Юрий Мельников – Little Lily (страница 11)

The children shouted “Gud mornig! Ai em hangri” – no longer in a chorus, but individually, raising their hands like in an arithmetic lesson – and from this shouting, from this funny, ridiculous, childish “I am hungry” in a foreign language, the tent felt warmer. Not from the temperature. From the rhythm. From the fact that the world had found an order, and that order was not military, not camp-like, but school-like: the bell (a stick striking the bottom of a tin can), a lesson (letters, numbers, sanshin), recess (peanuts and banana peels), another lesson.

Thus the world found a new rhythm: life adapted to the emptiness, the way water adapts to the shape of its vessel.

Their own clothes by this time had turned into a translucent concept of the past. Miko’s dark maroon hakama had become rags, held together only by her stubbornness and parachute thread. Yuriko’s white sailor suit was so deeply soaked in insidious brown Okinawan dust that it seemed sewn from gray burlap. This school uniform no longer protected – it had thinned out, turning into a monument to a world that no longer existed.

Lessons had just ended. The sun hung so low that the shadows of the tents covered the entire southern edge of the camp. Hinata sat on the mat, intently sorting through empty shell casings that served as an abacus for the children, when an army Willys jeep rolled up to their patch, kicking up a white cloud of dust. The engine sputtered and died.

A woman stepped out of the vehicle.

Yuriko recognized her immediately – it was the very same woman with the Red Cross armband who had come to them at the very beginning with cold, appraising questions. But now there was no cross on her. She was dressed in an austere, dark-blue dress of heavy cotton fabric with a high collar. There was nothing feminine about it – no darts, no folds, no ruffles; it resembled workwear or a buttonless closed tunic, cut so as not to hinder movement. On the fabric there were no patches, no insignia, no stars. And in this absence of symbols, in this stern cleanliness of the cloth, there was more weight than in any military uniform.

Two American soldiers quickly unloaded four huge canvas bales tightly bound with twine from the back of the jeep, dropped them straight into the dust, and stepped aside.

The woman walked over to Miko. She stood straight, hands clasped behind her back.

“Hello,” her voice was low, businesslike, with a strange lilt to her accent. “We’ve met before. I am Mrs. Sanchez. Umi Sanchez. I represent the civil affairs section of the island’s military administration.”

She paused, peering into the girls’ faces, and then added in pure, soft Okinawan dialect – quietly, as if sharing a secret:

“My parents are from the island. From Urasoe.”

Urasoe. At the sound of that name, something inside Yuriko gave a brief, blind tug. It was right next to her home village of Mawashiasato. It was her former world – shattered, turned upside down, having once crossed the ocean and now returned in an American jeep.

Miko straightened up. Her back turned completely rigid, her shoulders squared – a habitual reflex when facing any unknown. There was no defiance in this movement, only absolute readiness to take a blow.

“Can we help you with something, Mrs. Sanchez?” Miko asked. Her voice sounded steady. Slightly steadier than it should have been.

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