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Sari was leaving the hotel room, ignoring her mother’s accusing eyes.

   ‘Are you sure you’re not coming?’ Sari said, again, just before closing the door. ‘It might rain later.’

   Her mother sighed. ‘Eri may call at any time.’

   ‘She should be on the plane by now.’

   ‘But what if she isn’t...’

   ‘She’s got our mobile numbers, and it’s a waste of time to be stuck in the room when there’s such a beautiful beach outside...’

   ‘Beach!’ Mother said angrily, and her eyes returned to the TV screen, which had been repeating the same images again and again.

   ‘I’ll be back by lunch time.’ Sari closed the door. She didn’t want to have the same conversation yet again. She ran down the stairs, passed by the tropical flowers in the corridors, and went out on to the terrace.

   There, blue sky, blue sea, and white beach stretched in front of her. But Sari stopped, and gazed at the sea – even she didn’t feel like running to it today.

   It was originally her mother’s idea to come to Okinawa, to get away from all the hustle of the new year. Not having a new year celebration was a relief for Sari, as she had seen enough of her relatives at the funeral. She was also pleased that her mother was up for travelling on a two-hour flight from Tokyo. So she made an
effort to finish all her marking before the last week of December.

   But Eri, her sister, said she was going away to Bali with her boyfriend that Christmas weekend. Sari wasn’t surprised – Eri was never there when she was needed. She only wondered how Eri could afford all that travel doing temp jobs. Sari persuaded her to join the family in Okinawa after the Bali trip. It would have been too much to have her mother all to herself for ten days.

   Sari slowly walked to the sea. In the sunshine, she could take off her jacket and walk around in short sleeves. Not too bad for December, she thought. It was winter, even on the tropical island of Okinawa, and it had been raining since the day they arrived. After taking her mother to the museums, a market and an old castle, she had run out of ideas. The whole point of staying in this luxurious hotel by the beach was to have sunshine, to cheer her mother up. But when perfect sunshine arrived, her mother was glued to the TV news.

   The beach was quiet, even for the off-season. There were some fishermen mending their nets at the pier, and one of the hotel staff was sweeping the terrace. There was a young family with two toddlers playing on the sand, the adults watching carefully in case the kids went too close to the water. Where were the other tourists staying at the hotel? Maybe they were all in their rooms too, glued to the TV. If they were to look out of their window and see Sari by the water, they might think, how heartless someone from Tokyo can be. But what did they achieve – watching those overwhelming images and feeling sympathetic towards the people being washed away?   

   The sea was calm. A peaceful morning. But Sari couldn’t help imagining how the Indian Ocean had been the day before, after watching so many video clips. What was it like to see the water retiring backwards quietly – then, suddenly, with a thunderous roar, coming back as an enormous wall. If it happened now, the tsunami would easily swallow Sari, standing by the water. The young family with babies, the hotel staff member, and even the veteran fishermen – they would all disappear into the sea. Then a few minutes later, the sea would become calm again, as if nothing had happened.

   That was what had occurred only hours ago in the same ocean –Yes, it was miles away from here, as Sari herself had spent hours trying to convince her mother, unsuccessfully. It was far away, not just from Okinawa, but also from Bali, on the other side of Indonesia.

   But her mother insisted that every sea was connected – which was true in some sense. But it didn’t necessarily mean that her sister Eri was involved in the tsunami. Sari had already searched on the internet to confirm that Eri’s flight back to Japan had left Jakarta on time. Still, her mother muttered about how unsafe things were in that country – she was someone who was convinced that everything overseas was dangerous. At that point, Sari gave up.

   ‘There’s nothing we can do about it,’ she said.

   ‘Why doesn’t she call us? She can imagine we would worry.’

   ‘She may not even know about the tsunami – watching news is not the kind of thing she would do in the mornings.’

   But Sari knew her mother better than she knew her sister, and
recognized that there was no way to get her out of the hotel room. Doing nothing but wait for the worst, staying home in case of phone calls from the hospital – these were the things her mother had been doing for the past two years. It would take a while for her to get out of the habit.

   Walking along the beach, Sari took off her heels to feel the sand under her feet. She scooped some up and had a closer look – the white, soft sand was made of fragments of shells and corals. She found comfort in the warmth of the sand. Feeling like a small girl, she started to pick up some shells. She adored this moment of silence, with only the sound of the waves.

   She found a small piece of coral. It was bigger than the other fragments on the shore, as thick as her finger, and looked like a bone. It reminded her of the day her father was cremated.

   It was a day she had known would come soon – especially for the last four months. She thought she had been prepared for it, thinking that she would be glad to know her father was not suffering anymore. But yet, when the tube was actually removed from her father’s body, she felt empty. She shed no tears, just felt a hollow sensation in her heart.

   The trip to Okinawa would have been very different if her father had been around. He and Sari would have chosen a much smaller hotel, even a B&B, on an island farther away from the main islands. But her ageing mother wouldn’t like to spend hours on connecting ships. And the only way to attract Eri was to stay in a luxurious resort hotel. Father would have been furious at this kind of resort development, and the harm it caused to the environment. But Sari was a minority in her family now.

   If he were with them, her father would have bored the rest of the family with his habitual history lectures, starting with stories of the ancient kingdom of Ryuku before the Japanese invasion in the 17th century. The sea of Okinawa had had more than its share of blood. During World War II, this sea was full of warships. The island became a fierce and hopeless battlefield, in which groups of students younger than Sari’s pupils had to choose between jumping from the cliffs and getting killed by American soldiers. The legacy remained with the US air force still based here.

   Eri would have yawned and shrugged behind his back, saying ‘OK, but what can I do about it?’

   Strangely, the same phrase echoed in Sari’s mind now.

   What had it felt like to watch the ships being sunk, the family members killed, the houses washed away – and not be able to do anything? Sari hadn’t – and hopefully wouldn’t – experience the fear of war. But she did know the long, long time spent watching the life of her dear father fading. Just like a leaf on a wave, drifting further and further away.

   Sari dipped her toes into the water. The water was too cold to swim in, but it gently tickled her feet. She looked at the vastness of the sea, stretching to the horizon. How could the sea look so calm and peaceful now – after all the deaths from the tsunami, the battles, the storms? But still, no one blamed the sea.

   She walked into the water and felt the waves touching her ankles, and looked down to see small silver fish swimming around. A few feet away, different kinds of colourful fish – with red frills, blue lines, yellow stripes – must be swarming. The sea created lives; it didn’t just take them away. She put her toes into the sand, feeling herself part of nature. It reminded her that she, too, was mortal.

   Her foot touched something, and she reached down into the clear water. What she picked up was another piece of coral, much smaller than the one she’d been holding. This one was smaller than her finger tip, and was naturally curved into the shape of heart.

   Sari felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket.