5

5

 

… What a thing to have gone and done.

Two planks of wood formed the cover of the well. Hiroyuki removed one and stood it on the deck. He looked up at the sky, then sank down exhausted on the deck. The pit of his stomach began to heave. He deeply regretted what he'd done. Yet, his deed had been exposed to the light of day and there was no more escaping into oblivion.

'So! Why don't you get going?' his wife's still corpse seemed to provoke him with the reality. It seemed to be suppressing a smirk as it swayed back and forth.

What to do? First, he had to get down into the well with some rope, tie it to his wife's corpse, and haul her out of the well. He would then attach weights to the body and sink it. Having lain in seawater for a day and a half in the early summer heat, the corpse emitted an unearthly stench. The smell had smouldered in the confined space of the tank, shooting up like a flame through the opening of the removed plank. It occurred to Hiroyuki that leaping into a fire to retrieve a body would have been easier.

Having to get rid of the body was his wife's punishment for him. Hiroyuki cursed his own deed. But the task could not be avoided.

He tied a towel over his mouth and nose, knotting it firmly behind his head. He tied the end of some rope to the winch, while taking the other end in his hand. He peered into the well, as if he hadn't done enough of that already, and caught sight of his wife's blanched foot. The skin was puffed up and had begun to peel.

The boat rocked violently. Hiroyuki put his hands on the edge of the well for support. He had almost fallen in.

The current was getting faster. As he scanned the sea around him, he noticed that there was not a single fishing boat in sight; they must have all scuttled back to harbour.

Everyone agreed that the waves in Tokyo Bay were terrifying. Waves came in two types, rollers and choppers, and the complex indentations of Tokyo Bay's coastline were perfectly configured to generate choppers. Waves were even now rushing in at random angles and breaking into white spray. If Hiroyuki wasn't careful, a chopper could smash into the deck from an unexpected angle and flood the boat with water.

Leaving the rope for the time being, Hiroyuki dropped anchor to set the boat against the wind. The boat could capsize if the waves came at its hull.

It was then that it hit him that he hadn't a second to waste. He was in for serious trouble if he didn't dump the body and get out of there soon.

A chopper breaking hard by spurred him to action.

With his hands on either side of the well, he lowered himself down to the bottom. Trying to avoid looking at the body as much as possible, he felt around for his wife's ankles. The best way to do the job seemed to be to bind the legs together with rope and haul it out upside down. Perhaps he could get it over with without having to look at her face.

Every time the boat pitched unexpectedly, Hiroyuki staggered and his wife's legs would slip from his grasp. He cursed aloud and clamped the end of the rope between his teeth. In that split second, his entire body was jarred by an awful premonition. An uncanny shudder ran through the length and breadth of the boat, and it pitched once like never before and started to list. From that point on, everything unfolded in slow motion. Slowly, ever so slowly, the opening of the well, which until then had been above him, rolled down to his side, throwing the other plank off with a thud. Soon his only source of daylight, the opening, was completely submerged in the sea and Hiroyuki's world went pitch dark.

The seawater flooded in at his feet, reached his waist and then his chest in no time, and forced his body up, up.

… She's capsized.

Before the word 'capsized' could come to his mind, his body had grasped the situation and braced for death. He was too panicked even to breathe. In that state, he struggled up to reach air and rammed his head against the bottom of the boat. The water began to stop flowing in, leaving a single head's breadth of air. Thrusting his face up into that pitch-dark sliver, Hiroyuki coughed violently. He must have swallowed a large amount of seawater.

 

His heart literally shrank in his chest. He was dead for sure unless he managed to control his panic. His brain raced in a frantic search for some way to save himself… Yes. That was it. He'd fill his lungs to capacity, dive down to find the opening of the well, and swim out.

He tried to remain calm. There was still plenty of air left. There was no need to lose his head. No good would come of a frantic exit. Straying too far from the boat meant certain death.

He suddenly remembered. What happened to that rope he'd been holding just a few moments ago? The other end of the rope had been wound round the winch on the deck. The boat had capsized just as he was trying to bind his wife's legs with the rope. He would not drift away from the boat as long as he held on to the rope and pulled himself back along it.

