Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [3]
He turns away, and heads for the other end of the quay.
On the ship, Joey looks up, startled, alarmed, by a noise like the roaring of a wild beast. The lady with yellow hair laughs.
‘That’s just the horn, Joey.’
She tells him again that he is going on a visit to a place called America. His father will be there. He recalls his mother telling him stories about America, a place with tall buildings and bright flowers where one day they might live.
Clutching the rail he sees Nagasaki grow smaller, disappear, and he begins to cry again, calling for his mother, sobbing that his home is drowning in the sea. The lady seems to understand, and tells him that though he cannot see it, Nagasaki is still there.
‘Look, Joey. Watch.’
Through a square hole in the deck she descends small wooden stairs, and slowly vanishes, first her feet, then her body, until all of her is invisible. Then her head pops up and she climbs on to the deck again.
‘Okay, Joey? You couldn’t see me, but I was always here.’ She takes his hand. ‘Now! Let’s get you some ice cream. Did you ever eat ice cream?’
Later she shows him big fish she calls dolphins leaping high into the air alongside the ship, and after dark when his tears come again, she carries him up on deck, hushing him, rocking him in her arms, and he sees the foam around the boat glittering with a magic green light, the waves dancing as though lit by lanterns from beneath the water. She holds him close to the rail and a warm wind blows in his face and dries his tears.
‘Look, Joey, phosphorus, isn’t that great? Isn’t that fun?’
Above the harbour, Suzuki watches the naval vessel sail between the lighthouses to the open sea beyond. Somewhere on board is Lieutenant Pinkerton. She murmurs bitter curses beneath her breath, calling down on him future suffering and a painful death.
She had never liked him, even before she saw him, hating the idea of the imperious American ordering a Japanese bride like someone calling for breakfast. The last time he left she suspected he would never return. How much better it would be had he stayed away.
Both ships have left now, cutting through the waves, needing no wind to guide them. How free they are, the visitors, coming and going, careless of what they leave behind, broken, or destroyed.
The harbour closes behind him and Pinkerton takes his last look at land, catching that moment, that heartbeat, a shadow between the flawless rim of sky and sea when the horizon is blurred; a moment that occurs both in leaving and arriving, which he had looked out for, that day three years before, when he sailed into Nagasaki for the first time.
PART ONE
1
The voyage had been rough, the seas high and vicious, the weather ugly. When he saw a smudge of land hazy on the sharp rim of the horizon he gave thanks. All day they had ploughed through the Japan Sea straits, progress slowed by storm damage to the hull. Close to land, there seemed to be no break in the low mountains, until they came to the narrow entrance of a round bay which opened into another, inner bay. From the map Pinkerton knew that around the shores of this inner harbour lay Nagasaki. He yearned for firm ground under his feet, looked forward to some comfort and, more important, pleasure.
Gliding silently through the narrow passages, they passed the sentinel lighthouses flashing port and starboard, the surrounding hills dark against the night sky. Around them the lights of small boats bobbed on the water, and then, in a semicircle, like an amphitheatre he had once seen in a schoolbook about ancient Greece, the lights of the city, glittering like fallen stars on the hillside, reflected in the black water. With luck Nagasaki would bring him what he required: a good meal, and a not-so-good woman. He’d ask Eddie what to do; Eddie had the experience. They were the same age, twenty-three last birthday, but Eddie