‘Shhh, I know it hurts, but it will be over soon. Shhh,’ Sister Bernice said.
Anguish contorted the young man’s face but he was quieter as she continued to sew. She tied a knot and cut the thread. Hearing the patient cry out had unlocked something within me. I blinked, now fully aware of the situation.
‘Thank you, Sister. I will do the next.’
She nodded and gave me the needle, then stood behind the patient, placing her palms on either side of his head. She continued to whisper to him as I tended to his remaining cuts. I took a deep breath and drove the needle through his skin. He grimaced but didn’t utter a sound, soothed by her voice.
My unease had entirely disappeared by the time I treated the diver. The cut on his palm required stitches and his sprained wrist needed a sling—both relatively simple procedures, but they took longer than expected on account of his agitation.
‘How dare he?’ he said in Japanese, leaning forward until he almost toppled off the bed. Liquor laced his breath. ‘She’s my girl. How dare he!’
I assumed he was referring to a girl at one of the boarding houses. Although no one else in the room could understand him, I was embarrassed by his behaviour and frustrated by his constant movement, so I rather tersely told him to be quiet.
He snapped, ‘You? What do you know about love?’
I looked up. His stare cut to the deepest part of me. I didn’t address him again.
When I’d finished treating both patients, the constables walked the diver back into town to the police station. Before the inspector left, he thanked the sister and me, then turned to the young man with the car. ‘Johnny, you’ve been a big help. With the patrol car in for repairs, I don’t know what we would have done without you. If you can’t get those bloodstains off the seat, let me know. We might be able to reimburse you.’
Johnny batted his hand in front of his face. ‘The seat will be fine. If there’s a stain it’ll add character. But next time one of your boys stops me for speeding, how about we call it even, eh?’ He winked.
The inspector laughed. ‘Yes, well, we’ll see . . .’
The Malay patient’s condition was still critical, so I set up a bed in the anteroom for myself. Johnny offered to take Sister Bernice home. She insisted on cleaning and putting away all the equipment and supplies before she left, even though I told her she needn’t do so.
When I followed them outside and saw Johnny’s brown Dodge Tourer I realised who he was: he had a taxi business in Broome. I’d often seen him driving down Carnarvon Street or ferrying passengers from the jetty. His family ran the popular Yat Son noodle shop in Japtown.
He turned to me before he reached his car. ‘I’m Johnny, by the way,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘Tomokazu Ibaraki. Pleased to meet you.’
‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I remember the old doctor—he came with his wife and two kids. But it’s just you now, right?’
‘Yes, that is right.’
‘This kind of thing doesn’t usually happen—tonight’s fight, I mean. We haven’t had trouble like this for years, maybe because numbers are down. During lay-up there’s sometimes a spat. Some divers think they can treat the others like dirt. But they’re not all like that.’
‘Is that what happened tonight, with the Japanese diver and the Malay?’
‘I’m not sure. Someone said they were fighting over a girl. But everyone usually gets on with each other—Japs, Malays, Chinese, blacks and whites.’ He placed one hand on his chest. ‘I’m proof of that.’
Darkness blanketed the landscape, but the first cries of the dawn chorus sounded from the dunes. A kookaburra’s stuttering call broke out. I moved to the other side of the car and opened the door for Sister Bernice.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ she asked. ‘I can come in tomorrow if you’d like.’
I never asked her to come in on the weekends, and certainly not on a Sunday.
‘No, thank you, Sister. That’s quite all right. You were remarkable tonight. I could not have done it without you.’
‘You trained me well.’
I hesitated. ‘About the operation . . . I do not know what happened to me at the start. It has been a long—’
‘There’s no need to explain. These things happen. You finished the job all the same.’
‘Yes, well, thank you. Now, please go home and rest.’
She turned around and climbed into the car. As they drove away, she smiled and gave me a brief wave. I remained in the street for a minute after they had left, listening to the chortle of a magpie. I thought I could make out the distant roar of the sea. I was tired, but my body felt strangely light.
