Part 10 (2/2)

Isokichi sat there with a look of despair on his face, but their mother began to work around the house. When she went outside, she wrapped a cloth round her head to hide as much as she could of her face. The women Isaku pa.s.sed on the path were similarly self-conscious, either using a scarf to conceal their faces or wearing a sedge hat with the brim pulled down low.

Isaku saw several women on the sh.o.r.e and noticed that Tami was among them. He flushed with excitement at the thought that she had survived. She had a scarf wrapped round her face and was wearing a sedge hat, proof that her face must be covered with pockmarks.

Little by little the names of those claimed by the disease became known. In Isaku's cousin Takichi's family, the child had died and Takichi had lost his sight. Isaku saw his cousin being led by the hand by Kura, the brim of her sedge hat pulled down low over her face. Isaku's mother put some dried sardines in a bamboo basket and took them to Takichi's house.

As the moon started to wane toward the end of the month, after nightfall one day the droning of the sutras punctuated by the ringing of a bell could be heard from the village chief's house. At first Isaku was taken aback, thinking that someone in the village chief's family must have died, perhaps even the chief himself, but on rus.h.i.+ng up to the house he saw the chief and Manbei, the elder, kneeling and chanting. Jinbei was there, too, sitting to one side, leaning against a pile of straw mats.

Isaku a.s.sumed they must be praying to celebrate the defeat of the demons that had brought the disease to the village, so he returned home to set up a light offering in front of the family's ancestral tablet.

But the sutras did not stop that evening. They continued for days on end, from sunset until late into the night. It seemed that Jinbei, Manbei and the other senior villagers were actually sleeping at the chief's house, ringing the bell and chanting the sutras during their waking hours.

Isaku put a handful of rice into a bowl and placed it on the veranda of the village chief's house before joining the men in prayer. There was something strange about the atmosphere in the room. The chief and his entourage were chanting the sutras and fiercely sounding the bell, the manic cast to their bloodshot eyes making them look for all the world as if they were possessed. To a man their voices were hoa.r.s.e and tired.

On a night when the moon had waned to a mere sliver of light the shape of a fishhook, a message went around that everyone except the lame and the very young was to gather in the village chief's courtyard. Isaku hurried along, flaming torch in hand, lighting the way for his mother, who led Isokichi by the hand. Torches emerged from the houses, converging at the path leading up the slope before gathering in the chief's courtyard. Once a.s.sembled, they extinguished their torches and knelt in the flickering light of the firebrands stuck into the ground in each corner of the yard.

Isaku thought they would probably be offering prayers of grat.i.tude for the return of tranquillity to the village. An air of solemn expectation hung over the villagers as they knelt in the courtyard. The village chief appeared from inside the house and sat on the veranda. Still on their knees, the villagers bowed down until their heads almost touched the ground.

Isaku straightened up and looked at the chief's face. The light of the flaming torches revealed the old man's features covered with hideous pockmarks.

Next, Jinbei emerged from the house, supported on one side by his son Manbei and on the other by an attendant; they half dragged him to where the chief was sitting. The villagers again bowed deeply.

'Listen carefully to what I have to say. The only thing for smallpox is banishment into the mountains. Those tainted with the disease can't stay among us in the village; they've got to go. Even if they have survived the disease, if they stayed here the poison lurking in them would someday come out to infect the healthy.' Jinbei started to weep. His body trembled and tears streamed down his face, glistening in the light of the torches.

Isaku cringed at Jinbei's announcement but could not comprehend the old man's words. Jinbei lifted his head and spoke again. 'It pains me greatly to talk of banis.h.i.+ng people. But if we don't, the poison will remain in the village and the demons of the disease will reappear to plague us again. In the end, everyone would die and the village would disappear. For the good of the village, I decided that I had to bring this up with our revered chief. I was afraid to mention it to him, because he himself has been afflicted by the disease and bears the ravages of the plague on his face. But the chief did not hesitate ...' With that Jinbei let out a wail and collapsed to the ground. Tears were flowing down Manbei's cheeks, too, but he took up where his father had left off.

'Our chief has said ... letting the village perish would be an inexcusable sin against our ancestors ... and he has said ... he will go up into the mountains,' said Manbei, stumbling over his words.

Isaku froze. It dawned on him that the chanting of the sutras and the ringing of the bells in the chief's house had been part of the prayers to prepare for banishment to the mountains.

Did banishment, thought Isaku, mean spending the rest of one's days away from the village, up in the mountains? There were mountain vegetables to be gathered, and birds and animals to be caught for food, but that would never be enough to survive on, and starvation would not be far away. Leaving the village to go into the mountains could only lead to death.

Isaku was panic-stricken. He was the only one in his family who hadn't caught the disease, and as carriers of the smallpox poison his mother and Isokichi would have to leave. The villagers were suddenly agitated. Some looked at each other in disbelief; others, still incapable of grasping the situation, stared at the village chief and Manbei standing before them.

