The Sound of Waves Read Online Free PDF

qualities could possibly touch Hatsue’s heart.
    Another opportunity to meet Hatsue simply would not come. Whenever he returned from fishing he always looked all along the beach for her, but on the few occasionswhen he caught sight of her she was busy working and there was no chance to speak.
    There was no such thing as that time when she had been alone, leaning against the “abacuses” and staring out to sea. Moreover, whenever the boy resolved that he was sick of it all and that he would put Hatsue completely out of his mind, on that very day he was sure to catch sight of her among the bustling crowd that gathered on the beach when the boats came in.
    City youths learn the ways of love early from novels, movies, and the like, but on Uta-jima there were practically no models to follow. Thus, no matter how he wondered about it, Shinji had not the slightest idea what he should have done during those precious minutes between the observation tower and the lighthouse when he had been alone with her. He was left with nothing but a keen sense of regret, a feeling that there was something he had utterly failed to do.
    It was the monthly commemoration of the day of his father’s death, and the whole family was going to visit the grave, as they did every month. Not to interfere with Shinji’s work, they had chosen a time before the boats set out, and before his brother’s school.
    Shinji and his brother came out of the house with their mother, who was carrying incense sticks and grave flowers. They left the house standing open: there was no such thing as theft on the island.
    The graveyard was located some distance from the village, on a low cliff above the beach. At high tide the sea came right up to the foot of the cliff. The uneven slope was covered with gravestones, some of them tilting on the soft sand foundation.
    Dawn had not yet broken. The sky was just beginning to become light in the direction of the lighthouse, but the village and its harbor, which faced northwest, still remained in night.
    Shinji walked in front carrying a paper lantern. Hiroshi, his brother, was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when he pulled on his mother’s sleeve and said:
    “Can I have four rice dumplings in my lunch today? Can I, huh?”
    “Such foolishness! Two you’ll get. Three’d more than give you the bellyache.”
    “Please! I want four! ”
    The rice dumplings they made on the island to celebrate the Day of the Monkey, or on death-memorial days, were almost as large as the small pillows they slept on.
    In the graveyard a cold morning breeze was blowing fitfully. The surface of the sea in the lee of the island was black, but the offing was stained with dawn. The mountains enclosing the Gulf of Ise could be seen clearly. In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails of boats anchored in a busy harbor. They were sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were. The boats’ anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised.
    Reaching their father’s grave, their mother arranged the flowers she had brought and, after striking many matches only to have them blown out by the wind, finally succeeded in lighting the incense. Then she had her sons bow before the grave, while she herself bowed behind them, weeping.
•    •    •
    In their village there was a saying: “Never have aboard one woman or one priest.” The boat on which Shinji’s father died had broken this taboo. An old woman had died on the island toward the end of the war, and the Co-operative’s boat had set out to take her body to Toshi-jima for the autopsy.
    When the boat was about three miles out from Uta-jima it was sighted by a plane from an aircraft carrier. The boat’s regular engineer was not aboard and his substitute was unaccustomed to the engine. It was the black smoke from