The Sea Bed Read online

  The vision of the two maidens approaching brought the monk the same sudden joy as the sight of a crane taking to the air. When they walked past him, the monk averted his gaze, as if looking too intensely would cause the vision to dissolve.

  They exchanged places with two identically dressed maidens at a stall selling paper prayers and good-luck charms. Their foreheads were bare and trusting with no wisps of hair escaping the neatness of the coiffure.

  The maidens remained very still, as if in meditation. Despite the tourists photographing them, they maintained their composure and serenity. They would quietly watch over Soshin, as the sentinel frogs watched over the shrine. A few straggling tourists made purchases while the rest started back along the path.

  Everyone had gone. The monk looked into the water. An urn would be conspicuous in that family of rocks. Better to dispose of the contents only, let them disperse, drift away. The abbot had said nothing about a ceremony but it didn’t seem right to simply empty out the urn as if throwing a bucket of scraps onto a compost heap.

  The monk began murmuring funerary sutras. He had barely completed the first when he heard voices. More streams of tourists, cameras at the ready. It would be like this all the time here; Soshin would have no rest. There had to be a better place.

  5

  The end of the line

  Yugen walked up the steps from the platform, past the fishing-net display decorated with shells.

  The end of the line; end of the land as well. It had disappeared into the sea, leaving only the high points—islands and a peninsula—visible. Here people described mountains as solidified waves. The bay looked the way mountains did on misty mornings, their bluish heads above a basin of mist the colour of a dove’s breast. If the sea were to evaporate like mist, the valleys in the sea would be visible and the lie of the land revealed. Though the sea was water, it looked altogether more solid than mist. Creatures lived in it, which the transience of mist did not allow. All around the bay the land rose up steep and green. Roosting in the greenery were hotels, perched like herons in treetops, at the best vantage points for spotting prey.

  To exit the station there was an escalator or a f light of stairs. The most singular thing Yugen had noticed about the world so far was choice. At the monastery he was a particle travelling along a path of routine free of choices. In his meditation he did not choose one thought or another. They lapped around him and eventually, tiring of his equanimity, moved on or melted away. But—stairs or escalator, when both seemed of equal value, when both led to the same destination?

  Yugen looked up to the hovering of small birds near the ceiling of the portico—swallows, swifts, he wasn’t sure. Dark, almost black bodies with white underbellies, beautiful forked tails, spreading the stripy webbing between the prongs of the tail when the bird was in f light. Their wings f luttered as fast as hummingbirds, their tiny cheeps reverberating in this space. They settled on the ledges of high windows.

  He took the stairs.

  At the end of the street was a ferry, and a couple of men leaning against a railing, chatting. They straightened when they saw the monk, a potential customer perhaps. Yugen nodded but kept going. The ferrymen resumed their stance, voices lower now. One made a comment and the others laughed.

  Yugen wondered if they were talking about him. Even at a distance, along an arm of the U-shaped bay, he could still hear their voices. Then came the barking of a lone dog, the keening of a seabird, the slap of water against the small fishing boats, the sound of an outboard motor.

  It was not like the forest where, if you listened, the air was full of tiny sounds all of the time. There you couldn’t tell when one left off and the next started. Here each sound was distinct and separate, amplified by the water, each cutting through the quiet stillness, the moist salty air, like scissors through silk.

  The sea had a tang to it, an almost vegetative pungency, cucumber in brine, which relaxed open the nostrils. It came into Yugen’s nose all at once, unlike mountain air that was best breathed thinly, as if through a straw, letting it warm in the corridors of the nostrils before entering the body proper. He could taste the sea at the back of his throat. Was it something specific or the composition of several things?

  Yugen found a path leading down to the water’s edge. He passed an open shed where a woman sat on a crate, making net bags or baskets. She wore a pink apron over a striped shirt, beige trousers and pink gumboots. On her forearms were clear plastic sleeve protectors. She had a strong pleasant face, and hair that was cut short. He nodded a greeting but she appeared not to have seen him.

  The monk made his way to a pile of shell-encrusted tyres. They were old and perishing, collapsing when he sat on them. He was so close to the edge he could see the muddy bottom of the bay, the discarded oyster shells embedded in it.

  On the train down here Yugen had discovered that the sea was more widespread than his initial view of it had suggested. It curved into bays and inlets, around islands, then expanded out to the horizon. The abbot had not specified a time to be back at the monastery, Yugen did not have to rush. He could explore a little more before choosing. What would be best for Soshin—a quiet little inlet like this or the unfettered ocean?

  How could the monk make such an important decision when he had difficulty choosing between escalators and stairs?

  He held his mindfulness on parallel planes, alert to the discussion going on in his head, aware of the old rubber tyre on which he sat, the presence of Soshin’s urn in his backpack.

  He let go of these sensations and focused on his surroundings.

  Rafts made of thick bamboo poles extended into the bay. The poles that once stood tall and green in forests had found their way to the sea, to this protected little pocket of it, just as the monk had. His heart expanded, grateful for the company of bamboo.

