Chapter 2 - the mysteries of beautiful girls

My cases recently had been weighing on me—particularly one I was due to present on in a few days—so I decided to head to the coast, to an old, but normal, fishing village at the southern foot of an ancient mountain, shrouded in mist. The sights and smells there reminded me of home. I stayed in an inn above a quiet bar, and slept well. It wasn’t until the next morning that my vacation ended.

I was buying some bait from a shop on the edge of the parcel of dry-baked mud that served as town square, when the most beautiful girl I’d seen in some time came into the shop. Even in a pink, flowery, would-be loose kimono, her chubbiness was not concealed, nor was her confidence. From her plump wrists to the bulge of her soft belly, to the small double chin that formed as she smiled at the clerk, and then stayed as she smiled at me and my heart hit my throat—

She left quickly after that, blushing a little despite her poise and beauty, but I couldn’t help but watch her go, her swaying hips tightening the fabric just enough with her belly on the other side to outline her soft chubby bottom and the little jiggles from it the tight fabric deigned permitted—or which simply could not be denied. I sighed. So did the clerk behind me.

I spent a few more minutes renting a decent rod and a small boat, and emerged out into the square in bright sunlight. As I walked to a house of foreign libations for an Irish coffee, I heard a scream, and then another, and then the whole earth shook. By the time it stopped, fires had started in several buildings, and everything was chaos. In the crowd and swirls of smoke, I swear I saw that flowery kimono flow past me for just a second, so fast I couldn’t be sure it was there. A loud crash, more swirling flames, and screams, and the inn I’d stayed in had come down in a smoldering heap, struck by an enormous burning boulder from the mountain. Everyone inside could only be dead. The smoke was so thick and black, and the screams so numerous and loud, that I couldn’t tell what was going on. Then, very quickly, as if a god had stepped to earth, a massive gust of wind blew across and down, and the smoke cleared, and laid out in front of the wrecked hostel was a neat line of unburnt and still-breathing bodies, surrounded by lush green grass, that certainly hadn’t been there a moment before. Women and children and men, all crying and hugging, pulled from the wreckage by the hand of an angel. Or of a mushi…

I spoke with my old friend and guide Hatsumoto, now the town secretary, later that afternoon. This was the second ‘tragedy’ this year with no fatalities, apparently. In addition, a tsunami should have occurred after the quake, but no wave ever came. The mystery thickened, and I began to wonder about this town. I invited the bureaucrat with me to fish for the afternoon, and we went out to calm waters on the small bay. Many boats were out further than us, perhaps more from the fear of aftershocks and tidal waves than for the fish. Smoke still flowed by occasionally, but some was from the long pipe my friend had brought along. An intoxicating blend of several herbs and weeds, sweet and not the least bit noxious. He had good taste, and a good eye.

As we were chatting, my line snagged a little, and I set about reeling it in. My friend called to a friend he knew, a man named Taruzarco. As I turned my head, I saw that a very slim young woman, his daughter, was with him. She was in a very similar Kimono to the heavy-set beauty I’d seen earlier that day. It was an attractive gown—the fabric certain to be a popular buy in such an isolated town, but where the gown had been possibly too small on the lady from the shop, this one was at least twice the size necessary for this girl. In fact, her waifishness, combined with the excess of cloth, exaggerated the slightness of her figure to make her look almost sickly, despite what was certainly a very pretty face when not so affected.

They came up alongside us and chatted for a while. I couldn’t help myself, but I kept stealing furtive curious glances at the sweet demure girl with him, she looking almost exclusively at either her lap or the distant sea as her father and my companion pulled me into a brief discussion of local legends. Her given name was Diomakari, and I was sure now that she must be the twin of the girl in the shop earlier, except far shier… and much the slighter. When I asked, though cautiously, Taruzarco said that no, this was his only daughter—though he looked strangely discomfited as he said it—and his only family here since his wife had passed away. The girl was quiet, and looked exhausted, but at the gentle prodding of her father finally spoke up and proved very kind and did her best to keep up conversation. She was an assistant school teacher, though school was not to start for some weeks still, she helped at the play areas the children still used during the summer months. I wondered silently at how she kept up with them. Her father had to speak for her often during the brief conversation, as she would trail off and stare across the sea, brushing her soft dark hair behind her ear as the breeze blew across us. She smelled like lilacs, and a little like clean sweat. She was sweet, but preoccupied, and seemed exhausted, and they left soon after toward the shore.

