Canal Dreams

All the people who'd gone meekly; all the people who'd gone weakly. Now I am dead, she thought. Well, it had to happen.

She looked into the blue eyes, put the bow down to one side, let the cello down to the carpet on the other and put her hands together on her lap. She said, 'You are American.

No reaction. The man like a still photograph, caught in the light.

'You are here because of the plane and the congressmen. I couldn't see why the venceristas wanted to shoot down the plane; it would be madness; the whole world would despise them. It would be an opportunity for the US fleet to retaliate, the Marines to come in. There would be no sense to it. But for you?… For the CIA?… It might be a worthwhile sacrifice. It was said. The words seemed to dry her mouth as they were spoken, but they came out, blossomed like flowers in the cold smoky air of the room. 'You had us all fooled, she added, still trying to save the others. 'Nobody imagined you'd shoot down your own plane. Steve Orrick was fooled; the young man your men grenaded to death.

'Oh yeah; shame about that. The blond man looked concerned. 'Boy showed promise; he thought he was doing the right thing for America. Can't blame him for that. The jefe shrugged, his shoulders moving like a great wave gathering, falling. 'There are always casualties. That's the way it is.

'And the people on the plane?

The man looked at her for a long time, then nodded slowly; 'Well, he said, putting the hand holding the cigar slowly through his cropped hair, massaging his scalp, 'there's a long and honourable tradition of shooting down commercial airliners, Miss Onoda. The Israelis did it back in… oh, early seventies, I believe; Egyptian plane, over Sinai. KAL 007 was chalked up to the Russians, and we downed an Airbus over the Persian Gulf, back in eighty-eight. An Italian plane probably took a NATO missile in an exercise, by mistake, back in the seventies too… not to mention terrorist bombs. He shrugged. 'These things have to happen sometimes.

Hisako looked down again. 'I saw a ba

He laughed. 'That the way you see it, Miss Onoda? The men to blame? That simple?

She shrugged. Just a thought.

He laughed again. 'Hell, I hope we're here a while yet, Miss Onoda; I want to talk to you. He stroked the gun, tapped the cigar on the edge of the ashtray, but did not dislodge the grey cone. 'I hope you'll play for me again, too.

She thought for a moment, then bent down and took up the bow from where it lay on the carpet, and — holding an end in each hand (and thinking, This is stupid; why am I doing this?) — she snapped it in two. The wood gave, like a rifle shot. The horsehair held the pieces together.

She threw the broken bow down the table towards him. It skidded to a halt between the darkened lights, clunking against the ashtray and the gun, where his hand was already hovering.

He looked at the shattered wood for a moment, then took it slowly in the hand that had gone for the Colt, lifting the dark, splintered bow up, one end dangling by the length of horsehair. 'Hmm, he said.

The door behind her opened. One of the others came in, hurrying to the far end of the table, only glancing at her, then leaning to speak to the blond man. She caught enough; aeroplano and mañana.

He stood, taking up the Colt.

She watched the gun. I don't know, she told herself calmly. How do you prepare? How does anybody ever prepare? When it actually happens, you can never find out. Ask an ancestor.

The blond man — tall, close to two metres — whispered something to the soldier who'd given him the message. The background noise in the room altered, increased, humming. The lights flickered on, off, then on again, flooding the room with brilliance, outlining the two men. She was waiting to see what else the whisper was about; too late to take advantage of any surprise caused by the lights. Always too late.

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 i

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 wi