Beside a Burning Sea (13 page)

“What are we waiting for?” Annie asked, stripping to her undergarments. She balled up her oversized clothes, set them in the shallows, and waded into the water. The sea was warm and gentle, and for a moment Annie had a hard time believing that it had almost killed her. A school of red-finned fish swam before her, darting into deeper and clearer water. She followed them until the sea reached her belly button. She didn’t want to go any farther, and so she held her breath and dropped beneath the miniature waves. Once underwater, Annie scrubbed her scalp, then ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She opened her mouth and swished water through her teeth.

Rising to the surface, Annie closed her eyes and lay atop the waves, basking in the sun. She’d never experienced an ocean as warm as this one, and sighed contentedly. “Have you ever felt such water?” she asked, removing her bra and underwear.

“Not even close,” Isabelle replied, vigorously scrubbing her naked body with sand.

Annie spied something white below and reached down into the clear water to grasp a sand dollar. She studied her find before placing it back in the sand. “Why don’t we just stay here?” she asked. “Why rush back into war?”

Isabelle stopped scrubbing. “People need us, Annie. We’ve work to do.”

“I can’t wait to get off this island,” Scarlet added. “I’m already sick to death of bugs and bananas and the awful heat.”

Annie followed her sister’s lead and used sand to clean her body. “You think we’re going to lose this war if you’re stuck here for a few days?”

“Those boys need our help,” Isabelle replied, rubbing her arms so hard that they turned red. “You know that as well as I do.”

Annie started to respond but stopped, not wanting to admit that she was tired of seeing torn bodies, tired of watching boys die. A part of her agreed with Isabelle, and this part intended to return to the front lines. But she was also in no rush to leave the island. After all, on the island she could sleep without constantly worrying about her patients. She could breathe. She could walk the beach with her sister and write poetry with a gentle man.

“Don’t you ever get tired, Izzy, or you, Scarlet?” Annie asked. “Sometimes . . . sometimes aboard
Benevolence
I just felt overwhelmed.”

“I’m always tired,” Scarlet replied. “I think I’ve aged ten years in the past six months.”

Isabelle nodded. “And I’m tired too. But just think of those boys, Annie. Think of what they’ve been through. What they—”

“I always think of the boys,” Annie interrupted, dropping two handfuls of sand. “Do you know how many nights I’ve cried myself to sleep thinking of them?”

Scarlet stripped off her undergarments. She then looked east. “Last I heard, my little brothers were headed to North Africa,” she said quietly. “To help the Brits with Rommel. It’s a big secret of course, but they told me. For all I know, they’re already in the desert, fighting in some awful place . . . so far from home. Jimmy runs a tank crew, and Bobby defuses bombs. I still can’t get over that . . . my baby brother drives a tank. He’s only a boy. It seems like a few years ago I was teaching him to ride a bike. And he . . . he was so little. So happy and innocent.” Scarlet’s eyes watered at these words and she began to cry.

Isabelle and Annie moved closer to her. “I’m sorry,” Isabelle said, putting an arm around her fellow nurse. “But I heard that Rommel’s finally on the run.”

Annie wondered what it was like to have two brothers fighting in the deserts of North Africa, facing a legendary man who’d rarely tasted defeat. She thought of her fiancé, Ted, who was battling Germans somewhere in Europe. Though she didn’t miss Ted as much as she once thought she would, she worried for him all the same. “You’ll see your brothers again, Scarlet,” she said. “I realize I’ve no right to say that, but I believe it.”

“Why?” Scarlet asked.

“Because this war can’t go on forever. And if one of your brothers is a tank commander and the other is defusing bombs, then they’re bright and they’ll make it through this.”

Scarlet wiped away her tears. “They are bright boys. Their marks at school were always much better than mine.”

Annie was about to respond when she saw a trio of fins slicing through the water not far from them. Her immediate thought was that the newcomers were sharks, but as she grabbed her companions and pulled them toward shore, she realized that dolphins, not sharks, were paying them a visit. “Look,” she said excitedly, pointing. “Three dolphins!”

“How do you know they’re dolphins?” Isabelle asked, still moving toward shore.

