Four years passed. Then my life took the turn of which I have spoken. Mikura-sama died. Kamikuu was seventeen when it happened, and I was sixteen. While she was out on the Kyoido cape Mikura-sama collapsed and did not return home. It happened that the men were returning from their year-long fishing trip that day and saw her fall. She had been on the cape praying for their safe return. When the last vessel finally made port, she turned for home but cast a last look over her shoulder. That was when she fell. To me, it seemed prophetic. She fell in the exact spot where Mahito and I had met to exchange Kamikuu’s leavings for bundles of sand. When I heard of Mikura-sama’s death, of course I felt sad, but also relief; a sense of liberation. The more I thought about it, the more I came to understand how much I had feared Mikura-sama. And it was not only I: everyone on the island had been awed by her. Now she was gone. And I felt joyous.
My happiness was tinged, though, with guilt. My relief was related to my sins. I wanted to talk to Mahito about my feelings, but the island was in uproar over Mikura-sama’s death, and it was not safe for me to be seen in public with him. He still bore the taint of the curse. I knew the risks, but I needed to speak to him. I had something to tell him.
Mikura-sama had died so suddenly there had been no time to prepare for the grief. I wasn’t even sure that what was happening was actually happening and I had to ask myself again and again whether or not I was dreaming. The uncertainty left me darkly apprehensive. One thing was clear, though: now that Mikura-sama was dead, Kamikuu’s installation as the next Oracle was close. And so, even though the island was sunk in mourning Mikura-sama, there was a brightly buoyant undercurrent at the prospect of the young Kamikuu’s future.
On our island children were considered adults once they turned sixteen. Boys were then allowed to set sail on the fishing vessels, and girls took part in the prayers and island rituals. When I became sixteen, I was called to join the women in the sacred precincts at the Kyoido and the Amiido. I had never imagined that my first prayer ritual would be occasioned by Mikura-sama’s funeral.
Of course, my coming of age was marked by more than joining the other women in the prayers and rituals for the first time. I had a secret – a secret I could share with no one. Two months earlier, Mahito and I had begun to enjoy the ways of the flesh. The return of the fishing vessels, therefore, vexed us. Why? Because once the boats had returned, the night belonged to the young men. They would roam the island searching for available women. They ignored me because I had the important task of carrying Kamikuu’s food to her in the evenings. Even so, I had to be particularly careful not to be caught with Mahito on the evenings when other young men were on the prowl.
Our island was governed by cruel customs. Food was rationed so only certain families were allowed to bear children, and this right had been decided in generations past. Any family associated with authority, such as those related to the island chief, might produce young. And so might families of long and noble lineage, or families such as mine and Mahito’s, who were responsible for the island rituals. Because Mahito’s family had failed to provide the island with an auxiliary miko, it had been cursed so Mahito and his brothers were forbidden to procreate.
Whatever the rules, though, men will lust after women, and babies will follow. The island chief required that all unlawful babies be put to death. Babies weren’t the only ones. Whenever the chief noticed an increase in the number of old people, they would be rounded up and locked in a hut on the beach where they’d be left to starve to death. Such were the cruel customs on the island of my birth. I knew the rules, I knew the consequences, yet I could not contain my love for Mahito or my desire to be in his arms.
How sinful our love was! Our meetings always courted danger. We knew that we were treading a perilous precipice, that one step more would send us over the edge. But we could not stop. We were enchanted by the danger. Each time we reached the edge, we gladly stepped over, and each time, we loved each other more. And at that moment I felt, in the bottom of my heart, that I was far more fortunate than Kamikuu. I armed myself with this sense of superiority.
I was such a fool. Why? Because I carried Mahito’s baby. And that was what I needed to discuss with him.
But let me return to Mikura-sama’s funeral. For the first time in my life I wore the white ritual robes and stood in front of my house. The funeral procession, with Mikura-sama’s coffin, went from the Kyoido, in the east of the island, to the western Amiido, where the dead were laid out. The men carrying the coffin were dressed in matching white garments. Their steps matched, too, as they walked slowly, solemnly, singing:
As the procession passed every house on the island, the members of the household joined it. By the time we reached the Amiido, it had grown very long. Of course, it had not crossed in front of Mahito’s house since his family was cursed. The Umigame were banned even from the funeral.
