Pathway to Japanese Literature

Lonely Island It was a lonely island.

In the center of the island lay neatly cultivated taro fields, encircled by windbreak trees—octopus trees and lemon trees and breadfruit trees and ukar—growing in dense clusters. Beyond that extended another ring of coconut groves, followed in turn by a white sandy beach, the sea, and finally the coral reef. A beautiful yet lonely island.

The islanders' houses were scattered among the coconut groves on the western shore. The population was perhaps around one hundred seventy or eighty. I had seen many smaller islands. I also knew islands where not a single taro plant (which served as the islanders' equivalent of rice) could grow because the entire land consisted solely of coral debris with no soil. I also knew desolate islands where all the coconut trees had withered due to insect damage. And yet, if one excluded B Island with its mere population of sixteen, there was no island as lonely as this one.

Why was that? The reason was but one. It was because there were no children. Well, there was a child—or rather, there existed one. There was only one. A girl child who turned five that year. And apart from that child, there existed not a single person under twenty. It wasn't that they had died. They simply hadn't been born at all. For over a decade before that girl child (since there were no other children, we shall avoid using the islanders' hard-to-pronounce names and simply call her "the girl child") had been born, not a single baby had been born on this island. From when the girl child was born until then, not a single one had been born since. It seemed likely none would ever be born again hereafter either. At least, the elderly of this island had believed so. Therefore, when this girl child had been born several years earlier, the elders gathered and worshiped her as the island's last human—a baby girl destined to become a woman—or so it was said. Just as the first had to be revered, so too must the last be revered without fail. Just as the first had tasted suffering, so too would the last have to taste what great suffering might await her—or so they murmured while bowing their tattooed heads in devotion over her tiny form; those aged men with sagging skin etched by traditional markings alongside their equally weathered wives who performed these rites with sorrowful piety upon learning of her arrival into their dying world where no new life stirred anymore beneath coconut palms or within taro fields tended by hands grown frail with time’s passage… However—and here lies another layer—that solemn veneration belonged solely unto them; whereas among younger folk? They came clamoring noisily instead! For seeing an actual human infant after years without such sights proved novel enough even amidst their own gradual extinction—a macabre curiosity driving them toward what should have been cause for celebration but instead became mere spectacle under circumstances too grim for joy… Exactly two years prior to this girl-child’s birth there’d been conducted through official channels via census records indicating three hundred souls called this place home… Yet now? Barely half remained alive… Could such rapid depopulation rates truly exist without plague or disaster hastening deaths?

If people kept dying with none being born at all, would the population really decrease this rapidly even without an epidemic striking? The elders who had worshiped the infant girl back then must have all perished without exception by now. Yet it appeared the teachings they left behind were strictly maintained, for even now the girl child destined to be the island's last remained cherished like a lama's living Buddha. In a community composed solely of adults, one might expect an only child to be naturally doted upon; here however, that ordinary affection was compounded by primitive religious awe and melancholy.

Why were no babies being born on this island? Everyone asked whether venereal diseases were spreading or contraception was being practiced. To be sure, venereal diseases and tuberculosis were not entirely absent, but this was by no means unique to the island—if anything, they were less prevalent here compared to other islands. As for contraception, those who foresaw their island's extinction and fought against it beforehand would have had no reason to engage in such practices. There were also those who claimed the cause lay in an unusual custom involving unnatural procedures performed on parts of women's bodies, but since no population decline was observed in the outlying islands of the Truk region—the originators of this practice—this speculation did not hold water. Compared to other islands, taro production was abundant here; coconuts and breadfruit trees bore fruit well, leaving them with more than enough food. There had been no particular natural disasters or calamities either. Then why? Why were no babies being born? I did not know. It was probably because God had resolved to destroy this island's people. Even if ridiculed as unscientific, there seemed no choice but to think this way. While gazing at the well-tended taro fields and beautiful coconut groves under the dazzling midday sun and contemplating this island's fate—all truly significant matters occurred 'in spite of everything'— I recalled someone's words that things happened 'in spite of everything.' Was this what it was like when things perished? I wondered. Scientists who examined the traces of its extinction smugly pointed out numerous causes, but what they called causes were often not causes at all—unbeknownst to them—but merely results.

Just as an unexpectedly large bloom might appear on the last rose of autumn’s end, I—indulging in a rather romanticized fantasy that this island’s final daughter might perhaps be a marvelously beautiful and intelligent child (by the islanders’ standards, of course)—went to see that girl child. And I was thoroughly disappointed. Though she was indeed plump, she was an ordinary child of the islanders with a slightly dirty, foolish-looking face. With her dull eyes showing faint curiosity and fear, she was staring intently at me—a mainlander rare on this island. She had not yet been tattooed. Even though she was cherished, it seemed only Franpeshya could be performed. Her arms and legs were covered all over with festering tumors. Nature did not seem to be as much of a romanticist as I was.

In the evening, I walked alone along the shore. Overhead, towering coconut trees swayed their great frond-fans as they rustled in the Pacific wind. As I walked through the damp sand left by the receding tide, I noticed heat-haze-like shadows flitting incessantly around me—before, behind, to my left and right. They were crabs. Countless small crabs—neither gray nor white nor fawn, nearly indistinguishable from sand, somewhat resembling cicada husks—were fleeing in all directions. In the South Seas, fiddler crabs—those red-and-blue-painted creatures abundant in mangrove areas—are found everywhere, but these ghost-like crabs are a rarity. When I first saw them on Garaldo Coast of Palau’s main island, I couldn’t discern individual shapes—only sand flickering around me as if crumbling away, leaving me seized by an illusion of witnessing mirages. Now I saw them for the second time on this island. When I stopped and stood still awhile, the crabs’ fleeing ceased. The gray phantoms darting about vanished instantly. After this island’s humans die out—now nearly certain—will these shadow-like sand-ghost crabs come to rule? When I imagined ash-white flickering phantoms becoming this island’s sole masters, an eerily chilling sensation came over me.

In southern climes where no twilight lingers, darkness falls immediately when the sun sinks into the sea. By the time I had circled from the desolate eastern coast to the still-populated western shore, night had already come. Flickers of light leaked from low houses beneath coconut trees. I approached one such dwelling. In the rear kitchen area—called um in Palauan, though I knew not its name here on this southern outlying island—a flame burned soundlessly. The pot suspended above likely held taro or fish. When I stepped inside, the old woman by the fire started and looked up. Her tattooed, sagging skin flickered red in the wavering flames. Gesturing my desire for food, I watched her lift the lid from the pot before her. Three or four small fish swam in watery broth that seemed undercooked. The old woman rose and fetched a wooden plate from deeper within—sliced taro and what looked like smoked fish fillets lay upon it. Hunger wasn't what drove me. I only wished to know their food's nature and taste. After sampling both morsels, I thanked them in Japanese and stepped back outside.

Upon reaching the beach, far in the distance, the lights of the small steamship I had arrived on—and which I would board again within these few hours to depart—stood out brightly against the dark sea, floating illuminated there alone. I called out to an islander man who happened to be passing nearby, had him paddle a canoe, and returned to the ship.

The steamship was to depart this island at midnight. Until then, it was a matter of waiting for the tide.

I stepped onto the deck and leaned against the railing. When I looked toward the island, five or six lights flickered faintly in the darkness far below. I raised my eyes to the sky. High above the black shadows of masts and rigging, southern constellations blazed with tropical brilliance. Suddenly there came to mind those words spoken by an ancient Greek mystic—"the wondrous harmony of the celestial spheres." That sage of antiquity had taught thus: The countless stars encircling us perpetually rotate while sounding a tremendous resonance—nay, a supremely harmonious grand chord worthy of the cosmic order itself—yet we earthbound creatures, having grown accustomed since time's dawn to this symphony and knowing no world without it, ultimately remain oblivious to this magnificent universal chorus. Just as I had earlier envisioned this island after its people's extinction while standing on the evening shore, now I imagined the precise workings of some dark celestial mechanism after humanity's end—a vision of countless spheres spinning soundlessly through the void as Pythagoras described them, their colossal harmonies echoing through observerless eternity.

Something akin to a savage sorrow seemed to well up abruptly from the depths of my heart.

The Woman of the Oleander House

Afternoon.

The wind had completely stilled its breath. Beneath thin clouds shrouding the entire sky hung air saturated with moisture - heavy and stagnant. Hot. An utterly inescapable heat. Dragging leaden feet step by step with steam-bath languor, I walked onward. My legs' weight came partly from dengue fever that had kept me bedridden a week prior - not yet fully abated. Tired. Breath clotting thickly. Dizziness struck; footsteps halted. Hand pressed against an ukur tree's roadside trunk supported my body as eyelids shut. Behind closed lids threatened visions from days before - delirium under forty-degree dengue fever. Again came that platinum vortex - searing light whirling through darkness' void. No good! Eyes snapped open at once.

Not a single small leaf of the ukur tree stirred. Sweat welled up beneath my shoulder blades, and I could distinctly feel it form into a single bead that trickled down my back. What stillness this was! Could it be that the entire village was asleep? Neither people nor pigs nor chickens nor lizards—neither the sea nor the trees—uttered so much as a cough. When a little of the fatigue subsided, I started walking again. It was a smooth paved path characteristic of Palau. On a day like today, even if I had walked barefoot on these stones like the islanders, they wouldn't have felt very cold. After descending fifty or sixty steps and coming beneath the dense, towering banyan tree—its trunk entwined with climbing plants like a giant's beard—I heard a sound for the first time. It was the sound of water splashing. Thinking it must be a washing area, I looked beside me and saw a small path diverging slightly downward from the paved path. At the moment I thought I glimpsed the shadow of a nude through giant taro leaves and ferns, a sharp, coquettish voice rang out. Next came the sound of water being splashed as someone fled away, mingled with muffled laughter; when this subsided, the original silence returned. Because I was exhausted, I had no energy to tease the girls bathing in the afternoon. Again, I continued descending the gentle stone slope.

When I reached the house where oleanders massed their crimson blossoms, my fatigue—or rather languor—had become unbearable. I resolved to rest at that islander's house. Before the house lay a large stone platform raised about one shaku high, spanning some six tatami mats. Though this served as the family's ancestral tomb, peering past its edge into the dim house interior revealed no occupants. Upon floorboards of thick round bamboo poles lay only a white cat sprawled out. The cat opened its eyes to look my way, wrinkled its nose in faint reproach, then narrowed its eyes back to sleep. This being an islander's dwelling requiring no ceremony, I settled myself unceremoniously on the entryway's edge to rest.