Isaku couldn't bring himself to look at his mother and Isokichi sitting beside him. The mere thought of it terrified him.

Faint whispers arose from among the villagers, growing in volume until they became a clamour. 'This is awful.' 'We have to leave you.' Isaku heard voices around him tinged with fear.

'Revered elder.' The sad voice of a young man was heard.

Manbei turned his head slightly in the direction of the voice.

'Those who go into the mountains will not be able to come back, will they?'

Manbei nodded. The young man was momentarily lost for words but then spoke again.

'If they go into the mountains, they'll die of starvation. Can they not go to the next village or another village far away?'

'No. If the blight is taken into another village, smallpox will break out there, too. Our people contracted smallpox from the red clothes brought here off the s.h.i.+p. We can't pa.s.s it on to others outside our village,' said Manbei firmly, tears still streaming down his face.

Isaku couldn't bear the thought of parting with his mother and Isokichi, and wanted to go up into the mountains with them. Stifled sobbing could now be heard from the crowd.

Manbei spoke again, his voice faltering.

'Our revered chief has read the sutras to prepare himself for leaving. Now that he has readied himself ... to rid the village of the poison within us, he must leave as quickly as possible and will depart at dawn tomorrow, at the Hour of the Tiger.'

The sobbing increased in intensity.

'Come into the mountains with me,' said the chief in a childlike voice, before getting to his feet and disappearing into the house. The villagers bowed low.

'Return to your homes and get ready to leave. You have until the Hour of the Tiger to say your farewells. But remember, no one is to step outside to see anyone off,' said Manbei in a powerful voice.

The villagers feebly got to their feet and trudged, heads down, out of the courtyard and along the path down the gentle slope. Illuminated by the faintest sliver of moon, the night sky was bristling with stars. The sea was calm, with the white ripple of each wave folding onto the sh.o.r.e barely perceptible in the dark of the night.

Their mother was the first to enter the house, walking ahead of her sons as she led Isokichi by the hand. She lit the fire and sat Isokichi beside it, before sitting down in front of the family's ancestral tablet to pray.

Sobbing, Isaku squatted down on the dirt floor. He wanted to go into the mountains with his mother and Isokichi, but he knew that would go against the village decree. He thought he'd rather die than be separated from his mother and Isokichi.

'Isaku, don't cry,' he heard his mother say calmly.

Isaku sat there, his head in his hands.

His mother stepped down onto the dirt floor, scooped some rice from the open bale, and put it into a pot.

'The chief is going with us. It'll be all right. Teru's dead, and now Kane, too. I didn't want to be here to see your father come back to this. It's better this way. I feel sorry for Isokichi, though, being so young, but he's carrying the poison, too, so he has to accept it,' she said in a voice little more than a whisper as she put another piece of wood on the fire.

The Hour of the Tiger was not far away, Isaku thought, and his mother and Isokichi were to leave the village. That was now irrevocable. The only thing left was to make the most of the short time they had left.

He got to his feet, stepped onto the matting floor, and sat down by the fire. Reaching out, he grasped Isokichi's hand. There was no reaction from his brother, who sat there still as a statue.

The grains of rice leaped in the hot water, but before long they, too, quieted down and the rice was ready to eat.

'I won't be able to cook him much, but I want to help look after the chief for a month or so if I can. And I'll need food to do that.'

Their mother shaped the cooked rice with her hands and wrapped it in seaweed. Then she bundled up some dried sardines in bamboo leaves and scooped five sh of rice from the open bale into a cloth bag.

Isaku carefully followed his mother's movements. Strangely, there was no trace of sadness on her pockmarked face. Her eyes were clear and determined, and there was even the hint of a contented smile on her lips.

She picked up the red clothes lying in the corner of the dirt floor and went outside through the back door. Isaku peered out after her. She lit some firewood and spread the clothes on top. Flames rose playfully.

The stars had changed their position in the sky, and by now the moon was hidden behind the treetops. The Hour of the Tiger was approaching.

Back inside the house, their mother paused for a short prayer in front of the ancestral tablet before busying herself with the final preparation for departure. The bag of rice went onto her back, and the cooked rice wrapped in seaweed was lashed with twine onto Isokichi's carrying-frame, along with the dried fish bundled in the bamboo leaves. Lighting a fire brand, she led Isokichi by the hand.

'Be good to your father,' his mother said, her eyes glistening for the first time. She and Isokichi left the house.

Isaku watched from the doorway as the two walked off by the light of their flaming torches. He traced the lights making their way down the village path until they became indistinguishable from those approaching from the opposite side. The group could be seen moving in the direction of the village chief's house until they disappeared from sight behind a large rock beside the path.

<script>