Canal Dreams

'I'm sorry, Mr Moriya. But I can't think of anything I can do.

'Oh… oh, me neither. But… but… oh, it's all just so frustrating! Ha! Why didn't I stay with the NHK like my mother said? Never mind! Are you practising? How is the instrument?

'I am practising. The instrument and I are both fine. I didn't know you were in the NHK.

'What? Yes; many years ago. Trumpet. I left because I was making more money doing bookings for other people. Also, playing it hurt my eardrums.

'You are what they call "dark horse", Mr Moriya.

'I am what they call broke agent, Hisako. And more broke the longer this call goes on. You keep practising.

'Hai. Thank you for calling. Goodbye.

'Sayonara, Hisako.

The Nakodo stayed at Pier 18 for a week; there was a problem with the ship's propeller, which had stuck at one pitch. After two days of rioting and curfews the city had been declared safe again. Hisako went back in with Mandamus, Broekman, and first officer Endo, while the divers tried to fix the prop. Captain Yashiro paced impatiently up and down the bridge watching a succession of ships sail under the Puente de las Americas, past Pier 18, and on towards the locks at Miraflores. Helicopters filled the skies, clattering between the Southern Command base at Fort Clayton and US aircraft carriers and troop ships stationed in the Gulf of Panama. The venceristas were said to be moving down from the Cordillera Central and the Serrania de San Bias. Cuba had warned the US not to intervene, and offered help to the Republic. The US reinforced its base at Guantánamo, on Cuba. The Soviet ambassador visited the White House to deliver a note to the President, the text of which was not released.

Mr Mandamus stirred his mint tea and looked out on to the Avenida Central, where the clogged traffic honked and hooted furiously, and outrageously decorated buses full of brightly dressed people contrasted with the matt camouflage of the Guards' jeeps and trucks.

They had started at the Santa Ana Plaza, where Mr Mandamus, guidebook in hand, led them down Calle after having his shoes polished twice. Hisako, Mr Mandamus said, was the only Japanese person he'd ever encountered who didn't own — indeed had never owned — a camera. She agreed it was unusual. Officer Endo took photographs of everything, in a ma

Hisako spent much time and money on Calle 13. The street was packed with shops and shoppers. She bought Kantule Perfume from the San Blas archipelago, a chaquira necklace made by the Guaymí Indians, a ring with a small Columbian emerald set in it, a chácara bag, a circular pollera dress, a montuna shirt and several molas; a small pillow, a bedspread, and three blouses. Mandamus bought a hat. Broekman stocked up on Cuban cigars. Endo bought a mola for his wife and two extra diskettes for his camera. The men helped her carry all her shopping. Broekman thought some of the natives looked shifty, and said it was probably just as well they were all together, especially as Hisako had collected enough loot on her shopping expedition to make a conquistadore jealous.

They trooped down to the docks and through the fish market, then got lost in a maze of small, crowded, noisy streets. Mr Mandamus was delighted; the area was called 'Sal si puedes', which meant 'Get out if you can', and it was traditional to get lost in it.

'You mean you knew we'd get lost? Broekman said, once they were lost. He waved away a variety of people trying to sell him things.

'Well, I thought we would, Mandamus said thoughtfully.

'You thought we would, you crazy man?

'Of course, Mr Mandamus said, glowing with airy satisfaction, while a lottery ticket salesman and the owner of a Chinese restaurant studied the map of the city Mandamus had produced. (They were arguing.) 'They keep changing the street names, you see, Mr Mandamus explained. 'The maps have the new names but the people call the streets after their old names. It's quite simple, really.

'But what do you want to get us lost for? Broekman said, almost shouting. 'This city's bandit country these days! We need to know what we're doing! We need to know where we are!

'Don't worry, Mandamus said, wiping his brow with a white handkerchief. He pointed to Endo, who was filming the arm movements of the two arguing Panamanians. 'Mr Endo is a navigating officer!

Hisako looked round, clutching her shopping bags to her because Broekman had said she ought to, but despite the heat, and the crowds, and the fact they were lost — feeling happy. Not because she'd bought so much, but because here she was, finally in a completely different place. It was dangerous, sometimes frightening, quite lawless compared to Japan, but just so different. She felt alive. She tried to think of what music it would be good to play now, what composition she could take this mood to, so that the notes would sing and speak and take on resonances she hadn't heard in them before.

They got out eventually. They continued walking, admiring the old Spanish villas, the cathedral, Plaza Bolivar, and the brilliantly white presidential palace with its flamingos. 'I take it the anti-aircraft missiles on the roof are a recent addition, Broekman said, looking over Mandamus's shoulder at the guidebook.

'So one would imagine.

They went down to the sea, to the Plaza de Francia, and looked out from the old walls to the islands in the bay; the Pacific was green and blue and violet, shimmering under a cloudless sky. Seabirds wheeled in the baking air.

They strolled back up the Avenida Central until they came to a café called the International, run by a huge black man called MacPherson who spoke with an accent that combined Jamaican and English public school. They took tea. Mint for Mandamus. Chinese for the rest.

'Oh! Mandamus said suddenly, still reading the guidebook. 'Listen: "The lower part of the ramparts, near the law courts, contains vaulted cells in which condemned prisoners were chained at low tide." Mandamus looked up, eyes bright. 'You see? And then, when the tide came in, the Pacific drowned them… the moon drowned them! We should go back and see these cells. What do you say?

Her classmates made fun of her because she looked like a hairy Ainu. The Ainu were the natives of Japan; its abos, its Injuns. After the eighth century they'd been pushed further and further north by the Yamato Japanese moving in from the Asian mainland until they clung on only on Hokkaldo, the most northern island. Stereotypically the Ainu were tall, thick-built and hairy, and Hisako — though of average build — had deep black hair, and bushy eyebrows which almost joined up with the hair at the side of her scalp. Her eyes were deepset, which added to the Ainu look. So the children in her school taunted her and offered to tattoo her lips and wrists, the way real Ainu were marked.

In school she was poor at almost everything except English, and the other girls told her she'd never get to university — not even a two-year one — because she was stupid, and never get a husband because she was an ugly hairy Ainu, and she'd grow up a poor widowed office lady like her mother.

She ignored them, tried to read fairy stories in English, and practised her cello playing. Once, in the middle of winter, four girls caught her in a school cloakroom and held her hands down on a near-boiling-hot radiator; she cried, screamed, struggled, while her hands blazed with pain, and the girls laughed and imitated her cries. Finally, roaring with the agony and the unfairness of it all, she pulled her head free of their grip — leaving one of the girls with a handful of bloody, thick, black hair and sank her teeth in the wrist of the biggest girl. She bit as hard as she could, and heard the screams go on around her though her mouth was closed and her hands still burned.