Above the East China Sea

by Sarah Bird

  “An uneasy spirit hunts for a body to claim,” an old-timer called out in a voice quavering with terror. The others like him who were close to dying moved away from one another so as not to make such an inviting target for the phantom predator.

  My aunt Junko, who had a wide space between her front teeth through which she liked to spit melon seeds and a headful of uncensored thoughts, announced in a somber voice, “This fiidama hasn’t come to steal anyone’s mabui. It is a sign that the kami are unhappy.” As a noro priestess, Aunt Junko was the village’s spiritual leader, and, though Father and the other modern ones like him disdained our native religion in favor of Japan’s more advanced Shinto, she still commanded respect. The bowlegged old men muttered assent and nodded in fright, their long white beards bobbing up and down in the darkness.

  “Enough of your superstitious Okinawan twaddle about fireballs!” Father proclaimed. “The scientist from the mainland who came to investigate has already explained that this phenomenon is nothing more than a pocket of phosphorus gas released from one of the many tombs in this area.”

  At that, the old men cooed like doves in agreement.

  None of my aunts joined in. Instead, they closed in even more tightly around my mother. “Perhaps,” Aunt Junko said, wrapping a sheltering arm around her little sister, “but why then did the kami choose to release this pocket of gas at exactly this moment if not to voice displeasure?”

  This time, the murmurs of assent were louder and they were against my father. “I will not listen to you ignorant traitors betraying our emperor,” he thundered. “Tamiko, you shall be the one to deliver our offerings to the brave men who fight for us and our emperor. Go home now to prepare. In one hour you leave for Shuri!”

  SIXTEEN

  “You lost my flashlight?” Kirby asks Jake. “You dickweed. Do you know how much that flashlight cost? I had to pay for shipping from England. It was—”

  Jake punches Kirby in the mouth with one quick snap of his fist.

  Though I’d warmed up a little on the hike back to the cove after Jake helped me through the narrow crevice he’d found earlier that led to the trail, I’m still shaking from being batted around by the outrushing waves that funneled us back out through the cave opening. I’m even more chilled, though, by what I saw in the cave. I can’t force the image of the starved girl or the sound of her mewling infant out of my mind.

  “What the fuck?” Kirby taps a finger to his lip; it comes away glistening with blood. Kirby’s tongue flicks out. He tastes the blood, and, still not believing, says, “You busted my lip, man. The fuck you do—”

  “I told you about that bath-salt shit,” Jake says in a level, information-dispersing tone. “I told you it can cause psychotic episodes. Did I not tell you that, Kernshaw?”

  “And I told you I haven’t got the shipment yet.”

  Jake ignores Kirby and asks, “What? You decide you’d do a little test? Put a dose in the Cuervo? That it? You spiked the Cuervo. Listen, jerkwad, this ain’t the homecoming dance, and that shit is not vodka you swiped out of your dad’s liquor cabinet.” Jake does a pretty good mean redneck when he puts his mind to it.

  “Why do you even think I did that?”

  Jake pauses, glances my way. “Luz, she …”

  … saw shit that wasn’t there.

  “… she’s having a rough time.”

  “Luz? Dude, you don’t look right.”

  “Jesus, Kirby,” Jacey snaps, then hisses, “her sister.” She steps up next to me, takes my free hand in hers, makes a sandwich of it, warming my fingers. None of them ever said anything directly to me about Codie, but after the Stars and Stripes did an article last month about heroes that mentioned Codie, Jacey sent me a card. Just something from the BX. A photo of some purple tulips on the front and a verse from Scripture inside. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” She tilts her head and her expression is a blobby mush of concern. I want to reach over, ram the heel of my hand into her face, and smush it around like Silly Putty.

  “You do realize who her mother is, don’t you?” Jake asks Kirby, assuming that, as usual, Kirby is lying about the bath salts.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Do you have a fucking death wish?”

  “If you would shut up and let me—”

  “No, I’m not going to let you open your mouth and tell me again how they sell bath salts in head shops and it’s such a safe, great high. Did you not hear me the first time, when I told you that it causes strokes and hallucinations and psychosis? Did I only imagine telling you all that?”

