by Marele Day
She turned into the side street where the noodle shop was. Violet had ignored Pearlie’s comment. ‘Nori and I have decided to give it a try,’ she announced. Although they had all sat round the table in what would become the tourists’ dining room—Violet, Nori, Chicken and Pearlie—it was not for a discussion but to receive a decision that had already been made.
Pearlie didn’t leave during the first season of tourists. She was as curious as any of them to see who would turn up. The first was a family with two children, the younger still a toddler. Pearlie didn’t behave well. When the guests were having their dinner, she stood in the corridor and made rude faces at the toddler. When the little one started crying, Pearlie scurried away. Another time Violet and Chicken saw Pearlie coming out of the visitors’ room while they were away at the beach.
‘Mother, what are you doing?’ Violet asked in a strangled voice.
‘Having a look,’ Pearlie said, shrugging Violet’s hand off her arm.
‘Don’t go into guests’ rooms at any time. Even if they aren’t there.’ A new rule that Pearlie had no interest in learning.
‘They’ve got lotions and potions in a square bag with a zip. Dental f loss. A tongue scraper.’
Violet raised her eyes to the ceiling, looking for a source of patience. ‘You didn’t touch anything, did you?’
‘I put it all back in exactly the same place. They won’t know.’
‘That’s hardly the point.’
Those first few seasons Pearlie was like a cat who thinks the house is hers and only tolerates the humans because they provide food. She would get snooty if she couldn’t go wherever she liked, and with the arrival of the tourists she wanted to go everywhere. She was especially peeved that the room in which generations of her family had eaten their meals, the room that housed the cedar chest of drawers, was now for the use of guests only. Even when there weren’t any you weren’t allowed in. Another rule. Violet was lucky Pearlie didn’t poo on the f loor like cats do when they are annoyed with you. Try getting that off the rice-straw matting.
She started staying away. She left early in the morning with her fins and mask, even on days when the sea wasn’t open for diving, and didn’t come back till it was nearly dark. This summer, she began taking other things with her, loaded up her trolley with them—her favourite teapot, pyjamas, bedding.
‘I’m moving into the shack,’ she had declared a few weeks ago as she put her pyjamas into a carry bag. ‘I prefer the company.’
‘There’s no-one down there,’ countered Violet.
‘There might be.’
‘Mother, the shack is deserted.’
‘I might take in tourists,’ replied Pearlie evenly.
Violet always used to be so placid, unruffable. She made you feel safe, as if she understood everything and would never get annoyed or shout. The way Violet’s lips were shaped, with the dimply bits at the corners, it seemed like she was smiling all the time. Sometimes Chicken watched her mother working, mending oyster baskets, her hands repeating the same actions over and over, her expression serene. Did she have secret thoughts and yearnings, things that she told no-one?
‘What makes you smile, Mum?’ Chicken had asked her one day after work.
‘What? Oh, nothing.’
‘Is it a joke? Are you thinking of something funny?’
‘Nothing in particular,’ Violet said reassuringly.
The removal of the pyjamas proved to be Violet’s tipping point. She took them out of the bag and tried to put them back in the cupboard. A small tug-of-war ensued. Pearlie’s grip was remarkably strong. Violet let go. ‘It’s a disgrace,’ she shouted at Pearlie all the way to the door. ‘A disgrace, do you hear?’
That night Violet brought the argument to Nori, even though you could see he didn’t want any part of it. ‘She’s shaming the family,’ Violet said when she was putting the plates away. She had not referred to it during dinner; that was the time to contemplate the food, to be grateful for it and appreciate what it took to get it to the table—a single salted pod of soy beans, a perfect little fish. ‘What must everyone think? That we are neglecting her? Nori, I’m speaking to you.’ Nori brought his head out of the sports section of the newspaper. ‘She might have an accident,’ Violet said anxiously. ‘It’s so run down at the shack, anything could happen.’
‘What about the home for old people?’ suggested Nori.
