by Marele Day
She loved everything about the bathroom—the echoey sound, the dull sheen of tiles, the feel of them when you stepped out of the tub. She loved the soaking bathwater even though it was so hot it forced the breath out of her and made her skin go the colour of mountain crabs. She loved the sprinkling of the shower. She could make it pelt down like a monsoon or reduce it to the light drips from the roof after the heavy rain stopped.
When Chicken was old enough, she and Lilli had water fights with the shower nozzles. They had to be careful not to enjoy it too much and squeal because that would bring one of the adults to the door telling them to behave themselves, or enquiring whether they had washed thoroughly, in all the nooks and crannies.
Nooks and crannies meant behind the ears, the back of the neck, under the arms, and front bottom and back bottom. Lilli and Chicken found back bottoms hilarious. They seemed to have a life of their own, wobbling like fat baby cheeks. Lilli used to tell Chicken that when she was a baby her face looked just like a back bottom. Lilli wondered if Pearlie and Cedar, who were also sisters and had grown up in this house, played in the bathroom when they were supposed to be washing. They wouldn’t have had showers then, just basins of water they could tip over themselves like a waterfall.
The front bottom wasn’t funny, it was serious and poised. It was like a face but not a jolly baby face, more like the face of a small furtive forest animal, one that you rarely saw. Grown-up women like Violet had trim little beards covering their front bottoms. Once Lilli saw this exact little black beard on TV, on a man with a small stick in his hand conducting an orchestra.
The first time Lilli held Chicken was in the bath. The baby squealed and wrinkled her face, her little arms and legs pawing the air. Pearlie was there, Cedar too, and of course the new mother, Violet. Lilli cradled Chicken’s head in the crook of her arm. A baby’s head is very heavy compared to the rest of it, and if the head lolls back they might injure their neck, their soft little baby bones. That wouldn’t happen here, not in the gentle, supporting bathwater.
Lilli scooped some of it up in her free hand and poured it onto the baby’s tummy. Chicken f luttered her arms then gurgled and smiled. It felt like a blessing, a benediction, that little smile with no teeth in it. Pearlie said that their eyes didn’t focus properly at that age but Lilli knew that Chicken was gazing straight at her. She would never leave her like the sea princess had left Lilli. She’d look after this little one all her life and see that no harm came to her.
19
Shelter
A cylindrical space, fish circling. Oceanworld. But this was much smaller, the bare concrete walls devoid of sea life. Even the menacing mind-carp had disappeared with the night. A block of daylight came in through the doorway, illuminating the unevenly stained f loor strewn with leaves and a few scurrying insects, the debris of abandoned places. For a moment Yugen lay perfectly still, supremely comfortable, his mind gently trying to decipher a faded piece of graffiti on the wall.
Only when attempting to move did he become aware of his body. His back resisted, as if the vertebrae were fused. When he lifted his head, waves of pain bumped into each other, the way they sometimes did after festival days and too much rice wine.
He crawled to the doorway, let the sun warm his body, relax and loosen it. Whitecaps whirled and danced below him, leaping high before collapsing back into rivulets on the rocks below. Beyond, the milky blue stretched all the way to the horizon. Yugen felt as if he had been in a tunnel and suddenly emerged into glittering light. He yawned and blinked, brought himself fully awake.
The concrete cylinder had an upper level. When Yugen went to investigate his attention was caught by something on a post at the base of the staircase. Another page of text together with a black and white photo, this time of a boy and girl gazing at each other, fire ref lected in their eyes. Their figures were shadowy, silhouettes against the f lames.
It was the story that had begun at the lighthouse. The place in which the monk had taken refuge was an old military observation tower.
The girl came here because she had lost her way and was seeking shelter from the rain; the boy because his mother sent him to fetch a bundle of the firewood—dried pine needles and twigs—that the women of the island stored in the building.
They talked to each other for the first time. A bird f lew overhead and the boy took that to be a good omen. When the rain stopped he offered to show her the path back to the lighthouse.
