“Your wife spoke of the same, friend,” I tell him. “And she said she’s to blame for his leaving.”
“If she convicts herself for the first part of it, there’s plenty to lay at my door for the next. For it’s true there was a small moment she was unfaithful to me. It may be, boatman, I did something to drive her to the arms of another. Or was it what I failed to say or do? It’s all distant now, like a bird flown by and become a speck in the sky. But our son was witness to its bitterness, and at an age too old to be fooled with soft words, yet too young to know the many strange ways of our hearts. He left vowing never to return, and was still away from us when she and I were happily reunited.”
“This part your wife told me. And how soon after came news of your good son taken by the plague swept the country. My own parents were lost in that same plague, friend, and I remember it well. But why blame yourself for it? A plague sent by God or the devil, but what fault lies with you for it?”
“I forbade her to go to his grave, boatman. A cruel thing. She wished us to go together to where he rested, but I wouldn’t have it. Now many years have passed and it’s only a few days ago we set off to find it, and by then the she-dragon’s mist had robbed us of any clear knowledge of what we sought.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” I say. “That part your wife was shy to reveal. So it was you stopped her visiting his grave.”
“A cruel thing I did, sir. And a darker betrayal than the small infidelity cuckolded me a month or two.”
“What did you hope to gain, sir, preventing not just your wife but even yourself grieving at your son’s resting place?”
“Gain? There was nothing to gain, boatman. It was just foolishness and pride. And whatever else lurks in the depths of a man’s heart. Perhaps it was a craving to punish, sir. I spoke and acted forgiveness, yet kept locked through long years some small chamber in my heart that yearned for vengeance. A petty and black thing I did her, and my son also.”
“I thank you for confiding this, friend,” I say to him. “And perhaps it’s as well. For though this talk intrudes in no part on my duty, and we speak now as two companions passing the day, I confess there was before a small unease in my mind, a feeling I’d yet to hear all there was. Now I’ll be able to row you with a carefree contentment. But tell me, friend, what is it made you break your resolve of so many years and come out at last on this journey? Was it something said? Or a change of heart as unknowable as the tide and sky before us?”
“I’ve wondered myself, boatman. And I think now it’s no single thing changed my heart, but it was gradually won back by the years shared between us. That may be all it was, boatman. A wound that healed slowly, but heal it did. For there was a morning not long ago, the dawn brought with it the first signs of this spring, and I watched my wife still asleep though the sun already lit our chamber. And I knew the last of the darkness had left me. So we came on this journey, sir, and now my wife recalls our son crossing before us to this island, so his burial place must be within its woods or perhaps on its gentle shores. Boatman, I’ve spoken honestly to you, and I hope it doesn’t cast your earlier judgement of us in doubt. For I suppose there’s some would hear my words and think our love flawed and broken. But God will know the slow tread of an old couple’s love for each other, and understand how black shadows make part of its whole.”
“Don’t worry, friend. What you told me merely echoes what I saw when you and your wife first came through the rain on that weary steed. Well, sir, no more talk, for who knows if another storm will come our way. Let’s hurry to her and carry her to the boat.”
She sits asleep at the rock with a look of contentment, the fire smoking beside her.
“I’ll carry her myself this time, boatman,” he says. “I feel my strength restored to me.”
Can I allow this? It will make my task no easier. “These pebbles make hard walking, friend,” I say. “What will be the cost of your stumbling as you carry her? I’m well used to the work, for she’ll not be the first to need carrying to a boat. You can walk beside us, talking to her as you wish. Let it be like when she carried those eggs and you went anxiously beside her.”
The fear returns to his face. Yet he replies quietly, “Very well, boatman. Let’s do as you say.”
He walks at my side, muttering encouragement to her. Do I stride too swiftly? For now he lags behind, and as I carry her into the sea I feel his hand grasp desperately at my back. Yet this is no place to loiter, for my feet must discover the quay where it hides beneath the chilly water’s surface. I step onto the stones, the lapping waves grow shallow again, and I enter the boat, hardly tilting though I carry her in my arms. My rugs near the stern wet from the rain. I kick away the soaked early layers and lay her down gently. I leave her sitting up, her head just beneath the gunwale, and search the chest for dry blankets against the sea wind.
I feel him climb into the boat even as I wrap her and the floor rocks with his tread. “Friend,” I say, “you see the waters grow more restless. And this is but a small vessel. I daren’t carry more than one passenger at a time.”
I see the fire in him well enough now, for it blazes through his eyes. “I thought it well understood, boatman,” he says, “my wife and I would cross to the island unseparated. Didn’t you say so repeatedly, and this the purpose of your questions?”
