All Our Shimmering Skies

by Trent Dalton

  Then he crashes hard and fast into a pool, so hard and fast that his boots touch the marshy bottom. There are reeds and grass spears beneath the surface that he struggles to kick through. He swallows water and pushes his way back up, arms and legs flailing, to the surface, where he assesses the diameter of the small lagoon he has fallen into. One of its banks is only eight or nine metres from him and he attempts to paddle to it, but the billowing canopy of his white silk parachute is sinking into the water and pockets of it are growing heavy and threatening to pull him deep below the surface. His right hand reaches for the chute pack release buckle at his belly, but to open it he must stop the furious dog-paddling that is keeping his head above the water. He voluntarily sinks into the water and with two hands reefs at the buckle, but the heavy weight of the now-sunken chute is pulling on the two metal connectors and jamming them in their sockets. He tugs again but the buckle won’t release, and he reaches momentarily for the Miki family blade in his belt, but he needs more air so he pushes back up to the surface and he sees the blue northern Australian sky above him and he looks for the pool edge and then he sees the girl and the woman.

  The girl carries a shovel and she smiles and she has brown hair and she wears a sky-blue dress and black boots. And then the woman appears beside her, panting and gathering her breath. That blonde hair that falls to one side over her face. The way she stands in the green dress. He notices there is pink and blue bruising around one of the blonde woman’s eyes and then those eyes, those perfect green eyes, find Yukio Miki and they reach into him, deep inside him, and he is immediately frozen by that stare. He has never seen a woman who looks like this and something about her has turned his body to lead, to stone, and he can no longer wave his arms and legs about in the water to keep himself afloat because she has frozen him with that face of hers and he gargles on wetlands water as his dumb blank head sinks gradually below the surface again. And Yukio thinks for a moment how strange it is to die like this and to have that vision – that woman with the green eyes – as the last thing his tired eyes will see on earth. But something about it makes him feel better, makes him feel good and ready now for Takamanohara. It was all worth it. The training. The discipline. The punishment. He will go now, content with that final vision. He will sink into the Plain of High Heaven and the last thing he will hear will be the voice of the Australian girl saying in English, ‘Swim, swim.’

  His eyes are still open as he sinks down and sunlight breaks through the water and lights the emerald greens in the floodplain pool and he realises that the water is the same colour as the blonde woman’s dress and eyes. And the sinking parachute drags him further and the surface sunlight fades as he descends. It’s nice down here, he realises, if he does not fight against the pull of the chute. He could stay here and find peace in the emerald green.

  But then through the last beams of sunlight comes a wooden pole, a shovel handle. And Yukio reaches out instinctively for that lifeline as his body sinks deeper, and at first only three fingers of his left hand can grip its end, but that’s enough to pull it towards him and get four then five fingers on it, and with those five fingers he hauls himself back up towards the daylight, towards the sky. And the shovel handle keeps lifting him and he rises to the surface to find the girl, that young girl, up to her chest in the water, pulling hard with all her strength, her bony left arm extending the shovel and her right arm gripped, behind her, by the two hands of the blonde woman, who pulls and heaves and pulls and heaves from the grassy bank.

  Soon Yukio is close enough to the water’s edge to plant a boot on the pool bottom and push hard with his legs while still dragging the buckle-jammed chute behind him. The young girl scrambles to land and she rushes to a canvas duffel bag and finds a small paring knife she has wrapped in an old tea towel. She rushes to Yukio’s shoulders and hacks back and forth rapidly at the chute pack’s shoulder straps as Yukio leans forward hard at the water’s edge.

  The straps snap free and the parachute pack sinks into the water followed by the chute canopy and Yukio falls face-first on the soggy ground. He raises his head to give thanks, but he sees the girl with the curled brown hair moving cautiously away from him, her eyes drawn to the pilot’s waist. Not to the Miki family sword tucked inside his flight belt, but to the black Japanese army service pistol holstered at his side. She is frightened by the handgun.

  Yukio’s hand moves instinctively to his waist. He will remove the pistol and holster. He will show the girl he means no harm. But then the shovel blade is suddenly inches from his eyes.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch that gun,’ says Greta, gripping the shovel in both hands like it’s a cricket bat and she’s set to knock the Japanese pilot’s head over the nearest boundary fence.

