Takeru was looking out the window. There was nothing remarkable about the color of the sky or the shapes of the clouds. That sky could have been anywhere. He looked toward the hills beyond the bay. They were covered in trees. Birds, animals, and insects lived there, but he couldn’t see them or sense them. The sea was a perfectly normal dark blue. Fish, crabs, and octopuses lived there, but he couldn’t see them or sense them either. He saw the long quay floating on the bay. There were birds walking on it and flying above it—big herons and seedy-looking hawks with missing feathers. Sometimes they landed on the narrow shoulder of the coast road and lingered for a while. He looked at the shapes of people’s houses, the colors of the roofs, and the sunlight they reflected. The narrow road. The slanting telephone poles. The black, sagging telephone wires. He was part of this landscape now, so his mother must also hate him.
The houses became fewer and farther between. The road curved in and out along the coast from one village to the next. It was narrow and had no center line.
The speed limit was 30 kmph, but Ken knew the curves well and was driving at nearly 50 kmph. He drove very differently than Mitsuko. She always kept within the speed limit. If she saw a car coming up fast in the rearview mirror, she’d mutter: “Oh no, he’s right behind me! I don’t like that. Let’s get rid of him.” When she reached a suitable place, she’d pull over and let her exasperated followers (the people in both the driver and passenger seats were almost always acquaintances) go ahead. “What’s the rush?” she’d say, sharing her mild irritation with Takeru. If a roadside mirror showed a car coming around the curve in the opposite direction, she’d break sharply, nearly stopping, to give the other car space to pass freely. She was very serious about driving safely, especially with a child in the car.
Ken’s car, with Takeru and Saki in the back, drove on, curve after curve. Eventually, Lion Cross Point came into view, jutting sharply out into the sea toward the headland on the far side of the bay. The road followed the coast out toward the Point.
“I still don’t know why it’s called Lion Cross Point, Takeru,” said Ken, “but let me tell ya ’bout something I do know that happened here once. You’ll find it interestin’, both of you.”
“What?” asked Saki, leaning forward.
“It’s ’bout your dad, Tatsuya, and Takeru’s ma, Wakako.”
Takeru had never heard any stories about his mother from when she was young. He listened nervously to what Ken said:
Tatsuya had just bought his first car. He’d left school and had begun working at Kawase Fisheries. He’d managed to save enough to buy a used Skyline R31. He wanted to take it out for a drive, so he asked Wakako to come with him. She was a year younger, in her third year at the local high school.
Takeru couldn’t tell from what Ken was saying whether they had been boyfriend and girlfriend.
Tatsuya had suggested Ken come along with them in his own car (a used Civic), so Ken was following them. Ken was worried that Tatsuya was going a bit too fast—he was an inexperienced driver, taking the bends very wide. It was late (“Your mother wasn’t the studyin’ type,” Ken said), so luckily there wasn’t anyone coming in the opposite direction. Still, it was a dangerous way to drive. Ken’s heart was in his mouth. He felt something was going to happen and then it did.
“What?” asked Saki eagerly.
Just then Takeru saw something.
“Look!” he said, pointing toward the sea beyond Lion Cross Point.
The water was shining like molten silver in the morning sun. Something had risen gently to the surface. The light behind it was dazzling, but there was no doubt about what it was.
Ken kept talking, though, his eyes on Lion Cross Point:
Tatsuya’s car was approaching the Point. They started going around the curve. Ken’s car followed. But suddenly, to Ken’s astonishment, Tatsuya’s car was no longer in front of him. It had disappeared entirely.
“Disappeared? What do ya mean, Ken?” said Saki.
Takeru gazed silently at what had appeared on the surface of the sea.
“It just disappeared,” said Ken. “I couldn’t understand it. A moment earlier it’d been right there in front of me. I thought it might’ve been carried away by spirits.”
But it was nothing like that. The explanation was simple. The car hadn’t made it around the bend. It was going too fast, couldn’t manage the turn, and went crashing through the guardrail. (“No,” he said on reflection, “I don’t suppose there was a guardrail at Lion Cross Point in them days.”) It dove straight into the sea.
“Dove? Splash?” laughed Saki.
Ken smiled.
“It’s nothin’ to laugh ’bout, Saki,” he said. “Well, I can smile ’bout it now, too, but it was terrifyin’. There were no lights on the road, and it was completely dark. They could easily have drowned. I could hear the car sinkin’. I turned my car so the headlights were shinin’ over the water. There were bubbles comin’ up to the surface. They’re dead, I thought. I really did.”
“But they weren’t dead, were they?” Saki said. “Thank goodness!”
“They were lucky. It was late summer and still hot, so the car windows were all open.
“They’d both been brought up by the sea, so they were good swimmers. They managed t’climb out the windows and swim up. I was so relieved when I saw their heads bobbin’ on the surface. I had been ’bout to dive in myself.”
Takeru tried to imagine it. What had his mother seen? Was that what made her hate this place, detest it? Was that why she’d wanted to get away as soon as she could? Takeru could see something. Might this be what his mother saw? As she struggles to get out the window of the sinking car, from the dark depths of the silent ocean, a dolphin suddenly appears, its body swaying through the water. It swims up close. Its eyes meet hers. It puts its pointed mouth to her ear. She sees the neat lines of its teeth. It whispers. It whispers gently. It tells her important things—about her future, about the two brothers, about what will happen and what can’t be avoided. His mother nods. She nods. But does she understand? Does she really comprehend? The dolphin turns. It encourages her and she doesn’t hesitate. She could have, perhaps she should have, but instead she stretches out her hand and grips the fin on the dolphin’s back. It flicks its tail and heads straight up to the surface, bringing her back to the world.
But was that a good thing?
It’s okay, it’s okay, said a voice—a reply from what had surfaced beyond Lion Cross Point, trying to erase Takeru’s doubts, doubts that would never disappear.
Copyright
Originally published as: 獅子渡り鼻 (Shishiwataribana)
© 2013 Masatsugu Ono
All rights reserved. First published in Japan by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo. Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.
Translation © 2018 by Angus Turvill
Two Lines Press
582 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104
ISBN 978-1-931883-71-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953866
Cover design by Liliana Lambriev
Cover photo © Gabriel Barathieu
Typeset by Sloane | Samuel
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This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
