Canal Dreams

(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 ca

(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 ba

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, gri

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.