I waited for the procession to near our house. My father and mother were there, with my brothers and uncles, all standing tensely. As the procession grew closer I noticed a second coffin, a small, simple one compared to Mikura-sama’s elaborate box. Had Kamikuu died, too? My heart pounded at the thought. But no, Kamikuu was there, walking to the left of Mikura-sama’s coffin, her posture upright and proud. I heaved a sigh of relief. I glanced at Kamikuu again, walking in the full sunlight. Her face was twisted with sorrow but it was so beautiful it glowed, perhaps because she was now to assume the duties of the Oracle in Mikura-sama’s stead – but she also seemed tense.
When the island chief, who was leading the procession, reached my house, he murmured something to my father. My father turned to look at me and said, ‘Namima. Walk beside the other coffin. Go with it to Amiido.’
I was about to ask him whose coffin it was when Mother motioned to me, as if to say, ‘Hurry and do as you are told.’ Confused, I rushed to join the procession. Kamikuu glanced at me and smiled faintly.
‘Are you well?’ I whispered.
She nodded.
‘Whose coffin is this?’ I asked.
‘Nami-no-ue-sama,’ Kamikuu replied. ‘Woman-Upon-the-Waves.’
I’d never heard that name before. ‘Who was she?’
‘Mikura-sama’s younger sister. She was our great-aunt.’
I hadn’t known that Mikura-sama had a younger sister. I wanted to ask Kamikuu another question, but the burly men carrying the coffin came between us and I couldn’t. The young men on our island were sturdily built, their skin burnt a coppery brown. They watched over Kamikuu and me with sharp eyes. But they could not conceal their fascination with Kamikuu’s beauty. Kamikuu would have to marry one of the fishermen in due course, if she were to give birth to a daughter. If the union failed to produce a child, she would choose another man. The young men kept each other in check – competing to present a façade of propriety – while all the while they cast covert glances in Kamikuu’s direction.
The procession finally reached the Amiido. A dark path opened like a slender tunnel between the thorny pandans and the banyan trees. It was so narrow we had to proceed in single file. It looked like the path that crossed beyond The Warning and led to the northern cape. I made my way through the tunnel behind Nami-no-ue-sama’s coffin. Suddenly the thickets opened out on to a circular clearing. Straight ahead I could see the gaping entrance to a limestone cave. That must be where they took the island dead. Next to the cave there was a tiny thatched hut, perhaps for whoever tended the graves. The men placed Mikura-sama and Nami-no-ue-sama’s coffins gently in front of the cave. I’d never seen the burial ground before and the sight of it now made me catch my breath. I wanted to leave as quickly as I could. It was a desolate, forbidding place.
Kamikuu drew to a stop and began to chant in a luminous voice:
In the garden of the gods they hide;
In the garden of the gods they take pleasure;
In the garden of the gods they tarry;
From the heavens one descends,
From the seas one rises.
For today, this very day,
They pray.
The men answered Kamikuu’s song, raising their voices raucously as they chanted the same words they had sung in the funeral procession. I followed what the other women were doing: they bent at the waist and clasped their hands together. The sturdy men stood and lifted the coffin, carrying it deep into the darkness of the cave. First Mikura-sama’s coffin and next Nami-no-ue-sama’s. Then, as though they were frightened of something, they cast their eyes to the ground and withdrew from the clearing. The women also kept their eyes trained on the ground and never glanced in the direction of the cave. They withdrew behind the men. So this was the Realm of the Dead. I had heard so much about it. The dead, we were told, travel along the underside of the island. I looked around curiously. Kamikuu came up beside me and began to chant the funeral procession song, her eyes on me.
And then, as she blew upon a white shell, everyone turned back down the narrow path. I started to fall in behind the others. But the island chief and my father blocked my way.
