By the time she reaches the end of the canal, she is thirsty. She is surprised by how tired she is. Maybe it is the vastness, the distance, she thinks. At Nagashima, she can walk its entire length and back, covering almost every part of the island in an hour, an hour and a half. But here, an hour’s walk, and she has only walked the length of the canal. She could continue on the entire day and still be in this city.
She sees some people holding cups of drink; she looks around for a shop where they may have bought them. There are shops selling shirts and souvenirs, but she sees nowhere to buy a drink. She enters one of the shops, buys a map of the city, and asks, “Where are drinks sold?”
“Those machines over there.” The young woman points behind her, and she turns her head and sees a machine.
“Thank you.”
She stares at the machines, pictures of cups, different names written on them. As with the taxi, she waits for a demonstration of what to do. Finally, someone comes over, and she concentrates on the steps he takes—money in the hole, push a button, open the little door, take out the drink. She removes a coin from her purse, slides it into the machine, and it’s gone. She then pushes the first button on the left, opens the sliding plastic door, pulls out the cup, and jumps back when the liquid splashes her hand. She stoops and looks into the machine, sees there is liquid spilling out from inside. She picks up the blue cup, which she has dropped, looks around to see if anyone is watching her—nobody seems to be—and takes out another coin, drops it into the machine. Again she listens to it drop, then pushes the same button, but this time she waits before opening the door, waits a long time, until the woman behind her tells her that it is done, to take the cup out. She removes the cup, spills a little on her hand.
The woman does all the steps at the machine with ease, a naturalness that makes her feel clumsy, ridiculous, but at the same time victorious. She takes a drink from the black liquid and nearly chokes on its sweetness, isn’t sure that she can finish it. There is an empty bench and she sits on it, thinking about the drink in her hand and whether or not she wants to, or can, take another taste of it. Almost like that bitter black sugar she had once as a child. Something that one had to acquire a taste for, her father had told her. She goes over to the public bathroom, dumps the remainder of the drink into the sink, and throws the cup away.
From the maps she studied back at Nagashima, she knows that she isn’t all that far from the Higashiyama district of the city and its old teahouses, streets and buildings from long ago. She opens the map she has bought, finds where she is, marks the place with her finger. Higashiyama is about half a finger’s length away. She marks off the route where she has gone—it is about the same, perhaps a little less—and then decides to walk.
She sits on the tatami mats, her legs curled up under her, traditional-style. The woman in the beautiful navy blue kimono sets the tray with the thick green tea in the bowl and the sweet bean cakes in front of her. The shop is pristine, decorated simply but elegantly. Vases of all shapes, various kinds of flower arrangements, a shelf for displaying the tea bowls and cups. She feels rough, awkward.
The tea is good, bitter, and the sweet bean cake is a nice balance to it.
“How do you like Kyoto?”
She is caught off guard by the fact that the woman knows that she is a visitor, although she thinks that it must be quite obvious.
“It’s wonderful. I was at the Philosopher’s Walk this morning.”
“Oh, that’s a beautiful place. I go there often, sometimes in the evenings. How long will you be here?”
“Only for two days. I have to get back to work.”
“What is it that you do?”
“I’m a nurse at a rehabilitation clinic now. I used to be a pearl diver, until I had to stop.”
“Are you from Shima Peninsula?”
“No, down in the Seto Inland Sea.”
“Isn’t it frightening, the diving?”
“Just the opposite. When you are at the bottom and there’s no one else around, it’s the most peaceful of things. A friend of mine once told me about the Philosopher’s Walk and how he loved the smell of thinking there. I didn’t smell anything different there this morning, but I think I understand what he was saying. And that is the way diving is.”
The woman excuses herself for a minute. She sits there drinking her tea, thinking with amazement at how in such a short time, she has begun to create a life for herself, a new story, a history. How easy it has been for her to talk to the woman. She can be or say whatever she wants, but she stays rather close to what she is, doesn’t want to step too far out of herself.