‘Of course not.’ Violet dismissed the idea. There were rules on the island that the women held in their custody; to everyone else they remained invisible. They weren’t written down or taught at school. You only knew they were there when you crashed into one of them, as Nori had just done. You don’t send the grandmothers to the old people’s home, you look after them in the family. Well, yes. But Pearlie didn’t need special care. She hadn’t grown confused, wandered off and got lost. She was wilfully choosing to leave the comfortable family home and live in a shack. With Cedar now gone Pearlie was the most senior grandmother. She knew the rules, even better than Violet did, but was snapping them in half like dry twigs for kindling.
Violet paced up and down, a U-shaped frown set into her forehead.
‘The sea levels are rising a metre every decade,’ said Nori, folding up the newspaper and turning on the TV. ‘She’ll be back. Unless she wants to wade around in rubber boots all the time.’
‘She might not have another decade,’ Violet commented. ‘There will come a time when she won’t be here at all. Why is she doing this, deliberately staying away, like she was already dead!’ It came out in a rush. There was a short sharp intake of breath but it was too late. The words reverberated, puncturing holes in the silence.
Chicken hated even to think about Pearlie not being here, existing only in photographs and stories. Chicken couldn’t bring herself to use the word that Violet blurted out. Pearlie was her grandmother, Chicken loved her even when she was being difficult. She was funny and made jokes. When Chicken was little, Pearlie always had a sweet for her if she fell over and grazed her knee. (Sometimes the sweets were stale.) Pearlie was her friend, she let Chicken do things that Violet wouldn’t allow. Once when Chicken snuck down to the dining room she found Pearlie there. Pearlie put her finger to her lips. Chicken tiptoed in and they both sat in the forbidden place, saying nothing, silently enjoying their audacity.
Chicken wanted to have the dining room opened again, to have them all sitting around the table as they did once upon a time—grandmothers and grandfathers, aunties and sisters. The Great Ones. Why did there have to be a once upon a time, and never again? Why couldn’t people be like the tide, which went away but came back?
Chicken had arrived at the noodle shop. She looked for Ry but she wasn’t here yet. Chicken found an empty table near the door, sat down and waited.
A few days after Pearlie left with her pyjamas, Chicken and Violet set off on the scooter, taking with them a big bag of rice. Violet smiled and waved when they drove past the grandmothers’ bench. ‘How’s your mother?’ one of them called. ‘Very well, thank you,’ said Violet without stopping. Chicken thought she heard the grandmothers laughing. She saw the back of her mother’s neck stiffen, knew what she’d been thinking—what was wrong with taking in tourists from time to time? Other people did it. At least they’re coming to the island; everyone else is going away.
The scooter turned down one of the lanes leading to the sea. ‘Stop, Mum,’ Chicken shouted into her mother’s ear, when they were about halfway along. It was all so overgrown that Violet had almost driven straight past. They dismounted, peeled open the gate and pushed the scooter through. If left on the steep laneway it might roll into the sea.
You couldn’t see the shack from the gate, just the rickety bridge across the trickling creek. The bridge had planks missing, and those that remained looked as if they would break like crisp biscuits if you trod on them.
Chicken carried the rice because Violet was less sure of her footing and needed both hands free to maintain her balance. Chick
en took her thongs off before stepping onto the timber planks, despite her mother’s admonitions. ‘You’ll get splinters,’ Violet warned.
‘I can get a better grip without shoes.’ Chicken looked at her long toes. When she was a child she would stretch out her foot and curl her toes under like a bird on a perch. ‘C’mon, Chicken. Do it, do it,’ Lilli encouraged. ‘No,’ Chicken would say. ‘Come on, just once. Please do it for me, Chicken, please.’ ‘You won’t tell Mum?’ ‘No.’ ‘Promise?’ ‘I said I wouldn’t. Please do it, Chicken, please.’ Chicken would do it. Then Lilli would call out: ‘Aunty Violet, Chicken’s doing that thing with her foot.’
Violet knocked softly at the back door. ‘Mother?’
‘Grandmother?’ Only on special occasions did Chicken call her Grandmother. Lilli called her Aunt Pearlie so Chicken did too. Even after Lilli left.
