As we leave the hotel, still drunk, I insist that we go back to the car on foot. My sister scolds me, but it isn’t long before the idea appeals to her: I need to sober up before we get home.
One shadow stands out against the dark mass of the woods: a naked body with its arms across its belly, staring up at the sky.
Last summer the Resistance Movement attacked enemy convoys, so the Japanese burned all the fields along the railway line. Ever since, hordes of ruined peasants wander up and down our streets, begging for a few grains of rice. A corpse can no longer defend itself: the other beggars have taken all this man’s clothes.
16
What a pleasure it is to receive my first letters! Venerable Mother gives me a detailed account of the New Year festivities, and I learn from Little Sister one detail that she preferred to keep to herself: since I left, Mother goes to the temple every day and prays for hours on end. On the other hand, Little Sister has had a dream that Buddha has taken me into his protection.
Little Brother’s letter is elliptical-as usual, this doctor of classical letters is economical with his words and his emotions. He concedes that, at the moment, the homeland needs soldiers more than it needs writers. I read his words with tears in my eyes-his message is clear, he is asking forgiveness for misunderstanding me for so long.
As an adolescent, after Father’s death, I felt such an anguished love for my brother that I embarked on a peculiarly intense relationship with him, like that between a father and son, a trainer and an athlete or an officer and a soldier. So that he would live up to my fierce expectations, I forced him to learn the games at which I excelled. Little Brother pretended to obey me and patiently waited for his opportunity to rebel.
The day came. It’s nature’s way: there comes a time when the eldest loses his power over his siblings. When he was sixteen Little Brother was as tall as me, he had become a young man, he had a solid bone structure and impressive muscles.