The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (3 page)

The fleet was moored in three long lines so as to form an inner court of water. All the sterns were faced in and were decorated with sticks of burning incense and red and green paper flags celebrating regional deities. Flowery silk cloth lined the semicircular tarpaulin shells on the flat decks. At the rear of each shell a raised stand, draped with the same material, held a small mirror: an image of Ryuji’s sampan wobbled from room to room as they slipped past.

The girls pretended not to notice them. Some lay swaddled in quilts, baring to the cold only dollish, powder-white necks. Others, quilts wrapped around their thighs, played with fortunetelling cards. The luscious reds and golds on the faces of the cards glittered between slender sallow fingers.

“Which one do you want?” the officer asked. “They’re all young.”

Ryuji didn’t answer. He was about to choose the first woman in his life and, having traveled sixteen hundred leagues to this bit of dirty, reddish seaweed afloat in the turbid waters of Hong Kong, he felt curiously fatigued, perplexed. But the girls certainly were young, and attractive. He chose before the older man had a chance to offer a suggestion.

The whore had been sitting in silence, her face puckered in the cold, but as Ryuji stepped onto her boat, she laughed happily. And he found himself half-heartedly believing in the happiness he was bringing her. She drew the flowery curtain over the entrance to the shell.

They performed in silence. He trembled a little out of vanity, as when he had first scaled the mast. The woman’s lower body, like a hibernating animal had asleep, moved lethargically under the quilts; he sensed the stars of night tilting dangerously at the top of the mast. The stars slanted into the south, swung to the north, wheeled, whirled into the east, and seemed finally to be impaled on the tip of the mast. By the time he realized this was a woman, it was done. . . .

There was a knock on the door and Fusako Kuroda came into the room with a large breakfast tray. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. Noboru just left a minute ago.” Putting the tray down on the tea table, she opened the curtains and the window. “There’s not a bit of breeze. It’s going to be hot again.”

Even the shade beneath the window ledge was as hot as burning asphalt. Ryuji sat up in bed and wrapped the wrinkled sheet around his waist. Fusako was dressed to go out. Her bare arms, moving not to embrace him but to pour morning coffee into cups, seemed unfamiliar. They were no longer the arms of the night.

Ryuji beckoned Fusako to the bed and kissed her. The thin, sensitive skin of her lips betrayed the fluttering of her eyes: this morning, he knew, she was uneasy even while her eyes were closed.

“What time do you go to work?” he said.

“As long as I can be there by eleven. What are you going to do?”

“I might go down to the dock for a while, just to see what’s going on.”

They had created in a single night a new situation and now it appeared to bewilder them. For the moment, their bewilderment was their only etiquette. Ryuji, with what he liked to call the unbelievable arrogance of intolerable people, was calculating how far he might be able to go.

The expression on Fusako’s radiant face suggested a number of things. Resurrection. Or an utter effacement from memory. Or even determination to prove to herself and the world that it had not, in any sense of the word, been a
mistake
.

“Shall we eat over here?” she suggested, moving to the couch. Ryuji jumped out of bed and threw on his clothes. Fusako was standing at the window. “I wish we could see your ship from here.”

“If that pier wasn’t so far out of town . . .” Coming up behind her, Ryuji put his arms around Fusako’s waist. Together they looked out at the harbor.

The window overlooked the red roofs of old warehouses. A block of new warehouses, like concrete apartment buildings, hulked up from the pier to the north. The canal was buried under sculls and barges. Beyond the warehouse district piles of seasoning lumber merged into an intricate wooden mosaic. Extending like a concrete finger from the seaward side of the lumber yards, a long breakwater stretched all the way to the sea.

The summer morning sun lay as thin as a dazzling sheet of hammered metal across the colossal anvil of the harbor scene.

Ryuji’s fingers touched her nipples through the blue cotton dress. She tossed her head, her hair tickled his nose. As always, he felt as if he had traveled some huge distance, sometimes from the far side of the world, finally to arrive at a point of delicate sensation—a thrilling in his fingertips near a window on a summer morning.

The fragrance of coffee and marmalade filled the room.

