Death and the Flower Page 5

  A little calmness could have subjugated his panic. Foolishly, he slammed on the brakes. The wet road, the hard braking, hydroplaning … The car stopped responding to the steering wheel, collided into the median barrier, then spun further. Screaming and a roar like earth tremors mingled and swirled inside the car. Eventually a darkness like black painted on black filled the interior and all sound faded into the distance, the tremors slipping away as well. How long he was unconscious Tatsuro couldn’t well fathom. As soon as he came to, he recovered his hearing and felt pain in his forehead. Tensing all of his limbs to straighten himself out of an unnaturally twisted position, he struggled to comprehend the disaster that had befallen him. The center pillars were bent, the front windshield was shattered to bits, and the crumpled hood of the car obscured most of his vision. He heard moaning from the back seat, but only one voice, and his wife was not in the seat next to him. The impact had launched her through the windshield and out onto the street. Imploringly, Tatsuro extended his line of sight out onto the lanes and strained his eyes. Right in the middle of the road, about thirty feet away, he discerned darker patches lying next to each other. Thrown from the car, Tatsuro’s wife and son had been run over by one truck after another and plastered into the road as dark stains on the asphalt.

  Halfway across the sandbar, Tatsuro turned and glanced back towards the shore. The highway ran level just three feet above the sea, and the red Ford sedan sat in a parking area framed by subtropical foliage. The driver’s side door still hung open. Tatsuro couldn’t hear it from where he was, but the local FM radio channel must have been playing over the sound system. Between a stand of mangroves and a rocky area in front of the car Yuko scampered after marine life. Her bright orange t-shirt was easy to spot even from where Tatsuro stood. She sat down on a rock and kicked with both feet to disturb the clear water’s surface, then stood up and crab-walked along the beach. In the background, a truck streaked past.

  About a hundred feet from the island Tatsuro halted and looked back toward Yuko again. She was sitting on the rock now, her feet dangling in the water this time. Maybe she was tracking the progress of some gaudy-colored molluscan denizen of the subtropics.

  Maybe I should turn back, a voice of warning echoed somewhere in Tatsuro’s mind. He was beginning to understand why he was feeling so uneasy. Bottomless dark intimations rose up strand by strand from the tips of his feet and amassed in his very core, freezing him.

  Like a child stuck in a tree, unable to climb up or down, Tatsuro found himself paralyzed on the sandbar. The island was right there; it’d be quicker to go on than to head back. He wanted to be free of the creepiness brushing at his toes as soon as possible. When he’d begun to swim, and when he’d first dipped his feet into the sandbar, he hadn’t imagined this rapidly mounting dread. That initial step, the sand had felt surprisingly soft, enveloping his foot up to his ankle, but he’d relished the underground coolness against his toenails. In the blaze of the subtropical sun the shallow water was warm, and the mixture of sand and mud was the perfect texture to soothe his flushed feet. By the time he had taken a few dozen steps, however, the coldness underground seemed to clutch at his legs; when he’d waded more than halfway, it turned into a chill up his spine. An instinctive sense of danger flashed vague images in the back of Tatsuro’s mind. After a few more steps, the images sharpened into a specific notion, and pellucid words etched themselves into his bosom:

  Watch out. Something lives under the sand you tread!

  Tatsuro stopped in his tracks and once again considered heading back to the shore. Yet he already knew, without even turning around, that he was much closer to the island. The only immediate way to deal with his dread was to set aside all thoughts of returning and to complete his passage to the island. Once he set foot on dry land, he might shake off his fear without ado.

  Tatsuro began to wade towards to the island again. He took long strides, minimizing contact with the sandbar as much as possible.

  Why did I decide to cross over to the island?

  The same question repeated over and over in Tatsuro’s mind as he probed his memory. Then, he recalled an image from two nights earlier.

  A bus terminal against the backdrop of a city at night was diametrically opposed in mood to a subtropical string of islands dotting the Florida Straits during the afternoon. Yet, from the perspective of Yuko waiting back on the shore, there were definite similarities between Tatsuro and the suitcase that had disappeared into the darkness of the bus terminal two days ago at midnight. Both receded steadily away into another realm. The suitcase, swallowed up into the darkness and lost, echoed Tatsuro’s present state.

  The night after they had left New Orleans, their bus had made a short meal stop of about an hour in Jacksonville. Nearly all of the passengers had disembarked to eat at the café in the terminal, returning to the bus only when it was almost time to leave. When about half of the seats were filled, Yuko grew agitated, glancing nervously at her father. Just as the bus was readying to pull out, she leaned over her father’s lap, peering out into the darkness beyond the window.

  “Hey, our suitcase, it’s going … that way,” Yuko stated in little bursts. She squinted, anxiety clouding her features. Tatsuro looked outside, following her gaze. Just below the window, the bus driver was handling the customers’ luggage. Three duffel bags sat in a row on the pavement next to him. As it was a terminal stop, he was sorting out the bags of passengers who were transferring. But Yuko’s gaze was focused on something farther away. There were city lights in the distance, and between the lamps of the terminal and the darkness beyond wriggled a lump of some sort. Its form was indefinite so Tatsuro couldn’t be entirely sure of what he saw then. A rectangular, suitcase-sized mass appeared to be pulling away at a leisurely pace all by itself. Appeared to be … Nothing more. Depending on how you looked at it, it was just a dark stain on the concrete. Every vein in Tatsuro’s body throbbed. He averted his gaze before the memories could come rushing back.