While lighting a cigarette, I gazed at the large flat tomb before the house and the six or seven slender, towering trunks of betel palms standing around it. Palauans—and not just Palauans— all Caroline Islanders except the Ponapeans—since they customarily chew betel nuts mixed with lime—make it a rule to always plant several of these trees before their homes. The sight of the betel palm grove—far more slender and graceful than coconut trees—standing tall possessed considerable charm. Beside the betel palms grew three or four much shorter oleander plants laden with blossoms. Pink flowers lay scattered across the tomb's stone pavement. The intense sweet scent drifting over was likely from Indian jasmine planted somewhere behind. On a day like this, that fragrance grew so overpowering it threatened to bring on a headache.

The wind remained utterly still. The air grew thick and heavy, liquifying viscously to cling to the skin like lukewarm paste in clammy strands. The lukewarm paste-like substance seeped into my head as well, casting a gray haze over it. Each joint felt leaden, as if worn out.

After finishing a cigarette and flicking away the butt, I turned to glance inside the house and froze. Someone was there. A woman. Where had she come from? There'd been nobody moments earlier. Only a white cat. Come to think of it, the white cat was gone now. For one fleeting instant—though I must have been truly unhinged—I genuinely wondered if that earlier cat had transformed into this woman.

The woman stared at my startled face without blinking. Her eyes showed no surprise. I felt she had been watching me the whole time I had been looking outside earlier.

The woman was completely naked from the waist up, sitting with her knees spread wide like a kite's legs, holding a baby on her lap. The baby was remarkably small. It likely hadn't even been two months since birth. Sleeping with the nipple in its mouth. There was no movement of suckling. Startled and hampered by my limited language ability, I had failed to offer proper apology for intruding upon the empty house, and could only stare silently at the woman's face. No woman had ever held her gaze so unwaveringly. One might almost say her eyes were nailed in place. Something febrile and aberrant seemed to float within those luminous pupils. I began feeling distinctly unsettled.

The reason I did not flee was that while there was something abnormal in the woman's gaze, I discerned nothing violent within it. No—there was another reason: within that silent mutual gaze, a faint yet erotic interest had gradually kindled within me. In truth, that young wife could indeed be called beautiful. Her features were unusually well-defined for a Palauan woman—likely mixed with mainlander blood, I surmised. Her complexion lacked the typical glossy blackness, instead showing a matte duskiness. The absence of visible tattoos likely stemmed from her youth and Japanese public school education. Her right hand pressed down on the child at her knee while her left arm braced diagonally behind her on the bamboo floor—the elbow bending outward in a く-shape contrary to normal joint articulation. This manner of joint flexion appeared unique to women of this region. In that slightly arched posture—her underbite lips half-parted—she stared vacantly through large lashed eyes. I did not look away from those eyes.

This may sound like making excuses, but one factor was certainly the afternoon's temperature and humidity—and above all, the overpowering scent of Indian jasmine permeating the air.

I finally came to understand the meaning behind the woman's prolonged gaze. Why a young island woman—and one who seemed to have recently given birth at that—had come to feel this way; whether my convalescent body warranted such a gaze; whether such things were commonplace in the tropics—I couldn't comprehend any of this. Yet despite that, the meaning behind this woman's present stare had become utterly clear to me. I saw a faint flush rise to her dusky face. In some corner of my clouded mind, I remained aware of a gradually intensifying sense of danger—though naturally, I felt confident in my ability to scoff at it. Yet within that awareness, I began feeling myself becoming strangely bound.

It sounds utterly absurd, but when I later reflected on that strange, intoxicated state I'd experienced, it seemed I had succumbed to a touch of tropical magic. What saved me from that peril was my body's post-illness frailty. Since I sat on the veranda edge with legs dangling, I had to twist my torso around to look backward at the woman. This contorted posture wearied me terribly. As time passed, the muscles along my flank and neck grew excruciatingly painful until I instinctively righted myself and turned my gaze outward. From deep within my gut, a sigh escaped with a hoarse exhalation. At that very moment, the spell shattered.

Reflecting on my state from just moments prior, I couldn't help but smile wryly. Rising from the veranda edge, I stood up and, wearing that bitter smile, said "Goodbye" in Japanese to the woman inside the house. The woman gave no reply. As if subjected to some grave insult, her face now clearly angry yet maintaining the same posture as before, she kept staring fixedly at me. Turning my back to her, I began walking toward the oleanders at the entrance.

Under the giant Amiaka and mango trees, following the stone-paved path, I finally returned to my lodgings. Both body and nerves were utterly spent. My lodgings were the house of an islander who served as this village’s chief. I asked Madarei—the island woman fluent in Japanese who managed my meals—about the woman from that earlier house. (Of course, I hadn’t recounted all my experiences.) Madarei laughed, her dark face baring snow-white teeth as she said, “Ah, that Miss Beauty.” Then she added: “She likes men. “Any man from the mainland.”

Recalling my earlier disgraceful behavior, I smiled wryly again.

In the room where the humid air hung utterly still, I laid my exhausted body limply across the straw mat spread over the wooden floor and fell into an afternoon nap.

Had about thirty minutes passed? A cold sensation suddenly awakened me. Had the wind risen? When I sat up and looked out the window, every leaf of the nearby breadfruit trees had turned to show their white undersides as they fluttered. As I thought "How merciful," gazing up at the abruptly blackened sky, a violent squall struck. Pounding roofs, battering stone paths, thrashing palm fronds, knocking down oleander blossoms—with a ferocious roar, the rain scoured the earth. People and beasts and plants all revived at last. The scent of fresh soil drifted from afar. Watching the thick white rain shafts, I clearly recalled the term "silver bamboo" that ancient Chinese poets had used.

When the rain had ceased and some time passed, I went out front and saw the woman from the oleander house walking toward me along the still-damp paved stone path. She must have put the baby to bed before coming out, for she wasn't holding it. She passed by me without so much as glancing my way. Her face showed no anger—rather, a composed expressionlessness that refused to acknowledge my existence.

Napoleon

“We’re going to apprehend Napoleon,” the young police officer said to me.

On the deck of the Kunimaru, a small steamship servicing Palau's southern outlying islands.

“Napoleon?” “Yes, Napoleon,” the young police officer said with a chuckle, as if he had been anticipating my surprise. “Now, this Napoleon—he’s an islander, mind you. “It’s an islander child’s name.” The islanders have all sorts of rather unusual names. In the past, it was common for Christian missionaries to bestow names, so there were many like Maria and Francis. Also, due to its former status as German territory, names such as Bismarck occasionally appeared—but Napoleon was rare. However, compared to other islander names I knew—Shichigatsu (likely because he was born in July), Kokoro (Kokoro? [Heart?]), Hamigaki—Napoleon was undeniably a far more imposing name. Still, there was something undeniably absurd about its excessive grandeur.

Under the canvas awning stretched over the deck, I listened to the story of Napoleon, a dark-skinned delinquent boy. Napoleon had been living in Koror until two years prior, but during his third year at public school, he was said to have committed a viciously sadistic prank on a younger girl that nearly killed her. He had apparently perpetrated two or three similar incidents along with thefts, and in the year before last when he was thirteen, as punishment for a minor, he had been exiled to S Island far south of Koror. Though nominally part of the Palau Islands, these southern outlying islands were geologically distinct; their inhabitants descended from Central Carolinian groups far to the east, making their language and customs completely different from Palau's. Even this notorious delinquent Napoleon had apparently been overwhelmed initially, yet he seemed to possess a peculiar talent for adapting to—or rather conquering—his environment, and within less than half a year had begun running wild on S Island too. Some time ago, a petition had come from the island's village chief to the Palau Branch Office stating he caused trouble by threatening boys and acting improperly toward girls and married women. One might expect such a delinquent to be disciplined within the island community, yet reportedly it was the island's adults who cowered in fear instead. S Island had an extremely small population that decreased yearly—practically a deserted island—but could its residents truly lack even the vigor to restrain a mere fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy?

The reason the police officer I was now speaking with had come to apprehend Napoleon was that the Palau Branch Office’s Police Affairs Division, having deemed him irredeemable, had decided not only to extend his period of exile but also to change his place of banishment to T Island, situated far further south than S Island. The police officer, combining this task with another—the collection of head taxes from remote outlying islands—had brought along an islander policeman and boarded this small vessel of the isolated island route, one that mainlanders almost never rode and which only made about three trips a year.

“Mr. Napoleon, will you quietly and obediently board this ship and transfer to T Island?” I said. “Come now—no matter how wicked he may be—he’s merely an islander child,” retorted the police officer heatedly. “It’s not an issue.” In his voice—unlike our previous exchanges—I detected unexpected indignation. Ah, I realized—my remark might have insulted this officer who wielded absolute authority over islanders.

Even if S Island sent Napoleon away to T Island because they couldn’t handle his presence, there was no doubt that T Island—undoubtedly a gathering of similarly listless individuals—would also struggle with this boy. Was there really no other way? For example, making him perform labor under strict surveillance in Koror’s streets—something of that sort. Moreover, under what law were they imposing this antiquated punishment of exile on the boy? What laws had been established for these islanders who didn’t hold Japanese nationality, particularly their minors? Though I served as a South Seas colonial official myself, being in an entirely different department and moreover a complete newcomer, I remained utterly ignorant of such matters and wanted to inquire further. However, given that I seemed to have somewhat offended the officer’s mood already, and with consideration for the native policeman standing nearby, I decided to refrain.

“The captain said we’d reach S Island around noon, but after what happened last time—drifting half a day and overshooting it—you can’t really count on that.”

The police officer changed the subject, said such things, and while stretching, turned his gaze toward the sea. I too found myself drawn along, narrowing my eyes for no particular reason as I gazed at the dazzling sea and sky. It was a day of utterly cloudless weather. What a radiant blue it was, both the sea and the sky. No sooner had the clear bright blue of the sky dissolved into a hazy golden-dust mist near the horizon than from beneath it now surged upward a vivid ultramarine water—spreading, swelling, rising—so intense it seemed a single glance might stain one’s entire body. An indigo-purple great disk—immensely rich and beautiful, containing light within—rose above and sank below the ship’s white-painted railing, swelling up enormously large and high, then sinking down low with a great motion. I recalled the term "ultramarine demon." I didn’t know what kind of demon it was, but I found myself idly thinking that perhaps if countless pale azure imps were to frolic wildly amidst dazzling platinum light, they might manifest this sea and sky’s splendor.