  “A. It is legal—”

  “Kirby, you are tripping. I mean, you have got to be seriously, seriously high to say something that stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid, dicklick. I read up on it. They keep changing the formula so that the DEA can’t actually write a law making it illegal. So, eee-yaah, it is legal, dude. And B. You sucker punched me like the little bitch you are.”

  “Sorry. It’s the only way to get you to shut up sometimes.”

  Kirby gives him a fair-enough shrug.

  “As for all your DEA technicalities? You really think OSI gives a shit about that?”

  Everyone takes a collective inhale at the mention of the Office of Special Investigations. OSI is the air force’s FBI. They’re the agents in black T-shirts who investigate felony crimes. And they’re actually a lot more like the Mafia than the FBI. They get your name and you and your family just disappear. Overnight. No questions asked. Due process is a civilian concept.

  Since there is no arguing with OSI, Kirby stomps away, dragging the empty cooler behind. He hurls back, “Even if I actually had any shit, I wouldn’t waste it on you losers.”

  The moon is setting behind the cliffs above, making a pointy crown from the zigzag of peaks at the top; the fire has burned down to embers, and the night has grown darker. A general agreement passes through the group that it’s time to leave. They gather their things and follow Kirby up the winding path.

  “Luz,” Jake asks, “you ready?”

  I pick up my shoulder bag from the sand and we trail behind the others.

  Kirby spiked the Cuervo. Kirby spiked the Cuervo. I repeat the words like a chant to ward off evil spirits. Except that the spirits aren’t evil. They can’t be. I asked Codie for a sign and she sent a mama sea turtle that saved me from drowning. I don’t want that to be a figment. But the Okinawan girl with an infant crying for help? They had to have been products of whatever evil chemical Kirby snuck into the Cuervo. I wish Codie were here to help me figure out what the hell is going on.

  In the dark, I start to wander off the path, and Jake grabs me. “Luz, look out. That’s Devil’s Claw.” He points to the tangle of tough, scrubby vegetation bordering the path. “It’s got thorns like needles that’ll rip your skin to shreds.”

  With him still close, almost holding me, I ask, “Jake, did you drink any of the tequila?”

  “Yeah. Some.”

  “Did you …? See things?”

  “Luz, that shit affects everyone differently. Body weight. Mental state. You know, you’ve been through a lot lately.”

  Body weight. Mental state. Body weight. Mental state. Jake is so reasonable. I hope Christy appreciates him. I carefully work the syllables through the snarls in my brain, then, with exaggerated casualness, ask, “So, you really think Kirby spiked the Cuervo?”

  “All that shit he was talking about bath salts? He probably did actually get some and was running his perverted idea of a test.”

  “But no one else who drank out of the bottle seemed, you know, affected.”

  “Like I said, it hits everyone different. Shit, look at you.” He does just that. “Your body mass index is what?”

  I shrug.

  “Have you even eaten today?”

  “I had some yogurt this morning.” Or was that yesterday morning?

  “We
should go find you some soba or something when we get back.”

  “That would be good.”

  Being taken care of, someone looking out for me, is like my Kryptonite; it makes me weak, and I have a sudden, overwhelming desire to tell him about Codie. It seems really important that he know that she has an unnatural passion for Cheetos, sucks limes like they’re Jolly Ranchers, and celebrates her birthday every year by doing her age times three in push-ups. And not girl push-ups either. Real ones. But I don’t say anything, since it would involve using the past tense, and I can’t do that to Codie, because she’s not “was.” She’s “is.” Mostly, though, I want to tell him about seeing that girl in the cave, but I can’t figure out how to arrange the words so they don’t sound either drug-induced or insane. I hate being so pathetic and weak. I ask him logical questions, like how he managed to find me.

  “There aren’t that many places you could have disappeared to. I just planned to try them all.”

  “Why?”

  “Process of elimination.”

  “No, why did you come and look for me?”

  “Be kind of crappy if I hadn’t.”

  Jake moves on ahead. I study him for a moment then follow him to the base of the long, steep trail. The slushy roar of the East China Sea dims as we zigzag higher and higher up the cliff face. The farther we go from the ocean, the less and less sure I become of what I saw. What I think I saw or experienced makes no sense on dry land. By the time we reach the top of the trail, everyone is already pulling out, cutting crazy beams through the dust with their headlights as they rock off the tilting shoulder and turn back onto the road.

  Jake looks back at me. “Where’s your car?”

  “I walked.”

  “You walked? From the base?”

  “Just from the bus stop.”

  He glances at the narrow, twisting road. “That’s not safe.”

  “I can’t argue.”

  “Come on, Surfmobile’s right up ahead.”

  I get into his ancient station wagon. I’ve never seen it without a couple of boards sticking out the back. Jake pulls off the shoulder and a breeze blows in through the open windows. The night air is all soft and heavy with smells that remind you you’re eleven time zones away from the States. As we lurch down the hill trying to keep up with Kirby, who is pinballing around turns like the lunatic he is, I stare out into the dark, unable to stop the image of the girl in the cave, which I apparently hallucinated, from strobing through my mind.

  “Hey, come here.” Jake reaches across the bench seat, puts his arm over my shoulders, and pulls me to his side.

  I lean against him, and the instant I make contact with his body, the visions disappear. His warmth makes me realize that I’m sodden. “I reek.”

  He leans over, puts his nose against the top of my head. “No, you smell like my favorite thing, the ocean.”

  He starts rubbing my arm, and I know I have the choice of a quick hookup or something else. Because I don’t want some random sleazy encounter to be his last memory of Luz James, I pick “something else” and kill the moment by asking, “Where’s Christy?”

  The rubbing stops dead. “She’s off somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “You really care?”

  “Should I?”

  He withdraws his arm, puts it on the steering wheel. “She’s up in the yambaru. Up north in the backcountry. Doing Obon stuff with her family like a good Uchinānchu.”

  Uchinānchu. The funny, singsongy word rings like a nursery rhyme in my memory and causes smell tags to pop up in my brain: Pond’s cold cream, cigarettes, a vinegary body odor mixed with the wet-hay fragrance of green tea. They’re all the smells I associate with my grandma Overholt, who’d been born Setsuko Uehara, but whom Codie and I called Anmā, the Okinawan word for “mother,” since that’s what we grew up hearing our mom call her. I see Anmā in my mind pointing at me and saying that word, Uchinānchu, then pointing at me and saying, “You, you Uchinānchu.” Then she’d point at Codie and say the same thing. She always made us repeat the funny word, then, when we said it correctly, she’d smile and kiss our cheeks and give us pieces of hard candy that smelled like violets. Gradually, we figured out that the word Uchinānchu meant Okinawan.

  I do the translation and ask, “What Obon stuff are the other Okinawans doing?” Codie always said that being a brat is good training for being a spy. Since you’re always coming in cold and having to pick up cues fast, so that you can fake knowing more than you do, you learn to make a little information go a long way.

  “Just the usual three-day blowout when the whole extended clan, the munchū, gathers.”

  I can feel Jake trying to decide what slot to put me in: crazy druggie girl, quick hookup, or, maybe, someone who’s a little bit like him. I go for door number three and say, “Yeah, Obon, I remember my grandmother talking about that.”

  “Your grandmother is …?”

  “Pure Uchinānchu.”

  “So your mom is hāfu?”

  Half-oo, the word that explains itself. “Yeah, Oki and Cawk.”

  Stripes of light from the oncoming cars flash across Jake’s face as he studies me, sees something that doesn’t add up, and I explain, “My father was pretty dark.”

  “You never know. Genetics is such a crapshoot. I have this one hāfu friend, his dad was long gone before he arrived. His mom. Bar girl. Too poor to raise him. Farmed him out to her family up north, so he was brought up very old school, right? Pure Uchi. Barely speaks a word of English. And this guy, he looks exactly like Will Smith. I mean big grin, jug ears, completely round eyes.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, plays the sanshin and everything. Very traditional. Was your grandmother?”

