‘‘Miyiko, you’re a marvellous swimmer!” he exclaimed in admiration; he filled his lungs with air and checked his breathing.
“My swimming isn’t as good as my diving,” the girl replied, and Darr Veter was again astonished.
“I am Japanese by descent,” she explained. “Long ago there was a whole tribe of our people all of whose women were divers; they dived for pearls and gathered edible seaweed. This trade was passed on from generation to generation and in the course of thousands of years it developed into a wonderful art. Quite by accident it is manifested in me today, when there is no longer a separate Japanese people, language or country.”
“I never suspected….”
“That a distant descendant of women divers would become an historian? In our tribe we had a legend. There was once a Japanese artist by the name of Yanagihara Eigoro.”
“Eigoro? Isn’t that your name?”
“Yes, it is rare in our days, when people are named any combination of sounds that pleases the ear. Of course, everybody tries to find combinations from the languages of their ancestors. If I’m not mistaken your name consists of roots from the Russian language, doesn’t it?”
“They aren’t roots but whole words, Darr meaning ‘gift’ and Veter meaning ‘wind’.”
“I don’t know what my name means. But there really ‘ was an artist of that name. One of my ancestors found a picture of his in some repository. It is a big canvas, you can take a look at it in my house, it will be interesting for an historian. A stern and courageous life is depicted with extreme vividness, all the poverty and unpretentiousness of a nation in the clutches of a cruel regime!
Shall we swim farther?”
“Wait a minute, Miyiko. What about the women divers?”
“The artist fell in love with a diver and settled amongst that tribe for the rest of his life. His daughters, too, became divers who spent their lives at their trade in the sea. Look at that peculiar islet over there, it’s like a round tank, or a low tower, like those they make sugar in.”
“Sugar!” snorted Darr Veter, involuntarily. “When I was a boy these desert islands fascinated me. They stand alone, surrounded by the sea, their dark cliffs or clumps of trees hide mysterious secrets, you could meet with everything imaginable on them, anything you dreamed of.”
Miyiko’s jolly laugh was his reward. The girl, usually so reticent and always a little sad, had now changed beyond recognition. She sped on merrily and bravely towards the heavily breaking waves and was still a mystery to Veter, a closed door, so different from lucid Veda whose fearlessness was more magnificent trustfulness than real persistence.
Between the big offshore rocks the sea formed deep galleries into which the sun penetrated to the very bottom. These galleries, on whose bed lay dark mounds of sponges and whose walls were festooned with seaweed, led to the dark, unfathomed depths on the eastern side of the island. Veter was sorry that he had not taken an accurate chart of the coastline from Veda. The rafts of the maritime expedition gleamed in the sun at their moorings on the western spit several miles from their island. Opposite them was an excellent beach and Veda was there now with all her party; accumulators were being changed in the machines and the expedition had a day-off. Veter had succumbed to the childish pleasure of exploring uninhabited islands.
A grim andesite cliff hung over the swimmers; there were fresh fractures where a recent earthquake had brought down the more eroded part of the coast. There was a very steep slope on the side of the open sea. Miyiko and Veter swam for a long time in the dark water along the eastern side of the island before they found a flat stone ledge on to which Veter hoisted Miyiko who then pulled him up.
The startled sea birds darted back and forth and the crash of the waves, transmitted by the rocks, made the andesite mass tremble. There was nothing on the islet but bare stone and a few tough bushes, not a sign anywhere of man or beast.
The swimmers made their way to the top of the islet, looked at the waves breaking below and returned to the coast. A bitter aroma came from the bushes growing in the crevices. Darr Veter stretched himself out on a warm stone, and gazed lazily into the water on the southern side of the ledge.
Miyiko was squatting at the very edge of the cliff trying to get a better view of something far down below. At this point there were no coastal shallows or piled-up rocks. The steep cliff hung over dark, oily water. The sunshine produced a glittering band along the edge of the cliff, and down below, where the cliff diverted the sunlight vertically into the water, the level sea bed of light-coloured sand was just visible.
‘“What can you see there, Miyiko?” The girl was deep in thought and did not turn round immediately.
“Nothing much. You’re attracted to desert islands and I to the sea bed. It seems to me that you can always find something interesting on the sea bed, make discoveries.”
“Then why are you working in the steppes?”
“There’s a reason for it. The sea gives me so much pleasure that I cannot stay with it all the time. You cannot always be listening to your favourite music and it is the same with me and the sea. Being away for a time makes every meeting with the sea more precious.”
Darr Veter nodded his agreement.
“Shall we dive down there?” he asked, pointing to a gleam of white in the depths. In her astonishment Miyiko raised brows that already had a natural slant.
“D’you think you can? It must be about twenty-five metres deep there, it takes an experienced diver.”
“I’ll try. And you?”
Instead of answering him Miyiko got up, looked round until she found a suitable big stone which she took to the edge of the cliff.
“Let me try first. I’ll go down with a stone although it’s against my rules, but the floor is very clean, I’m afraid there may be a current lower down,”
The girl raised her arms, bent forward, straightened up and then bent backwards. Darr Veter watched her at her breathing exercises, trying to memorize them. Miyiko did not say another word but, after a few more exercises, seized hold of the stone and dived into the dark water.
Darr Veter felt a vague anxiety when more than a minute passed and the bold girl did not reappear. He, too, began looking for a stone, assuming that he would need one much bigger. He had just taken hold of an eighty-pound lump of andesite when Miyiko came to the surface. The girl was breathing heavily and seemed fatigued. “There,” she gasped, “there’s a horse.” “What? What horse?”
‘‘A huge statue of a horse, down there, in a natural niche. I’m going back to take a proper look.”
‘‘Miyiko, it’s too difficult for you. Let’s swim bade to the beach and get diving gear and a boat.”
‘‘Oh, no. I want to look at it myself, now! Then it will be my own achievement, not something done by a machine. We’ll call the others afterwards.”
“All right, I’m coining with you!” Darr Veter seized his big stone and the girl laughed.
“Take a smaller one, that one will do. And what about your breathing?”
Darr Veter obediently performed the necessary exercises and then dived into the water with the stone in his hands. The water struck him in the face and turned him with his back to Miyiko; something was squeezing his chest and there was a dull pain in his ears. He clenched his teeth, strained every muscle in his body to fight against pain. The pleasant light of day was rapidly lost as he entered the cold grey gloom of the depths. The cold, hostile power of the deep water momentarily overpowered him, his head was in a whirl, there was a stinging pain in his eyes. Suddenly Miyiko’s firm hand seized him by the shoulder and his feet touched the firm, dully silver sand. With difficulty he turned his head in the direction she indicated; he staggered, dropped the stone in his surprise and shot immediately upwards. He did not remember how he got to the surface, he could see nothing but a red mist and his breathing was spasmodic. In a short time the effects of the high pressure wore off and that which he had seen was reborn in his memory. He had seen the picture for an instant only but his eye had seen and his brain recorded many details.