate; Yasuda realized this and set off to close it again. Now that the cows were inside no one was trying particularly hard to drive them back out; for their part, they took advantage of the opportunity and lapped up the scraps remaining on the passageway. Which also meant that, in no time at all, cow piles began appearing on the passageway. Mystery solved: I now knew why, when I began work, there were cow patties where there should be no cows.

  I was trying to spread the food to areas it had not reached. In the process, I was going back and forth among the cows. “You need to be extra careful walking among the cows,” Yasuda said to me. “Be especially careful not to surprise them from behind or from the side. They’ll kick. These guys are used to humans, so not so much to worry about, but be careful anyway.”

  Hearing this gave me a chill. I had gotten the same command at the beginning of the day when standing in front of the cows. Horses I understood, but I thought cows would be fine. And now, I was so exhausted that I had grown lax.

  “When you pass by, do this,” she said, clapping her hands and calling, “Hey, hey.” The cows responded by opening up a space for her to pass. I was constantly amazed at how competent she was at all this. At that moment, I was also reminded of something that I had been wondering about: “So, why are there cows that never come into the barn?”

  “Ahh—those cows outside are the little ones that always lose out to the stronger ones. Check that out: just like that.” She was pointing to the other side of the fencing. One cow was trying to make its way through the herd when the cow in front gave a wave of its head and sent it off.

  “They get sent away like that and are too scared to come back. So we have placed rolls of hay outside. And you can see, even among cows inside the barn, there are thin ones with visible rib cages and flanks, skinny ones. And then you look around and realize—like that big red one over there—there are also round fat ones too.” She then pointed out the brown-tinged cow that had just sent the other one packing.

  “Sendō-san keeps saying those reddish cows are the strongest. They quickly divide up: strong cows and weak ones. It’s not like we are shipping them off anywhere, so there’s no particular need to see that they fatten up.… If they get too skinny we put them in the other barn and feed them first.”

  “So that’s what’s going on …,” I responded. I decided that in the future I would do my best to get food to the skinny ones.

  Then it was time for a new job. The “rolls” that everyone had been talking about, the baled rolls of hay, showed up. For my part, I was relieved that more food was available for them. Even so, I had been working with the surgical mask lowered below my chin, but now I fixed it tightly, trying to leave no gaps. I had my doubts about how much it was going to help, though. Still, I figured it was better than directly breathing the hay dust.

  The tractor lowered its bucket and dropped the hay roll onto the passageway. Apron lady cut the twine and Sendō skillfully moved the bucket so that the hay unrolled across the floor, like a carpet down a passageway. We then grabbed it with both hands and at times kicked it around with our feet—which must have seemed to be a rough way of doing it—to get it into the troughs. Yasuda and the apron lady followed the unrolled carpet and walked toward the head of the roll. Jun was somewhere in the middle, while Mikako and I were at the tail end, breaking it up. We would wrest loose chunks of the hay carpet, throwing armfuls into the troughs. This was much easier than shoveling manure, to be sure, but it was still serious work. At first I thought I could hold my breath while working, but lack of oxygen made that impossible. It wasn’t long until I was breathing through my wide-open mouth, behind the mask.

  Mikako called to me then, also with her mask firmly placed over nose and mouth, pointing to the hay: “So, what do you think about this stuff?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what do I think’?”

  “It’s been irradiated, don’t you think? Then these cows eat it up. Don’t you wonder what’s going to happen to them? There are calves in here too.”

  She voiced a question that had been tugging at me. These hay rolls had been picked up free of charge from nearby farms, which meant, of course, that they had been contaminated by the radiation in the air. This farm was making no secret about any of this. Indeed, much had been made public. I am sure it was not just me who would like to provide uncontaminated hay to the cattle, but this farm, abandoned by the state, getting by with donations, just didn’t have the resources to buy feed. “Not sure if we are keeping them alive, or just slowly killing them,” Mikako muttered, heaving the hay into the trough.

  By the time the ten o’clock break rolled around, I could hardly stand on my feet anymore. According to Mikako, we would be rolling out one more hay roll, and that would complete the tasks for cow barn number 2. But after that, there would be chores for the other barn.

  To the side of the open area where the vegetable scraps had been dumped earlier was a rest area with a woodstove and metal chairs. It overflowed with broken-down items and looked like a storage dump. The stove had no lid; the apron lady put in sawdust and sticks and started a fire. Sendō lined up cans of coffee along its edge, to warm one can per person. He called to me, “Have one, and sit anywhere you can find a space.”

  I chose one of the chairs facing him. The moment I sat I felt all the tiredness within me. I lacked en
ergy even to talk, but also realized I hadn’t yet introduced myself. I started stammering hoarsely, but Sendō took off a boot and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and merrily began, “Busy around here today, doncha think?”

  That characteristic voice, high-pitched and nasal.

  More stammered syllables from me.

  “Look at you, and those socks; jeez, you’ve got holes in ’em again!” This from the apron lady, who was sitting to my left. Sendō, sitting to her left, shuffled in his chair and seemed to downplay it with a “hmmm?” I could see the sizable hole in his black sock, and his big toe peeking through the front.

  “This ain’t no joke. You’re impossible. I bet those are the same socks you were wearing the day before yesterday. How long since you changed those socks, anyway? …”

  He responded with a childish singsong: “I can’t hear you …”

  “It’s gross. I can’t believe it. This is when I’ve had enough. I bet you’re not taking baths either.”

  “Am too takin’ ’em.”

  “Maybe. If you are, you never get around to washing your hair, apparently …”

  “Well,… I wonder if this coffee has warmed up. Needs a little more time, maybe.”

  “And you, you’ve been like this forever, changing the subject whenever things get a little inconvenient.”

  With a look of total exasperation, she turned her gaze toward me. I started stammering again, “I, I’m Nishino. Came up from Tokyo. I saw Mr. Sendō’s films and read the books and came to the farm.”

  “All the way from Tokyo? Thanks for making the trip. I’m this guy’s older sister. Name’s Sonoda.” A pause before she continued, “So, what do you think now? Nothing like you’d imagine from what you see of him giving speeches onscreen. Such a slovenly mess.”

  Should I be laughing at this? I had no idea. I mean, I thought of Sendō especially, and Yasuda along with him, as living legends, but here he was putting his socks, and the holes, on full display. I was, in fact, taken aback.