And you will talk again,
Chatting and pouting.
And I will listen to every single word,
As I row on and on.
This was my answer to Maria. This was also a poem by Chūya Nakahara.
‘Alice, that was fantastic. You memorised all of it for a moment like this? I’m impressed. Even I was touched by it. Do it as well as you did just now when you recite it to the girl you love.’
I had rowed us to near the middle of the bay. There I rowed in a big circle around the centre.
‘Alice, are you tired? Rest a bit.’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
I put the oars down and stopped rowing. We enjoyed the sensation of just floating along the waves.
‘Over there. That’s where Hideto was found.’
Maria pointed towards a point deep inside the bay. I could see the big, black figure of the Eboshi Rock.
‘He washed up on that rocky stretch there. When someone drowns, they first sink down and, after enough gas has gathered in their bodies, they float up again. But it wasn’t like that with Hideto. Perhaps it was because he’d drowned near the rocks, but the waves had brought him to the rocky stretch over there. That was a relief. He hadn’t become too horrible to look at. He looked just as he always did. He had merely become cold.’
Stop it, I wanted to yell to Maria. It felt as if we were on a boat heading to the island of the dead. Let’s stop talking about those who’ve passed away. If not, I feared the smell of death would rise from the darkness of the night. She’d told me she’d gone out on this boat one night with Hideto. Perhaps she’d asked me to go with her on the same boat, so she could steep herself in those memories. I didn’t care what she was using me for. But I couldn’t bear those words any more, trying to call back the dead from the dark, faraway sea.
Maria fell silent. And she didn’t mention Hideto any more after that.
‘Alice, I’ll row us back.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll do it.’
‘No, baton pass. I’ll come over to your seat.’
‘I’m not tired. It’s okay.’
‘But I want to row. Switch places with me.’
She was already half way up. I wanted to click my tongue at her. It was awkward switching places on this small boat.
‘Don’t get up, it’s dangerous. Sit down. Does it really matter who rows us back?’
‘No, but I want to.’
‘Oh, you’re so stubborn. Sit down, I tell you.’
She wouldn’t give up, so I had to do it and I, too, tried to stand up.
‘Aah!’
I didn’t get up properly and fell back on my behind. The boat started to rock. Maria, who was already half standing, cried out as she started to sway as well. The rolling of the boat became heavier. She desperately tried to keep her balance, but those movements only made the rocking worse.
‘Oh no!’
She finally couldn’t keep it up anymore and with a loud splash, she fell into the sea.
‘Maria!’
I wanted to reach out to save her, but the force of Maria toppling over gave the boat the final push it needed, and it finally flipped over. As I was still on it, I was, of course, also thrown into the sea.
‘A—!’ Maria’s voice. ‘A— !’ And water splashing around. ‘Alice, you—’ Maria’s head went up and down in the water.
‘Alice. You. Okay?’
What do you mean, ‘Alice, you okay?’ Worrying about other people while you yourself are still drifting in the sea is just ridiculous! That thought flashed through my mind as I looked at Maria. I myself had swum right away back to the capsized boat and was holding on to it.
I reached out my right hand to help her and she headed towards me, spewing water as she moved. She reached the side, grabbed the boat, took a deep breath and shook her head, surprised at what had just happened.
‘Oops. I toppled the boat.’
‘That’s why I told you not to try and stand up,’ I said, but I realised that reproaching her again at this stage was rather pointless, so I swallowed the rest of my comments. ‘Let’s try flipping the boat back over.’
‘I guess we can, but what about the oars?’
‘They drifted away, but they shouldn’t be far. Look around.’
We turned the boat over and we swam the breaststroke around it, but while I did find one oar, I couldn’t find the other. It couldn’t have floated away all that far, but I didn’t see it. I threw the oar we did find into the boat.
‘This is bad. We’ve lost the other oar.’
‘It isn’t on this side either,’ said the watery voice of my partner on the other side of the boat. I swam to her side, and we floated there for a while like a couple of jellyfish.
