Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa's Deluge Page 8

“Demolition?”

  “Overseas videos of buildings being taken down. He’s a strange one. With all that he’s not a bad person. Anyway, I hope you will come work with us again.”

  “Ahh, of course. Drive carefully. Next time I come by, we need to raise a glass together.”

  “Yes, let’s. Definitely. Too many men around here anyway. Need to get the women together and do some serious drinking.”

  I could imagine she might want a chance to let off steam. She had pounded the air with her fist at “serious drinking.” She was laughing as she called back to me, “I’m off then.” She looked back, “Don’t worry about them. They can take care of themselves,” and stepped outside. Through the crack in the door I caught a glimpse of Ginga standing with his front paws on her shoulders.

  I returned to the living room to find a tipsy Sendō in the middle of his ongoing impassioned speech. He seemed more relaxed now, perhaps because Sonoda and her cold critiques had now gone. Mitani, Kajiyama, and Itoi were all there, listening intently. Mei-chan, the calico, participated too, sitting on the table; she seemed to be looking at Sendō, but her eyes were closed in sleep.

  Sendō had earlier started the rice cooker. I wanted to time the food preparations to coincide with the rice being cooked, so I turned my attention back to preparing a stir-fry with the meat and vegetables I had found in the refrigerator. I had already washed my hands, but just to be doubly safe I washed them again, taking care to get the soap under my nails. I sniffed my fingertips. The stench from before seemed, almost, to have been replaced by the fragrance of the soap. Even so, I couldn’t escape the sensation that my body was exuding the smell of manure. Every time I recalled the taste of it in my mouth my skin would crawl. “But, whatever,” I muttered to myself. “It sucks and all, but at least this way, even if I smell like shit, it makes me one with everyone else here and their muddy pants.”

  From the open kitchen, I could easily make out Sendō’s voice, even while washing the vegetables. From the tone of his voice it sounded as though he was in full lecture mode. It sounded to me like he was taking the upcoming Shibuya lecture for a test drive.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I ask of you, how do you define a town? And what do you call a town that has disappeared? Have you ever even thought about this? What about us? We no longer have a town to return to; we move from one temporary abode to another. We are a wandering people. It is a place to which no one ever expects to return; a full eighty percent of our town has been officially declared an “off-limits evacuation zone.” Think about it. What can this even mean? Our livelihoods have been stolen from us; we’ve been twisted and distorted, we’ve been discriminated against, and now not just everything we have already built here but even our futures have been wrenched from us. So now what? Think they can bury all that under the money they gave us to tide us over?”

  “No way,” called out Mitani, losing none of his composure.

  Sendō picked up his chopsticks, grasped them like a microphone, and continued: “So tell me why, why have they gotten away with this? Even though any other country on earth would take people such as that, people who steal livelihoods, and prosecute them as criminals. So why is it that not a single person involved with this has been prosecuted? Why is it that there has been no angry outcry about the ‘impropriety’ of this? I heard with my own ears the explosions from the number-3 reactor. I saw with my own eyes the white plume of steam that arose after the Self-Defense Forces helicopters dropped seawater on the reactor. And did we not all think, at that time, that maybe it was time to reexamine the system of nuclear power, or even our lifestyles? Whatever happened to our spirit of self-reflection? I ask all of you to take a good hard look around you. And even now, Tokyo—that Tokyo that is using the electricity being produced by us right here in our prefecture—in no part of Tokyo is there any conservation of electricity going on. You let the electricity run like it’s water from a spring. What the hell is this? I mean, are we already a people forgotten to you? What are we? Disposable people? Already used up?”

  By the end of this speech his voice started to sound hoarse and wavered slightly. As I peeled the carrots I remembered when I had gone to Shibuya to hear his speech. It was the usual Shibuya Scramble intersection of kitschy buildings and over-the-top streets, a place of too many lights, neon signs, and massive LCD displays. And that light, so many times brighter than anybody needs, backlit Sendō until he was reduced to a small shadow, standing there, calling out, over and over again, the name of his town, his now-disappeared town.

