Dendera (25 page)

“But our food reserves really are—”

“That is all.” Masari Shiina turned away, not to put an end to the conversation, but because it was already over. She put her hand on the ladder that led to the second floor.

“Wait, please,” Kayu Saitoh said. “Have you not thought about abandoning Dendera?”

As the words came from her mouth, Kayu Saitoh knew the chief had considered no such thing—she just wanted to say it herself.

“Abandon it?” Masari Shiina said, stopping with her back turned. “Abandon it and go where?”

“I don’t know … but there are many lands. We don’t have to stay here. We can move far enough away that the bear won’t follow, and we can build a new Dendera … as long as we have the resolve.”

“So, those abandoned by the Village will abandon Dendera, is that it? And we’ll live in some other land? Absurd.”

“Why is it absurd?” At some point, the words had started to come naturally to Kayu Saitoh. When she spoke, her words no longer rang as artificial. “Why do you cling to Dendera so? We could just live somewhere else, couldn’t we? Couldn’t you be happy that way?”

“I won’t flee Dendera. I will live here, and I will keep this place alive.”

“You damn pig-headed woman. I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t understand because you were always just a mess—in the Village and in Dendera.”

Masari Shiina disappeared upstairs, and the conversation really had ended. Kayu Saitoh felt unsure over many things at once, Kyu Hoshina shook with anger, and Hono Ishizuka left the manor without showing any particular emotion. Maru Kusachi hadn’t spoken a word the entire time, and she remained silent as she continued fashioning the wooden spears.

That night, Hono Ishizuka came to each hut to convey Masari Shiina’s orders: they would seal themselves in for twelve days beginning in the morning, watch duties would continue for the duration, and they would be given an allotment of only so much food. An air of stagnation returned to the settlement that had become lively with the confidence of victory, and the women were fatigued before anything even started. When Hono Ishizuka delivered the instructions to Kayu Saitoh’s hut, the woman remarked in a parting shot that she didn’t agree with Kayu Saitoh’s opinion.

“Don’t mind her,” Nokobi Hidaka said as she stirred her bowl of soup—broth with a few floating kernels of corn. “You’re not wrong. Itsuru gave her life so we could have that knowledge. You’re not wrong.”

“Yeah,” Kayu Saitoh said, but her thoughts were somewhere completely different, on the idea that had spontaneously come to her while she was talking with Masari Shiina: abandon Dendera and move to a different land. She asked herself why she had let her mouth run like that and why the idea persisted in her mind. She began to get the feeling that this could be the profound change that she was seeking—her aspiration. She didn’t sense anything unnatural, or fleeting and arbitrary in the notion, nor did she find, as she had feared she might, any feelings of self-condemnation. For now, at least, she felt reassured that she wasn’t deceiving herself.

But even if this mass relocation were to happen, by definition it wasn’t something a single person could or would do alone. To relocate alone was merely a retreat, but
en masse,
it became a creed; it became strength; and it became a profound change. The truth in this made Kayu Saitoh feel deeply satisfied. A gloom had taken hold in Dendera, but Kayu Saitoh felt exuberant. The more dreary and gloomy Dendera became, the more vivid was the idea of profound change.

The twelve days of stagnation and starvation began.

With more free time than they knew how to fill, the women tried to find work within Dendera, but aside from whittling spears in their huts, or cutting firewood outside, there was nothing that needed to be done. Some even began speaking enviously of the women on guard duty, a task normally regarded as a chore. Amid frequent yawns, Kayu Saitoh wandered aimlessly outside. She looked to the white-covered Mountain and thought of Itsuru Obuchi. Her mind turned to the irrational hope that the woman had escaped the bear’s savage attacks and was still alive somewhere on the Mountain. The hope took an unexpectedly tenacious hold in her thoughts. Kayu Saitoh looked away from the Mountain and down at the ground. She cursed the snow for preventing the women from planting crops, when a single word came to her.

Spring.

Now was the coldest time of the year, but spring would eventually come. Kayu Saitoh hadn’t experienced spring in Dendera, but she thought it must be a little easier. Realizing that fantasizing of spring in this season was a form of escapism, she instead made herself think about the far more real matter of the migration as she continued walking.

