The Pearl Diver Read online

  Looking over the side, she tries imagining the depth of the water, but she can’t concentrate. She leans back and holds her breath, counting the strokes. Fifteen. Twenty. Forty. She could continue keeping the breath within her, but she stops, noticing that the mist has thinned out and that Nagashima is close. Close enough to tell that the trees are pines and not cedars. If the water wasn’t so rough, she’s sure she could see the bottom of the sea. Jump right off and touch it. Her place.

  He breaks his rhythm, rowing faster now, maintaining that pace until they hit the rocky bottom, throwing her against the side of the boat.

  He never even steps off the boat, but for the first time on this long day, he faces her. She, on the cement dock; he, working the oars once again. Always with his back to the place he is going, facing the place he is leaving. She watches him edge away. He must be exhausted, but, wanting so desperately to get away from this place, he rows and rows. But he isn’t that far away, perhaps fifty yards, when he does stop. The boat wobbles, shifts under his weight as he removes the left oar from its latch; he picks it up, as far away from the blade as is possible. He leans over and, using the blade of the oar as a shovel, scoops and flings into the water the two rice balls she left behind for him. They disappear like stones. He replaces the oar and begins digging, his back to her past.

  AS our generals hang in the December wind, the time line of her isolation begins. It is the future Emperor’s fifteenth birthday, forty-one years before he will begin his reign.

  She stands here on this dock—the receiving dock—watching the man row until he, like the rice balls, fades into the sea. The sea. From this day on, it will forever be different for her. Not hatred—she will never hate it—only something that separates. It had always been something that she thought connected—island to island, fishermen to home. But today it is, and always will be, a separator.

  Two men, wearing doctor’s masks, lead her along the narrow dock, past several rowboats much like the one she arrived on. They pass a small shack, many kinds of farm equipment under its tin roof. She feels sick to her stomach, the cold rice like lead. She stops, catches her stomach from leaving her.

  “Hurry up, there’s much to be done,” one of the men says, a few steps ahead.

  A couple of deep breaths help a little and she follows the men into a large building, splotches of ivy clinging on the outside walls. A wooden shoe box is off to her right. The ceiling is higher than any she has ever seen before. She removes her shoes, and as she is about to place them in the box, a woman wearing thick rubber gloves comes out of nowhere, rips them from her hands, and drops them into a burlap sack.

  “Into that room and place all your belongings in one of those bags.” Still, the men are several steps away from her. Never closer.

  Dirty curtains, covering the glass on the door, are lifted by the wind brought in through the entrance. She steps inside, and before she can even close the door, her stomach is lost all over the floor. The smell of chemicals staggers her. The room is large, made even larger by the ceiling. A nurse hands her a bucket and a rag.

  “Close that door and clean this up. When you’ve finished, go over there behind the curtain and remove everything.”

  She throws up again. The nurse’s rubber boots flop as she hurries away.

  She cleans up, a stain left behind on the floor, then goes over and opens the curtain. A woman, old enough to be her mother, sits naked on a dirty mattress. Her left hand in front of her pubis, her right can cover only half of her breasts.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry.”

  She walks out of the curtain-partitioned room.

  “Hurry up and get undressed.” The nurse points her back to where she has just left.

  The older woman turns her back to her, the long, bent fingers still where they were when she first entered. Red spots on her back. Some larger the farther down one looks. Her hair is like a swallow’s nest after a typhoon, strewn all over, eggs long gone. Her face, round as a ramen bowl, is untouched except for one red spot under her right eye. She moves as far away from the woman on the bed as she can, turns her back, undresses. She hides her change purse inside the pocket of her jacket. The room is cold; many times she has been colder—those early-May dives—but the shame she feels gives this cold a raw edge to it.

  The curtain snaps open. She stands, for the first time in her life, naked before a man. Like those of the woman on the edge of the bed, her hands, too, instinctively cover the most private parts of her being.

  “Move your arms and stand up straight,” the doctor orders. She hears the words, but his mouth and nose are covered by a white mask, making it difficult to follow what he says.

  “Stand up straight!” She sees his mask move up and down, again hears the words, sees the doctor’s eyes behind black-rimmed glasses that sit crooked on his nose. He steps toward her. She uses the side of the bed as a support but feels her knees weaken, and with her arms still covering her, she hits the floor. The ceiling is a clear blue sky. Endless. The older woman speaks words she doesn’t understand; her hideous claws touch her face.

  “Don’t touch me!” she screams. “Nobody touch me!”

  The older woman jumps away, her hands back to her body.

  “Get up so we can disinfect you,” yells the doctor.

  She reaches for her clothes, but they are gone; stabs at a bedsheet, but there is only a mattress. She starts to cry.

  “Stop this foolishness.”

