Keiko was a pretty young diver then. In her twenties and not married yet, a rare circumstance. The
ama
girls choose their husbands, unlike other Japanese women. She had not chosen. Or more correctly she had chosen but her choice was not possible.
Ikkanshi saw her with him. He understood Keiko. If the rest would pretend they did not see him, because it was custom, or because they were told to do so, she would be compelled to do the opposite. He saw her point to where they had fished that day, this side of the island out beyond the harbour, toward the Watchers.
That was the first time. The next day, and every day for a week, Lowinger met the
ama
as they came in. The women carefully ignored him. That only made Keiko more friendly. He brought her small things, too small to see from a distance. He brought her new goggles. She tried them but preferred her own.
Even the sword polisher could see what was happening. She was falling in love with the old man. Well, of course. He was like a white god and she had never seen one before. Perhaps a diving girl was what the white-haired trader had come for. Ikkanshi feared she would go with him if he took her. It was not good.
Ama
girls do not fare well in the outside world. They are divers; that is what they are bred for. If they go to Australia or far away California, as some do, they are badly treated for their yellow skin. If they do not dive, they lose themselves. Keiko was not the first
ama
woman to mistake her longing to leave this place for love of one who could show her the way. The polisher could have told her. It is better to find your own way, if you must go. If you must follow another person it is not your true way. But he noticed that women rarely do this.
In the end Hamilton Drew made a proposal to the Fisherman’s Union that when the season was right the
ama
should dive for akoya oysters, and sell to him. He offered a fair percentage. The polisher was present at these discussions, because he spoke
English. He assumed the younger man spoke for both visitors. The trader said he liked their ways; he did not wish to abuse the divers or even the sea. Nevertheless, the Headman spurned him. The people control their own harvest. Outside demand would lead to destruction of the sea creatures they depended on. It is the same reason they do not use fins or tanks; when people take too much, there will be none left.
And in any case, the Headman insisted, the women do not dive for oysters, and certainly not for pearls. They dive for awabi, turban shell and seaweed. Awabi they can sell for a good price. Fish they can eat. Akoya shells perhaps three days a year. But for their own market. And if by any long chance, a pearl was found, it would go to the shrine. None had been found in a long time, he said and he repeated.
Ikkanshi was not satisfied that pearl oysters was what the white men were after. He was not certain that the two men sought the same thing. The old man was married: not a surprise to the sword polisher, most men were. But his wife was dead. He was searching for a woman, but not for just any woman, not for just the usual purposes.
No doubt Lowinger had spent the years when his wife and children needed him running some errand, the way men do. His errand had been to find pearls, but it could have been to find greatness or power. Now he had lost faith in his dream. But he, being romantic, did not assume the consequences of those years lost. He had a vision of how he wished to have lived. Late in life he thought he could resume this ideal way.
And the son-in-law, Drew? What was he after? Ikkanshi had observed from his time amongst the English that the men often marry the father rather than the daughter, in all but point of fact. But perhaps Drew believed the old man was rich. It would not be the first such case of mistaken identity. He had read a little of their literature; he knew that much. Was Lowinger rich? He doubted it. Fair percentages do not make anyone rich. The pearl trade was for dreamers, not for builders of fortunes.
The two white men grew even more resentful of each other.
He could see that, even in their steps, side by side, even in the angles of their shoulders as they edged alongside each other on the narrow street here. In the end, Ikkanshi had blamed the younger man. But was he wrong? Perhaps. Had he unfairly judged Hamilton Drew? Was the young man trying to stop the old one from making a foolish mistake? This too happens in novels.
There was some kind of argument between them, perhaps about the diving woman. Ikkanshi witnessed it. He heard the old man say, coldly, ‘You cannot tell me what to do. You value nothing and no one.’
Hamilton Drew left on the next ferry, gone to Nagasaki looking for other treasures, no doubt.
The old man stayed on.
And he got what he wanted.
Ikkanshi had a clear picture of Keiko’s departure. It was three years ago on a cool evening at the end of the season. The day had been hot, and with the change of temperature a mist was blowing in. She was wrapped in her
kosode
and smiling bravely. All her friends lined up on the beach to bear witness. But she did not catch his eye. She had a bundle of her clothes and a look of triumph about her, although she tried to hide it. The old man tenderly put his hand behind the small of her waist as she walked. The watching sword polisher could tell by that gesture that she had confided in him her fears and that he would try to assuage them.
Then they were gone.
He stood and watched the ferry pulling away, the mist taking it. It was a shocking thing, and not just for Ikkanshi. The
ama
divers are the wealth of the people. Keiko was too innocent to know what she was heading into. He hoped for good luck for her, but he also hoped that he would one day see her again.
The wash came over the flimsy dock.
One more thing happened that evening as Keiko sailed away with her English god. The basket maker had arrived on the ferry that had taken her away. When the sword polisher awoke from
his reverie he saw the man. This basket maker had come back from the last war with a bad leg. He too had apprenticed for several years to learn his complex trade. He came once, at most twice, every summer to replace the eel baskets and rice caddies and backpack baskets that had worn out since his last appearance. He lived on the road as he worked; the people who needed his services would open their doors to him. That day the little boys asked him to make spinning tops out of his spare bamboo strips. He was kind enough to do that. Ikkanshi watched as he set down his pack and took out some bamboo to begin.
They greeted one another with a quiet bow. They were not acquainted.
The mist brought a chill with it. The basket maker knew everyone in the village; he recognised a stranger. The sword polisher moved amongst these simple fishing people peacefully enough. But when the basket maker saw him it was as if all that he stood for was written on his face. He was from an educated class, born in Kyoto. He had gone to officer school. He had been abroad. He had come home, and stepped away from the army, taken up the tools of the
katanatogi,
and come to this island. Why? said the basket maker’s look.