  On one of the rafts was a small hut. Three women, in gumboots, aprons and brimmed hats tied under the chin, were cleaning oysters, scraping seaweed and barnacles from the shells with forked instruments that looked like small garden tools. The scraping resembled the raspy croaky call of a seabird.

  On another raft a man was lowering a net bag back into the water. Yugen imagined the many baskets hanging silently, invisibly, below the waterline.

  It came on him like soft rain—he was in a pearl farm.

  He felt a shadow pass over him and looked up to see a young man dressed in smart office clothes.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. This is private property.’

  The women scraping the shells, the man with the net bags, carried on working. They seemed oblivious to the monk’s presence yet someone must have told the young man. The woman in the shed?

  ‘I am so sorry,’ said Yugen. ‘I did not realise.’

  The young man then returned the apology, as if it were all his fault. The monk rose to his feet. Standing in front of the shed was an older man in a suit. The monk extended his apologies to him. The older man accepted with a brief nod of his head.

  Yugen left by the same winding path and returned to the train station, this time choosing the escalator.

  He was examining the display of nets and shells when he realised that on the other side of the station was another way out.

  6

  The other side of the station

  Here were different signs of life entirely. Taxis, and shiny new buses. But apart from the drivers, no people. One of the taxi drivers had reclined his seat so that he was almost lying horizontally, reading a newspaper that covered him like a bed sheet.

  Yugen began walking. Perhaps on this side of the station he would find a different part of the sea, one which wasn’t private property.

  The moisture in the air formed into droplets and sprinkled down as warm thin rain, barely distinguishable from the beads of perspiration on Yugen’s forehead and the back of his neck. He ran his hand across the top of his head and felt the stubble growing there. At the monastery the monks shaved each others’ heads every five days, on the fourth and the ninth of
the month, the fourteenth and nineteenth, and so on. When was the next shaving due? Yugen had been away only a couple of days, yet already it felt like weeks.

  He hadn’t gone far along the road when he came across a huge billboard: oceanworld—1st left 200m. Surely there’d be sea at Oceanworld.

  Around the next corner the road opened to a parking area, white lines on black bitumen. Three large buses were lined up, one next to the other. There were a few cars in spaces by themselves. At the end of the car park was a cylindrical building with asymmetrical wings. Oceanworld.

  At the entrance was a turnstile, similar to the ones at the station. It made the monk feel as if he were about to embark on a journey, but before he could go any further, the woman behind the small glass window gently reminded him that a ticket was required. He bought one, then passed into a foyer with a large mural of gaily painted fish. It was very nice but it wasn’t the sea.

  At the far end of the foyer was a white spiral staircase. Perhaps it led to a viewing platform. The monk ascended the stairs and found himself surrounded by live fish. They were swimming in the huge glass ring which circled this upper f loor.

  Schoolchildren milled around, following the fish, their faces as close to the glass as they could be, voices echoing in the space. Could the fish hear them, or was their world silenced by the glass?

  Eventually the school party left, and for a while Yugen was the only human present. He came to the glass and observed the fish more closely. They ranged from silvery grey to dark brown, swimming in the stream created by their own movement, although the odd one stayed still or swam against the f low of the others. It was like watching TV except these were real fish. If the glass broke the fish and the water would all come tumbling out and he would be inundated.

  Yugen felt slightly nauseous watching them, as if he himself were turning, spinning around and around. Some fish were tight-lipped, others had mouths open to catch what they will. On their circular journeying, did the fish recognise particular places or was it all the same to them? Yugen wondered whether this was their pattern in the wild ocean. He imagined the monks as these fish, all moving in the same stream.

  Though monastic life was rigorous, frugal, what might be called ‘close to nature’, it was not wild. Inherent in wildness was the unpredictable. With gongs marking the hour when the monks arose, when they ate, meditated, with a calendar marked by specific days of the month and seasons of the year when ceremonies were carried out, there was no room for unpredictability.

  A few notes of music wafted into the room then an amplified woman’s voice: ‘At twelve-thirty there will be a sea-woman demonstration. Come and hear the haunting whistle described as the “elegy of the sea”. It nostalgically evokes the ocean, much as the song of a nightingale evokes mountains, or the chirp of crickets signals summer.’

  A high reedy sound resembling a dolphin call emanated from the speakers. ‘The demonstration will commence in five minutes.’

  The monk expected the school group to return but it didn’t, although other visitors started trickling into the room in response to the call. He wondered where the best vantage point might be. There was no clustering of people at any specific location so he stayed where he was and continued watching the fish who continued on their circular journeying unperturbed.

  Another waft of music then a commentary began. ‘For almost two thousand years along this coastline and on offshore islands, sea women have dived for abalone and other shellfish, with only the air in their lungs to sustain them. When they emerge from the depths that air is released in a slow steady stream.’ Once again the monk heard the high reedy whistle.