She heard several voices. Four Hawks—Ate Amami, Kotei Hoshii, Hotori Oze, and Ume Itano—were dismantling, as if gutting a giant fish, the walls of a hut abandoned after the bear had destroyed it.

Kayu Saitoh approached the women and asked what they were doing.

Kicking at some ice to break it free from the wall, Ate Amami replied, “We’re building a watchtower. It’ll be a lot better than just lolling about on guard.”

“I’m no fool about to be killed by the bear,” Hotori Oze said, nodding. “Although starving to death is even more foolish.”

“A watchtower is a great idea. Is it on Masari Shiina’s orders?”

“Don’t be daft. It’s our idea,” Hotori Oze said. With irritation in her voice, she added, “The Doves won’t listen to anyone else’s ideas.”

The current directive, this bigger fortress, was not an active approach. By being ordered to simply wait for the bear’s assault, the women had been given free time, which they seemed to be using to revive their personal ideologies. Kayu Saitoh realized that people needed to be given work or they would do as they pleased.

“What do you think?” Ate Amami said. “How about helping us?”

With nothing else to do and no reason to decline, Kayu Saitoh helped the women with their tower. It was a simple task—upending several logs and building a platform large enough for people to stand upon—but Dendera lacked in both materials and tools, and building a proper tower was out of the question. The women removed what lumber was still usable from the empty house, and with all the holes they left in it, the abandoned building looked like it could have been home to a particularly industrious mouse. Unlike the storehouses or the trap, the house was of simple construction and was easily dismantled. As she worked, her hands freezing, Kayu Saitoh understood how the bear had been able to tear through the structure in a single strike.

The women gathered the necessary materials quickly, but driving the logs into the earth was difficult work—or, to be more precise, digging the holes in the earth to drive the logs into was difficult work. With the dirt frozen solid, and the tools at their disposal limited, the old women spent a long time digging. Then, working together, they lifted the logs and placed them in the holes. Kotei Hoshii threw her body at the standing logs, and the wood gave only a tremble. Satisfied at the structure’s sturdiness, the women arranged pieces of wood into a simple platform to go on top of the logs. The tower may not have stood perfectly vertical, but it was complete.

“All right, let’s climb up top,” Ate Amami said, her voice spirited. “We’ve earned the right to be the first to climb the tower.”

The women began their careful ascent. Kayu Saitoh too was cautious and gripped the logs tightly with both arms. It was tough work for her fatigued body, but she managed to climb to the top. Standing beside the other women on the creaking, rickety floor, she took in the view. The sun was setting, the Mountain beautiful in twilight, the persimmon-colored sky seeming to glow of its own accord. Kayu Saitoh gazed in such rapt attention that she didn’t even let slip a sound of her wonder. The tower stood only as tall as two women, and yet the change in perspective transformed the familiar view into something fresh.

Transfixed by the sight of the Mountain, Ate Amami said, as if in a dream, “On the other side is the Village.”

Hotori Oze, her voice and demeanor unchanged, said, “And here we live in Dendera on the opposite side. And because of that bear, we can’t attack them.”

“It’s so frustrating.”

“I think we’d have to attack them before spring—if we could, that is.”

Kayu Saitoh found it surprising to hear Hotori Oze mention the season of rebirth in the context of killing. She asked the woman why she thought it necessary to attack in the winter.

“It’s simple,” Hotori Oze answered. “The gap between our fighting strengths will widen. In the winter, both the Village and Dendera are weary. We’ll be able to find an opening for our incursion.”

“Hotori Oze, you really do think of nothing but attacking.”

“It’s only obvious that I should hate that foul Village. Do you not, Kayu Saitoh?”

Kayu Saitoh decided to ignore her, and soon the panorama subtly shifted her inner thoughts toward the desire for resettlement. Remaining unaware of this shift, Kayu Saitoh basked in her simple sense of fulfillment as she returned to her hut.