“There was something about Noboru this morning, almost as if he knew. Of course, he seems to like you a lot, so it doesn’t matter really. . . . I still don’t understand how this could have happened. I mean”—her confusion rang a little false—“it’s just incredible!”

R
EX
,
LTD
., was one of the oldest and best-known luxury shops in Yokohama’s swank Motomachi district. Since her husband’s death, Fusako had been running the business by herself. The Moorish architecture of the small two-story building was distinctive; the Mosque window set into the thick white wall at the front of the shop always contained a tasteful display. Inside, an open mezzanine much like a veranda overlooked a patio of imported Spanish tile. A small fountain bubbled in the center of the patio. A bronze Bacchus, some Vivax neckties carelessly draped over its arms, was one of the many curios collected by Fusako’s husband before his death; these were priced so as to discourage any would-be buyer.

Fusako employed an elderly manager and four salesgirls. Among the clientele were wealthy foreigners who lived in Yokohama, a large number of dandies and movie people from Tokyo, and even some buyers from small retail shops on the Ginza who came down to forage: Rex enjoyed a reputation for uncanny discernment of fine quality, particularly in imported men’s wear and accessories. Both Fusako and the manager, a man called Shibuya, who possessed her husband’s tastes, were scrupulous buyers.

Whenever a ship docked in Yokohama, an import agent who was an old friend of the family used his connections to get them into the bonded warehouse as soon as the cargo had been unloaded: often Fusako was able to place a bid before other buyers had seen the shipment. Her policy was to emphasize quality labels while providing a wide price range in every item. Rex’s order for Jaeger sweaters, for example, would be divided equally between the manufacturer’s most exclusive and more modest lines. The same was true of imported Italian leather: Rex’s selection included leather from the tanning school attached to the Chiesa Santa Croce in Florence as well as the most expensive gloves and purses from the Via Condotti.

Though Fusako was unable to travel abroad herself, because of Noboru, she had sent Mr. Shibuya on a buying trip to Europe the year before, and he had established new connections all over the Continent. Shibuya had devoted his life to elegance in dress: Rex even stocked English spats, an article not to be found in any of the Ginza shops.

Fusako reached the shop at the usual time and was greeted with the usual morning cordiality. She asked a few business questions and then went up to her office on the mezzanine and opened the day’s mail. The air conditioner in the window whirred solemnly.

Being able to sit at her desk at the usual time was a great relief. It had to be this way. Today of all days, she couldn’t imagine what might have happened if she had stayed home from work.

She took a lady’s cigarette from her purse and glanced, as she lit it, at the memo book on her desk. Yoriko Kasuga, a movie actress in Yokohama on location, was due to arrive at noon for some colossal shopping: she had just returned from a film festival in Europe and, having spent all her gift money on other things, hoped to cover up with presents from Rex. “Some stunning French accessories,” she had telephoned to say, “for about twenty men—pick out whatever you like.” Later in the afternoon, a private secretary from Yokohama Importers was coming over to pick up some of the Italian polo shirts her boss, the company president, wore on the golf links. Faithful customers, these women were remarkably easy to please.

A part of the patio was visible beneath the louvered swinging doors. It was hushed. The tips of leaves on a rubber tree in one corner shone with a dull luster. Apparently no one had arrived yet.

Fusako was worried that Mr. Shibuya might have noticed what felt to her like a flush around her eyes. The old man looked at a woman as though he were examining a piece of fabric in his hand. Even if she was his employer.

She had never actually counted until that morning: five years since her husband’s death! It hadn’t seemed so long in passing, but all of a sudden, like a white obi she would never be able to wind up, five years was a dizzying length.

Fusako teased the ashtray with her cigarette and then snuffed it out. The man still nested in every nook of her body. She was aware of her flesh beneath the clothes as continuous, thigh and breast in warm accordance: it was a new sensation. And she could still smell the sweat of the man. As if to test them, she curled her stockinged toes.

Fusako had met Ryuji for the first time two days before. Noboru, who was a fanatic about ships, had wheedled her into asking a shipping executive friend for a letter of introduction, and they had gone to see the
Rakuyo
, a ten-thousand-ton freighter anchored at Takashima Pier. . . .