‘Namima – Woman-Amid-the-Waves – you are not to leave.’
I stood there petrified. What did they mean?
‘From this day forth you will be the keeper of the Amiido. Kamikuu, Child of Gods, is yang. She is the high priestess who rules the realm of light. She resides at the Kyoido on the eastern edge of the island, where the sun rises. But you are yin. You must preside over the realm of darkness. You will live here, in the Amiido, on the western edge where the sun sets.’
I turned to stare in shock at the tiny hut standing just outside the cave that was filled with the bodies of the dead. So that was to be my house? I was in a daze.
The island chief barked an order: ‘Namima! For the next twenty-nine days you will lift the lids of the coffins and check that Mikura-sama and Nami-no-ue-sama have not come back to life. You will never be allowed to return to the village. Food will be left for you at the entrance to the Amiido. You will eat this food. There is a small well behind the hut. You will not lack for anything.’
‘I may not live with my mother and father again – ever?’
When I asked this, my father, who was burnt black by the sun, said sadly, ‘We will meet again when we die.’
‘I can’t do this! Father, please, help me! Mother!’
I clung to the hem of my father’s white garment. But he prised my hands away.
‘Namima, you must control yourself. We could not tell you because it had to come from Kamikuu. You were born into the most important family on the island and destined to become the high priestess of the darkness. It is your fate and you are powerless to change it. You are here to guide the dead so that they will find their way safely to the world of darkness. You must acquit yourself with pride.’
I understood now why Kamikuu had looked at me earlier with eyes so full of pity.
‘But Kamikuu said none of this to me!’
The island chief and my father looked at each other in surprise. The chief spoke to me sternly: ‘I will remind you of the island law. The eldest daughter, born of the Oracle’s household, serves the realm of light. The second daughter serves the realm of darkness. After the sun has warmed the island during the day, it sinks beneath the island into the seas where it shines along the seabed and there makes its way back to the surface and rises again in the east. The eldest daughter protects the daylight, the younger the night; it is her duty to govern the bottom of the sea. On our island the night becomes the world of the dead. The elder daughter is responsible for continuing the Oracle’s lineage. She must give birth to a daughter. The second sister’s lineage ends at one generation. She must not have union with a man.’
The island chief gazed into the western sky as he spoke. The sun was just beginning to slip into the sea dyeing his white beard red.
‘Wait, sir!’ I begged. ‘If Nami-no-ue-sama were charged with protecting the island at night, why did I never know about her? And why is she being buried at the same time as Mikura-sama?’
The island chief let out a deep sigh. ‘When Mikura-sama became the Oracle, Nami-no-ue-sama entered that hut. She lived here henceforth all alone. So, no one ever saw her. Of course, the adults would enter the Amiido whenever there was a funeral, and they would see Nami-no-ue-sama then.’
‘But how is it that she died at the same time that Mikura-sama died?’
‘When the sun does not rise again, the night, too, must not return.’
What did he mean? That when Mikura-sama died, Nami-no-ue-sama could not continue living? Was that why we had prayed so fervently for Mikura-sama’s long life? By the same token, I would now have to pray that Kamikuu lived long, too, wouldn’t I? Is that what Mother had meant when she told me that Kamikuu and I were born to be opposites? I hadn’t understood it when she had told me that Kamikuu was yang and I was yin, or when Mikura-sama had said I was ‘impure’. I was the impure one. But Mahito and I had eaten food that had been prepared for Kamikuu. We had been united in love. And now I was carrying his child. When I thought about all my transgressions, I was so terrified I fainted.
When I came to my senses, the sun had set and I was surrounded by darkness. I had been lying in the soft grass at the centre of the circle. Of course, no one was there now. The moon was out, and I could see the coffins that had been placed inside the cave. When I looked closer I could see what appeared to be other coffins further back. Lots of them. I had never seen a dead body, and I was so frightened that I began to crawl across the ground on my hands and knees, clutching the long grass. I began to think I might as well be dead myself. I’d be better off. I thought of throwing myself into the sea. I’d have to leave the Amiido to do so. It would take all my strength to scale the surrounding cliff.
