The Pearl Diver (9 page)

“Your mother and father say hello.”

She knows this isn’t true, knows that her parents are unaware of this visit, knows it more than anything in her life. Still, she manages.

“Thank you. I say hello, too.”

He says nothing. She looks at him and remembers, leaving traces of a smile.

“What are you thinking about?”

“About our trip to Mount Fuji. It is one of my best memories of . . .”

“Of what?”

She turns away before answering.

“Just one of my best memories.”

“I went again last year and I often thought of our trip there.”

And they return to their silence. Maybe at this moment, he, too, is thinking of that trip more than a dozen years before. She is.

The year she turned nine, he had promised to take her with him on his triennial climb of the country’s greatest mountain. The year she turned nine. It was her first time on a train. First time ever, even to see one, other than in a picture. The trip was long, most of the day and all of the night, her head resting against Uncle Jiro’s shoulder, his against the wooden-shuttered window. She slept little, surrounded by the trundling of the train through the night, flickers of red lights inside the cabin. At first, and for quite a while, she had thought them to be lightning bugs, and it wasn’t until her uncle awoke and lighted a cigarette that she realized they weren’t.

She was fascinated that all of it, all that she had seen during the day and all that had passed unseen in the night, was her country. Startled her. So much more than the sixty-square-mile, galloping headless horse–shaped island of hers. Her uncle had bought her a map, and as they passed by towns and through stations and cities, she marked the journey. But when the sun rose the next morning, there was a large gap between Yokaichi and Fuji Station. She would not fill in that part until the return trip, felt that until she saw it with her own eyes, during the light of day, saw them actually passing through the towns and cities and stopping at the stations, seeing the signs with her own eyes, that until she saw this, she wouldn’t have really been there.

It was not one of those beautiful clear days like she had seen in pictures of Mount Fuji—a stray cloud hovering majestically over the cone—but cloudy and humid. She could see halfway up the mountain, and her uncle must have noticed her disappointment.

“The weather changes by the minute on Fujisan.”

They continued on, but it seemed that the mountain never got closer.

“When do we get to Fujisan?”

“We have been on Fujisan for the past three hours. All of this wonderful farming land here was given to us from the gods of the mountain. We will spend the night up here near the base. Tomorrow, we do the real climbing. More than twelve hours.”

They spent the night at an old temple, which her uncle told her was for mountain worshipers. He told her how the mountain was divided into ten stages and it wasn’t all that long ago that women hadn’t been allowed to climb past the eighth stage. The true climbers of Fujisan loved the mountain, he told her, and they believed that gods and ancestral spirits lived in it—not only Fujisan but all of the mountains in Japan—and they spent all winter inside the mountain, and in spring they descended to protect the rice paddies, and after harvest they returned to the mountain.

“Will we see any of these gods, Uncle Jiro?”

“You have seen them with every rice plant and tree you passed today. They are in here sleeping with us tonight.”

Their climb began after a long lunch of barley, mountain vegetables, dried mackerel, and green and brown tea. They climbed and climbed, the view hidden by the trees. She would get glimpses of the sky, a beam of sunlight, but never a complete view. Her initial uneasiness that she was walking on a volcano abated a long time before they reached the timberline at eight thousand feet, seven hours later, night rushing at them.
They sat and rested a couple of hours, ate dinner. She was amazed that, after being surrounded by them all day, not a tree was around them. Barren. Rocky. Dark. Lifeless.

“All of this is lava and lapilli.”

She wanted to ask what lapilli was, but she let the word dance around in her mouth, liking the sound of it, liking not knowing what it meant, the mystery of it.

“Why isn’t it hot?”

“This is an old volcano. There hasn’t been an eruption here for more than two hundred years. If you go to the island of Kyushu, you will find many volcanoes that are active and very dangerous. Some of them have gases that can kill people. Fujisan has no gas or steam, no earthquakes.”

“It’s a big mountain.”

“Fujisan is three mountains.”

“Where can I see the other two?”

