Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa's Deluge Read online

  “A stew bursting with beta rays!”

  “But seriously, three hundred and sixty head of cattle—that’s way too many. I would really like to decrease the number a bit, truth be told.”

  “Can’t keep an eye on all of them, after all.”

  “We never have enough rolls of hay, which means that only the strong ones live long. Becomes the survival of the fittest.”

  After Sendō and Takizawa were going on like this Jun blurted out, “What you mean is that some have died, right?”

  “Some weaken and die from lack of nutrition, some fall from high places and die. We talk about keeping them alive, but we haven’t been able to keep them safe from every unexpected cause of death.”

  When Jun removed his hat I could see that the hair at the top of his head was cut short while the rest of his hair, in back, was grown long and tied in a ponytail. Quite the strange hairstyle. It was the first time I had heard him say anything and so was quite surprised. Sendō also seemed surprised and turned to look at him with wide eyes. Someone had told me that Sendō’s eyes seemed recently to be getting bluer, but from this distance, just across the table, a spot of brown remained in the center of his eyes, and that was surrounded by a band of bluish gray, set off all the more by the iris.

  “That’s right. Calves are born, and we take in stray cattle, so the herd grows, but then the same number gradually dies out. It’s kind of an amazing thing, what we’ve got here. ‘Hope’; have to wonder what it really means. I put the word in the name of the farm, but, really, is there any hope here at all?”

  Mikako interjected, “You talk like this is someone else’s problem.…” She sounded slightly exasperated.

  Sendō registered no reaction and continued slurping his udon. “Ever since I said I would keep these cattle alive, it’s been nuts, impossible. But once I said I was in, too late to back out. Nothing but to keep going forward.”

  “Me too, I think so too. This has got to keep going. Otherwise, well, all of this …” I blurted out without thinking. This seemed to connect to something in Sendō. He looked straight at me, for the first time, and finished my sentence: “Will be like it never even happened.”

  “The fact that our town has disappeared; the fact that a huge number of living beings have starved to death—like everything wiped up, wiped clean, the end. I mean, all the rice fields are slowly turning into willow woods, and the result of that will be that it can never be turned again back to agriculture, nor will there be any more husbandry here. Even if we could transport things out of here, no one will buy it. All the young people whom we expected to keep this town going—none can come back, even if they wanted to. The whole thing is something that everyone, the country, all the people in charge, all of them, want to banish from their sight. I mean, who else tells us to dispose of all the cattle? That way they can have all of this, all this proof, have all of it wiped clean away. I mean, what are they gonna do? Turn all the ground bottom side up, transform it? Into what? A park?”

  Takizawa jumped in, mimicking a politician: “Nothing to worry about! Look how we have recovered! It’s all fine! Just forget all that stuff. The Olympics are coming! It’ll be great!” He smiled in my direction.

  Sendō looked at the half a rice ball in his hand, made no move to bring it to his mouth, just stared at where it had been cut, and went on: “There is not a single rancher who happily killed his cattle, you know. ‘You need to leave,’ they were told, so they evacuated thinking that they would soon be able to return. Then, when they couldn’t actually return home, they were told to ‘kill the cows.’ I mean, what are you going to do? Many went along, heartbroken, and killed them. I had people yelling at me, you know: ‘How come you are the only one who gets to keep your cattle alive?’ I totally understand that; I get it. Can’t stand it. Of course they can’t stand it; here I am, me, the only bastard to defy a national decree, and I still have a healthy herd. Those guys will never again be able to raise cattle. They are looking to sit out the rest of their lives in temporary housing, bitter about their lives, nothing to think about except the amount of settlement funds they received, mumbling, angry, full of regret, and then to die.”

  After he had spit out those words he stuffed the rice ball into his mouth. He licked grains of rice from his fingers. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

  “And that’s why, that’s the reason I cannot give this up. I am not gonna allow it to be as though this never was. This farm right here? To the government, to that power plant over there, we’re gonna be like a thorn in their side.”