Stopping for a minute at the far end of the dock, mother and son gazed at the cream-and-green-colored ship gleaming in the distance. Fusako unfurled a parasol with a long white snakeskin handle.

“You see those ships out in the offing?” Noboru said knowingly. “They’re all waiting their turn for a berth to open up.”

“That’s why our shipments are always so late getting in,” Fusako drawled. She felt hot just looking up at the ship.

The cloud-dappled sky was partitioned by an intricate crisscross of hawsers; and lifting up at it in reverence like a slender chin was the
Rakuyo
’s prow, limitlessly high, the green banner of the fleet fluttering at its crest. The anchor clung to the hawsehole like a large metal-black crab.

“This is going to be great,” Noboru said, brimming over with boyish excitement. “I guess we’ll be able to look her over fore and aft.”

“Let’s not expect too much, dear, until we’re certain this letter is what we need.”

Thinking about it later, Fusako realized that she had felt her heart begin to dance even as they had stood looking up at the ship.
That’s funny: I’m just as excited as Noboru
.

The feeling beset her at the height of her languor—just lifting her head was a hot and wearisome chore—suddenly and for no reason.

“She’s a flush deck, Mom—looks like a pretty good ship all right.” Unable to contain the knowledge that crowded his brain, Noboru held forth to his disinterested mother; as they drew closer, the
Rakuyo
swelled before them like great music. Noboru sprinted ahead and raced up the glittering, silvery gangplank.

But Fusako had to wander down the corridor in front of the officers’ quarters, helplessly clutching her letter to the Captain. The decks, where unloading was in progress, were bustling and noisy, but the stuffy corridor was unpleasantly hushed.

Then a cabin door marked “Second Officer” opened and Tsukazaki appeared.

“Can you tell me where I might find the Captain?”

“He’s not here now. Can I help you?”

Fusako showed him the letter; Noboru, eyes shining, gaped up at the sailor.

“I see—a kind of study trip. I suppose I can show you around.” His manner was brusque, his gaze never left her face as he spoke.

That was their first encounter. She would never forget his eyes as he confronted her in the corridor. Deep-set in the disgruntled, swarthy face, they sought her out as though she were a tiny spot on the horizon, the first sign of a distant ship. That, at least, was the feeling she had. Eyes viewing an object so near had no business piercing that way, focusing so sharply—without leagues of sea between them, it was unnatural. She wondered if all eyes that endlessly scanned the horizon were that way. Unlooked-for signs of a ship descried—misgivings and delight, wariness and expectation . . . the sighted vessel just barely able to forgive the affront because of the vast reach of sea between them: a ravaging gaze. The sailor’s eyes made her shudder.

Tsukazaki took them to the bridge first. The ladder they climbed to the main deck was obliquely runged with bars of summer sunlight. Indicating the freighters anchored offshore, Noboru repeated his knowing observation: “I guess all those ships are waiting their turn for a berth—”

“Right you are, sonny. Some of them may have to wait out there four or five days.”

“Do they notify you on the wireless when a berth opens?”

“Right again. You get a cable from the company. There’s a committee that meets every day to decide berth priorities.”

Sweat was dappling Tsukazaki’s white shirt with little spots which revealed the flesh of his powerful back; Fusako was disconcerted. She was grateful to the man for taking Noboru seriously but he made her uncomfortable when he turned to her and asked direct questions: “The boy knows what he’s talking about. Does he want to be a sailor?” His eyes probed her again.

He seemed a rugged, simple man, yet there was also about him an air of indifference and Fusako couldn’t determine whether he felt any professional pride. When, opening her parasol against the sun and peering narrowly up at his face, she tried to decide, she thought she discovered something unexpected in the shadow of his heavy brows. Something she had never seen in the broad light of day.

“He’d be smart to forget about it if he is. This is a miserable business if ever there was one,” Tsukazaki said, not bothering to wait for her answer. “Over here, sonny; this is a mounted sextant.” The instrument he slapped looked like a white mushroom on a long stem.