The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo Read Free Book Online Page A

chest.
    “What is it?” She is puffing from the short run.
    “The tide is coming. The tide.”
    “That’s not the tide; it’s from that boat passing by. I told you that the tide won’t be returning for more than an hour.”
    Her tone comes out much harsher than she wants, leaving a hurt look on Miss Min’s face.
    “Come on, I’ll take you back.”
    They make their way across the almost-dry rocks. She leads Miss Min back to her room, helps her off with her rubber boots, takes the orthopedic insoles out to air them, and, although it is not yet even noon, puts out the futon for her. She is careful to place the soiled side of the futon on the thin straw mats that cover the dirt floor. At least we have the straw mats, she thinks, recalling those early months, when it was the bare dirt floor they slept on. She covers Miss Min’s feet with a blanket, reaches underneath it, begins to massage a bit of warmth back into them. She knows that Miss Min feels little, if any, of it at all, but she is past this frustration. Miss Min is talking a little bit about her family and how they were cabbage farmers back in Korea, says she can’t even eat cabbage to this day. But she isn’t listening to her, only thinking about the island and how it didn’t appear as she had thought.
    Two weeks later, she returns alone. The pathway opens up in the early afternoon. She retraces her steps from the last time and gets to the place around back where the large rocks jut into a long, narrow peninsula out into the sea. A strange place, the circle part of the island is covered with wild green growth, all of this in the back only bare rock. She takes out a pen and paper and starts to draw. She’s never been much of an artist, but still she manages a decent outline of the island. Maps. As long as she can remember, she has always loved them. Would study them as a child, making shapes of dragons or people or whatever. Twisting and turning the maps every which way, creating a different image by doing so.
    She continues on around the island; it takes a few minutes to walk. Past the
torii
gate, there is what appears to be a path leading up to the top of the hill. She looks at Nagashima and is surprised by how close it is. Around, in the back of this small island, much of Nagashima is hidden and it feels mysteriously distant. Now, when she turns around, a panorama of Nagashima’s east coast is visible: the living quarters, the office, the hospital, the cliff, the small farming area. About the only areas she can’t see are the receiving dock, the building where they all spent that horrible first week, and the crematorium—the northwest end of Nagashima, which faces Honshu and the town of Mushiage. She sees a few people walking around in the distance, but she doesn’t think anyone sees her. Doesn’t believe that anyone pays this place any attention.
    She turns her back on Nagashima, takes the path, which is overgrown with fernlike plants and weeds and whatever else. It is only a five-minute hike up, about eighty feet above the sea. Although the day is quite bright, it is dark and cool going through the tunnel of bamboo, maples, cedars. Near the top, she first sees the small shrine, but her eyes are ripped from that when she sees a man sitting on the last of the three cement steps leading to it.
    “Mr. Shirayama.”
    “Miss Fuji. Is this your first time up here?”
    “Yes.”
    “I come up here once a week, or whenever I can get away.”
    “I didn’t think anyone came here.”
    “They don’t. You’re the first person I have met here.”
    She turns around to get a view of Nagashima, but all she can see is the tangle of trees and brush. She turns opposite, but Shodo Island is invisible, as is Honshu, as well as the Inland Sea.
    “Wonderful place, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “That’s why I come up here. Like a whole different world.
You can’t see the place, can rarely hear a thing other than your breath, maybe a heron or gull.
When I