  His words shook me up; Jun, however, interjected, “Yet, if the killing of cattle is an entirely arbitrary act on their side, isn’t keeping cattle alive in a place where they are being contaminated by such high levels of radiation an equally arbitrary act on ours? With things the way they are, I don’t know, are the cattle really happy?”

  Sendō listened to this and responded, grinning broadly, “Well, you make a good point.” He went on, maybe because he loved to make speeches and loved a good argument, “You’re right. No matter how you look at it, the cattle are being used. No way around that. As far as ‘use’ goes, well, it’s us that’s keeping them alive. But still, even so, here’s what I think: To say, ‘Since we have no more use for them it is okay to just kill them off’ shows a real lack of respect for life. It is precisely because there is no more use value, we who have been using them all this time have a responsibility to look after them now. Be respectful to those who have come before … but no, that’s not it either. It’s about appropriate behavior. That’s what matters here; that’s what’s important. I can’t help feeling that, all of us humans, in our attitudes toward domesticated animals, that it will all come back to us. All of us abandoned and forgotten peoples. The thinning out and culling. In the same way that the cattle are being ‘disposed of’: aren’t we too, right now, receiving the same treatment? Am I wrong?”

  Mei-chan had now crawled up into my lap. When I stroked her back she would squint her eyes and raise her head. It was quickly clear that this cat was well loved by both Sendō and Sonoda. She quickly curled up and went to sleep; as I paid attention to Sendō’s words I could feel her heavy warmth in my thighs. I was reminded of the reasons that had compelled me to come here.

  “Simple: keep them alive. Because they are living, that’s the reason. I learned all of this from Yasuda. She embodies this ‘lifelong holistic care’ principle. That was always my stance as well, but she really put the animals first. I learned a lot from her. Given that, and just as you have said, even what we are doing here, it is not enough. So then what? We can’t move these irradiated cattle to another location. We’ve got no money to buy clean hay for them. So then what? What can we do?”

  Even after receiving this direct question, Jun remained silent, not even a nod of agreement. Maybe because no one has answers to such questions.

  Mikako raised her hand, “Okay then. Can I ask a question? What if the road back to the ranch were completely closed off and no more foodstuffs, none, could get through. Then what?”

  “And you mean if that situation continued far into the future?”

  “Yes, long into the future. And no supplies can be dropped in from the sky. In that situation would you eat these cattle, Sendō-san?”

  She was being provocative. Sendō crossed his arms and, with a “hmmm,” closed his eyes in thought.

  “I’d eat ’em,” Takizawa responded with a laugh.

  “Yeah, me too, probably,” Sendō mumbled.

  “Thought so,” said Mikako, as though expecting such an answer.

  “But,” Sendō quickly added, sounding serious, “let’s be clear: if the cause of that blockade was the prefecture, was the country of Japan, then everything changes. I wouldn’t touch the cattle. I would starve to death first.”

  “That’s that,” said Takizawa quietly, apparently moved. “Makes sense. So that’s how you would complete this project of yours?”

  Takizawa and
I were working together at the afternoon’s task of giving injections to the thin cows in the herd and to the cows from Suzuran Farm. Sendō, same as yesterday, was off on his own, making repairs to the equipment and unloading the hay rolls.

  Nearly seventy head of cattle that Yasuda was managing at the Fortress of Hope had come from Suzuran Farm. Yasuda had been working there, one town over, trying to keep these irradiated cattle alive, but when the rancher himself got sick these cattle were also slated to be destroyed. Yasuda, and others, worked to prevent this and persuaded the Fortress of Hope to take in the cattle. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, so the two herds were kept separate, but at this point the yellow-tagged Fortress of Hope cattle and the blue-tagged Suzuran Farm cattle were all mixed together out in the pasture. I was impressed by the way that Sendō and Yasuda, each who had something the other needed, were able to cooperate in the same farm space.

