“Help me out of here.”
She lifts him out of the wheelbarrow, helps him on those bird-thin legs over to where the potatoes are planted. Beside a large rock is a bloody sickle—like the sickle she saw the man with this morning—dried maroon by the sun. On the rock is the man’s left hand, the large red spot still on the back of it. She stares at the mountain that sits at the far end of the peninsula.
“Help me back to the wheelbarrow.”
She supports Mr. Mimura, lifts and sits him in the wheelbarrow, pushes him all the way up the hill, back down the other, past the shed and all the way around the small inlet to the other side of Nagashima.
They still haven’t begun to cremate the man. Mr. Mimura, with her help, walks over to the naked body. She looks. Several scars on his right shoulder, scars whose history none of them in this room will ever know. She turns her head away, but when Mr. Mimura places the severed left hand on top of the man’s chest, she looks again, and they all stand there waiting for his body to be slid into the furnace.
ARTIFACT Number 0151
A photo of Health Minister Tsujino and
the thirteen heads of the nation’s leprosaria
Tokyo, Japan, June 25, 1949
Sitting around the oval-shaped table, a thicket of suits. Clockwise: Dr. Nishi, Dr. Yoshimura, Dr. Etoh, Dr. Barayama, Dr. Nomura, Dr. Ishihashi, Dr. Oishi, Dr. Nakamori, Dr. Saitoh, Dr. Wakabayashi, Dr. Yamashita, Dr. Fujita, Dr. Ikuta. At the head of the table, Dr. Tsujino, director of the Ministry of Health.
Cigarette smoke already pushed to the ceiling settles back down near their heads. Health Minister Tsujino has to squint through the fog in order to see the other thirteen men in the room. He gives a deep bow toward the top of the table before speaking, nearly touching his teacup with his head.
“With the development of the Promin drug, and its very positive results in stopping the progression of the disease, we can now cope with the future. We must begin thinking about releasing some of the patients. At least the ones who have recently been admitted.”
A hush hovers. Minister Tsujino waits, takes a couple of sips from his now-tepid green tea, then waits some more before giving another bow and speaking again.
“This drug is what we have been searching for—for a long time. A chance to get rid of this disease. Conditions now are considerably different from what they were forty years ago, when we had to quarantine the patients. Considerably different from even a year ago. It may be time to change the Leprosy Prevention Law. Each one of you should begin immediately compiling a list of your most recent patients, starting with those admitted since the beginning of 1946, and also those who have only mild cases of the disease. With them, at least many of the physical scars aren’t so noticeable. They should be able to be reintroduced into society. If not their own communities, then at least some other place.”
Again, when he stops talking, there is nothing but silence. It is shattered this time, shortly after he stops.
“We can’t subject the citizens of this nation to these people. Imagine the panic that would spread. It would be a calamity,” says Dr. Nishi.
“But if we release only those whose disease hasn’t progressed, treat them with the drug as outpatients. Other countries have started implementing this policy. We have nearly seventeen thousand patients in our facilities. If we can release even forty, fifty percent of them in the near future, think of all the money that could be saved. Some of the smaller facilities could even be shut down; the remaining patients at those facilities could be transferred to the larger ones. Up here. Down in Nagashima, Kagoshima, Kumamoto.”
“You’re not thinking of the greater good of the people. Our own Dr. Mitsuda’s theory, back in 1931, clearly states that these people should be isolated from society. States that clearly. His theory is internationally known.”
“All due respect to Dr. Mitsuda, whom I have known for many years now, back to the days when he was director at Nagashima, and I have much admiration for him, but his theory of isolating patients was before the introduction of Promin. This drug changes that. The theory, as correct as it was at the time, ceases to apply today.”
“We have been using this drug for less than two years. We can’t go releasing them into society. Have you seen some of these people? They would be ridiculed for the rest of their lives. And what about them going and getting married and having children?”
“Yes, of course I’ve seen them, Dr. Nishi. That’s why we should slowly release them. The best patients first. Some of them have almost no physical signs of the disease. As for them starting families, we have the Eugenics Law enacted last year; that can deal with the problem before we release them.”
“Whom do they go to? Their families have disowned them. Their names have essentially been eliminated from the registers. They’ve had no contact with society.”
“But if we have the disease stopped and it doesn’t get any worse, maybe their families will reconsider. I’m talking about the lowest-risk patients. Treated as outpatients. Besides, it is our duty to educate the public.”
The quiet crashes back into the room; the electric fans blow it around, dispersing it all over and back again.
“What do the others in this room think about this?” asks Minister Tsujino.
There is no response; the rotating of the fans click, click. A few of the men pat the gathering sweat on their faces, let out stifled sighs, pat the backs of their necks, sweat impeding their white collars.
“How about a show of hands for all of those in favor of releasing patients back into the public?”
Although, because of the smoke, it is difficult to see the people farthest from him, Minister Tsujino knows he doesn’t have to see, for not a hand is lifted from the wood of the oval table.
ARTIFACT Numbers 0147 and 0272
A red stone with a black swath running
through it; a worn one-yen coin.