August was the month of the Bon festival in Japan. Honouring the spirits of the dead was the last thing I expected to do in Broome, but I soon discovered it had considerable cultural importance in town. President Kanemori was the first to tell me about it. ‘It’s going to be big this year—it coincides with the full moon, so we’re going to release the lanterns in the bay.’
The festivities took place in a small clearing near Roebuck Bay, right next to Town Beach. On one side, mangroves clung to the shore in a sticky embrace and, on the other, waves crashed against the rocky outcrop that protected the beach. I arrived just after sunset, in time to see the sky turn from pink to mauve to blue, and in the gathering darkness I wandered through the crowd. A young man with an iron griddle was selling taiyaki. Next to him, a group of divers squatted on the ground, taking bites of the fish-shaped cakes. Young girls in kimonos seemed to be everywhere, the full-blood and half-caste daughters of laundrymen and divers. Until that night I hadn’t realised how many beautiful Japanese girls there were in town.
I stopped to chat to Harada. President Kanemori nodded at me, but he was talking to Captain McDaniels and his wife. I moved away from them, towards the edge of the bay, hoping to catch the moonrise. In the darkness I could barely make out the muddy flats of the bay.
As I waited at the water’s edge, people gathered around me. After a few minutes, a blot of colour appeared on the horizon, a rust-coloured stain above the water. Another minute or two passed, and the stain grew larger and brighter. A little girl standing near me cried, ‘Look, Mama, I think I see it!’ A sliver of orange peeped above the horizon. ‘Yes, that’s it!’ someone else cried, and people began to jostle each other to have the best view. We watched the orange light grow in size until it was a semicircle that cast long shadows across the bay.
The moon grew fuller and paler, shedding its colour as it climbed the sky. Soon it was a perfect white sphere. I stayed there for a long time, looking out at the sea, the stars and the sky, while those around me gradually peeled away. The shadows on the exposed mudflats, which resembled a rickety staircase, gradually diminished, until the moon was high in the sky, casting a cold distant light.
I wandered back to the clearing to watch the toronagashi on Town Beach. A number of people were already standing on the shore. Some held paper lanterns in their hands. I turned my head, and saw Sister Bernice in a group of St John of God nuns, standing on the edge of the wharf that overlooked the beach. Although I’d grown accustomed to seeing her every day, now it was as if I saw her for the first time. Our eyes met. She raised her hand in greeting. I smiled and bowed. She beckoned me over.
‘Dr Ibaraki,’ she said. ‘We were just wondering if we could find someone to explain the significance of the lanterns, and then I saw you.’
She introduced me to the other nuns. Two of them were about Sister Bernice’s age, while the other two were older.
‘Did you come by yourself?’ one of the younger nuns asked, studying me with her pale eyes.
Perhaps sensing my discomfort, Sister Bernice spoke before I could answer. ‘The lanterns—could you tell us what they mean?’
‘They represent the spirits of the dead. At this time every year our ancestors return to visit us. To guide them back to the other place, we release lanterns on water. It is e
specially important for those who died in the past year.’
‘Are you going to release any lanterns this year?’ the young nun asked.
‘Sarah!’ Sister Bernice scolded.
I laughed. ‘No. Fortunately, I do not need to release any this year. I did that long ago.’
Sister Bernice’s gaze lingered on me.
‘Look—there’s the first one now,’ I said, pointing to a light on the shore.
‘Can we go closer?’ Sister Sarah asked.
The two older nuns stayed on the wharf while I escorted Bernice, Sarah and the third young nun, Agnes, along the beach. We watched the line of people taking it in turns to release their lanterns into the ocean, fragile ships aglow with candlelight. Some were swallowed by darkness soon after they left the shore, their candle extinguished early by poor design or a strong gust of wind; but most made it past the point of land still alight and drifted far away until they were tiny pinpricks of light. After a while, bobbing lanterns blanketed the ocean as far as the eye could see.