  Apparently the injections were immunizations and deworming medicine. We started in barn number 1. Half the barn was dedicated to cattle that had been injured or had gotten sick, and to mothers with their just-born calves, and also to cows that were undernourished. The barn floor on which the cattle could usually walk around freely was here fenced off into a number of rooms about six tatami mats in size.

  Perhaps because they were not getting sufficient milk from their mothers, or perhaps because they had overextended their legs, the calves were lying on the floor. In the next room over was a calf they called Fuku-chan that had been discovered sometime earlier after having fallen down in one of the old, unused barns that had been a cattle shed in Sendō’s father’s time; they had had to amputate its back legs at the knees. It had fallen through the flooring and injured its legs. Since the front legs and the back legs were of such differing lengths, whenever it stood its back was severely arched. Were it to continue growing like this the front legs would grow longer and the difference with the back legs would only get greater until it would, most likely, no longer be able to stand. Even now, standing seemed to tire it out, and it was resting on the straw of the stable. Before lunch I had asked Takizawa, rather anxious about the answer, if there was any way these cows could survive; he responded simply, “Dunno.”

  The Matsuos seemed especially taken with the calves that were unable to move. So while Takizawa was off getting syringes from his little supply shed near Sonoda’s house, they would step down from the main passageway into these stalls, clean up the manure that had gathered on top of the straw they had prepared specially for the calves, and feed them the bananas that supporters had sent in. I also knelt next to the calves, which, while still lying down, would raise their heads to eat bananas from Mikako’s hand. Those big black eyes imparting a soft light; they chewed placidly and intently. It was a very sweet sight, but at the same time it was overwhelming and heartrending.

  “Looks, at least, as though he is still willing to eat,” said Mikako, with some joy.

  “It’s a good sign. I hope he can make it.”

  “Yeah, but I worry, you know, that we are going to see more like this.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s something I thought about when we here before, but given what they are doing here, it doesn’t feel that their highest priority is the welfare of the cows. Too much is unsanitary; too many mishaps. But the biggest issue is that they have abandoned all measures to protect the animals from radiation.”

  “Well, yes, that is all true, but still … Given the limits on resources and people, they are doing everything they can.”

  “That’s true enough. Yet if they don’t get moved to another location sometime soon, cows are going to keep dying and things are going to get much worse. Think, for example, of the cows that are developing white spots; no one knows what they are.”

  I had no answer to that. It was true: in one of the pens on the other side of the barn were ten or so head of cattle that had developed these unnatural white spots. The Ministry of Agriculture had even looked into it but had come to no conclusions.

  “It’s true for people, and even more so for animals: no creature should be in this area. Think about it: he even calls them his ‘project.’ It’s just wrong for Sendō to drag these cows into his resistance activity. That’s what my husband has been saying too: ‘He’s the kind of guy who would be okay if it all went to ruin,’ he says.”

  “Okay, if it went to ruin …” I hated to admit it, but the point was valid. But, if they couldn’t get behind this, I couldn’t figure out why they would be volunteering here. I looked across to the next stall to see Fuku-chan lying there and Jun stroking its back. He seemed to be talking to it soothingly.

  “So, then, what should we do?” I really wanted to know, but I was being a little sarcastic as well. Mikako responded with an odd tone of confidence.

  “Well, we could make something happen.”

  “Make something happen?”

  “Sure, we could do something to force the issue. Not just at this farm, but something to rescue all the animals throughout the exclusion zone.”

  I nodded in response, even though I didn’t understand. At which point Takizawa returned, carrying the small wooden box of syringes. “Let’s get started with this.”

  We started inoculating Fuku-chan and the other calves that couldn’t stand. First a pinch of skin on their backs, then an injection under the skin. From there we moved on to the mother cows in the next stalls.