  The doctor clenches her arm, jerks her up by it. He has her above the elbow, the thick rubber glove a slimy cold, like a raw oyster in January. She’s taken into another room. The doctor tells her to lie on the bed, a plastic sheet atop it. First on her stomach. He checks behind her ears, the nape of her neck, under her arms, down her back, all the time making these sounds like he is sucking his teeth. He spreads her legs; the glove hurts as he touches her down there, makes all her skin ache, as if she’s sliding naked on ice. She notices, on her left arm, a large bruise already beginning to spread from where she fell on the floor. Spreading over the diving scar within the spot. Years ago. She keeps her eyes on the spot, the blue-green-black bruise scattered inside, around it. Keeps her eyes on it, tries to create a map from it. Yakushima. Like the island of Yakushima, round except for a little deviation on the top left side. His hands down the backs of her legs, the soles of her feet.

  “Turn over.”

  She does, knowing nothing that she is doing. Chilled tears dribble, drip down the side of her face, plunk against the plastic bedsheet.

  His hands over her breasts, against her stomach, inside her, down her thighs, across her diving-scarred knees, her feet, between her toes.

  “Get up,” he says, leaving the room.

  The worst is over. You have been through the worst. She keeps telling herself this.

  A nurse comes in and leads her to the back of the building. Colder than she has ever been. A startling smell of chemicals.

  “Keep your eyes closed.”

  She is covered, drenched, in the chemical odor. A second layer of skin. She inhales, trying to strangle tears that want out. Her throat burns, her nose drips, and her eyes release, this time, boiling tears. Her skin scoured all over, but still the cold rubber glove between her legs. She is led out of the room, given a thin robe, and is standing before a young man at a desk. Sweating. Shivering. Her upper left arm hurts where the doctor grabbed her, the red spot on her forearm without feeling, the bruise spreading.

  “I have a few questions for you, but these are only for our records. Your life begins here right now, at this very moment. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” she answers.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Shodo Island.”

  “Okay. Your number is two six four five. Don’t forget it. Two six four five. Repeat it.”

  “What about taking down my name?”

  “I told you to forget everything. Nam
e and all. Wipe it out of your head as if it were never there. Same for your family. Everything for you begins here today, right now. Your number, what’s your number?”

  “Two six four five.”

  “Again.”

  “Two six four five.”

  “Now you must choose a new name.”

  “But I have a name.”

  “Didn’t you listen to what I told you? You have caused great shame to your family, and for their sake, have your name struck from the family register. As if . . .” He pauses.

  “As if I were dead.”

  His eyes don’t like what she said.

  “Today is the beginning of your past. December the twenty-third, 1948. You are born today. It will be easier on you if you think of it this way.”

  “But I haven’t thought of a new name.”

  “You have until tomorrow.”

  The groaning of the rowboats tied to the wooden dock outside. Thinks that is what she hears. She stares up at the ceiling. She is tired, more tired than the man who has rowed her here. Even he must be home asleep by now.

  All around her, on this first night of her isolation, bodies. Some are already spotted like that of the older woman earlier in the day. Others worse than that. Some with faces, limbs already contorted. Several are like her—no visible sign until they are naked. She doesn’t use the blanket, not sure who wrapped themselves in it the night before. She curls up within herself, but it is cold. Not as cold as the doctor’s gloves. Never that cold again. She covers her face with her hands to block out some of the disinfectant’s stench, but her hands stink of it, everybody does, this room does, this building, this island. For the first time in years, she doesn’t smell the sea on her skin.

  She tries thinking of a name. It doesn’t sound all that difficult to do. Pick a name. When she was little, she often had make-believe names when playing. It was easy. She never thought of it before now, but we are lucky, for the burden of choosing a name is put on the parents, not us. But now she is both the parent and the newborn. And not only a first name, a family name, as well.

  The woman next to her can’t sleep, either; she’s been moving around all night. She asks the woman’s name. The woman mumbles something that she doesn’t understand. Maybe she is asleep, she thinks. She asks again. Again, she doesn’t understand. A man, a couple of mats away, speaks.

  “Mang. Her name is Mang. She doesn’t speak much Japanese.”

  “Doesn’t speak Japanese?”

  “She’s Korean.”

  She doesn’t know what to say. What’s a Korean doing here? The man breaks the silence.

  “My name is Shikagawa. Why do you want to know everybody’s name?”

  “Because they said I must choose one.”

  “That’s not easy. You have to think of something happy in your life. Make a name from that.”

  “We’re not supposed to think of our past.”

  “That’s only what they say. They know that’s impossible, but what else are they to tell us?”

  “Why did you choose Shikagawa?”

  “When I was a child, I used to see a deer drinking from the river near my family’s home. So I chose Shikagawa— deer drinking from the river.”

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “At least something I have is. That’s why it’s so important for you to give this some real thought. I will be quiet now. Good night. I’ll ask you your name in the morning.”

  There is a single dream that she has in this first week. Maybe she has so few dreams because she sleeps so little. It is the same dream over and over, very short but exactly as the previous one. The man who rowed her here has arrived back at Shodo Island and he has dragged his boat ashore. And although it is late December, he removes the fingerless gloves from his hands, then his hat, jacket, shirts, socks, pants, underwear, and throws them all in the boat. He empties a container of kerosene over it, tosses a match. Everything is in black and white. Even the flames. The man doesn’t stand there to get warmed by the fire, but runs away naked, and she is here on this shore, watching him through the flames until she sees him no more.

  the artifacts of nagashima

  Every artifact has a dozen stories—a thousand.