  “Was she what?”

  “Traditional?”

  “Definitely.” Codie used to call us chameleons. Said blending in was the best protective mechanism until you figured out what was going on. “Obon was always a really big deal in my family.”

  Jake laughs in a way that’s not either flirty-sexy or worried I’m going to have a mental meltdown. He laughs like we’re friends. “God, my mom and all my aunts go into total overdrive. They even left a day early to consult with their favorite Utah back in Henza.”

  “Yeah, Utah,” I repeat, having no idea on earth why he’s talking about consulting with a Mormon state, but not wanting to show him what an outsider I really am by asking.

  “They’ve all been cooking like maniacs. Huge batches of sātā andāgii, since all the grands and the great-greats back for forever loved their Oki doughnuts. Spam for some long-gone uncle who developed a taste for that in the camps after the war. Gōyā chanpuru, because it was my great-aunt Hide’s favorite. But really? What Uchinānchu doesn’t love their chanpuru?”

  “Really,” I agree, having no idea what “chanpuru” is, but liking how amazingly normal I feel when I talk to him. Like I actually do belong here and I just imagined everything: the girl in the cave, the rogue wave that saved me, a sea turtle sent by my dead sister. I start to believe that it was all drug-induced and has nothing to do with me. As if to literally prick this new bubble of coziness, whatever it was that I swiped from the cave and stuck in my pocket pokes me. Tilting away from Jake so he can’t see my stolen goods, I unzip the pocket and dig the item out. When I uncurl my fingers, a brooch rests on my palm. It is in the shape of a flower and is made of iridescent mother-of-pearl. The trumpet-shaped flower hangs from a long stem that is bent over in a humble way. I think it’s a lily.

  I’m still surreptitiously staring at it when Jake asks, “You plan on doing anything for Unkeh later today?”

  I stuff the pin back in my pocket. “Yeah, Unkeh, I remember my grandmother talking about that,” I lie, “but I can’t exactly recall what it is.”

  “Unkeh? First day of Obon. Welcoming day.”

  “Welcoming who?”

  Jake looks over to see if I’m joking. “The dead. Today is the day the dead return.”
/>   SEVENTEEN

  Anmā, she knows that today is Unkeh. How do I know what the demon is thinking?

  Because we’re with her now.

  Oh. Because you made her take your pin?

  Of course.

  Are we kami-sama now?

  No, far from it.

  But you are happy.

  Yes.

  Because the kami are helping us?

  Yes.

  Will there be time for you to finish telling the story?

  There has to be. Where did I stop?

  Your father had just told you that you were going to Shuri to give your chickens and pork miso to the emperor.

  Just so.

  So your name was on the list.

  Oh, you’re a greedy one. Listen, the story must be told as it happened. Now, I will begin again.

  I was going to Shuri! I would join Hatsuko and our cousin Mitsue.

  The words sang in my mind, accompanied by the creaks of the cart’s wheels and groans of the leather strapping as Papaya strained against the great wooden yoke. Blue shadows cast by the full moon slid over her broad back as we swayed along. The long branches of the sea hibiscus hedge lining the path scraped the sides of the cart and rat-a-tat-tatted against the bars of the chicken coops piled in the back.

  What a day! Just when I thought that my dream of going to Shuri as a student had died, it was brought back to life in an even more magnificent form: I would arrive at the headquarters of the Japanese army as a hero, with wonderful gifts of food and livestock. I imagined the handsome face of Hatsuko’s Lieutenant Nakamura bright with gratitude at our family’s largesse. Perhaps this display of devotion to the emperor would prove how Japanese my sister truly was and inspire him to propose marriage to her. I knew that Hatsuko had always dreamed of marrying a pure Japanese and fleeing our backward island.

  While I imagined my sister’s joy and gratitude, Papaya snorted, yanked the reins from my hands, and came to a dead halt. At first I thought that she must have spotted a habu viper, and I grabbed the machete from where it swung by a hook on the side of the wagon to chop off its poisonous head. Instead, six ghosts blocked the path.