Sister Bernice and I stood a little way behind the other nuns, discussing lanterns that caught our eye. She liked ones of unusual shape or colour; I preferred small, sturdy ones that were sure to go far. I explained to her how I had made them as a boy: with bamboo and string and old sliding-screen paper.
‘They were terrible,’ I said. ‘They always sank or tilted. One even caught on fire. But each year I became better at making them, until finally, the year of my father’s death, I made one that lasted the journey from the top of the river to the bend.’
She nodded. ‘It’s a lovely tradition. I wish I had done something like that when my parents died.’
‘Oh?’ I knew she had family in Geraldton, so I had presumed her parents were alive.
‘A car accident. When I was young. My mother’s sister’s family brought me up.’
‘I’m sorry.’ And because I did not know what else to say, I looked out to sea.
We said nothing further as we watched the surface of the water dance with light. Standing in silence by the shore, I felt closer to Bernice than I ever had before.
Loveday
1942
At camp, I emerged from the darkness of the kitchen into the glare of the midday sun. My hands were wet and numb, as I had just finished lunchtime dishwashing duty. I sensed movement to my right. The bobbing habit of a nun. But it was only someone’s laundry—a white shirt flapping in the breeze.
As I walked towards my tent, I heard a cheer coming from the quadrangle. I moved closer and a knot of figures unbraided and scattered. Someone in the middle of the group stepped forward and laughter erupted. It was Ebina, one of the men from Batavia who was also an orderly at the infirmary. His arm circled the air. Thirty feet away someone swung a bat, then dropped it to the ground with a hollow clunk.
‘Ganbare, ganbare!’ one of the men called, and the batter began to run.
The first baseman was on the ground, scrambling on hands and knees to grasp the ball. He jumped up and ran back to his base a second before the batter reached it. The baseman raised his arms and cheered.
The batter doubled over, laughing. ‘I’m too old for this. I can hardly breathe!’ he said, his chest heaving.
‘Well, you’re in better shape than this ball. Look—it’s already falling apart,’ the baseman said. A bundle filled his hand. ‘At this rate, we’ll need a new one for every play.’
‘Ibaraki-sensei,’ Ebina called, waving me over. ‘Want to join the game?’
I shook my head. Although baseball had been one of my favourite pastimes as a youth, it had been a decade since I had picked up a bat. At university, I had sometimes played catch with the other students on the grassy slope near the medical wing. If the weather was good, we walked across to Ueno Onshi Park to hit a few balls. The sun on our faces, the smell of the leather mitt—the simple joys of those days. Once we started our internships, however, we no longer had time to play. By the time I was married and working full-time, I rarely thought about baseball.
‘I’ll just watch,’ I said. ‘It’s been a long time since I played.’
‘It’s been a long time for us, too. Can’t you tell? We can’t even remember how far the pitch is from the home plate.’
‘Well, in the major league it’s sixty feet away . . . But obviously you wouldn’t need to replicate that here.’
Ebina’s face creased into a smile. ‘So you do know how to play! Come on, sensei, why don’t you have a go? We’re a few people short of a team. We could use someone who knows what they’re doing.’
I shifted uneasily on my feet.
‘It’s just for fun,’ the first baseman said. ‘Here, look at our ball. We’re not going to get very far with it anyway.’
He threw it to me and I caught it. It was surprisingly heavy. Wound strips of fabric formed a misshapen sphere, much like a dense ball of string. The ragged fabric ends peeled off like dead skin.
‘There’s a stone at the core. We got the roundest one we could find. Then we covered it in fabric strips taken from some of the kitchen cleaning rags—and one of Ebina’s old shirts.’ The baseman smirked.
‘Here, let me show you,’ Ebina said, taking the ball from me. He hurled it at the ground. I expected it to land with a thud, but it bounced once, twice, before landing several feet away. ‘It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we have. And there’s only one—we don’t even have enough material to make a second one! And here, look at our bat . . .’ He gestured to the catcher, who came trotting towards me, holding out the bat for me to inspect. It was a crudely hewn piece of pale grey wood that tapered at one end. The surface had been lightly sanded but was full of bumps.
