The other man nodded, reached into a pocket. He came round behind her while the jefe smiled down, smoking his cigar. He took the cello case from where it leant against one bulkhead.
The soldier behind her took her wrists, put something small and hard round them, and pulled it tight.
The blond man took her cello and gently placed it in the case. 'Take Miss Onoda back to her ship, will you? he said.
The soldier pulled her to her feet. The jefe nodded his crew-cut head. 'Dandridge, he told her. 'Earl Dandridge. He handed the closed cello case to the soldier. 'Nice meeting you, Miss Onoda. Safe journey back.
It was at the airport she killed a man.(After the fiasco with the American tour, and after a few tearful days with her mother, unable to go out, unwilling to see any of her old friends, she went back to Tokyo, took out her savings and went on holiday, travelling by train and bus and ferry through the country, staying in ryokans whenever she could. The land steadied her with its masses and textures and simple scale; the distance from one place to the next. The quiet, relaxed formality of the old, traditional inns slowly soothed her.)
The body fell to the muddy, trampled grass, eyes still startled, while the feet pounded and the cries rang and the sound of a jet landing shattered the air above them. His legs kicked once.
(She took the Shinkonsen to Kyoto, watching the sea and the land whizz by as the bullet train sang down the steel rails, heading south and west. In that old city she was a tourist, walking quietly through the network of streets, visiting temples and shrines. In the hills, at Nanzenji temple, she sat watching the waterfall she'd discovered by following the red brick aqueduct through the grounds. At Kiyomizu, she looked down from its wooden veranda, down the gulf of space beyond the cliff and the wooden rails, for so long that a temple guide came up to ask her if she was all right. She was embarrassed, and left quickly. She went to Kinkakuji, as much to see the setting of Mishima's Golden Pavilion as to see the temple for its own sake. Ryoanji was too crowded and noisy for her; she left the famous gravel garden unseen. Todaiji intimidated her just by its size; she turned away outside it, feeling weak and foolish. Instead, she bought a postcard of the bronze Buddha inside, and sent it to her mother.)
She stabbed at his throat with her fingers, instantly furious, beyond all reason or normality, the pressure of all her frustration hammering her bones and flesh into his neck. He dropped the baton. His eyes went white.
(At Toba she watched the pearl divers. They still dived for pearls sometimes, though mostly it was for sea plants now; cultured pearls were cheaper and easier to harvest. She sat on the rocks for half a day, watching the dark-suited ladies swim out with their wooden buckets, then sound, disappearing for minutes at a time. When they surfaced, it was with a strange whistling noise she could never quite place on the conventional musical scale, no matter how many times she listened to it.)
He struggled, body armour making him hard and insectlike behind his gas mask. The orange smoke folded round them. The wet rag round her mouth kept the smoke out better than the tear gas. Ten metres in front of them, over the heads of the students, batons rose and fell like winnowing poles. A surge in the screaming, pressing crowd pushed them over; they staggered, each sinking to their knees. The ground was damp through her needlecords. The riot policeman put his hand out, down to the ground. She thought it was to steady himself, but he had found the baton. He swung it at her; her crash helmet took the blow, sending her down to the wet grass; one of her hands was trampled on, filling her with pain. The baton swung down at her again and she dodged; it struck the ground. The pain in her buzzing head and the burning, impaled hand took her, choked her, filled her. She steadied herself, and saw through her tears and the curling orange smoke the policeman's exposed throat as he brought the baton up again.
(So Hiroshima. The girder skullcap and empty eye windows of the ruined trade hall. She went through the museum, she read the English captions, and could not believe the cenotaph was so incompetent. The flensed stone and bleached concrete of the wrecked trade hall was much more eloquent.
She stood on the banks of the river with her back to the Peace Park, watching her shadow lengthen across the grey-brown waters while the sky turned red, and felt the tears roll down her cheeks.
Too much, turn away.
In the train again, she passed through Kitakyushu, where the second bomb would have been dropped if the visibility had been better that day. The cluttered hills of Nagasaki took it instead. The monument there — a giant human statue, epicentric — she found more fitting; what had happened to the two cities — both crowded, busy places again — was beyond abstraction.)
The line pressed forward; they chanted and yelled, voices muffled by the damp cloths many had over their mouths and noses to keep out the worst of the tear gas. She had forgotten to bring a pair of goggles, and the crash helmet had no visor. Her arms were held on either side; linked with the students. She felt good; frightened but purposeful, acting with the others, part of a team, greater than herself. They heard screams from ahead. Batons like a fence rose into the air in front of them. They stormed onwards, the line breaking and giving way; people tripped in front, something whacked her crash helmet as she stumbled over a pile of people and caught a glimpse of police riot gear, visors glinting in the remnant sunlight. Her arms were wrenched from those of the youths on either side, and the orange smoke wrapped itself around her like thick fog. The riot policeman came rocketing backwards through the orange haze, crashing into her. His right glove was off, and she saw the leather thong attaching him to his baton slip from his wrist as they both tried to regain their balance. He grabbed for the falling baton as he turned, then punched her in the face. She heard something click, and tasted blood. She rocked back, ducked to the right, expecting another blow but unable to see, then lunged forward, grappling with the man.
(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.