DANGEROUS TALK342Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4JBY4M6V3
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Work was suspended. Bronco was not to be seen; he gave out orders through the guards that the Japanese could do as they wished with the dead. He expected them to be buried quickly. Work might resume tomorrow or then again it might not. It all depended. Robinson knew that the guilt that the man was feeling was as thin as the film on scummed water....but at least that guilt had conveyed to them the dignity of giving their own a departure.
All day they worked on the graves. There were thirteen of them, thirteen men killed by the blasts in the hills, ripping chain explosions setting off various pockets of gas. If the explosion had been contained perhaps only three or four would have perished.....but just as the engineer had predicted, the gas was linked together in pockets all through those hills. At that, Robinson thought, they had perhaps been fortunate. It could have been worse. The whole camp might have been destroyed.
He knew that Thatcher had been killed. He even thought he knew why. What was happening was so clear; Bronco was being driven to complete the railroad at all costs. Thatcher had been an interposition just as Robinson had been something standing in the guard's way. The guard would have killed him as casually as Bronco had killed Thatcher had it not been for the blast. So he should be thankful. The blast had saved his life.
Except that Robinson wasn't thankful. One life was not worth thirteen. One life was not worth the destruction of the temple. His burden seemed clear: against his will, willing to be sacrificed anywhere along the way, he would cause more suffering and death because that was the price of his guilt. All right. So be it. He didn't have to doubt anymore. Kim's admonition was clear; he had never forgotten what the old man had said to him on the ship. He was not to judge the value of his life but only to go on for whatever purpose was there. Judgment was beyond him. He would go on.
They stood around the gravesite, none yesterday, fourteen today, after the last shovel of dirt had been tossed. Again Robinson had said nothing but the laborers, even Hoga, had not pressed him. His willingness to die and the way that he had faced the guard for all of them had made him as Asian as he had never been before. If he could have said anything over these graves he would have. His participation in the burial was in itself a kind of service. Robinson felt that they understood this now.
Hoga, who had been very silent since his outburst at the blast, said, "It's our fault."
"It is not," Yoshihiro said. The old man was sitting on the ground, exhausted by the effort of burial but insistent that he had to participate. "Nothing is our fault. We are victims."
"Talk of victims," Hoga said. "All of it is our fault for we only show them weakness. The weak will always be abused. Only when a man is strong and feared is he safe."
The scar on his face seemed to glow in an unearthly way. Hoga put his hands on his cheeks, and slowly brought them down, rubbing off some of the dirt and moisture. He turned from the graves. "We will show them that we are not victims," he said, addressing Robinson directly.
"That is dangerous talk," Yoshihiro said.
"You talk of danger, old man?" Hoga said. "Tomorrow they will order us to clear the entrance to the tunnel and when that is done more of us will be sent into the tunnel to die."
"He is right," another Japanese said quietly as if having arrived at some enormous decision. "This man is right. Because we are not white, because we have no property, we are considered worthless."
"We are many," Hoga said, nodding. "We are nothing more than they and if we fight at least we can choose the manner of our death."
"Where is Kazuo?" Yoshihiro said quietly.
"What?" Hoga said. "What do you mean? Who?"
"Kazuo who is of our tent," Yoshihiro said. "We have not seen him all day and this is strange." He looked at Hoga intently. "I thought that you might have seen him."
"Would I if not you? I have no more closeness with him than do you or," he pointed to Robinson, "that Korean."
"Ah," Yoshihiro said, still very quietly. "I simply thought that you might. I wanted to ask."
"Well, I know nothing," Hoga said. He worked himself back to rage again. "Nothing! What does Kazuo matter to us or them, one more worthless Japanese sent out for death? We can make ourselves matter."
"With what?" Yoshihiro said. He leaned forward and rubbed a kneecap meditatively. "How will you fight? What will you use against their guns?"
"We'll use rocks," Hoga said, "and if we do not have rocks our hands and if not our hands the whole force of our bodies. We must do it now!" Hoga said, "not to wait!"
"You sound very anxious," Yoshihiro said, "very very anxious to start this battle now, Hoga. Are you afraid that tomorrow will be too late for your leadership?"
Hoga said nothing. He looked down at the ground and Robinson saw the expression of pain there but when Hoga had lifted his head, his face, through an effort of will, had been wiped clean once more. He gestured towards the laborers. "We will do it now," he said. "I believe that I have allies here. Do I not?" Some of the Japanese murmured. Others did not. A few moved toward Hoga.
Robinson raised his hand then. "You will lead these people to be slaughtered like sheep," he said.
"Ah!" said Hoga, "so you talk. You raise an opposing viewpoint! You let yourself be known never in support but only in opposition."
"You do not understand," Robinson said, "you understand nothing. There is no disgrace in running to preserve oneself, in waiting so that the oppressor may weaken. We are defenseless against these people, Hoga, and if you lead to strike them you will be the murderer as surely as they."
"So?" Hoga said, motioning at the graves w hich lay below them in a straight line extending towards the mountains, do you propose that we stay and join these people here? That will all happen in time, you know."
"But we can choose the time," Yoshihiro murmured, "you have taken away choice."
"Men do not beat drums before they hunt for the tigers," Robinson said. "You are beating a drum."
"Are we less than men?"
"They will be waiting for you," Robinson said. "Surely you know that."
The Japanese who had gathered around Hoga looked at Robinson inquisitively. They could go either way, he thought. It was that easy. Complexities, wrath, and death; all of it poised on the one moment of choice, that moment taken, more often than not, for reasons of the passions, not the mind.
"Well," Hoga said, "what then, Korean? What would you have us do?"
"Wait," Robinson said.
"Wait?" Hoga said. "Wait for what, Korean? Starvation? The tunnel? Is our death any less certain?"
"Or discovery," Yoshihiro said meditatively. "Wait for discovery."
Hoga trembled. He turned from the old man. " Now," he said, "the time is now. Who is going to go with me?" and the Japanese, ten or fifteen of them, looked at Robinson as if holding him in the balance. 342Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLqVb1M15qg
"I told you to wait," he said, "that's all I can tell you."
And some of the Japanese fell back but others didn't and Hoga was surrounded then by coolies, peering from the midst of them his face gleaming with sweat and excitement. "Yes," Hoga said, "these are the men among us. This is the band with whom we will make our way. Let us go," he said and he moved out of the group, the group followed them and they went away from the gravesite, toward the camp.
Those who had not followed Hoga, as if embarrassed, scuttled away themselves, in a different direction. Robinson found that he was alone except for Yoshihiro who, unmoving through all of this, sat on the ground and looked up at him.
"The man is a fool," Yoshihiro said, "and he will bring his foolishness upon all of us. Already I know more about him than I dare."
"It is his decision," Robinson said. "Everything must be the decision of the man who must do it," and he turned from Yoshihiro, folded his arms, and looked out upon the mountains, waiting for the so funds that he surely knew would erupt behind him. And when they did, quickly he moved and was ready.342Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRANSsRvnyB
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