No matter how much he groped around in the water for the rope, his fingertips were unable to locate it. It was taking too long. He resigned himself to swimming out without the guidance of the rope. He took several deep breaths to fill his lungs. The more he tried to inhale the air trapped in that cramped, dark space, the more suffocated he felt. His panic was making him hyperventilate. Hiroyuki was no longer sure he could make it, when ten feet was all he needed to dive at most.

With all his remaining strength, he forced his head under the water and lunged downwards. In an instant, he saw a three-foot-square opening cut out in the darkness beneath him. A faint light filtered through from below. The opening of the well was right in front of him.

 

'Nothing to it,' he thought as he placed his hands on the edge of the opening and thrust his head through. He thrust out his chest, and then his waist, and right when his body formed a V shape, Hiroyuki felt something pull at his foot. Though the upper part of his body was now outside the well, his legs refused to follow. He was fast losing what breath he had. He gathered his remaining strength and tried to yank his foot free. To no avail. There was no choice but to go back. Any more hesitation, and he'd die like that in a V shape.

As much as he hated to, he pulled back the upper half of his body and came up where he had been before. His head emerged from the water with such force that he bumped it hard on the floor of the boat. A bolt of searing pain shot through him. The sliver of air had shrunk in size; the boat was slowly sinking. Now, to get any air at all, Hiroyuki had to bend his head and thrust just his nose and mouth out of the water.

He bent his leg and groped around with his hand to find out what had caught. A moment before, he could have sworn that his foot was tangled up in rope. Yet, now, his hand detected nothing there at all. Maybe something had decided to hold his foot…

But this was no time for speculation. Filling his lungs with what little air remained at the top, he lunged down headfirst once more.

No sooner had he thrust his head downward than a spectral human form drifted toward the hazy opening. Its hair fanned out around the head. As though to block the exit, his wife's corpse had wandered out from the side, and it danced like a dark shadow in the faint light from-below.

The sight made Hiroyuki gulp seawater. Terrified by his wife's movement, which seemed wilful, he used up all the air in his lungs.

… Exit's blocked.

There was nothing to do but surface again.

This time, he had almost to lick the bottom of the boat to get any air. He let out a silent scream. The smell of fuel, which must have leaked from the engine, assailed his nostrils.

It was all up with him, all over.

He pissed himself, and started crying. Above, the boat floor. Below, the sea. The only exit was occupied by his wife. Hiroyuki had no space left to live.

He was like a conger eel caught in a trap. His wife's corpse was the rubber flap at the opening of the eel tube. With arms and legs akimbo, she clung with grim tenacity to the opening to prevent his passage.

Hiroyuki didn't have the strength left to laugh at the irony. A man who'd trapped countless conger eels in dark tubes was now snared himself and waiting for death.

With the pounding of the waves, the roar should have been a lot more thunderous, but it was strangely calm all around. Death was approaching with a steady tread. There was no escaping it.

As he thought of his imminent death, a notion popped into his mind. Twenty years ago, around when his mother disappeared, Hiroyuki's father had narrowly escaped death. Hiroyuki had never doubted his father's story. But now, with death staring him in the face, he understood the truth. Just as Hiroyuki had done, his father had killed his wife and used his fishing as an alibi for disposing the body out at sea. His father's mental troubles had nothing to do with having hit his head. His terrible deed had slowly driven him mad.

The same blood ran in his veins, and the past was repeating itself. Even if Hiroyuki were to return home alive and somehow manage to bring up his son single-handedly, Katsumi would no doubt end up doing exactly the same thing. Where to sever the awful chain?

In death. All he had to do was die. With the death of both his parents, his son would grow up in a new environment. The thought made it a little easier for Hiroyuki. Perhaps he could meet death with composure.

Then he heard two sounds coming from above, with a brief interval between them. There it was again, two sounds. It was not the waves striking the boat; it sounded more artificial.

At first he listened vacantly. But when he fathomed the meaning of the sound that was penetrating his brain, he became alert and thrust his face upwards. There was still a little air left. A few more knocks came from the exterior of the keel.

His body reacted reflexively, his right hand clenching into a fist and banging against the bottom. As if in response, two sounds from above. And now Hiroyuki, thumping the bottom twice. From above, another answer of two knocks.

He was saved!