  Sendō wiped the corners of his eyes and drew a deep breath, seeming convinced. He took a business card he had received from someone earlier in the day and was spreading cayenne pepper on it.

  “It’s true, so easily forgotten,” rasped the bearded Kajiyama, sniffling and teary.

  Sendō licked the tip of the finger he had placed in the cayenne pepper piled on the business card. “But you know,” he began in response, “there’s no point in blaming the people doing the forgetting. People forget; that’s how it is. And that is precisely why, in order to keep them from forgetting, we can’t stop raising our voices.”

  “I think you’re right. And yet, I have to wonder, why is it that it’s someone like you, the victim, who has to take on the burden of this work.”

  “Because that’s just how it is. Has always been. If the victims don’t raise their voices then no one knows that they even exist.”

  “True enough.”

  “Here I am, in this area with especially high levels of radiation, like a subject in my own radiation experiments. I’m gonna die sometime, no matter what. And whether that is on account of radiation, or the stress of running this place, or whatever, I don’t see a long life ahead of me. Whatever, it’s all fine, as long as a legacy continues. As long as there is someone to continue what I have done here, a legacy.”

  Mitani then began an update on the delivery situation for the rolls of hay. It sounded as if he and Sendō had moved on to business discussions. It appeared they could get supplies from Nasu, so Sendō wanted to know, “Is that stuff any good? If it’s rotten we can’t use it.” I could hear the commitment in his voice.

  “Anything I can do to help?” Itoi asked me, peeking into the kitchen.

  “Thanks! But I am okay here on my own.”

  “If that’s the case, then I’ll go ahead and set out the plates for everyone.”

  He was a lanky, sort of dorky, sensitive young man, an attentive worker. He was currently working as a systems programmer but apparently had grown up in a household that sold heavy construction equipment, which explains why he was so comfortable around the tractors.

  “Itoi-san, what is it that brought you to work here on this farm?”

  “I had a friend who was volunteering out here. I tagged along one time and have been coming regularly ever since.”

  “How often?”

  “I guess it averages about once a month.”

  “Wow, that often? All the way from Kawasaki, right?”

  When I stopped cutting carrots and looked up I saw that he was pressing on his temple with his fingers and seemed deep in thought. “I just need this,” he said. “Every day, every single day, there I was, sitting in front of a computer writing code. I gradually came to feel that I wanted to come here. I just got the urge to come and clean up cow piles.”

  We all ate the beef and vegetable stir-fry together. Sendō was hardly picking at his food. I began to feel a little worried, so I asked, “Does it not taste good?” He seemed embarrassed as he shook his head. “No, I was thinking I need to save some so I have breakfast tomorrow.” Something happened when I heard this and I couldn’t contain myself. I blurted out, without thinking, all in a stream, “Well, well then, if you think I’m up to it, I can cook for you at any time.”

  With that he looked at me with the same wildly blinking eyes he had turned toward me when I had earlier walked into the living room, just out of the bath, hair still wet.

  “Hoh
hooh, whaddya think of that?! Sendō has found a candidate for a wife!”

  “Sendō-san—score! Your Hail Mary prayer for a bride is coming through!”

  With this ribbing by Mitani and Kajiyama, Sendō turned a variety of shades of red. “That ain’t my dying wish, you bastards!” He was laughing but didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea either.

  “You better be careful!” Mitani said, looking at me. “I can hear it now, how a Sendō-san-style proposal would sound: ‘How about you and me, we go and give a lecture together?’ ”

  “I can hear it! He would, too!”

  “Shut up you fools. I would say no such thing.”

  To which everyone laughed heartily. Even so, Sendō would not look in my direction after that.

  Itoi then interjected, “But what happened to that one? Something must have carried it off.” He was trying to change the subject. Sendō quickly picked up the conversation: “Have to wonder. I guess if someone wanted to carry it off, it wouldn’t be all that hard. If you got it into a wheelbarrow you could get it as far as your car, I imagine.”