It was dark inside but neater than expected, the bedding folded and stacked on a shelf off the f loor. A tea towel was spread out with a down-turned bowl on it—the washing-up. There was a big iron pot on an old gas ring. The serrations looked like teeth. A few were missing, like Pearlie’s. Violet touched the pot and pulled her hand away immediately. It was hot. Pearlie couldn’t be too far away. ‘Mother?’ Still no answer. ‘We brought some rice.’ They waited.
‘Perhaps she’s diving,’ suggested Chicken.
‘She’s just boiled the kettle,’ Violet pointed out.
Was Pearlie deliberately hiding, watching from the bushes, playing a joke on them? Chicken looked into the slow winking smoulders of the fireplace. You could hear the wash of the sea, the high twitter of birds.
‘We should go,’ said Violet moving decisively towards the door. ‘Leave the rice near the washing-up.’
Chicken hesitated. ‘I’ll wait.’ The words were out of her mouth before she was aware of thinking them.
‘You’ll wait?’ Chicken nodded, settling into the idea, like nestling into warm sand. Violet’s dimpled mouth stretched out and she looked at her daughter as if she were rereading a book and had come to something she’d missed the first time. Though it was through Violet that the blood f lowed from Pearlie to Chicken, grandmother and granddaughter had their own connection. Chicken held the bag of rice to her chest. It was heavy, but she hadn’t once put it down. ‘All right then.’
Chicken watched her mother pick her way across the bridge of planks, placing her feet carefully, the way diving women did when they were climbing over rocks. When she got to the other side she gave a little wave then disappeared into the foliage.
A few minutes later Chicken heard the thrust of the scooter as it changed through the gears and went up the hill. It became an easy putt-putt on the f lat road running parallel to the sea, tapered off then disappeared altogether as the road dipped back to the village. Then came the backwash of bird sounds and the rustling of trees returning as if a wind had passed through them.
If she were hiding nearby Pearlie would have heard the sounds of the departing moped too. Perhaps she’d come back now, make herself a cup of tea from the kettle. It was black with age, accumulated usage.
The birds had quietened, no longer warning each other of a disturbance, and the trees were still.
Chicken waited in the silence, looking up at the sky. She wondered where it started, just over her head or up where the clouds were? How far into the sky could you see. One kilometre, ten? It must have been millions, billions, as far into the sky as the sun and stars. Chicken couldn’t see them in the daytime emptiness but they were still there.
Into the twittering of birds, the soft beat of an insect, the creak of timber and the other familiar sounds of the island came a whistling breath. It carried across the sea like a sigh. Chicken was sure it was Aunt Pearlie.
Chicken tried to reply but the sound she made was f lat and raspy, stumbling over her lips and falling onto the ground. She should practise, even when she wasn’t in the water. Some divers did it as a matter of course—walking up hills, doing their chores. Some nights Chicken heard the whistling breath coming from Violet and Nori’s room.
She waited a little longer, but Pearlie did not show. ‘I’m going now, Grandmother. I’m leaving something for you in the letterbox.’ Her voice went out like a wave, pushing through the air.
The whistling breath came again. Pearlie’s answer. How Chicken loved that melancholic sound full of sea and salt, the f low of tides, of everything about them.
Chicken walked back over the timber planks, through the undergrowth to the wire gate. Near the gate was the faded pink plastic container that had been fashioned into a letterbox. Long ago someone had drawn a cat’s face on it. When Chicken put the packet of rice into the box she found herself bowing, hands coming together in prayer position, as if leaving an offering at a shrine.
13
An abundance of life forms
It was dark and blue. Deep blue. The whole of the marine world was gathered in this place. Not only the fish and sea mammals—seals, beluga whales, dolphins—but also crabs, shellfish and tiny microscopic organisms. Soshin’s remains would become part of the waters in which such creatures swam. The monk wanted to bear witness to the plenitude of Soshin’s life after death.
He was in the aquarium at Boat Harbour, sitting in the semi-dark of the great display rooms. Yugen now had a plan— visit the main offshore islands then decide. He felt more focused with a plan. The monk had slipped out of the familiar monastery routine that organised his days. No gongs announcing when to arise, eat, bathe, meditate. A plan contained him; was a track to determine his movements.