“You can’t. We are sitting on Shin Fuji, and its eruptions have covered the other two volcanoes.
You must always remember to check below the layers of things to find the truth.”

When they began the ascent at the sixth stage, it was cold, and it grew colder and colder, much more than the winter winds off the Inland Sea. But the stars were huge and helped deflect some of the cold from her thoughts. So big and bright that at times they could have been seen through thin layers of clouds. She held her uncle’s strong, rough hands—rough as, but not as sharp as, the lava rocks they climbed on. Well before the top, she was more tired than she could ever remember, her legs lifeless. Maybe it was the altitude, so they stopped for a while. Other climbers huffed past them, puffs of breath seen as if they themselves were tiny volcanoes emitting steam on this volcano without it. She knew that her father was right, correct when he had told his brother that she was too young and would never make it, only hold him back.

“She’ll make it,” Uncle Jiro had said defiantly.

If her uncle hadn’t placed his knapsack on her back and lifted her atop his, she never would have made it. She knew it then, would know that biting truth for the rest of her days. But he did pick her up, and over the next fifteen hundred feet and two hours he carried her. The weight of the pack pressed her into her uncle’s back, his chicken wings hurting her chest, but she dared say nothing, for the pain was far less than the lifeless legs. And he pushed on, sometimes above the clouds, sometimes in them, below them. One of her great memories and disappointments of that trip was how she had believed that the clouds were so puffy and soft, but they turned out to be nothing more than moisture. But when they were below and above her, she could be taken back to those memories, believing they were still puffy and soft, although she knew differently. And how the weather changed so quickly, how it was like she had fallen asleep in September and awoke in February.

He helped her off his back, returned the knapsack to his shoulders, took her hand, and made her walk the final few minutes to the summit. At the top were many people, many more than a hundred. Her uncle pointed out the new meteorological observatory, which had opened the month before. It was still night, stars large as clamshells. Her uncle wrapped her tightly in his arms; she drew warmth from him, despite the wind tearing through her body. It was so quiet up there; few people spoke as the sky began to shed the night. Different layers, shades of blues and reds and oranges. Beams led the sun into morning. Uncle Jiro lifted her, propped her atop his shoulders, and that is how they said a prayer facing the sun—the June 9, 1938, sun. The stars were still clinging to the night above their heads.

“You are closer to the stars than anyone in this whole country.”

“What about all the other people, Uncle Jiro?” She pointed around.

“We are also very close, but you are atop my shoulders, so that makes you the closest.”

And although she didn’t know it at the time, this is the thought that pointed her in the direction of the sea and pearl diving. She knew that she could rarely be at the highest point in her country, but if she dove, she could be lower than anyone else in Japan. And that is what pushed her those few feet farther into the sea than the other divers. Lower than anyone else in the country.

Uncle Jiro had said that he would take her again to Fujisan on his sixtieth birthday, the time when a person’s second cycle of life begins. But I am here, she thinks, and it is my twenty-fourth birthday and he is sitting across from me in all this silence. And how old is he? she thinks.
Will he still return to Fujisan on his sixtieth birthday even without me?

“Let’s go outside for a walk,” he finally says to her.

And they do, walking around and down to the shore and out onto the dock, where you can see Shodo Island in the distance.

“Every birthday, I want you to come here to this same spot at eight o’clock and I will give you your birthday present.”

She gives him a strange look, but smiles a little, not knowing what he means, but knows him enough to trust what he says.

“This is your birthday present this year.” He hands her a small, flat bag.

She unwraps it and turns her eyes to the cement of the dock.

“Thank you, Uncle Jiro.”

“You’re welcome. I must be going now. Don’t forget, next year on the same day, be here at eight o’clock.”

“I’ll be here.”

Still, she can’t look at him, her eyes on the map of their trip to Mount Fuji; the ink has splotched a little. The map she had on her wall at home, the map that she will go and place on the wall of her room, which she shares with six other patients. And she will move this map to her private room when they are built more than three decades later.