  They were talking about the unburied cow carcasses, of which only two remained. Yasuda had told me earlier that there were three of them out there, and she was not wrong. But Sendō had apparently discovered, when he was guiding Miku Mari and her group to that area, that the body of the calf that had accompanied the two mature cows had disappeared.

  “I don’t think it likely that wild dogs carried it off. They would have just eaten it where it lay.” Mitani relayed this idea with the objectivity one would expect of a news reporter.

  “What if,” began Sendō, in response, excitement growing in his voice, “what if someone carted it off and then, say, right in front of the prime minister’s residence or maybe on the front steps of that electric company, what if they just plopped it on the ground there? Nothin’ better!”

  “And if anyone did such a stupid thing, they’d come for you first,” Mitani added with a worried expression. Sendō just laughed. “Think about it, discarded stuff, that’s the reality of it, same as here.”

  Just before nine I started packing up to leave. Mitani and Itoi had already left. Apparently Kajiyama was going to stay until New Year’s. I was relieved that Sendō would not be totally alone. I picked up the bag with my muddy windbreaker. It seemed likely the two of them were going to go on for some time. When I said good-bye to them Sendō waved one hand in response. “Thanks,” he said. “Drive carefully. And,” he continued, “that thing you did, that was good.” He smiled widely as he looked at me. “ ‘This stuff here is the proof of life.’ Damn right, that was. And then after that, that ‘mooo.’ Nicely done. Powerful.”

  I was more embarrassed than pleased. Sendō must have been off to the side when that happened. He seemed to be watching, laughing, at the way that Miku Mari and her entourage had all been transformed into a shaking confused mess in response to what I had done. Miku Mari could only cover her face and shriek in her high-pitched voice, unable to bring herself to look at the offering in my hands. Sendō apparently had made apologies on my behalf, but he also seemed to regard me differently after that, more like we shared something.

  I nodded, getting ready to go, and said I would be coming to hear the speech. Sendō nodded in response, blinking furiously again. Kajiyama called out, “Come back again, ya hear!” with a kind smile on his face, waving. I waved back and left the living room.

  It was now completely dark outside. It was only in the area under the entrance light where I could see anything. A number of cattle were standing on the other side of the electric fence that circled the house. Sonoda had earlier told me that, before the disasters, the cattle were constrained to the barns and pasture only. It was not like this, she had said, with cows right next to the house and in the yard as well.

  I didn’t realize it while still in the house, but apparently when night fell the temperature had dropped precipitously. With just my jeans and sweatshirt in this cold, I felt like I was walking around naked. I used my phone’s flashlight app to illuminate the area around my feet as I headed toward the car. I was curious that the cows seemed not yet asleep, nor walking, but rooted like large mounds by the side of the road. And in the darkness before me, only slightly illuminated by my light, I discovered the black and white patterning of Ichigo. I think I made out Li’l’ Un standing nearby. I stopped, “I’ll be back to see you,” I called out to them. “We can live through this. We can. Together.”

  I have no confidence that I communicated my thoughts to them. As they stood there side by side, with their fine black eyes squared to face me, the light from my phone was reflected back and sparkled in my direction. Someone, from somewhere, let out a “mooooo.”

  I opened the gate of the electric fence and stepped outside. This time I felt none of the jolts of electricity. As I closed the gate I began self-questioning: “Am I really going back home?” for example. “Am I going to go again to that situation? Am I really going to go back to Kazumasa?” “If not, then what? Stay here? I have no salary coming in, so as far as the farm is concerned I just become another burden.”

  I soon arrived at the car and I stopped again. I turned off the light and turned around to look again behind me.

  I could see nothing. Even though I could vaguely make out dark and light areas once my eyes had gotten used to the darkness, I could not now make out the shapes of any of the cow barns, which must have been right in front of me. The only thing that punctuated the darkness was the hazy orange light that came from the entrance of the house up ahead where Sendō stays when he sleeps over.

