The boy you saw, he was missing one of his shoes, right? he asked. Ushijima would surely nod. Theyd found only the left shoe wedged in the propeller.
Knowing the answer, Enoyoshi studied Ushijimas reaction. But Ushijima narrowed his eyes, peered up at the sky, and shook his head to say no.
He had shoes on both feet?
This time Ushijimas reply was direct: The boy had bare feet. There was no trace of hesitation or uncertainty in Ushijimas voice, and that was what baffled Enoyoshi.
In any case, he could not just sit there doing nothing. It occurred to him that they should try to restart the engine once more and get the yacht moving. Finding that the cuff of his shirt got in the way when he tried to tug the hand-starter, he decided to remove his shirt rather than simply roll up the sleeve and began to unbutton. Ushijima lay at Enoyoshis feet, his posture unchanged. From under the open hatch, Minako caught sight of Enoyoshi taking off his shirt and called to him with a note of relief in her voice.
So youve decided to dive at last.
No doubt shed misinterpreted Enoyoshis removing his shirt. He hadnt the slightest intention of diving under the yacht, and her remark annoyed him. The way shed said it, she seemed to assume it was his duty as a man to dive and remove the obstacle. Enoyoshi felt no obligation whatsoever to rescue the yacht for her.
Starting the engine, Enoyoshi tried putting it in forward and reverse alternately, but the yacht remained motionless. It was futile. Irritated by his powerlessness, still resentful of Minakos gross remark, Enoyoshi was beginning to feel quite angry. He also felt annoyed by how passive hed been. He ought to show them he could kiss goodbye to their yacht if he wanted. Hed show them he had the freedom.
No doubt shed misinterpreted Enoyoshis removing his shirt. He hadnt the slightest intention of diving under the yacht, and her remark annoyed him. The way shed said it, she seemed to assume it was his duty as a man to dive and remove the obstacle. Enoyoshi felt no obligation whatsoever to rescue the yacht for her.
Starting the engine, Enoyoshi tried putting it in forward and reverse alternately, but the yacht remained motionless. It was futile. Irritated by his powerlessness, still resentful of Minakos gross remark, Enoyoshi was beginning to feel quite angry. He also felt annoyed by how passive hed been. He ought to show them he could kiss goodbye to their yacht if he wanted. Hed show them he had the freedom.
His withered resolve began to rear its head once more. Come to think of it, there was no other way of getting off the ship. The simplest and most effective thing to do was to swim to shore, telephone Marine Services, and have them dispatch a tugboat.
Enoyoshi took a large plastic sack from an accessory case under the galley and began stuffing his clothes and shoes inside. Making sure there was some air in the bag too, he tightly knotted the opening.
At first, Minako had been staring rudely at him as he removed his clothes, but the bizarreness of his behavior struck her all of a sudden and she began to look worried.
Say, just what is it youre up to over there?
Enoyoshi tied the sack to his right thigh, sandwiched it between both legs, and stood up on top of the bench.
Minako reached toward him, but sooner than her fingertips could brush against his body, Enoyoshi had plunged into the sea. Instead of swimming straight away, he began to tread water, adjusting the plastic sack between his legs. As he looked towards the yacht, the Ushijimas poked their faces over the side like a couple of puppies peering out of a cardboard box. Minako looked like she was whining but Enoyoshi couldnt hear her exact words as he bobbed up and down in the sea.
Youll be all right, Ill call Marine Services for you.
He tried hollering this, but he wasnt sure if theyd heard him. Minako still seemed to be wailing. Itd only be an hours wait for the tugboat. But until it arrived, theyd have to savor the fact that hell lay just a planks breadth under that marvellous world of theirs that they so loved to force on others.
Turning round, he began to swim using only his arms, the buoyant plastic sack gripped between his legs. Hed practiced the crawl countless times with a polystyrene board between his legs and could complete twenty lengths that way in a twenty-five-meter pool. Be brave, he told himself. Yet stamina wasnt the issue. His attention was concentrated on the bottom side of his abdomen and legs. If, at that instant, a slimy thing brushed up against his stomach His heart quailed at the thought. Why wouldnt the little boy release his embrace of the keel and come after him? Surely, if Enoyoshi opened his eyes underwater, he would see that little boys bloated face right there. The hideous visions kept coming, disrupting his stroke. He was wasting a lot of his strength, and his fatigue grew greater with every stroke and his stomach was heaving into his mouth. As the nausea came, he sensed that his life was in danger. Panic equalled death. The night sky was cloudless and the moon shone brightly as he pressed ahead in the water. Yet the lights of Wakasu Marine Park did not appear any closer. It was maddening how ineffective he was in closing the distance to the embankment.
Enoyoshi forced himself to take a break, ceasing his strokes and turning over to float on his back. Making sure his nose and mouth were clear of the water, he took deliberate breaths to fill his lungs with air. He tried to fend off the nightmarish visions by picturing the yet-unseen naked body of the woman hed recently started to date. Imagining tangible particulars was the only way to elude the darker fantasies.