But when night arrived, it came with hunger that brought her back to her senses. With the return of her long-absent hunger, her stomach growled greedily, churning with the empty sounds of digestion. Having grown accustomed to potatoes and dried fish, her stomach hadn’t been satisfied by her meal—if it could even be called that—of broth with a scant few kernels of corn. Nokobi Hidaka jabbed firewood into the hearth and made a pitiful search for potatoes that wouldn’t be there. Shigi Yamamoto remained as she always was, whether her stomach was empty or not, and continued her unintelligible mumbling. Kayu Saitoh realized she was slipping into torpor, and disappointed in herself, she forced her legs to stand. She had been chosen for that night’s watch duty. She stepped out into Dendera at night and began her rounds. But even if the giant bear were to be walking about in the open, the beast would have been hard to spot; beyond the light of the fire baskets was only darkness. With only a torch to aid her, she tamed the desire to sleep that lodged in her frozen body, and she kept watch over Dendera until the next day had come in full.

Stagnation. Starvation. Languor. The women suffered these in a daily repetition. With no duties aside from keeping watch, with no food aside from meager broth, the women’s exhaustion reached its limits.

By the seventh day of their besiegement, even moving required resolve, but Kayu Saitoh nevertheless forced herself to remain active. Nokobi Hidaka stretched out on the floor, yawning repeatedly and muttering about how hungry she was, but Kayu Saitoh regarded the woman’s continued laxity as vulgar and shameful. There had been people like her in the Village. They liked it when others were made targets of a Mountain-Barring or a Finger-Cutting, and they liked to watch the punishments too; they blabbed other people’s secrets and watched in amusement as their victims were meted out punishments. When those sorts of people weren’t looking down on others, they were either sleeping idly or flushing from the fear that their own dirty secrets would be revealed. Kayu Saitoh worried that if she gave in to her hunger and lay down even once, she would become like them, and such would begin her degeneration. And so she kept moving about, even if she had to compel herself to do so. In truth, Nokobi Hidaka had degenerated and fallen into depression. The moment the woman finished her meager meals, she immediately lay back down, sucked in a bereft breath, and moaned about how hungry she was. Rather than sympathize with the woman, Kayu Saitoh felt disappointed by her. She tried to think of those who had died, but she realized that thinking of the dead only because the behavior of the living seemed dull was a form of escapism, and escapism was a vulgar and shameful act. This only heightened her disappointment in herself.

Two more days passed, but the bear still showed no sign of coming. The food supply had at last run out, and the women began to eat straw, grinding it and kneading it with water in a stone pot. The mixture was harsh and astringent, and took effort to swallow, but it was all they had to keep starvation at bay. The very same day the Doves’ stockpile had emptied, their authority was diminished. Few listened to Masari Shiina and Hono Ishizuka’s commands, but the watch duty continued voluntarily.

The evening came with no hope of a meal. Kayu Saitoh was sitting in front of the hearth. Shigi Yamamoto was sitting in the same manner, but that was what she always did. Nokobi Hidaka was lying beside the hearth, staring forlornly into the empty stone pot.

“I’m starving,” Nokobi Hidaka said, putting a hand to her hollow cheek. “I’ve never been so miserable. I don’t care if that bear comes out—I want to go into the Mountain and find food.”

“You can’t,” Kayu Saitoh said. Malnutrition had left her mouth dry and turned her voice into gravel. “We’ve made it this far, but if you do that, everything we’ve suffered will have been for nothing. The bear is starving too. It’ll come to Dendera soon. Until then, we endure.”

“What are we living for?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t even know anymore.” Nokobi Hidaka reached for a piece of straw and put it directly into her mouth. “We fear the plague, we fear the bear, and in the end, we starve. For what reason … are we still living?”

“You’re thinking crazy things.”

“Kayu, you were right. We should have Climbed the Mountain as we were told. Lately, I’ve been thinking … I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“About the attack. It was arrogance. Who did I think I was?” Nokobi Hidaka wearily spat out the straw and whispered, “I should have stayed in the Mountain.” The woman’s sunken eyes quivered. “If I had finished the Climb, I would be in Paradise now. I’d be stuffing myself with meats and pastries.”

“Don’t talk like that. It’s depressing.”

“I’m already depressed. I’m starving. I want to die.”

“Wait three more days,” Kayu Saitoh urged. “In three more days, we’ll be at the end of this. If the bear hasn’t come by then, Masari Shiina will change her mind.”

“Three days!” Nokobi Hidaka shouted, her voice startlingly loud. “As if I can wait that long!”