Above the East China Sea: A Novel (49 page)

I shake my head and laugh at myself for such skittish suggestibility. A team of dancers passes between us, and I lose sight of the Tamiko look-alike. The dancers wear long jackets of shiny fuchsia and turquoise. Their hair is held back by matching fuchsia headbands. Where the other female teams had swayed in lovely delicate patterns, these
girls stomp as ferociously as the boys, and bang just as hard on the small drums they wave above their heads. They dance in their bare feet on pavement that is so hot it steams when boys with buckets running up and down the route splash water onto it. The girls, heads held high, grin into the streetlights as if they don’t notice the heat.

At the edge of the Girl Power dance team, behind a cloud of steam, the girl from the portrait appears again. This time, somehow, she’s worked her way through the mob lining the street and stands, isolated, at the very front. It’s weird how no one crowds in against her. They simply let the girl stand alone. It’s even weirder how much she resembles the portrait of Tamiko. She looks about twelve, with her hair in pigtails that flip up just beneath her ears. Her impish smile mirrors the curve of her hair. I can’t take my eyes off of her.

Another team of drummers passes between us. Their heads are covered in green cloth wraps. Smart costumes of cobalt blue outlined in white are belted tightly around their waists. They all carry shiny red
taiko
drums big as trash cans that they beat the shit out of with batons to accompany their balls-out singing. They swing the massive drums in powerful arcs as they dance, leaping high in the air. Sweat streams into their faces and bursts off their bare arms with each pounding stroke.

The dancers’ black pantaloons tucked into leggings with vertical black and white stripes become bars flashing past as I struggle to catch glimpses of the girl on the other side of the street that I can’t help thinking of as Tamiko.

The dancers strike fierce postures, legs high, ankles cocked, as ready to attack as warriors approaching a battle. The pounding of their drums is so loud I can’t think. It’s like being on the Cyclotron at the state fair and having all your thoughts spun out of you by centrifugal force. Amid all the noise and chaos a clear view of the girl opens up. Just like Tamiko, she has a face as broad and open and happy as a baby frog’s that spreads wide as she stares straight at me and smiles, a serene, unhurried smile. She waves in my direction. I’m so certain that she must be waving to someone behind me that I glance around several times. But no one else appears to notice her: She’s waving at me. And then she begins beckoning. She wants me to come to her.

FIFTY-THREE

After Mitsue gives the attendant her cousin’s information, Hatsuko feels herself being lifted up and tries to tell the stretcher bearers to help Tamiko first; she, too, must have been wounded in the explosion. But the words are flashing silver fish her tongue can’t catch. Hatsuko knows it’s merely a concussion from the bomb. She’ll be herself soon. Meanwhile, whatever it takes, she must not lose her little sister again. She can’t. Not after finally finding her. She struggles to rise, but hands force her back down. She feels the comforting boa-constrictor squeeze of a blood-pressure cuff, then the cool disk of a stethoscope on the inside of her elbow. How like the detestable Head Nurse Tanaka to keep such fine tools as these hidden. And an ambulance? Why had they not used this ambulance before? So many were lost who could have been saved.

Feeling like a paper doll floating through the air, Hatsuko is lifted onto a stretcher, then slid into the back of the ambulance. The air-raid sirens shriek. Explosions of red flash in a rhythmic strobing through the vehicle. They speed forward.

FIFTY-FOUR

The girl keeps waving. She gestures with more and more insistence for me to cross the street and come to her. I hold my hands out to indicate the unbroken river of dancers and drummers blocking the street and the police who are even more vigilant than before about stopping anyone from setting one foot onto the asphalt. There’s no way I can get across.

I keep shaking my head, certain that I can’t be seeing what I think I’m seeing. Yet each time I catch another glimpse of her, the girl resembles
the portrait at the museum even more strongly. It’s like seeing Tamiko Kokuba come back to life. The obvious explanation is that the girl across the street is her descendant. I don’t understand how, though, amid this throng, the girl and I have been able to single each other out. Maybe through some insider Okinawan communications network, Mitsue told her about me. Maybe the girl followed me from Madadayo. Whatever the explanation, I can’t wait to give her her ancestor’s pin. I stretch my shirt out to show her the pin and act out presenting it to her.

Amazingly, in all the noise and turmoil, the girl seems to know immediately that the pin is for her. She nods with that same odd serenity and gestures with both her hands, as if pulling me toward herself. As if she wanted to embrace me. For a moment, floating in the air above her head, two oddly phosphorescent balls appear. Just as I motion again to the impenetrable wall of policemen, drummers, and dancers between us, though, the street suddenly empties, and all goes silent. Even the siren.

The girl waves for me to hurry up, to grab this chance while I have it. I shove my way into the street, certain I will be pushed back. But the barricade of police arms melts away. I keep my eyes riveted on the girl; if I lose sight of her, I won’t ever find her again. Even though I never take my eyes from her, she disappears. The strange orbs, glowing like giant fireflies, appear again. Right below them is the girl. This time, though, the face staring at me from the crowd is the starved face of the girl I found in the cave. I couldn’t help her before, couldn’t help anyone. But I know now. I know I can save her this time. Save her and make everything all right.

At that moment, the crowd suddenly starts screaming at me; a nearby siren shrieks at full volume; lights whirl. They all conspire to try to stop me. But I won’t let them. Not this time. The girl is only a few yards away, then a few feet away. She holds her hand out to me. I hold mine out to her. All I have to do is take her hand, and I know everything will be all right. We reach out to each other. I’m about to touch her outstretched fingers when some goon slams into me so hard that I go flying onto the street. I slide across the pavement, the asphalt shredding the bare shoulder I land on.

I sit up, furious at the idiot who smashed into me, and search the crowd frantically for the girl. Faces strobe past, illuminated in an ambulance’s flashing light. I don’t understand how the ambulance
could have gotten here so quickly. I must have blacked out, and the ambulance is for me. Except that the crowd ignores me as they stare down, shocked, at something out of my sight. The police shove them back, but the spectators crane their necks to keep staring. Most of the women have their hands pressed against open mouths in expressions of horror. I’m certain it’s the girl. That she collapsed, possibly died.

I have to get to her. I drag myself up off the hot street. Blood dripping from my scraped shoulder, I shove my way into the crowd and keep shoving until I can see what they’re all gawking at.

It’s a body sprawled out on the street.

It’s Jake.

FIFTY-FIVE

Hatsuko, who has been begging the attendant with his stethoscope on her heart to stop, is delighted when the driver finally slams on his brakes. She has succeeded. She’s made them understand that they can’t leave without finding her little sister.

Staticky orders from the ambulance dispatcher are broadcast into the back of the ambulance. The attendant barks that they can’t transport the person they hit. They have to wait for the police. Dispatch will have to send another unit for the patient they’ve already got. The dispatcher says all the rules are off. The city is in complete gridlock. No other vehicles can get in; they’re the only ones available.

A blast of hot air puffs into the chilly ambulance when the back door is opened. The ambulance rocks beneath Hatsuko as the attendant hops out, then bounces again when another victim of the bombing is loaded aboard. Hatsuko forces her eyes open, but the world is a blur. Still, she is certain that the new patient is Tamiko. She has found her little sister. Finally.

When the doors are slammed shut, she tries to roll over to face Tamiko, but her limbs won’t respond. Though Hatsuko lies on the stretcher as still as a stone, her heart flutters wildly; she is desperate
for Tamiko to come to her. There is so much she must tell Little Guppy, and so little time left.