Raising his head from the water, he saw that he was now quite a distance from the yacht. A look to the shore confirmed how much closer it was than the yacht. He reckoned that hed completed two thirds of the distance. The strength returned to his limbs. The shore that hed thought so far away was actually right there within reach. One last spurt and hed reach land. Enoyoshi rolled over and began churning the water with vigorous strokes.
It wasnt until he clambered up the tetrapod blocks in front of the embankment and his body was completely out of the sea that Enoyoshi felt alive again. The lower portion of the tetrapod was submerged in water, but at the top it was dry and the grainy feel of its surface heartened him. Looking out to sea, he saw the MINAKO in exactly the same position, its mast helplessly swaying from side to side.
From below the interlocking tetrapods surged the sound of breaking waves. If he fell through a gap hed be in some serious trouble. Judging it wise to get over to the embankment on all fours, he crouched, and caught sight of a tiny shoe wedged in a crevice in the intermeshing blocks.
There it was, where he could touch it. In the faint glow of the night-lights, it looked black, probably from being waterlogged. Enoyoshi brought his face closer to it. The tip was wedged tight into the gap and the whole shoe had probably come off the owner for that reason. The wearer must have been playing atop the tetrapods and tripped. The upper canvas bore a Mickey Mouse motif, and a closer look revealed that it was a right shoe. The name written on the heel in black felt pen was legible even in the dim light. Kazuhiro. There could be no mistake. This shoe and the other theyd found on the yachts propeller formed a pair.
Enoyoshi looked up. It amazed him how calm he was. Calmly, he observed to himself, With the right shoe here, no wonder the boys barefoot.
Glancing out, he saw the yacht rocking violently on the perfectly placid surface. Enoyoshi thought he glimpsed the figure of a child with bare feet hugging the keel, playing.
V ADRIFT
1
Like a white cascade, the squall swept over the Wakashio VII, a deep-sea fishing boat with a hold full of tuna. Once having passed, the squall swept over the sea in a southerly direction. The rainbow that formed in its wake appeared to be a triumphal arch welcoming the boat back to its home port. A few hours earlier, they had passed through the sea off the Ogasawara Islands, and a short journey further north would bring into sight the profile of Torishima Island. Heading further north, they would reach the island of Hachiojima. Kazuo Shiraishi had a growing sense of relief, as if they were already back in Japan.
As Kazuo stood on bridge watch, it gradually sank into him that the yearlong voyage was finally drawing to a close. This was his third such voyage. Yet his heart felt fuller than it had upon returning from his first. This was no doubt due to the period of extended idleness that awaited him before the next voyage.
Upon returning from his second voyage seven years ago, Kazuo took up work in a fisheries warehouse as a cargo superintendent in charge of grading tuna fish. His memories of that second voyage were not pleasant; he had become particularly annoyed by the ugly mood that prevailed among the crew. He consequently applied, though not in so many words, for a job on land.
Despite being qualified as an engineer, he continued to cling to his land-based job at Wakashio Fisheries for the next five years, persistently rejecting any possibility of returning to sea.
Then two years ago, while driving the firms van to Tokyo, he became stuck in heavy traffic. He was overcome by the claustrophobia of being surrounded on all sides by trucks. In that instant he realized that he really didnt belong on land after all. He belonged at sea with its unimpeded vistas. To describe how the sun set at sea, Kazuo would often form a circle with his arms, although such a gesture could never truly capture the actual grandeur of a sunset at sea. Whenever, stuck in congested traffic, he happened to recall a seascape, the beauty of the scene felt all the more poignant. How deep was the calm silence at sea compared to the deafening din of traffic! Thus awakened to the lure of the sea as if for the first time, Kazuo resolved that it was time to set out on a third voyage, and promptly contacted the company to this end.
As the ships assistant engineer, Kazuo had been satisfied with this voyage. With a respectable career under his belt, he was regarded by everyone aboard as a full-fledged seaman. No one treated him like some green cabin boy as they had on his last trip, and there had been no feuding factions aboard the boat this time. Having successfully completed its mission in the South Pacific, the Wakashio VII now had its refrigerated hold full to the brim with large southern blue fin tuna. Moreover, theyd encountered no conditions during the voyage severe enough to be considered life threatening. All in all, the voyage had gone off as planned. The entire mission would have been perfect had it not been for an incident in which two crewmembers were swept overboard off the coast of New Zealand. Miraculously, one of these men was rescued, a feat that caught the attention of the newspapers. Sadly, the reporters focused exclusively on the dramatic sea rescue, totally ignoring the fact that another man had lost his life in the incident. While saddened by the death of a crewmate, the ship hands were also overjoyed that another, earlier given up for dead, had been returned to them. What should have been seen as a tragic event strangely gave rise to the jolly mood of a carnival. Perhaps this was because the lost crewmember hadnt been very popular.