“If Jiya is not dead, why does Kino cry?” Setsu asked.
“You are asking too many questions,” her father told her. “Go back to the kitchen and help your mother.”
So Setsu went back again, sucking her forefinger, and staring at Jiya and Kino as she went, and soon the mother came in with the hot rice soup and Kino drank it. He felt warm now and he could stop crying. But he was still frightened and sad.
“What will we say to Jiya when he wakes?” he asked his father.
“We will not talk,” his father replied. “We will give him warm food and let him rest. We will help him to feel he still has a home.”
“Here?” Kino asked.
“Yes,” his father replied. “I have always wanted another son, and Jiya will be that son. As soon as he knows that this is his home, then we must help him to understand what has happened.”
Chapter Two
SO THEY WAITED for Jiya to wake.
“I don’t think Jiya can ever be happy again,” Kino said sorrowfully.
“Yes, he will be happy someday,” his father said, “for life is always stronger than death. Jiya will feel when he wakes that he can never be happy again. He will cry and cry and we must let him cry. But he cannot always cry. After a few days he will stop crying all the time. He will cry only part of the time. He will sit sad and quiet. We must allow him to be sad and we must not make him speak. But we will do our work and live as always we do. Then one day he will be hungry and he will eat something that our mother cooks, something special, and he will begin to feel better. He will not cry any more in the daytime but only at night. We must let him cry at night. But all the time his body will be renewing itself. His blood flowing in his veins, his growing bones, his mind beginning to think again, will make him live.”
“He cannot forget his father and mother and his brother!” Kino exclaimed.
“He cannot and he should not forget them,” Kino’s father said. “Just as he lived with them alive, he will live with them dead. Someday he will accept their death as part of his life. He will weep no more. He will carry them in his memory and his thoughts. His flesh and blood are part of them. So long as he is alive, they, too, will live in him. The big wave came, but it went away. The sun shines again, birds sing, and earth flowers. Look out over the sea now!”
Kino looked out the open door, and he saw the ocean sparkling and smooth. The sky was blue again, a few clouds on the horizon were the only sign of what had passed — except for the empty beach.
“How cruel it seems for the sky to be so clear and the ocean so calm!” Kino said.
But his father shook his head. “No, it is wonderful that after the storm the ocean grows calm, and the sky is blue once more. It was not the ocean or the sky that made the evil storm.”
“Who made it?” Kino asked. He let tears roll down his cheeks, because there was so much he could not understand. But only his father saw them and his father understood.
“Ah, no one knows who makes evil storms,” his father replied. “We only know that they come. When they come we must live through them as bravely as we can, and after they are gone, we must feel again how wonderful is life. Every day of life is more valuable now than it was before the storm.”
“But Jiya’s family — his father and mother and brother, and all the other good fisherfolk, who are lost—” Kino whispered. He could not forget the dead.
“Now we must think of Jiya,” his father reminded him. “He will open his eyes at any minute and we must be there, you to be his brother, and I to be his father. Call your mother, too, and little Setsu.”
Now they heard something. Jiya’s eyes were still closed, but he was sobbing in his sleep. Kino ran to fetch his mother and Setsu and they gathered about his bed, kneeling on the floor so as to be near Jiya when he opened his eyes.
In a few minutes, while they all watched, Jiya’s eyelids fluttered on his pale cheeks, and then he opened his eyes. He did not know where he was. He looked from one face to the other, as though they were strangers. Then he looked up into the beams of the ceiling and around the white walls of the room. He looked at the blue-flowered quilt that covered him.
None of them said anything. They continued to kneel about him, waiting. But Setsu could not keep quiet. She clapped her hands and laughed. “Oh, Jiya has come back!” she cried. “Jiya, did you have a good dream?”
The sound of her voice made him fully awake. “My father — my mother—” he whispered.
Kino’s mother took his hand. “I will be your mother now, dear Jiya,” she said.
“I will be your father,” Kino’s father said.
“I am your brother now, Jiya,” Kino faltered.
“Oh, Jiya will live with us,” Setsu said joyfully.
Then Jiya understood. He got up from the bed and walked to the door that stood open to the sky and the sea. He looked down the hillside to the beach where the fishing village had stood. There was only beach, and all that remained of the twenty and more houses were a few foundation posts and some big stones. The gentle little waves of the ocean were playfully carrying the light timber that had made the houses, and throwing it on the sands and snatching it away again.
The family had followed Jiya and now they stood about him. Kino did not know what to say, for his heart ached for his friend-brother. Kino’s mother was wiping her eyes, and even little Setsu looked sad. She took Jiya’s hand and stroked it.
“Jiya, I will give you my pet duck,” she said.
But Jiya could not speak. He kept on looking at the ocean.
“Jiya, your rice broth is growing cold,” Kino’s father said.
“We ought all to eat something,” Kino’s mother said. “I have a fine chicken for dinner.”
“I’m hungry!” Setsu cried.
“Come, my son,” Kino’s father said to Jiya.
They persuaded him gently, gathering around him, and they entered the house again. In the pleasant cosy room they all sat down about the table.
Jiya sat with the others. He was awake, he could hear the voices of Kino’s family, and he knew that Kino sat beside him. But inside he still felt asleep. He was very tired, so tired that he did not want to speak. He knew that he would never see his father and mother any more, or his brother, or the neighbors and friends of the village. He tried not to think about them or to imagine their quiet bodies, floating under the swelling waves.
“Eat, Jiya,” Kino whispered. “The chicken is good.”
Jiya’s bowl was before him, untouched. He was not hungry. But when Kino begged him he took up his porcelain spoon and drank a little of the soup. It was hot and good, and he smelled its fragrance in his nostrils. He drank more and then he took up his chopsticks and ate some of the meat and rice. His mind was still unable to think, but his body was young and strong and glad of the food.
When they had all finished, Kino said, “Shall we go up the hillside, Jiya?”
But Jiya shook his head. “I want to go to sleep again,” he said.
Kino’s father understood. “Sleep is good for you,” he said. And he led Jiya to his bed, and when Jiya had laid himself down he covered him with the quilt and shut the sliding panels.
“Jiya is not ready yet to live,” he told Kino. “We must wait.”
Chapter Three
THE BODY BEGAN to heal first, and Kino’s father, watching Jiya tenderly, knew that the body would heal the mind and the soul. “Life is stronger than death,” he told Kino again and again.
But each day Jiya was still tired. He did not want to think or to remember — he only wanted to sleep. He woke to eat and then to sleep. And when Kino’s mother saw this she led him to the bedroom, and Jiya sank each time into the soft mattress spread on the floor in the quiet, clean room. He fell asleep almost at once and Kino’s mother covered him and went away.