I began to search for the pathway out, peering hard in the moonlight. Eventually I found the tunnel in the thicket of trees. But as I tried to push my way through it, I discovered that a gate had been placed across the path, making it impossible for me to leave. I was locked inside the burial grounds. My father and brothers were standing in the darkness on the other side of the gate. Overjoyed, I rushed towards them, calling, ‘Father! Elder Brother! Please – help me open the gate.’
‘The gate will remain where it is for the twenty-nine-day watch. We’ll take it down after that. It is here so that we can be sure that the spirits of the newly dead do not leave the Amiido and wander the island.’
The older of my brothers spoke in a hushed tone. Normally they were not particularly kind to me, probably because their father and the father I shared with Kamikuu were not the same. But tonight I heard gentleness in his voice.
‘Brother, I’m afraid to stay here all by myself. How can I live here for twenty-nine days?’
Uncertain what to say, he cast his eyes to the ground. I thrust my arms through the gate and grabbed my father, but he pushed my hands away.
‘Namima, I am sorry for you, but there is nothing I can do. No one can challenge the island’s laws. Kamikuu must live alone and devote her life to the prayers and rituals. You must live with the dead. We men must set out to fish and spend our days plying the seas. Others must go hungry. On this island, we live the lives allotted to us, or we become like the Umigame family, left by the wayside to rot.’
My father spoke in such a low voice that the ends of his sentences were swallowed by the sound of the waves. I found it difficult to hear him. But I understood one thing with perfect clarity. I could not escape. I was to spend my life locked up here with the dead, like Nami-no-ue-sama before me, tending whatever new corpse was delivered to me. And if, before Kamikuu herself died, I was delivered of a child, it would surely be killed by the island chief once people found out. Before I knew it, I was screaming, ‘I want to see my mother! Please bring her here.’
My brother was disgusted by my outburst. ‘You are no longer a child, Namima! Didn’t Kamikuu leave the family when she was just six to start her training to become the Oracle? You lived at home and enjoyed a happy childhood. That’s enough!’
I continued to weep and wail, but my father and brothers set off down the path, refusing to turn back. I stood beside the gate until the break of day. I was terrified of the burial ground. Those nights when I had taken the dark path home from Mikura-sama’s cottage seemed a dream – the nights when I had encountered Mahito, secretly shared with him the sacred food and lain with him. Now I had been thrown into this unfamiliar world, held there by a formidable gate. I could see The Warning in the distance, past which I could never set foot again. And when I thought that I would never be able to see Mahito, I was so choked with sorrow I could hardly breathe.
When day finally broke, I pushed my fears aside and turned back to the burial grounds. I went inside Nami-no-ue-sama’s tiny hut. It was rustic, cramped and worn. The sunlight filtering in revealed a tilting shelf and neatly arranged on it were a spoon and a pair of chopsticks made of turban shell, a small bowl fashioned from a coconut that had most likely washed ashore, and a few other utensils. I had never met Nami-no-ue-sama, but when I saw the frugality of her life, I found myself giving way again to uncontrollable sobs. I would be next to live this life.
Suddenly I wanted to know who Nami-no-ue-sama had been. I wanted to see her face. I turned with determination and walked into the cave. The deeper part was packed with coffins in all stages of decay. There were tiny ones among the rest that I imagined belonged to Mahito’s baby brothers. The damp, mouldy smell of decomposition that wafted to me was horrible beyond description. The two new coffins were at the mouth of the cave. I lifted the lid slowly from the smaller, rough-hewn one and saw the body of an old woman, slight of build and with long white hair. I gasped. This was the woman I had seen on the first night I had delivered Kamikuu’s food. The person I had thought was a goddess. She looked like Mikura-sama. By the time I was born she was already in the Amiido, serving as the priestess of the darkness.