  Though he sensed what she sensed, Tatsuro ignored his daughter’s warning. Even looking in the direction she pointed was repulsive. He had to tell himself that it was some bad joke. For a while thereafter, Yuko continued to whisper that their suitcase was creeping about the parking lot of its own accord instead of sitting in the cargo hold under their seats, but Tatsuro shut her out feigning sleep. Even after they had become a family of two, Tatsuro and Yuko had traveled overseas together sharing a single suitcase. As a teacher, Tatsuro had long summer vacations, and their trips had become a tradition. This year, the plan had been to traverse the U.S. via intercity buses, from Los Angeles to New York, over a period of two weeks. The suitcase contained their clothing and other travel essentials. According to Yuko, it was strolling away into the night …

  Having sorted the luggage, the driver returned to his seat at the front. He had already confirmed the number of passengers, so they were ready to depart.

  Slowly, the bus began to move. Her hand on her father’s knee, Yuko pressed her face against the window and stared out into the darkness. As the bus turned, the centripetal force pushed Yuko and Tatsuro back against their seats, and when they could lean forward again, the bus was already headed down the highway in the opposite direction from the darkness into which the suitcase had receded.

  Upon their arrival at the depot in Miami yesterday morning, Tatsuro turned in his claim tag to retrieve their luggage. The attendant ran this way and that but in the end failed to find their suitcase. Sure enough, it was lost. A staffer from the bus company explained that the suitcase must have been loaded onto another bus by mistake, apologized repeatedly, and guaranteed to recover the suitcase, which must have been ferried to the wrong terminal, by the following night. Unwilling to waste a day waiting for the suitcase’s return, Tatsuro and Yuko picked up a rental car as planned, departing for Key West with only the carry-on bag containing their valuables.

  When he was almost at the end of the sandbar, Tatsuro felt pain at the tip of his left f
oot. It didn’t hurt badly, but he was worried over the cause. It had felt like stepping on a pointy pebble, but there could be none floating amidst soft sand, and if there were one it ought to have sunk rather than impart any pain. Spooked, Tatsuro jerked his foot up out of the water, lost his balance, toppled forward, and hit the sea’s surface. A whack sounded deep in his ears. Something felt strange. The pier, which had caught his eyes just as he fell, loomed larger and larger in his consciousness.

  Parts of the wooden pier were rotten, and Tatsuro had to tread carefully to avoid falling into the sea. He sat down cross-legged on the pier and inspected the spot where he’d felt the pain. There were two red dots at the base of his big toe on his left foot. They oozed blood when he squeezed the flesh around them. Something had stuck him. Tatsuro tried to recall sea creatures with spikes. It didn’t hurt badly so he decided he was fine and rose to his feet.

  The periphery of the island was blanketed in a sad excuse of a beach, and old fishing gear littered the area near the pier. Amongst them were white styrofoam spheres the size of basketballs that, upon closer inspection, revealed little navel-like knobs run through with a thin, vinyl rope. Lower on the beach a lattice shape sprawled buried in the sand. It was an old fishing net, exposed to the elements, tattered and torn. The styrofoam balls must have served as floats to keep the net near the surface, but Tatsuro couldn’t quite visualize the trapping method. The island must have served as a fishing base some ten or twenty years ago then fallen into disuse before being abandoned completely. Here and there a few globes of pale green glass sat peeking out of the sand. Some were broken, and Tatsuro would have to watch his step when he walked on the beach.

  He turned and looked back towards the highway. A thumb-sized Yuko was waving at him. It felt strange to be in an objective position vis-à-vis the highway. It was as if he’d become a point on the canvas gazing back at himself as he painted. Every so often, the sound of a passing truck would arise from another dimension and fade away. Tatsuro waved back at his daughter, finished crossing the pier, and stepped onto the beach. He thought he could hear his daughter’s voice calling to him from behind. The noises that issued forth from the jungle felt familiar to Tatsuro. They reminded him of the first train of the morning and its echoes that flowed into his apartment in Tokyo. He was on the third floor so he couldn’t see the carriages directly. When he awoke early, he often listened to the rhythmic sound interrupting the predawn stillness like the rush of a faraway breeze accompanied by a metallic clankity-clank.