After a while, when I turned my eyes away from the sea’s overwhelming glare and looked ahead, the young police officer who had been speaking with me moments before was already snoring contentedly, still slumped against his canvas deck chair. Near noon, the ship navigated through fissures in the coral reef into the bay. It was S Island. Elba Island—where the little dark-skinned Napoleon resided. A low coral island devoid of hills. The beach curved in a gentle semicircle—its sand of coral fragments blindingly white, painful to behold. Aged coconut trees stood tall in the azure midday light, their grandeur dwarfing the native huts peeking out below. Twenty or thirty islanders had gathered on shore, squinting and shielding their eyes as they watched our ship.

Due to the tide, the ship could not dock at the pier. When the vessel anchored some fifty meters offshore, three welcoming canoes came cutting through the water. A magnificently bronzed, robust man rowed toward us wearing nothing but a crimson loincloth. As they drew near, I saw black earrings dangling from their ears.

“I’ll take my leave now,” the police officer said as he picked up his helmet, then descended from the deck followed by the native policeman.

The ship was scheduled to stay at this island for only three hours.

I decided not to go ashore. It was solely due to my fear of the heat.

After finishing lunch below, I came back up to the deck. Unlike the deep indigo of the open sea, the water inside the barrier reef was jade dissolved in milk. The area cast in the ship’s shadow appeared especially clear and transparent, with a hue like the cross-section of thick glass. As I gazed down at angel-fish-like black fish with bold vertical stripes and saury-like amber-colored slender fish swimming vigorously below, drowsiness began to set in. Lying down on the deck chair where the police officer had been sleeping earlier, I immediately fell asleep.

I awoke to footsteps and voices ascending the gangway to find the police officer and native policeman had already returned. With them stood an islander boy wearing only a loincloth. "Ah, this one?" "Napoleon?" With a curt "Haa," the officer shoved the boy toward the deck corner piled with ropes and rigging. "Squat down there." From behind the officer, the native policeman—a dull-looking youth who might have just reached twenty—barked something brief at the boy. Likely interpreting the order. Napoleon threw us a sullen glare before perching on a wooden crate and turning seaward.

For an islander, his eyes were remarkably small, but Napoleon’s face was not particularly ugly. That said—though most wicked faces possess some cunning intelligence—his did not fall into the category of being maliciously clever. While his face showed not a trace of what could be called intelligence—an utterly dull-witted countenance—it also lacked that dull comicality commonly seen in the faces of ordinary islanders. Pure malice—devoid of meaning or purpose—stood out starkly on that foolish countenance. The cruel acts this boy had committed in Koror that I had just been told about by the police officer—indeed, seeing this face, one could well believe him capable of such deeds. However, what defied expectations was the smallness of his build. Islanders generally finish growing before twenty, so by fifteen or sixteen, many already possess truly splendid physiques. I had thought that a boy so precocious as to commit sexually criminal acts would surely have a physique sufficiently developed to match, yet here was this shriveled, monkey-like youth. How a boy with such a physique could make everyone fear him among the islanders—in a society where, even now after family status, physical strength should reign supreme—seemed truly unfathomable.

"You’ve had quite the task," I said to the police officer. "Nah. "The bastard was out on the beach with the villagers since ships are rare here—we caught him right away." "But according to that man"—he pointed at the native policeman—"here’s the trouble," said the officer. "That Napoleon bastard’s gone and forgotten every scrap of Palauan now. Doesn’t understand a word you say to him. But can such a thing really be? To forget every last bit of his mother tongue in just two years?"

It was said that after two years of using nothing but Trukese on this island, Napoleon had completely forgotten Palauan. If he had forgotten the Japanese he had studied for about two years at public school, that would have been understandable. But to forget even the Palauan he had used since birth? I tilted my head. But I thought it might not be entirely impossible after all. However, on the other hand, who could say it wasn't a lie to avoid the police officer's interrogation? "Who knows," I said, tilting my head again.

“I’ve grilled the bastard plenty myself, thinkin’ he might be lyin’,” the police officer said while wiping sweat from his brow, glaring resentfully at Napoleon’s back turned toward us. “Anyway, he’s a sulky, impudent bastard.” “He’s still just a damn kid, but I’ve never seen such a stubborn bastard.”

At 3:00 PM, it was finally time to set sail. With the clattering sound of the engine, the ship began to rock gently up and down. I was leaning against a deck chair with the police officer (since we were the only first-class passengers, we inevitably ended up together constantly) gazing toward the island. At that moment, the native policeman who had been standing beside us let out a startled cry and pointed behind us. The instant I turned toward that direction, I saw the retreating figure of an islander boy who had just vaulted over the white-painted railing into the sea. In a panic, we rushed over to the railing. By now, the escapee had already put a dozen meters between himself and the ship, swimming around the stern through churning waters with vigorous strokes toward the island.

“Stop!” “Stop the ship!” the police officer bellowed. “Napoleon has escaped!”

Instantly, the deck erupted into chaotic uproar. The two islander crewmen who had been at the stern instantly jumped into the sea from their position to chase after the escapee. Both appeared to be robust young men just over twenty years old. The distance between the escapee and his pursuers appeared to shrink rapidly before our eyes. The islanders who had been seeing off the ship from the beach finally seemed to notice as well, scattering across the white sand toward the direction Napoleon was attempting to swim ashore.

At the unexpected drama, I leaned against the railing and held my breath. This was yet another South Seas capture unfolding against a world of colors so vivid they could wake the sleeping eye. I must have been watching with an extremely delighted expression.

“Quite a show!” came the voice that made me realize—the captain had somehow appeared beside me (for some reason, this captain never appeared without at least a slight whiff of alcohol about him). He too was leisurely puffing on his pipe, watching the nautical drama below with the amused detachment of someone viewing a film. Realizing I had apparently been thinking how splendid it would be if Napoleon managed to reach shore and escape into the island’s forest, I gave a wry smile.

But the result was unexpectedly anticlimactic. In the end, when he had come to waist-deep water about twenty ken from the shore, Napoleon was overtaken. When pitting a single undersized boy against two strapping young men, the outcome was never in doubt. The boy, seized by both arms and dragged along, remained visible until they reached shore—but then the islanders instantly swarmed around him, making it impossible to see what followed.

The police officer was in an extremely foul mood.

Thirty minutes later, when Napoleon—restrained by two sailors who had distinguished themselves—was brought back aboard via the island’s canoe, he was first dealt three or four brutal slaps in quick succession. Now, this time (they hadn’t bound him with rope earlier), after having both his hands and feet tied up with the ship’s hemp rope, he was dumped into the narrow space between coconut baskets—likely containing the islander sailors’ provisions—and peeled young drinking coconuts. “Damn it. Making us go through all this extra trouble!” the police officer said, finally seeming relieved despite everything.

The next day also brought flawless weather. Without sighting land all day, the ship ran south.

Finally, as evening drew near, we entered the atoll of Uninhabited Island H Reef. I thought that the reason for bringing the ship near the uninhabited island was to check whether there might be any castaways, because I remembered such provisions being written in some government-regulated shipping route's regulations. However, in reality, it hadn't stemmed from such naive humanitarian considerations. The true purpose was to crack down on poachers at the request of the South Seas Trading Company, which held exclusive harvesting rights for turban shells in these waters.

From the deck, a vast flock of seabirds covered this low coral reef island.

Invited by two or three crew members to go ashore and look around, I was even more astonished. Behind rocks, atop trees, across the sand—nothing but birds, birds, birds, their eggs and droppings blanketing every surface. Yet these countless birds showed no intention of fleeing as we approached. When we tried catching them, they merely staggered back two or three clumsy steps. From specimens as large as human children down to sparrow-sized creatures—white, gray, pale brown, faint blue—tens of thousands of seabirds from dozens of uncountable species swarmed there. Regrettably, neither I nor the accompanying crew members could name a single one. An inexpressible joy overtook me, and I recklessly darted about chasing them. You could catch as many as you wanted—absurdly many. When I seized one of those large white birds with long red beaks, it thrashed and pecked at me, yet I kept catching and releasing dozens more, shouting with childlike glee all the while. The crew members, having done this before, lacked my exhilaration but still swung sticks about, needlessly slaughtering great numbers. They brought back three moderately sized birds and about ten pale yellow eggs to the ship for consumption.

When I returned to the ship as thoroughly satisfied as a schoolboy back from a field trip, the police officer who hadn’t disembarked said to me: "That bastard (Napoleon) has been sulking and hasn’t eaten a thing since yesterday, you know. We give him taro and coconut water and untie his hands, but he doesn’t even glance at them. There’s no telling how deep his stubbornness runs."

Indeed, the boy lay in the same spot and position as the day before. (Fortunately, it was a place untouched by sunlight.) Even when I approached his side, though his eyes remained clearly open, he made no attempt to turn his gaze.

The following morning—that is, the second morning after departing S Island—the ship finally arrived at T Island. This was both the terminus of the shipping route and the boy Napoleon’s new place of exile. The shallow green waters within the barrier reef; the white sand and distant view of towering coconut trees; several canoes swiftly paddling closer toward the steamship; the islanders clambering aboard from those canoes to exchange their brought chickens and eggs for the sailors’ offered cigarettes and sardine cans; then too, the island people standing on the beach gazing curiously at the ship. These scenes showed no variation from island to island.

When the arriving canoe reached [the ship], the native policeman informed Napoleon—who still lay in the same position among the coconut baskets (he had stubbornly refused all food and drink for two full days)—of their arrival, then untied the ropes binding his legs and pulled him upright. Napoleon stood up obediently, but when the native policeman still tried to take his arm and pull him toward the police officer, he shoved the native policeman aside with an indignant look, using his restrained elbow. I did not miss the momentary flash of surprise mingled with fear that surfaced on the dull-looking face of the native policeman who had been shoved aside. Napoleon descended the gangway alone, following behind the police officer. I watched from the deck as he moved to the canoe, soon disembarked onto the shore, and along with two or three islanders, disappeared into the coconut grove following the police officer.