Though the encounter was innocent, the boy knew that all it took for the destructive fire of village gossip to spread was one small spark. He asked her not to mention it, and so it became their secret, cradled between the two of them. Before they parted, the boy and girl arranged a second meeting at the observation tower—the next time a storm prevented the fishing boats from going out.
The much-awaited storm came. The boy made his way through it, soaked to the skin. He managed to light a match and make a fire. Then he sat down and waited. He was an optimistic boy—the diving girl had said she would come and so she would.
By the warmth of the fire inside, and the encompassing comfort of the storm outside, the boy soon became drowsy. His head dropped to his knees.
A haze of orange light filtered through the membrane of his eyelids. His body was fixed in position, as if in a dream, but he was able to open his eyes. The fire was burning so brightly that he thought he must have been asleep for only a minute or two. Then he saw the girl, naked, holding her blouse out to dry.
The boy kept his eyelids sleepy, open only the fraction required to see the shape of her sea-washed body, her two shy breasts, muted by the fringe of his eyelashes. He blinked and ‘for an instant the shadow of his lashes, magnified by the firelight, moved across his cheeks’.
The girl tried to cover herself. ‘Keep your eyes shut!’ At first the boy obeyed but then he opened his eyes fully, presenting them to her. She was a diving girl, used to drying herself by a fire after coming out of the water, and he was a fisherman, accustomed to seeing diving women naked. He could not understand why her nakedness should be a matter for concern here.
The girl retreated, hid herself. ‘What would make you stop being ashamed?’ the boy asked. The girl gave an unexpected answer. ‘If you take your clothes off too.’
The page ended but the monk was not ready to stop. He was still with the lovers, their urgency, soft firelight caressing their bodies, the crashing storm outside. The boy and the girl had become his friends, they revealed their bodies, their private thoughts, allowed him to share their most intimate moments. He wanted to know what happened to them. Yugen looked around for more pages, but found none.
The story gradually settled back into itself. A military observation tower seemed a sad and lonely place for lovers. Yugen wondered whether the writer might not have found somewhere more suitable. Did he have the events worked out first then look for places to stage them, or did the island itself suggest the story?
Perhaps he had stood on this very spot making notes, trying to pin everything down, capture the island in words like an entomologist captures an insect, a botanist a plant.
Though now abandoned, like the dried-up casing of a cicada or a snake’s shed skin, the observation tower held the memory of other stories. Yugen imagined three or four soldiers telling jokes, rubbing their hands over a fire, throwing spent cigarette butts into it. In the uneven tones of grey on the walls, in the faded graffiti, he saw soldiers’ names, those of their sweethearts.
He climbed the stairs to the second level. Here was a window, much wider than it was high: the lookout point. He pictured soldiers with heavy binoculars looking out to sea.
Yugen descended the stairs and stood in the empty space, not wanting to leave. Despite the concrete coldness, the air of abandonment, the little room had become cosy. He picked up the backpack, hoisting it over his shoulders, the way Soshin had lifted Yugen when he was a little boy and carried him through the forest, so that he could see everything. He felt the straps of the pack,
remembered his arms around Soshin’s neck, and the old man telling him that he didn’t have to squeeze so tightly, that Soshin had hold of him and wouldn’t let him fall.
The monk bowed before leaving, grateful for the shelter this place had provided. Now it held part of his story too. He wondered if, in the years to come, anyone would imagine the night he’d spent here, ponder what might have become of him.
He continued skirting the coast, f lat patches alternating with steep descent, past clumps of ribbony green leaves edged in creamy yellow. The same parasitic vines grew over shrubs but, instead of being a menace, now they suggested a pleasing lushness.
Yugen heard drumming. It became louder as he walked, more insistent. Then crashing symbols joined in, a musical storm.