‘What a pair we are,’ said Maria in a high-pitched voice. The fall into the water appeared to have woken her up. ‘We just rendered the only aquatic means of transport on this island completely useless.’
‘Let’s give up and swim back to shore. We can’t find that oar in this darkness.’
‘I hope we find it tomorrow,’ Maria said with a worried expression, as if she was an elementary school student who hadn’t understood her homework.
‘We’ll probably find it in the morning. Let’s return here tomorrow. We’re both exhausted, so let’s go back to the house.’
‘What clumsy fools we are.’
Don’t use the plural form all the time. This was eighty percent your fault.
With pain in our hearts we abandoned the floating boat and swam back to Low Tide Cape. So, oddly, the adventure ended with us swimming in the sea at night, precisely as we had talked about that afternoon.
‘Alice.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Let’s.’ ‘Go.’ ‘Faster.’ ‘Like normal.’ Each word leaving Maria’s mouth was accompanied by some water.
‘We’re going “Like normal.”’
I told you already. I’m a slow swimmer. Maria didn’t reply.
The sound of the water lapping round my ears, and the splash each of my strokes made, gave me a lonely feeling.
‘Not.’ ‘Scared?’
‘Of what?’
‘Something.’ ‘Might pull.’ ‘Your legs.’ ‘Down.’
That’s not what I wanted to hear at such a moment. It’s certainly nothing to be proud of, but I am very easily scared. I hope she wasn’t about to tell me she could hear Hideto’s voice rising from the depths of the sea. The cape was still far away.
‘Alice.’
Now what?
‘I lost.’ ‘A shoe.’ ‘One.’
Don’t ask me about your lost shoe. I’m not the prince from Cinderella.
‘I hope.’ ‘I’ll find it.’ ‘Tomorrow.’
That was the last thing she said.
When we came to the area where it was only about one metre deep, we were able to stand up and wade to the beach. It was exactly like an illustration of the monsters arriving in Innsmouth in a story by Lovecraft. I turned to look at Maria to see how she was doing, but she was feeling embarrassed because her tank top was sticking to her body.
‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t show through.’
‘Alice, you walk ahead.’
I walked in front, just as I was told. I heard Maria’s footsteps following me. The water in my shoes made a sopping noise.
‘Maybe I should make use of this precious experience and write an occult mystery story for this autumn’s club magazine,’ I said, still facing forward.
Maria asked: ‘The title?’
‘Obvious. It Swims By Night.’
‘That’s stupid.’
We slowly climbed the stone steps and finally reached the back of Panorama Villa.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Don’t know.’ I didn’t have my watch with me. ‘Probably not even eleven yet.’
‘Let’s go to sleep. We’ve had so much exercise, I’ll sleep like a log.’
That was true. She probably wouldn’t feel like thinki
ng about what had just happened. Like two drowned rats, we looked at each other and burst out laughing.
‘What would the others think if they could see us like this?’
‘I beg you, tell them the truth. If you tell them I made a move on you on the boat and it flipped over, nobody will ever believe my story.’
Like students late for the dorm curfew, we sneaked silently through the back entrance. We’d decided to take turns in the shower and went stealthily upstairs to get a change of clothes. I was thinking about what to tell Egami if he was in the room, but when I reached it, he wasn’t there. Was he still keeping the doctor company? Anyway, I grabbed a quick change of clothes. I went out in the hallway again, to find that Maria had also sneaked out silently and was just closing her door. Making as little noise as possible, we went downstairs and I let Maria go in the bathroom first. Both of us would feel uncomfortable if I remained there in front of the door, so I went outside. I passed the time strolling around with my clothes in one hand and thinking about what I was doing now, for heaven’s sake.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
Maria came out looking refreshed, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of short pants. She looked charming with her hair just washed. I bumped her fist for the baton pass and took my turn in the shower.
