Without a backward glance, Reiko headed straight for the float and plunged into the sea. Onodera went in feet first. The water was warm, and there were almost no waves. After taking two or three tentative strokes to attune his muscles, he began to swim vigorously, kicking up the dark surface of the sea as he looked for Reiko’s head. She was swimming toward the open sea with an easy breast stroke. Concerned for her safety, Onodera pulled slightly ahead of her.
In the darkness there seemed to be a faint smile on Reiko’s face.
“Don’t you think it’d be wise to go back?” he said.
“Want to race?” she asked.
“We should stop.”
“I’ve got a strong heart.”
They swam on in silence. Reiko, instead of turning back to ward the float, veered off in the direction of a small sandy beach some fifty yards to one side of the deck. When she reached it, she lay on her stomach with the lower half of her body still in the water. Onodera, still feeling somewhat awkward, stopped some little way from her and sat in the shallow water.
“Do you intend to marry me?” said Reiko abruptly, catching him by surprise. “You’re not much interested?” she persisted when he did not answer.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, his voice subdued.
“Mr. Yoshimura wants to see me married,” she muttered, burying her hand in the sand. “My father begged him with tears in his eyes . . . please, please get his daughter married. And so now he’s come here with you.”
“Look, tonight is the first I’ve heard of this.”
“He’s a shrewd one, you know. He knows just what kind of man I go for. . . . And, then, I wonder what’s all involved.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but... when he was trying so hard to convince me, I started to wonder.”
Onodera said nothing for a moment as he collected his thoughts. “You’re probably right,” he said finally.
Reiko turned to him. “If there was something else involved, you’d say no?”
“No, not necessarily . . .”he answered awkwardly.
“But how do you feel about me? Do you like me or not?”
“I can’t say. Unless we’re together for a longer time ...”
“I don’t need a longer time. I like you.” Reiko raised herself up on her elbows and spoke clearly. “But that doesn’t mean that I want to marry you. You’re set on marriage?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why? What advantage is there to it?”
“Children.”
Onodera sensed that Reiko was gazing fixedly at him in the darkness. The waves lapped gently over their bodies, dissolving the sand beneath them, which tickled their stomachs and legs as it flowed back into the sea. She suddenly heaved a long sigh. Then, with a quick movement, she rolled over on her back, bringing herself near to Onodera. He heard a faint click, followed abruptly by the sound of music.
“What’s that?” he asked, startled.
“A radio—it’s in my bracelet. It’s waterproof.”
Her chest was heaving violently. She spoke in a hoarse voice: “What are you going to do? Hold me.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here. Because we just met it’s too soon? You don’t have anything against sex, do you?”
Her passion was so intense that it choked her voice. In the darkness her broad breasts heaved. She stretched her arms up out of the water and wound them around his neck.
At the same moment a sudden flash, like a curtain of white brilliance, raced across the dark sky, silhouetting the mountains of the Izu Peninsula. But then the sound of music was directly in Onodera’s ear, and Reiko’s strong arms around his neck were pulling him down. Her lips were close to his in the darkness, and her breath smelled slightly of alcohol. She had loosened the top of her bikini, and her breasts, wonderfully soft, were crushed beneath his chest, the taut nipples caressing his skin. There was a taste of salt on Reiko’s lips. Her arms were incredibly strong. He loosened the fasteners on either side of the bottom of her bikini, and as he pulled it free, Reiko spoke in a hoarse whisper: “Don’t take your mouth away from mine . . . I always cry out.”
After it was over, Reiko, as though her body had gone rigid, kept on clinging to his neck.
Suddenly something alerted him.
“. . . the body . . .”
The voice was coming from Reiko’s radio: “. . . was identified as that of Rokuro Goh, thirty-one, employed by Nagatsuka Construction Company and missing for a week. Mr. Goh is reported to have been distraught recently over his responsibilities in connection with the new Super Express line. His death seems to have been suicide.”
“Look out!” Onodera tried to free himself from Reiko’s grip.
“No!” said Reiko, clinging to him as tightly as before, her breath harsh in his ear. “Not yet . . .”
“Let me go,” said Onodera.
It was at that moment that the shock hit them, rolling up from the depths of the earth, seeming to permeate their flesh. A sudden blast of wind struck their faces. Salt spray stung them. The beach upon which they lay trembled beneath them. Rocks came clattering down through the thick growth of grass covering the cliffside to strike close by them.
Onodera instinctively turned to look across the bay. Above the far-distant mountains of the Izu, black clouds had gathered, and slender streaks of lightning raced violently across the stretch of sky between cloud and peak.
“We’ve got to get up!”
Onodera shook himself free of Reiko. Then, with a swift movement, he reached down and pulled her to her feet.
“Put on your swim suit. Hurry up.”
At first orange flames flared up to illuminate the mountain peaks across the bay. Then a red column of fire thrust itself high into the sky. It was then that the muggy atmosphere of the night itself seemed to tremble as a booming roar came rumbling out of the depths of the earth, followed by what seemed like distant thunderclaps rolling across the water together with a continuous roar as though massed cannon were firing volley upon volley.
“What is it?” said Reiko hoarsely. “What happened?”
“An eruption,” he answered. It’s probably Amagi, he thought. How could it have happened so suddenly?
“Quick!” he shouted at Reiko, trying to hurry her along. The trembling earth beneath them creaked and groaned incessantly, and stones, sand, rock fragments kept clattering down from the cliff above.
Realizing they had to get out from beneath, Onodera took Reiko’s hand and rushed out into the water, but then a chilling thought took hold of him.
“Is there a path up the cliff to the villa?” he asked, turning to Reiko, his voice intense.
“On the other side of that rock there. But why?” said Reiko, her voice shaking. “It would be dangerous with all these rocks and stones. Let’s go back along the shore.”
Instead of answering her, he pointed down. A few moments before, the waves had been sweeping over their feet, but now the sand lay exposed several meters beyond them, and the dark sea was even then pulling back still farther, the tops of sub merged rocks jutting up into view. Reiko’s body stiffened. Onodera felt the girl gasp with terror. Somewhere out in the darkness, a tidal wave was mounting.
Across the water, the pillar of flame had tinged scarlet the volcanic smoke, and from the topmost peak a stream of lava had begun to flow like a thread of brilliance.