  Just one single point of light. It was at that point that I felt like I really got it. All of us volunteers eventually go home, but Sendō and Yasuda—especially Sendō—could not get away from that spot of light. There was no distance to be gained, no escaping, from the Fortress of Hope and from this spot in Fukushima Prefecture, Futaba District, town of Namie, a place gradually moving toward disappearance.

  I looked to the right to look across the pasture. I searched the hazy darkness, looking for that spot at the edge of the pasture where the outline of the trees met the horizon and separated earth from sky; I think I could make it out, but maybe not. Except for the few times that the wind rushed past my ear, all sounds had been extinguished. Within the folds and creases of the thick shadows I felt snugly enveloped by a quietness that seemed to hold something alive. I could not tell what kind of time I was in. I did feel that in this space I might see what the coming future would look like.

  So, when exactly? Who knows. Some years hence, some tens of years perhaps, but it was going to happen: this place was going to disappear. Nonetheless, right now, as I looked around, a light was shining in the distance. Compared with that shabby weak light, the darkness that enveloped this area was oppressive, and winning out. I continue to look at that shining light and lose the sense that the ground under my feet is connected to that space over there—this: an area from which seeds will grow. When that phrase came to mind, the light over there, a very faint light, seemed to get brighter. And I felt that I could now see cows standing in that light, cattle now deemed to have no use or value, calmly chewing on the grass, now and far into the future.

  The phone in my sweatshirt pocket began to vibrate. I did not waver, even looking at the name in caller ID. My message was already decided. If I were to go back to Tokyo now, it would be to put everything in order, it would be only to gather the things I would need to survive on my own, as this new self.

  “Ahh, Hiromi! So glad I got you. With your not picking up the phone, I was getting very worried about you. Where are you now?”

  Even with all the solicitous emails from before, I was bracing myself for his usual abrupt shift to screaming, but something was different this time. I was taken by surprise and a little relieved. “I’m still at the farm.”

  “Look, it’s all over the news, this story. No way that you are wrapped up in this, is there?”

  “What news?”


  “You really don’t know? Whatever, that’s probably a good thing, but still, they’ve been showing up all over the place, animal carcasses, more than a hundred of them have been sent around.”

  “Carcasses? Of animals?”

  “There are dogs, and there are cats and pigs, even some cows in there.”

  “Cows?”

  “You bet. And all of them have tags attached that show where in the forbidden zone they died. And then, there’s one at the prime minister’s residence. And one at the house of the CEO of the electric company. It sounds like some have been delivered to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; and over at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, too. With strange messages, such as “Evacuate all the animals in the restricted zones!” They are calling it carcass terror in the news. There is a report about a dead calf being delivered from a farm in Namie, so I worried that it might be mixed up with that place where you are.… Hey, you still there? What the hell … what’s so funny?”

  I had broken into laughter. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about the ways these animals that had died so horrifically were still being put to use, nor of the repercussions such terroristic acts might have for the farm. I was concerned, of course; even so, at the deepest spot of a dark night I was laughing, long, loud, and hard.

  Region consulted: Kibō no Bokujō, Fukushima; nonprofit association.

  Individuals consulted: Okada Kumiko of Yamayuri Farm; Yoshizawa Masami of Kibō no Bokujō, Fukushima; the farmers and the cattle.

  Work consulted: Harigaya Tsutomu. Genpatsu ikki: Keikai kuiki de tatakaitsuzukeru “bekoya” no kiroku. Tokyo: Saizō, 2012.

  “Shirīzu ningen no. 2150 Fukushima keikai kuiki de misuterareta dōbutsutachiyo, inochi o mō, muda ni sasenai.” Josei jishin. October 15, 2013. Kōbunsha.

  Shishido Daisuke, dir. Inu to neko to ningen to, 2: Dōbutsutachi no daishinsai. Yokohama: Eizo gurūpu rō pojishon, 2014.

  While this work draws from actual places and individuals, it is a work of fiction.