Vera dived, and stretched out her arm, and slashed a little seaweed. She only succeeded in moving it around, like a curtain. Hanging upside down amongst the dark green fronds, Vera thought of her mother’s Bible stories. Job wrestled with Satan who had no body. The weed was as evasive as hair, and the water gave her no hold. She thrashed to find a place from which to exert her pull. She remembered her grandfather’s eyes, an old man’s eyes on her, his sea-worn, one bright, one clouded, eyes over the white whiskers. He didn’t hold with her mother’s Bible. Fire and brimstone he called it. This rock must be brimstone.
The others swam back and forth to shore in a busy little platoon, sleek wet heads poking above the surface, towing their baskets of seaweed. Soon they’d all get out and go to the
amagoya
to warm up.
She gulped in the air, and folded herself at the waist and this time her feet recovered their scant expertise and she went down. Her arms found their position diagonally out from her shoulders and she found herself cruising the ocean floor, her eyes on a patch of seaweed. Time stopped until she was at the surface tugging a load. She swam to her basket, and tugged the seaweed over the side. It made a small wet dark spot on the bottom, hardly anything.
She returned to the spot she’d found, and went down again. Each time felt a little better. A little easier. She didn’t notice the frightening eyes in the rocks and she didn’t think about the fish that might brush up against her. She saw an octopus. A friend! It dangled there, looking at her no doubt with its hidden eyes. She pointed at it with her knife and the pinkish coils with darker suction cups boiled in front of her eyes.
The next time she surfaced, the
ama
were all heading back to the hut. Although her catch was still pitiful, she towed it in, and climbed on the hated lips of black rock, gouging her shins because her arms were not strong enough to boost herself up. As she walked she felt every coarse pore
of lava under her feet. She picked her way carefully, her basket propped on her hip. She could taste the salt on her lips. She was very cold.
The
amagoya
was lashed to the rock to withstand winter storms. These storms were legendary in their power, but the summer fishermen did not see them. Now all was peaceful on this sheltered side. The little house was the
ama
women’s refuge, a world apart, and by tradition men could not enter.
It was a simple, rounded hut, with an earth floor, a hearth and a pile of dried roots and charcoal that they burned for warmth, a door that shut to keep out the wind and keep in the heat. They made it comfortable. There was one
tatami
mat on the earth and a place to the side where the women set their baskets and their tools. Some hooks on the wall held their discarded
yakata.
The fire in the hearth was alive. Setsu took the small rake and stirred up the ash so that the red coals underneath came into contact with the bit of twisted root she put on it. She heated the water that they had carried from the spring.
As each woman came in she dried herself on her
yakata.
They touched each other, as grateful greeting; you were alone in water, even if you could see others. They took tea and began to open the lunch boxes they had brought this morning. Setsu counted their number: twelve, today. And put twelve eggs in a pot.
Vera watched the eggs boil, holding the warm tea bowl in both hands. There was a knowledge in the weight and simplicity of objects. This work was old. It was done this way year after year, expressly by women. There was strength in that; they trusted this place and they were equal to it. There was respect for the oldest: she spoke first.
‘She’s getting breasts now, that one.’
‘The better for Tamio to get hold of her.’
Loud guffaws.
She would blush, if she could, but she was blue with cold.
‘If he hasn’t yet, it’s not for lack of trying.’
The round faces were like little beacons around the fire, reflecting its light. They were at home in the water and here drying themselves in front of the fire. They sipped their tea with gusto. They laughed so easily. Even at her. She used to think they hated her. But that was before she became a diving girl.
Outside the wind gusted and subsided. It wheeled around as if it might decide to blow offshore, and then it returned to where it had come from, teasing. The sun broke through, a blaze that promised summer; the grey water became blue and the rocks took up the sun too.
‘Time to get back in the water,’ Setsu said.