It was three days later, about halfway through my vacation—unless I found something to pique my interest—that I saw Taruzarco again, sitting in the square. I approached him to ask about one of the legends he had mentioned, but he interrupted politely but enthusiastically to ask how my fishing had been. It had been rather phenomenal actually, and though I initially hesitated to brag, the look on my face made him smile, and he lifted from behind the bench with both hands a rack of fishes that put mine to shame. I laughed, as did he, and he recounted an old legend to me.

It related to the nature of the sea—and life on its coast—and its variability, its placidity and its untamable madness. He told me that some years the sea was flat, like life itself, and though easy to navigate, it brought dangerously little sustenance, and even the farms of the village were sad and dry and infertile. Other years though, the sea was dramatic and dangerous, the amplitude of its fury violent, yet its yield was as bountiful as the grains of sand on the beach, and the rains poured around it, and the coast became a paradise, growth covering everything in tropic-like lushness. The legend went that this was the way of life itself, and that long ago a goddess had imbued this cove with her fertility and her passions and her temperament… and her ironic humor. And when peace was to be had, times would be hard, and when disaster struck, money and food and life would flow like the waters. But she had also left a gift, he said, something to mitigate the worst of the dangers, to satiate her appetites, and…

And his daughter then approached from a shop, and his conversation cut off abruptly, apparently to protect her from such scary and passionate tales. She was smiling as she approached, and wearing a pretty—if much tighter—dress than when I’d first met her. In fact, as I looked closely at what I had now assumed was her natural radiance when not fatigued, I was sure that it was not just the kimono that was tight, but that Diomakari herself had… well… swelled to stretch it. Not fat or even really chubby, perhaps, she still looked ever so fuller than she had, nearly a little plump even, in her cheeks, in her curves, in her bosom and especially her hips, in the delicate bulging curve of her tummy, in her jawline and her… chin… and her smile… (?)… and as she sat down and reached into her bag, the forearm and hand that emerged looked positively soft with fine female flesh. It was good to see her looking so much healthier now, but I was kind of shocked—and perhaps oddly elated—to see how radical the change was. This was exasperated further when she withdrew her hand holding a quadruple-stick kabob of beef and chicken and fish and braised in teriyaki. She began eating it immediately and with great focus, somehow both elegantly, not spilling a morsel, and yet passionately, and the look in her face was of pure pleasure.

Her father’s brow furrowed for just an instant, a passing cloud, but then turned to me with a smile and resumed talking fish. I couldn’t though. I watched Diomakari a moment more before asking her father if she was alright. She has a great spirit, he said evasively. Looking at the sun, he rose and brushed her arm, alerting her that it was time to go. Without breaking stride in her meal, she smiled radiantly at me through her full and sauce-stained mouth and cheeks before rising with him and turning to go.

Taruzarco and I said our goodbyes, but as they passed by me he let her get a little ahead before turning to me, a worried look now in his eyes for the first time, and, after a moment’s hesitation, asked me to drinks at a nearby pub that afternoon. Nodding acceptance, he grimaced a smile and hurried a little to catch up to his daughter’s surprisingly vigorous strides. As I watched them leave, she had already finished her massive kabob combo and reached into her bag for a napkin. Instead, she withdrew another kabob, just as large, as her father seemed to be trying to caution her gently, but… almost fearfully. It was then that they rounded a corner out of the square and I lost sight of them.

I wondered now more than ever if perhaps there wasn’t some work here worth my help, vacation aside.


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