  Yukio freezes, raises his arms, palms open towards the sky.

  ‘What are you doing this far south?’ Greta probes. It’s a theatrical performance. Today’s role: somebody tougher and harder than Greta Baumgarten ever was. One show only. She knows, deep down, she’ll crumble into nervous stuttering any second now.

  Yukio speaks a series of Japanese words.

  ‘English?’ Greta asks. ‘You speak any English?’

  Yukio says more Japanese words.

  Greta nods at Molly. ‘Molly, get that handgun there.’

  Molly crawls in close to the pilot. She unbuttons the side holster and removes the pistol with its brown wooden handle and thin black barrel.

  ‘Come up here with me, Molly,’ Greta says.

  The girl springs to her feet and stands beside the actress.

  ‘Now point that thing at him but, you know, don’t shoot ’im,’ Greta says.

  Molly takes a deep breath and exhales. ‘Don’t you think that feels a little aggressive, pointing a gun at him?’ she asks.

  ‘Him and his mates just blew up half of Darwin, I think we should feel a little aggressive,’ Greta says. ‘If he moves, shoot him in the legs.’

  ‘I can’t be sure I’ll do that, Greta,’ Molly replies. ‘I’ll be aiming for his legs but I’ll probably get him in the head or somethin’ and I don’t want to kill any human being, even if his mates did blow up the milk bar on Bennett Street.’

  From the ground, Yukio’s squinting eyes look up into the sky as he slowly raises his hand and points between Molly and Greta.

  ‘Hikoki,’ he says, softly, his finger pointing towards the falling sun. He makes the hand gesture of a plane moving through the sky. ‘Hikoki.’

  Molly and Greta turn their heads instinctively towards where Yukio is pointing and see nothing but blue sky, and Molly turns back just in time to find Yukio engaging her in a silent wrist bend and then a near-invisible leg sweep that lands her, in the space of half a second, flat on her back and disarmed. Yukio now stands pointing his pistol at Greta.

  ‘How did you do that?’ Molly asks, awed and elated. ‘That was incredible!’

  Yukio points at the shovel in Greta’s hands, waves two fingers towards himself as he holds out his free left hand. Greta hands the shovel to the pilot. Yukio passes it straight to Molly. ‘Doko ni Iku no,’ he says, nodding.

  Molly takes the shovel. She remembers to be graceful. ‘Thank you,’ she says to the fallen pilot.

  ‘You don’t have to use your manners around cold-blooded killers, Molly,’ spits Greta.

  Yukio waves the gun at Molly, directing her to move back beside Greta.

  Yukio stands soaking wet in his flight uniform. Goggles on his forehead keeping his dripping fur-lined flight helmet in place. Not a single line on his face. High cheekbones, and cheeks that would be fuller if he ate more. A large deep-brown freckle on his right cheek and two smaller ones above his top lip.

  He points at Greta and Molly. ‘Doko ni Iku no?’ he asks, sharply. He points at them again. Then he gestures a walking motion with his left-hand forefinger and middle finger. ‘Aust … ralians.’ Then another walking finger gesture.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Molly offers, courteously.

  Yukio nods. Mo
lly nods enthusiastically. She holds up a finger.

  ‘You want to come with us?’ Molly asks, her words louder than they would be talking to Greta.

  Yukio nods.

  ‘Wait,’ she says. ‘I need to show you something.’ She rushes to her duffel bag, retrieves Tom Berry’s copper pan, hands it to Yukio. He’s immediately confused by the girl’s presentation of the pan.

  ‘You use it to find gold in creeks,’ Molly says. ‘Look on the back.’ She makes a revolution with her finger. ‘Turn it over,’ she says. And she moves closer to the pilot as he turns the pan over and studies the writing etched on its base. ‘We’re on a great quest,’ Molly says. She runs her finger over the words. Yukio turns his eyes back to Greta, keeps his weapon on her. Molly oblivious to any possible tension in the moment. ‘These are directions and clues to buried treasure,’ she says, wide-eyed. ‘A pile of gold sitting in the ground.’ She holds her palms together like she’s carrying a large gold nugget. ‘Gold!’ she says. She points at Greta. ‘Greta wants to find that gold because she’s convinced no harm can come to her from keeping that gold because she doesn’t believe in curses,’ Molly says, talking too fast because she’s nervous, because she’s on her way to find Longcoat Bob. Because she’s free. ‘All that “hocus-pocus”, she calls it.’ Molly smiles.