  Guided by the noise, Tatsuro moved this way and that as he approached the trees and caught sight of an animal trail that led into the island’s interior. The narrow passage wasn’t immediately obvious; it was lined on both sides with rows of palm trees and apparently long covered in grass and low brush. The intermittent rumblings from deeper within were like a welcoming voice greeting a visitor. Tatsuro stood at the head of the trail and peered inside. The vegetation was dense, casting overlapping layers of shadow on the sand to form a starkly dappled pattern of dark and light. In particular, the rays that filtered through the thickest growth cast white mottles on the sand as on a cut of prime beef, and come to think of it, his wife had been fond of dresses with such patterns, while she was still among the living … Gazing on, Tatsuro’s thoughts wandered in unexpected directions. He felt a strong urge to explore deeper.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and glimpsed his daughter out of the corner of his eye. She was trying desperately to get his attention. She waved her arms and seemed to be calling to “Papa,” but Tatsuro couldn’t hear her voice. Leaving it be, he started walking towards the interior.

  The sand beneath his feet was hot in the sunny spots, but in the shade it was cold enough to make him catch his breath. Gooseflesh rose on his arms and back, but it was oddly comfortable and he didn’t want to turn back. He was lured by a premonition of rare vistas. A world full of unusual displays of color might unfold before his eyes and provide inspiration for the oil painting he was working on.

  The temperature in this climate in late August was ferocious, easily over 100 degrees. Although it was fairly dry unlike the humid heat he’d experienced in New Orleans, merely retreating into the shade did nothing. Tatsuro dripped with sweat and his throat was parched.

  As he walked further, the narrow trail became more of a path, and he saw clear proof everywhere that a number of people had walked through here long ago: scars from knife slashes in the trunk of a palm tree, eight metal pipes hanging from a branch. The rusted pipes appeared to be a sort of wind chime that played cooling sounds when a breeze blew, but at present the air was completely still, and the pipes showed no sign of moving, let alone making music. Farther ahead, a plastic basin lay at the base of a tree, and beyond it a wooden stool, half-buried in sand. Evidence of prior human habitation was becoming more and more salient. Then Tatsuro spotted what looked like the roof of a house poking out of the dense foliage. Soon he saw several roofs. As he continued to walk, he came to a clearing bordered by a number of abandoned buildings—a former village.

  All of the buildings were made of wood. Traces of brightly colored paint still clung to their walls in places, but for the most part it had peeled away exposing the bare wood underneath. About half the wallboards were still intact while the other half had rotted away. A few of the houses were roofless, and the roof of one had collapsed and crushed a rotting wall.

  Tatsuro counted the buildings. A total of fourteen single-story buildings, all the same size, stood in rows of seven each on either side of a long, rectangular clearing. At the end of the open space was a larger two-story building, clearly different from the homes, behind which hid a pitch-black shadow of an object. It lurked, motionless, holding its breath, only its dark silhouette sticking out at the sides.

  Tatsuro halted when he saw it. While the thing was mostly hidden by the building, from its contours he had a fairly good idea what it was. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. As he walked down the center of the clearing, he found himself visualizing nocturnal Tokyo. The cars streaming by on the Metropolitan Expressway, the creak of steel against steel as a train rushed by—such were the keynotes of the city at night. Back when Tatsuro’s family was still intact, he’d go to bed in his room, the children’s clamor replaced by an enveloping silence, and hear an urban symphony seeping in from outside. He’d often lulled himself to sleep imagining, one by one, the sources of those sounds.

  When Tatsuro rounded the building’s corner, he beheld the very thing he had imagined. It wouldn’t have been at all out of place in the city, but in the middle of a tiny island, it was incongruous enough to be nauseating. It was a passenger car from a train, the kind once pulled by a steam locomotive.

  The bizarre juxtaposition made Tatsuro shudder. He felt as if he’d wandered into the depths of a labyrinth. He shot a nervous glance back towards the path he’d taken. It was still there—he hadn’t stumbled into another dimension. If he retraced his steps back to the pier, he’d be able to see the highway with cars traveling across it, and in the foreground, his daughter, Yuko, waving to him. Faced with utter inexplicability, everything started to seem uncertain. At the same time, he was curious and wanted to make sense of his discovery. Approaching the black iron passenger car, Tatsuro looked it over. Standing on his toes to peer through the window, he saw rows of double seats divided by a central aisle. It was a very old-fashioned rail car, the kind you might see in a Western, and only the window frames were made of wood. There was no locomotive; somehow, only this passenger car had been left here. The hook-shaped coupler was badly corroded and looked as if it might crumble away at the slightest touch. As Tatsuro reached out, he felt something metal and hard in an unanticipated direction—at the soles of his feet. He cleared the sand away from where he was standing. A rusted rail emerged right underneath. When he continued to brush away the sand, Tatsuro unearthed a train track running across the center of the island, perpendicular to the path leading back to the dock. The tracks
would lead to the shore at either end, that much was clear even without further investigation. Twin rails that came from the sea, crossed the island, and disappeared back into the sea … A rail line that ran parallel to the highway. Tatsuro felt the strength drain from his body, and he sank to the ground.

  After a few moments, however, he came up with an interpretation. One day two decades ago, when he’d been playing artist in SoHo after finishing his studies and moving to New York, Tatsuro had been in bad need of pictures of subtropical scenery for a piece he was painting. He’d obtained a book of photographs of Key West that included the following description beneath an aerial photograph of the highway that linked the islands: