Sunday, May 2, 2010 - "Me too," Dove saidHe stood up, rubbed some sand... |
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"Me too," Dove saidHe stood up, rubbed some sand off his arms, and then with a perceptible pause, asked, "Want to come along, Wakara?"
"No, no, thanks, I'm not ready to go in yet He watched them walk offDove was a funny man, rather typical, Wakara decidedDove had seen him walking along the beach, and immediately he had had to call him over, ask that stupid question about umareru, and then he didn't know what to do with himWakara was a little tired of being treated as a freak
He stretched out on the sand, a little relieved that he was alone againFor a long time he stared at the jungle, which thickened, became impenetrable after thirty or forty yardsThere was an effect which could be got; the jungle could be built up on a canvas out of a black-green background, but it would be a questionable techniqueHe certainly couldn't fake gucci fabric carry it off after not painting for two yearsPerhaps it would have been better if he had stayed with his family in the relocation campsAt least he would be painting now
Through the glare of the sun on his back, the glittering brilliance of the sand, Wakara realized that he was very depressedWhat was it Dove had said about Ishimara's diary? "Fascinating document Had Dove actually been touched by it? Wakara shrugged; it was impossible for him to understand Americans like Dove, just as it was impossible for him to understand JapaneseStill there had been a time in Berkeley in his senior year when his paintings were getting some notice, and many of the American students were friendly with himBut of course that was all shattered by the war Major Infantry, Japanese ArmyThat was the way he had signed it, relinquishing himself again to prada knock offs anonymity
"Did you have a look at it, Wakara?" Dove had asked
Wakara grinned, staring at the sandHis own translation was in his breast pocket nowPoor Ishimara, whoever he wasThe Americans had looted his corpse, and some noncom had brought the diary backNo, Wakara thought, he was too much of an American himself to understand really the kind of things that had gone on in Ishimara's headWould an American keep a diary, write in it an hour before an attack? The poor bastard Ishimara, dumb, dumb like all the JapaneseWakara unfolded his translation, read it over again for a moment
The sun was red in its setting tonight, red with the blood of our soldiers who died todayTomorrow my blood shall be in itThis night I cannot sleepI find myself weepingI have thought achingly of my childhood, and I remember the boys, my school friends, and the submariner rolex games we have playedI think of the year I have spent with my grandparents in the prefecture of ChoshiI think, I am born and I dieI am born, I live, and I am to die, I think on this night
I do not believe in the Emperor, His Most Exalted, I must confess it
I ask myself -- WHY? I am born, I am to dieWHY? WHY? What is the meaning?
Wakara shrugged againA thinker, a poet; there were many Japanese like himAnd yet they died like anything but poets, died in mass ecstatic outbursts, communal frenziesNAZE, NAZE DESU KA? Ishimara had written in huge trembling characters, WHY, WHY IS IT? and he had gone out and been killed in the river on the night of the big Japanese attackHe had fallen, shrieking, no doubt, a unit in an anonymous exalted massWho could comprehend it fully? Wakara wondered
When he had been in Japan as a child of louis vuitton denim purse twelve, it had seemed the most wonderful and beautiful country he had ever seenEverything was so small; it was a country built for the size of a twelve-year-oldWakara knew Choshi where Ishimara had spent a year with his grandparents; perhaps he had even spoken once to Ishimara's grandparentsAnd in the peninsula at Choshi, in two miles, one could see everythingThere were great cliffs which dropped several hundred feet into the Pacific, there were miniature wooded groves, as perfect, as tailored as emeralds, there were tiny fishing towns constructed of gray wood and rocks, there were rice paddies and mournful low foothills, and the cramped choked streets of the city of Choshi with its smells of fish tripe and human dung, the crowded bloody docks of the fishing wharvesNothing went to wasteAll the land had been manicured for a thousand balenciaga knockoff year |
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