“See their curved backs? And look at how they play!”

The trio of dolphins, which were about a hundred feet away, swam with great speed and with what Annie thought to be exuberance. They often rose above the sea’s surface as if seeking to glance at the nearby island. One suddenly leapt out of the water, its gray body glistening in the sun. The dolphin reentered the sea with hardly a splash, darting underwater with exquisite grace. The same creature leapt again, its arching body stretching skyward.

Does he see us? Annie asked herself. She waved at the dolphins, wondering what they might think of her. For a moment she was tempted to swim out into the deeper water, but seeing how dark that region was, she remained motionless. As Isabelle and Scarlet renewed their conversation, Annie thought about what she’d witnessed. Impulsively, she decided to try to create a haiku. Her initial words were far too clumsy to bring life to the memory of the dolphins, but she lowered herself into the temperate water and continued to think. She patiently mixed words and feelings, remembering what Akira had told her. And a few minutes after the dolphins had vanished, she whispered, “Leaping from the sea, / Bright new sights are bound in blue. / Worlds so far and close.”

As she scrubbed herself with sand, Annie wondered what Ted would say to such a poem. Would he smile or laugh? Would her words further convince him that she was forever lost in a land of fantasy? Or would he come to peace with the notion that she was different than he? That she enjoyed splicing together pleasing phrases and painting impossible scenes? Annie wished he was with her in the water, so that she could watch his face, repeat her poem, and have her questions answered.

Suddenly, Scarlet wiped her eyes and sniffed, and Annie chastised herself for being so self-indulgent. After finding the sand dollar that she’d discarded, she hurried to Scarlet, pressed the simple treasure into her hand, and tried once again to reassure her that her brothers would live through the war.

BACK AT HIS USUAL station at camp, Akira watched the three women walk toward him. Each was wearing a man’s khaki-colored shirt and shorts, with belts fashioned of rope keeping the shorts from falling to the sand. Annie was between Isabelle and Scarlet and was a full head shorter than each. Otherwise, the two sisters looked very much alike. Akira knew from earlier encounters that the sun had already changed their appearance, transforming their former honey-colored skin into a deeper shade of brown. Several freckles had gained prominence on their cheeks and shoulders. The sun had even lightened their hair, slightly bleaching their bangs.

Akira’s gaze lingered on Annie, who carried something, and twice dropped the object as she gestured to her sister. He smiled, realizing how often Annie used her hands to emphasize her points. Though the concept of doing so was foreign to him, he liked that her hands were often in motion. She was excitable and unique and utterly compelling.

When the women drew near, he pretended to be writing in the sand. To his delight, Annie walked straight toward him. “Did you get enough of the beach this morning?” she asked, sitting down near him.

A vision of the little girl flashed before him. “I . . . I needed to think,” he said, forcing thoughts of Nanking away.

“Oh.” Annie repositioned her body so that she also faced away from the sun, as he did. “We went for a swim.”

“Was it a good swim?”

“Yes. Yes, it was.” She looked at his leg. “May I inspect your wound?” He nodded, and she carefully removed his bandage, bringing her hands together in a brief clap when she saw that the stitches had held without exception. The skin on either side of the wound was already starting to bind together. No sign of infection was present, and though having to restitch the wound would ultimately make for a large scar, she felt lucky that he was healing so well.

After leaving Akira briefly to find some disinfectant, Annie returned and started to clean his wound. As she carefully worked, she wondered how he’d been hurt. Though she didn’t like such thoughts, she almost always asked herself this question when attending to a wounded soldier. Akira’s injury was obviously from a bullet and seemed large enough to have come from a high-caliber weapon at close range. But she knew little beyond that.

She put a fresh dressing and bandage on the wound, and then took a drink of coconut milk. He thanked her, and she said, “You should start to exercise that leg.”

“What is best?”

“A bit of walking, I think.” She wrapped up the old bandage in a palm frond. “Care to join me?” she asked, not ready to retire beneath the shade of the banyan tree, and believing that some company would lift his spirits.