‘You lived at home and enjoyed a happy childhood!’ I remembered my brother’s words to me last night. Kamikuu had purposely chosen not to tell me of this. She knew that Mahito and I had been eating her leavings. It was thanks to her that I had been able to enjoy a happy childhood. But had I really? I could still feel the pressure of Mikura-sama’s finger, so long ago on Kamikuu’s birthday. That gesture had foretold the end of my ‘happy childhood’. People might not have gossiped about me outright, but I felt they had looked upon me as someone to be pitied or despised because I had been pronounced impure.
No one had told me about Nami-no-ue-sama because they saw me as they had seen her – as someone beneath notice. It was as if we were invisible. They had not behaved out of spite – yet somehow it was malicious. To them, I was no better than a tiny black grain of sand at the bottom of the sea. Deep on the ocean floor, where the rays of the sun never reach. How appropriate that the priestess of the darkness was given governance of the bottom of the sea.
What about Mahito? My heart froze. No one would deliver food to Kamikuu now, would they? Surely she would be besieged with marriage proposals from the island youth, eager to assist her in producing the next generation of Oracle and priestess of the darkness.
Mikura-sama’s reign was over. That truth took hold of me as I glanced at the other new coffin in the cave. I was the only one there in the dark, the only one locked up with the dead. And if I had never met Mahito, I would not have been so troubled by it.
*
Another night approached. I had opened the two coffins and looked at the faces of the dead. But once it grew dark I was terrified to be in there alone. I thought about Nami-no-ue-sama spending her life there by herself and my eyes welled with tears. But on the night I had seen her she had slipped out of the Amiido and gone to wander the shores of the dark sea.
The realm of night is the realm of the dead. It is a realm beyond the reach of the sun’s rays. A realm deep beneath the waves on the ocean’s floor. While the sun slowly circled the island, I must wander among the boulders on the ocean floor where there was no light, offering prayers for the dead. I didn’t know how to go about this. I sat trembling inside the hut, waiting for the sun to return.
I heard footsteps. The spirits and ghosts must have slipped from the cave to surround the hut. They had come for me, the newcomer. I had no idea how to calm a restless spirit. I remembered what the other women had done when the funeral procession had reached the graveyard: I clasped my hands together and bowed with all my might. My teeth were chattering with fear. There was a knock.
‘Namima, open the door.’
Mahito? I was too stunned to move. The door opened, and in the moonlight I saw the tall figure of a man step across the threshold. Mahito had come for me, even to this defiled place. Overjoyed, I leapt into his arms. His chest was warm and his heart was beating wildly. As we embraced each other, I understood what it meant to be alive. I loved Mahito and I could not pull myself from his arms.
‘Mahito, I—’
He put his finger over my lips to stop my words. ‘I know. But Mikura-sama may hear us. We must be quiet.’
I shuddered to think that we had to be wary even of the dead. But her spirit was probably still wandering this world. We had to be cautious. I whispered to Mahito, as tears trickled down my cheeks, ‘I’m carrying your baby.’
Surprise suffused his face. He thought for a minute and then murmured, his voice strong, ‘Namima, we have to leave the island.’
Even if we had a boat, the waves were fierce – and the island men had their fishing vessels moored on the offing not far away: if we tried to sail to a neighbouring island, they would catch us and bring us back. I had heard that far away there was a large island known as Yamato. No one had ever sailed that far.
‘I’ll get a boat and some provisions. I want you to wait for me.’
I nodded, as if I were in a dream. I wondered if Mikura-sama’s ghost could hear us. ‘Mahito, please wait until the twenty-nine days are over.’
‘That’s too long.’
I, too, doubted I could wait until then. But I felt such pity for Nami-no-ue-sama, forgotten by her family and forced to stay in a place where she had contact with others only at a funeral. Nami-no-ue-sama had smiled at me on that night long ago. I wanted to see off her spirit to the next world.
‘I’ll come back for you.’
As soon as Mahito had said this, he disappeared into the darkness. I was certain my father and brothers were keeping watch at the entrance to the Amiido, making sure I didn’t try to escape. Mahito must have slipped in by a different way. I prayed that no one would see him depart. And I prayed for the repose of Mikura-sama and Nami-no-ue-sama’s spirits. I placed my trust in Mahito.