“Please don’t misunderstand, friend,” I say. “I speak only of the practical matter of crossing this water. It’s beyond question the two of you will dwell on the island together, going arm in arm as you’ve always done. And if your son’s burial place is found in some shaded spot, you may think of placing wild flowers about it, such as you’ll find growing around the island. There’ll be bell heather, even marigold in the woodland. Yet for this crossing today, I ask you to wait a while longer back on the shore. I’ll see to it the good lady’s comfortable on the opposite one, for I know a spot close to the boat’s landing where three ancient rocks face one another like old companions. I’ll leave her there well sheltered, yet with a view of the waves, and hasten back to fetch you. But leave us for now and wait on the shore a moment longer.”
The red glow of the sunset on him, or is it still the fire in his gaze? “I’ll not step off this boat, sir, while my wife sits within it. Row us over together as you promised. Or must I row myself?”
“I hold the oar, sir, and it remains my duty to pronounce how many may ride in this vessel. Can it be, despite our recent friendship, you suspect some foul trickery? Do you fear I’ll not return for you?”
“I accuse you of nothing, sir. Yet many rumours abound of boatmen and their ways. I mean no offence, but beg you take us both now, and no more dallying.”
“Boatman,” comes her voice, and I turn in time to see her hand reach at the empty air as though to find me there, though her eyes remain closed. “Boatman. Leave us a small moment. Let my husband and I speak alone a while.”
Dare I leave the boat to them? Yet surely she now speaks for me. The oar firm in my hands, I step past him over the boards and into the water. The sea rises to my knee soaking the hem of my robe. The vessel’s well tied and I have the oar. What mischief can come of it? Still I dare not wade far, and though I look to the shore and remain still as a rock, I find I again intrude on their intimacy. I hear them over the quiet lapping waves.
“Has he left us, Axl?”
“He stands in the water, princess. He was reluctant to leave his boat and I’d say he’ll not give us long.”
“Axl, this is no time to quarrel with the boatman. We’ve had great fortune coming upon him today. A boatman who looks so favourably on us.”
“Yet we’ve often heard of their sly tricks, isn’t that so, princess?”
“I trust him, Axl. He’ll keep his word.”
“How can you be so sure, princess?”
“I know it, Axl. He’s a good man and won’t let us down. Do as he says and wait for him back on the land. He’ll come for you soon enough. Let’s do it this way, Axl, or I fear we’
ll lose the great dispensation offered us. We’re promised our time together on the island, as only a few can be, even among those entwined a lifetime. Why risk such a prize for a few moments of waiting? Don’t quarrel with him, or who knows next time we’ll face some brute of a man? Axl, please make your peace with him. Even now I fear he grows angry and will change his mind. Axl, are you still there?”
“I’m still before you, princess. Can it really be we’re talking of going our ways separately?”
“It’s only for a moment or two, husband. What does he do now?”
“Still stands there unmoving, showing only his tall back and shining head to us. Princess, do you really believe we can trust this man?”
“I do, Axl.”
“Your talk with him just now. Did it go happily?”
“It went happily, husband. Wasn’t it the same for you?”
“I suppose it was, princess.”
The sunset on the cove. Silence at my back. Dare I turn to them yet?
“Tell me, princess,” I hear him say. “Are you glad of the mist’s fading?”
“It may bring horrors to this land. Yet for us it fades just in time.”
“I was wondering, princess. Could it be our love would never have grown so strong down the years had the mist not robbed us the way it did? Perhaps it allowed old wounds to heal.”
“What does it matter now, Axl? Mend your friendship with the boatman, and let him ferry us over. If it’s one of us he’ll row, then the other, why quarrel with him? Axl, what do you say?”
“Very well, princess. I’ll do as you say.”
“So leave me now and return to the shore.”
“I’ll do so, princess.”
“Then why do you still linger, husband? Do you think boatmen never grow impatient?”
“Very well, princess. But let me just hold you once more.”
Do they embrace now, even though I left her swaddled like a babe? Even though he must kneel and make a strange shape on the boat’s hard floor? I suppose they do, and for as long as the silence remains, I dare not turn. The oar in my arms, does it cast a shadow in this swaying water? How much longer? At last their voices return.
“We’ll talk more on the island, princess,” he says.
“We’ll do that, Axl. And with the mist gone, we’ll have plenty to talk of. Does the boatman still stand in the water?”
“He does, princess. I’ll go now and make my peace with him.”
“Farewell then, Axl.”
“Farewell, my one true love.”
I hear him coming through the water. Does he intend a word for me? He spoke of mending our friendship. Yet when I turn he does not look my way, only to the land and the low sun on the cove. And neither do I search for his eye. He wades on past me, not glancing back. Wait for me on the shore, friend, I say quietly, but he does not hear and he wades on.
A Note About the Author
Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of six previous novels, including Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, which won the Booker Prize and was adapted into an award-winning movie. Ishiguro’s work has been translated into forty languages. In 1995, he received an Order of the British Empire for service to literature, and in 1998 was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
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