Imaginative Recollections
The Military Saber
“When I returned home from the battlefield, I brought home a military saber,” Alianus said proudly.
“Really? Can I have a look at it?” I asked out of great curiosity.
“Well, I threw it away from the bus window while it was creeping slowly up the long slope near Kalolang Port.”
“Oh, what a pity! How come you did that? It‟s so precious.”
“I was simply afraid,” he continued, “that it might cause me and my family much trouble later because it was a Japanese army stuff.”
“Do you think I might be able to find it if went there and seek it?”
“No way! It was long, long ago,” said Alianus discouragingly.
A military saber was one of the really rare things bestowed—under the name of the Emperor—on army high rank officers as ultra top honor. Symbolizing overwhelming authority and dignity, it made an officer look so awesome and majestic. Alianus, as a Takasago Giyutai with no such rank at all, must have admired wearing it on his waist as side arms. The officer‟s saber must have been his favorite icon while in action at the war time. It was clear that Alianus was making up a fiction of false consciousness. I would rather lavish my sympathy on him for obviously unrealistic depiction of the dream once he had.
The Combat cap
an ordinary Savile Roe suit in navy blue over a white shirt matched by a red necktie. He was also wearing a combat cap, not a helmet but a casual kind the soldiers wore at leisure hours. It was a baseball cap in dark blue with an unknown flower marks embroidered on the surface of the front brim. Probably he selected it at random as his icon. He explained that there used to be two silver lines sewn on the left arm sleeve, symbolizing a rank. He said that he had had them removed on purpose in order to eliminate a clear evidence of Japanese military.
Dressed in false conscious military uniform but looking exuberant, now this 93-year-old veteran stood upright in attention just like standing in front of an officer and made a serious gesture of hand-raising salute. “What a graceful figure! A standard feature!” I said in appreciation. It has been an unattainable scene to see ever since the demobilization so many decades ago. As the age was telling him, his upper body was a bit bending forward, but so what? Who cared?
“Yoroshii Excellent.” I responded in a high rank officer‟s tone. I quickly snapped a few photos. He was relaxed looking quite satisfied and sat back to his seat, full of smile across the wrinkled face.
Again he was using another imagination of wearing a navy‟s uniform, in reality he had served in the army, looking so extraordinary. He is entirely blind, but all he performed was nothing but a false consciousness, allowing only himself to remain in the past of his world no other fellow had ever entered.
Figure 5. Alianus dreams of wearing a combat cap and a military officer ‟s uniform in his false consciousness. “I had all the buttons changed and the
two silver ranking lines removed,” he said.
Tons of events did happen to everybody in his past, but nobody can memorize everything as clearly and precisely as they occurred for good. It is out of the question. They are often kept in mind selectively because they are particularly enchanting or significant to him. The same is true of Alianus. If only you have an access to Alianus, he would be extremely happy to share with you the events that he had particular idiosyncrasies with.
Giyutai from my village were notified to be dead,” said Alianus. So his mother began to worry about Alianus‟s safety. His father went to ask a cikawasay shamaness in the village if Alianus was all right. The cikawasay said with certainty, “Your son is still alive.” His father asked her three times altogether, and all got positive answers. “My father was sure of his son‟s returning home alive,” he said.
Alianus remembers what his father emphasized to him: “Whatever happens, don‟t kill any enemy. You may cut his arm or leg, but not head off
„cause arms or legs will be healed quickly, but the head never will.” Alianus always brought to mind this admonition of his father‟s very seriously at the front.
Alianus recalled, “Foodless for several weeks, the commander had a weird idea: Have Takasago Giyutai sneak into an Australian field storehouse composed of tents and get ….” Six of Takasago Giyutai were ordered to pirate foodstuffs from the Australian storehouse. Alianus was among them. When they began wriggling along through the dark night in access to the tents, they saw a guard. Swiftly the Bunun brother killed the guard with his funus. The others, approaching inch by inch, sneaked into the tent, carried as many cans as possible in the backpack and fled successfully. The next morning his troop enjoyed beef corn for the first time in their lives. “We were really lucky,”
Alianus remarked. “Weeks later, the other guys tried the same trick, but alas, they were discovered and encountered auto-machinegun attack and all of them got killed before they were able to leave the tent.” The enemy had already been in much stricter vigilance.
My commander would often have me follow him no matter where he went. I was ahead of him only when there was need to cut open a pass through
bushes. “Quite often I have thought of my commander, fellow comrades and the scenes in the battlefields, so many ….”
“Alianus, now that you have missed your commander so much. What do you think is the most memorable thing about him?” I asked.
“Ah,” smiling at me, he said, “he would often say to me at the front lines,
„Avoid danger. Do not take unnecessary risks.‟ He taught me how to survive in the battlefield and live long back in the homeland as well. Once he privately talked with no one else. He said to me what has been always staying in my mind, “At any war, if one dies, he‟s the loser. Only when he kills the enemy does he win. So if you‟re not sure of victory, don‟t take a risk.” That is all I learned from him about the philosophy of life.
The thoughts of the past flash back and forth endlessly in his dark world of this 93-year old veteran—Alianus.