Kk10 b

Once, after I’d finished expounding yet again on the amazing sound quality of my father’s brilliant Sony stereo that made the whole house vibrate, he said very quietly, “Maybe one day before I die I go back to my home. One day I go back to Japan. Maybe.” I wasn’t sure he meant it, but it did mean that he was at least considering it, and that gave me some cause for hope.

It wasn’t until the night of the turtles though, that I came to believe Kensuke was really serious about it.

I was fast asleep when he woke me. “You come, Micasan. Very quickly you come. You come,” he said.

“What for?” I asked him, but he was already gone. I ran out after him into the moonlight and caught him up halfway down the track. “What are we doing. Where are we going? Is it a boat?”

“Very soon you see. Very soon.” Stella stayed at my heels all the way to the beach. She never liked going out in the dark very much. I looked around. There was nothing there. The beach looked completely deserted. The waves lapped listlessly. The moon rode the clouds, and the world felt still about me as if it was holding its breath. I did not see what was happening until Kensuke suddenly fell on his knees in the sand. “They very small. Sometimes they are not so strong. Sometimes in the morning birds come and eat them.” And then I saw it.

I thought it was a crab at first. It wasn’t. It was a minuscule turtle, tinier than a terrapin, clambering out of a hole in the sand and then beetling off down the beach towards the sea. Then another, and another, and further down the beach dozens of them, hundreds I could see now, maybe thousands, all scuttling across the moonlit sand into the sea. Everywhere the beach was alive with them. Stella was nosing at one, so I warned her off. She yawned and looked innocently up at the moon.

I saw that one of them was on its back at the bottom of the hole, legs kicking frantically. Kensuke reached down, picked it up gently and set it on its feet in the sand. “You go to sea, little turtle,” he said. “You live there now. You soon be big fine turtle, and then one day you come back and see me maybe.” He sat back on his haunches to watch him scuttle off. “You know what they do, Mica. Mother turtles, they lay eggs in this place. Then, one night-time every year, always when moon is high, little turtles are born. Long way to go to sea. Very many die. So always I stay. I help them. I chase birds away, so they not eat baby turtles. Many years from now, when turtles are big, they come back. They lay eggs again. True story, Micasan.”

All night long we kept our vigil over the mass birth, as the infant turtles made their run for it. We patrolled together, reaching into every hole we found to see if there were any left, stuck or stranded. We found several too weak to make the journey, and carried them down into the sea ourselves. The sea seemed to revive them. Away they went, no swimming lessons needed. We turned dozens the right way up and shepherded them safely into the sea.

When dawn came and the birds came down to scavenge, we were there to drive them off. Stella chased and barked after them, and we ran at them, shrieking, waving, hurling stones. We were not entirely successful, but most of the turtles made it down into the sea. But even here they were still not entirely safe. In spite of all our desperate efforts a few were plucked up out of the water by the birds and carried off.

By noon it was all over. Kensuke was tired as we stood ankle deep in the water watching the very last of them swim away. He put his arm on my shoulder. “They very small turtles, Micasan, but they very brave. They braver than me. They do not know what they find out there, what happen to them; but they go anyway. Very brave. Maybe they teach me good lesson. I make up my mind. When one day ship come, and we light fire, and they find us, then I go. Like turtles I go. I go with you. I go home to Japan. Maybe I find Kimi. Maybe I find Michiya. I find truth. I go with you, Micasan.”