But that was three years ago. Now Keiko was home and the old man dead and it appeared she had truly cared for him. The Englishman had been lucky after all on the summer island. And Keiko had this girl, the grandchild, with her. That Ikkanshi had not counted on.
One day the girl stayed a very long time in the doorway of his workshop. He happened to have a blade on the whetstone. He was beginning to reshape its natural lines. He had to be very careful, because if he removed too much metal, the sword would be mined. He was using a stone of coarsest grit, and water. He rocked on his heels, before the stone. She did not move, or go away. Finally he stopped what he was doing.
‘I know you are there,’ he said.
He was not blind. He had seen her slink about the town curling
in and out of doorways, ashamed as a cat without a tail. She had in her the quiet of a feral creature.
He waved to her to come in and asked if she would like to sit at the hearth. She behaved with complete decorum, revealing nothing. He watched her sit. She took the teacup between her hands and sipped noisily from it. She was learning.
‘What is your job?’ she asked.
He explained to her, and showed her the blade. It was not a particularly good one, made in the modern period. He was simply practising.
‘So you give it a sharp edge,’ she said.
He chuckled. She had reduced his task in her practical western way. ‘My goal is to bring out the spirit of the blade. It is a slow process and one I find soothing, like a meditation.’
‘Did you make it?’
‘The
katanakaji,
the swordsmith made it. I find its natural qualities and make them visible.’
‘Oh, that’s all?’
‘It may sound as if it is not so difficult, but in fact it is. I can fail. I can destroy a good blade by trying to grind away a flaw. I can ruin the cut.’
She showed no feeling when he spoke English. The English believe their language is the normal form of human speech, and are mystified and a little pitying when they find places in the world where it is not common currency. But that was not the case with her. Her seeming lack of surprise was not incuriosity. It was that she had learned not to let anyone have the advantage over her. That seemed to him a sad thing in a child, or nearly a child. There must have been troubles for her, early in her life.
‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘My name is Vera.’
‘It is a good name. Where did you get it?’
‘From my mother. But I don’t like it much. I think it is old fashioned.’
‘But it is straight and true,’ he said.
‘She was going to call me Verity. The Verity is the movie theatre at Broadway and Granville. In Vancouver,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘That would have been even worse.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve never met anyone named after a movie theatre. Why would she do that?’
‘She was lonely and the movies made her happy.’
‘You can be grateful,’ he added gravely, ‘that she did not call you Lux. Or Bijou,’ he said, thinking back to cinemas he had known.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘or Palace. Or Showtime.’
They were surprised to be laughing together.
‘At least she shortened it to Vera. My grandfather convinced her.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘And like the movies, you were meant to make her happy? Did you?’
‘Not happy enough,’ said Verity known as Vera, as if it were the most interesting thing about her. ‘She died. I was at school. I came home and the police were there. She went on a bus. They found her body in the water.’
‘Oh,’ he said. This was new information to him. ‘It is a hard thing. But not your fault.’
She said nothing.
‘And what did you do then?’
‘I had a funeral and buried her. What do you think I did?’
‘Of course,’ he said. It was as if they were talking fairy stories. Bravado, he supposed. ‘Alone you did this?’
‘No. There was a minister from the church, and the neighbours.’
‘Your father?’
‘He wasn’t there.’
As he had imagined. Hamilton Drew was off somewhere looking for treasures. Some flicker must have crossed his face that the girl took to be criticism of her father.
‘It wasn’t his fault. He was somewhere in the Far East,’ she said, emphasising the capitals. ‘We sent him a telegram. I sent him a letter too. But he never got it. Otherwise he would have
come. Still, I knew what to do. I found a letter in my mother’s purse from Grandfather. It said he was sailing for Vancouver, expected in two weeks. When the time came, I went to meet him at the docks.’
There it was, the other bookend to his picture of Keiko leaving their shore with her loved one. Greeted at the other end by this white-haired waif. Hard to say who got the bigger shock.
Vera watched him closely. He felt she could almost see what he was thinking, so he closed his mind to thoughts. There must have been a reason for this all to happen, for her to come to them. He liked her. He thought that he would watch over her.
Finally the question came. ‘How come you know how to speak English?’ she asked. ‘Do they teach you that at sword school?’
He laughed. If only she knew what they taught them at sword school. ‘A little,’ he confessed. ‘But mainly I learned English in England itself.’
‘Why did you go to England?’
‘I went there to work for my country.’
‘Were you a spy?’
He laughed again. ‘No. I was a diplomat. But some people think they are the same thing.’
‘Your English is quite good. I never heard any other Japanese speak it so well.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. In fact he was proud of his English. He had spoken it better than anyone in his class. Better than his fellow officers at the Embassy in London. ‘I learned excellent English because I loved to go to the theatre.’
‘What did you see?’ she asked.
‘Anything by Shakespeare,’ he said.
‘Say something in Shakespeare,’ she laughed.
‘Othello after death of Desdemona,’ he said, striking a grand pose. “Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that lov’d not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.”’
He looked away. Tears had come to her eyes and she was angry that he should see her feelings.
‘My grandfather knew every poem there was about pearls,’ she said, haughtily. ‘Maybe you should stick to polishing swords.’
Ikkanshi bowed.
She went away.
He resumed his work.
Without really planning to, he began to teach her.
They talked about how the Japanese sword was different from the western sword, the sword she might have remembered from nursery tales, King Arthur’s sword, and the knights that jousted.
‘The western sword,’ he said, ‘is used to thrust.’ He demonstrated the thrust. They were out on the point. The diving girls came by here on the way home from the day’s work. That was one reason he could always find her there. She was waiting for them to recognise her, to accept that she could be one of them. But she did not show that she was waiting.