'South Africa, Broekman said.
Sucre sauntered back. 'You fascist? he asked. Hisako felt her palms start to sweat.
Broekman shook his head. 'When I was there they called me a communist.
'You like blacks?
Broekman hesitated. Hisako could see him composing his reply. 'I don't like anyone automatically, Comrade Major; black or white.
Sucre thought about this, nodding absently. 'OK, he said, and moved off again. Hisako breathed out.
She bought a new cello with one lot of prize money. She took her old cello back to Hokkaido for the winter holiday, leaving the new one in the Academy, not knowing quite why she did this. Hisako had a decision to make. She might stay on at the Academy, or she might go to Todai — Tokyo University — every Japanese kid's bright shining wept-for goal. She'd known people who had broken their hearts when they could not get into Tokyo. You heard all the time of people killing themselves because they didn't get good enough grades, or because they'd failed when they got there and found the work too hard.
Did she want to do this? English at Todai. It would have seemed absurd just a few years ago, but her grades had improved that much; she honestly had no idea why. She thought she probably could do it; she had become a good student, and she had the enthusiasm in the subject she thought necessary to carry her through.
But was she ready for the pressure? Did she really want to be a diplomat or civil servant, or a teacher or translator? Or somebody's highly qualified wife? None of those things attracted her. She didn't particularly want to travel, for one thing, which closed off diplomacy, or marriage to a diplomat; she always felt slightly queasy at the thought of getting on a plane. And she wanted to read and speak English because she enjoyed it, not because it was her job.
But she didn't know if she wanted to play the cello for a living either. She loved that too, and thought she might be good enough to join an orchestra, but the same problem applied; anything she loved that much might be spoiled if it became her work.
As though to take her mind off it, she had become very athletic, spending more time in the Academy's gym than her cello tutors thought proper. She lost herself in the developing abilities of her body.
The ferry journey north that winter was a wild, rough affair, but she sat outside part of the time, hugging her old cello case to her, her teeth chattering, her hands raw and red in her mittens, the salt spray a taste on her lips and a cold and grainy sweat on her face, while the ship pitched and rolled and the white waves tumbled and slid, battering the ferry like one sumo wrestler slapping another out of the ring.
Her mother looked suddenly aged. Hisako sat with old friends in Sapporo cafes, and found she had little to say to them. She went to the ice festival, but found it preposterous. She did some skiing but sprained her ankle early on in the holiday and spent the rest of it either in bed or hobbling around.
She went to see Mr Kawamitsu. It was too long since she'd visited him, always finding excuses. She had called once before and, finding him out, realised she was relieved he wasn't there. But now she went in hope, and he answered the door.
Mr Kawamitsu was pleased to see her. His apartment smelled of yuzu and new tatami mats. Mrs Kawamitsu made tea for them.
They talked about Jacqueline du Pré. Mr Kawamitsu thought Hisako could be an oriental du Pré. Hisako laughed nervously, hand over her mouth.
'Oh… judo, karate, kendo… you have become ninja, Hisako, Mr Kawamitsu said when she told him of her newfound interests.
She bowed her head, smiling.
'But this is not very feminine for a young woman, he told her. 'So… aggressive. Won't you frighten off all the boys?
'Perhaps, she agreed, still staring at the floor. She fiddled with the cotton edging of the tatami mat.
'But perhaps that is not so bad, if you want to be a great cellist?
She bit her lip.
'Do you want to be a great cellist, Hisako? Mr Kawamitsu asked, in a formal manner, as though it were part of a temple ceremony.
'I don't know, she said, looking up at him, and suddenly feeling very young and somehow clear, and seeing how Mr Kawamitsu too had aged. She felt glowing and pure.
Mr Kawamitsu nodded slowly, and poured more tea.
On the ferry back she sat outside again, watching the pitching, ragged sea, and the dark veils of distant squalls. Once more, she clutched the old cello case to her, looking across the empty deck and out over the cold turbulence of sea, resting her chin on the shoulder of the cheap but — to her — precious old case, and shivering every few seconds. After a while she stood up, crossed unsteadily to the rail on the shifting deck, lifted the cello and its case up over her head and threw it into the water. It fell flat to the waves and hit with a thud she thought she heard. It floated off, falling astern, tossed and blown across the cold grey sea like some strange up-ended boat.
She got into trouble; somebody saw the case in the water and was sure it was a body. The ferry slowed and turned, heeling over alarmingly as it turned broadside to the storm, and headed back. She hardly noticed at the time, locked in a toilet, sobbing.
The ferry was way behind schedule anyway, but lost another couple of hours retracing its course to look for the 'body'. Incredibly in that furious sea, they found the old case, bobbing mostly underwater, just the head showing. They got a rope round it and hauled it aboard. Hisako's name was inside the case. The Academy was informed. She was punished with extra duties in the hostel, and additional lessons on a Sunday.
The old cello was ruined, of course, but she kept it, and then one Sunday in the spring, after her punishment had ceased, and while the cherry blossom painted the Tokyo parks pink, she took the water-warped cello and its salt-stained case on the train to Kofu, climbed to the bald summit of a hill to the north of the Fuji Five Lakes, and in a clearing using several cans of lighter fluid cremated the instrument in its battered, twisted coffin.
The cello groaned and creaked and popped as it died, and the strings snapped like whips. The flames and smoke looked pale and insubstantial against the budding trees and the bright sky, but the heated fumes, rising through the clear fresh air of spring, made Fuji itself tremble.
The warriors moved amongst the people trapped in the great room. She sat with Philippe. The room was like a vast ballroom, with a complicated ceiling. Metal beams soared overhead, painted yellow and grey but when she looked harder — she was not sure if they supported panes of glass or not. In the huge room there were pools of water and clumps of trees and little hills covered in shrubs and flowers, and naked women moved slowly in the distance, carrying towels. Mists rose from the warm waters of the pools, curling around red ceremonial arches, which stood in the choppy waves like letters in a foreign alphabet. On a black shore, by the side of a gently steaming pool, smiling people all lying in a line were being slowly covered with dark sand.
Out in the pool, its surface half-obscured by the rising folds of vapour, a woman surfaced, wearing a black bathing cap on her head, a pair of rubber goggles over her eyes, and nose-clips on her nose. She bobbed in the water, making a sad whistling noise. In her hand, between thumb and forefinger, she held something small and lustrous and white.
She looked away from the woman. On the beach they were still being covered by the black sand; yellow-uniformed attendants with plastic shovels heaped the dark stuff over the smiling, chatting people, slowly burying them. She looked up at the clock, high up in the dome, but it was half-melted, like. a painting, and stuck at 8:15. She looked at her own watch, but it showed the same time.
The warriors came closer, collecting bits of people.