All around him was movement, great sweeping swims, f lickerings, mouths opening and closing. Tails, gills, f lippers, eyes. The weedy sea dragon’s gossamer-thin gills f luttered like rapid eye movements. Occasionally they blinked. The balletic moon jellyfish—Aurelia aurita, Yugen read on the signage—were translucent little lampshades. Blue jellyfish, Catostylus sp., pulsing champignons.
Was one of those old women in the sheds Soshin’s sea wife, or his sister? Yugen could have asked, but it was unlikely they would have known who he was talking about. Soshin was his monastery name. Yugen didn’t know who he had been before. Monks sometimes talked about their former lives but Soshin never did. He had been at the monastery for so long that everyone assumed he had always been there.
The monk observed his mind raking through early memories of Soshin, looking for clues. He knew that he should not give energy to who Soshin had been in the past. More important for Soshin now was the process of dissolving.
Baikal seals, Phoca sibirica, swam gracefully up and down, looking at the people on the other side of the glass, ghostly in the semi-darkness.
Sea otters lay on their backs, short arms resting on their chests as if they were snoozing. There was a pod of small but elegant Commerson’s dolphins, mainly white bodies, with black heads, fins and tail. Three of them in the tank, two swimming together. Yugen thought he saw a black squiggly protrusion, a penis perhaps.
Not only were the great oceans represented here, an Olympic Games of fish, but also freshwater species—archerfish, perch, clown loach, silver-flecked piranha, arapaimas the size of canoes. Pig-nose turtles, their f lippers moving up and down like birds’ wings.
The creatures seemed to be surviving in this replicated environment, artificially lit, artificially filtered, artificially everything. Each detail had to be carefully considered, the replication so complete that it provided the perfect conditions the creatures would never have in the wild. Instead of unpredictability there was routine in these safe crowded pastures. The exhibits didn’t eat each other; they no longer had to stay alert and wary. Mindful.
Every so often in this replicated Amazon it started raining on the fish. There were simulated birdcalls, the big-throated voice of the toucan, lilting twittery small bird sounds thronging. The rain stopped momentarily then started again. A rainbow appeared on the backdrop, and then it too faded. In this Amazon were huge lobsters so red and robust that they too looked
simulated, even though they were real.
There was spirit in everything, every tree, animal, plant, rock. In the water, earth, the sky. A waterfall had a spirit. Rain. Did this replicated rain have less spirit than rain that fell naturally? It was still the falling of water from above, the moist drip of leaves. Everything in the aquarium was animate. Replications took on the spirit of the real.
Yugen left the rich dark Amazon and came to a room of open-sea fish—long-spine porcupine fish, red sea bream, crescent sweetlips, painted sweetlips, red stingray, sharpbeak terapon, greater amberjack, cobia, banded houndshark, star snapper, longtooth groper.
Spiny lobster. How perfectly well its mottled grey, browns and ochres matched the gravelly seabed.
In another room, in a simulation of wharves and piers, barnacle-encrusted posts, slimy seaweed and an old anchor, were gold-eye rockfish, dark-banded rockfish, cloudy catshark, blotchy swell shark. These fish did not look well. They were listless, lying on top of each other, some vertical, heads towards the surface.
The monk was the only human here with them, the crowds drawn to the more colourful displays. He sat on the bench in the middle of the room and gathered his compassion, let the fish swim in and out of his eyes, in and out of his breathing. He thought of the death that would inevitably come to them as it would to him, as it had already come to Soshin.
The individual fish that swam in the waters, the individual people who passed through these rooms, all were transient. If Yugen stayed here long enough he would see each of these fishes die. Everything was movement and change, but some changes were so slow—the birth and death of planets, the formation of rocks, the wearing down of mountains and the filling of valleys—that they were not perceptible in an individual lifetime. Even as he sat here Yugen knew that cells of his body were dying, some to be replaced, others not. Even as he sat here species were dying. How many were as bounteous in the wild ocean as they in the aquarium?