(She ate satsumas on the ferry ride across from Kagoshima City to Sakurajima, to see the volcano. Dust fell on the city that evening, and she realised — as her hair filled with the fine, gritty stuff, and her eyes smarted — that it was true; people in Kagoshima really did carry umbrellas all the time. She'd always thought it was a joke.
At Ibusuki she watched the sand bathers lie on the beach, smiling and chattering to each other while the hot black sand was piled over them. They lay like darkly swaddled infants near the waves, progeny of some strange human-turtle god, long-laboured on the black sands.)
Orange smoke and the sting of tear gas. The orange smoke was theirs, the tear gas belonged to the riot police. The air was a choking thick mixture and the sun shone through the braids of dark smoke twisting through the sky from piles of burning tyres on the perimeter of the demonstration. High cloud completed the set of filters. Marshals wearing bright. waistcoats and specially marked crash helmets shouted at them from megaphones, voices drowned by the sporadic screams of the planes. Between them and the airport perimeter fence, the riot police lines were advancing, dark waves over the long grass and reeds, like the wind made solid. Heavy water cannons lumbered over to one side, where the ground was solid enough to support the trucks. The signal came to advance, and the students cheered, strode forward, arms linked, chanting, their flags and banners and placards catching in the wind. The shadows of planes flickered over them.
(At Beppu Spa, on the side of the hill, in the great gaudy steamy aircraft hangar of the jungle bath-house, surrounded by blue water, trees, ferns, a standing golden Buddha, thousands of coloured globes like gaijin Christmas decorations and arching girders overhead, with the vague smell of sulphur coming and going in her nose, she bathed. She came back on the Sea of Japan coast; through Hagi and Tottori, and Tsuraga and Kanazawa. She went to see Crow Castle, sitting blackly on its compressed rock base. She worked up the courage, and visited the Suzuki school, near by in Matsumoto, talking to the teachers and watching the little children play the instruments. It depressed her; how much better she might have been if she'd started really early, and with this fascinating method. She was years behind, as well as years ahead of these children.
She held off returning to Tokyo, but stayed near by; returning to the Fuji Five Lakes as her money slowly ran out, then to Izu Peninsula, then across by ferry to Chiba. Finally, fretting, she realised she was only circling, in a holding pattern of her own, and so came back to the capital. She passed Narita on the way. There were demonstrations over the plans to expand the airport.
When she got back to the city the orchestra was still on tour. There were several messages and letters asking, then telling her to contact the orchestra's business manager, who'd stayed in Tokyo. Instead she went out, and found some of her old student friends in a bar near Akasaka Mitsuke station. They were demonstrating against the airport extension on Sunday. She asked if she could come along.)
I will pay for this, she thought, as the policeman's eyes closed and the orange mist rolled around her. I will pay for this.
Her hands ached. She sniffed the blood back into her nose.
Something was flapping on top of her, and she fought her way out from under a fallen banner. People streamed past her again, heading back. The tear gas was thicker; like a million tiny needles being worked into the nose and eyes and tingling in the mouth and throat. Her eyes flooded. The banner covering the policeman fluttered in the orange wind. She turned and ran, driven back with the rest.
Hisako sat midships in the Gemini, the cello case lying at her feet. The outboard puttered, idling. She could feel the small eyes of the soldier in the stern watching her as she stared out across the lake to the folded green hills on the western shore.
Sucre appeared at the top of the steps, and clattered down them. He got into the inflatable, grinning broadly. He reached forward and slapped her hard across the cheek, rattling her teeth and almost knocking her out of the boat, then sat back in the bows laughing, and told the soldier at the out board to head back to the Nadia.
Her head pounded, her ears rang. She tasted blood. The boat bucked and slapped across the glittering surface of the lake. She felt sick, and still felt so when they got to the ship. Sucre supported her by one elbow as she stepped shakily from the Gemini to the Nadia's pontoon. Her wrists felt numb where the restrainer bit into them. Sucre said something to the other soldier, then punched her in the belly, winding her. She collapsed to her knees on the wooden planking. Sucre gripped her from behind while the other man put a large piece of black masking tape across her mouth.
Then, dazed and bruised and terrified she would vomit and drown, she was pushed and pulled up the companionway to the deck. She caught a last glimpse of the cello case, lying in the bottom of the Gemini.
Sucre and the other man met a third soldier at the door to the Nadia's saloon. Sucre opened it. She saw Philippe and the others. He looked relieved. She closed her eyes, shook her head.
They took her into the room, then Sucre crossed to Mrs Bleveans, took her by the elbow, and with her in tow collected Marie Boulard. He made them stand at the bar, and put restrainers on them as well.
Nobody talked in the room. Sucre had the two women kneel in front of the semi-circle of low stools, facing the bar like worshippers. Down at the far end of the room, the Koreans, the North Africans and the remaining crewmen had been collected into three giant circles; they too were kneeling, facing outwards, their wrists apparently strapped to those of the men on each side of them. One of the fake venceristas was completing tying up the Koreans, who formed the largest of the three groups. The men looked out into the room with frightened eyes. Sucre had a word with the man behind the bar with the heavy machine-gun, then went down the room to the third of the circles, patting the shoulder of the soldier who'd just finished tying the men up. She was watching now, eyes bright with pain and terror, her bowels feeling loose, her stomach churning behind the bruise. She saw Sucre pretend to inspect the bonds of the men making up the far circle. She saw him take the grenade even though nobody else seemed to. She saw him wander away from the group, towards the second one. The soldier behind her tightened his grip on the restrainer.
One of the men in the first circle must have felt it. He shouted something in Korean, screamed, tried desperately to get up, almost dragging part of the circle with him while the others looked round bewildered. Sucre skipped to the second circle and dropped the grenade into the middle of it, repeated the action at the last circle of men, then ran for the door. The saloon filled with screams. Sucre ducked behind a couch with the soldier who'd tied up the men. The soldier holding Hisako stepped back so that he was shielded by the door; the man behind the bar disappeared behind it.
The noise was more muffled than it had been earlier, when Orrick had attacked. She watched. Her eyes closed for the instant of the detonation, but she saw the circle of men rise up, saw the red cloud burst from one part, on the far side. The second circle of men had almost managed to stand; some had been hit by shrapnel from the first blast, but somehow they were almost on their feet. She saw Lekkas then, yelling at the others and trying to kick behind him, where the grenade had to be. The ringing blast of the first grenade was just giving way to the screams and moans of the injured in the first group when the second detonated, throwing men across the room, flaying legs, smacking blood and flesh off the ceiling. Something whined past her left ear. The men in the third group were almost on their feet; the grenade blasted their legs out from under them.