Signs for Lost Children Sarah Moss (best way to read books .TXT) 📖
- Author: Sarah Moss
Book online «Signs for Lost Children Sarah Moss (best way to read books .TXT) 📖». Author Sarah Moss
He opens the newspaper. Liverpool to Bombay via the canal, first class steamers fitted expressly for the trade, surgeon and stewardesses carried. The New Zealand Shipping Company will dispatch the following ships for Auckland, Canterbury, Otago and Wellington. Those wishing to take passage should address themselves immediately to the Company’s offices. He should book his own passage home. Change at Singapore for Falmouth, and one day he will come on deck to see the Wolf Rock light and then, if the morning is clear, the Lizard peninsula rising over the horizon grey and veiled in mist. There will be bluebells under the oak trees on Pendennis Head and the gorse flaming yellow across the peninsula, wild garlic along the hedgerows and cow parsley bobbing amid long grass. No. It is like trying to raise an appetite when suffering sea-sickness, or trying—he recalls one night in Aberdeen, the only such occasion—to raise desire when there is only shame and distaste. He does not want daffodils and lambs. He wants to be here as spring turns to summer, wants to see the rice paddies green and growing, the orchids creeping in the woods as rain falls and the sun strengthens week by week. He wouldn’t mind seeing the cherry blossom, and especially seeing the people seeing the cherry blossom. He folds up The Times and leaves it on the seat beside him. Let it ride the rails; it is a waste to spend in reading any time that could be used in committing to memory the mountains of Japan.
Snow has been swept from the platform, but more is falling outside the canopy, flakes drifting to the ground like leaves. He feels rising excitement: a new place, new snow, new work. The porters are unloading luggage from the last van and he takes his wooden token and Makoto’s note from his pocket. Show this paper to anyone in a railway uniform, Makoto said, and he will explain to the jinrikisha man. I trust you will find your lodging satisfactory. Professor Baxter asked me to retain Tatsuo as your guide; he will come and find you in the morning. Tom nods, bows his thanks for the return of his trunk and holds out Makoto’s note. It is like being the hero of a fairy tale, travelling alone in Japan. When you meet a man in a peaked cap, give him this paper and you will be conducted to a place where you may pass the night. Give him this carved wooden amulet and he will give you your books.
Darkness is falling as they leave the station, Tom in one jinrikisha and his trunk in another. Red lanterns float under the awnings of shops and restaurants and the streets are busy with men and umbrellas. There are fewer European suits than in Osaka and Tokyo, and less noise. He feels as if he’s inside one of De Rivers’ glass domes, inside a snow globe, where banners with Japanese lettering hang over the silent streets and figures enfolded in silk glide across small stone bridges. He doesn’t want it to end.
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SYLUM
Condensation drips from the wooden handle at the end of the lavatory chain, carved to the likeness of a pine cone and once compared by Freddie to something more obviously relevant to its purpose. Her knees rise from water turned green by Aunt Mary’s bath salts, and she inhales lime-scented steam. She tips back her head and feels the heat reaching through
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