When I’d changed into my clothes and got out, I saw the back entrance door was still open. Maria had been doing the same as I, loafing around as she waited for me.
‘Haven’t you gone up to your room yet?’
‘That seemed a bit heartless.’
I was not displeased by that. We went outside and stood for a while in the soft breeze from the sea. If we’d stayed there at the back entrance talking, we’d probably be a pain in the eyes and ears of Kazuto in the annex, so we moved to the terrace. Two bicycles were standing next to the French windows. One more bicycle was standing alone near to the front entrance.
‘We’ve been together the whole day today,’ Maria said, as she leaned back on the saddle of one of the two bicycles. I wondered why she was sitting on the saddle and not on the terrace but I, too, sat down on the other saddle and said: ‘Yeah.’ We had been with Egami until the afternoon, and after dinner we had been alone in our rooms for half an hour, but it felt as if the two of us had spent the whole day in each other’s company. The guys who were in love with Maria would probably cry if they heard about that.
‘The wind’s so refreshing,’ said Maria, squinting her eyes. It was a very pleasant midsummer’s night, as if all the rain and wind of last night had been nothing more than a dream. I felt like talking with somebody all night long. Unless Maria herself said she’d go back to her room, I’d never suggest leaving here.
‘You know Akikawa from our language class?’ I blurted out suddenly.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I heard he likes you.’
She was at a loss of words for a second, but then merely said:‘Oh,’ as if she’d been told some rumour about people she had nothing to do with. I thought that her reaction was a bit strange, but I also thought I myself was strange, suddenly raising the topic here.
‘Why tell me now? Has our messenger of love suddenly remembered a task he was asked to do?’
I didn’t know what to answer. I only told her he hadn’t asked me to say anything to her, and there it stopped.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’
‘You’re odd.’
We chatted on silently, the breeze lapping round us. It felt as though we’d been there for ages. I finally got why she’d sat down on the bicycle saddle. On a night like this, we didn’t need to raise our voices, but we could simply whisper to the person right next to us.
I asked her what time it was, and she answered a quarter past twelve. In the end, it was I who drew the curtain and said it was about time we went upstairs.
Maria had lost one shoe and I’d picked up a charm for ships. And the night was over too soon.
6
The fourth day.
When Maria laid out breakfast and my eyes met hers, I had to blush. Thinking back to the previous night, it was as if I hadn’t been myself. Maria looked down as she placed the plate with a fried egg and a cup of coffee in front of me, but even when our eyes met for a second, she looked as cool as ever.
‘The boat’s coming the day after tomorrow, is that right?’ asked Toshiyuki Inukai, as he neatly smeared raspberry jam on his toast. From his way of asking, I couldn’t make up my mind whether he was glad it was so soon or upset it was still so far away. To be honest, I’d already had enough of waiting all this time. There was also another problem I couldn’t mention at the breakfast table. How long would the remains of Kango and Sumako Makihara last upstairs in this heat…?
Junji Makihara appeared to have recovered some of his appetite, but was still eating merely because his body needed it. Dipping pieces of bread in your coffee and eating them is not considered a very elegant way of having breakfast in our country, but I was sure it wasn’t customary for him to do so either. His face looked pale and he was obviously disheartened.
Ryūichi Arima said he’d drunk too much before sleep yesterday as well, as he poured himself a second glass of cold tomato juice. He hadn’t drunk with anyone, but had just entertained himself in his room until late.
‘You can’t be like this two days in a row. You mustn’t be depressed from the morning on. We need eager faces here at the breakfast table.’
It was Sonobe who reproached Ryūichi. He was putting a special blend in his briar pipe. It was a straightforward way of talking, as expected of old friends. Sonobe himself looked absolutely fine.
Next to him, Toshiyuki was wolfing down his toast. His wife Satomi was using a knife and fork to eat her fried egg neatly. The two of them said nothing and concentrated on their meal. Toshiyuki spoke only once, to say ‘Great jam,’ to which his wife answered: ‘Yes.’
