فصل 16

Chapter sixteen

A white diary

In the end it was three days before they booked the tickets. Three days in which they spent long lazy hours in and out of the sea, returning to Taka’s flat to shower off the salt and sand. They woke up late each morning, the bedroom curtains waving in the wind from the sea. They’d turned off their video-disks, letting the messages pile up with no-one to read them.

Until, on the third morning, Taka woke up and stretched, then said, ‘Joyce. What day is it?’

Joyce opened her eyes. ‘Does it matter?’

But Taka was already racing round the room. ‘It’s Friday. Grandmother. I promised her I’d be there tomorrow. Where’s my video-disk? I need to get the tickets. Joyce, do you want to come with me?’

She laughed. ‘No. Remember - I’m going to Mungwi.’ He stopped and came and sat on the bed next to her. ‘But you’ll come back? You won’t just disappear? We haven’t talked.’

‘We’ve talked for three days,’ she said.

‘Yes, but not about what we’re going to do next.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Joyce said. ‘Just book those flights.’

That evening Taka was halfway around the world on the last part of his journey. He walked down the quiet road where his grandmother lived. The house was only two floors high and more than sixty years old. Very old for Japan. He walked up to the entrance and the door opened. He heard his grandmother’s voice call, ‘Taka, come on in. I’m in the living room.’ She sat in her low chair, her white hair around a pale face that looked younger than she was.

‘So you’re here,’ she said as he entered the room.

Taka put his hand up and pushed the hair out of his eyes. ‘Well, you’re still the same. Your hair’s still too long. Just like your grandfather,’ she continued.

‘Where is grandfather?’ Taka asked.

‘Out. He’ll be back soon. Anyway, tell me what you’ve been doing. You look very well. Relaxed.’

‘Yes.’ He wondered how much to tell his grandmother. How much she’d understand. She probably dreamed of a nice Japanese wife for her only grandson.

‘So your research centre’s open now? How did the opening go?’

‘It went really well. We had the President there. And a good opening presentation by a Zambian researcher. A media-scientist. She does underwater films.’

His grandmother sat up a bit straighter. ‘Zambian. That’s interesting,’ she said. ‘I’d like to have seen that.’

‘Well, if you’re interested, I can show you the presentation. It’s recorded on my video-disk.’

He turned on the video-disk and found the recording, then handed it to his grandmother. But she didn’t seem interested in the sea-life. She moved on quickly to the last part, with the close-up of Joyce speaking. She paused the recording and looked more carefully. Taka looked over her shoulder. There was Joyce looking back, with the shy crooked smile he’d seen so often in the last few days.

‘She’s a lovely girl,’ his grandmother said. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Joyce. Joyce Mutanga.’

His grandmother looked at him. ‘Funny, a Zambian woman doing research on sea-life. Zambia’s not by the sea.’

He looked at her in surprise. He didn’t know his grandmother had even heard of Zambia. ‘She was brought up in Sydney,’ he replied.

‘Oh, so you know her?’ his grandmother asked.

He wasn’t sure what to say. But he wanted to tell his grandmother about this new person in his life.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know her.’ And he told her the story of the last five days.

‘So you see,’ he finished, ‘she’s gone back to this village, to Mungwi. To the house where she lived with her grandfather. Then she’ll call me and we’ll meet up. I don’t know where. It doesn’t matter. But I’m sure we’ll meet up.’

During the story Taka’s grandmother had gone very quiet. ‘I’m sorry about Bernard,’ she said in a low voice when Taka had finished.

Taka looked at her, confused. Who was Bernard? Then he remembered it was the name on the envelope that Joyce had shown him. The name of Joyce’s grandfather. But surely he hadn’t told his grandmother that?

A moment later his grandmother got up and went to a cupboard. She reached inside, right to the back, and took out a small white book. Taka noticed her hands were shaking.

‘Taka, I’d like you to have this,’ she said. ‘It’s a diary I kept for a few months many years ago, before I married your grandfather, I’ve never shown it to anyone. I want you to read it And maybe Joyce would like to read it, too. Now I’m feeling a bit tired I think it’s time for my test Taka took the diary. There was a name on the outside: Ikuko Kanazawa.

‘Kanazawa?’ he said.

‘That was my name before I was married.’ She closed her eyes.

He put the diary carefully in his bag and got up. His grandmother spoke again, her eyes still closed. ‘Next time you come, bring Joyce Chiluba.’

‘She’s Joyce Mutanga, grandmother.’

‘Never mind. Joyce from Mungwi.’