Moscow but Dreaming

Hoori thanked the kami and settled into the basket. It carried him along with the tides, and the small round waves tossed his bamboo vessel about, playfully but gently.

They carried him all the way to the palace made of fish scales. My home, my life, where my sister and I sang and played under the watchful eye of our father, where all the creatures were our playmates, and even rays would never hurt us but let us ride on their shining backs. Seahorses tangled in our hair, and jellyfish subserviently let us pummel their bells as if they were drums. We dressed in finest silks and sealskin, and never knew a worry in the world.

We didn’t know that he was coming.

On that fateful day, you did as you were told. My maid came to the well to fetch me a cup of water—even under the sea we need sweet water to drink. She saw your reflection in the well, and she ran, fearful of strangers, but not before you tore a piece of your jade necklace and dropped it into the cup she carried.

She brought the cup to me and told me about the stranger in the well. I barely listened as I tilted my cup this way and that, watching the sun play across its golden sides, reflecting from the sparkling jade through the transparent water. It was green and beautiful, and I smiled as the reflected sun dappled my face, warming it. Surely, no evil can come from someone who had a stone like that, I thought.

I called my sister, Tamayoribime, and showed her the stone. She beamed. “Where did it come from, Toyotamabime?” she asked me.

I told her of what my maid told me, and we went to investigate, our arms twined about each other’s waists. We found you in the branches of the katsura tree, the spicy fragrance of its leaves giving you the aura of danger and excitement. You smiled at us and spoke as if you were our equal.

“Come down from that tree,” Tamayoribime said.

You did as she told you, although the smile wilted on your face, and your forehead wrinkled in consternation. I guessed that you were not used to being ordered about.

“Please, honored guest,” I said. “Come with us so we may introduce you to our father, Watatsumi no kami.”

You nodded and looked at me with affection. I lowered my gaze before yours, and you smiled.

We led you through our palace, and you grinned in wonderment, tilting your head up to see the cupping roof of the palace, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and decorated with fine drawings done in the octopus ink. You gaped at the tall posts of sandstone and whale ivory holding up the roof, at the twining kelp around them, at the bright lionfish that guarded access to my father’s throne room. The guardian let us through, and you stood in astonishment in my father’s awesome presence.

He was a great kami, and he lay coiled atop a sealskin and silk tatami, his skin shining bronze and green, his great bearded head, larger than your entire body, resting on a mound of silk pillows and red and blue jellyfish. A jade incense burner exhaled great clouds of pungent smoke, masking the strong salty smell of my father.

“Come in, Land Prince,” my father boomed, his voice shaking the intricate panels of fishbone decorating the walls. “Come in and sit down on my fine tatami, and tell me what brings you here.”

But you kept silent, your mouth half-open in fascinated attention. My father winked at me, and I called in our entertainers—singing fish, dancing crocodiles, and squid who did magic tricks. Flying fish, tuna, and octopus put on a play for you, and two eels played koto and shamisen by twining their flexible bodies around the instruments’ necks and plucking the strings with their tails. You clapped your hands in time with music and laughed like a child. Then your eyes met mine, and you blushed.

My father, who never missed anything that occurred in his palace, sent Tamayoribime and me out with a flick of his tail. He wanted to talk to you kami to mikoto, I guessed and obeyed. We left the palace and ran through the forest of kelp, shouting for all the fish to come out and chase us on a pretend hunt. It was dark when we came back, and my father announced that I was to become your wife.

I looked into the marble floor studded with starfish and did not answer. I never argued with my father; I did not know how.

And so we were married, and I came to love Hoori. I showed him all the secret places my sister and I loved: a grotto of pink stone with a white sand floor, adorned by pearly yellow and blue snails that dotted the walls, gleaming like precious stones; I showed him a large smooth rock where octopi wrote their secret letters in black ink, their tentacles as skillful as the finest brushes; and a dark cave that went down into the bottom of the ocean for miles, gilded with shining algae and populated by phosphorescent moray eels. For our amusement, seahorses staged battles and races, and squid swam in formation, shooting giant ink clouds shaped as flowers to celebrate our love.