  Confusion across Yukio’s face. ‘Hocus … pocus?’ he says, doing his best to repeat the words accurately.

  The pilot turns to Greta, who rolls her eyes.

  ‘I don’t care about the gold,’ Molly continues. ‘I just want to find Longcoat Bob. He’s the bloke who put a curse on my family because the buried gold was his and my grandfather stole it. But then my grandfather put that gold back because all these terrible things started happening to him and his family members, but even after he put the gold back Longcoat Bob never lifted his curse from my grandfather, Tom, and all those terrible things kept happening.’ Molly is making her own realisations as her explanation is unfolding. ‘And now … and now … those terrible things are all happening to me.’

  Yukio struggles to make the slightest sense of Molly’s words. ‘Curse?’ he says, repeating an English word vaguely familiar to his ear.

  ‘Yeah, curse,’ Molly says.

  Yukio makes a walking gesture with his fingers. ‘You?’ he prompts.

  ‘We’re walking to the range,’ Molly says, pointing at the two red sandstone plateaus in the distance. ‘We’re going to find the silver road and then we’re going to find Longcoat Bob.’

  ‘Bob,’ Yukio says.

  ‘Yeah, Bob,’ Molly says.

  Yukio waves his handgun towards the sandstone range.

  ‘Aruku,’ he says. He waves his gun again.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t speak Japanese,’ Molly says.

  Another walking gesture with his fingers. ‘Aruku.’

  ‘Walk?’ Molly guesses.

  ‘Walk,’ Yukio repeats.

  Molly turns to Greta. ‘He wants us to walk,’ she says happily.

  Greta shakes her head.

  Molly throws her duffel bag over her shoulder. ‘You comin’ with us?’ she asks Yukio, bright and optimistic.

  ‘Aruku,’ Yukio says blankly.

  Molly marches off through wetland grass up to her thighs. ‘I think he’s comin’ with us,’ she shouts to Greta, who runs to catch up with her.

  Yukio falls in behind them, his handgun pointing at Greta’s back.

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Greta whispers.

  ‘What?’ Molly ponders, innocently.

  ‘He’s not coming with us, Molly. You think he parachuted out of his fighter plane and floated all the way down here just so he could take a gentle stroll with us?’

  Molly looks back over her right shoulder to see Yukio sloshing through the grass, the handgun still firmly gripped in his right fist. Molly gives him a warm smile, turns back to Greta. ‘He’s gonna help us, Greta,’ she says, never more certain of anything.

  ‘Molly, wake up,’ Greta says. ‘He’s going to walk us into the foothills of that range and he’s gonna shoot you between the eyes and he’s gonna rape me and if you’re lucky, kid, it won’t be the other way round.’

  ‘You think he’s a bad one?’ Molly whispers.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what one he is,’ Greta says. ‘That army came here to kill us, Molly. They’ve got it in for us and the kinda hate they’re carrying is a spell that can’t be lifted. You just be ready to pass me that shovel when I give you the sign.’

  ‘Okay,’ Molly says.

  Yukio watches the blonde-haired woman and the brown-haired girl with the shovel trudge across the soggy floodplain.

  ‘Greta,’ whispers Molly.

  ‘Yes,’ Greta whispers back.

  ‘What’s the sign gonna be?’ Molly asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Molly, you’ll know the sign when you see it.’

  Yukio sees the girl raise her right fist and extend her thumb from it.

  ‘What about a thumbs-up?’ Molly suggests.

  ‘I was thinking something a little more subtle,’ Greta says. ‘Just a nod will do. You’ll know the nod when you see it. Keep walking.’

  They walk for another thirty yards or so through an open field.

  ‘Greta,’ Molly whispers.

  ‘Yes, Molly.’

  ‘He can’t speak English.’

  ‘So?’ Greta replies.

  ‘Maybe the sign could be a secret password that he won’t understand?’ Molly says.