At this point, seven or eight islander passengers loaded coconut baskets into a dugout canoe and disembarked, just as over ten others intending to go to Palau from here shouldered similar coconut baskets and came aboard. With unnaturally stretched earlobes bearing glossy black coconut-shell rings and wavy tattoos spanning neck to chest, they were pure Trukese in style. After about an hour, the police officer and the native policeman returned to the ship. They had explained Napoleon’s exile to the islanders and entrusted his custody to the village chief before returning.

Departure came in the afternoon.

As was customary, islanders seeing off the departure lined up along the beach, regretfully bidding farewell. (After all, the large ship—which could only be seen three or four times a year—was departing.) Wearing sunglasses to block the sun, I gazed from the deck at the beach and spotted a boy among their ranks who looked unmistakably like Napoleon. Thinking "Huh?", I checked with the native policeman beside me, and he affirmed that it was indeed Napoleon. Since he was quite far away, I couldn’t make out his expression, but now that he had been completely freed from his bonds, he seemed—at least to my eyes—brighter and more spirited. Accompanied by two slightly smaller children beside him and occasionally conversing with them—could it be that he had already formed followers within just three hours of landing?

When the ship finally sounded its whistle and began turning its bow toward the open sea, I distinctly saw Napoleon wave toward the vessel alongside the islanders lining the shore. Why would that stubborn, sullen boy do such a thing? Had he gone ashore and gorged himself on taro until he forgot all his shipboard resentments and hunger strike, simply wanting to playact boyishly by mimicking others? Or despite having forgotten their language entirely, did some lingering nostalgia for Palau make him wave at the ship bound there? I couldn't discern which it was.

The Kunimaru hurried single-mindedly northward, and Saint Helena—Little Napoleon's exile—first became a gray shadow, then a threadlike wisp of smoke, until finally, after an hour, it vanished completely beyond the great azure disk blazing like flame.

Midday. I woke up.

I woke up. Groaning, I stretched contentedly after getting my fill of sleep, and beneath my limbs and back, the sand—the pure white fragments of flower coral—sifted away in a light cascade. Not two ken from the tideline, beneath the thicket of a large taman tree, in the deep eggplant-colored shade, I had been taking my midday nap. The branches and leaves overhead grew in a dense, interwoven mass, and almost no sunlight filtering through them reached down.

When I sat up and looked out to sea, the vivid crimson triangular sail cutting through mackerel-blue waters brought my eyes sharply awake. The sail-equipped dugout canoe was now just entering a gap in the barrier reef from the open sea. Judging by the sun's angle, the time must have been just past noon.

I lit a tobacco pipe, then settled back down onto the coral fragments. It was quiet. Apart from the rustling of leaves overhead and the lapping sounds of water at the shore, only the faint noise of waves beyond the barrier reef occasionally reached my ears.

On this island where time dawdled tranquilly by—untroubled by deadlines or seasonal divides—Urashima Taro was no mere folktale. It was merely that we found it difficult to discover in the sun-darkened, sturdy girls of this island the charm that the folktale’s protagonist had found in its heroine. I wondered—did the word “time” even exist in this island’s vocabulary?

A year ago, in the cold northern mists—what had I been tormented by?—I suddenly found myself wondering. Somehow, it all seemed like an event from some distant, bygone era. The winter chill that once seeped into my very skin could no longer be vividly recalled. Just as with that vanished coldness, the myriad torments that had plagued me in the north now remained only as factual memories—mere faint shadows lingering beyond a veil of blissful oblivion.

So then—was this what I had envisioned as southern bliss before embarking on my journey? Could this be what constituted southern bliss—the pleasant awakening from a midday nap, the quiet oblivion and idleness and rest upon coral fragments?

“No”—something within me clearly denied this. “No—that’s not it. What you had expected from the South was never supposed to be this idleness and weariness. It was supposed to be about casting myself into a new, unknown environment and fully testing the latent power within me that even I had yet to recognize—wasn’t it? Furthermore—wasn’t it also an expectation for adventure...anticipating that this place would naturally be chosen as a battlefield in the imminent war to come?”

That's right. Indeed. And yet that yearning for new harshness had melted into gentle sea winds, leaving only dreamlike indolence and ease—languidly, sweetly, without a shred of remorse—enveloping me. "Without any regrets? Truly without any?" that spiteful voice within me demanded again. "I care not for laziness or inaction. If you truly harbor no regrets— if you're truly free from modernity's ghosts—Europe's artificial phantoms. Yet wherever you go, you remain yourself. Shivering through Meiji Shrine's ginkgo-strewn Outer Garden or gnawing stone-baked breadfruit with islanders—always yourself. Never changing. Only sunlight and hot winds casting temporary veils over your consciousness. You imagine yourself gazing at glittering sea and sky. Or worse—fancy you see through islanders' eyes. Nonsense. You see neither sea nor sky. Staring into spatial void while chanting internally: Elle est retrouvée!—Quoi?—L'Éternité. C'est la mer mêlée au soleil. (Found it! What? Eternity. Sun-fused seascape)—mere mantric repetition.

You aren't even seeing the islanders. You're just looking at Gauguin reproductions. You aren't even seeing Micronesia. You're merely seeing faded reproductions of Polynesia as depicted by Loti and Melville. With eyes clinging to such a bleached husk, what do you know of eternity? "Pathetic wretch!"

"No, be cautious," said another distinct voice. "The primitive is by no means healthy! Just as idleness is not healthy. "Nothing is more dangerous than a misguided flight from civilization."

“That’s right,” answered the earlier voice. “Certainly, the primitive is not healthy. At least in the modern age. But even so, isn’t it still more vigorous than your civilization? No—fundamentally, health and unhealthiness have nothing to do with civilization or the primitive. Those who do not fear reality, those who see clearly with unborrowed eyes—they remain healthy in any time and under any circumstances. But as for those within you—the ‘sham sage in ancient Chinese ceremonial robes’ and the ‘cunning-looking jester with a Voltaire mask’—what of them? Masters—though you now stagger drunkenly in the South Seas’ heat, when I consider your wretchedness while sober, your intoxicated state seems preferable after all...”

Three or four tiny hermit crabs in unfamiliar shells approached near my feet, but sensing human presence, they halted, observed for a moment, then scurried away in haste.

The village seemed to be in its naptime now. Not a soul walked the shore. The sea—at least the water within the barrier reef—appeared to slumber heavily in jade green. Only occasionally did it glitter dazzlingly as it reflected the sun. When one occasionally saw what might have been a mullet leaping above the water’s surface, it seemed that only the fish remained awake. A bright, calm—vibrant sea and sky stretched before me. Now, somewhere in this sea, Triton—half his body leaning out onto the tepid water—blew his conch shell resoundingly. Somewhere beneath this cloudless sky, Aphrodite began emerging anew from rose-tinted foam. From somewhere among the azure waves, a sweet siren’s song attempted to seduce the wise king of Ithaca. ...I mustn't! Yet another specter. Literature—no, the pallid specter of something called European literature.

Clicking my tongue, I stood up. A bittersweet taste lingered in a corner of my mind for some time.

When I stepped onto the damp beach, countless hermit crabs and small crabs—like blue and red toys—scattered in unison. When I kicked a fallen coconut about five suns long that had just begun to sprout, it tumbled into the water with a splash.

Now that I think of it, something strange had happened last night. As I lay sleeping on a floor of round bamboo poles in an islander's house, spread with a thin mat woven from tako leaves, I suddenly—without any prompting—recalled the brightly decorated shopfronts of souvenir stalls at Tokyo's Kabukiza Theatre (not the stage itself, but those selling rice crackers, candies, caricatures, and bromides), and the waves of well-dressed people flowing past them. Gaudy boxes and cans and hand towels scattered with actors' family crests; caricatures of actors with dramatic kumadori eye makeup; the harsh white electric lights illuminating them; even the figures of young women and apprentice geishas gazing intently—all came flooding back with vivid clarity, down to the pungent scent of their hair oil. I do not particularly care for Kabuki theater itself either. I should have no interest whatsoever in souvenir shops or the like. Why—amidst this native hut thatched with coconut leaves on a tiny island encircled by Pacific waves, listening to the thudding sound of coconuts falling around the house—had this meaningless, insubstantial fragment of Tokyo life suddenly resurfaced in my mind? I had no idea at all. In any case, it seemed various strange beings were jumbled together chaotically inside me. Shameless, despicable wretches even.

When I reached the edge of the tamana grove's shade along the coast, a small naked boy came running across the sun-scorched sand from the opposite direction. When he came before me, he stopped, neatly aligned his feet, bowed so deeply his head nearly reached his knees, and announced that the meal was ready. He was the child of the islander's house where I was staying, now eight years old—an emaciated, large-eyed boy with a protruding belly covered in ulcerative tumors. When I asked if some treat had been prepared, they said his brother had earlier speared a Kamudukuru fish and made Japanese-style sashimi.

When I took one step onto the sunlit sand following the boy, a pure white Sohosoho bird—called so by islanders for its cry, though mainlanders name it "airplane bird" for its shape—flapped noisily up from the tamana tree's crown and vanished into the high, dazzling azure sky.

Marian

The name Marian referred to an island woman I knew well. Marian was Mary. Marian was the Mary of the Virgin Mary. The islanders of Palau all spoke with nasalized pronunciations, making it sound like "Marian." I didn't know how old Marian was. It wasn't out of any particular reservation—I had simply never asked. In any case, she certainly hadn't yet reached thirty. Whether Marian's appearance was considered beautiful by islander standards—this too I didn't know. I didn't think she could be called ugly. Hers was a face purely typical of Micronesian Kanaka—utterly devoid of Japanese-influenced features and equally free of Western traits (in the South Seas, those deemed even slightly well-proportioned usually had mixed blood from one lineage or another)—yet I considered it remarkably impressive. While racial limitations were unavoidable, within those constraints I found it truly a vibrant, carefree face rich with character. Yet Marian herself seemed somewhat ashamed of her Kanaka-like features. This was because—as will be discussed later—she was intensely intellectual, her mind's substance having nearly ceased to be Kanaka. Another reason lay in Koror—the cultural center of the South Sea Islands where Marian lived—where civilized standards of beauty held sway even among islanders. In truth, this town called Koror—where I'd stayed longest—seemed plagued by a peculiar chaos born from tropical lands being governed by temperate value standards. When I first arrived there, I hadn't felt this so keenly. But after leaving once to travel islands devoid of Japanese residents and returning later, this reality struck me with crystalline clarity. There, neither tropical nor temperate things appeared beautiful. Or rather—beauty itself simply didn't exist there, whether tropical or temperate. What should have possessed tropical beauty withered under temperate civilization's stifling influence, while what ought to have embodied temperate beauty could only display discordant fragility beneath the tropical climate's natural forces—its blinding sunlight above all. All that remained in this town was a poverty that reeked of colonial backwaters—decadent yet oddly pretentious in its conspicuousness.