‘It’s a branch that one of the men dragged in from the vegetable gardens,’ Ebina said. ‘We asked one of the carpenters to make us a better one, but he hasn’t found the right type of wood yet.’
Seeing them playing baseball together reminded me of the divers in Broome, who were always so at ease in each other’s company. When I walked through Japtown on my way to a meeting of the Japanese Association, I would see them crouching in laneways and conversing, or leaning against the verandahs of the buildings on the main street, passing a cigarette between them. I’d glimpse them through the windows of the Roebuck, glasses in hands, faces red. They were my countrymen, but the way they conducted themselves was almost alien to me. To be a diver was never to be alone.
‘Why not have a hit?’ Ebina urged.
‘No. I won’t be any good.’
‘Come on, sensei. Just one ball,’ said the catcher, still holding out the bat. A few others voiced their support.
‘Oh, all right, then. But I warn you, I haven’t played in years.’
The men clapped and cheered as I walked up to the plate and aligned my body. Ebina gathered himself on the pitcher’s mound. ‘Ready?’
I nodded.
The ball came towards me much slower than I expected. It was slightly wide, and although I was tempted to reach out and tap it, I refrained from doing so, knowing that the hit would be weak. Restraint, after all, is the secret of any good batter. It hurtled past my shoulder, turning slowly. I wondered if Ebina had meant to give me a slow ball. But as he wound up for the second pitch, the concentration was clear on his face. The second ball came surer, faster, and I steeled myself for a hit. I swung hard, but too soon, and connected with the ball at the end of my swing, so that there was little force to propel it. The ball bounced once, then landed in a fielder’s cupped hands. I had only taken a few steps away from the plate when he threw the ball to first base. I laughed as the baseman stretched out his arms. In less than a minute, I was out.
I finished my shift at the infirmary at seven o’clock and began the long walk back to the compound. When I’d first started at the infirmary, the sun set right in front of me, the horizon ablaze with orange and red, wispy pink clouds streaking the sky. I paced myself on these walks, enjoying the spectacle that seemed to have been staged just for me. It made me think
of the time I’d first stepped off the ship in Broome as a twenty-nine-year-old, overwhelmed by the hugeness of the sky. Even during the wet, when dark clouds hung low week after week, I never grew accustomed to its size.
But the days were becoming shorter, and now only a thin line of orange could be seen above the horizon. The rest of the sky was the colour of ink.
Sometimes I looked across the road to 14A and saw the Italians leaning against the fence or standing in the quadrangle. They would wave and yell, ‘Medico! Medico!’ at me as I went by. But as I walked towards the gate tonight, there was not a soul in sight. The guard let me back into camp. I was aching for a shower. My shift had not been particularly difficult, but I was tired. The weeks were catching up with me.
I hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps away from the gate when a figure appeared from behind the nearest row of tents. I recognised the rolling gait before I saw his face.
‘Hey, Doc.’
‘Johnny. What do you want?’ I hadn’t seen him since the film night and was immediately on my guard.
‘I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all week. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me. Look, I know we probably haven’t got off to the best start here, but I wanted to ask you a favour.’
‘A favour?’
He took a deep breath. ‘It’s about the baseball. We want to play too. The Australians deserve a go, just like everyone else.’
‘I don’t understand. Why can’t you make your own team?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’ve got six other blokes who want to play, but no one else wants to join our team or play against us. I swear the mayor has told everyone to steer clear of us. Has he?’
I shook my head. ‘Johnny, not this again.’
‘What? We’re outcasts in here. Can’t you see that?’
The half-castes and Australian-born had formed a clique, sleeping in tents a little way from the others, eating at a separate table and doing different chores. Even when they worked outside the camp grounds, they didn’t have to wear the maroon uniforms that everyone else wore. They spent their time chatting to the guards and officers, which didn’t help their reputation in camp. If they were outcasts, they were outcasts of their own making.
After Darkness Page 8