brought out two Primos and a coke. Dick and I drank our beers, but Yuki didn't touch her drink.
She stared out the window and said nothing. Between the fruit trees you could see the shimmering sea. Out on the horizon floated one lone cloud, the shape of a pithecanthropus skull. Stubbornly unmoving, a permanent fixture of the seascape. Bleached perfectly white, outlined sharp against the sky. Birds warbled as they darted past. Vivaldi crescendoed to a finish, whereupon Dick got up to slip the record back in its jacket and onto a rack. He was amazingly dexterous with his one arm.
«Where did you pick up such excellent Japanese?» I asked him for lack of anything else to say.
Dick raised an eyebrow and smiled. «I lived in Japan for ten years,» he said, very slowly. «I first went there during the War—the Vietnam War. I liked it, and when I got out, I went to Sophia University. I studied Japanese poetry, haiku and
tanka, which I translate now. It's not easy, but since I'm a poet myself, it's all for a good cause.»
«I would imagine so,» I said politely. Not young, not especially handsome, but a poet. One out of three.
«Strange, you know,» he spoke as if resuming his train of thought, «you never hear of any one-armed poets. You hear of one-armed painters, one-armed pianists. Even one-armed pitchers. Why no one-armed poets?»
True enough.
«Let me know if you think of one,» said Dick.
I shook my head. I wasn't versed in poets in general, even the two-armed variety.
«There are a number of one-armed surfers,» he continued. «They paddle with their feet. And they do all right too. I surf a little.»
Yuki stood up and knocked about the room. She pulled down records from the rack, but apparently finding nothing to her liking, she frowned. With no music, the surroundings were so quiet they could lull you into drowsiness. In the distance there was the occasional rumble of a lawn mower, someone's voice, the ring of a wind chime, birds singing.
«Quiet here,» I remarked.
Dick North peered down thoughtfully into the palm of his one hand.
«Yes. Silence. That's the most important thing. Especially for people in Ame's line of work. In my work too, silence is essential. I can't handle hustle and bustle. Noise, didn't you find Honolulu noisy?»
I didn't especially, but I agreed so as to move the conversation along. Yuki was again looking out the window with her
«I'd rather live on Kauai. Really, a wonderful place. Quieter, fewer people. Oahu's not the kind of place I like to live in. Too touristy, too many cars, too much crime. But Ame has to stay here for her work. She goes into Honolulu two or three times a week for equipment and supplies. Also, of course, it's easier to do business and to meet people here.
She's been taking photos of fishermen and gardeners and farmers and cooks and road workers, you name it. She's a fantastic photographer.»
I'd never looked that carefully at Ame's photographic works, but again, for convenience sake, I agreed. Yuki made an indistinct toot through her nose.
He asked me what sort of work I did.
A free-lance writer, I told him. He seemed to show interest, thinking probably I was a kindred spirit. He asked me what sort of things I wrote.
Whatever, I write to order. Like shoveling snow, I said, trying the line now on him.
Ame was dressed in a denim shirt and white shorts. She wore no makeup and her hair was unkempt, as if she'd just woken up. Even so, she was exceedingly attractive, exuding the dignity and presence that impressed me about her at the Dolphin Hotel. The moment she walked into the room, she drew everyone's attention to her. Instantaneously, without explanation, without show.
And without a word of greeting, she walked over to Yuki, mussed her hair lovingly, then pressed the tip of her nose to the girl's temple. Yuki clearly didn't enjoy this, but she put up with it. She shook her head briskly, which got her hair more or less back into place, then cast a cool eye at a vase on a shelf. This was not the utter contempt she showed her father, however. Here, she was displaying her awkwardness, composing herself.
There was some unspoken communication going on between mother and daughter. There was no «How are you?» or «You doing okay?» Just the mussing of hair and the touch of the nose. Then Ame came over and sat down next to me, pulled out a pack of Salems and lit up. The poet
ferreted out an ashtray and placed it ceremoniously on the table. Ame deposited the matchstick in it, exhaled a puff of smoke, wrinkled up her nose, then put her cigarette to rest.
«Sorry. I couldn't get away from my work,» she began. «You know how it is with pictures. Impossible to stop midway.»
The poet brought Ame a beer and a glass, and poured for her.
«How long are you going to be in Hawaii?» Ame turned to me and asked.
«About a week,» I said. «We don't have a fixed schedule. I'm on a break right now, but I'm going to have to get back to work one of these days.»
«You should stay as long as you can. It's nice here.»
«Yes, I'm sure it's nice here,» I responded, but her mind was already somewhere else.
«Have you eaten?» she then asked.
«I had a sandwich along the way,» I answered, «but not Yuki.»
«What are we doing for lunch?» she directed her question toward the poet.
«I seem to remember us fixing spaghetti an hour ago,» he spoke slowly and deliberately. «An hour ago would have been twelve-fifteen, so that probably would qualify as what we did for lunch.»
«Is that right?» she commented vaguely.
«Yes, indeed,» said the poet, smiling in my direction. «When Ame gets wrapped up in her work, she loses all track of everything. She forgets whether she's eaten or not, what she'd been doing where. Her mind goes blank from concentrating so intensely.»
I smiled politely. But intense concentration? This seemed more in the realm of psychopathology.
Ame eyed her beer glass absently for a while before picking it up. «That may be so, but I'm still hungry. After all, we didn't eat any breakfast,» she said. «Or did we?»
«Let me relate the facts as I remember them. At seven-thirty this morning you had a fairly large breakfast of grapefruit and toast and yogurt,» Dick recounted. «In fact, you were rather enthusiastic about it, saying how a good breakfast is one of the pleasures in life.»
«Did I?» said Ame, scratching the side of her nose. She stared off into space thinking it over, like a scene out of Hitchcock. Reality recedes until you can't tell who's sane and who's not.
«Well, it doesn't matter. I'm incredibly hungry,» she said. «You don't mind if I've already eaten, do you?»
«No, I don't mind,» laughed her poet lover. «It's your stomach, not mine. And if you want to eat, I say you should eat as much as you want. Appetite's a good thing. It's always that way with you. When your work's going well, you get an appetite. Shall I fix you a sandwich?»
«Thanks. And could you get me another beer?»
«Certainly,» he said, disappearing into the kitchen.
«And you, have you had lunch?» Ame asked me.
«I had a sandwich en route,» I repeated.
«Yuki?»
No, was Yuki's terse reply.
«Dick and I met in Tokyo,» Ame spoke to me as she crossed her legs. But she could have as well been explaining things to Yuki. «He's the one who suggested I go to Kathmandu. He said it would inspire me. Kathmandu was wonderful, really. Dick lost his arm in Vietnam. It was a land mine. A 'Bouncing Betty,' the ones that fly up into the air and explode.