In any case, due to being in such an environment, Marian did not seem to particularly cherish the Kanaka-like richness of her face. If one were to speak of richness, however, rather than her features, her physique was undoubtedly even more abundant. Her height was likely no less than five shaku four sun, and her weight was said to be around twenty kan even when slightly thinner. Truly, it was an enviably magnificent physique.

The first time I saw Marian was in ethnologist Mr.H's room. One night, as I sat talking with Mr.H in a cramped bachelor quarters—its floor covered with thin rush matting instead of tatami—a sudden shrill whistle sounded outside the window, and through the narrow gap of the barely opened window (after over a decade in the South Seas, Mr.H had grown utterly insensitive to heat, finding mornings and evenings so cold he couldn't keep from shutting it tight), a young woman's voice asked, "May I come in?" Well now—this ethnologist isn't someone to let his guard down easily—I thought in surprise, when the one who opened the door and entered turned out not to be a mainlander but an island woman of imposing stature, making me startle anew.

"My Palauan teacher," Mr. H introduced her to me. Mr. H was currently collecting ancient narrative poems from the Palau region and translating them into Japanese, but the woman—Marian—came to assist him three set days a week. That evening too, leaving me beside them, the two immediately began their studies.

Palau has no writing system. The ancient narrative poems were all ones that Mr.H had gone around inquiring of the islands' elders and transcribed using the alphabet. Marian first looked at the notebook of transcribed Palauan ancient narrative poems and corrected the Palauan language errors written there. Then she stayed by Mr.H’s side as he translated，answering his occasional questions.

“Oh, you speak English?” I remarked in admiration. Mr.H laughed while looking toward Marian and said, “Well now, she’s quite proficient. Attended a girls’ school in the mainland after all.” Marian parted her thick lips in a slightly bashful manner but did not contradict Mr.H’s words. Later when I asked Mr.H about it, he said she had attended some girls’ school in Tokyo for two or three years—though it seems she hadn’t graduated. “Even without that,” Mr.H added, “she learned English from her old man.” “When I say ‘old man,’ he’s actually her adoptive father.” “Why, that William Gibbon is her adoptive father, you see.” When told “Gibbon,” I could only recall the author of that voluminous *History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire*. But upon further inquiry, they explained he was a renowned intellectual mixed-race child—of an Englishman and a native—in Palau, a man who had served continuously as interpreter during Professor Kreemer’s anthropological surveys in the German colonial era. To be precise, he hadn’t actually mastered German—it was said he had conducted all dealings with Professor Kreemer in English—but given that she was the adopted daughter of such a man, her English proficiency was only natural.

Whether due to my contrary nature, I found myself utterly unable to form friendly relationships with colleagues at the Palauan government office—Mr. H remained my sole acquaintance worthy of being called a friend. As I frequented Mr. H’s room, I naturally found myself growing close to Marian as well. Marian called Mr. H "Uncle," because she had known him since she was very small. She would occasionally prepare Palauan dishes at home and bring them to Uncle’s place to treat him. Each time, I would partake as well. It was thanks to Marian that I first came to know things like binrunmu—tapioca dumplings—and titimmur, a sweet confection.

One time while passing by with Mr.H, we stopped briefly at Marian’s house. Her house, like all other islanders’ homes, had floors mostly made of round bamboo poles laid side by side, with only part consisting of wooden floorboards. When we stepped up unceremoniously, there on the wooden flooring lay a small table bearing books. Picking them up to look, one was Kuriyagawa Hakuson’s Selected Interpretations of English Poetry, and the other was Iwanami Bunko’s The Marriage of Loti. Shelves hung from the ceiling held rows of coconut baskets, while ropes strung across the room displayed simple garments in disarray—islanders don’t store clothes but hang them carelessly like dried fish—and beneath the bamboo flooring came the clucking of chickens. In a corner lay a woman who was likely Marian’s relative, sprawled in slovenly repose. When we entered, she turned suspicious eyes our way before rolling over to face the wall again. Amid such surroundings, discovering works by Kuriyagawa Hakuson and Pierre Loti left me feeling peculiarly unsettled—one might even say touched by a certain pity. Though whether this pity was directed at the books themselves or at Marian remained unclear.

Regarding The Marriage of Loti, Marian voiced her discontent—a dissatisfaction with how the real South Seas were nothing like this. "Since it's about the old days, and Polynesia at that," she said, "I can't claim to fully understand, but still—surely such things couldn't have existed."

When I looked at the corner of the room, there appeared to be something like a mandarin orange crate still crammed with various books and magazines. The volume on top seemed to be an old alumni magazine from the Tokyo girls' school she had once attended. In the town of Koror, there was not a single shop that carried Iwanami Bunko.

Once at a gathering of mainlanders when I happened to mention Mr.Yamamoto Yūzō's name，they all asked in unison what sort of person he was. I don't particularly think everyone must read literary works，but regardless，this town stood at such remove from books. Marian was likely Koror's foremost reader—perhaps even including the mainlanders.

Marian had a five-year-old daughter. Her husband was no longer present. According to Mr.H, it had been Marian who drove him out. This was because he had been an excessively jealous man. To say this made Marian sound like a rough woman—though in truth, by any measure she was far from timid—one had to consider her high social standing among the islanders stemming from lineage. I had previously mentioned her adoptive father being mixed-race, but since Palau followed a matrilineal system, this bore no relation to Marian's social status. However, Marian's biological mother came from Koror's paramount chief household—the Ideis family. In other words, Marian belonged to Koror Island's foremost distinguished family. The reason she still served as leader of the Koror Island Women's Youth Group stemmed not only from her intellect but also this lineage. The man who had been Marian's husband was from Ogival Village on Palau's main island—though Palau had a matrilineal system, during marriage the wife would still reside at the husband's household. (If the husband died, she would take all the children back to her parents' home.) Due both to her family's standing and Marian's aversion to country living—though unconventional—the husband had come to live at Marian's house. It had been Marian who drove him out. Even considering physical build, the man might not have been a match. However, after being expelled, the man would frequently come to Marian's house bringing consolation money and pleading for reconciliation. They had apparently relented once and resumed living together, but since the jealous man's nature remained unchanged—or rather, because the disparity in intellect between Marian and the man seemed the true cause—they separated again. And so she had been living alone ever since. Due to family status considerations—especially strict in Palau—they couldn't accept just anyone, and since Marian had become too Westernized for most islander men to be suitable matches, Mr.H said she probably couldn't marry anymore. Come to think of it, Marian's friends all seemed to be Japanese. In the evenings, she would always insert herself into the veranda benches of mainlander merchants' wives to chat. Moreover, it seemed that in most cases Marian held sway over these casual conversations.

I had seen Marian in full ceremonial dress. She wore spotless Western clothing with high heels, her outfit completed by a short parasol held in hand. Her complexion glowed with its usual vivid, almost glossy tea-brown luster; from her short sleeves emerged thick, bronze arms so powerful they could crush demons, while beneath her pillar-like legs, the slender high heels of her shoes seemed ready to snap. Though endeavoring to cast aside the prejudice of the physically frail against those of superior build, I couldn't help feeling an inexplicable absurdity rising within me. Yet simultaneously, I truly did re-experience that same pang of pity felt when discovering Selected Interpretations of English Poetry in her room. Though here again, whether this pity concerned the snow-white dress itself or its wearer remained unclear.

Two or three days after seeing her in formal attire, as I was reading a book in my lodgings' room, a whistle-like sound—one I thought I recognized—came from outside. When I looked through the window, there was Marian cutting undergrowth in the adjacent banana field. This had to be one of the communal labor duties periodically imposed on the island women by the town administration. Beside her, seven or eight island women crouched among the weeds with sickles in hand. The whistle apparently hadn't been meant to summon me after all—(Marian always visited Mr.H's quarters but wouldn't know my room)—and she kept diligently cutting, unaware of my observation. Compared to her recent finery, her present attire was shockingly crude: a faded work dress for field labor, her feet as bare as any islander's. The whistling seemed an absent-minded habit as she worked—something done without conscious effort. When she'd filled the large basket beside her with cuttings, she straightened up and turned toward my direction. Recognizing me, she flashed a grin but made no move to approach. As if masking embarrassment, she deliberately shouted "Heave-ho!" in an exaggerated tone, hoisted the basket onto her head, and walked off without even a farewell.

Last year’s New Year’s Eve night—a pale fine moonlit night—found us—Mr.H, Marian and I—walking through town with our skin bared to the cool night breeze. We whiled away the hours like this until midnight when we meant to make our first shrine visit to Nanyo Shrine at the stroke of twelve. We walked toward Koror Wharf. At the wharf’s end where a pool had been built, we settled ourselves on its edge. Mr.H—quite advanced in years yet terribly fond of singing—belted out various songs in a loud voice, mostly excerpts from operas he excelled in. Marian did nothing but whistle. She pursed her thick large lips into a rounded point as she blew. Her tunes weren’t difficult operatic pieces but mostly Foster’s saccharine melodies. As I listened, I suddenly remembered these were originally sorrowful songs of North America’s Black people.

What prompted it I cannot say, but suddenly Mr.H said to Marian.

“Marian! Marian! (He must have been shouting so loudly because of the synthetic sake he’d taken before leaving home.) If you’re to take a husband this time, Marian, it’s got to be a mainlander.” “Huh?” “Marian!” With just a slight twist at the corner of her thick lips producing a “Hmph,” Marian offered no reply and continued gazing at the pool’s surface. The moon now neared its zenith, and with the sea at low tide, the connected pool had lost nearly all its water, leaving the stones at the bottom nearly exposed. Some time later—around when I’d forgotten about continuing Mr. H’s earlier remarks—Marian broke the silence.

"But... mainlander men... well, you know how it is." What? Suddenly struck by the thought—"So she had been contemplating her future remarriage all along?"—I found myself amused and burst into loud laughter. Still laughing, I pressed, "Then what about mainlander men? Huh?" Perhaps taking offense at being laughed at, Marian turned her face away and gave no reply.

