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He stopped a minutes at the top to look out at the great round belly of the sea under the blinking stars, and just off the shore down on the left, he could make out a huge boulder. It jutted out of the water as high as the cliff he was standing on. It looked fuzzy in places near the top where the pine trees stuck out against the hard line of the rock, all black. It was so dark he could hardly see the big hole in the middle of the rock making it a natural bridge. In the daytime the tourist ferry chugged through it every two hours, packed full of curious people all talking at the same time. He wasn't sure whether he slid down the path on the cliffside, or whether he just jumped over the trees and underbrush, but in half a minute he felt the warm round rocks of the beach under his bare soles. Like eggs just dropped by some immense birds, they were much warmer than the air. They stored up all the heat of the summer day past, but they weren't so hot that he had to hop quickly from one to another to the cool water, like he did in the early afternoon with his gang. Soon he reached a big rock just a few steps from the little waves that whacked at the rocks in fromt of him and then slid back with a swooshing sound, getting ready for another whack. He pulled out the knot of the cotton belt and shook himself loose from the nemaki. He was standing at the entrance of a very small cove in a half-circle of tall cliffs rising straight out of the water. The cliff behind him was hollowed out into a cave. Its ceiling had a complicated stone pattern that looked as if somebody had actually designed it. In front was the quietest part of the sea around. Some huge rocks lay out underneath the water and stopped the big waves from disturbing the quiet little cove. He didn't have to think of where to get in the water without stubbing his toe or bumping his elbow into an unfriendly rock. He must have played here at least a hundred times. He slipped in, sat down in the water, and crawled out over the rocks with his hands and feet behind him like a big crab upside down. Then flipping over onto his belly, he finally was swimming free. It felt so smooth and fast without his daytime swim trunks on-his skin slid through the water just like a fish's, and he moved without any effort at all. He felt like the seal swimming in the large pool at the Ueno zoo, which he saw on a school execursion in the spring. |