Dendera (21 page)

“We don’t know when the bear will come back, that’s all.”

Even Kyu Hoshina joined in, saying, “She’s right, Kayu. Nobody’s talking about Hawks or Doves here.”

Disappointed, Kayu Saitoh said, “Disgraceful. Go ahead, build your trap for all I care. Just drop that unseemly attitude.”

“Kayu, we’re all doing what we can to survive,” Kyu Hoshina said. “If you’re going to get in the way, then just go home. Even when things change in Dendera, you still complain. You should be ashamed.”

“Your submission is more shameful.”

“If you keep trying to stir up trouble, we’ll use you as bear bait,” Kyu Hoshina said. Derisive laughter spread among the women.

Kayu Saitoh couldn’t forgive Ate Amami and Kyu Hoshina, who had supposedly been in the top ranks of the Hawks, for letting themselves be used by Hono Ishizuka, and worse still, for working without carrying any anger or a sense that anything was wrong. Though Kayu Saitoh hadn’t backed either the Doves or the Hawks, feelings of condemnation and betrayal overwhelmed her, and she left the area. She recognized that the work of building the bear trap belonged to others, and then she realized that she had nowhere she needed to go, and no one she needed to meet, and her footsteps faltered. If she had decided to get sentimental, she could have, but upon reflection, she judged it a disrespect to think of those who had departed only now that they were gone. She decided that if she was going to walk her solitary path, she should at least do so with a steady step.

Kayu Saitoh’s feet had taken her toward the burial ground.

After the outbreak, the graveyard had come to be seen as a taboo place. With no visitors, the grounds had become half-buried in mounds of snow. The accumulations of snow on the gravestones seemed to swell like the hunched shoulders of beasts, and an imposing stillness inhabited the burial ground. Kayu Saitoh tried to block out any thoughts for the dead, but she couldn’t help thinking of Kura Kuroi, Mei Mitsuya, Soh Kiriyama, and the others.

As she tried to rein in her reminiscences, she heard the crunch of footsteps in snow. Behind the graveyard—at what could be called the boundary between Dendera and the Mountain—something moved. Kayu Saitoh sought cover behind a group of trees. From her new position, she could see several footstep trails leading away from Dendera. She followed them and found that group of three women—Hogi Takamiya, Shijira Iikubo, and Maru Kusachi. The three were talking as they amused themselves by trampling on the snow and the bamboo grass. Crouching, Kayu Saitoh moved close enough to hear what they were saying. Careful not to make any noise, she hid herself in a patch of bamboo grass and focused on listening.

Only barely could she make out what Hogi Takamiya was saying.

“They’re building a storehouse and a trap and all that. And they’re making them so good and strong. Such diligence. And yet they’re blind to what’s far more serious.”

“Utterly blind.” This voice belonged to Shijira Iikubo. “If I may be so pompous, we control whether or not Dendera lives or dies. That’s being pompous, of course.”

“But it doesn’t matter if we can’t figure out what exactly
it
is. Should we make her talk? We could beat it out of her.”

“It would be dangerous to do anything that would make us stand out. There’s only nineteen women left in Dendera. If we make a move, we’ll attract attention. And that Masari Shiina’s got sharp eyes. She’s not like Mei Mitsuya.”

“If it were up to me, I’d rather do everything at once instead of sneaking about.”

“That’s because you make up your mind before you think,” Shijira Iikubo snapped.

“That’s being harsh,” Hogi Takamiya said, but then laughed cheerfully. “Anyway, what about you? What do you think?”

“Well,” a soft voice said. It was Maru Kusachi. “We should keep observing a little while longer. Being put into different huts is a hindrance, but we’ll figure something out.”

“Observe, huh?” Hogi Takamiya muttered. “But if someone else gets killed in the meantime, what then?”

“If that happens, maybe it won’t matter anymore.”

Their conversation had apparently ended. Kayu Saitoh heard the three pairs of footsteps approaching, but the three returned to Dendera without noticing her. She’d only caught a fragment of their conversation, not even enough for her to speculate what they were talking about, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem good for Dendera. But, unsure of her place in Dendera, Kayu Saitoh didn’t know whom she should tell—or shouldn’t tell—the things she’d overheard. Her discovery of this group of women with their own ideas was utterly vexing. Nevertheless, she was getting back on her feet, beginning to return to Dendera, when she felt something cold touch the scar on her head. She looked up and saw several droplets falling.