That spring, when Mr.H and I happened to both be temporarily returning to the mainland, Marian slaughtered a chicken and prepared a final Palauan feast for us.

Smacking our lips at the taste of meat we hadn’t had since New Year’s, Mr.H and I said, “We’ll surely return by autumn or thereabouts.” When we added (“Truly, both of us had planned to”), Marian spoke while laughing: “Uncle here is more than half islander, so he’ll surely return—but Ton-chan (the vexing thing is she calls me this—she’d imitated Mr.H’s way of addressing—at first I’d been a bit annoyed, but in the end could only sigh and give a bitter smile)—you see.”

“So you’re saying we can’t be relied upon?” I asked, to which she replied with uncharacteristic solemnity: “No matter how friendly you get with mainlanders, once they go back home, none ever return.” After we had returned to the mainland, Marian apparently sent word two or three times to Mr.H’s place. Each occasion, they say she inquired after Ton-chan’s whereabouts.

As for me, no sooner had I disembarked in Yokohama than I succumbed to the cold and caught a chill, which then worsened into pleurisy. Returning to that land’s government office again was now utterly out of the question.

Mr.H had recently—quite a late marriage for him—finalized his marriage plans and settled in Tokyo. Of course, given that he was a man who had dedicated his life to South Seas ethnological studies, there would likely still be occasions for him to embark on research trips there again. Nevertheless, as Marian had anticipated, this meant he would no longer be permanently settling in those lands.

What would Marian say if she heard?

Travelogue

Ⅰ

Kusai

In the morning, when I awoke, the ship appeared to be stationary. I immediately went up to the deck to see.

The ship had already entered between two islands. A fine rain was falling.

The scenery here differed entirely from the South Seas Islands I had seen until now. At the very least, Kusai Island now visible from the deck could never be a subject for Gauguin's paintings. The long shore shrouded in misty rain, the vaguely glimpsed emerald mountains—these were truly an Eastern painting. A lone shore where apricot blossoms shivered in cold misty rain; evening clouds coiling about delicately beautiful rain-drenched peaks—even were such captions added, they would seem perfectly natural. A purely ink-wash landscape.

After finishing breakfast in the dining room and returning to the deck, I found the rain had cleared but smoke-like clouds still drifted through the mountain valleys. At eight o'clock, I landed on Lero Island via launch and immediately went to the assistant inspector’s police station. This island had no branch office; all administrative matters were handled at this police station. A burly assistant inspector—with a face and body as broad as the detective from Crime and Punishment I’d seen years before—was managing paperwork with three native policemen. When I stated I’d come to inspect the public school, he promptly assigned an officer as my guide.

Upon arriving at the public school, a short-statured, slightly plump middle-aged principal—with merchant-like shrewdness gleaming behind his glasses (constantly observing others' expressions), sporting a trimmed mustache—greeted me with an attitude as if beholding something improper. The classroom building contained three rooms; one of these had been designated as the faculty room. Since this was only the elementary course, it went up to the third year. No sooner had we passed through the gate than dark-complexioned children (though I should note that skin tones in the Caroline Islands appeared to lighten as one traveled eastward) scrambled forward, bowing politely with repeated "Good mornings."

The teaching staff under the principal consisted of one certified teacher and one islander teaching assistant. However, this one certified teacher was a woman—and moreover, the principal’s wife. The principal seemed reluctant to have his classes observed. Especially his own wife’s classes. I too was not so ill-natured as to force that observation and attempt to scrutinize psychological nuances. I had resolved simply to hear from the principal about the characteristics of the islander children and his long years of public school education experience. But what was I obliged to inquire about? From beginning to end, I was made to listen to nothing but slander about that assistant inspector I had met earlier.

This wasn't unique to this place alone. On remote islands where both a police substation and public school existed, there was invariably friction between the two. On such islands, since the police officer and public school principal (as many schools had only a principal without any certified teachers beneath them) were the sole Japanese and government officials across the entire island, a natural power struggle would arise. If only one existed, it paradoxically became a petty dictator's autocracy with better results—but.

I had witnessed this countless times before, but encountering a principal who would launch into such vehement tirades against someone meeting him for the first time—this was entirely new. There was nothing malicious about his criticisms. Absolutely everything that Assistant Inspector did was wrong. That even his poor fishing skills—(I’d heard this bay teemed with mackerel scad)—could become fodder for slander was something I too had failed to anticipate. Since the fishing topic had emerged last in his tirade, as I listened with growing urgency, the principal’s argument risked being misconstrued as declaring that due to the assistant inspector’s poor angling skills, he could not possibly be entrusted with this island’s administrative duties. As I listened, I began to feel an unanticipated sense of favor toward that burly assistant inspector who had initially left no particular impression.

After refusing an offer to tour the island and leaving the public school, I set out alone to see the ancient fortress ruins known as the Lero Ruins, asking islanders for directions along the way. The sunlight began filtering through the previously overcast sky, and the island suddenly took on a tropical appearance. Turning inland from the coast before walking even a block, I encountered the stone rampart I sought. Though covered by lush tropical trees and buried in moss, it was a remarkably large basalt structure.

Once past the entrance, it opened up into considerable space. A stone-paved path, slippery with moss, wound on in twists and turns. What appeared to be the remains of rooms and structures shaped like wells peeked in and out of view amidst dense ferns. Whether from the collapse of the rampart or not, mountains of piled stone blocks lay heaped here and there. Everywhere coconuts had fallen—some rotting away, others sending out sprouts three feet long. In roadside puddles, shrimp could be seen swimming. In Micronesia there exists another similar ruin on Ponape Island—even larger in scale—yet neither the people who constructed them nor their age has been determined. In any case, it seems established theory that the builders had no relation whatsoever to the current inhabitants. Not only are there no coherent legends regarding this stone rampart, but the current inhabitants possess neither interest nor knowledge of stone architecture; moreover, transporting these massive rocks from distant shores across the sea—(no such stones exist on this island)—would have required techniques impossible for any but a race possessing a civilization far surpassing their own. When did this indigenous people with such a civilization flourish? When did they perish? A certain anthropologist studied these ruins scattered across the vast Pacific—existing not only throughout Micronesia but abundantly across Polynesia too—(Easter Island remaining the most famous example)—and hypothesized a common "ancient civilization" that had once encompassed a vast region stretching from Egypt in the west to the American continent in the east during some remote epoch of the past. As characteristics of that civilization, he cited sun worship, megalithic construction techniques, agricultural irrigation systems, and others. These grand hypotheses granted me wings of most delightful fancy. I imagined brave bands of ancient people who had mastered an advanced civilization spreading eastward from primordial Egypt—chasing pearls and obsidian across endless Pacific swells under crimson sails, navigating perhaps with reed-stem charts or by the same Orion and Sirius we still gaze upon today—journeying ever eastward. Before astonished primitive natives they must have erected small pyramids and dolmens and stone circles everywhere, stamping their indomitable will and desires upon this pestilential wilderness. ...Of course, there’s no way for a layperson like myself to judge this hypothesis’ validity. Yet there I stood before megalithic piles that still asserted their enigmatic presence after centuries of scorching heat, typhoons and earthquakes—not yet buried beneath tropical vegetation—while knowing only of present-day inhabitants who lacked even basic agricultural techniques, let alone means to move such stones.

Two massive banyan trees loomed overhead, their branches and trunks alike shrouded in cascading vines and creepers.

Lizards would occasionally emerge from the shadow of the stone wall to observe me. When the stone at my feet shifted with a clatter, startling me, from its shadow emerged a giant crab with a carapace about a foot in width. When it noticed my presence, it hurriedly retreated into the hollow at the base of the banyan tree. On a nearby low tree whose name I did not know perched a jet-black bird about twice the size of a swallow, pecking at purple fruits resembling cornelian cherries. It did not attempt to flee even when seeing me. Dappled sunlight fell scattered upon the stone wall, and the surroundings were terrifyingly quiet.

When I looked at my diary from that day, it was written thus: "Suddenly I heard the bird's uncanny cry. Again silence reigned without a sound. Tropical daylight yet held an eerie presence. Standing motionless so long, unbidden gooseflesh rose across my skin. I knew not why." ...

After returning to the ship, I heard that the people of Kusai eat rats.

Ⅱ

Jaluit

Beyond the morning-calm sea that flowed like molten white fat, a single line lay stretched across the horizon. This was our first glimpse of Jaluit Atoll.

As the ship drew nearer, what had appeared as a mere band on the horizon gradually resolved—first coconut trees, then houses and storehouses becoming discernible. The houses with red roofs, the white-glinting walls, and even the tiny figures of people coming out to greet the ship on the pure white beach.

Truly, Jaboru was a neatly kept island. Like a small miniature garden tastefully arranged on the sand with coconut trees, pandanus trees, and houses.

Walking along the coast, there were houses labeled "Mire Village Communal Lodging" and "Ebon Village Communal Lodging," beside which islanders were engaged in cooking. As this place serves as the central hub of the entire Marshall Islands, residents from distant islands gather here periodically, which is why each island has established its own communal lodging for them.

The Marshall Islanders, particularly the women, are extremely stylish. On Sunday mornings, they each don vividly colorful attire and set off for church. Moreover, these are extravagant Western-style outfits—old-fashioned, abundantly pleated, long-skirted affairs undoubtedly transmitted by missionaries and nuns around the end of the previous century. Even from an outside perspective, they looked excruciatingly hot. Even the men on Sundays tuck a spotless white handkerchief into the breast of their new blue dress shirts. For them, the church serves as a truly delightful club or entertainment hall.

In stark contrast to their extravagant luxury in clothing, when it came to housing, theirs was again the poorest in all of Micronesia. To begin with, few houses had proper floors. They would pile sand or coral debris slightly higher, lay a mat woven from pandanus leaves over it, and sleep there. Erect four pillars around it, cover them with pandanus and coconut leaves, and there you had the roof and walls complete. There was no house as simple as this. They did make windows, but since these were positioned extremely low, they looked exactly like the waste holes of outhouses. Even in such wretched dwellings, without fail, a sewing machine and an iron were always provided. Rather than being astonished by their sartorial extravagance, one might truly have been more astonished by the shrewd tactics of sewing machine companies colluding with missionaries—but in any case, it was an astonishing phenomenon. Of course, Jaboru Town alone had a considerable number of wooden houses with proper floors, but in every such floored house there were invariably residents living with mats spread beneath the floorboards. Items such as fans and hand-woven baskets made from fibers of pandanus leaves—a Marshall Islands specialty—were generally handicrafts produced by these residents beneath the floorboards.