With the woman over at the counter, talking to another customer, she finishes the last of her tea, eats the final bite of the cake. And she reaches into her left pocket and pulls out one of the coins, sets it on the lacquer tray that holds the empty tea bowl. She is sure that the woman will see the oval-shaped one-sen coin on the tray. The front: black, trimmed in gold, a hole in the middle, the amount, along with the
kanji
for Nagashima Leprosarium.
She stands up and puts on her shoes, slides the door open, thanks the woman, compliments her on the tea, and slides the door closed behind her.
She has arrived at the auditorium in time for the concert. Her seat is in the center section, on the aisle, five rows from the stage.
She says good evening to the two women sitting on her left, wants to talk to them, but the emcee has come onto the stage. It is difficult for her to sit and just listen; she has so much energy, is enthralled by it, how she talked the whole time in the taxi on the way back here. And at the Heian Shrine, she asked questions she already knew the answers to, but she just wanted to talk. She adjusts herself in the seat, bumps the arm of the woman next to her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, apologizing.
“No problem.” The woman smiles.
When the audience claps for the emcee, she follows their lead and does so, too. She listens as he speaks, but she is more curious about the people in front of her, beside her. There are more claps, and she does the same. The curtain is drawn, and there sit the members of the Blue Bird Band. Polite applause from the audience. As the band begins to play, she slides into daydreams of her morning and afternoon, and this is where she stays until the high-pitched voice of a woman snaps her back to the fifth row of the auditorium. She opens her program and sees that the woman onstage is a famous actress, all shy as the emcee talks to her, her voice a perfect high-pitched female voice. The two women sitting next to her laugh and smile at everything that the actress says, enraptured by her. So this is why they have come, she thinks.
This is what dragged them here, this famous actress, not the Blue Bird Band.
She is grateful when the emcee is through talking with the actress and the curtains close. As she is about to stand and let the two ladies out, she sees Mr. Endoh coming toward her. She doesn’t want to talk to him, knowing that if she is seen with him, everyone will know she is with the Blue Bird Band. He is there before the ladies can get by.
“Where were you at dinner?” he asks.
The ladies are trying to get past, but Mr. Endoh has blocked the row.
“Just out sight-seeing.”
“What did you see?”
“Just the regular places—the Golden Pavilion, Heian Shrine, a teahouse.”
“What do you think of the concert?”
“It’s wonderful.”
“Do you want to come backstage and meet Miss Sugijima?”
“No. No thank you. Maybe after the concert.”
“Okay, Miss Fuji. See you after the show.”
She can now step into the aisle and let the two women out.
“Excuse us. Could you watch our programs?”
“Of course,” she answers, looking over to their seats, where the programs are balanced on the armrests.
The second half of the concert is a blur. She knows that she never had to stand up to allow the two ladies back into their seats.
The concert is well past finished, the janitors are sweeping the stage, and the ladies’ programs still sit on the armrests.
She is back at Nagashima, as if it never happened. As if she had never gone, had imagined it all, only another practice session in the Lighthouse, as if she dreamed everything. But there is one thing that continuously reminds her that she actually did go to Kyoto—the confidence of knowing she could survive off the island. She knows her survival would depend on only one thing: that she go out there alone. She knows this, and she carries this knowledge with her for the next decade and a half.
There are other
trips for the Blue Bird Band: Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo, Kanazawa, Okayama. Although Mr. Endoh asks her each time, she politely refuses, and as of late, those night practice sessions, she rarely hears them, even when the wind is blowing in from the southeast.
ARTIFACT Number 1446
A dried chrysanthemum
The daughter, Satomi, now finished with nursing school, shares her mother’s passion for gardening. Together, they have started a small flower garden in the front of their house in Mushiage.
They go into town to the vendor with the best flowers, Mr. Satoh. The daughter loves chrysanthemums, and Mr. Satoh has some beautiful ones this autumn.
“For the past few years, these have won many prizes,” he tells them.