From the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, she stares at the bleeding wound of the morning horizon. The tide backtracks, leaving only small puddles in the crevices of the rocks she sits on.
She knows of twenty-three patients who struck these rocks, their final breaths taken on them. What was the last thing that they saw? Was it something of beauty? Like the white heron she sees pinkened by sunrise, perched one-legged, checking from the corner of its eye a fish leaping a foot out of the water. Or did they close their eyes, nothing left for them to see? Was it on a moonless night, sneaking away from their room, feeling their way up the dirt path, past the bamboo, and finally that thin, crooked cedar that stands atop the cliff, on a moonless night when nothing could be seen, eyes open or not? How many more—than the twenty-three that she knows of—in those seventeen years before she arrived?
She helped to remove many of them from these rocks. Helped carry their bodies along the rough shore, over to the area past the farmers of Nagashima, who removed their hats, rested their hoes and rakes, past the fishermen of Nagashima, the nets bunched at their feet. The bodies were angled into a wheelbarrow and were taken on their final journey to the crematorium.
This morning, she is not here to take away any bodies, only here because she likes the place. This place of death makes her feel so strangely alive. A place to get away, to be alone, and that is very difficult on this island, for her, and even more so for the patients who are wheelchair-bound, blind.
Tucked among the shallow gorges of the rocks, she sees the west coast of Shodo Island, where, a little bit around the corner, in a few short hours, the divers will begin diving. Sometimes, but not as often now, she imagines that she can feel the energy from the divers cutting through the seven miles of the Inland Sea. Like that hot tsunami coming from Hiroshima that she felt in August— the August in this country that will never need a year to accompany it.
The sun has trudged its way atop the hill at the eastern edge of the island; a fishing trawler heads home while the large temple bell of Nagashima gongs out the hour. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow.
Several early mornings this week, the rocks have bared, then sunned themselves, building a path to a tiny island across from Nagashima. A large cement torii gate stands at the front. Ever since arriving here, she has thought of crossing the one hundred yards to the island. She has stopped, each time wondering if it would be considered an attempt at escape. How could it be? The island is surrounded by the Inland Sea, no land, other than Nagashima, within a mile of it. But the rules are not hers to make or break.
Then, the week before, she saw a man cross over to the island and knew that she, too, must cross.
The sea recedes, leaving less than a yard from her to the rocks that have begun making the path to the island. Before going back to begin her day, a beautiful red rock at the bottom of the suicide cliff catches her eye. She picks it up. Almost like coral, she thinks, bits of white shells fossilized in it, a glossy black swath sweeping over the stone, as if someone has swooped, only once, a calligraphy brush along it. She carries the stone back up the slight grade leading away from the sea.
While giving Miss Min a massage, she asks about the island. Miss Min arrived here in 1943, when she was brought over from her homeland as a war slave along with her brother to work in the Kyushu coal mines. At the port, she was discovered to have leprosy and wasn’t sent to the mines, but here. Although less than ten years separate the two of them, Miss Min’s disease is much further along. While giving massages, she tries not to get involved too emotionally with the patients, tries not to think too much, but with Miss Min, it is most difficult. Sitting before her is not a woman in her early thirties, but twenty years older than that. Hardly a shadow of what she must have been less than ten years ago remains.
She likes Miss Min, who, almost always while she is giving her a massage, tells stories—real or not, she isn’t sure. Sometimes she listens intently to the stories; at others, she allows the words to meld into the rhythm of her kneading hands.
“Have you ever crossed over to that small island?” she asks Miss Min.
“Why would I want to?”
“To see what’s over there.”
“I’m sure somebody’s been there. There’s that giant torii gate.”
“Let’s go sometime.”
“Are we allowed?”
“I don’t see why not. Not much of a place to escape, is it?”
“Not much of a place.”
Two days later, they wait together at the dock, watching the water peel itself from the stones.
“We have only about an hour and a half before the sea comes back.”
She takes Miss Min’s hand, the fingers having collapsed to half their size. The hand is ice-cold, although the autumn air hasn’t yet shaken all of summer from its breath.
“What are you afraid of?”
“I told you I can’t swim.”
“Who needs to swim. You can walk, can’t you?”
“What if the tide comes in early?”
“The tides have been following the same schedule for a lot longer than we’ve been around. Why would they change today?”
She helps her onto the stones, some of them nearly knee-high, yet to be dried by the sun and wind. Miss Min’s feet are mangled; she wears flat plastic insoles in her boots to help her walk. Most of the rocks are sharp, almost crisp, volcaniclike rock. Like the rock she cut her arm on at the bottom of the sea. Each step sends flocks of water bugs scrambling, as if the rocks are moving.
They stand under the torii gate; it must be three times higher than they. Miss Min is breathing heavily, the trip across much more of a strain on her. Atop the gate, there is a gathering of stones thrown by somebody. It brings good luck if one lands there. But when? Has their luck changed? Since there is a gate, there must also be a Shinto shrine of some sort.
“I’m going to go over there. Do you want to come?”
“No, I’ll stay here. Don’t go far. The tide is going to come back soon.”
“There is no far to go here, Miss Min. And the tide won’t return for more than an hour. I won’t be long.”