Tamayoribime, my sister, rarely joined us on these excursions. Although still young, she understood that the bond the land prince and I shared was not for her to enjoy. She smiled every time she saw me, but I could see the sorrow of her hunched shoulders as she fled to the kelp forest, alone, with only fish for company. My heart ached for her loss, and I wished that gaining a husband did not mean losing my sister. Hoori and I were inseparable, and she grew more distant from me every day, her face close but unreachable, as if it were hidden behind a pane of glass. Hoori had severed the only bond I’ve ever known and thus increased my attachment to him; all the love I used to lavish upon my sister was his now.

Days passed, and before we knew it, three years had passed since Hoori first entered our palace. I realized that I was pregnant, and told Hoori that he was soon to become a father. He was jubilant at first, but as my belly grew so did the unease in his eyes. He sighed often, and one day I asked what was wrong.

He told me that he missed the land and was thinking about returning home. “Only,” he added, “I still haven’t found my brother’s fishhook. I cannot go back without it.”

“Is this why you came to my father’s palace?” I asked.

He bowed his head. “Yes. Only the time here was so delightful that I have forgotten my purpose. Please, Toyotamabime, talk to your father on my behalf.”

I obeyed his wishes, as I always did; he was the pearl of my heart, my beloved, so how could I refuse him, even though he wanted nothing more than to return home and leave me behind? I cried as I told my father of Hoori’s plea.

His great fins fanned slowly as he listened to my words. “Well,” he said. “I will find that hook for him.”

My father’s great roar summoned forth all the sea creatures, and Hoori watched with delight as they swam and slithered into the palace, filling it almost to bursting. Fins, tentacles, scales and claws in every imaginable color shimmered and moved everywhere. My father surveyed this living tapestry and asked everyone in turn whether they’ve seen the hook.

The fish swore that they haven’t, and the crabs and shrimps and scallops promised to sieve through the ocean sand, grain by grain, to find the hook. Only the sea bream remained silent, although his mouth opened and closed as he strained to speak.

“What’s wrong with him?” my father asked the tuna and the ocean perch.

“He hasn’t spoken in a while,” they said. “Something’s been caught in his throat for a long time, and he can neither eat nor speak.”

My father extended one of his great but slender claws into the bream’s obediently opened wide mouth, and soon it emerged with a shining hook caught in it. The bream breathed a sigh of relief and apologized for his mistake. But Hoori was so delighted to have recovered his brother’s treasure that he paid no mind to the bream’s mumbling.

“Thank you, O great Watatsumi no kami,” Hoori said to my father. “Now I can return home.”

I turned away, biting my lip, cradling my bulging belly in my arms. I would not argue, I thought, I would not beg. If the kelp forests and hidden underwater caves were not enough to keep him, what could I do? If the music and singing of the perches and moray eels did not bind him to our palace, what would my feeble voice achieve?

He took my hands and looked into me eyes. “Toyotamabime, my beloved,” he told me. “Will you follow me to the land?”

I’d never been on land before, and the thought filled me with fearful apprehension. Moreover, that would mean breaking away from my father and my sister, from my entire life. But what was I to do? “Let me wait here until it is time for our child to be born,” I begged. “Then, build me a parturition hut thatched with cormorant feathers on the beach. I will come there to give birth.”

“I’ll do as you ask,” he said.

“Just promise one thing,” I said. “Promise that you will not look into the hut when I am giving birth. Promise me.”

His face reflected surprise, but he agreed. “I will send a maid to attend to you,” he said.

I shook my head. “My sister will attend to me.”

“As you wish,” he said, already turning away from me to face my father. “Will you help me get back home?”

“But of course,” my father boomed. “One of my fastest wani will carry you home. But before you go, please accept this gift from me.” With these words, my father produced two jewels, the size of a bream’s head, one green, and one pink.