After a few days had passed, the skin on Mikura-sama and Nami-no-ue-sama’s faces began to split. Decomposition set in. The smell of death wafted through the cave anew. I was frightened, but I kept watch over the decaying bodies of the two women. They were just like the decayed bodies of animals, I told myself. I had to remain strong.
One night Mahito came to me. He entered the hut quietly and took me in his arms. I sensed his excitement, and felt myself return to life. He spoke quickly, in hushed tones: ‘Namima, I’ve heard that your mother is so worried about you she comes every day to the entrance of the Amiido. Kamikuu is intended to marry Ichi, the first son of the Samé family – namesakes of the Shark. The nuptials will be held when the twenty-nine days are over. If you and I are to escape, we should do it on the night of their wedding. Everyone will be drunk and distracted and the men will postpone their fishing until it’s over.’
I let out a sigh of relief. Lately my belly had begun to swell. So long as I was in the Amiido, no one would know that I was with child, but when it was discovered that the one burdened with the defilement of death was not a virgin, the island chief would probably have me killed.
‘You have a boat?’
‘My younger brothers helped me. They repaired my grandfather’s old one. And we’ve stocked up on food.’
I brushed my cheek against Mahito’s arm. ‘Mahito, how do you know your way into the Amiido?’
‘I came to tend my dead baby brothers. I knew Nami-no-ue-sama.’
I wondered if she had known what Mahito and I would do. I wanted to ask Mahito if he had told her, but he slipped quietly from the hut. ‘I’ll come again,’ he said, before he left.
Mahito came every other night. His visits kept me alive. Every day I ate the food that someone had placed in front of the gate for me – just as I had done for Kamikuu. I drank the water from the well behind the hut. And every morning I lifted the lids of the two coffins and checked the bodies inside. Gradually the flesh was melting away. Whenever heavy rain fell, the damp seeped even to the back of the cave, and the smell of decay was overpowering.
One night I thought I heard footsteps circling the hut. I started to call Mahito’s name but caught myself at the last minute and clamped my mouth shut. There was more than one pair of feet. Had a group come from the village? I was scared, but I opened the door and peered out. Mikura-sama and Nami-no-ue-sama were standing together in the clearing. They had been restored to their former selves and were fondly holding each other’s hands.
‘Thank you, Namima,’ Mikura-sama greeted me. ‘We shall leave now.’
Nami-no-ue-sama smiled sweetly and waved a delicate hand. They seemed to glide over the grass until they disappeared into the thicket. The moon shone brightly as I followed them quietly. My fear had left me. They had looked happy and I felt compelled to pursue them. They began to climb the cliff behind the Amiido with some effort. Once they reached the top, they stepped off into the sea, where once again they seemed to glide along the surface. As I watched them go, I realised that my twenty-nine-day vigil had ended. I sat on the ground and wept.
The next morning when I walked to the Amiido entrance the gate had gone. I was the priestess of the darkness. I knew that, gate or no gate, I was not to walk to the village under the light of day. I was the priestess of the dead, a defiled person.
That night I heard the wedding festivities from my hut in the Amiido. They were sounding the large taikô drum and plucking the two-stringed bow. The voices of the merrymakers reverberated throughout the island. Mahito came to me. I clung to his hand, and when I left Nami-no-ue-sama’s hut, I carried with me the spoon made of shell and nothing more. We walked together through the darkness.
We passed The Warning and went down the road to the northern cape. We took care not to get caught on the pandan thorns and worked our way slowly northward. Mahito’s boat was moored at the northern cape, where only the Oracles had ever set foot. The waves there were large and might swallow our little vessel or cast us upon an unknown island. But we pressed ahead, holding one another’s hand. I was not afraid. I was going to an unfamiliar land, and there I would give birth to Mahito’s babies, one after another. Freedom! My heart bounced in my chest just like a ball. I gazed at Mahito’s profile. He carried a pine-branch torch as we pressed on through the pandan thicket. I loved him with all my heart. I would gladly have given my life for him.