The following year, on her twenty-fifth birthday, she awakes early and goes down to the dock, which faces south, but if she turns ninety degrees to the left, it is Shodo Island that she sees. Her uncle had said eight o’clock, and it isn’t much past seven.

It’s a nice morning, a little overcast and cool for May. A fishing trawler slips on by. A single fisherman, but she is too far away to read the boat’s name painted on the side. If she were on Key of the Hand Island, over on the far side of it, she could read it, but not from here. Maybe it is the man she sees on her late-night swims. If it is, can he see her clearly enough to tell it is she? She turns her back and waits this way until she can no longer hear the boat.

Time passes, with the workers heading down to their gardens; the fishermen of Nagashima have already hauled in their nets, their catch, their journey out into the Inland Sea not as far as most—a few years ago, the local fishermen complained that the Nagashima fishermen were contaminating the waters, and now they are banned from fishing beyond one hundred yards off the shore.

It is past eight o’clock, well past, and still she sees nothing over on Shodo Island. Maybe he forgot, she thinks. But no, Uncle Jiro isn’t a person who forgets. He remembers every little detail—dates of all his climbs to Mount Fuji, typhoons that have ravaged the islands of the Inland Sea, earthquakes. He remembered her birthday last year, so why would he forget this year?

Then, she is so embarrassed that she denies that it could be true, denies it, although she knows it is true. Hopes that it is true. Uncle Jiro, while standing here on this very dock last year, never said morning or night, only eight o’clock. She stands there for a few minutes, as if all the patients know what she has done and she is trying to make it appear as if she didn’t make a mistake.

The day is long, everything crawls by. Her hands, while giving the massages, feel like stone; the scrub brush on the sinks is like pushing through sand. She gets to the dock early and she has to sit, all the pacing making her even more anxious. Maybe he will come to visit her, maybe bring her family, but she knows this would never happen, and she doesn’t want it to. Rarely has she thought of her family, and in those times that she has, it is usually something negative. The sun has long since set; she is feeling chilled, wondering if she has enough time to go back to her room and get a blanket. She probably does, but decides against it, afraid that she will miss whatever birthday present her uncle has in store for her.

The stars have taken their places, the waves sidle against the dock, the water is still May cold. Remembering the beginning of diving season sends a chill tumbling through her. She wraps herself in her arms, studies the almost-vanished silhouette of Shodo Island. And suddenly, there is a spark of light on top of the mountain. While watching the growing flicker, she tries thinking of the mountain’s name. Did she ever know it? Does it have one? She doesn’t ever recall being atop it. The fire grows larger, and soon it appears as if the bald spot on top of the mountain suddenly has a fiery tuft of red hair. For the flames to reach her here, she knows that the fire must be large, very large.

She can’t help but think of the large fire they have on top of the mountain over in Kyoto every August 16, at the end of Obon holiday, when for three days the spirits of one’s ancestors return home to visit. Many families light little fires in front of their houses at the beginning of the holiday to help guide the spirits home, and again at the end of the holiday for their trip back to the heavens.

And now she has a fire, burning on her home island of Shodo, her own personal fire, which will be there for her every May 12. She stands watching it as its light peaks and diminishes slowly until being devoured by the night. Her eyes remain on the place where the fire had been, and now, she imagines her uncle is dousing the hot coals with water and perhaps even sleeping the night up there, making certain that none of the coals escapes and sets fire to the mountain.

ARTIFACT Number 0536
A roll of gauze

It is on a Tuesday, after receiving her injection, that she goes to get a new bandage for her leg, which has again become infected. There is a strange feeling in the room; the younger patients are rolling and mending the used bandages and gauze as usual, but she feels as if their eyes are following her as she passes. And the strangeness continues when she collects another bandage and Mr. Yamai isn’t there to greet her, to hand her another one secretly, as if it were a gift. She wishes he were here; she wants to tell him that she enjoyed his reading and that she is looking forward to next week’s tanka poetry night and the second half of
Snow Country.
She walks out of the room, and before she is down the steps, there is a soft voice.