Katorga

On the fifth week they watched as a man was hosed down with boiling water for vomiting accidentally on a Lieutenant through the bars of a steel cage.

On the tenth week sheer rock faces rose out of webs of mist and below them, beacons spread across the beach sent flames streaking towards the night sky. The ship cut through the black rises of water towards them, and as Yasunari's eyes blurred with tiredness, the images bled until it seemed as if they were sailing into a final wall of fire at the edge of the world. Sodden sharp elbows and shoulders crushed around him; cold trails of breath brushed his cheeks and a hundred whispers knotted and clamoured to escape into the sparked red-black space outside the porthole. 

When he blinked again the cliffs appeared to be murmuring behind the glow of the fires.

The hard-labour prison was a sprawling four-corner yard caked in a layer of frost that glittered in the distance as the convicts approached, chains and shackles clink-dragging through the icy dirt. Six wooden barracks, cut apart by a length of fence, were stationed on the outskirts, and shadows of sentries moved amongst them. In the near distance, a tripod of wooden beams rose from the dirt like some weird insect, patches dried red at its base.

Part of the shuffling human chain, Yasunari was guided towards the prison.

*

Oyone slid the bedroom panels open and the yellowing paper rustled as if someone were walking underwater. Yasunari was lying on the floor by the window. Wavering spots of light licked the ceiling, thrown up by three candles underneath. His frame looked still and leaden, and for a moment she fancied she had stepped through the doors and through slippery dimensions into some strange burial chamber.

The hem of her kimono fanned out as she leaned down to run her fingers through his dark hair. A film of sweat glazed his forehead and outside, several glacial bells rang as a rickshaw slid past; crisp notes caught in the quick wind and whisked off amongst the flurry.

She pressed her lips against the salty skin layer and the candle flames stretched and pushed further towards the ceiling, fleeing in shame. Folding her legs in delicate, card-like movements, she stretched herself out on the floor behind his head, shuffling her shoulders back until the pillow of her hair came into contact with his own and they were end-to-end.

Lying awake, the two of them traced the three candle-flame stars, the tiniest galaxy condensed and straining within paper walls.

*

The officer's face was a wiry-bearded flush of red.

'You,' he grunted, stepping close. His lips were cracked, and his breath reeked of vodka. Around him, Yasunari was aware of men breaking from the twisting line, pressing crumpled notes into the hands of sentries in a choreographed routine. He watched as they slipped like ghosts into the mist threaded around the barracks, whilst the majority trudged towards the mines.

He followed the gesture of the officer, and crunched after him towards an assemblage of three men at the northern entrance to the barracks. The men engaged in animated dialogue, spitting and turning to point towards him at times. Yasunari watched the sky, split with fronds of blood red, until a man broke from the party and knelt to remove his shackles.

They spent the morning trailing over endless fields broken by patches of skeletal trees. Their path, decided at whispered junctures punctuated with long swigs from flasks, veered close at times to the sea, and cliff edges dropping to frothing black water far below. As dusk approached and the wind stung, they took refuge in a small grove of trees nestled in the bowl of a valley. Yasunari's shackles were re-fitted, and he was tied by the waist to a skinny tree. He watched the shadows of the men, squatted several feet away, swigging, hacking guttural phrases and staccato laughs into a small fire.

When he awoke his head had lolled awkwardly onto his shoulder. The nook of trees was pitch black, and he felt in his confusion as if he were looking down at the sky full of stars, as though he had dropped a million lit matches into the gloom. It was best never to think, and he did not care what they were doing. It was best to mete out existence in seconds. But for a single moment, cut from the reek and the skin, he pressed - I am going to remember everything about you. I am never going to forget anything. - into the centuries-wide pool of lights.

*

They slept for three weeks as he had slept on the benches in prison. The dusk waited for them each night, and Yasunari kept a still counsel between yellow partitions. His head lifted as her shadow crossed into the room, and he wrapped his hand around her slender fingers, but would not meet her eyes.

Choking in the outhouse, she rattled her palms against the damp wood. The dark trailed after her eagerly as she returned, drifting into the room to smother their candles. With shaking hands she bent over the desk and dipped her pen into ink to scrawl:

あなたが左にする前に、シェルではなかった、あなたはしないであろう決して

Curling down at the base of his head, she slipped the paper under his hair and leant in to kiss the bald patch at his crown. Then she lay flat on her stomach, stroking his shoulders and weighing him into the words.

You were not a shell before you left and you never will be

You were not a shell before you left and you never will be

*

It was raining heavily. Two stout figures draped in crude animal hides watched them as they came over the hill. They were shielded from the downpour in a glistening pocket of trees, and their marble eyes peered out from under prominent browridges. Thick lips chewed amongst unkempt beards. Yasunari had heard the word 'Ainu' before, and he heard it here again as they slumped past. He turned to see one of the stout men raise himself on a stick. Their eyes met before he was pushed onwards by the guard behind him.

At a further slope the men became more animated. One of them ran ahead, and Yasunari watched his shape weaving through the blanket of rain. They trooped down to a muddy dip flanked by four stark trees. A Japanese man, gaunt and riddled with sores, was huddled at the base of a trunk, staring out from under lank hair pasted to his scalp. The guard who had ran ahead was pulling at his arm, and the Japanese man slapped the wet dirt, moaning and writhing as if in a fit.

The officer stepped forward, spreading his hands out to press calm. The guard dropped the man's arm and stepped back. Yasunari wiped hanging droplets from his eyelids as the officer unclipped his flask and took a deep draft whilst the man scrabbled in the mud, weeping. Rain and wind lashed and bound them all together within the valley, the trees clashing above their heads.

Reattaching the flask to his belt, the officer padded over and swung a heavy fist at the figure. Yasunari lifted his head to the groping branches and listened to the sick thuds. There seemed to be so much space between each one. When he looked down again, the officer was urinating on the bloodied, twitching man.

Shaking off, he turned and gestured to Yasunari to do the same. It was best never to think. It was best to mete out existence in seconds. The figure was still moaning as Yasunari performed the bidding, pushing himself into the officer's place, pushing himself into the ghost of the officer, pushing past into the cocoon of mist and black sea beneath them and the world beyond just one ghost ahead, one lifetime away.

Pleased, the officer handed Yasunari a knife, and motioned. At his hesitation, the officer barked a web of vodka spittle and slapped him. Yasunari grasped the skinny, shaking neck and brought the blade up.

*

After six weeks Yasunari shuffled into the living room for the first time. He bent to slide the door back into place, and Oyone placed her book on her lap.

'What are you reading?' He croaked, easing onto the tatami beside her.

'Hui Neng,' she said, brushing the edges of the paper. He nodded slowly, and scratched at his arm. Oyone looked at him, then back at the book.

'Look at the flower and the flower also looks,' she read.

Yasunari blinked. His chin pressed into to his chest. He blinked again, and grey light beyond walls beyond windows beyond stars folded into itself, extinguished, regathered and rushed back out at him. It felt as if the world was waiting for a response; that there was always something needling in the corner of every eye, and somewhere eons away a tiny pinprick stud of light danced and wavered in a field of black rises and crows and -

'Look at me,' Oyone said.

His eyes were wet as he raised his head. Dropping the book, she readjusted her knees to nudge closer to him, and lifted her hand.

Finger brushes eye
Streaks tear to flare and all time
Collapses for you

*