When I crossed over to Island A within the same Jaluit Atoll on a small pom-pom steamer, being surrounded by a pod of dolphins proved amusing yet faintly perilous. This was because those jesting cetaceans, carried away in their revelry, kept diving beneath the boat's hull only to surface unpredictably to port and starboard—at any careless moment one might have imagined our vessel capsizing. Now and then two or three would leap synchronously into the air. They were creatures of elongated snouts and diminutive eyes, their countenances perpetually fixed in roguish grins. Racing alongside our craft, they pursued us clear to the island's very threshold.

When I went ashore on the island, students from Jaboru Public School's supplementary course were conducting copra harvesting operations. This was part of a production drive. I made a circuit around the island to find it densely packed with coconut palms, pandanus trees, and breadfruit trees. Ripe breadfruits lay fallen in abundance across the ground, their rotting forms swarmed by black masses of flies. As we passed by, they immediately descended upon our faces and hands. It proved utterly unbearable. Along the path, an old woman had pierced a hole in a breadfruit's crown, inserted leaves resembling paperplant foliage as a funnel, and was squeezing white copra juice into it from above. When roasted on hot stones this way, they say the sweetness permeates thoroughly, making it exceptionally delicious.

Under the guidance of a Branch Office official, I visited Kabua, the paramount chief of the Marshall Islands. The Kabua family was an ancient aristocratic house straddling both Jaluit and Ailinglaplap regions, their name said to appear frequently in Marshallese epic poetry.

A stylish bungalow-style house. At the entrance hung a nameplate inscribed with the kanji characters 八島嘉坊, accompanied by their phonetic katakana reading ヤシマカブア. Apparently following local custom, the kitchen alone stood as a separate structure—a peculiar construction surrounded on all four sides by vertical latticework. Since the master was initially absent, two young women came out to receive us. Though their facial features at first glance revealed mixed Japanese heritage, both were undeniably beautiful even by mainland standards. It was immediately clear that the two were sisters. The older sister was said to be Kabua's wife.

Before long, Kabua, the master, was summoned and returned. A somewhat intellectual-looking man in his early thirties with dark skin, he appeared perpetually fidgety in an indefinable way. His Japanese seemed barely sufficient to comprehend our speech; he volunteered nothing himself, merely offering polite nods to each thing we said. It hardly seemed conceivable that this was the paramount chief reportedly earning an annual income of fifty to seventy thousand yen (merely by owning an island densely covered with coconut palms, his copra harvests yield that amount annually). Having been served coconut water, soda, and pandanus fruit—and without engaging in any proper conversation (after all, the other party said nothing at all)—I took my leave of the house.

On the return journey, according to what I heard from the Branch Office guide, young Kabua had just recently caused a major scandal by having the sister of his wife (whom I had just seen) bear his child.

In the early morning, at a rocky overhang filled with deep water, I beheld a scene of unparalleled vividness. The water’s clarity revealing every detail of the schooling fish as if within arm’s reach was nothing unusual in the South Seas, yet never before had I been struck by such kaleidoscopic brilliance as at this moment. The most numerous were fish about the size of black sea bream, bearing thick, vivid vertical stripes; seeing them emerge and retreat so frequently from what appeared to be holes in the rocky overhangs, one might surmise this was their nest. Beyond these were an ayu-like slender fish of such pale translucence it seemed nearly diaphanous; dark green reef fish; wide, flat black ones resembling flounder; gaudy little fish identical to freshwater angelfish; a small brown peculiarity that appeared almost all fins and tail, like a single brushstroke from a paintbrush; mackerel-like forms; sardine-like shapes; and even a thick, mouse-gray sea snake crawling along the seabed—all these creatures of dazzling tropical hues frolicked carefree within this transparent, pale jade-green dreamworld, their fine scales glinting. Most astonishing of all was a school of small fish—several times bluer than blue coral reef fish, clad in the brightest ultramarine imaginable—each about two sun in length. When their school fluttered through sun-pierced waters, that vivid ultramarine transformed instantaneously—deepening to navy blue, shifting to violet-indigo, morphing into green-gold before glistening iridescently—utterly dazzling to behold. These rare fish must have numbered over a thousand in total, representing twenty different varieties.

For over an hour, I could only stand there dumbfounded, gazing in a daze.

Even after returning to the mainland, I never spoke to anyone about this dreamlike vista of ultramarine and gold. For the more fervently and minutely I were to describe it, the more I would likely be forced to taste the bitter regret of those old Eastern travelers mocked as "Marco of a million lies," and also because I would surely grow furious at my own words' inability to convey even a tenth of its actual beauty.

The pith helmet seemed to have become something worn exclusively by officials in the mandated territory. Strangely enough, company employees did not appear to use them.

By the way, I walked throughout the archipelago wearing a Panama hat that was not particularly fine. Not a single Islander I encountered on the roads bowed their head. But when government office personnel guiding me walked along the path wearing helmets, the Islanders would bow deeply to make way and lower their heads respectfully. This held true everywhere—whether Natsushima, Akishima, Suiyōshima, or Ponape.

On the day before departing Jaboru, Engineer M and I scoured low Islander houses—or to be more precise, peered beneath the floorboards of these houses—in search of woven souvenirs made by Islanders. As I mentioned earlier, in Jaluit, women lounge on mats spread beneath the floorboards of houses, and many of them engage in weaving using fibers from pandanus leaves. Walking about ten steps ahead of Mr. M, I spotted a thin woman weaving a belt beneath the floorboards of a house. The belt showed no sign of nearing completion, but beside it lay one already finished basket. I had the islander boy guide ask the price of the basket. She said three yen. I had him ask if she could lower the price a bit more, but she showed no sign of agreeing. At that moment, Mr. M appeared. Mr. M also had the boy ask the price. The woman glanced between me and Engineer M—or rather looked up at his hat, that helmet—and gazed up at it. “Two yen,” the woman answered immediately. Oh! I thought. The woman, still with an uncertain demeanor, was muttering something under her breath. When we had the boy interpret, she was apparently saying that it was two yen but would accept one yen and fifty sen if preferred. While I stood dumbfounded, Mr. M promptly purchased the basket for one yen and fifty sen.

After returning to the inn, I took Mr. M’s hat in my hands and scrutinized it closely. A rather old—already misshapen—here and there stained—moreover emitting an unpleasant odor—utterly unremarkable pith helmet. However, to me, it seemed like a mysterious and wondrous object akin to Aladdin’s lamp.

III

Ponape

Perhaps because the island was large, it was quite cool. Rain fell incessantly.

As I walked through the jungle of cotton trees and palms, pale pink morning glories dotted the ground with their delicate charm.

As I walked along the road in J Village, I suddenly heard a young voice say, "*Konnichiwa*." When I looked, from behind the house on the right side of the road emerged two very small Islander children—one boy and one girl, their heights as if trimmed to identical measure—greeting me. Both seemed to have barely turned four years old at most. Standing at the hairy base of a large coconut tree with protruding roots, they must have appeared even smaller. I inadvertently found myself laughing too, and when I said "*Konnichiwa*, good children," they slowly repeated "*Konnichiwa*" once more and bowed with extreme politeness. They bowed their heads, yet kept their eyes wide open, peering upward at me through their lashes. They had sky-blue, adorable large eyes. It was clear that white people’s blood—likely that of whalers from long ago—had intermingled.

By and large, Ponape appeared to have many Islanders with well-featured faces. Unlike other Carolinians, they did not chew betel nut and instead partook of a beverage called sakau resembling liquor. Since this seemed identical to Polynesian kava, perhaps these Islanders had some Polynesian blood mixed into their lineage. The two toddlers standing at the coconut tree's base wore neat clothes uncharacteristic of Islanders. I tried conversing with them, but regrettably they knew no Japanese beyond *Konnichiwa*. Even their command of the Islander language remained uncertain. They simply kept smiling while repeating *Konnichiwa* and bowing their heads.

Amidst this, a young woman emerged from the house and greeted us. Judging from her resemblance to the children, she must have been their mother. In halting, public school-stiffened Japanese, she said, "Please come inside and rest." My throat being parched just then, I climbed over the pig-proof fence and entered the house's garden from the rear.

It was a house teeming with an alarming number of animals. There were nearly ten dogs, about as many pigs, and besides those, cats, goats, chickens, and ducks all jumbled together in chaos. They must have been quite wealthy. The house was grimy but rather spacious. Behind the house, facing directly toward the sea, a large dugout canoe lay stowed, surrounded by pots, kettles, trunks, mirrors, coconut shells, seashells, and other items scattered haphazardly about. Through this disorder, cats, dogs, and chickens—though the goats and pigs stayed below—clambered up onto the floorboards to run, squawk, bark, scavenge, or lie sprawled about. It was utter pandemonium.

She brought coconut water and stone-baked breadfruit. After drinking the coconut water, when I cracked open the shell and ate the copra inside, the dogs came over and begged. They seemed to like copra a great deal. Breadfruit—no matter how much I gave them—they didn't even glance at. Not only the dogs, but the chickens too seemed to find copra a favorite. When I listened to the young woman's halting Japanese explanation, it seemed that among all the animals in this household, the dogs were indeed the most domineering. When the dogs weren't around, the pigs took charge, and after that came the goats, she explained. She also brought out bananas, but they were overripe, and I felt as if I were tasting sweet bean paste. Even Lakatan bananas are said to be the finest variety on this island.

In the back of the room where the dugout canoe was stored, there was a chamber with a raised floor where family members seemed to be crouching or lying sprawled about. The chamber had no windows and was dimly lit, making the corners difficult to discern, but directly across from where I stood, an old woman sat smoking tobacco with regal arrogance—truly like a queen enthroned. Her eyes held both wariness toward outsiders and a hint of hostility as she stared fixedly at me. When I asked the young woman who that was, she answered, “My husband’s mother.” When I remarked, “She’s putting on airs,” she replied, “Because she’s the most important one.”