  ARTIFACT Number 0012

  The money of Nagashima

  The Coins:

  One Sen: oval-shaped. The front: black, trimmed in gold, a hole in the middle, the amount, along with the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium. The back: plain bronze, no design.

  Five Sen: round-shaped. The front: black, trimmed in gold, a hole in the middle, the amount, along with the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium. The back: plain bronze, no design.

  Ten Sen: round-shaped, a little larger than the five-sen coin. The front: black, trimmed in gold, a square hole in the middle, the amount, along with the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium. The back: plain bronze, no design.

  Fifty Sen: round-shaped, a little larger than the ten-sen coin. The front: black, trimmed in gold, no hole in the middle, the amount, along with the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium. The back: plain bronze, no design.

  One Hundred Sen: oval-shaped, the largest of all the coins. The front: gold, trimmed in black, no hole in the middle, the amount, along with the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium, a handheld fan design on the bottom. The back: plain gold, no design.

  The Paper Money:

  One Yen: rectangular-shaped. The front: plain white, with black ink. The date handwritten down the left side, the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium printed from right to left across the bottom, the amount in the middle. The back: plain white.

  Five Yen: rectangular-shaped, a little larger than the one-yen bill. The front: plain white, with black ink. The date handwritten down the left side, the kanji for Nagashima Leprosarium printed from right to left across the bottom, the amount in the middle, to the right side of which is a drawing of a small sunrise over an island, the thin beams of the sun stretching far; to the left side of the amount, a picture of pampas grass bending in the wind. The back: plain white.

  And on the seventh day of the first week, the final week of 1948, she, like all of the new patients, receives her money.

  ARTIFACT Number 0022

  Those who arrived in 1948

  a third-year university engineering student

  four fishermen

  two mothers

  a boy who just completed seventh grade

  a tanka poet

  three World War II veterans and a

  twenty-year-old kamikaze who lived

  a young woman two weeks from her marriage

  a mah-jongg gambler

  five high school girls and boys

  a twenty-six-year-old man who worked in the ship-yards

  a semiprofessional baseball player

  three schoolteachers—two women and a

  man who was a high school band director

  a Buddhist priest

  three Christians

  a fish market auctioneer

  two government office workers and a policeman

  five Koreans—a woman and four men

  a sushi shop owner

  two members of the Communist party

  two coal miners

  a train conductor

  three nurses

  seven farmers

  two construction workers

  one law student

  and a pearl diver

  ARTIFACT Number 0196

  A rusty farm sickle

  She sees the man with the sickle in his right hand, but she sees the same thing many times each day. The patients, who are healthy enough, do everything here: gardening, fishing, nursing, teaching, constructing buildings. They are both patient and staff. So, yes, she sees him, but he doesn’t strike her as doing anything unusual or suspicious. Just walking by with a small sickle in his hand. Many people carrying or pushing all kinds of things: sickles, rakes, shovels, hand plows, wheelbarrows.

  He is not much older than she, maybe twenty-five, no more than thirty. She does
know that he’s a newer patient and that, like her, he has almost no physical signs of his disease. He goes around without a shirt, not a mark on his torso, only the large red spot on his left hand. A spot that stands out even more because of how suntanned he is.

  She is up on the hill in Building A-15, giving Mr. Mimura’s legs a massage, when she hears screaming down near the sea, where most of the gardening is done. She goes to the window, doesn’t see anything, but continues to hear the commotion.

  “I’ll be right back, Mr. Mimura.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “I’ll only be a minute. I want to see what the screaming is about, that’s all.”

  “Take me.”

  She picks Mr. Mimura up from the bed—he’s like a bony bird, weighing not much more than her cedar tub filled with a day’s catch—places him in a wheelbarrow. Mr. Mimura’s been here since 1933, fifteen years before she arrived. He is in his mid-fifties, one of the oldest patients. She takes him outside and sees a large group of people running up the hill, carrying someone. She hurries toward them, nearly spilling Mr. Mimura out of the wheelbarrow. They rush on past and she follows them to the hospital. The man is bleeding profusely from his left arm, but it is all the mud mixed with the blood that keeps her attention. A muddy, bloody trail all the way up the path leading from the sea.

  It isn’t even fifteen minutes before the doctor comes out and says that the man has died, lost too much blood. The doctor tells several patients to carry the body over to the crematorium and dispose of it.

  She pushes Mr. Mimura back to the shed, but his gnarled hand punches at her arm.

  “Go down to the beach.”

  “Not today, Mr. Mimura. I have many things to do.”

  “Down to the gardens. Now.”

  Mr. Mimura is always polite and calm, and the only reason that she takes him down to the gardens is because his demanding tone is so out of character. It’s only up a little hill and down another, and it isn’t that hot, the end of April. There are a few people working in the gardens, and Mr. Mimura points for her to go off to the right, to the gardens closest to the beach.