—So they finally caught him, you said.
Shinzato stared at you with a look of disbelief and then moved away without answering. Just then, you noticed a space about to open up.
—Seiji’s the bad one, you said so that others could hear, so I don’t think they’ll blame the village.
You knew that your words rang false. Your comment was met with the reproachful stares of the women, and you smiled drolly to cover yourself. When you saw Buntoku, who was watching from the shade of a tree, you averted your eyes.
—Hey, Mr. Kayō!
Having your name hurled at you from behind made you shiver in spite of yourself.
—How did you know Seiji was hiding in this cave?
Kazuaki Tamashiro, a young man nearly two dozen years your junior, stood facing you. His defiant stare and words made you nervous, but you knew it’d be a mistake to turn this ringleader into your enemy. His words had drawn five or six other young men to his side. Your face hardened as you sensed that one wrong step would land you in a kangaroo court.
—You don’t need to worry. The Americans said they wouldn’t execute him.
Tamashiro laughed derisively and scowled.
—I asked how you knew Seiji was hiding here.
—The American he stabbed isn’t going to die, so it’s probably just as well they caught him before this developed into something bigger.
—Answer the damn question!
The one who screamed this at the top of his lungs was Yuko Kuda, who always fell in line with Tamashiro. He was small but one of the strongest on the island in Okinawan sumo, and he had learned karate from his uncle, Yūsei. You wiped away the sweat breaking out on your brow and pointed toward the cave. The group’s gaze was diverted in that direction.
—Where else would he have hidden? You never thought he’d hide there?
As if anticipating your tactic, Tamashiro immediately countered:
—Even if we did, we wouldn’t have told the Americans.
—You talk like it’s bad to cooperate with them, but you all participated in the search, too, didn’t you?
—Who said we cooperated?
—He just did, didn’t he?
Kuda’s quick reply to Tamashiro’s question caused the other young men to break out laughing. But they weren’t the only ones. Among the fifty or so people still there, women, the elderly, children, and even people of your generation were smirking, some even scowling when your eyes met theirs.
—I’m just thinking of what’s best for the village.
—You mean what’s best for yourself! a woman screamed.
But you didn’t know whose voice it was. You’d already turned around and started heading down the slope. As you hurried along, a rock fell at your feet and tumbled down the hill ahead of you. Then came a second and a third, falling to your left and your right. You figured they were just trying to scare you, but then the next stone hit you square in the back. You moaned in pain and stopped walking. Don’t turn around, you told yourself. Then you raised your head and proceeded on your way. Other stones came flying after that, but none of them hit you. But the pain, humiliation, and anger remained.
—What happened to Seiji after he was carried away on the stretcher?
—I don’t know the details of what happened next. At the time, there still weren’t any courts or prisons. Since he wasn’t a soldier, he couldn’t have been tried in a military court. I wonder what happened to him....
—So he wasn’t executed, right?
—That’s what the interpreter told me, so I’m sure he wasn’t.
—So there’s a possibility he returned to the village, right?
—I left the island a year after the war ended, so I don’t know.
That wasn’t true, but you don’t feel like going into that with her. After Seiji was taken away, the villagers continued to harass you. Not having people say hello to you on the street and being ignored even when you spoke to people wasn’t such a big deal. You also endured having your fields torn up during the night and having excrement scattered in your yard. You assumed that Tamashiro and his friends were doing it, but if you said anything, things would’ve only gotten worse, so you put up with it. Thinking your effort as ward chief would be appreciated eventually, you did your best to increase the food rations from the Americans, to acquire more construction materials for rebuilding homes, and to reopen the schools. Your hard work did in fact bear fruit, and the harassment decreased. But just when you thought your struggles were over, malaria broke out on the island, and you lost both of your parents, one after another. Many people noticed and appreciated the hard work you did as ward chief, even while your own family was suffering.
But then your children started getting beat up and ostracized instead of you. Compared to when you yourself were getting harassed, you felt much more bitterness toward the villagers than before. Unwilling to suffer any more hardships for such people, you resigned your post as ward chief. Originally, your grandparents were ruined aristocrats who had come to the island in search of land after the fall of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The family gave up their aristocratic traditions, spoke the local language, and