  They showed me how to secure the moving cows: tie one end of a rope around their horns or necks and then, keeping it as short as possible, tie the other end to the fencing of their pens, in order to secure them and keep them from moving, “Just like this,” said Takizawa as he tried to throw the loop of rope over the cow’s horns; but she shook her head and moved away. It took three times to get this right. But what stayed with me was the way that each time the mother escaped, her calf would follow closely behind, in a panic, refusing to be separated. It made me wonder what it must have been like for Ichigo, sticking so close to its dead mother. And I wondered if I was like that too when I was young. I had hardly any memory of my own mother, who had died of a brain hemorrhage as I was about to enter elementary school.

  It then became Jun’s job to get the rope on them; Mikako and I were tasked with holding the calves steady. We kept in mind the admonition we had been given: “They might be calves, but they are still very strong. Be careful of the horns and hooves.” But simply getting a rope over the head of a moving cow proved difficult. For the first time I realized the skill involved when cowboys swung a rope to lasso steers and horses. Jun was not doing a very good job of it, perhaps because he had misgivings about getting a rope over the neck and tying them up this way. An impatient Takizawa gave it a try too, but the calf, now on high alert, ran in circles within the pen. “We’re getting nowhere this way,” mumbled Takizawa and lunged at the nimble calf. In no time he had the calf on its side, and then he leaned on it with all his weight, rendering it immobile. I had to wonder if this wasn’t the sort of thing he had been doing every day back in Brazil. I felt as though I had just witnessed a secret move by a pro wrestler. “The syringe, get me the syringe,” he yelled. Flustered, I reached for the box of syringes on the walkway and handed it to him.

  “Now, hold him down.”

  Mikako and I pushed down on the calf’s rump while Jun was working on its head. While that was going on Takizawa deftly applied the shot to the base of the its neck. I was doing my best to not cause any pain to the calf but was struck by how hard its body seemed. Still a youngster, but its skin and skeleton were firm, even the fur was stiff and wiry. At the same time that hard body conveyed a soft warmth. After the shot was administered we marked its flank with a spray of industrial yellow paint.

  I was hoping at this point that we were not going to approach all the cattle in the same way, and sure enough, Takizawa had a particular plan for each case. For some of the cows the strategy was to enclose them with the metal fencing into a tight triangle
pen, ever tightening it until they were unable to move and then administering the shot. We took a section of the metal fencing used to construct their pens and moved it to form a triangle in the pen; then the Matsuos and I would tie it secure from the outside to make it immobile. Even so, once we got started on this strategy of trying to push and secure the cow, it became frantic and used all its strength to drive as far as possible into any available space in order to flee from the injection. That movement would then be passed to neighboring cows, caroming like a billiard ball, and all the cattle would shuffle position. So then all these cows, now fearful and frightened of what was going to happen to them, would move like puzzle pieces and change the layout inside the triangle that we had constructed. Then some of them would defecate in their agitation, and the blue-green viscous excrement would go flying and land on the backs of the neighboring cows. In those moments I felt keenly that it was me, the “human,” who was “governing” and “controlling” them, the subjects.

  “Oh, shit!”

  This from Takizawa, who was stretched across the top of one of the metal fences. In the moment when the frightened calf had recoiled from the injection he had lost his grip on the syringe. The manure in these pens was as deep as my ankles. So now the calf, stomping around in this mess with a plop, plop, the syringe still hanging from his flank, ended up right in front of me. Even if the syringe were to fall at his feet there would be no way for me to pick it up, not to mention the danger from an exposed needle. I reached through the fencing to retrieve it when the taller Jun, from my side, stuck his arm through the fencing.

  “The plunger, push in the plunger!” Takizawa yelled from the sidelines.

  Jun, with his hand now on the syringe, looked back with an expression of “What?”

  “You need to push the plunger! Push it in!”

  Jun followed the directions and pushed on the back of the syringe and then yanked it out. He exhaled angrily. The fat needle was bent in the middle.