Down Vera went, braver this time. And right away, the first time, happened on a rich bed of the seaweed they called soft lace. She managed to cut some and, holding it in front of her waist in both hands, kicked to the surface. She dumped the seaweed in her tethered basket, and turned in a circle trying to locate the spot by way of landmarks on the shore and at sea. That particularly high peak of rock formed a straight line to the
amagoya,
and if she went from the farthest visible height of the shore out to – but there was nothing out there to give her a measure. She tried simply to sense it, to keep in her mind the distance she was out from shore, the distance she’d gone along the shore from the path.
Then she turned back and tried to locate the place again. But the sun had gone in. The featureless waves slid across the surface. The craggy bit of rock on land that she had measured by seemed to be gone. That line she thought she could draw, from her spot to the
amagoya,
did not mark the spot. She had never been any good at geometry at school. She dived and could not find the bed. She dived again, and this time she saw it, the dark waving clump, maybe twelve
feet away. She hesitated an instant: was it too far? In that way she lost a few seconds. She spurted over to the bed, and waved her knife into the green waving mass. She had almost no breath left. She tried to slash across the roots. Go, go, she silently cursed the seaweed, go! I am stronger than you, I am bigger than you and I want to live more than you want to live.
The patch of seaweed let out a bubble of water and a huge
tai
swam out. Vera opened her mouth to scream but no voice came out. Instead, water came in. She coughed it out, her throat stinging. Her head flared with the bitter smell like smoke from her nostrils. The fish turned at a right angle and, flapping its tail, swam coolly away. She thought her head was going to break open. She kicked and yearned upward; she seemed to be moving so slowly. She was begging the surface to appear, forcing her body to rise through the silky prison.
On the surface she coughed and spat and cried a bit. Then she found another spot and hoped for luck. But she dived once, twice, three times and came up with nothing. Stealthily she watched where the old women went. Nearer the cliff, she thought, and in deeper water. She swam in their direction. They could move so quickly, and disguise their direction as they went down. She tried to follow one of them but lost her in the dark where the sun did not reach.
Below, she cast one look back up. Above her was only greenish grey water. That shining line between water and air had vanished. It was a fear she had, that the surface would disappear. That she would push herself off the bottom, and shoot up and up, her breath cracking her chest, ready to explode, but the surface would never come, there was no air; water had risen to the sky.
At the well the women poured buckets of water over each other. Then they took their catch and their baskets and walked up the path, calling out loud farewells to their fellow
divers as they stopped, each at her own cabin. But Vera and Hana had private things to say.
‘Come – get warm.’
They ran along the path to the sand beach.
Last summer they’d collected clam shells. They painted the insides in matched pairs: two with a flower, two with an octopus, two with a basket. They had a dozen pairs. They set them in rows face down in the sand. The game was, you turned over one, and then tried to find its match. If you found the match, you could remove both shells. If you didn’t, you turned them back over, giving up your turn, and tried to memorise where it was for the next turn. It was a child’s game, but one they had loved to play.
Hana found the shells wrapped in cloth, hidden under a log. She was normally brilliant at the shell game. But today she turned up half a dozen – cat, moon, fish, flower – and did not get any pairs. She shook her head as if she’d never seen such a thing before. Her hand would hover over the three rows of shells. Was it here? Was it there? She knew there was another cat in there; she’d seen it. But she couldn’t remember. She reached out and turned over a fish.
On Vera’s turn it was easy picking. Hana had left so many opportunities. She knew where the cat was. She turned up the first one, and then found the second, clearing them off. She found the fish. Then she turned over a half moon. She didn’t know where the other half moon was and she even tried not to get it, reaching up to the farthest left-hand corner of their rows and turning up an entirely new shell, one that had not been turned before. But there it was: a half moon. Vera cleared off the two half moons. Now she was three ahead. She turned up a shell that was painted with a bird, a clumsy bird she’d painted. She hoped that she wouldn’t find another, and she didn’t. Her turn was over.
Hana didn’t move.
‘It’s your turn,’ said Vera.
‘Oh, OK,’ said Hana. She was thinking of something else. She did not seem to care that Vera was winning. It made Vera cross. And so did the tall figure that hovered on the other side of the low bushes.
