As the boat left the bay of Mitsu-ura, you jumped into the water. I assured the husband and wife that you had not changed your mind. I asked them to continue rowing, as I knew that you would swim behind the boat until you needed a rest. The boatwoman stared at me, as if she were unsure how I could be speaking the same language as she. He is the foreigner, not me! I wanted to say to her but did not because it was, perhaps, no longer true. Instead, I kept quiet and kept watch for your arms, slicing up and through the water’s surface, and for your familiar face.

The questions began as soon as you climbed aboard the boat, refreshed and cleansed. To the rowers, Herun-san’s language was entirely foreign, and I was its interpreter, unreliable at best. The boatman refused to address me directly. He answered my questions, which were your questions, as if his wife had been the one to ask and thus the appropriate recipient of his answers. As the boat glided into the entrance of the caves—it was not one, as you had been told, but a series of caves connected by a sunlit pool of water, all hidden from view behind the cliff face—the boatwoman picked up a rock by her bare feet and tapped the side of the boat. The echoes grew so loud that you covered your ears. I did the same. Then you wanted to know why she had behaved so, and I asked her. The boatwoman replied that all who came into these caves announced themselves in this way. To whom, you wanted to know and I asked. The boatwoman did not answer right away and seemed to be searching her memory for the correct reply. But before she could offer one, you swung a leg over the side of the boat and were about to slip into the water for another swim. The boatwoman grabbed the interpreter’s arm—the strength of her grip made me grab on to yours. The boat swayed from side to side, and the boatman watched without saying a word, as the three lurching bodies stilled themselves and eased back into place.

“It is forbidden!” the boatwoman warned me.

“It is forbidden!” I warned you.

“A quick swim,” you assured me.

“A quick swim,” I assured her.

Her response was to pick up the rock again and tap the side of the boat, harder and louder than before. The echoes felt like strong, unseen waves that could tip the boat over at any moment. When we could hear one another again, the boatman grunted a warning, and I said to you, “Shark!”

You believed me, Yakumo.