 

Just when he'd given up hope of ever getting out alive, he was given a second chance. Hiroyuki had witnessed a similar scene a few years ago. A rescue boat from the Maritime Safety Agency was rushing to the aid of a fishing vessel that had capsized as a result of poor handling. Hiroyuki, who'd been fishing, interrupted his work to pull alongside and watch. The rescue squad used the same procedure to check if anyone had been trapped in the cabin. They straddled the keel of the overturned boat and knocked on its bottom, reassuring any survivors that help was on the way; they would send down their divers if anyone responded. The divers took an extra regulator down with them to insert in the mouth of the survivor. Other fishing boats had also gathered around to watch the operation, and when the trapped fisherman emerged safely from the sinking boat, there was some wild cheering.

The sounds he now heard raining down from above were to let him know that the Maritime Safety Agency had come to his rescue. Hiroyuki had lost all sense of time. He wondered how long ago the boat had capsized. It was just conceivable that a patrol boat had discovered him by chance.

Hiroyuki roared with joy at his good fortune. He had been granted a new lease on life; he'd be able to breathe real air once more.

He thrust his face under the water and looked down. He expected to see his wife blocking the opening, but she wasn't there. She had vanished. Perhaps a wave had caught her and washed her out of the well. She was probably sinking deep just then. Hiroyuki tried hard to believe that this was the case. Without his wife's body, no criminal charge could be proved against him.

Just when everything had looked so desperate, his fortune had suddenly changed for the better. Almost as soon as his wife's body had disappeared, effectively disposing of itself, the rescue team had found him. Hiroyuki could not wait for the divers to come get him.

Suddenly, his body was hugged by powerful arms. They were here!

He could hear no voices, but he felt the reassuring words in his stomach: 'You're all right now.'

Hiroyuki felt for the diver's arm and clung to him. The diver put his arm around Hiroyuki's shoulder and inserted a regulator snugly into his mouth. Holding the mouthpiece tightly between his teeth, he drew in air. It had the aroma of a highland plateau; never had air tasted so sweet. Determined to never let go of it, he bit deeper into the mouthpiece, sucking in the air over and over again.

He was ecstatic. Once back in the land of the living, he would be able to love them all, his son, his daughter, even his senile father. The shell that encased him was cracking and breaking off like the lie it had always been. He was sorry not everything could be the same again. He was going to beg for his wife's forgiveness. He had no idea how to apologize to the dead. His desire to do so, however, was genuine.

Hiroyuki had taken it for granted that the diver would escort him in a downward dive. But he felt himself suddenly floating up instead. In an instant, he was gazing at the keel of the Hamakatsu, which was now barely afloat.

 

Resembling nothing more permanent than a leaf on the water, the boat looked as if it would go under at any moment. The patrol boat made its way towards them. People jostled about on the deck; they all seemed to be shouting things, but Hiroyuki couldn't hear their voices.

He could see all around him, all of the sea and the sky. Bursting through the clouds, shafts of light poured down onto the crests of waves as they broke and spewed their foam. Catching the light, the spray scintillated like jewels hurled in every direction. This was the sea he had known from childhood. Cape Futtsu stretched straight toward him. The wind and waves were strong. Never had he seen the sea so sublime, it shimmered. A sense of relief enveloped him, and his body felt lighter and lighter.

A phrase he'd never once uttered in his life came to him now: All clear!

He spoke the words and they felt good. He spoke them once more.

The patrol ship retrieved the two bodies simultaneously. It was obvious that one was that of a woman who'd been dead for two or three days. The other was that of a man who'd just breathed his last. What this meant would be understood in due course.

What they would never understand, however, was why the man had died with the woman's cadaver locked in his embrace. He certainly didn't look like he'd clutched at a straw in panic-stricken desperation. Far from anguished, the man's expression was serene. Something else that troubled the rescue team was that the woman's right thumb was plunged down to its base in the man's mouth. How on earth could the dead woman insert her thumb into the man's mouth? Nonetheless, that was how it looked to those who saw the corpses.

The man must have bitten down hard on the thumb, for his jaws refused to unclamp even after the recovered bodies had been laid on the deck of the patrol boat. When they pried his mouth open and removed the thumb, they found that it'd nearly come off. They tried giving the man artificial respiration to see if he could be revived. It was useless. He showed no signs of returning to life. He was dead. They could have saved him if they'd reached him just a few minutes earlier.

The man's serene expression, however, soothed the rescuers' feelings. It wasn't easy to bite down so fiercely and at the same time wear such a serene expression. But this man had accomplished the contradiction.