LITMIR.BIZ

      anything that

      may happen

      I opened the door and yelled inside. “Anyone in there?”

      There was no response. I made a quick look inside, saw lots of clutter on the floor, but no person. Mari was filming me as I walked back out. I picked up the loose roof tiles on the road and stacked them near the house. Mari filmed me doing that too. I tried to look good for the camera.

      We started walking again. “How is your documentary coming along?” I asked her.

      “That’s hard to say. I didn’t have a final product in mind when I came here.”

      “Anything surprising?”

      “I wasn’t really expecting anything in particular, so I can’t say I’ve been surprised. I have been struck by the strong feelings the residents have about the island, and their dogged determination to stay.”

      “Have you found out why that is?”

      “Not yet. It isn’t something I can, or should, articulate in a few words. And I wouldn’t want that. I want to discover it in a slow, patient way, through their individual stories.”

      That made sense. I decided that’s the way I should find out more about her.

      An elderly woman waved to us from a small house. She was sitting in front of the open door. Surrounding her were stacks of cigarette cartons and cellophane packages of dried fish and squid. Mari introduced me to Fumie Kubo. A widow, her husband, Toichi Kubo, was a fisherman. She made a living selling packaged dried fish, cigarettes, boxes of tissues. She told us her house was okay, and her stock undamaged. I was sorry to hear that the dried fish had made it through the earthquake.

      We walked past a few more empty homes that had minor damage, before a woman called out from the front of a house. The building was two stories and it would have been elegant when it was built.

      “Hello,” Mari called out to the woman. She was Chie Harada, a bright-looking woman who seemed less suspicious of me than the others. She said she lost some dishes, but other than that, her house made it through the earthquake without damage.

      When we left, Mari said, “She and her husband used to run a small hardware business for the fishing fleet. Tackle, hooks, screws and bolts. Their business folded when the fishing was no longer profitable.”

      “There used to be a fishing fleet on this little island?”

      “A small fleet,” she said. “I’m doing some research into what happened to it.”

      “Looks like some of them are trying to resuscitate the industry, one boat at a time. They’re kind of old to be going out fishing, aren’t they?”

      “Probably, but the idea keeps them alive.”

      The community hall was about the size of two homes, with a large main room, a kitchen, a closed door with a sign that read Administrative Offices. Next to the door was a wall of letterboxes labeled with residents’ names. The power had been restored.

      Several tables and chairs were placed around the main room, and a few of the residents were seated at them with several plates of food spread out on one of the tables. Octopus prepared several ways: marinated in vinegar, grilled, boiled. Plates of sushi rice in tofu skin pouches, salted greens, and yellow daikon radish pickles. On each table was a tea pot or two.

      A post-quake celebration.

      Mari called me over to a table where Ouchi was sitting. He was using a damp cloth to clean a cut on his arm. The cut ran jaggedly in his dark, waxy skin starting above his wrist and ending at his elbow.

      I said to Ouchi, “You should have come to the clinic.”

      He gave me one of his weak coughs in response.

      I asked Mari if there was a first aid kit in the hall. She asked Ouchi, who hesitated then pointed toward the back of the hall. “In the supply room,” he said.

      While Mari went to get the kit, I told Ouchi he really could use some stitches and a tetanus shot.

      “No stitches, no shot,” he grumbled.

      I couldn’t force him to come to the clinic, so I patched him the best I could with what I found in the first aid kit. In thanks, Ouchi gave me one more grumble and cough.

      Mari and I continued our walk. All the buildings suffered some damage but most of it was minor. When we came to Yoshi’s, I half-jokingly said we should stop in. Mari said, “I could use a drink.”

      Outside, sweeping away pebbles dislodged from the earthquake with a straw broom, Yoshi enthusiastically greeted us. Well, he greeted Mari enthusiastically.

      “How many?” Mari asked him.

      Yoshi laughed. “Only one.”

      Mari explained, “One bottle of beer was broken.”

      “That’s good,” I said. “A one-bottle quake. We can’t be losing our most precious resource. Food and water can go, but not the booze.”

      “You learn quickly,” Yoshi said.

      In the bar, Mari and I shared a beer, talked with Yoshi about the damage. He seemed to already know the damage each islander and home had suffered.

      Clearing up our spot at the bar, Yoshi said, “Are you going to the shrine? I hear it needs a bit of shoring up after the last quake. And it’s always good to thank the gods for surviving a shaker.”

      Mari asked me, “Want to go?”

      I said, “Do they sacrifice a virgin to appease the gods?”

      “Know any?”

      “After living here for not too much longer, I’ll feel like one.”

      Mari ignored my comment. She asked Yoshi, “Are you going to the shrine?”

      “Me?” Yoshi said. “No. It would spoil my image.”

      The large entrance gate of the shrine had once been painted bright red; now there were only a few chips of paint scattered around the graying wood. The columns, beams, and carved decorations were faded and cracked. A series of torii gates had been

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