He was that much closer to being a man and she to being a woman. He was urgent and cried out at first, but after that he made no sound. They had lost what words they had found.
Hana met Teru and walked with him also, but there was a decorum in their manner, a space between their bodies when
they met that Vera marked, without thinking about it, almost smugly; it could not be with them as it was with her and Tamio. She was more free and she was different. He took more pleasure, and more licence, because she was not from there. It did not matter. Nothing mattered but this.
It was a kind of food, soothing, and necessary. But it was also a hunger. First was the comfort and then the seizing that had them breathless and slick. Sometimes they bruised her on a rock; always she came home with sand in her hair, scrapes on her knees, various betrayals of this activity. No one spoke of it. Maiko kept her eyes down and Hana just giggled and put her hand over her mouth. She did not seem to want what Vera had, but rather to fear it.
Keiko had ceased warning Vera about the young man she loved. She appeared to have her own love affair in her mind. Vera saw her go to Ikkanshi’s house; she did not see her return. Sometimes, when she, Vera and Tamio went to the far side of the island, she looked over her shoulder into the blank window of Ikkanshi’s ‘new’ room, which was not new so much any more, and wondered if it were still unoccupied.
And so, in the summer of 1939, the island surrounded Vera and she thought very little about the outside world.
Vera saw the sword polisher from a distance, bending over the tiny stream that came from the spring at the Lost Lake. As if she suddenly remembered that they were friends, she came up behind. He knew she was there but gave no sign. He was holding the blade in the current, tip down. Patiently. He held it still, the sharp edge into the current. She could see how the water divided around it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I am testing the blade.’
‘How can it be tested in the water?’
‘It is a good question. We need leaves to come along, and we will see if the blade cuts the leaves. But there are no leaves in this water.’
‘I’ll get grass,’ she said. She scrambled up the rocky ground beside the little stream and pulled out a handful of the dry
sasa
grass. She went upstream ten steps or so and dropped the grasses in the water. They began to float, turning as they went, toward him.
Gravely he watched the grass advance. The long strands bumped against stones and stopped. Then they separated, as the current tugged. Several strands twirled off and began to advance toward the sharpened blade. But they went by. He did not move the sword to meet them.
‘Why didn’t you catch them?’ Vera asked.
‘They were going past.’
‘Here comes one.’
But this too went past.
‘You are missing them all,’ she said in disappointment.
‘That means it is a good blade.’
Now a piece of straw came along floating sideways across the current, directly in the centre of the stream.
‘You cannot miss this one!’
‘No,’ he said.
They waited. It slowed, in an eddy. But it did not turn. It made its way directly into the line of the blade. Vera held her breath. And the blade sliced it neatly in half. One length of straw floated briskly along the right side of the blade, the other floated along the left side.
‘It is good. It is very sharp,’ she said.
‘The test is not done. I want to see what happens when a straw comes along lengthwise.’
They waited for a long time. Vera pulled more grass and dropped it bit by bit. This strand and that escaped the
others and floated past the blade. Some were caught on rocks and bent in the current, wrapping themselves around the stones’ contours. But none came up against the blade, to be cut.
‘I do not think it is possible,’ said Vera. ‘You’ll never get a piece of straw that comes exactly in the middle of the blade.’
‘See what you can do,’ the sword polisher said.
Vera began to experiment. On one side of the stream the water moved more quickly into the eddy. On the other, the grass would immediately spin and most likely get caught on rocks, although, if it escaped, it was carried in a direct line to the blade. She decided to try the riskier route. She began dropping two bits of grass at once. Then three or four. All of this took a long time. They did not speak. He did not move the sword. It was Vera who changed the way she dropped the straw, learning how best to offer the strands of grass to the stream, which would in turn offer them to the sword. After a long time one strand sailed directly, clearly, into the blade.
‘Here it comes.’ She hardly dared breathe. She crouched on the stones at the edge of the water. The straw advanced quickly, offering no resistance. When it reached the blade its front end was deflected, by a fraction of an inch, and it passed along the right edge of the blade.
‘Oh, no,’ she cried.
‘Yes, it is good,’ he said.
‘But it did not cut.’
‘It is better that it did not cut. The straw should pass by. If it cuts it means the blade is not sharp enough.’
And it was like the summer before and the summer before that as they played their games near the little stream, to see if the leaf would be cut in half, or if it would be turned away, and only grazed as it passed by in the current. She was a girl for that hour, not a tomboy strangely become a woman, and he was an artist and they
focused only on the task itself, and not its meaning.
Afterwards he gave her tea. She was upset by something. Everyone was upset. It was the war. The summer was taking longer than usual to work its magic of soothing and easing the people.
‘How is Keiko?’
She drew a circle in the packed earth with her toe.
‘And how is Tamio?’
She dug the toe deeper into the hard earth.
‘That is my floor,’ he protested. ‘What are you doing?’
She looked startled and stopped digging. He had to laugh. There had been a meal once, in England, when he had had much on his mind. He had taken the tines of his fork and pressed them between the threads of the crocheted tablecloth and had he not been stopped by a firm pressure on his knee he’d have dug a hole in the wooden tabletop.
‘You are nervous,’ he said.
‘I hate her,’ she said.
‘You hate Keiko? I am astonished. May I ask what is the reason?’
‘She speaks to me as if I am a child. She keeps secrets from me.’
‘Keiko cares only for your wellbeing.’ It was the opening she wanted.
‘You love Keiko,’ she said. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘No one told me,’ she said. ‘You made a fool of me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No one could do that.’
She smiled and the tears ran down her cheeks. ‘I don’t like your secrets,’ she said.
He pitied her. Their lives were a mystery, and appeared to be heading for a disaster. No wonder she buried herself in this love affair. Yet she was lucky, apart from it all, and a white person; she would come out of this free from harm.
‘It is not a secret. It is only that no one knows,’ he said.
She understood what he was telling her.
‘Everyone knows. Why do you act as if no one knows?’
It was a good question. What could he say? Because there was a history, that he had left Keiko once, that now she was a widow in the eyes of the village and that was a protection for her. Even if the old social inequality were gone, the match would not be popular. He was, he believed, doomed. Therefore he was a danger to her. He tried to do what he could to keep Keiko safe by keeping her apart from him. But not always apart.
He said nothing.
And she said nothing, only sat for a while. She would have made an excellent Japanese headman. Finally she spoke.
‘How is your friend, Oshima, wasn’t that his name?’ asked Vera casually. ‘Did you go to see him?’
‘I have no such friend,’ he said.
‘That’s funny, because you used to have one.’
‘That is true; I used to have one.’
She got up and paced around the hut. ‘He has probably gone back to London. He is going to parties and the theatre. Meeting beautiful ladies in teashops and writing secret messages back to Tokyo. You must be bored,’ she said, ‘just being here on this little island in the middle of nowhere, polishing your blades.’
‘I can assure you I am not jealous. And this man Oshima of whom you speak did not go back to London. He has been once again posted to Germany.’
‘So you did go and see him! What did you tell him?’
The sword polisher merely bowed, as if to conclude their conversation.
‘So if you bow does that mean you feel insulted? I don’t see why you don’t just say so,’ she said.
‘I bow to your cleverness,’ he said. ‘You have tripped me into saying what I do not wish to say. You do that by being unforgivably impertinent. But nonetheless, to speak was my mistake.’
Tears came to her eyes and she turned away so that he would not see them.
‘I saw the basket maker come,’ she said. ‘And go away again. Did he bring something, or did he want something from you?’
He spoke from the dimness of the corner.
‘Why would I be bored? Why would I have to go to London for entertainment?’ he said. ‘When you come in to visit me and entertain me with your beginner’s mind?’
She knew what that was. The mind of ignorance. But also the mind that saw clearly, before all the learning confused it.
He walked with her to the doorway. The daylight was flat and frank, after the windowless room.
‘Will you give me lessons again?’ she asked.
He did not answer her question, but spoke, looking far out across the water.
‘In my school, we had to recite every day. It was such an important document we learned it by heart, and the teachers knew it by heart. If we made a mistake, there would be great shame on them. I will tell you a small part of what we learned. I would like you to remember this, whatever else you may learn of me and my people.’
Vera understood that this was a farewell of sorts. She looked angry again. Perhaps that was why she did not listen very well.
‘If you affect valour and act with violence, the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts. Of this you should take heed.’
His work was done for the day. He began to put away his tools, the fine brush, the cloths, the wet one and the several dry ones, the stones, covered with cloth and set in the corner, the stool. Finally he lifted the bucket of water. He carried it to the door and poured it out; it ran down the path toward the sea.
* * *
Vera sat in the boat with Tamio, on the seat looking straight ahead, her kerchief tied over her hair, feeling the mixture of sun and breeze on her skin. Hana was in a boat two ahead of her. Teru was not Hana’s
tomahi:
Teru fished with the men on the surface. Hana’s
tomahi
was a young boy from the village, a cousin of her mother’s.
It is almost as difficult to be a
tomahi
as it is to be a diver. The
tomahi
works all day from early morning until late at night. The
tomahi
must care for the rope, making certain that it is coiled exactly and without tangles. He is also responsible for the
konachi,
the boat, to keep it in good condition, without leaks, and the sail mended. It is his job to push the boat off the shore and into the water, also to draw it back up at night. If they are going to the deep fishing grounds, which are a mile off shore, he will row while the women rest to conserve their energy.
It is understood that the
tomahi
serves the diver. He serves her, but she serves no one. The
tomahi
should know where the best places are, although he must pay attention to the women, who point their hands here, farther over, and there, closer. Some
ama
will only dive with husband or family; they believe that their tug on the rope from below may be felt, above, so slightly that a more casual acquaintance might not feel it.
The diving women put on their goggles, raising their elbows to the level of their shoulders, all at once, unconscious of their unison. They latch the lead belts and take the sharp iron
teganes
and tuck them behind their waists. The
tomahi
remain silent as they place the goggles over their eyes and squeeze the two rubber bulbs, one on each side of their head, that equalise the pressure inside and out. The women sit on the gunwhales and swing their legs over, so that their feet are in the water. They slide off the
wooden sides of the
konachi
and into the water, dropping under the surface, then emerging with a hard kick, and their lips come together as they breathe out the mournful whistle they call the
ama-bui.
When the diver is ready she flips nose down and feet up to dive. The
tomahi
watches sixty feet of rope spring off the boat’s bottom to follow her. Once she has disappeared he is blind on the surface. He can’t see her, but he can feel her. It is his connection to her that keeps her alive.
She propels herself down to the sea bed, fifty feet below, another plain with rocks and patches of bright green seaweed. Underneath where he sits in daylight in the boat, she streaks back and forth under the blue in shadow. He will keep watch for the
fuka,
the shark, watch that the boat does not drift or the rope catch on any other rope, protecting while he cannot protect her at all, ready to spring at her slightest tug.
That day, the sea was calm and shot with prisms and columns of sunlight. Still Vera was afraid. She was not used to diving
funado.
They would fish at the Watchers, the little group of rocky islands far to the east. They went out, twelve little boats together. The divers went overboard and the sea bobbed with black
ama
heads. They dived, and resurfaced, and there was the soft mourning dove sound of the
ama-bui.
Vera made her dive, with Hana beside her, and did it well.
On surfacing, Vera held the gunwhale of the little boat. She looked beside her, at the place where Hana had gone down. At the same time Hana’s mother and grandmother looked too.