The Pearl Diver Read Online Free PDF

bedsheet.
    His hands over her breasts, against her stomach, inside her, down her thighs, across her diving-scarred knees, her feet, between her toes.
    “Get up,” he says, leaving the room.
    The worst is over. You have been through the worst. She keeps telling herself this.
    A nurse comes in and leads her to the back of the building. Colder than she has ever been. A startling smell of chemicals.
    “Keep your eyes closed.”
    She is covered, drenched, in the chemical odor. A second layer of skin. She inhales, trying to strangle tears that want out. Her throat burns, her nose drips, and her eyes release, this time, boiling tears. Her skin scoured all over, but still the cold rubber glove between her legs. She is led out of the room, given a thin robe, and is standing before a young man at a desk. Sweating. Shivering. Her upper left arm hurts where the doctor grabbed her, the red spot on her forearm without feeling, the bruise spreading.
    “I have a few questions for you, but these are only for our records. Your life begins here right now, at this very moment. Do you understand that?”
    “Yes,” she answers.
    “How old are you?”
    “Nineteen.”
    “Where are you from?”
    “Shodo Island.”
    “Okay. Your number is two six four five. Don’t forget it. Two six four five. Repeat it.”
    “What about taking down my name?”
    “I told you to forget everything. Name and all. Wipe it out of your head as if it were never there. Same for your family. Everything for you begins here today, right now. Your number, what’s your number?”
    “Two six four five.”
    “Again.”
    “Two six four five.”
    “Now you must choose a new name.”
    “But I have a name.”
    “Didn’t you listen to what I told you? You have caused great shame to your family, and for their sake, have your name struck from the family register. As if . . .” He pauses.
    “As if I were dead.”
    His eyes don’t like what she said.
    “Today is the beginning of your past. December the twenty-third, 1948. You are born today. It will be easier on you if you think of it this way.”
    “But I haven’t thought of a new name.”
    “You have until tomorrow.”
    The groaning of the rowboats tied to the wooden dock outside. Thinks that is what she hears. She stares up at the ceiling. She is tired, more tired than the man who has rowed her here. Even he must be home asleep by now.
    All around her, on this first night of her isolation, bodies. Some are already spotted like that of the older woman earlier in the day. Others worse than that. Some with faces, limbs already contorted. Several are like her—no visible sign until they are naked. She doesn’t use the blanket, not sure who wrapped themselves in it the night before. She curls up within herself, but it is cold. Not as cold as the doctor’s gloves. Never that cold again. She covers her face with her hands to block out some of the disinfectant’s stench, but her hands stink of it, everybody does, this room does, this building, this island. For the first time in years, she doesn’t smell the sea on her skin.
    She tries thinking of a name. It doesn’t sound all that difficult to do. Pick a name. When she was little, she often had make-believe names when playing. It was easy. She never thought of it before now, but we are lucky, for the burden of choosing a name is put on the parents, not us. But now she is both the parent and the newborn. And not only a first name, a family name, as well.
    The woman next to her can’t sleep, either; she’s been moving around all night. She asks the woman’s name. The woman mumbles something that she doesn’t understand. Maybe she is asleep, she thinks. She asks again. Again, she doesn’t understand. A man, a couple of mats away, speaks.
    “Mang. Her name is Mang. She doesn’t speak much Japanese.”
    “Doesn’t speak Japanese?”
    “She’s Korean.”
    She doesn’t know what to say. What’s a Korean doing here? The man breaks the silence.
    “My name is