Akira smiled. Wanting to please her, he tried to rise to his feet without appearing to be stiff or in pain. He almost succeeded. Glancing up and down the beach, he said, “So much beauty. Where is it best to start?”

Annie held him by the elbow and proceeded to lead him toward the water. Once the sea touched their feet they began to walk near the shoreline. Though the sun was far along in its journey across the sky, its touch was still fairly hot. Fortunately, a breeze kept the air refreshing. To Annie, the island seemed unusually alive. Crabs scurried about the sand, ivory-colored birds dove upon unsuspecting fish, butterflies added color to the sky, and trees danced in the wind.

“Tell me about where you lived as a boy,” Annie said, holding his elbow tightly so that he wouldn’t stumble.

Her directness pleased him, and he smiled. “My home was in the mountains near Kyoto, which is the old capital of Japan. The city sits within mountains, green mountains full of streams and forests and ancient temples.”

“It sounds wonderful. Almost like . . . like another world.”

“When I am in those mountains, it is another world.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“Of course,” he said, trying not to grimace at the tightness in his leg. “About what would you like to hear?”

“Oh, tell me about . . . about what you used to do, before you knew anything about poetry or . . . or homework.”

He smiled. “As a boy . . . I did so many things. But mostly, I would climb mountainside trails made by monks two thousand years ago. In the springtime, cherry blossoms would fall like snow on the trails. And in the autumn, the leaves of maple trees were such a bright orange that the mountains looked to be on fire.”

“How beautiful.”

“It was. I would often climb a mountain and sit and watch the city. Many times I sat under my umbrella in the rain.” Akira looked at her, noting that though she was small and thin, she tried her best to support him as he walked. “I sometimes think of myself as . . . as this boy . . . as if he were a different person than me,” he added, speaking quite slowly. “After school, his mother would give him a sweet, and he would climb those green mountains. He would study ants. He would listen to crickets. He would read while atop a rock.”

Annie helped Akira step over a weather-beaten tree trunk that had been marooned on the beach. “Do you miss this boy?” she asked, sensing that he did.

“Yes. I do miss him. Very much. In fact, I sometimes . . . sometimes I wonder where he has gone.”

“Oh, I don’t think such a boy changes that much. He may have grown into a man, and maybe being a man has brought him to different places. But I think he could still walk those trails and still climb those trees.”

Akira paused, gazing at her face, her eyes. He had never experienced anyone speaking to him this way—telling him how he was perceived. In Japan, people might have found such a comment presumptuous. “I hope you are right,” he finally said, pleased that she could so readily imagine him as a boy.

“Well, I don’t think a man who writes poetry in the sand is that different from a boy who follows ants up a mountainside.”

He smiled at her. “And what of you? May I hear of your childhood?”

She started walking again, leading him over the uneven sand. “My childhood was good and bad. My parents are wonderful. And my sister, as you know, is wonderful. The four of us lived in a cottage in California. We had a dog and a garden, and life was very good.” Annie watched a miniature crab disappear into a nearby hole. “But when I was nine, I almost died from diphtheria. That was the bad. The terrible, really. It . . . changed my childhood. For two years afterward, I hardly left my house. I was afraid of everything. Cars. Strangers. Getting sick. I just . . . I just didn’t want to be hurt again. I still don’t.”

He shook his head. “I am so sorry about that.” She didn’t reply, and he leaned closer. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“If you were so afraid, why did you come to this war?”

Annie started to speak but stopped. She’d asked herself this same question dozens of times, and had never discovered the right answer. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really know,” she finally said. “I’ve never had any . . . direction. Never wanted to work to achieve a certain goal because I didn’t want to dedicate my life to something and then not be around to enjoy it. Though you’d never believe it, I was like Isabelle when I was a little girl, working so hard to do everything right. But then I almost died, and everything changed.”

“But the war . . . it is hard work, yes?”

“Exactly. I finally decided to stop running. But I’m not sure if I have. My . . . my fiancé once called me a coward, and I think that he was right.”

“A coward?”

“He had a reason . . . a good reason for saying it.”

“You are no coward,” Akira replied. “I have seen many such people. In China, I saw terrible, terrible things. The men that did those things were cowards.”