‘Why doesn’t he go away?’ she said. ‘He’s bothering me.’
‘Oh no, he’s fine,’ said Hana.
‘As if you knew how he was! As if you had ever even spoken!’ Vera exclaimed.
Hana stared mildly at the field of clam shells and said nothing.
‘Well, have you?’ Vera asked. Had Hana given the boy called Teru permission to stand there and spy on them? And why was she talking about him as if he were her property?
‘I don’t like him,’ Vera whispered, this time boldly looking over her shoulder. The look was lost on Teru, who was gazing into the distance in a way that might be mistaken for boredom. But it was not. He stood with the kind of alertness you expected from a soldier. If anything moved within his peripheral vision, he’d pounce.
‘How can you say you don’t like him?’ said Hana calmly, and not in a whisper at all. ‘You don’t even know him.’
‘Neither do you!’ said Vera.
Hana hadn’t taken her turn. Vera nudged her.
‘I don’t think I want to play any more,’ said Hana. She was not angry, but final.
‘Is it because I’m winning?’
‘No it is not because you’re winning. You can win, it’s all right.’
‘I can’t win if you won’t play.’
Hana collected the shells, one by one and put them in her net bag. She and Vera walked up the path together. Neither of them looked at Teru. But he walked slowly behind them, right to the door of the house. Before the two girls went inside, Hana looked back at him and smiled her brilliant, slashing smile.
‘Goodbye,’ she said.
So he had permission. Hana had given it to him.
Vera was shocked.
‘Maiko, did you know Hanako has a boyfriend?’
Hana’s mother smiled, unconcerned. ‘Do you mean Teru?’
From then on he was part of everything.
Teru was older, already twenty-one. He stood waiting for Hana formally, as if he had been appointed bodyguard, his feet a little apart, and his hands folded in front of his body. This was his way of courtship, to appear, wordless, and to take up his position, and to stand there unsmiling. He appeared to have no further ambition but to be there, near Hanako.
‘Oh no,’ Vera would say. ‘Here he comes.’ She would giggle behind her hand when Teru hove into view. He walked purposefully as he approached the girls, as if he were going to work. He did not speak but would nod, curtly, when they caught sight of him. Then he would find a spot, separate his feet a little, toes pointing outward a little comically, shift his weight several times to get comfortable, catch one wrist in one hand in front of his body, or, sometimes, for variety, catch one wrist in the other hand behind his body, and stand.
Vera would roll her eyes. Both girls would turn their backs on him. He probably loved that, because Hana’s back was so pretty. This gesture did not make him go, in fact it may have deepened his resolve to stay. He did not stare; he looked almost everywhere but at Hana. His eyes swept the area around her like a beacon, emptying the space around her. The boys her age retreated. Only Vera, scowling, remained close to her friend. They’d put their heads close together as they sat on the beach rolling snail shells between their fingers.
‘Is he still there?’ Hana would whisper.
Vera, who had eyes in the back of her head, or so the sword polisher always said, would grimace and hiss, ‘Yes.’
But gradually even she became used to Teru’s sombre, kindly presence. He was always there, after work, to wait for the girls. He did not make Vera feel crowded out, in fact he seemed to include her in his field of property, although it was very clear that Hana was his lord and master. Gradually, the distance between the girls’ steps and his decreased. And then one day he was walking with them.
He had little in the way of conversation. But it was clear an understanding had been reached. Sometimes, in the evening, he came to the door and Hana went to talk to him just outside, standing so close to the walls that she might have been on a leash. These visits lasted perhaps fifteen minutes, and then Teru withdrew.
‘What does he want?’ Vera asked, late at night, in the dark in a voice so small that only a best friend could hear.
‘Nothing,’ said Hana.
‘What do you talk about?’ said Vera.
Hana did not answer.
That was the cruellest thing, that Hana wouldn’t tell.
Now Vera was alone again. A space opened up beside her. When Hana wasn’t right beside her, Vera could feel the cold wind on the right side of her body, where Hana usually walked. It was as if she’d lost something, a warm, extra bit of her body.