Although they are clearly more beautiful than the others, the price for them is the same. They buy two of each color and take them home, placing them in the front of the house, along the narrow path leading to the door, so that anyone who comes to visit can see them. The whites and purples and yellows are vibrant and the girl finds herself, for long periods of time, standing there losing herself in their beauty. So it is with great disappointment that she sees, only three days after she has bought them, they have already begun to wilt. She waters them that third morning, tries propping them up with some thin metal poles, but by the next morning they are dead. The next day, Satomi bundles them up and takes them back to Mr. Satoh. He offers to replace them, but the ones he picks out are not as beautiful as the ones they had had.
“I’d like those, like the ones I had,” Satomi says.
“These are beautiful, as well.”
“Not as much as those.”
“But these will last twice as long.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer, busies himself with wrapping the flowers, turning his attention to another customer, who has bought some potatoes and mountain vegetables. When the other customer leaves, Mr. Satoh draws himself close as he hands her the flowers.
“There is no charge, of course,” he says.
“Thank you.”
He must sense her continued disappointment, so he draws close once again and says in a hushed voice, “You and your mother have been good customers, so I can trust that you will not tell anyone. Those flowers you bought the other day came from over there.” He points toward the channel.
At first, she doesn’t register what he has said, thinking that his pointing means the island of Shikoku, some twenty miles away. Then, looking at his face, she can tell that he doesn’t mean Shikoku, but Nagashima.
“Nagashima?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you buy from there?”
“As you see, they are the most beautiful flowers. But”— he lowers his voice as a customer comes near—“you see, we have to spray them with disinfectant before selling them over here, and that is probably why they die so quickly.”
She holds the new batch of chrysanthemums close to her, and Mr. Satoh moves away, places a few cucumbers and tomatoes in a bag, and hands them to her.
“These are service.”
“Thank you.”
Satomi takes the flowers home and, as Mr. Satoh said, they live much longer.
ARTIFACT Number 2388
A daily treatment schedule
Some days, she never steps foot inside the clinic other than to pick up and drop off a copy of the patients’ charts. She can’t recall the last time she has spent a week of days only in the clinic. Can’t recall the last time an abortion was performed—she remembers who it was, Miss Inaka, but isn’t certain when it was.
The only day that changes in her routine is the first of the month. The charts in each of the buildings that she is in charge of hang in the storage room, where the medicine is also kept. She loads her cart, on the top shelf of which she sets the medicines, together with a chart:
Multibacillary (adult dosage):
A. Monthly Treatment: Day 1
Rifampicine, 600 mg
Clofazimine, 300 mg
Dapsone, 100 mg
B. Daily Treatment: Days 2–28
Clofazimine, 50 mg
Dapsone, 100 mg
Duration of Treatment: 12 or 24 months.
On the bottom shelf of the cart, she places the medicines and a chart:
Paucibacillary (adult dosage):
A. Monthly Treatment: Day 1
Rifampicine, 600 mg
Dapsone, 100 mg
B. Daily Treatment: Days 2–28
Dapsone, 100 mg
Duration of Treatment: 6 months.
Her mornings are spent in Buildings A-4 and A-3, afternoons in A-2 and A-1.
As late in the afternoon as possible, she backtracks in Building A-1 from Room 2048 and goes to Room 2016, which, if she had followed the correct order on the chart, should have been visited at around 2:20 instead of nearly 3:30. She knocks and a voice answers.
“Come in, Miss Fuji.”
Mr. Shikagawa is sitting on the floor at the small table, the cassette player and several tapes atop it.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Shikagawa.”
“I told you that you don’t have to knock.”
“I know that you tell me that every day, but I will continue to knock.”
“You’re a stubborn person, Miss Fuji.”
“As are you.”
Mr. Shikagawa hits the base of his palms together and laughs, then bends over the table to shut off the tape recorder. No matter how often she sees this—it’s been over a year that she has been coming here nearly every day—she watches as if seeing it for the first time. And she does so now.
His wrists brace the sides of the cassette player, his mangled hands jutting out at forty-five-degree angles, elbows on the table. He leans over, drawing his mouth closer to the cassette player, sticks out his tongue, runs the tip of it over the buttons—play, fast forward, reverse, record— pauses when he gets to the stop button, presses the tip of his tongue against it, shutting off the recorder.
The clicking sound, although she knows it is going to happen, causes her to jump.