Three Views of Crystal Water. Katherine Govier

three hundred men, women and children, in small sailboats and a few motorboats. She and Keiko went in the boat of Keiko’s old aunt and uncle, and their son. They had one of the few motorboats. The island was twelve miles from the mainland, a journey of six hours. At the end they stepped onto a low, bare volcanic rock and were welcomed by a posse of wild cats. There were dozens and dozens of them, arching from behind the rocks, meowing and stalking with tails swishing, giving no quarter. Vera had never seen a wild cat. To her a cat was a pampered pet, sleeping on a pillow. Keiko explained that the cats were left behind the year before, and the year before that, for as long as the people had been coming to the summer island for the fishing season. They lived on mice and snakes.

      They unloaded their belongings onto the pebbly shore. They brought very little, just their sleeping bundles, a few yakata and baskets containing rice, diving gear and cooking pots. Keiko gestured to Vera to lift up the cloth-tied bundles that she had brought. The men went to put in place the wooden docks that had been stored away from the water and the winter storms.

      Carrying their bundles, the people walked all together up the small winding street that ran up from the harbour. The procession was natural, and unhurried, passing one after another of the low, weathered wooden houses that, like the cats, had been left behind the year before and the year before that for as long as anyone could remember. Stones were set in rows on the roofs of the houses, which were grey and matched the rock. As each family reached its home, the members disengaged from the group, bowed, and disappeared inside.

      That first night of the first summer on the island, Vera lay down on the floor mat, exhausted from the day’s sail. She could hear nothing but the wind and the sound of the water, a hollow percussive sound as it broke somewhere over the rocks. Where had she come to now? This island was a farther place even than the village from her world. She wanted to cry, but Keiko was beside her. The old aunt and uncle and even a boy, near her age but a little older, could hear. She was determined not to make a sound. She went to sleep pretending she was dead.

      But sunrise came even to the dead. Her spot on the floor was directly in line with the rising sun; a beam crept slowly over the windowsill, and made its way up from her feet to her face. Vera opened her eyes. She was awake in a wooden box. And it was as if she had woken up for the first time in a year. Every board and mat and corner and basket Vera could see was freshly cut and full of meaning.

      The box had been constructed carefully, simply. Vera could see each board as it lay next to the other, and the beams that were the straight trunks of thin trees that lay across them. Probably years ago, perhaps even one hundred years ago or more, when this box was built, the trees grew on this island. Perhaps that was why there were no trees here now. They had all gone for houses. The wood was grey and in some places russet, and in spots it showed the stains of water that had got through. There were knots and eyes in it and where there was a hard round eye, the surrounding log had been shaven. That meant that all along the planks Vera could see round hard grey places like pupils, each one in the centre of an oval like an iris, so that the whole made an eye. They did not feel like peering eyes, but like spirits that were friendlier now, less strange.

      The box was perfect, square at each end, with thin paper screens dividing their sleeping section from their eating section, and a hearth in the middle. Vera liked the neatness of it and the sense she had of being small inside it, miniaturised by the house that was itself like a toy house in its simplicity.

      She stumbled outside and saw that the sun was turning the sky pink and gold, highlighting the stray clouds that wandered across the great empty dome above this flat floating land. As the sun came up, birds began to fly in circles over the houses. Vera imagined them living all through the dark night on the bare rocks, or roosting in the cliff in this comfortless volcanic ruin without a safe leafy tree to be seen.

      She wished she had been the first up, but greeting the day as it dawned was a custom here, and others had been up before her. The village was coming alive creakily and with good cheer. She went along the street; the doors were open. Vera heard screens sliding, and water buckets clanging. The men stood and scratched and looked out at the water.

      Vera had to stare to recognise these people, although she had seen them in Toba and even sailed with them the day before. They had shed their stiffened look, and the wooden gestures that made them strange all winter. They might have been coming out of hibernation. They had the alert and avid look of hunters whose season had come. This was home, their faces said; the long sojourn on the mainland had been just a waiting.

      And, Vera thought, there would be no whistles and men in black uniforms here. This was a safe place.

      The water lay all around, everywhere you looked. Vera watched as men stretched their arms, barked directions and trotted down to the water. There was much groaning and heaving as they lifted the fishing boats down from the wooden stands where they had spent the winter. Their words, though still indecipherable, sounded exuberant. The men shouted to be heard over the surf. They looked bolder and bigger than they had in town, stripped down to the skin, like people who had been freed.

      But the women, especially, were changed from the huddled souls Vera had seen on the mainland. Gathering around the well, they laughed together. They had removed their bonnets. Faces open, they filled their buckets, one after the other. They stripped to wash, and then went bare-breasted through the streets, old and young. It was a matter-of-fact and purposeful nakedness. They took no notice of themselves or each other in this state, but trundled back to their houses, each one nearly the same as the next.

      The children were in the sea immediately. Mothers set down even the toddlers at the water’s edge, where they began making curious, rocking steps outward.

      As she looked at the easy working swing of the other women’s bodies, Vera was envious. She imagined herself the object of stares and curiosity. One old woman with tiny wizened breasts stopped Vera in the path. She pointed overhead to the brightening sky and rows of narrow clouds. It was a good sunrise; it had fish scales in it, the woman seemed to be saying.