She goes around the shore of the island; it is not marble-shaped as she had thought. When she gets to the south side, there are some large rocks, much like those across the way at the suicide cliff. Light brown, the bottoms wearing slippery skirts of moss.
“Miss Fuji!”
The panicky voice of Miss Min. A few minutes away, she hurries as best she can, and Miss Min is sitting there hugging her knees to her chest.
“What is it?” She is puffing from the short run.
“The tide is coming. The tide.”
“That’s not the tide; it’s from that boat passing by. I told you that the tide won’t be returning for more than an hour.”
Her tone comes out much harsher than she wants, leaving a hurt look on Miss Min’s face.
“Come on, I’ll take you back.”
They make their way across the almost-dry rocks. She leads Miss Min back to her room, helps her off with her rubber boots, takes the orthopedic insoles out to air them, and, although it is not yet even noon, puts out the futon for her. She is careful to place the soiled side of the futon on the thin straw mats that cover the dirt floor. At least we have the straw mats, she thinks, recalling those early months, when it was the bare dirt floor they slept on. She covers Miss Min’s feet with a blanket, reaches underneath it, begins to massage a bit of warmth back into them. She knows that Miss Min feels little, if any, of it at all, but she is past this frustration. Miss Min is talking a little bit about her family and how they were cabbage farmers back in Korea, says she can’t even eat cabbage to this day. But she isn’t listening to her, only thinking about the island and how it didn’t appear as she had thought.
Two weeks later, she returns alone. The pathway opens up in the early afternoon. She retraces her steps from the last time and gets to the place around back where the large rocks jut into a long, narrow peninsula out into the sea. A strange place, the circle part of the island is covered with wild green growth, all of this in the back only bare rock. She takes out a pen and paper and starts to draw. She’s never been much of an artist, but still she manages a decent outline of the island. Maps. As long as she can remember, she has always loved them. Would study them as a child, making shapes of dragons or people or whatever. Twisting and turning the maps every which way, creating a different image by doing so.
She continues on around the island; it takes a few minutes to walk. Past the torii gate, there is what appears to be a path leading up to the top of the hill. She looks at Nagashima and is surprised by how close it is. Around, in the back of this small island, much of Nagashima is hidden and it feels mysteriously distant. Now, when she turns around, a panorama of Nagashima’s east coast is visible: the living quarters, the office, the hospital, the cliff, the small farming area. About the only areas she can’t see are the receiving dock, the building where they all spent that horrible first week, and the crematorium—the northwest end of Nagashima, which faces Honshu and the town of Mushiage. She sees a few people walking around in the distance, but she doesn’t think anyone sees her. Doesn’t believe that anyone pays this place any attention.
She turns her back on Nagashima, takes the path, which is overgrown with fernlike plants and weeds and whatever else. It is only a five-minute hike up, about eighty feet above the sea. Although the day is quite bright, it is dark and cool going through the tunnel of bamboo, maples, cedars. Near the top, she first sees the small shrine, but her eyes are ripped from that when she sees a man sitting on the last of the three cement steps leading to it.
“Mr. Shirayama.”
“Miss Fuji. Is this your first time up here?”
“Yes.”
“I come up here once a week, or whenever I can get away.”
“I didn’t think anyone came here.”
“They don’t. You’re the first person I have met here.”
She turns around to get a view of Nagashima, but all she can see is the tangle of trees and brush. She turns op
posite, but Shodo Island is invisible, as is Honshu, as well as the Inland Sea.
“Wonderful place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s why I come up here. Like a whole different world. You can’t see the place, can rarely hear a thing other than your breath, maybe a heron or gull. When I first came up here a couple of years ago, I thought of cleaning the overgrowth, but I realized that this place is special because you can’t see anything. Sit down.”
She does, and takes notice of the moss growing on the small red shrine, not much taller than she is. The wooden roof, too, has some moss on the north slope, sprigs of grass poking out of its head. There is even a wooden money box to toss in an offering. A couple of dirty one-yen coins lie there. Not their black oval-shaped money, but that of the rest of the country. A churning in her stomach. She hasn’t seen or touched this money since her first day here, when it, along with everything else, was taken.
“I don’t know whose it is. Maybe belonged to one of the staff.”
“Maybe,” she answers. There could be a hundred of those coins sitting there, a thousand, and they would be as useful to her as the rocks on the shore. They sit there, two soiled coins, no bigger than a fingernail, and they taunt her. This Mr. Shirayama knows, for they taunted him the first time he saw them.
“What do you think about getting rid of them?”
“Of what?” she asks.
“The coins. You take one and I’ll take one and we’ll throw them as far as we can.”
She regards him, this man, less than five years older than she is, but the disease has taken away much from her image of what he must have looked like before getting sick. He looks back at her; they exchange a strange look, something between agreement and disagreement.
“What’s Buddha going to say about us stealing from him?” she asks finally with a light smile. Mr. Shirayama studies her, thinks that she is quite beautiful, the disease hardly touching her, and if he didn’t know why she was here, he would not notice anything wrong.
The Pearl Diver Page 4