Around the next curve he came to a large playing field with an ochre-coloured building on the far side. A school. The windows were closed as if the school were sleeping, the noise and life going on inside merely a dream. The drums softened, marking time, allowing a space for tinkling wind chimes to be heard. The beginning of rain. Perhaps inside the building children were dancing, their raindrop fingers shimmying in the air. It seemed a long way for the village children to come to school but there was probably a quicker route than the one Yugen had taken. Perhaps the lovers had married, their children’s children in school right at this moment.
The whiteness of the rocky outcrop around the next curve was sudden and stark. Yugen had seen no other rocks like them. They hovered over a shallow beach upon which waves dumped loads of seaweed. A man received the deliveries, collecting armfuls of seaweed which he draped over rocks. Further along the beach a woman did the same. The breath caught in the monk’s throat. Surely these were the lovers long after the story had finished. Elderly now, fossicking on the beach like a pair of seabirds.
The monk had come to the tail end of the island. He skirted the perimeter of the school grounds till he was on the other side.
At the edge of a field he asked an old farm woman for directions. The woman looked up, started grabbing handfuls of her hair, pulling it away from her head, grinning. Perhaps she was mad. ‘The way to the village,’ Yugen said. ‘The ferry,’ he added, in case there was more than one village on the island.
‘See where those two paths meet?’ she said, pointing a bony finger. ‘Take the one to the left.’
Yugen could feel her watching him. When he got to the intersection he turned and waved. She waved back, then started pulling at her hair once again. Perhaps it was some form of greeting.
At the village he checked the ferry times. A half-hour wait. He bought a banana and slowly ate. It tasted like sunshine.
A lady in a bonnet made her way up a set of stairs leading to a grassy rise. She leaned heavily on a walking stick, tackling one step at a time. At the top of the rise was a bench on which an old couple was sitting. The couple from the ferry? Had they stayed overnight? Perhaps it was still the same day. Instead of passing the night in the concrete cylinder perhaps Yugen had taken a short nap.
The couple gazed out to sea, watching huge container vessels plough steadily along the shipping channel. The husband and wife sat close together, shoulders touching, the air between them shaped like a vase. Perhaps they had managed to overcome great odds, family disapproval, gossip. It was hard to start a new life when all they knew was fishing and diving but they did. The boy got a job on a container vessel, worked hard and improved himself. The couple bought a small house in a town close to the sea but far enough away from the island that no-one knew them. They started a family. One son became a pilot, the other a monk.
It was many years since the couple had made their first trip back to the island, but since then they returned every year, like migratory birds.
The day was blue, tranquil, pretty. The container vessels carved swathes in the ocean, a vast yet temporary disturbance. Did the water hold the memory of such disturbance? Did the landscape of the island hold traces of Yugen’s passage through it? Would the bushes, the undergrowth, be nourished by his sweat? The mosquitoes at least had been nourished by him. There were tiny pinpricks of red on the monk’s skin but he could no longer feel those bites. There was no itch.
The ferry was approaching. On his way to the pier the monk stopped to look at the map. The island was greener here than it was in reality, and the houses were missing. It was shaped like a stingray with a tapering tail. There were two mountain peaks with a marshy area in the middle. At the bottom of the map was a red square inscribed: You are here.
You are here. Yugen repeated the words silently to himself. The shrine and lighthouse, the observation tower and school, were all marked on the map. He searched for the power transmitter but there was no sign of it.
Near the stingray tail of the island Yugen found the beach where the old couple had been harvesting seaweed. The beach faced the Pacific Ocean. It was quiet, there was no industry. Yugen had walked the circumference of the island and, although he hadn’t encountered any sea women, he found a sea-woman story. They must have been here at one time. This would be a good place for Soshin.
Yugen studied the map closely, closed his eyes and saw the track leading to the beach. He didn’t have to catch the ferry now docked at the pier; there would be another late in the afternoon. Plenty of time to return to the beach, release Soshin’s remains.
The ferryman waited for the monk to come aboard. Yugen could easily shake his head, let the ferry go. But he had to stick to his plan. Only one more island to visit. Then he would decide.
