Okay, let’s see if we can get this out on time. (It’s 10:00pm, on a Friday night and we’re into the wine.) Having just totally turned our lives upside down since my nephew’s passing, we’re now going through the headache of a house renovation we told ourselves we were going to do, last year…
And nope! I just woke up in my chair and it’s 12:30 in the am, so I guess that makes this Saturday morning. I certainly don’t want to be sending this out now, so I’m off to bed…
Oops. I did it again! I hit the button.
Okay, Saturday morning, before 8am, so I still have time to fix this — and by that I mean delete all of this and start anew. But I won’t. I will leave you with this question however…
A possible title change from: Where The NIGHT Hides its Shadow to: Where The MOON Hides its Shadow.
Read it first, and then leave me your opinion in the comments.
CHAPTER VII
Rebecca Stanhope sat on the beach watching the waves roll in. They seem, somehow, more pronounced today, she thought to herself, as if there was such a thing when it comes to describing waves rolling in on a beach, she told herself. She watched the full moon slowly drift toward the horizon, the pale colour unlike any she had seen before.
It certainly isn’t like anything I seen when I lived in England.
A soft breeze came in from the South, rustling through the trees and tickling the sand on the beach, teasing little white caps of foam with the water that lapped the beach. She turned her head, brushing her long hair down and hunching her slender shoulders as if she could hide inside herself. The breeze felt good, even if the air was thick and muggy. She could feel sweat rolling down her ribcage; her shirt sticking to her like tape. She closed her eyes as the grit and sand swept up against her.
She turned her back to the wind and looked down the length of the beach where she could see the palm trees swaying like fronds of tall grass. She noticed two figures in the distance, coming out of the trail; she waited until they came into view.
She could see one was Emilio. She recognized the limp he’d picked up last month, wondering once again where it came from. He claimed to have fallen one night, tripping in the jungle and impaling himself on a small branch, but for some reason, she doubted the story. She kept asking herself what was he doing walking through the jungle at night? As she watched him approaching, she wondered who the second man was, and realized after a moment it was Kaigun Daisa Nakashima. He’d recovered from his wound during the course of the last three months, though she could see it still pained him at times. He was a broken man though. She could see it on him; he wore his defeat like a mantel on his thin shoulders.
“How are the English lessons coming along?” she called out. The Captain had insisted on learning English almost as soon as he was strong enough to sit up in his cot.
“He’s coming along,” Emilio smiled.
“That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement,” she laughed.
“Good afternoon, Miss Stanhope,” Nakashima said, bowing gently. His accent was thick and heavy, and he stumbled over some of the words. His look was sombre. She stood up with an effort, the sand giving way under her feet as she faced him, bowing slowly.
“Good afternoon, Kaigun Daisa Nakashima-san,” she said. She could see a slight smile crossing his face and looked at Emilio who grinned at her.
“Did I say it wrong? Should I have said konnichiwa?”
“Konnichiwa,” Nakashima smiled, bowing once more. She bowed again and looked at Emilio.
“Konnichiwa, Kaigun Daisa is good enough,” he explained. “In Japanese, an honorific is usually attached to a name, not a title. The proper way for you to have addressed him would have been Nakashima Kaigun Daisa.”
“Hai,” Nakashima agreed.
She sat down and looked up at the two of them, patting the sand beside her and inviting them to sit and join her. Emilio looked at Nakashima and nodded, then sat down. Captain Nakashima looked up and down the length of beach and then nodded to himself as he sat. He looked at Emilio and spoke.
“English,” Emilio said.
Nakashima looked at the man, his eyes growing wide for a moment before he looked down at the sand, collecting his thoughts. She had difficulty understanding him, but was able to piece it together.
“I would have invited you to my tea ceremony, but someone has taken my serving. It is lost.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly.
“They burned my memoirs, as well.”
“Why would they do that?”
He shook his head, looking out at the ocean, watching the moon.
“There is a storm coming,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I taste it,” he said. “Typhoon.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A cyclone,” Emilio said.
“I don’t know what that is, either.”
“How long have you been here? In the islands, I mean?” he asked. “You must have been in a storm?”
“I’ve been in storms before, just not here. We had one when I was in Java,” she said. “Wouter had another name for it; he called it Zware storm.”
“And what’s that?” Emilio asked.
“A heavy storm. Harde wind en regen, he used to say.”
“Do you speak Dutch?” Emilo asked.
“Not really, but when you work for a Dutch family, you tend to pick up a word here and there,” she smiled. She looked at Nakashima as he studied the sky. “And you say someone stole your tea service? That surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t,” Emilio said, sounding matter of fact.
“Why?” she asked.
“Soldiers are notorious thieves.”
“Surely not all of them?”
“Most of them,” he pointed out. “A man will see a dead soldier and search through his pockets. He doesn’t care about the letter the man has, written for his mother; or the one his wife wrote, calling him Daddy. The only thing he wants that’s close to the man’s heart is the cross that he wants from around his neck; or maybe the ring on his finger — even if he has to cut it off. He’ll even take the flag, if the man was carrying the company colours, claiming it as one of the spoils of war. No longer a talisman, but a trophy. A statement saying he was here. And they’ll let him keep it.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” she said.
“Really? And why not? Did they not steal everything of yours? You of all people should understand.”
“I suppose,” she said after some thought.
“You suppose?” he asked, sounding dubious.
“I mean, I don’t want to believe it, but I understand what you’re saying.”
“You’re a strange woman, Rebecca,” he said, looking at Nakashima who was still staring out at the ocean, watching the moon as the clouds flitted across the soft surface like a veil. “The Captain may not have visited the Comfort House, but does that make him any less complicit? He may have kept me on as his clerk, but does the jailer’s politeness and humanity make him any less my jailer? I’ve always been a free man. But war doesn’t allow anyone their freedom — not you, not me. The Captain was no less a prisoner here than you or I. Places like this? It’s where men like him go to when their careers die.”
“Do you know where the moon hides its shadow?” Nakashima said softly. He spoke in a low voice, searching for the words in his limited vocabulary, stumbling over them and correcting himself when he could — smiling apologetically as he spoke — but seemingly determined.
“I didn’t know the moon had a shadow,” Emilio said.
“She doesn’t. But in those days, when the Moon shone bright and the dragons played, the world was at peace. There was no war because Man had not yet been created. The Sun ruled the day, while his sister the Moon guarded the Night. The Night was a silent shadow as the stars were not yet formed. The clouds were a pale veil, listless, as there was no Wind. And yet, still, the Moon whispered longingly, seeking out the Night’s symmetry. She was alone. Lonely.”
He paused for a moment, watching the moon seep below the horizon like a stain, the sun washing up against the clouds and painting them with colours. The wind picked up and the distant clouds seemed to roil across the face of the ocean. The waves picked up; the white caps growing, frothing like a wild stallion chomping at the bit.
“Was it not just, that they would become lovers? The Night embraced the Moon, and held her, and when she tore herself away, ashamed, she wept and her tears became the Stars. She bore him an unknown child — a Shadow — and she hid him away as the Night searched in vain. But the child escaped, and played across the face of the Moon, covering her beauty from the Night with his shadow. She gathered him back into her arms, and he would elude her once again. That is why the Moon waxes and wanes. It’s same for us,” he said, his voice a near whisper. “We hide from the shadows of our past, but they return, don’t they, when the Night is longest?”