Read Online The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kenzaburō Ōe
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with Taka and Momoko in my car,” said the young man in a sharp maneuver to push my wife and me outside their tight little circle.
“I’d like to have just one drink before we get in the car,” said my wife, who by now had dropped any lingering wariness toward her brother-in-law. She poked regretfully with the toe of her shoe at the empty bottle where it lay on its side on the floor.
“I’ve got a bottle of tax-free bourbon I bought in the airport,” said my brother, promptly coming to the rescue.
“Have you taken up drinking again, then?” I ventured, secretly hoping to achieve a little iconoclasm where my brother’s bodyguards were concerned.
“If I’d ever been really drunk in America, I would almost certainly have got beaten to death in some dark corner. You know what I’m like when I’m drunk, don’t you, Mitsu?” He pulled a bottle of whisky out of his bag. “I bought this for my new sister-in-law.”
“You seem to have got to understand each other pretty thoroughly while I was asleep.”
“We had quite a long time for it. Do you always spend so long over your unpleasant dreams?” said Takashi, heavily countering my own sarcasm.
“Did I say anything while I was asleep?” I asked, again profoundly disturbed.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think you would callously abandon people to their fate. Nobody thinks so,” he said, taking pity on my distress. “You’re different from great-grandfather—not the kind to do anything really terrible to other people.”
Seeing my wife drink a mouthful of bourbon straight from the bottle, I took the bottle from her and had a swig myself in order to hide my embarrassment.
“OK! Off we go to Hoshi’s Citroen!” Bubbling over with happiness, brave in her leather Indian outfit, Momoko gave the command and we, the reunited family, set off. Trailing along at the rear in my capacity as the eldest there, the one with the ratty, downhill appearance, I had a presentiment that in the end I would let myself be pushed into going along with Takashi’s extremely shaky plan. For the moment, I’d lost the sheer toughness needed for a confrontation with him. As the thought occurred to me, the warmth from the gulp of whisky suddenly promised to link up with a sense of expectation in the inner depths of my body. But when I tried to focus on it I was hindered by the sober good sense that sees so many perils in any attempt to achieve rebirth through self-release.
Mighty Forest
I N the very heart of the forest the bus halted without warning as though the engine had stalled. My wife was asleep in the back seat, wrapped in blankets from chest to toes, and as I stopped her mummylike form from rolling forward and restored her to her original position, I was suddenly afraid of the possible effects of this unnatural interruption of her slumber. The obstacle ahead of the bus was a young peasant woman with a large bundle on her back and something crouched perfectly still, like an animal, at her feet. Staring, I saw that it was a child squatting facing in the opposite direction. I could clearly distinguish the small, naked buttocks and, an unnaturally pale yellow against the dark setting of the forest, the small pile of excrement.
The forest road, hemmed in on both sides by close ranks of huge evergreens, fell gradually away from the front of the bus, and the woman and the child at her feet appeared to float about a foot above the ground. Without realizing it, I’d leaned the left half of my body out of the window as I watched. With a vague sense of fear, I was readying myself for some nameless, terrifying thing to come leaping upon us from behind the sunken boulders that my sightless right eye interposed darkly in my field of vision. The child’s evacuation dragged on pitifully. I sympathized with him, was overcome by the same need to hurry, the same fright and shame.
Above the forest road a narrow strip of wintry sky, walled in by the dense, dark foliage of evergreens as
“I’d like to have just one drink before we get in the car,” said my wife, who by now had dropped any lingering wariness toward her brother-in-law. She poked regretfully with the toe of her shoe at the empty bottle where it lay on its side on the floor.
“I’ve got a bottle of tax-free bourbon I bought in the airport,” said my brother, promptly coming to the rescue.
“Have you taken up drinking again, then?” I ventured, secretly hoping to achieve a little iconoclasm where my brother’s bodyguards were concerned.
“If I’d ever been really drunk in America, I would almost certainly have got beaten to death in some dark corner. You know what I’m like when I’m drunk, don’t you, Mitsu?” He pulled a bottle of whisky out of his bag. “I bought this for my new sister-in-law.”
“You seem to have got to understand each other pretty thoroughly while I was asleep.”
“We had quite a long time for it. Do you always spend so long over your unpleasant dreams?” said Takashi, heavily countering my own sarcasm.
“Did I say anything while I was asleep?” I asked, again profoundly disturbed.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think you would callously abandon people to their fate. Nobody thinks so,” he said, taking pity on my distress. “You’re different from great-grandfather—not the kind to do anything really terrible to other people.”
Seeing my wife drink a mouthful of bourbon straight from the bottle, I took the bottle from her and had a swig myself in order to hide my embarrassment.
“OK! Off we go to Hoshi’s Citroen!” Bubbling over with happiness, brave in her leather Indian outfit, Momoko gave the command and we, the reunited family, set off. Trailing along at the rear in my capacity as the eldest there, the one with the ratty, downhill appearance, I had a presentiment that in the end I would let myself be pushed into going along with Takashi’s extremely shaky plan. For the moment, I’d lost the sheer toughness needed for a confrontation with him. As the thought occurred to me, the warmth from the gulp of whisky suddenly promised to link up with a sense of expectation in the inner depths of my body. But when I tried to focus on it I was hindered by the sober good sense that sees so many perils in any attempt to achieve rebirth through self-release.
Mighty Forest
I N the very heart of the forest the bus halted without warning as though the engine had stalled. My wife was asleep in the back seat, wrapped in blankets from chest to toes, and as I stopped her mummylike form from rolling forward and restored her to her original position, I was suddenly afraid of the possible effects of this unnatural interruption of her slumber. The obstacle ahead of the bus was a young peasant woman with a large bundle on her back and something crouched perfectly still, like an animal, at her feet. Staring, I saw that it was a child squatting facing in the opposite direction. I could clearly distinguish the small, naked buttocks and, an unnaturally pale yellow against the dark setting of the forest, the small pile of excrement.
The forest road, hemmed in on both sides by close ranks of huge evergreens, fell gradually away from the front of the bus, and the woman and the child at her feet appeared to float about a foot above the ground. Without realizing it, I’d leaned the left half of my body out of the window as I watched. With a vague sense of fear, I was readying myself for some nameless, terrifying thing to come leaping upon us from behind the sunken boulders that my sightless right eye interposed darkly in my field of vision. The child’s evacuation dragged on pitifully. I sympathized with him, was overcome by the same need to hurry, the same fright and shame.
Above the forest road a narrow strip of wintry sky, walled in by the dense, dark foliage of evergreens as
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