It was raining.

Rain was unusual this time of year and at this temperature. Being bathed in this rain from another place and time had an inexplicably therapeutic effect on her mood. The rain came at first in a weak drizzle but soon gained in force and volume until it came in a pattering torrent. The snow absorbed the raindrops at first, but soon gave way, turning clear and wet. Kayu Saitoh walked through the rain, and the moisture quickly ate through her straw coat and straw sandals. Her body, mostly skin and bones, immediately froze. She looked up again and saw a mass of rainclouds that had appeared where the blue sky had once been. In the Village, unseasonal winter rains such as this were abhorred as signs of coming famine. If such a rain continued, the young women were forced to perform a Rain-Stopping. Since fiery disasters were said to visit the hut of any woman who entered the Mountain, the Rain-Stopping turned that punishment to the Village’s benefit. When the unseasonal rain came, multiple women lined up in clear view at the Mountain’s base and simply waited for the storm to lift. Sometimes, some of the women died from lung infections, but the custom persisted to this day. Kayu Saitoh walked through the rain and contemplated that somewhere down the Mountain, women from the Village would be standing there, trembling. Kayu Saitoh returned to her home, where Shigi Yamamoto was sitting in front of the sunken hearth. As Kayu Saitoh removed her dripping-wet white robes and her straw sandals, Shigi Yamamoto stared into the hearth, incognizant of her arrival and indifferent to the sound of the falling rain.

Night came, but the rain didn’t stop, soon making its way through the flimsy roof and into the room. Kayu Saitoh and Nokobi Hidaka tried stuffing more straw into the ceiling, but their efforts proved ineffectual, and they gave up, instead placing an empty stone pot on the floor beneath the leak. The stone bowl filled quickly, and they had to keep tossing the rainwater outside. With no expectation of receiving any help from Shigi Yamamoto whatsoever, Kayu Saitoh and Nokobi Hidaka had to take turns dumping the water themselves.

“What an awful downpour,” Nokobi Hidaka said as she put more wood into the hearth. “I hope the trap isn’t destroyed. We just finished it.”

Kayu Saitoh draped her damp white robes over shoulders and said sourly, “If rain like this could destroy it, that bear would blow it down with a single breath.”

“I was only saying. The trap is fine. We can be at ease now.”

“There’ll be no ease until we store up more food.”

“The trap and the storehouse are both finished. From tomorrow on, we’ll spend the days foraging. Also, we’re due for another Climb, and we need to hurry and find whoever got sent into the Mountain. We have so much to do.”

Only upon hearing Nokobi Hidaka’s words did Kayu Saitoh realize the obvious truth: Others besides herself would turn seventy this year; she would not be the only one to Climb the Mountain.

“I get the feeling it would be a better kindness to let her die in the Mountain,” Kayu Saitoh muttered. “Life in Dendera isn’t easy. Rather than drag her feeble body in search of food, and live trembling from the snow and the rain and the bear, she might be better off dying in the Mountain thinking thoughts of Paradise.”

“Dying alone in the darkness of the Mountain is certainly not better. Besides, the more we can increase our numbers, the better our chances of attacking the Village become.”

“Nokobi Hidaka … you’re still thinking about that?”

“Won’t you attack with me, Kayu?”

“Huh?”

“I can trust you, so I’ll tell you this.” Nokobi Hidaka leaned forward. “Today, when we were building the trap, I was able to have a little talk with Hotori Oze without anyone noticing. She hasn’t given up on the attack.”

The log crackled in the hearth.

After a moment, Kayu Saitoh spoke, her voice automatically dropping to a whisper. “That was a dangerous thing to do.”

“I said that no one noticed. I was careful.”

“And the two of you intend to attack by yourselves?”

“Weren’t you the one who told me to do it alone if I was brave enough?”

“I was just talking.”

“I should hope so.” Nokobi Hidaka chuckled. “I won’t do anything rash. I won’t move until the time is right.”

As she listened to the rain fall into the stone pot, Kayu Saitoh said, “Masari Shiina and Hono Ishizuka might already be aware of how you feel. They’ve split up the Hawks into different huts, haven’t they? That’s proof that they’re taking precautions.”