20
The company of grandmothers
The food had to be chosen with care, nothing fancy otherwise Pearlie would scoff. On the other hand, if it were too plain she would think it showed disrespect.
After the initial bag of rice, Violet said that they shouldn’t take anything at all. How are we going to lure her out of there if we keep bringing her food? If she wants to be a hermit, let her. It’s not as if she’s a monk who can fast for days. Make her come up to the house when she gets hungry.
Chicken had other ideas. The well-chosen offerings would melt Pearlie’s heart and eventually she would return to the loving embrace of her family.
‘Just popping down to see how things are going at the shack, Mum,’ said Chicken, setting off with a basket covered with a cloth. Inside were some smoked eel and pickled aubergine.
Violet had finished applying her lipstick and was pressing her lips together to blend the colour in. She checked her teeth to make sure they were free of smudges. ‘Not working this morning?’ she asked without turning around, talking to Chicken’s ref lection in the mirror. Violet could easily see the basket that Chicken was holding, but refrained from commenting on it.
‘I start at eleven. Keri’s doing the early shift.’
Violet popped the tube of lipstick into her handbag. ‘I saw her mother yesterday. She tells me Keri’s going to the city, to beauty school.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Hmm? Is that all?’ Violet turned around and looked directly at her daughter. ‘Did you know already?’
‘Yes,’ Chicken admitted.
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘It was a secret.’
‘Well, yes, but you can share secrets with your mother. Do you want a lift as far as the port?’
‘No thanks, I prefer to walk.’ It came out sharply, but Chicken didn’t care. She didn’t even say goodbye as she marched out of the house. She kept her head down, looking at the road, so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Her skin felt sticky, as if she’d walked into a spider’s web. It was Keri’s secret, she should be the one who tells it, not the mothers.
Chicken was annoyed with Violet in particular. She made Chicken feel as if she’d done something wrong by not telling her about Keri.
Chicken could hear the putt-putt of the moped behind her. It slowed as it drew level.
‘Sure you don’t want a lift? I can take you all the way to the shack.’
‘I said I’ll walk.�
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‘No need to bite my head off,’ said Violet as she zoomed past, chin held high.
With secrets there were no exemptions. If you give your word, it is absolute, you don’t tell anyone, not even your mother. Not even under torture.
The basket was getting heavy; Chicken changed to the other hand. It wasn’t as if Violet told Chicken everything. There were plenty of family secrets she knew and didn’t pass on. Sometimes Chicken tried the very same probing her mother was so good at but Violet was too smart. ‘I don’t know,’ she’d reply airily, or ‘That was a long time ago, I’ve forgotten.’ It was Pearlie who eventually explained the gaps in the family tree.
Chicken walked on. The lap of the sea on the sand, the way it danced with the early-morning light, the fresh dewy air, soon everything resumed its proper proportions. By the time Chicken reached the cobbled pathway Violet had well and truly been left behind.
There was a little bundle of dried seaweed inside the cat-face letterbox. Chicken smiled. Dear Pearlie. She always left some small token in exchange for the gifts Chicken brought— seaweed, strips of dried abalone, a couple of cherry tomatoes. Once Chicken found a banana.
The last time Chicken had come she brought Pearlie bean-paste cakes sprinkled with sesame seeds, her favourite. She’d bought them at the supermarket then taken them out of their packaging and wrapped them in a cloth so that they looked more homemade. She imagined Pearlie savouring them, eking them out, one a day with a cup of tea.
‘Aunt Pearlie, it’s Chicken,’ she called. No reply of course. Pearlie would get sick of this game soon, give up hiding. If she was being a hermit, shouldn’t she stay in the shack all the time? Chicken often waited inside for Pearlie, making herself a cup of pale green tea, enjoying the liquid sound of it as she poured, watching the plume of steam rise from it. The shack did not seem so mouldy and damp once you were properly inside and used to it. It merely smelled of the earth and soil and plants.