From the dim recesses beyond, a gaunt girl of about ten would occasionally emerge to the other side of the dugout canoe, gaping as she peered in this direction. While everyone in the household wore proper clothing, this child alone remained nearly naked. Her complexion was unnervingly pale; she constantly stuck out her tongue, making wet, slobbery noises like a baby, drooled, and waved her hands and dragged her feet without purpose. She must be an idiot. From the back, the regal old woman stopped smoking and issued a rebuke. Her tone was fierce. She held something white—a scrap of cloth—in her hand, brandishing it as she called to the idiot child. When the girl returned to her side, she made her wear it while contorting her face into a fearsome expression.

It was underwear. "Is that child sick?" I asked the young woman again. Her reply was that there was something wrong with her head. "Since birth?" "No, she was fine at birth."

She was a very affable woman; when I finished eating the banana, she asked if I wouldn't care to eat dog. “Dog?” I asked back. “Dog,” said the woman, pointing to a small, emaciated brown puppy with patchy fur playing nearby. She said it would only take an hour to prepare it stone-baked. They would wrap the whole dog in banana leaves or something similar, then bury it in hot stones and sand to steam-cook. She explained that a dog with only its intestines removed would be served on the tray just like that, legs stiffened and teeth bared.

In a flustered manner, I beat a hasty retreat.

As I was leaving, I noticed that on both sides of the house's entrance, vivid yellow, red, and purple croton leaves were beautifully clustered in their disordered profusion.

Ⅳ

Truk

On Getsuyō Island, there were no mainlanders apart from the public school principal’s family.

As I was having breakfast at the principal’s official residence one morning, singing voices reached me from afar. It was the Patriotic March. I immediately recognized them as children’s voices—many children’s voices. The singing gradually drew nearer. When I asked what it was, they explained that students from the same direction were made to walk to school together, and that this group was approaching while singing in chorus. The voices stopped when they neared the official residence. Suddenly came the shout: “Halt!” The command rang out. Looking out from the entranceway, I saw about twenty Islander children had formed two proper columns approaching in a vertical line. The one at the front carried a paper Hinomaru flag over his shoulder. The flag bearer barked again: “Left face! Left!” He shouted the order. The whole group formed a horizontal line facing the principal’s house. Then all at once, they bowed their heads while chanting “Good morning.” Once more, the pockmarked flag bearer at the front barked: “Right face! Right!” “Forward march!” With this command, the procession turned toward the school next to the official residence, resuming their chorus of the Patriotic March as they went. The official residence’s garden lacked a fence, making their marching clearly visible. Their heights—and likely ages too—were terribly mismatched, with an exceptionally large child at the front while those behind were extremely small. Unlike those around Summer Island, none appeared particularly well-kept.

While they all wore shirts, the torn portions seemed to outnumber the intact fabric, so the boys’ and girls’ jet-black skin showed through everywhere. Of course, all were barefoot. Whether issued by the school or not, they at least commendably carried satchels slung over their shoulders. Each had coconut husks stripped of their outer shells hanging at their waists—their drinking vessels. The sight of that ragged crew dangling their battered containers—legs thrust high, arms swinging wide, voices raised to the limit (growing louder still as they passed the principal’s residence)—marching toward the morning-dappled athletic field where palm shadows stretched long, made for a rather charming spectacle.

That morning, two other similar processions came to pay their respects.

Among the dances I saw across Summer Island's various outlying islands, Roi-Sap Island's bamboo dance stood out as the most remarkable. About thirty men formed two facing rows in a ring, each holding a bamboo stick less than three shaku long in both hands, dancing as they struck them together. At times they stamped the ground, at times struck their opponents' bamboo sticks, all while circling round and round, shouting spirited cries of "Heave-ho! Heave-ho!" As the outer and inner rings rotated in alternation, their bamboo-striking partners changed sequentially. At times they would turn backward, lift one leg, and strike the bamboo sticks of those behind them through their legs, displaying quite acrobatic feats. The sound of clashing kendo bamboo swords and spirited shouts intermingled, creating an altogether invigorating atmosphere.

The people of the northwestern islands all wore wreaths of hibiscus and Indian jasmine on their heads, applied vermilion pigment to their foreheads and cheeks, wrapped young coconut fronds around their wrists, ankles, and arms, and danced while shaking waistbands made from the same young coconut fronds. Among them were some who had pierced their earlobes and inserted hibiscus flowers there. On the back of their right hands, they lightly fastened cross-shaped combinations of young coconut fronds; initially, each person trembled their fingers minutely to set them in motion. Then immediately arose a delicate sound like the rustling of distant wind. This was the signal, and the dance began. Then, slapping their chests and arms with their palms to create sharp resounding claps, they twisted their hips, let out shrill cries, and danced wildly with explicitly sexual gestures.

Among their songs, those unaccompanied by dance were almost entirely melancholic melodies. Even their titles included a great many peculiar ones. One such example: Shuck Island Song. "Do not think of another’s wife; consider your own wife instead."

An outlying islander’s ear I saw in the streets of Summer Island. Apparently resulting from having stretched their earlobes since childhood, they extended about one shaku five sun in length like dangling cords. They had coiled them around their ear cartilage three times like winding a chain. Four people with such ears stood lined up, calmly peering into the Western goods store’s display window.

When I asked a certain gentleman who had been to that outlying island, they apparently laughed at humans with normal ears as if they had seen jawless humans.

Moreover, it is said that when one stays long on these islands, they become highly skeptical about standards of beauty. Voltaire once said: “Ask a toad what beauty is. The toad will undoubtedly answer. Beauty is defined as a female toad with two large ginkgo nut-like eyes protruding from her small head, a wide, flattened mouth, a yellow belly, and a brown back.” And so on.

V

Rota

An island of white cliffs - abundant water - teeming with butterflies. In the quiet daytime, pumpkin vines stretched behind the deserted official residence, and swarms of velvety deep indigo butterflies clustered on their yellow flowers.

The night streets of Sonson, devoid of any Islander presence, had the feel of a rural town in mainland Japan. A dimly lit barbershop under electric light. From somewhere drifted the strains of naniwabushi ballads from a gramophone. A forlorn makeshift movie theater was showing "Kuroda Seichūroku." The ticket-selling woman’s haggard face. Two men squatting in front of a small hut, listening only to the sound of the talkie.

Two banners fluttered in the night sea breeze.

At the entrance to Tatatcho Village, no more than thirty ken from the sea, lay a Chamorro cemetery. Among the cluster of crosses, a single stone monument caught the eye. Engraved with "The Grave of Bartolomés Shoji Mitsunobu," its reverse bore the inscription: "Died in the fourteenth year of Showa [1939], aged nine." He must have been the child of someone both Japanese and Catholic. The wreaths adorning the surrounding crosses had all withered to a parched brown, and the rustling of shriveled coconut leaves stirred by the sea breeze carried its own sorrow. (Rota Island's palm trees had recently withered nearly all away from insect damage.) As I gazed upon the searingly vivid blue of the nearby sea and listened to the ancient lament of waves, I suddenly recalled the Noh play "Sumidagawa" - that scene where the ghost of a dead child, summoned by its madwoman mother, scurries out from behind the mound in white form only to vanish like smoke when she tries to grasp it.

Later, when I asked an islander teaching assistant at the public school, I learned that this child’s parents (who were apparently paperhangers) had left this place not long after being bereaved of their child.

At the entrance of the house assigned as our lodgings, lychee vines—unusually—twined about, their ripe fruits splitting open. Behind it, lemon flowers were fragrant. "Outside the gate, orange flowers still glisten brightly; atop the wall, lychees already show mottled spots"—this came from Su Dongpo (he had been exiled to the south), and it perfectly matched the scene before us. However, whether the lychee spoken of by the Chinese of old and what we now call lychee were one and the same—that I did not know. Now that I thought of it, the vivid red and yellow hibiscus found everywhere across the South Seas—commonly called Fusōka—but whether this was the same as that mentioned in Wang Yuyang’s "Guangzhou Bamboo Branch Lyrics" with its line about "small winding corridors beneath Fusōka," et cetera, I could not say. If it were in a place like Guangdong, I couldn’t help but feel this gaudy flower would have seemed quite fitting—

VI

Saipan

Sunday evening.

From beyond the thicket of flame trees came the shrill—yet somehow stifled—sound of Chamorro women's chorus. It was the evening hymn leaking from the chapel of the Spanish nun.

Night. The moon was bright. The road was white. Somewhere, the monotonous sound of a Ryukyu snake-skin lute could be heard. I wandered aimlessly down the white road. The large banana leaves swayed in the wind. The silk tree leaves cast their delicate shadows clearly onto the road. A cow tethered in the vacant lot was still grazing on grass. Something dreamlike hung in the air, and I felt as though this white path continued endlessly under the moonlight. The drawn-out twanging of the snake-skin lute - bekon-bekon - continued to be heard, but I couldn’t tell at all which house it was coming from. Amidst this, the narrow path I had been walking along suddenly emerged into a bright street.

At the corner where I emerged stood a theater, from within which resounded the incessant twanging of a snake-skin lute. (But this was different from the sound I had been hearing since earlier.) The sound I had been hearing along the way wasn't the proper lively sort like that from the theater, but rather something resembling sporadic plinking by an unpracticed hand playing alone.) This was a theater exclusively for Okinawa Prefecture people—and consequently, all plays were performed in the Ryukyuan language.

Without any particular reason, I entered the hut to look inside. It was quite a crowd. There were two performances. The first was performed in standard Japanese, so I could follow the plot well enough, though its attempts at humor proved utterly inane. When it came to the second piece—titled "Historical Drama: Turmoil in the Northern Mountains"—I found myself unable to comprehend a single word this time. What I could clearly discern were "Tashikani" (this being the word I could most reliably distinguish) and "Mukashi karakono kata"—merely a few terms like “Yamamichi” and “Torishimari.” This brought back memories of when I had once traveled around Palau Main Island on foot for about ten days; every person I asked for directions had turned out to be a farmer from Okinawa Prefecture, leaving me completely stranded by our mutual linguistic incomprehension.

After leaving the theater hut, I deliberately took a detour and walked back along the coastal street lined with Chamorro houses. This road too was white. It was almost as if frosted. A gentle breeze. Moonlight. Before a stone-built Chamorro house, Indian jasmine exuded its pale white fragrance, and in its shade, a single cow lay lazily. Thinking there was an oddly large dog sleeping beside the cow, I looked closer and saw it was actually a goat.