“Even if the Hawks are split up, even if Mei is dead, my hate for the Village won’t go away.” Nokobi Hidaka touched a hand to her wrinkled cheek. “Even the Doves have to feel some resentment or something toward the Village. As long as those feelings exist among those of Dendera, there will always be Hawks.” She looked Kayu Saitoh straight on. “What I think, Kayu, is that you need to attack the Village. I don’t know your true feelings, but I can see that you don’t know them either.”

“Don’t talk like you know.”

“But if you attack the Village, couldn’t it be that you’ll find this aspiration you so desire?”

Filled with discontent, Kayu Saitoh repeated, “Don’t talk like you know.”

“Look, I don’t care for Dendera either,” Nokobi Hidaka said, giving weight to her words. “And I don’t mean that just because our leader changed from Mei to Masari. I’ve felt that way for a long time. By hiding the plague and the killings, we act just the same as the Village. We weren’t born in Dendera. We were born in the Village and raised in the Village. All of our deeds and all of our relationships are rooted in the Village.”

“But you want to attack the Village. You want to kill everyone.”

“I wanted to be born somewhere else … That’s all,” Nokobi Hidaka said softly. “If only I had, then I wouldn’t have been forced to Climb the Mountain. I could have lived my whole life in prosperity. I could have lived my whole life in happiness. I could have died still treasuring my birth, my growth, my deeds, and my relationships. But that’s impossible here. The Village exists through violence, and Dendera exists through deception. And yet only our relationships are true. It’s enough to drive you mad.”

“And that’s why you want to attack them—because it pains you to see people working their whole lives when they can’t even get along with each other?”

“That’s right,” Nokobi Hidaka said.

“Ridiculous. It’s too extreme. Is that line of thinking enough to make you truly able to carry out an attack? Can you really kill all of them? Can you really butcher your family and your acquaintances? The way I see it, you’re just trying to destroy everything they’ve done.”

“That’s right.”

“Will destroying everything bring you satisfaction?”

“If that means their deeds and relationships will cease to be,” Nokobi Hidaka said. “I never wanted to live long enough to tell a lie. When we captured Makura in secret after she developed the symptoms, and when I hid the plague from sixteen years ago from you, I felt it was wrong … but I can’t take back what I did.”

Struck by an intuition, Kayu Saitoh said, “Nokobi Hidaka, were you the one who told Soh Kiriyama?”

Without any sign of surprise, Nokobi Hidaka nodded and explained that she had been friends with Soh Kiriyama’s older sister. She and the sister had been close in age, and consequently she knew Soh Kiriyama as more than an acquaintance. Kayu Saitoh crossed her arms and watched a bead of water prepare to fall from the edge of the ceiling beam. As she thought about how so many different ways of thinking had led to the same idea of raiding the Village, her face took on a look not far from fatigue.

“Everyone has their own reason to attack the Village,” Kayu Saitoh said. “Why you’re attacking the Village, why Hotori Oze is attacking the Village, and why Mei Mitsuya wanted to attack the Village—they’re all different.”

“Ate Amami, Hikari Asami, and the other Hawks might still want to, but they too likely have their own separate reasons. Other people are different from me.”

Finished with this conversation, Kayu Saitoh said, “If you understand that, then quit trying to lure me into the Hawks. I’m not interested in your ideology.”

Nokobi Hidaka stood, then picked up the water pot and carried it outside. Her manner wasn’t that of giving up on Kayu Saitoh, but rather that she was simply giving the woman time to think, and moreover, she wasn’t trying to hide it. Kayu Saitoh responded with a snort. On the other hand, she envied Nokobi Hidaka for holding on to her thoughts of attack despite the current situation. She stretched her neck, then searched her thoughts for what her own aspiration should be if she wasn’t attached to Dendera, was skeptical about the assault on the Village, and could no longer Climb the Mountain. During her seventy years in the Village, she had gotten by without giving particular thought to anything, and she wasn’t used to doing it now. In her lack of experience, a part of her naively believed that if she kept on thinking and thinking enough the answer must come to her. She hadn’t learned that some problems could never, ever be solved, no matter how hard she puzzled over them, and no matter how much advice she was given. This was a limitation Kayu Saitoh faced at this moment.

Nokobi Hidaka returned carrying the empty stone pot. In the Village, she had been an entirely average woman. She held no convictions or anything else that made her stand out. Like any woman, she married into a house and made that house her life. Kayu Saitoh didn’t know what experiences and resentments the woman had accumulated during that ordinary life that informed who she was now.