Kazuto had finished his breakfast quickly and, as usual, was waving around the cigarette he held between his fingers. Perhaps he was thinking about something, because he was awfully quiet and simply sat staring at one corner of the room. His lips moved slightly. He was saying something to himself, but he made almost no noise.
After serving breakfast, Reiko and Maria sat down at the breakfast table as well and the two of them chatted about practical but random topics like hair care or how to select shoes. They really looked like close sisters. I heard Maria mention my name once, but I couldn’t hear how I starred in her talk.
‘Where were you late last night?’ Egami asked me as I was observing everyone else. When I’d returned last night at quarter past twelve, he had, of course already gone to bed. But I guess I must have woken him up, because he’d said ‘Late, eh?’ to me. I’d answered with a vague ‘Yeah’ and crawled into my own bed. He’d fallen asleep again almost immediately, and that was all we’d said last night.
‘Yes, actually—’
I was about to tell him about our adventure with the overturned boat, when Maria stopped me from across the table.
‘We’ll have to tell everyone anyway, so I’ll do it. It’s probably better that way.’
She proceeded to tell everyone about our misadventure. All of them reacted with voices of concern about us, and luckily nobody made a big deal about the boat that was still adrift. I made a serious promise to go out with Maria that morning to look for the oar and bring the boat back, but several of them laughed, saying I didn’t need to get all formal about it. Oh well, I guess it was something to laugh at.
I looked up when Egami tapped lightly on the table. I wondered whether he was going to make fun of me too, but he merely said he’d help look as well.
‘It’s just what would happen with you, isn’t it, Maria?’ said Reiko from the other side of the table. ‘I’ll help look for the oar, too.’
Satomi whispered something in her husband’s ear, and Toshiyuki also offered to help. No good. That wouldn’t help at all actually. Luckily, Egami came to the rescue.
‘
I don’t think it’ll be necessary to go out to sea with a large search crew. It’s my juniors’ fault, so I’ll take care of it. If we still don’t succeed, I might ask for your help later, though.’
Aren’t you acting a bit too cool, I thought, but with that the discussion ended. I was relieved. Now all we had to do was find the oar. I turned to Egami.
He had one word for us: ‘Dummies.’
After breakfast, everybody moved to the hall for lack of any other place to be. As the others watched television, the three of us went upstairs. We looked over the bay from the hallway windows and saw the boat floating in the waves. It had drifted slightly towards High Tide Cape, but I’d been afraid it might have drifted completely out of the bay. I felt relieved to see it was still there.
We changed into our swimwear, went out through the back and went down the stone steps to the beach. After the murders, I would never have imagined I’d change into my swimwear again.
‘Shall we swim out to the boat and use that as our base? We can split up there,’ said Egami, turning his neck as a warming up exercise.
‘I think that would be too tiring,’ said Maria, who already looked exhausted. ‘Can’t we go somewhere high, like the observation platform, and look for the oar from there?’
‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘Do your best and swim for all you’re worth.’
The three of us got in the water and swam to the drifting boat. It felt nice having the sea all to ourselves this morning. Maria called me a slowpoke again, so I did my best to keep up with them.
When we reached the boat, we grabbed on to it, decided who would look in which direction and split up. I say “look”, but at that moment I became rather pessimistic about it, as it was quite possible that we’d never see the oar unless, by pure chance, one of us passed close to it. We probably searched for an hour, at times returning to the boat to rest. Just when I started to feel I’d had enough, I heard Egami yell from faraway: ‘Got it! Got it!’ I returned to the boat, and saw him doing the sidestroke with the oar under his arm. Maria was coming from the other direction.
‘Sorry for leaving you swimming all night.’ Maria bowed her head and spoke to the boat and the oars. The boat was now restored to its true form, so it was only natural to want to get on it and row back. However, being so small, it couldn’t hold three passengers.
The Moai Island Puzzle Page 14