  ‘Like what?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Fat barramundi,’ Molly says confidently.

  ‘Fat barramundi?’ Greta repeats, dubious. ‘Why “fat barramundi”?’

  ‘Was just thinkin’ about how much I’d go some fried fish for dinner.’

  Greta nods.

  ‘Fat barramundi,’ Molly says. ‘No way a Jap flyboy would have eaten a fat barramundi before.’

  ‘Okay, Molly,’ Greta says. ‘The sign is a secret password and the secret password is “fat barramundi”.’

  Molly nods.

  Greta marches on, frustrated by their circumstances, the length of the grass scratching her legs, the humidity of the wetlands, the Japanese serviceman with a pistol walking behind her. Molly walks through the grass with a spring in her step, privately thrilled by the unexpected third-party turn in her quest.

  ‘Greta?’ Molly whispers.

  ‘Yes, Molly.’

  ‘Would “Mangrove Jack” work better as a secret password?’

  *

  Seen from the orange-red sky above and looking down and closer in and closer in, they are three wanderers crossing a vivid floodplain cut by sinuous rivers and wide freshwater channels dotted with lily-fringed waterholes.

  The sun low and honeyed. The man in the Japanese military uniform at the back of the group stopping every so often in his tracks to breathe the wild floodplain deep inside him, to take in the vision of all this wild green life. By the edge of a clearwater billabong he pauses briefly to smell a floating vine flower, the kangkong, with its white and pink flowers shaped like trumpets. The intoxicating scent and the depth of the pink colour that deepens and darkens inside the flower’s wide throat. It makes him laugh.

  ‘What’s he laughing at?’ Molly asks.

  ‘He’s a nut,’ Greta says.

  Yukio turns a full circle on his feet, taking in his setting. He raises his palms to the sky, smiling. He wonders for a moment if this very floodplain is Takamanohara, the Plain of High Heaven, and he crossed into it somehow the moment he left his war brethren flying over Darwin. A part of him surely died back there in that bomb-ravaged town, and maybe that was the part of him that broke prematurely through the gates of the afterlife and this, this sweltering, primordial, vine-strewn utopia, is where Nara waits for him.

  ‘Maybe it’s the war,’ Molly says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Greta asks.

  ‘It messes with their heads,’ Molly says. ‘I once saw Bluey Scofield acting like this out front of The Vic. H
e was ravin’ about seeing things on the Somme and then he’d smile at a passing pigeon like it was some kind of angel from heaven.’

  Across the plain, a troupe of seven dancing brolgas perform a kind of ballet on the grass, and their will to move, their need to share their strange beauty like this, makes Yukio’s bottom lip fall. He laughs again. ‘Migoto!’ he hollers, in their honour. He claps his hands. An ovation.

  A pair of masked lapwing birds fly over his head and he nearly falls on his backside trying to maintain his skyward view of their strange bright-yellow caruncles, which cover their faces like they are wearing yellow pilots’ helmets and the side flaps are oversized and hanging from the bird’s spear-like beak. And he laughs. ‘Migotoooohh!’

  Further on, Yukio spots an aquatic frog with its legs glued to a floating lily pad, and he plants one foot in the marshy pond to inspect its wide yellow eyes.

  ‘Migoto,’ he whispers.

  The frog’s green and brown skin resembles a perfect leaf that wraps around its body like a tailored suit. Then the frog leaps to a neighbouring lily pad and the fallen pilot nods in thanks, clapping his hands.

  Later, by a flowing freshwater channel, closer to the sandstone plateaus, he stops to marvel at a water python speeding across leaf-strewn ground to the safety of a crack-filled rock wall dividing a row of eucalypts. The snake is three metres long and its back is black and brown like the rocks Yukio keeps picking up and holding in his hands, but the snake’s belly is the colour of full sun. It looks to Yukio like someone must have painted that colour on the snake – vivid yellow oil paint, still wet – but the headstrong snake leaves no winding yellow trail as it moves towards its shelter.

  The Japanese pilot is so mesmerised by this snake that Greta, who stands within arm’s reach of the distracted stranger and has noted the pilot has lowered the handgun to his right thigh, sees an opportunity. ‘Fat barramundi!’ she says.