  A sea woman appeared. Yugen had not seen her entry into the water; it had happened somewhere behind him. She was dressed completely in white—white hat tied under her chin, long-sleeved shirt, thick knitted gloves, and a white skirt that reached to her knees. Beneath that, her legs and feet were bare, with a small bruise above the right ankle. You could just make out her eyes and nose through the facemask. The water pressed her lips into a smile. One arm was raised, the hand disappearing above the water, presumably holding onto something to keep her in place. With the other hand she reached into the wicker basket suspended from her shoulder, and scattered meal.

  The fish packed so densely around her that she was obscured, with only a glimpse of white here and there like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One fish, a groper with blubbery lips, tried to dive into the basket but she biffed him away before his large head got stuck in the small opening.

  Occasionally, when she raised herself up, head disappearing above the waterline, the cloud of fish dispersed a little. Between these trips to the surface, the sea woman stayed submerged for remarkably long periods of time. It was only when she rose to the surface that Yugen was reminded that this sea creature needed to breathe.

  With a renewed supply of air she dived down then swam a few metres, legs making frilly movements in the water, propelling herself with just the lower parts, the knees together holding the skirt modestly in place. Nevertheless the shadowy form of the body beneath the clothes was revealed. As she moved around the circular tube, repeating the pattern—feeding the fish, going up for air—so did Yugen. He did not want to lose sight of her. A couple of times when she was vertical and treading water, she waved to her audience. Finally, she swam behind an artificial rock and disappeared.

  Yugen waited but she did not reappear. The performance was over. The fish went back to their habitual circling, and the spaces that the sea woman had occupied filled with water.

  The monk wondered if, in the semi-darkness of the room, he had dreamed her pale presence, a ghost swimming by like the ephemeral thoughts that arose from his own watery places.

  He sat on a bench, a multitude of feelings thronging inside him like the fish at her feed basket. He couldn’t tell if he wanted to be her, be the fish fed by her, or the water in which she swam. What he did know was that he wanted to be on the wet side of the glass. What did it feel like to be in that liquidity, to be brushed by fish, have them clamouring?

  The monk was barely aware that another hour had gone by till he heard the announcement again. While that time passed almost without notice, the next five minutes seemed an eternity. He was like a porcupine with all his quills up, and in every quill a nerve ending ready to receive. He was buzzing with anticipation and expectancy.

  When he could no longer sit still he stood up, turning slowly on the spot, making a small tight circle in the centre of the big one around which the fish were swimming. They showed no signs of anticipation or expectancy, yet this was their regular feeding time. Yugen had learned after only one prod.

  Surely those five minutes must have passed but still the sea woman did not appear. He closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten, playing a delicious game with himself, piling onto anticipation the possibility of missing her entrance altogether, as he had the first time.

  She appeared from behind the rock where he had lost sight of her, as if no time had passed, and her swim had been uninterrupted. She waved again, and the monk found his hand automatically rising to return the greeting. She did all the same things—holding onto something above the water with one hand and dispensing meal with the other.

  Before the fish frenzied once again, cutting the view of her into jigsaw pieces, Yugen saw that the small fisherman’s basket was tied to her waist by a rope, not slung over her shoulder. The bruise on the ankle was gone. Had he been mistaken the first time? The same smile pressed into her lips. The monk followed her around the room unashamedly. Then it was over, all too quickly.

  Yugen stayed the whole afternoon, waiting out the hours for the five minutes when she appeared. He hovered around the artificial rock trying to catch a glimpse of the passageway that led from the water to the air.

  There was a final announcement—Oceanworld was closing in ten minutes. Visitors were asked to please make their way to the exit, ensuring that they took all belongings with them and retrieved any items stored in
the lockers.

  The other spectators began making their way down the staircase obediently, leaving Yugen alone. He ducked under the railing and pressed his face against the glass, trying to see beyond the rock.

  Where did she go during the fifty-five minutes between performances? The glass was cold. It left wetness on his nose. A fish approached him head on. Yugen could see far into its grey mouth, but not into the dark recesses of the rock. There was no apparent beginning or end to the circular tube of water.

  He scanned the room looking for access beyond the glass. No doors, not even those with signs saying staff only. If she came in and out of the tube, he could too. Did she return here after closing time when all the people had gone, and take up her place among the fish?

  Yugen swam in the narrow space between the railing and the glass, a hooked fish being trailed through the water. A rogue thought lifted him on a wave of exhilaration. What if he didn’t make his way to the exit like the others, but spent the night in this silent sea?

  Footsteps. Someone coming up the stairs. The monk returned to the right side of the railing, lay down under one of the benches, and waited.

  7

  Under the bench

  It was two young women, laughing and chatting. Yugen saw the pairs of feet, one in blue thongs, the other in dark green, coming his way. The women sat down on the very bench under which he lay. The cushion sighed as their bodies squeezed it f lat, a small break in the surface through which air escaped. The feet were so close to the monk that they were almost touching him. He tightened himself even further under the bench, skeining in his energy.